Apocalyptica

Design on Apocalyptica's chairs (stolen from some guy's site)


Picture from Omesh's camera phone.

So apparently I'm old. I just went to an Apocalyptica concert at the 9:30 club. Apocalyptica is made up of some European dudes playing cellos. Basically, Apoc's claim to fame is covering Mulletica songs, but they do have some pretty money songs of their own. Anyway, I spent the entire concert up at the bar drinking Bourbon and Cokes with the rest of the old folks. In the past, I'd be down on the floor where the action was. Oh well, it happens to us all...

Power Plant Panacea?

I was in my friend's bathroom the other day reading reading a Fortune magazine, when I stumbled across an interesting article on how to address the nation's growing electricity demands. The basic idea is a line of underground air-cooled nuclear power plants stretched across the country at 100 mile intervals. The plants would be interconnected with superconducting materials, and power could be shifted to wherever there was demand with very little loss. All the radioactive material could permanently be stored underground. One requirement of superconductors is that the material be kept at a very low temperature (not far from aboslute zero). This is where things get neat. The superconductor lines could be kept cool with liquid hydrogen that was produced by electrolyzing water (passing current through it). The electricity required for the electrolysis and liquefying the hydrogen could be obtained from the power plants. Furthermore, when the power lines emerge from the ground, the liquid hydrogen could be collected and used to power hydrogen vehicles. This could help solve the distribution problem facing hydrogen powered vehicles.

Clearly, there are many many issues to address before such a power grid could be implemented, but I thought it was an interesting idea to share.

P.S. It looks like I avenged my fantasy football beatings last year at the hands of Sam, 82-62.

my non-blogger-itus

Okay I think I'm going to start biting things from other pseudo-writers that I've come to admire. Two of which are Jim Anchower and Jerry Seinfeld. Two of the finest literary geniuses of our time. I will now start all blog posts with some variant of "hola Amigos...It's been a while since I rapped at ya, so what's the DEEAAALL with..." My lawyers are still trying to work out some copyright issues but as soon as the law suit is over, that will be my new trademark (all rights reserved). So all future posts until then will be cited...
So it's a new beginning for me. My new salutations are geared to bring joy and fill all readers' hearts love and a little espanol knowledge.
We'll call the previous period of time before I made this 'reengineering effort' b.c.g. (Before the Cool-ass-you-love-our-blog-so-eat-it Greeting). The new term, strictly for calendaring purposes of course, will be a.d.g. (After Dogpoop-nostyle-got-no-nunchuck-skills-havin' Greeting).

Alright, here goes my first post in the adg.



"hola Amigos...It's been a while since I rapped at ya, so what's the DEEAAALL with..." asked a combination of Jim Anchower and Jerry Seinfeld. So what's the deal with fucking everything!!!?!?! I swear the last five years has been off the fucking wall. First of all, 311 albums have consistently gotten worse (no I have not listened to the newest one). This is kind of disappointing but not really tragic I suppose. I mean reality shows, I pray, are on their way out. Has this just been a serious strech of artistic drought? I mean I obviously can't not watch TV so I really wish they'd put something better on. If this keeps up, I might have to go outside and that would really be embarassing since I don't own underwear anymore.

My wife and I watched a movie today which was called Children of Beslan. It is about the terrorist attack that occurred in 2004 when these Chechen terrorists took over a school for a few days and it ended with tons of people (parents and kids) dying. The movie just makes you go what the fuck is wrong with those fucking fuckers??!! It is a documentary and it is more or less completely told by some of the children who survived. It is on HBO and there really isn't much to say about it but it is one of the saddest movies I've ever seen. Really has to be watched though. The real tragic thing about this was how little coverage it received considering you would think it would just be so newsworthy and given there were kids involved, the greedy bastards @ the TV news companies wouldn't pass that up.

We've got hurricanes in record numbers. In the most industrialized, technologically developed country in the world...ever, a hurricane takes out an entire city. I mean, seriously wtf is going on? Tons of people are dead, it seem like it has become politically correct to quietly argue over the numbers because somehow that makes a difference whether someone did their job wrong/right. As it turns out now the death toll looks to be lower than originally expected. That is good. Period. It isn't good because the Republican administration would have to explain the fumbles more if their were more deaths. It's just good. The real question is how (an estimated 1 million) all these people who were pushed out of their homes and lost their jobs (an estimated 400k jobs to be lost) go on with their lives. I understand that now everyone's needs are survival. Everyone just wants to see each other alive, hopefully healthy, and trying to recover. That doesn't even begin to tell the story of how the lives of these people are changed. CNN and FOXNEWS are going to stop covering this story in a week, maybe 3. Lots of the victims of this disaster will still be living in San Antonio or Houston...looking for jobs, trying to start new lives. I can't even imagine what that must be like to go through. If I don't have whole milk or cream for my coffee in the morning, I'm really not pleasant to be around. So we all try to do what makes us feel better about what happenned, maybe give money or blood, and go on with our lives (which is all everyone can, and should do). Those people can't do that though. It just fucking blows.


Alright I'm going to have to cut it off here (the post get your mind out of the gutter) so I don't take up the whole front page. I think I finally figured out why I stopped posting for so long. There is just too much shit going on. Too much shit my mind has been trying to process. That + fantasy Football and I'm full of shit to think about. But if you have questions about your 3rd receiver or TE in a head to head league, I'm your man. Anyway, I could never think of one topic to rant about because there were just too many. Well its ADG time baby, and its a brand new day!!!

~Gama

Media biases

Okay, so by now we've all heard the comments that Kanye West made last weekend, and while it may have not been the best venue, I'm glad that someone addressed the media bias with respect to looting.

Furthermore, to all the jackasses saying "I don't see any white people looting," you need to look at the demographics of the people who did not or could not evacuate New Orleans. It is well documented that the majority were black. Anybody of any race put in the position of those in New Orleans would look wherever they could for water and food. Also, in any large group of people, there are always going to be jerkasses who will take advantage of a situation to steal tvs and clothes. So, given the fact that the majority of people left in New Orleans were black, it stands to reason that there will be more footage of blacks looting.

After reviewing that last paragrah, I realize that I need to clarify some terminology. These days, 'African-American' is the PC term for people of African descent. I have some issues with this label. First, the Sammy Sosa's children argument. Sure, Sammy's ethnically African, but he's from the Dominican Republic where they speak Spanish and have a culture considerably different from his African ancestors. I suspect his children would feel more comfortable putting down Hispanic on their SATs. I'm probably more sensitive to this distinction than others, because I'm in a similar situation. I'm ethnically Indian, but my parents were born in South America and raised in a Caribbean culture. I don't necessarily want to be lumped together with Indians just because my skin happens to be brown. Another 'broken' case is Dave Matthews who is from South Africa. Technically, he is African-American! Until enough mixing occurs such that asking someone's ethnicity is meaningless, I, personally, don't have any problems with using black, white, brown, etc. as labels.

A few weeks ago, shortly after Peter Jennings death, ABC ran a documentary on his life and career. About halfway through the program, the subject of Jennings' alleged pro-Palestinian bias came up. Prior to watching this segment, I was not aware that some individuals viewed Jennings as having such a bias. It has always seemed to me that most news outlets and politicians in ths country have a pro-Israeli bias, and it always seemed that I was more sympathetic to the Palestinans' plight than the average American. I was not sure where this came from until I saw the documentary. From pre-school until around sixth grade, I watched ABC news every night with my parents. I think I absorbed Peter Jennings viewpoint on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whether it be biased or just more objective than other journalists.