It's been awhile

So it has been awhile, and although I am trying to stay true to the blogosphere I am having a rough time finding the minutes to type anything here. This is mostly because of work, and school, and of course the Cubs Playoffs, but rest assured, when I have the time I will write my innermost thoughts here to the masses...aka Chris.

Better Place

I first read about Shai Agassi in a recent article in Wired Magazine. It seems Shai is about to change the entire world, and most of us did not even know it.

Driven

It seems as if every few years a story comes up about a new technology, or idea that will change the way we travel. Case in point, this story.

Reinventing The Wheel

Although the segway does serve some kind of relavancy today ( an example is Chicago Cops or tourist scooting through the park, it never caught on with the average joe. Better Place, although a complete 360 from the segway, is the future.

Our dependance on foreign energy(oil) is sickening. Our news cycle is inindatted with the problems with oil. Iran may start transacting oil in Euros, or Russia may transact it in Rubles. Hurricanes threaten our strategic oil reserves, or terrorist threaten to destroy strategic piplines. It is time for the world to wake up from this nightmare that is being perpetuated by the government, OPEC, and Detroit. Following Shai Agassi is an important step.

If you liked what you read about Better Place, my suggestion is to forward the link to the Wired Story to your local United States representative. Let them know that we need a change.

The Bears...a reaction

was anyone completley amazed by the Bears vs. Colt game on last night?

Who would have guessed that our loevable bruisers would take down the mountain of Peyton Manning and the Colts.

Of course one game in week one hardly makes a season, but there was something in this win, something salty that's been smoking around the veins these last two seasons. I am talking about 2006 and the Bears loss to the Colts in the Super Bowl. You see, Bears fans never forget the big losses and as much as we have sucked since, I think we needed to win this game.

To quote Jack Dundee from The Best Of Times.

We are going to blitz like Dick Butkus into the backfield of the future and throw a vicious forearm shiver on the demon ball carriers of the past.

That is what we did on Sunday. Whether we go to the playoffs or fizzle into the lower bowels of the league, Sunday night was our night. And so it goes.

Success and Forte

A few Sunday Evening Notes

I BEAT level 2 of Turtles today at 12:00-My Dream has been realized.

Michael Turner is God

Matt Forte is God.


BOOYA

Nintendo: My Dream Emerges

Yesterday a magnificent event occured.

I was walking up Clark Street, meandering towards the comic book shop ( to buy the latest Dark Tower comic), and low and behold I see a shop called PEOPLE PLAY GAMES.

Walking in, the sound of classic video games emerges from the sound system. I am talking about tunes from the original Legend Of Zelda and Nobuo Uematsu's beautifully composed music for Final Fantasy VIII. Then comes another familiar sound, the rallying call of Mike Tyson's Punchout. In the corner, a man is trying to beat Mike Tyson. Of course the great ones classic lightining quick punches are not enough for Little Mac, the character you take through the ardous circuit. I walk up behind the guy and apologize for looming. He explains that he has spent the last three day's trying to beat Tyson and was unsuccessful.

I begin looking at the shelves and see the thousands of classic Nintendo games they have. Apparently these guys refurbish old Nintendo systems for ultimate capability and sell the games at a reasonable price. At once my childhood ( another haiku?) came flooding back.

It did not take long for me to decide to buy a system. $89.00 later and now I am a proud owner of a classic NES system. The system came with Super Mario Bros/ Duck Hunt and I bought Super Mario Bros 3 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Super Mario 3 is an old favorite and I can remember scouring the malls of Bloomington/Normal looking for it. My mom and I eventually found it at K's Merchandise. The orginal Super Mario is always a great a game for a little fun, but it is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that is my Everest.

You see, the second level of TMNT is the underwater level. When I first borrowed this game from my childhood pal Jeff, it took countless hours to try and beat the level. The set-up is that you are swimming underneath the dam trying to disable all the bombs before the damn explodes. Of course there are dangeroud underwater foot soldiers and stinging algae. I was never able to beat that level.

I am about to turn thirty in a couple years. My only goal, besides being successful at my job, and starting a family, is to defeat this level.

I will update everyone once I have done so, and I will also update on any new classic games I will pick-up.

I am contemplating a huge Tecmo Super Bowl tournament for my friends.

We shall see.

Donnie Wahlberg: A Haiku

It is living in my childhood again.
everything is not lost.
Donnie Wahlberg is not a real bad boy.

Retroactive Continuity and Beverly Hills 90210

WTF

For those who do not know what retroactive continuity is please brush up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon

You know what grinds my gears.

For those who have been watching the new and improved 90210 know that something stinks in that part of TV Land.

To be honest, I was an avid watcher of the original Beverly Hills 90210 and it's spinoff Melrose Place. Should we forget that Rob Estes played Kyle McBride on Melrose Place and is now playing some random principal from Kansas who grew up in Beverly Hills. Are we destroying the world of Beverly Hills 90210 for better television.

This is retconning. Taking a world and screwing it up. Now we all know retconning happens. Professional Wrestling is the predisposed harbinger of destroying it's previously established historical data. George Lucas is also a big fan, changing the Star Wars universe and blowing it up. In the end most people go along with change, but not me.

Where is the authenticity within writing. Is it really so hard to keep a consistent stream of words over time.

One of the biggest disappointments was Stephen King's Dark Tower odyssey. For those who do not know The Dark Tower, it is a core seven books with several other books feeding into it. One of these feeder books, Insomnia, had a character named Patrick Danville. Patrick was a kid an he was an artist. The whole ending of Insomnia revolved around the fact that Patrick was going to die saving two men, one of whom must not die. This was a prophecy in the book clearly linking Patrick to the Dark Tower books and a teaser that in the end he would save the gunslinger before he ascended to the fabled Dark Tower. This, sadly, did not happen. He did make an appearance in the final Dark Tower book, however he did not save two men. His only purpose was to "erase" the Crimson King (the antagonist), and he never died.

Stephen King sort of retconned the situation with some early plot devices, but how hard would have it been to create a situation where Patrick Danville would have to save two men. The same with George Lucas, how hard would it have been to shoot a scene showing Yoda on Dagobah with Luke, or Obi wan having interaction with Uncle Owen. Why create something and then not give it your all.

Rob Estes is an easy thing to ignore on 90210, however is it really staying true to the 90210 world?

Nevertheless, the new 90210 is pretty cool.

The ER Incident.

So I am not sure what the hell happened, but last week I found myself in a little pickle. On the way back home from downstate, i started to notice that my neck was hurting. Through last weekend, the pain in my neck got worse and by the time the new week began, I was in considerable pain. I made it to today, and had to go to the doctor. Unfortunatley doctors will not take a rush appointment, so it was on to the ER for me.

The wife picks me up and we are off. The ER was a wonderful place and a great place to people watch.

There were several observations that I made. I made a list below.

People are miserable in the ER
People with neck injuries wait longer than people with substabce abuse problems.
People who have been hit by a car still need to drag their luggage around.
People who are passing kidney stones cry alot.

Just some observations.

BTW-the neck was just strained a little.

So it goes.

The Truth About Kiefer and Jack

I recently became re-introduced to "A Few Good Men', Aaron Sorkin's amazing portrayal of high-level conspiracy within the United States Marine Corp. This play, as well as the movie, is a compelling look at the inner workings of command within our armed forces. The movie is dated (i.e. September 11th would have changed how we viewed code red's in the military, and of course Tom Cruises charisma, however I think the movie is a realistic look at how discipline works within the military,

The one problem, and call this a random observation, is the character usage within the narrative.

Let me create the scene.

LTJG Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) is questioning 1LT Jonathan Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland). The questioning turns to the matter of the code red and whether Jonathan Kendrick ordered said code red. Now Kiefer Sutherland( in an underrated part I might add) handles Tom Cruise brillantly, and parries and jabs without any problem.

Kiefer 1 Tom Cruise 0

Later, Tom Cruise is questioning Col Nathan R Jessep(Jack Nicholson)and giving him the same hard line joust. Tom Cruise manages, through clever dialogue and a heated scene, to break Jack Nicholson into submission.

Tom Cruise 1 Jack Nicholson 0.

Is this a real world scenario? I totally like Kiefer Sutherland and Jack Nicholson, however there is no way that Tom Cruise would be able to break Jack Nicholson in the real world. To be realistic, Jack Nicholson would have jumped out of his seat and would have detroyed Tom Cruise with a round house kick or a well hidden shank. Kiefer on the other hand would never have taken the verbal abuse from Tom Cruise. I imagine that Kiefer would be like his character from that phone booth movie. He would wait while Tom Cruise was out and about and would snipe him from the 30th story of some building. It would be amazing.

Completley Random.

WTF-Sara Palin and the ABC Afterschool Special

It was earlier this morning when this story showed up

http://ochairball.blogspot.com/2008/09/todd-palin-dwi-palins-go-national.html

Of course Mr. Palin having a DWI is hardly an issue-especially when you read this.

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/06/background-on-c.html


Now, news comes from the great town of Wasilla, Alaska that Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been keeping an additonal secret. Her daughter, Bristol is pregnant at the age of 17.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/01/palin.daughter/index.html

Wasn't this vetted in the selection process? Didn't Campaign Manager Rick Davis notice the baby bump? It is amazing to me that this would go unnoticed and that this woman can NOW even be considered to be a viable candidate for the vice presidancy. If you want to creat an image among women in this country about how Sarah Palin=Hillary Clinton, then ask yourself, how many babies did Chelsea have when she was in high school.

This should be expected. in 2006 Mccain voted against an amendment to the Senate's Fiscal Year Budget that would allocate $100 million for the prevention of unintended pregnancies. Now Mccain has a reminder of his failed voting record following him at every event.

Great job Republicans.

So it Goes

My Fantasy Football Draft

Let me just prefice this that I have serious doubts about the status of the league I joined. One of the players took Matt Hasselbeck in Round 1 and Koy Detmer in Round 3...he had Tom Brady, Steven Jackson, and Terrell Owens on the board.

SLOT PLAYER, TEAM POS ACTION OPP STATUS ET PRK PTS AVG LAST PROJ PVO %ST %OWN +/-
QB Brett Favre, NYJ QB @Mia Sun 1:00 7 237 14.8 -- 223 +0 55.9 100.0 +0
RB Frank Gore, SF RB Ari Sun 4:15 10 170 10.6 -- 225 +0 81.0 100.0 +0
RB Michael Turner, Atl RB Det Sun 1:00 75 33 2.1 -- 151 +0 3.1 100.0 +0
RB/WR Tim Hightower, Ari RB @SF Sun 4:15 -- -- -- -- 44 +0 0.0 14.7 +1.4
WR Calvin Johnson, Det WR @Atl Sun 1:00 34 103 6.4 -- 146 +0 41.8 100.0 +0
WR Jerricho Cotchery, NYJ WR @Mia Sun 1:00 25 120 7.5 -- 156 +0 24.5 100.0 +0
TE Kevin Boss, NYG TE Was Thu 7:00 40 22 1.4 -- 64 +0 1.1 50.6 -1.9
D/ST Vikings D/ST, Min D/ST @GB Mon 7:00 5 164 10.3 -- 100 +0 74.3 98.3 -0.2
K Stephen Gostkowski, NE K KC Sun 1:00 3 137 8.6 -- 96 +0 56.3 91.9 -0.7
Bench Empty -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
BENCH WEEK 1 2007 SEASON 2008 PRESEASON
SLOT PLAYER, TEAM POS ACTION OPP STATUS ET PRK PTS AVG LAST PROJ PVO %ST %OWN +/-
Bench Justin Gage, Ten WR Jac Sun 1:00 50 80 5.0 -- 96 +0 3.4 11.0 +1.7
Bench Dominic Rhodes, Ind RB Chi Sun 8:15 71 38 2.4 -- 38 +0 16.2 6.7 +0.6
Bench Leonard Pope, Ari TE @SF Sun 4:15 20 48 3.0 -- 40 +0 2.5 3.4 +0.6
Bench Kyle Orton, Chi QB @Ind Sun 8:15 52 28 1.8 -- 91 +0 1.4 4.0 +0.9
Bench Buccaneers D/ST, TB D/ST @NO Sun 1:00 8 143 8.9 -- 94 +0 48.4 42.8 +0.6
Bench Andre Davis, Hou WR @Pit Sun 1:00 43 89 5.6 -- 32 +0 4.0 1.5 +0.6
Bench Jason Hill, SF WR Ari Sun 4:15 167 0 0.0 -- 81 +0 0.0 0.9 +0


Cotchery and Favre are gonna put up some good numbers