Fantasy Football is Not a Game Played in Middle Earth

In August my brother-in-law got his dad to be in a Fantasy Football league with him. Then Dad decided he didn't have the time and asked me if I'd like to take his place in their league. I like football every now and then, but I've never been one to follow it closely. I played in a Fantasy Football league once before in college. I don't remember much about it. Regardless, I took the opportunity to do something new and hopefully fun. I figured it would at least make watching the games more interesting, and the CBS Sports web site for the league looked like it would make it all pretty simple for a newbie such as myself.

So the season started, we held our draft, I put a team together, and it's been a lot of fun.  For the uninitiated, here's a brief summary of how fantasy football works.  Everyone in the league picks players for their team from all of the players in the NFL. Each week you pit a team of miscellaneous players against another person's team and see who does better.  How well you do is dependent on how well all of our chosen players do in their actual games each week.  The idea is to get a team of elite players that will always perform well, giving you the best chance to win each week.  So premier quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers are highly valued, where as second string players are often left on the bench.

If you don't get it, don't worry about it.  It's hard to really understand unless you get involved with it, but the basic idea is that your score is based on the real life statistics of the people you have in your team. If you play people that score touchdowns and run a lot of yards, you'll be doing well.

Why am I talking about fantasy football though? Two reasons.  The first is that I'm surprised how quickly I've gotten into it. I check reports on the players, and read articles on CBS Sports about who to play, who to not play, who is a sleeper pick that people may not know about.  If you want to do well, you have to keep up on this stuff or else you'll end up playing people who may be injured or out of a game for some other reason giving you a big fat goose egg for your score that week. And because I've got some vested interest in how well these football players do, I've been watching more football on the weekends. Especially the games where I have someone on my team playing.

The second reason is that growing up I wasn't really into sports that much. I did play little league baseball, though not very well. I was a gamer through and through, and I didn't even let the two mix by playing sports video games. Well, I did have a baseball game, but there was a fantasy element to it in that you could super jump and stuff.  Anyway, not only was I a gamer, not a jock, but I played role playing games, or RPGs.  Fantasy RPGs like Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, Lufia, Secret of Mana, Zelda, etc. And you know what most of those games had in them? A roster of people you had to select to create a team.  The team with the better stats would generally do better in the game.  If you look to pen and paper RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons you can start to see an even greater correlation to fantasy football.  I never played Dungeons and Dragons, but I understand all of the concepts involved from the games I did play.

The point I'm getting at is that even though I've never been much of a sports person, fantasy football may not be as big of a jump in hobbies as I might have suspected.  Every week I'm looking at a roster of players and choosing those with the more desirable statistics. I'm analyzing their match ups against other teams like I might analyze which character class would be better against a certain boss. And just like in all RPGs, whether it's a computer or a dice roll, there's a large factor of what is known as the RNG, or Random Number Generator.  In a video game you might have a really strong character, but the RNG comes up low and all you get are misses instead of hits.  In fantasy football you might think your stud quarterback can't possibly let you down, but then he breaks his knee in the first quarter of the first game of the season, and suddenly you're scrounging for a replacement.  

In fact, I would say it's worse in football.  Capable players often have bad games, or they get double covered because of their value which makes them less likely to make plays.  You pretty much just have to go with the averages and your best guesses and hope for the best.  This makes it interesting, and frustrating.  Probably more of the latter.  Especially when someone who you have available to you, but you didn't play in particular week, decides to have a really great game. (I'm looking at you, Dwayne Bowe.) Overall though, it's been a great experience.  It gives me a lot to talk about with my brother-in-law and future sister-in-law. She's also in the league and actually was the winner from last year.  When I hear people talk about football statistics and players, I don't feel so out of the loop now because, well, I'm actually in the loop.  And because of the RPG connection, I don't necessarily feel like I have to give up any of my nerd or geek cred because I'm in a fantasy football league.

So how am I doing with my team? Glad you asked.  It started off rough, but I'm currently up seven wins to three losses.  Not bad for being relatively new to this whole fantasy football thing.  But then again, I may not be as inexperienced at this as I first thought.

I Borrowed a Guitar, and I Intend to Use it

Last weekend we were in Greensboro so Teresa could attend one of Catherine's bridal showers. I got to spend some time with the bro-in-law, David, and watched some college football, and our dog, Hannah. In one of our previous trips to Greensoboro I had noticed an acoustic guitar sitting in the corner of the downstairs family room looking sort of sad and lonely. I inquired to my in-laws about the ownership and purpose of the guitar, and I came to find out it was bought by my mother-in-law with the intent to learn it, but not the time. And thus it had been in that corner for quite awhile. Neglected. And did I mention sad and lonely?

Being the caring person that I am, I asked my wife's parents if I could borrow the guitar and put it to good use. They obliged, and I now have it at home in my music room. When I say music room, I mean the spare room where my keyboard is. I like to think of it as my room, though it has elements of things that are not mine, well, mine by marriage I guess. But I'm getting off the subject.

A short history of me and instruments. Growing up I took piano lessons. We had an upright piano in our home since before I can remember, and I practiced and took lessons for probably eight or so years off and on in between moving to central Oregon and then Alaska. I then played with the church worship team in high school, and with a ministry group in college, as well as my church during college. Needless to say, I put those years of piano lessons to good use I think. Where guitars come into this is that all that time playing piano, I was nearly always in the presence of a guitar as well, but never really learned to play one.

My mother played guitar. From what I heard, she taught herself how to play by secluding herself in her bedroom and listening to John Denver records. I haven't verified that, but I know I heard it from someone. Either my mom or her parents at one point. In worship bands the worship leader is almost always a guitar player. That was the case in both the youth group, and the college ministry team.

I had numerous guitar playing roommates in college. There was J.P. the rocker, who played electric guitar and often liked to comment, in reference to watching guitarists in music videos, that, "Any newborn fetus could play that." Though technically a newborn is no longer a fetus, I never really felt the need to argue the point with him. And there was Justin, who was a phenomenal acoustic guitar player. We were roommates around the time Shane and Shane were becoming popular, and Justin would figure out all of their songs and play them on his guitar. Paul and Bud were both guitar players from that ministry group I keep mentioning. Pioneers for Christ in case you were curious. I was roommates with both of them, though not a the same time.

Anyway, I think you get the picture. I learned music, music theory, how to read it, how to play in a band, etc. all from my piano training. But being in the environment that I was in, I also picked up some guitar chords here and there, and a rudimentary understanding of strumming. Enough to where I could play a three or four chord song. As long as it didn't include an F chord. But having never owned a guitar, or spending any amount of time learning basic guitar techniques, I never really felt like I could call myself a guitar player.

But I had a lot of interest in learning more because guitars are premier instruments. It's hard to find bands out there with lead pianists, though they exist. The simple truth is that almost all modern bands have guitar leads. The primary instrument for the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games is the guitar, though, side note, Rock Band 3 is out now with a keyboard instrument. Do want. And guitar players are cool people. At least, all of the guitar players I knew were. And guitars are so easy to take with you to play anywhere. After several years of lugging an 88 key KORG keyboard around, you start to look at the guitar players and get a little jealous.

So now I find myself in the possession of an actual guitar. It's not mine, but I have it on loan for as long as I need it. And now that I have one, I want to learn how to use it. More than just the few chords I already know. This week I've been thinking about the best way to do that. I don't really have the time, or money, to take private lessons like I did when I learned the piano, and I feel like I at least have a leg up on the the music theory part. I can read chords and stuff like that. What I don't have is the dexterity, or the familiarity with the guitar to really play it well. Even if I know how to play a G chord and a C chord, moving between them is a pain. I don't strum well because I have the habit of wanting to hit all six strings, even for chords where you're only supposed to play the bottom four or five. How do you not hit all the strings? They're so close together!

Last night I did a search on you tube and Google for beginner guitar lessons. Lo and behold there are quite a few free resources out there for learning the guitar, complete with instructional videos, chord charts, and step by step instructions on how to strum correctly. I just learned how to hold a guitar pick for the first time. So the only thing I need to do now is be consistent about practicing. And patient. I have a tendency to gloss over stuff if I feel like I already know it, like scales. But I've been reading that doing scales is important to training your fingers correctly, stretching them out and building the flexibility to play all those guitar chords. Even that dreaded F chord. This is starting to remind me a lot about learning to play the piano. Scales were always boring, but you have to know those by heart before you can play the fun stuff.

So hopefully, with some time and patience, I'll be able to teach myself to play guitar like my mom did, only instead of listening to John Denver, I'll be trying to play Jonathan Coulton songs.

So Much for Summer

I don't know where it went. I really don't, but now it's Autumn, and that's my favorite season, so I guess I have that to be excited about. The air is cooler. I get to wear a jacket again, which, aside from the warmth factor is also like a security blanket. A security blanket with extra pockets for me to put things in. Like my keys. So I don't have them in my pants pocket which is highly uncomfortable when sitting down, and also limits where I can put my cell phone.

I can't say a whole lot has happened since last June. Teresa's brother got engaged, so Teresa and I will be in the wedding party for their wedding in January. I've been stressed out of my mind at work. Being the controller for a failing company, and not being able to do much to help it has not been fun. The company is still here though, and I still have my job, so I guess it's not all bad. I'd rather not dwell on it here though. Suffice it to say, work has sapped a lot of my energy that used to go into writing things like this blog. Most days I get home and we watch television shows on Netflix, or play Xbox, or anything else that requires little movement and thought.

Another awesome thing about the coming colder weather is the grass isn't growing as much anymore. I mowed the lawn last weekend, but I'll probably have to do it at least once more time before the winter sets in and yard work becomes a memory. Which is good, because then we can work on the inside jobs that never seem to get done. Although I did get a chance to organize the attic storage last weekend. I think I did a pretty good job myself. I impressed Teresa, and that's not an easy thing to accomplish.

We're looking forward to my family visiting in a couple weeks. It's been quite awhile since I've seen my parents and grandparents, so it should be a lot of fun. Also working on a trip to Oregon in December. So the next few months should be pretty busy. Hopefully I can find time to write in between all of that, and hopefully more than just an update every now and then.

Addendum: I failed to express the coolness of the person that my brother-in-law is getting married to, and will soon be part of my family. Her name is Catherine and she is the coolest nerd I know. I knew she was special when I first found out she liked to play Xbox with David, and that she was totally in to Mac computers. And along with her great fashion sense, she also is a tremendously fun person to hang out with and has some very lovable dogs at home. My apologies to Catherine for short selling her earlier in the blog post. I truly did her a disservice and I hope she can forgive me.

Summer Update

Teresa and I are doing well. As is Hannah. I've been busy with work, Teresa has been doing odd jobs for a friend in Black Mountain and recently had an interview for work in Black Mountain., so we're crossing our fingers for that. We've made a couple trips to Greensboro and Raleigh on account of David, Teresa's brother. One for a college graduation, and the other for a going away party. He went to Alaska to fish for the Summer. More on that below. It's been day to day for the rest of it. Where to start?

I've probably mentioned it before, but I'm currently working for a small business as their Controller. I control the money. Or rather, the lack thereof. The company wasn't in good shape when I started, but it was supposed to get better. We're still waiting for it to get better. I can't go into all the details, but it's plain enough to say that work is a major source of stress for me right now, which leads to a lack of motivation to write, or to do anything exciting around the house or around the town.

What I have been doing is playing video games, but that's not a shock to anyone I'm sure. I've started blogging about games specifically over at Gamespot. A website I've been a member of for years, but have now decided to fully utilize. This way, those of you that like that sort of thing can read about it there, and those of you that don't will be spared from long boring posts about World of Warcraft or the Xbox 360 on this blog. Most of the time. I reserve the right to gush about Rock Band 3 and the introduction of keyboards to the game. But I'll save that for later.

Last weekend we had a good time with Teresa's family in Greensboro sending off David to fish in Alaska. He's set net fishing in the Cook Inlet with a family friend of mine who we know from our church up in Soldotna. He'll be in Kasilof. He took his friend Jackson with him, and they're already having an amazing time up there. I know this because I read their blog. And you should too. Even if you don't know them, it should be a good insight into fishing in Alaska from the perspective of two outsiders. Of course, all of their talking about it makes me miss it. But it just gives me more resolve to go back there again, even if Mom and Dad have moved back to Oregon now.

The house we're in now is the first house we've lived in that requires any amount of yard work maintenance. I can mow the lawn easily enough, but when it comes to pulling weeds or thinking about planting things, I just sort of get overwhelmed. Our back yard is big. It takes about an hour and half to mow, and yet we don't use it for anything, so sometimes I wonder what the point of it is, other than just for it to look nice. It still isn't fenced and that's something I really need to do. Money kind of plays into that though. So it still might be awhile. Sorry, Hannah.

Teresa and I have been burning through our Netflix queue as well as catching quite a few good shows over the instant streaming options. We recently watched the first three Karate Kid movies. The first one was great. The second one was okay, redeemed mostly by the theme song. The third one was painful to watch. It's clear that Daniel Larusso learned nothing from his first two movies. And no matter how much Karate he learns, he always gets his butt kicked until the final show down. Interest in these was sparked by the new Karate Kid movie in theaters soon. I've heard it's pretty good. We also watched The Goonies. Teresa had never seen it. Now that missing spot of iconic 80s culture has been filled for her. We also watched the first season of Castle, and we're currently watching Leverage, which has turned out to be hilarious and awesome at the same time. Especially for geeky people like us.

We'll be heading to South Carolina for Independence day, and then it's the wide open Summer. Hopefully we'll be heading to Maryland for the Renn Fair again, but that won't be until Ocotober. 2010 is flying by. Time to make something of it.

A LOST Post

If you have not watched the season finale of LOST, or if you have not even watched the series, then you may be spoiled by the topic discussed below. Because the topic is LOST. If you have been completely under a rock for the last 6 years, LOST is, err... was an hour long drama on ABC. And now, from this point on, I will assume you know about the show and have watched the end of the series.

When I was just out of college in 2004, I was working for a small web developer doing Flash animations for websites and interactive business cards. My first post-college job. Not glamorous, but it paid the rent, and I enjoyed it. I usually worked in the evenings after normal business hours because I had a second job at a book store, and eventually doing actual accounting work, but that's a tangent I don't want to get into. The point of all this is that I watched the very first episode of LOST while I was at work. I had seen promotions for it, and if I was honest, I wanted to watch it for two reasons.

1) Merry Brandybuck was going to be in it. Or rather, Dominic Monaghan, and I was a big fan of Lord of the Rings.

2) J.J. Abrams was producing it, and I had just recently started watching and loving his other show, Alias.

So I found myself at work on the night it premiered as there was a TV in the office, so I turned it on to watch while I worked. I ended up not working at all, and was instead glued to the screen. Don't worry, I didn't bill my employer for the time I watched. The Pilot was incredible. I watched the whole season from the office. I didn't get TV at my house, so I watched it at work. And because I was at work, I never thought to tell Teresa about the show. Or maybe I did, but it didn't really interest her at the time.

Anyway, soon after the first season was over, Teresa and I got married and moved to Boston, so now we have TV and we live together and I'm not working weeknights. If I'm going to watch this show, she probably needs to be on board so we can watch it together. After watching the first season with her, she was hooked, and the rest is history.

And now it all really is history. Sunday night, the last episode aired and LOST is officially no more. The joy of LOST was that it was a mystery, and a journey, and a character drama all wrapped up into one. There was fantasy, science fiction, romance, action, and then crazy stuff that you can't really categorize. It was a great show. Like any show it had its up and downs, but it kept bringing us back for more each and every year.

I think it was in Season 3 where it was announced that they would end the show after six seasons on purpose, regardless of ratings in order to make sure the writing was purposeful and that it didn't just dwindle and get canceled without a solid ending. I'm glad they decided that, but it's still funny to think I don't have anything to watch tonight at nine o'clock.

So for those of you that have watched it. What did you think? Did the ending satisfy you? Did you see it coming? Did it make you mad? The narrative of the story has always been about character development both on and off the island. For this last season we've seen a strange parallel world. Now it turns out that parallel world was a fantasy. A place where the spirits of those have passed on figure out that they're dead and remember the people and things that were important to them. It's not explained exactly how this world came to be, except that it was willed into being so they could see each other again before "moving on." I've seen some people say it was Hurley, as the new protector of the island, who created this place for everyone.

I'm okay with it. It's a nice safe way to show everyone being happy and remembering the best times of their lives. But it's also not enough for me. While lots of people posited that the passengers were dead and in purgatory on the island, the show was never about the afterlife for me. It was about the island, and why they were brought there, and how it affected them when they were there. Now that it's over, I want to know more about the Light on the island, the people who have protected it, and how they chose to do so. I want to know what the island needs protecting from now that the Man in Black is dead. Honestly, I'd be thrilled to see some episodes dealing with the misadventures of Hurley and Ben on the island. Though at this point, a comedic spin off to LOST seems kind of silly.

There's also a lot of Dharma mysteries to be expounded on. What they discovered, what they did with it, how they found about it, and what Jacob's response was to it. In the end, the writer's decided these weren't important things for us to know. The important things were the character's journeys, and how their times on the island were some of the best times and relationships they had ever experienced.

Maybe sometime in the next year or two we'll go back and watch it from the beginning. I'd really like to see if watching it with the knowledge of how it ends highlights anything that we may have missed before. I think LOST was a unique experience that will be some time before it's reproduced on television. In the mean time, I'll have to find some other programs to fill my entertainment needs.

Published on the Internet Still Counts, Doesn't it?

It's not a huge deal, really. It's a paragraph on a Warcraft related website. But it's mine!

WoW Insider asked people to submit 100 words on what we want to see at Blizzcon 2010. A convention run by the makers of Warcraft, Starcraft and the Diablo series. You know what a convention is. This one is just centered on the franchises of one game company. I've never been to one. I doubt I ever will, but the news and information stemming from this convention relevant to my interests. So I submitted my 100 words, and hoped for the best.

The email came that they would be using mine (and several other people's) submissions in their article on the website. WoW.com is essentially a blog reader for World of Warcraft news and articles. They stay up to date on things so I don't have to. Kind of like reading a LOST blog, only with many contributing editors and articles on every aspect game. Not only were they using my submission, they were paying me for it. Awesome.

Oh, here's the link.

I like to write. I've always written for myself. I write a sporadic blog, so obviously it's not hard to get your words on the internet. But submitting something to a news article site and having it accepted and published with my name on it and getting paid for it makes it all seem so much more validated. Take something you enjoy, like a hobby, or a TV show, and imagine writing something about that and then someone paying you to share what they thought was a cool written work with a lot of people. That's pretty neat, right? Right.

The way they took the submission was pretty interesting too. WoW.com is part of the AOL network which has a program called seed. You sign up on the seed website and you can browse postings for submissions on various topics. That's how I send in the submission for WoW.com and got accepted. I sent in another submission on another topic recently. I'm waiting to see if they like that one too. If they don't, I can always post it on my own blog.

In other news, I should be getting the Xbox and FF13 on Easter weekend. Yay! Easter weekend will be in South Carolina with Teresa's family. Yay again! No, I mean that. And I'm currently engrossed in A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. It took me awhile to start it, but now that I have, I have a hard time putting it down. I'll post more on that when I finish it. Work has been kicking my butt, which may or may not have been a contributer to the lack of posting on this blog. It appears it will continue to kick my butt well into next month before it (hopefully) starts to get better. It's not all in my control either. Most of it is a wait and see and hope and scratch and scrape to keep things going until that time. I took on a lot of responsibility when I took this job a year ago. I'm starting to feel the full weight of that now.

Spring is trying to break through. The weather has been a mix of cold and not cold. No snow, some rain, and I broke my windshield wipers a few weeks ago so that's not a good thing. But at times we've been able to have the windows open in the house and let the breeze in. Something Hannah does not like. Actually, she might like it, but it gives her ample opportunity to stare out the window and bark and the slightest sound of anything.

Final Fantasy XIII Out Today

Alas, I do not yet have it...

I have never had a burning desire to own a Playstation 3 or an Xbox 360. That's in part due to only really playing one game over the last 3 years, and with nothing coming out on the PS3 or 360 that really would drive me to buy it when funds are tight, you tend to pick and choose your entertainment options. I'm sure I'd own two or three of them if I had money to spare, but I digress... for the time has come.

With the release of Final Fantasy XIII, I finally have a reason that I MUST own a PS3 or 360, and lucky for me, my brother-in-law is selling me his old 360 for less than half what I'd pay in a store, so I'm excited. Excited that I'll have it soon, sad that that is not yet the case. I think it may be as early as this weekend that I'll have it. We'll see.

This is par for the course for me. I grew up a Nintendo fanboy. Sega was the devil, (well, Sonic was fun) and everything Nintendo did was amazing. My first taste of Final Fantasy was FF2 on the SNES. I nearly beat it over a weekend of renting it, so I had to buy it. I eventually went back and played the original on the NES too. Then FF3 came out. Best. Game. Ever. I played the crap out of that game. I probably put hundreds of hours into it. Not lying. No, I don't regret that. Well, okay, maybe a little, but it was still awesome.

Then Squaresoft, the publisher, had the nerve to put the next Final Fantasy on the Sony Playstation and not the new Nintendo system. We also learned that Japan got a lot more Final Fantasies than we did, so the numbering system was messed up. My loyalties divided, Square proved the winner, and when FF7 was released, I bought a Playstation and the game. I'm trying to remember how I had all this disposable income as a kid. I distinctly remember saving and purchasing with my own money my SNES, N64, and the PS1, but that was all before my first real job. Huh.

Another fun fact on Final Fantasy 7. After having the game for a week, I distinctly remember my mother seeing the game timer at 30 hours of play time. Aghast at how I had spent 30 hours, nearly a full time job and during a school week no less, playing it, she made me turn it off for awhile.

Playstation 2? Bought it when Final Fantasy X came out, which oddly, I think was shortly after the launch of the system itself, so I paid a lot for it. The graphics were beautiful though. Then XI was released as an online MMO. I have never played it. You think I would have, but MMOs were not a possibility for me during college.

And thus we come to today, where I have evaded the urge to buy a "current generation" gaming console because my gaming has been almost entirely on the computer for the last few years. But today is not just any day. Today, Final Fantasy XIII is out, and I have stayed true to tradition. Soon I hope to be happily seated in front of the TV, enjoying a game I've been waiting for for nearly 4 years. I hope it was worth the wait.

Oh who am I kidding, it's Final Fantasy! Of course I'll love it.

The House You Grew Up In

My parents recently moved out of Alaska and back down to Oregon where I was born. The reasons were many, but I think they had lived out the adventure in Alaska enough and were ready to return to a place close to home. That was a few months ago, and now Dad is about to start a new job in Salem, where I have never lived, but is relatively close to other family. That means that mom and dad will be getting a house in Salem and moving there, probably very quickly.

Well, this got me thinking. They'll be living in a house I've never been to, have no memories of and is new to them as well. While growing up, we moved several times. First we lived in apartments, then more apartments, then a duplex, then a move over the mountain to a house, then a mobile home on the farm, then an apartment in Alaska, and then a house where I spent my High School days until I moved out to live on a college campus, only returning for Summers. That's a lot of different buildings. All of which I grew up in.

Compare that with my mom's parents, who have lived in their house for as long as I remember. I think mom spent most of her childhood in that house. If she didn't, I've never heard of the place she did. Dad's parents lived in a house in the same town as mom's parents that dad's brother is living in now, so his family is still growing up in that house. Teresa and I live about a 10 minute drive away from the house her dad grew up in, and the family still owns and uses. We visit her grandparents in South Carolina often enough in the house Teresa's mom grew up in. Even Teresa's parents house is where she spent most of her childhood.

So what I'm getting at is that I don't have that "one house you grew up in." I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's just something that a lot of other people experienced that I didn't. I have memories of each place we lived. Good ones. But I can't really think of going back to any one of those places and calling it home. The house in Alaska probably is the closest thing to that, but that's probably because I have more recent and vivid memories of that one. It's not even the house I lived in the longest, though it may have been for my parents. I would say it's the same for my sister, but she lived in the Alaska house longer than I did, so she might think of that place as where she grew up. Even so, that house isn't around anymore for us to go back to, like the other examples above.

Even after college, I've been moving around a quite a bit. I lived in a townhouse after college, moved to NC for a few weeks and got married, then trucked it up to Boston to live in an apartment for awhile and then a two family home. Then back to North Carolina for a few months and then finally rented a house all to ourselves. One thing I am sure of, we're tired of moving. Another thing I'm sure of, is that we'll probably move again before we're really settled. And even then, I wonder, will we really settle? It seems I may have inherited some sort of nomadic tendencies from my parents, who still haven't settled to my knowledge.

So if you're reading this, I'm curious. Do you have a house you grew up in? Or do you have several houses? Which one feels the most like home? And can you still go back there if you want to? Out of all of the places we have lived, I think I would most like to go back to the farm. Being young and stupid, I wasted a lot of time living on the farm staying indoors. Now my fondest memories are of playing in the barn, the smell of the hay, and the things I did that were out of the ordinary like training a llama to walk over a bridge. So I'm a bit sad that I didn't do more of that when I had the chance. I wish I could do some of that over, but that being impossible, I might like to find a similar place to settle and finally live in a house I can grow up in.

Mythbusters

Have you heard about Mythbusters?

It's been on the Discovery channel for several years now. I had heard about it awhile back, but we don't get those fancy cable stations, so I had never seen it. That was until we got Netflix and I started watching streaming episodes of Mythbusters online. The show is a blast. Sometimes literally.

As you can tell by the name, the premise of the show is that they take "myths" or sayings, or stories, or historical things and they put to the test whether it could actually be done, or if it was just a tall tale, or a lie. Some of the myths are fairly well known, others more obscure. Some of the ways they come up with to prove or disprove the myths are pretty cool too. The two main mythbusters are Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. Their backgrounds are in special effects and props for movies, so they have the ability to create very inventive contraptions and things to test all of these myths.

I'm not sure what season of the show I'm watching. It's called the 4th collection. I think in the first few seasons it was just Adam and Jamie, but now they've got another three mythbusters, the build team, that tackles myths separately, sometimes together with, the main two guys. I've watched a few of the episodes where it was just the two main guys and I have to say that I enjoy watching the ones with both teams more. They get to tackle more myths in each episode that way, the personalities and interactions of the different mythbusters is very entertaining.

Adam is the goofy, fun, try anything guy. Jamie is the straight man, rarely laughing and just being very practical about it. But both of them are fairly ingenious at testing all of the myths they come up with. They often start with models and small scale tests before ramping it up to a full scale test.

Here are some examples of the things they test:

• Can an airplane achieve lift off from a conveyor belt?
• Can you really build an airplane out of bamboo like MacGuyver did?
• Are the gadgets that Batman uses actually possible?
• Some of the viral videos on the internet are pretty crazy, but are they true?
• Could cockroaches actually survive a nuclear blast?
• Can you really drive a car up in to a semi trailer while both of you are driving 55mph?

And that's just stuff from the 4th collection. There are three other collections to go through, plus some specials. I saw one episode where they went to Arcatraz and reenacted the escape of the only three prisoners ever to escape from the prison.

Anyway, if you're a geek like me, and into science at all, you might like Mythbusters. Check it out on Netflix or watch it on the Discovery channel. You'll be glad you did.

Are You Watching the Olympics?

Last night we watched pairs figure skating at the Vancouver Olympic games. If you didn't watch it yet, and you have it recorded or something, I'm going to spoil it for you so you might want to stop reading this post and come back after you've watched it. Go ahead, you really should.

Sunday night they did the short program, and Monday night they did the free skate, the medal standings determined by the skaters' combined scores. We missed watching the live short program because we were traveling, but we got to see some of it while eating dinner Monday. The story of this Olympics is of the Chinese couple, Shen and Zhao, who have won numerous competitions, but never the Olympic gold medal. They even came out of retirement to compete in Vancouver. Their last chance.

Shen and Zhao Short Program

I don't know much about how they score these things. It doesn't really matter to me either. Teresa and I both were pulling for Shen and Zhao because just watching them skate was a joy. It was noticeably better, more refined, more elegant, than many of the other skaters. Their short program (from Sunday night) was flawless, and it put them at the top of the rankings going into the free skate on Monday. Monday night they skated last, and they had some hiccups, but most of the other competitors were falling all over the place, paving the way for China to win it's first gold in pairs figure skating in a long while. But what was even more exciting was the other Chinese pair, Pang and Tong, who skated a beautiful, error free, program last night and vaulted them to second place.

Pang and Tong Free Skate

So China ended up with the top two places, and they earned it too. Even though I don't really get the scoring system, it appears to work because these two couples did skate the best in my opinion. Of course, I'm probably somewhat influenced by NBC playing up the story of the skaters who were giving it their all for their last shot at Olympic gold, but that's okay. That seems to be what the Olympics are about. It's not just about the competition. It's about the story of the competitors. Sometimes it's frustrating though. They kept mentioning how one of the American skaters was struggling to make ends meet financially in his home life, but came to compete in the Olympics anyway. I'm sure he appreciates them broadcasting his financial situation to the world.

I'm watching the Olympics and I'm enjoying them. It's also fun to watch them with Teresa, who holds her breath every time the skaters do a jump, or the man throws the woman across the ice. You always think they're going to fall, until they do, or they don't. And then you exhale.

My Thoughts on Time Travel

Last night we watched the new Star Trek movie on DVD. We had seen it in the theater, loved it, and I got the DVD for Christmas. We finally had a chance to watch it and so we did. The movie involves time travel a bit, and I had a short discussion Teresa and her parents on how it worked. It got me thinking. I have some pretty strong feelings when it comes to time travel in my science fiction. Sometimes it's done well, and sometimes it's done very poorly. When it's done poorly, it grates on me and takes a lot of the enjoyment out of whatever I'm watching or reading. Since it seems to be something I have such a strong opinion on, I felt it was worth putting on my blog. Before I get into this, be forewarned I'm probably going to talk about books, TV, and movies I've seen that involve time travel, in which case there may be spoilers for those things.

We'll start with the movie. In this case, I think it was done very well, and the plot device itself lends itself to a new franchise of Star Trek that doesn't interfere at all with the previous iterations of Star Trek. Here's how it works. In the movie, people from the future travel through a black hole into the past. At the moment they enter the past, they essentially change history. But they don't change their own history. They have created an alternate reality. Think of it like this. If I go back in time and prevent my parents from meeting. I won't be born. But I was born, since I went back in time to prevent my parents from meeting. So rather that have this paradox, we go with an alternate reality. In the reality I came from, my parents met, I was born, and so forth. In this new reality that I created by prevent my parents from meeting, I will never exist. In this manner, I could travel through time creating any number of realities through my actions without interfering with my own. And when I was tired of messing with things, I could return to my own reality where nothing was different.

The reason this works so well for Trek is because now the crew of the Enterprise can have their own adventures without having to explain why it's different from the adventures of the original series TV show and movies. The moment Nero entered the past, nothing would be the same for the people in that reality. Kirk's life was changed immediately because his father died that day that the timeline was affected, and by proxy so was everyone on the Enterprise. It also explains why the old Spock can't predict the future for the other Spock and Kirk. Because in this reality, things could turn out very differently.

Another good way to do time travel is how they've done it on the TV show, Lost. In Lost, there is no alternate reality (that we know of...). It's all on one time line. But they stick to the mantra that whatever happened, happened. Essentially what this means is that even if I could go back in time on my same timeline, I couldn't change anything in the past because it's already happened. I may not go back to 1970 until I'm 30, 2 years from now, but my future self has already existed in 1970. If I went back on my same time line to prevent my parents from meeting, I wouldn't be able to. The evidence is that I exist. In Lost, everything that the main characters did in the past had already happened when they first showed up on the island. They didn't know it because they hadn't done it yet, but it had happened. My own personal theory, in keeping in line with what ever happened, happened, is that the end of last season has no effect on what will happen to the main characters. The same thing that happened before they went to the past will still happen.

I think one of the episodes involved a character saying that he was wrong about whatever happened, happened. But I think they used that episode to prove him wrong in his assumption. I read series of books that involved warp portals that led to the past. The premise in the book was that the universe would not allow a paradox, so if you went back in time to shoot someone before their time, the gun would misfire, or the bullet would miss, or something of that nature. You could not change the past, even though you could travel to it.

Essentially all of this is an effort to avoid a paradox. I can't go back in time and kill myself because then I wouldn't be able to grow up, go back in time and kill myself. (Note: Alternate realities allow for this, but I wouldn't be killing me, I'd be killing an alternate me.)

So those are my favored time travel applications. Let's look at some bad ones.

Back to the Future. I love these movies. They're fun, and they're geek movies. But the way they do time travel isn't very well done. Marty fails to get his parents together and he starts to disappear. What the heck? And then when he changes things, he can remember how it used to be, but his parents and friends can't. They have instantly changed to reflect the things that Marty changed in the past. This happened recently on Heroes too when Hiro got Ando and Hiro's sister to fall in love at the carnival. When he got back to the present, it's like Ando and his sister were different people. But Hiro remembered what the old timeline used to be. The reason I don't like this way of time travel is because it's confusing. If Hiro changes the past, then there's nothing to go back and change when he gets to the future. Time lines are being created and destroyed. What happens to the past that was erased? If it didn't happen, then why did it need to be changed?

Star Trek actually uses time travel a lot in the other TV shows and movies. Probably the most frustrating thing with this is that they aren't consistent with the theory of time travel they use. Sometimes they're going to alternate universes. Sometimes they're changing their own past Think Tasha Yar as a Romulan, or the crew of DS9 having dopplegangers in a parallel universe. And then just recently, Teresa and I watched the episodes where they discover Data's head and then go back in time. This time, they follow the whatever happened, happened idea. It's also interesting to note that what caused them to travel back in time, was the discovery of something that they left back in the past. Think about it.

For me, it all stems from how believable it is. Star Trek is fiction, but it's supposed to be believable. We're supposed to think that this stuff could actually happen in the future, even if it is a lot of techno babble and untested theories and out and out fiction. When a show or movie does something that just doesn't even make sense, even in the context of it's own universe, it takes a lot out of the enjoyment for me, and I think it's more confusing for much of the audience.

Lost's final season starts tomorrow, and I'm eager to find out if they stick with the same theory of time travel. If they don't, I'll be disappointed, but I'm fairly certain they well. The producers of Lost also directed and produced Star Trek.

I should note a couple extra things. Nearly all of these examples involve traveling in time to the past. Traveling to the past has the hardest implications for paradoxes and manipulating things. Traveling to the future is less exciting. It's more about seeing what people are like a given number of years from now. If you change something in the future, that doesn't affect anything about the course of the future. It just means a person from the past did the affecting instead of a person from the future-present. Also, as much as I hope we someday have star ships and travel in space, I don't actually think time travel is possible. There are two many complications and chances for paradox. Alternate reality is probably the most likely, and it's still a hard thing to grasp and prove today. Time will tell.

Of Avatar and Movie Theaters

If you haven't seen the movie Avatar, I might mention things that could be considered spoilers. I'm not going to give away the plot or the ending or anything, but I do talk about stuff from the film. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Last weekend we went and saw Avatar. We saw it in 2D. Some people have looked down on us because of that, but that doesn't bother me. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, the special effects, and the story. Teresa did too, so it was good all around. We had our reasons for seeing it in the boring mundane way we've been watching movies all of our lives. Teresa was concerned that she would get a headache. I was concerned that 3D ticket prices were 150% higher than normal prices. In the end, I'm happy we made the decision we did. We may decide that we want to go back and see it in 3D eventually, and if it gives us headaches, we at least don't have to be worried about closing our eyes and missing some of the story or something.

We went to a new movie theater. We don't go to the movies that often, but up until now we'd been going to a theater near the mall in Asheville. It's an older theater I think, with just the regular seating that is on a ramp from the front to the back of the theater. On our trip back from South Carolina for Christmas we passed through Hendersonville on I-26 which is just south of Asheville. They have a large theater there called the Regal Biltmore Cinema 15. We decided that would be where we saw Avatar and that's what we did. This place was very big, very nice, and had very large screens and stadium style seating. In fact, the place is so nice that their small popcorn costs a whole six dollars. I didn't bother to see what the large cost. We used a Fandango gift card to get the tickets (thanks mom!) and when we got there, we saw there was a Coldstone ice cream place in the same place the theater was. So we're determined to go back for a movie and for ice cream when the weather gets warmer.

I liked Avatar because the world was amazing, and the story was easy to follow. We watched Transformers 2 at home the other night, and after a while I gave up trying to follow the plot and just tried to enjoy the robot battles. I have a feeling that's what the writers and director did too. Haha, I know, Transformers was out like a bazillion years ago and I'm behind the times. But you should already know that because I said we watched Avatar in 2D.

Right, back to the more recent movie. It was great. The crazy cool world of Pandora where everything has an outlet for you to plug your hair into. Animals who you can share a brain with. I don't think I've ever seen a movie where they brought an imaginary world to life as well as they did in this movie. Lord of the Rings is close, but this was slightly different because it was not from a book. In fact, it's so real to some people, that it causes them to be depressed because they realize they can never actually go there. If you don't believe me, check out this article from CNN that a friend on Facebook shared with me.

As I said before, the story was very easy to follow. I've heard some say that the simple story has played a part in how this movie has appealed so well to a world wide audience. I've also heard that the plot of this movie is eerily similar to the plot of Disney's Pocahontas. Granted, Disney's story isn't necessarily original either. I saw this on Failblog. I got a chuckle out of it.


see more Epic Fails

One thing about the movie that had me wondering a little bit was why the only human presences on Pandora were a money hungry corporation, and a bunch of scientists. I feel like there should have been some form of political organization there doing more diplomatic work. We didn't get a whole lot of background on what the state of Earth is in 2154. At one point they mention that it's devoid of life or something due to the ravages of the human race, but it wasn't really explained if anyone was still living there, or if humans were just spread out across the universe now. Teresa and I are also trying to figure out the timeline of things. How long had it been between the time that the main character's brother had died and when he got to Pandora? He had been in cryo for over five years just to get there, so have they been waiting for someone to pilot his avatar for over five years? And if that's the case, why are they in such a hurry to bulldoze the planet once he does get there? Seems like something doesn't line up.

Maybe if I see it in 3D, I'll get it.

Oh Ten

Happy New Year everyone!

In 2010 I hope to do everything I wanted to do but didn't do in 2009. Is that a good one? Meh. I'm not really one for new years resolutions. Being active and losing weight would be nice. I consistently tell myself to get back to the Forza routine that Teresa bought for me years ago. It's exercise with a sword. I mean if you're going to do exercise, getting to exercise with a sword is pretty awesome. It for sure beats exercise with a mat, or a ball, or weights. Am I right? Yes.

Resolutions aside, I am looking forward to a lot of stuff in 2010. I turn 29 this year, which means that 2010 will be where I spend the majority of the last year of my own personal third decade. Exciting! And also a little scary. I'm don't feel old, but I don't feel like I'm a kid anymore. Some of you who are aware of my gaming hobbies might beg to differ.

Speaking of gaming, there are a few awesome titles coming out in 2010. Top of the list is Final Fantasy XIII. Number 12 came out in late 2006, so it's been a long wait for this one. Also, 12 was on the PS2, so 13 will be the first Final Fantasy on the latest edition of consoles. Namely the PS3 and the Xbox 360. Which of course means that in order to play it, I will have to acquire one of the aforementioned systems. My brother-in-law might sell me his old 360 at a bargain price which would be great. There are a few games already out on the 360 that I'd like to try as well. I've sort of debated between PS3 and 360, but the only real advantage of the PS3 is theya include blu-ray player, and I don't think my current TV even handles the resolution a blu-ray would put out, which makes it kind of pointless now. I figure by the time I get a TV that's good for it, blu-ray players will be even cheaper than they are now, and they aren't that bad now.

Cataclysm, the next expansion to World of Warcraft will be released sometime this year. No one knows when for certain, but my guess is somewhere between August and November. Teresa and I are both excited for this one, though we're a bit worried that the new game may require an upgrade in computers. Sigh. I must be really behind the times if all the games I want to play require me to get new hardware just to play them. I'd say more about the game, but I'll save that for my WoW related blog, so I won't bore you if it's not your thing. You're welcome.

Oh! Chuck comes back on TV this year. And LOST! That will be exciting. Last season of the show. All our questions will be answered! Actually, probably not. But hopefully the big ones will be. I look forward to exchanging goofy theories with my mother over what the heck is going on on that island. Wait, the island's gone? Blown up? Disappeared? Well, shoot. Hopefully Teresa and I can finish our viewing of Star Trek: TNG. We finally decided to settle down and watch season 6 after having the first 3 discs for a couple months... only to discover that two of the discs were broken before we opened them. Grr. To make matters worse, when we requested replacements, they put them at a low spot on our movie queue, and we got some other replacement movies instead. Oh well. At least Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is an awesome movie. That last sentence was sarcasm, you know, in case you didn't get that.

I got a new job in 2009, back in April after we moved to NC. It has been a real challenge and a lot different from any job I've had. I think overall it's a bit more stressful, but more rewarding in the job experience I'm getting. I like the shop, I like the people, and I don't mind the work. Now that I've got eight months under my belt, I'm looking forward to actually making some changes and being a bit more assertive. It's a management position, so I think it's time I lead instead of just worked. Mike Hayes, if you're reading this, I'm thinking about everything we learned in that class, as well as the organizational behavior private study we did. +1 for using my education. Woot!

I haven't asked Hannah what she expects from the new year yet. I'm not sure if she knows it's a new year though. She slept through the ball drop last night. She probably resolves to steal more food of the counters and table, and to bark more when she hears mysterious noises outside. Good resolutions for a three year old dog. But if I see her on the counter, I'm going to yell at her. It's just how it works.

Teresa is still looking for work, and I hope she finds something she really likes. We're still enjoying the new house, and hopefully this year we'll get a fence put up in the back yard so we can go out there and play with Hannah. Which, come to think of it, might be another resolution of Hannah's. Get humans to play with me in the backyard more.

Okay, so that's what I know about, but I'm sure 2010 will bring a lot of things that I don't yet know about. Hopefully more good things than bad. And hopefully flying cars.