Description Through Obscurity

Wikipedia is an awesome site, and full of loads of information that would otherwise not even fully be available in encyclopedias. It's become the go-to reference for loads of curious people (rightly or not). For me, when I'm looking for the gist of a topic, but am not necessarily interested with all of the profound details, I head over to the Wikipedia. Additionally, if something can be mathematically proven and I can understand the proof, Wikipedia suffices.

Sometimes, however Wikipedia is painfully obscure or erudite. I feel as though some people use it as a way to show off how much they know. For instance, I was looking up electromagnetic flux after a somewhat strange conversation, and so I turned to the Wikipedia to remind myself of what it means. Now, flux was one of my favorite things from my Electricity and Magnetism class, and I knew fundamentally what it was, and I understood it. However, when I checked the Wikipedia page, I found myself lost in a page full of language that I felt had the purpose of taking the average reader, turning his head inside out, and then making it implode into some form of black hole created from the density of sudden influx of confusing language contained within the article.

By the way, don't bother following the link unless you want to risk destroying the world. I suppose I should have mentioned that earlier...

My Hopes Dashed

I was wrong. He's not quitting action movies. Damn...

Another Day To Fear

It's father's day. I'm a father. That's still strange to say and to think. When I found out the girl was pregnant, I was actually excited at the thought of my first father's day. No longer, though. Today's always going to be a problem for me. Today is another day I should be able to celebrate our child. Instead, I mourn.

I love you baby bear, and I miss you so much it hurts.

Proof of the Existence of a Higher Being

Really, I don't even have to say anything. Just go read this article.

A Few Links

There are some interesting things going on. Briefly, a kid gets hit by a meteorite and a company named Riversimple is releasing an open source car.

The story of the kid is pretty interesting. Apparently, a meteorite traveling about 30,000 mph hit the kid's hand and left a three-inch scar. He's lucky to be alive. That's a really cool story to be able to tell people, though. the meteorite then embedded itself a foot into the ground, resonating a large boom prior to upon impact. Wow. That's some serious precision for you.

Second, a company called Riversimple is going to release the design for a car under an open source license. How cool is that? It's a strange deal, though. If you lease the car for twenty years, you get free gas for the entire life of the lease. A strange idea! I wonder whether it will work.

A Little Bit of Scary

Soccer day should have been Tuesday. Well, it shouldn't have, then it should have, and then it wasn't. This season has been particularly wet on Tuesdays. As a result, we haven't had a whole lot of soccer this season. Tuesday should have been one of the make-up games, but it (shock!) rained. I learned after the fact that it actually did more than that. However, the tale is a long and winding adventure that began early in the morning...

I don't think I slept well Monday night. I arose early to the sound of birds and rain, which happens in the Spring. We are fortunate in that we have a tree in our yard, but unfortunate in that birds, the winged bullhorns that they are, like to live in trees.

I got to work tired. While driving in the rain, all I could think in my tired brain was, "I'm glad it's raining. Maybe we won't have soccer today."

The sky cleared a little later that morning.

The day wore on, and I thought heavily about soccer. I ultimately decided that I was too tired to go, and that the rain had resulted in the day turning into a really warm, humid, terrible day. Perhaps it wasn't that bad, but it felt that way to me. Just prior to leaving work, I decided not to go to soccer. I just wanted to relax.

I got home, tried out Wii Fit for the first time ever, looked outside, and saw sun. I turned away for a short time, looked again, and the sky had turned as black as night. Electricity lit the evening like a brilliant chandelier. Suddenly, I was glad about my decision. I had not asked the girl to drive all that way for nothing.

That was not, however, the biggest surprise of the evening. What surprised me was the potential that the evening had to do harm. I learned later that, on the very field on which we were to play, lightning struck the bleachers. This elemental electrical discharge hurled them twenty feet back into the street. These, the very same bleachers on which the girl would have been sitting had we been waiting to see whether the game would have happened at all.

I'm lazy and she's alive. I'm lucky and she's alive. Perhaps the greatest disaster avoided this year...

Some Good, Some Bad

I saw this when I got home today. I feel dirty. The site points out why it bothers me, which is both because it's a phrase, and also because it's a dirty filthy buzzphrase at that. "Web 2.0?" I mean, come on, really? I'd rather burn a brand into my skin than admit that's a defined English word.

But, more importantly, good things are happening in the world. Primarily, Futurama is coming back! I miss Futurama. Fortunately, I no longer will. Finally, the fated Phoenix arises from the ashes! Now if only they'd bring back Firefly...

I'm That Much Closer to Death, But It Was Fun

You read it right. It's my birthday. I would usually make an attempt to not address it in writing, but today was kind of special. You see, the girl threw me my first ever surprise party. It was awesome. She also got me Wii Fit, tickets to see DC United, and tried to get me racing lessons, though that's still in planning. She knows me so unbelievably well. She's the bestest.

The surprise party rocked. She asked me where I wanted to go, and I had no preference, so I proceeded to list every place I could think of. I missed this one. You see, I never think of Japanese food because the girl doesn't do sushi. I know you can get other things, but we usually equate japanese and sushi (despite me having been there and not having had much sushi). So, we went to a hibachi place, which is like Japanese-ish. The irony is that I was talking with Karina today, and stated that we pretty much ate exactly the same stuff except for sushi. She must have been ROTFL (I feel dirty having said that). Kohnkes, Sandrew, and Amanda came to the party.

We then proceeded back to the house, had ice cream cake from the ice cream store, told lots of dirty jokes, and watched some Jonathan Coulton videos. I feel fantastic.

I usually also try not to make enumerative posts, but I really wanted to write this all down, and I'm not feeling excessively wordsmithy today. It might be the excessive sugar, or the multi-tasking.

There's a little more, but that's for me to know :-)

Originally, I was scared of this birthday. I've been reflective of late. In seeing this particular milestone approach, I have had trouble with the positive. I did not think at any point in my life that, by the time I was 29, I would have had arthritis, depression, and lost a child. Nobody expects things like this. My childhood feelings of invulnerability are gone. I've been scared of this one in particular. I can't imagine how hard next year will be.

I'm lucky, though, to have such great friends; both those who could make it, and those who couldn't, but I know were thinking of me. Thank you everybody. You've helped take a day I've lived in fear of and turn it into one of the more positively memorable days I've had in quite a while.

A Few Random Bits of Car

First off, GM is going under; bankruptcy. Among the companies under GM's umbrella, Saturn, Pontiac, and Hummer are going to be no more. I think everybody was expecting Pontiac to go away. I personally don't think they've made anything good in a long time.

I'm glad Hummer will be gone. The environment is breathing a sigh of relief today. The American car companies who don't seem to care about increasing fuel economy and decreasing emissions are damaged or no more.

I was a bit surprised about Saturn, though. As far as I know, they make pretty fuel efficient and light cars, but that's just from memory. Things may have changed recently. It's possible they just weren't popular.

In any case, perhaps GM will start listening to the people who would like to buy American cars, but actually want the companies to care about them. I feel sorry for all of the people this puts out of work, though. It's a shame that so many hard-working people will be jobless, and I know it's hard to find a job these days.

On another note, AT&T has just made driving more dangerous. I'm sure this was meant for people in the back seat, but still, my spider sense is tingling.

Are we really that addicted to TV that we need to watch it on the go? Can we really not miss our shows? Does it really bother us that much? I'm glad I do things like play soccer and climb. It makes me feel like I defy the status quo. It adds to my feeling of uniqueness among people in this country.

Off my soapbox now. Maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe this will be a good reboot/awakening for Americans, and maybe nobody will care to pay AT&T for their new service. One can hope.