And we'll all float on, ok.

Last night I had my first isolation tank experience. If you're not familiar, Wikipedia is your friend.

Essentially, you lay in a light and sound proof tank filled with about 10" of body temperature water that is extremely dense due to about 600 pounds of Epsom salt that is added, this in turn allows you to float without touching the bottom of the tank. The result is an environment where your body is deprived of its senses. You can't feel the water around you, you can't hear anything except your heart beat and you can't see anything besides what your mind creates.

Your body (and therefore your mind) is constantly being barraged with stimulus all day, every day. Even in a quiet, dark room while meditating you hear your furnace running, or birds, you see some light, you feel your chair, or a breeze, and this is our normal attainable minimum. To place yourself in a situation where you have almost zero stimuli being subjected to your body, your mind becomes free to not focus on anything but itself.

The tank I went to was in the furnished basement of a couples home in Manassas, VA. The husband and main proprietor owns three tanks with the intent to purchase a fourth in order to open the only float tank center in the DC/Baltimore area, hopefully including in-house acupuncture, reiki, and/or massage. The couple was very welcoming and I felt super comfortable in their home and in the tank room. Once I arrived we talked for about 15 minutes about the tank, experiences, what to expect and what a person can gain from floating. He was very grounded and professional, but we also spoke about meta-physical possibilities and other psychedelic topics you wouldn't think an Olympic-level pistol shooter from Texas would be interested in.

After showering, I entered the tank, closed the door behind me and laid down. Immediately I noticed the intense darkness and lack of sound with the exception of the slight sloshing of water. Just as quickly the thick water settled and I began to relax. I floated with my arms at my side, with not a single part of my body touching anything else. After about five minutes I began to feel an odd tilting and twisting of my body, as if I were slowly spinning in empty space. I'm guessing this was my brain trying to adjust to what it perceived as a lack of gravity, or any sort of spacial recognition whatsoever. Remember, your brain usually has multiple factors and input to help it gauge where it is in relative space. My brain was essentially saying "...woah."

10 minutes in is when I realized that I could no longer feel the water around me. The point where my skin ended and the water began vanished and I truly felt like I was suspended in an empty void. Fascinating. If I moved slightly (which I did VERY minimally) I could sense the water move, but not really feel it move. I was still aware that I was in the tank, but this notion would slowly begin to fade.

After about 40 minutes is when I became aware that my brain waves transitioned from beta to theta. Basically, my brain was asleep. I'm not talking about day dreaming, or zoning out, but asleep. But I was awake; fully conscious. You might not really see a difference between the two, but once you have the experience it'll make sense. It's impossible to pinpoint when this transition occurred, so my timeline is totally estimated. I had a few dreams, only one of which I can remember, where I witnessed the arrest of a French revolutionist in the late 1700's. Sure, whatever. It was during this period that I mostly forgot that I was in the tank. I existed more as just a thought than a physical body. Not quite an out-of-body experience, but close enough.

I was in the tank for a total of an 90 minutes, but it seemed more like 45. While in the theta state I totally lost track of time, but still exited the tank 10 minutes before my time was up. Interesting how the brain seems to have an internal clock.

Afterward I showered, dressed and went upstairs to chat for a while. I felt drunk. I was slurring my words, losing my train of thought and felt loose overall. Both my body and mind felt like it went through a massage. After the hour and a half drive home my legs still felt weak like Jello. My mind was extremely relaxed. Even the next day the same sense of calm is still apparent.

At the least I was expecting a relaxing time, akin to chilling in a pool and this trip definitely exceeded that. I can attest that even after one float it definitely lowers anxiety and stress, increases mental potential, self awareness and your overall well-being. I was hoping for a more psychedelic experience in conjunction with all that, but for my first float, I am extremely satisfied.You can't hope to become an Olympic diver by jumping off the spring board only once.

FUUCCKKK YOOOUUU!!!!

FUCK YOU USPS I HOPE YOU CONTINUE TO GET YOUR FUCKING HORRIBLY INCOMPETENT LAZY ASSES STEAM ROLLED BY UPS AND FEDEX YOU ARE USELESS PIECES OF SHIT.

I'm sick of it. Just, fucking sick of it.

I can't handle society anymore.

I went to court today to defend myself against what I knew to be two unjust tickets. A PG County officer, as admitted to the judge today, pulled me over because "it looked like" I was speeding. He ran my plates AFTER pulling me over for a bullshit reason and found that I was driving on a suspended registration. Here's a $150 fine. Why was I driving on a suspended registration? Because I failed to get my emissions test. Why? Because I moved twice and my MVA emissions notice was never forwarded to me. Oh, you didn't tell the MVA you moved? Here's another $50 fine. Seriously, all the officer had to do was tell me to fix these errors and no harm done.

But fuck all that. It doesn't matter.

What matters is that an officer pulled me over on a hunch. A guess. That's what's called in legal terms "unreasonable suspicion" or, "illegal". 

It's equatable to a cop seeing a skeevy looking dude, grabbing him, looking into his pockets and finding marijuana and saying "A-HA! You're under arrest!" In order to seize a person or their belongings, an officer must have a "reasonable suspicion" that a crime is taking place, e.g., the cop has arrested this man many times before for drug possession and witnesses him walking away from a drug dealer, or in my case, have more reasonable evidence that I was speeding other than it "looked like" I was. A radar gun would work, or pacing my vehicle, or witnessing me traveling faster than the rest of traffic, or seeing a speed camera flash, etc... 

Anyway, in both my and the skeevy joint guy's situation, any evidence found after the fact is inadmissible in court. Due process must be followed. This is how murders get off after they're found holding a bloody knife over the victim. It's because some officer didn't follow due process and forgot to read him his rights or whatever. You find someone committing a crime THEN you stop them. You don't stop them THEN find out the crime. 

When I told the judge this today his response was, basically, "Well, the officer ran your plates and found you driving on a suspended licence. That makes pulling you over okay. If he would not have found anything, then I'd agree with you."

WHAT THE FUCK?

Who the hell are you? Who taught you to be a judge? 

This guy?

Or did you watch too much of this?

Either way, you're a fucking moron. 

I can't handle judges siding with police and milking me out of money when I made the effort to take off work, wear a suit and defend what was obviously an illegal stop.

You can't fucking pull people over just because. You can't. Well, officer Italiano DOES. What's with that name anyway? Italiano. It's actually fitting because it was obvious that 'ol tubbs enjoys his pasta. The only criminal he'd actually run to catch is the Hamburglar. 

But fuck all that. It doesn't matter.

What matters is that I can't handle society anymore.  

Fucking tolls.

Fucking inspections.

Fucking permits.

Fucking service charges.

Fucking corporations.

Fucking fines.

Fucking dues.

Fucking regulations.

Fucking policies.

Fucking insurance.

Fucking interest.

Fucking taxes.

Fucking registration.

Fucking licenses.

Fucking overdraft fees.

Fucking 9/10th's at a gas station.

Fucking deductibles. 

Fucking entrance fees.

Fucking ATM fees.

Fucking convenience fees.

FUCKING FEES.

Point is, I can't wait to put so much distance between me and the rest of the world. I don't want an address. I don't want mail. I don't want bills. I don't want the government up my ass about everything I do on my own land. If I want to build a house I'm going to do it and I'm not going to get anyone's fucking permission.

I understand that without going totally grizzly you have to stay connected somewhat, and that's fine, but I plan on keeping it to an absolute minimum. I'm just sick of how much the government and businesses are over your shoulder and in your pocket. 

But fuck all that. It doesn't matter.

Just leave me the fuck alone. 

Burned out house on Arden Noville Rd.

 The iPhone can take some pretty great pictures when the light is perfect. No filters needed to hide the poor image quality. I love the sharpness of this one.

A creepy mattress in the attic is better than a creepy mattress in a basement.

Martinsburg photographs

Martinsburg photographs, late February

 It seems as though every single person in Martinsburg has one of these in their front yard.

Martinsburg photographs

Since I'll be living in Martinsburg for a while I might as well try and find some shit that looks cool and take a picture of it. When I do, I'll post it on here.

Selling our house.

So, the past few months our house has been on the market. This November will be 6 months and we’ve had more viewings than I can account for, with only one of those visits evolving into an actual offer which was ruined by the carelessness of their realtor. I am at work today thinking about all this and thought to write it down, not to alleviate any sort of stress, just to kind of flush out the pipes.

Luckily we’re not up against a wall and have to sell; we really don’t “have” to sell until spring of next year, we just want to sell.  But the hardest thing about selling isn’t immaculately cleaning the house every time, taking the pets somewhere, waiting, or even the lack of offers in spite of 15+ viewings; it’s the constant small talk you have to make about it with friends and family.

I feel bad for couples who are unsuccessfully trying to have a child and constantly get asked by people “So, how’s the baby-making coming along???” Obviously, if they have a kid, you’ll know. Otherwise it’s just adding insult to injury. In the same line, I constantly get asked how the house selling is going. “Oh, it’s going great, it hasn’t sold yet!” is not an option. It’s not the same as asking someone how unlocking all the achievements in Call of Duty is going, we’re talking about something I have that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars that I don’t necessarily want anymore and can’t unload. It’s actually kind of embarrassing. Every time someone makes an inquiry to the status of the house I have to be reminded, and remind them, that it is, and I am, still ultimately a (potentially costly) failure. That sounds a little harsh but it seems to be the reality.

I’m very confident in my home. So far, the vast majority of people who come for a viewing love it. I can hear people oohing and ahhing while I stand outside near the open window. The only person who didn’t like it was a girl who, for some reason, expected a place that looked like a condo. I have to imagine that she saw the interior photos of the house and decided to waste my time anyway. This past weekend I had a couple come for a viewing and they loved the house, but expressed that they had to take care of his decrepit mother who “has a real hard time with stairs.” Excuse me? Stairs? You told me a day earlier that you loved the look of the house; did you fail to notice that it’s TWO STORIES? How do you think I get up there? I didn’t install a fucking escalator if that’s what you thought. Good luck finding a rancher in Baltimore City.

It really hasn’t been that bad overall. We’re saving a lot of money by avoiding a realtor, doing the extra leg work ourselves and getting a bit of an education in the process. In the end, it’s just a waiting game.

Work? Why?

I don't understand work.

I don't understand why we all have to do this. At this point, it's a complete requirement for life and the majority of us, regardless of the job, have to follow almost the exact template as everyone else. Wake up, get to work at a certain time, stay for a certain time then leave at a certain time. I don't understand how we've decided as a society that this is okay. It's pretty much standard across the globe.

I want to be able to wake up whenever I want. After that, if I have work to do at my work, then I go and do it. Once that work is done, I leave and go home. If there's no work to do that day, I stay home. I get paid a reasonable amount to live and have extra simple pleasures but that's it.

This style isn't for everyone, obviously police can't operate by this schedule, but there are quite a lot of us who can. Me, in particular. Why should I have to suffer?

It's not fair.

The Dorsey Farm i.e. doin' redneck shit

Latarian wants to do hood rat stuff with his friends, because it's fun to do bad things. I can't say I disagree. In fact, I was reminded today of the bad things I would get into, but the difference between Latarian and myself is that I did country rat stuff with my friends.

When I became a teenager I left the world of doing awesome kid shit and entered into the world of doing awesome teenager shit. My peers were acquiescing into adult life by mimicking their parents. While everyone else my age at E. Russell Hicks was hanging out in the woods behind the school smoking, having sex and just being cool, I was Elijah's farm being even cooler.  For me, the woods held much more entertainment than smoking and awkward diddling with a girl. There was plenty of time for that later in life.

The most fun I ever had at Elijah's house was driving cars. For some reason they always had a bunch of beater station wagons around the property and we would pop one in neutral, push it to the gas pump, fill it up and go tearing around the fields for hours. Remember, we're 14 years old at the time doing up to 40 mph through a corn field. My first argument with my parents over when I should be able to get my learners permit was "I've been driving since I was 14! I'm a great driver, just ask Elijah!". Whenever we drove a vehicle to complete exhaustion and it would break down on us (these cars weren't worth stuff like new motor oil or engine coolant) in the middle of a field, we'd go get a sledgehammer and a baseball bat and destroy the thing. The fun never stopped. Then we'd chain it to a tractor and drag it out of there. When we ran out of cars Elijah rigged his riding lawn mower's carburetor in order to double the speed. I'd hang onto the back of the seat and we'd zip around, bouncing all over the place. Mowers aren't meant to go that fast.

We made bombs. We'd cut open shotgun shells for the gunpower and stuff it in whatever container we could find/build and blow shit up. WE CUT OPEN SHOTGUN SHELLS TO MAKE BOMBS.

Shotguns, rifles and paintball guns flowed like water. Trips to the river, exploring deep into caves (which in hindsight was extremely dangerous, I wouldn't do now what I did then) and wandering through woods was the norm.

"Youth is wasted on the young." -George Bernard Shaw

I'm glad that doesn't apply to me.

East coast vs. West coast

This is going to be a rap only post, so protect ya neck.

I don't even know how to begin so I'm going to start simple:

Fuck Compton.

I was watching "Don't Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice In the Hood" the other day and I realized that west coast gangsters were super-big cry babies. I also re-realized how super funny that movie is. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, these tough-ass gangstas didn't have anything to bitch about. What the fuck were they fighting over? I'd like to let a few pictures speak for me.

Yes, straight outta Compton. Now, I've never been to Compton but I imagine it's pretty scary. I mean, these guys look intimidating and I imagine where they live is intimidating as well. I imagine that it's pretty run down, lots of drug addicts lying in the gutters, busted up houses, cars missing tires and up on bricks. You know, the usual.

Heeeyyyyy.....what's that? That's a nice little beach house. Cute picket fence. It looks like that house may be located in the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

Why, here's another one! Nice big front yard. This is nice too. But what is that, palm trees? Can't be anywhere on the east coast then...except maybe Florida? Hmm.

Oh my, another! So nice....what's that written there? COMPTON, CA?!?!?!

ARE YOU SHITTIN' ME MAN?!?!? This is the HOOD? The GHETTO!?!

Straight outta Compton. Fuck you. No way.

THIS is the fucking ghetto:

These are all pictures of Harlem, NY in the mid to late nineties, the same period of time that Easy-E was rapping about being gangsta cold runnin' shit.

I'm no good at rappin' and rhymin', but instead of belly-aching about getting pulled over by the cops, Ice Cube should have been rapping about how the bright California sun keeps getting in his eyes, or how "I'm sufferin' from allergies, from all these palm trees" (that rhymes!)

Speaking of Ice Cube, I'd be remiss if I didn't post this:

Wait....wrong one...

That's better.

Sorry, this was a picture-heavy post but it needed to be said.

Again, fuck you Compton.

p.s.

I'd probably get in trouble if I didn't post a few pictures of Baltimore in it's current state.

You know what, now that I think about it, fuck Compton and fuck New York. All these pictures of Baltimore are representational of, in my opinion, at least half of the city. LA and NY can't even touch that. They can consider like, maybe 5% of their city as ghetto. Hells yeah.

Disney and shitty comedy

This is going to be an odd one. An interesting mix of something weird I really, really enjoy and something weird I really, really hate. You could say I should have titled this 'The good, the bad, and the (insert pun here)' but I don't have (insert word I inserted for pun here) to complain about and I'm pretty sure someone else since 1966 has already played off that movie title.

I'm pretty sure Laura is the only person who is aware of this but I love animated Disney musicals. I'm talking Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and of course, Aladdin.

These movies are the shit and I don't care who knows it. It doesn't get any better than belting out "Les Poissons" from The Little Mermaid.

See for yourself.

Hee hee hee, haw haw haw!

That's fucking hilarious. Not only is the song catchy and clever as hell but just great comedy. But the best thing is that they're fun. Here's another one of my favorites. Again, the song is very well written and of course, funny. There's not much more to it than that. It's very simple and perhaps that's what makes this shit so funny to me.

Speaking of 'simple', 'shit' and (the lack of) 'funny', this brings me to my next issue.

Maria Bramford.

You fucking unfunny bitch. I hate you.

I hope you Google your own name and find this. I know you will because at some point you'll forget to take your anti-depressants and you'll be so hungry for attention you'll scour the internet to find people talking about you.

Angry? Yes I am. Why? Because she's a comedian that is not funny. I've seen a lot of comedians that weren't funny and I don't hate them. In fact, she's so not funny that it makes me angry listening to her try to be funny.

My evidence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-DteBZgT9c

I got to 1:17 before I passed out.

But wait, there's more!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCliYhFqC0g

Oh Maria! You're so kooky!!!

No, you're embarrassing.

Now, please notice that I'm not cherry picking any of these clips. They're all this awful. If she gets a half-hour stand up slot she spends 29 minutes of that talking in kooky voices and making sounds with her nose. I first became aware of her when I watched the Comedians of Comedy DVD starring Patton Oswalt (awesome!), Zach Galifianakis (awesome!), Brian Posehn (awesome!) and Maria Bramford (huh?). Adding her to the bill is something I will never understand. I'd rather not think about it. She is honestly the worst comedian I have ever seen.

What prompted me to complain about her is yesterday I listened to her and Aziz Ansari on the Doug Loves the Movies podcast and she spent the entire time talking in her kooky voice and being awkwardly unfunny. I couldn't believe that even in a situation where she just has to sit there and chat she couldn't behave normally.

It's a shame I spent more time bitching about Maria Bramford than touting the joys of Disney movies but seriously...

Just quit already.

KISS and more shitty music. IT'S A LONG ONE.

I was listening to David Cross' audiobook 'I Drink For a Reason' and at one point he talks about his love for the Brooklyn, NY band Les Savy Fav.

If you're not familiar with this band (hey, neither was I at the time) go ahead and do a quick YouTube search on them. Actually, let me do you the favor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNNxx6HzURY

I know, right?!?

Wait...just to make sure we're both on the same page here, I'd like to emphatically express, so we're clear, that this band fucking sucks. And here I'm slowly becoming more aware not only of the band, but of their popularity and this infuriates me.

After watching the above YouTube clip of their song "The Sweat Descends", I began to feel a very familiar feeling, one that I usually feel whenever I hear a band that, more or less, is total shit. Usually these bands have a certain, unmistakable "shit sound" that they all share in common; a seeming lack of talent and musical ability, songs without structure or at the least, a catchy melody, and in Les Savy Fav's case, a horrible fucking hipster front man.

The thing that annoys me the most is that I've personally written "The Sweat Descends". Well, not that EXACT song, but one very much like it. See, whenever I'm playing in a band and we're practicing, it's common place to just start making shit up between songs. The drummer just starts playing some silly beat and the guitars begin playing some delayed spastic noise and you do this for a minute or so before stopping and laughing at how incredibly stupid that just sounded. "Okay, back to the real music" you'd say.

But what I've realized is that people are mostly interested in that "incredibly stupid" stuff we just played. People would rather hear the jerk-off spaz stuff we play in between our REAL songs than our actual REAL songs. And the jerk-off spaz stuff sounds almost exactly like "The Sweat Descends".

My mind is blown.

So, basically, I've been trying WAY too hard making, in my opinion, very good, serious music. The masses don't want this. They want something they can shake their neon green fanny packs to while their whippit high from a Cool Whip can wears off. Fuck it, I wouldn't make it in that crowd anyway. To start, I don't live in Brooklyn, plus I like a challenge, it would be way too easy to gain 50 lbs, go bald, keep my beard and wear ONLY bright red shorts and a necktie in public.

Which leads me to my next point which has almost nothing to do with the previous section. The band KISS.

I remember being a kid and my mom telling me not to listen to certain types of music, certain types that she, herself actually listened to as a teenager. Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath and of course, KISS. KISS, my mother said, was an evil band who played evil music. And I believed her. I mean, fuck, look at Gene Simmons:

Seriously! This guy looks like he'd eat your face off while fucking you in the ass. Probably with either one of those spikes or that bass guitar. Maybe both. I mean, shit, he's a fucking demon. At that young age, KISS was a band that was incredibly foreign to me and therefore scary. I mean, I almost didn't want to listen to their music because I assumed I'd either shit my pants or the floor will open and Satan himself will pull me under. I thought all these things for quite a long time.

Until I actually heard their music.

"IIIII, wanna rock and roll all niiiiight, and party every day!"


WHAT THE FUCK? Who is this? What? KISS? That satanic, evil band that my mother told me not to listen to? This is what they sound like??? Wait, this is what their drummer looks like?

A FUCKING CAT?!?!?!?

Your bass guitarist dresses up like a demon and you choose a CAT. Dear God this is unbelievable. What a horrible disappointment. The most famous acronym for KISS was "Knights In Satan's Service". Well, if you think Satan listens to this shit, you're an idiot. 

To finish, I hate a lot of music.

No way.

I passed a walking Dan Deacon on the street the other day while riding my bike, and our eyes locked. He nodded, as if to say, "Hey, yeah. I'm Dan Deacon and I notice you, noticing me." and I wanted to yell at him "I DON'T GIVE A SHIT."

Holy shit!

This still exists!

I wrote a Maya Angelou-esque poem for Nate:

Child, child
Morning star
As yellow as a ripe banana
You rise and set, wax and wane with the light
Child, child
Thick legs and strong back
You pin me down
Good morning.

Fuck you US Postal Service.

And fuck you too, Delaware.

(p.s. and fuck you too, Bank of America)

I'm sick of it.

There used to be a time when I thought, "Aw, it IS sad that no one sends letters anymore. Poor Postal Service doesn't have any work to do." Well, bullshit, I don't give a fuck. Fuck you.

You know why no one sends letters anymore? BECAUSE THEY DON'T FUCKING GET TO WHERE THEY NEED TO GO. You want to send someone something and you want to know not only exactly when you sent it, whether or not they received it and you want to get a copy immediately and re-send it if needed? And do it for FREE?

SEND A FUCKING E-MAIL.

In October we went through two tolls in Delaware. No cash. Use card? No. (Seriously, who the fuck doesn't accept cards 3 months away from the year 2010? Grow the fuck up.) How can I pay? You will be billed. Okay.

Fast forward a few weeks and I get a letter in the mail from that state that no one cares for or knows anything about. Two tickets for $34 each! What the fuck for? A $4 toll and a $30 administrative fee! Holy shit! $68 fucking dollars for two $4 tolls.

I wrote a letter telling them that legally/technically, I did not break their Delaware Toll code (too descriptive for now) and I do not owe them anything beyond $8. Case closed. No argument. I did nothing wrong legally.

I went to the bank and got two money orders for $4 each. Thanks to Bank of America, I had to pay an $8 charge for each money order. Fuck you, fucking $16 in charges. Fuck you. You print on fucking paper. Not even full 8.5"x11" sheets either, it's like, a fucking 1/4 of a sheet. Fuck you. Ink doesn't cost THAT much.

Mail it.

Wait.

I figure, hey, they must've agreed and dismissed my violation because I haven't heard anything (DC's ticket violation system does this, hence my assumption).

Today I get two letters, each corresponding to one of my toll violations, each informing me that they did not hear from me by the due date and now EACH TOLL IS $50 FUCKING DOLLARS. $100 TOTAL. BECAUSE OF EIGHT FUCKING DOLLARS.

FFFJFD:DFS:KLD:KL JFE :IO[0UR{IOJFE{IOJF[iohjg[a'a'adg'adgskadfskfdkjldfs GFUF FUCK YOU!

WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T THE LETTERS GET TO THEM. YOU PUT A FUCKING STAMP ON AN ENVELOPE, STICK YOUR SHIT IN IT, LICK IT, WRITE A FUCKING ADDRESS ON IT AND PUT IT IN THE FUCKING BOX. SOME DIPSHIT PICKS IT UP, A FUCKING COMPUTER SORTS IT AND ANOTHER ASSHOLE PUTS IT INTO ANOTHER BOX WHERE A FUCKING STATE EMPLOYEE SHITHEAD READS IT AND PRESSES "ERASE" ON THEIR FUCKING KEYBOARD.

If I ever read about someone murdering 20 people at a toll lane with an assault rifle, fuckin' let 'em go. They've had enough and so have I. I'll be at the front of the support rally for the next postal employee that fuckin' mows down a roomful of co-workers because I've fuckin' had it.

All this is on the tail end of me buying something online, it not working, and I mail it back as a return. Did they ever get the fucking package? NO. SHIT NO. Did I ever get the package back? NO. FUCK NO. Will I ever get my package or my money back?

FUCK YOU POSTAL SERVICE.

FUCK YOU DELAWARE.


FUCK YOUR STUIPD, SMALL STATE THAT EVERYONE MAKES FUN OF.


Goodnight, and merry Christmas everyone.

THIS IS IT!

It's happening people, this is what we've all been waiting for! Man controls robot arm with mind AND senses touch!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/video_and_audio/8392111.stm

Extras:

Bionic vision:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7923775.stm

More bionic limbs:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7774426.stm (Note, I would suggest not watch while eating. Or, perhaps it's just me with the weak stomach.)

Robots evolving to lie to one another!

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-08/evolving-robots-learn-lie-hide-resources-each-other

Very interesting article. Short, but still informative.

In a nutshell, 60% of 1,000 small robots eventually adapted and evolved to protect their needs and even learned to lie to other robots to protect this end. Amazing. To those who argue that robots could never learn of their own volition, this is a great example.

Big Bad Wolf

Last night after band practice Jesse and I went to try Big Bad Wolf out for size. Located on Harford Road only about 15 minutes from my house, they were offering a special during the Halloween week: their signature "Big Bad Wolf" sandwich for $5. Advertised as "An enormous sandwich with slow smoked beef brisket, Carolina pulled pork, hickory smoked bacon all topped with your favorite BBQ sauce."

No foolin'.

As we were already aware, this place is tiny. Only 5 seats for the counter service with two picnic tables out front. Our sandwiches were served up quick in to-go containers and we dug right in. It was exactly as advertised. Huge. Meaty. Delicious.

Regretfully, I had mine served with the Kansas City Spicy BBQ sauce. I was going to go with the Carolina vinegar but noticed the word "HOT" was involved so I opted for spicy instead. Still a mistake because apparently "spicy" is interchangeable with "HOT". In hind sight I should have done either the Kansas City Sweet (Jesse's choice) or the Texas style (sweet as well).

Otherwise, the sandwich was fantastic. The bun was perfectly toasted, that is, not too much, not too little. It didn't scrape your mouth when you bit in, but you were aware of the light toasting. The first thing that hit your mouth (besides the hot sauce) was the brisket. It was thick and juicy and definitely stood out the most in the sandwich.

Second was the pulled pork which was loose enough to be light and delicious but held itself together so that it didn't fall out all over the place. If you ate carefully, you could probably keep the whole thing perfectly intact, but that would leave you with no extra treats left over once you're done.

Also, that's no fun.

Lastly was the bacon. I actually hardly noticed the bacon while eating, but even so, I'm a huge fan of thickly sliced bacon. I also have to comment on the skill that was involved, as despite the thick bacon, it was also very tender. Usually when eating thick bacon you pull out a whole strip with a bite. This stuff just let you bite right on through without even noticing. The key is that it was crispy but not so crispy that it was brittle and dry.

I finished everything off with some of their sweet tea (free refills, which I used to my advantage with that hot sauce) which was pretty good. Very sweet. Bordering TOO sweet, but still good. I must also note that the last two times I was at Andy Nelson's BBQ their sweet tea had a bad burnt taste to it. Tsk tsk. I also noticed that Big Bad Wolf's full rack of ribs are a few bucks cheaper than Andy Nelson's. Not competition yet, just a thought.

Overall, I was very satisfied with Big Bad Wolf. I really look forward to eating there again and trying their ribs. I hear good things.

Gene therapy allows the blind to see.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/uops-oso102209.php

In short, a single injection of light-sensitive pigments into the eyes of ten people born legally blind (and two with retinal degeneration) has allowed them to see, six of which are now declassified as legally blind.

Simply amazing. This discovery is an amazing advocate for stem cell research, especially for those who are scared of technology. No implants needed!