Hans Scharler's Divide & Conquer

If you're in Indianapolis this weekend, check out the Gen Con gaming convention. And if you do go, make sure you check out a new board game called "Divide & Conquer". I had a chance to play this game before it's official public debut this weekend and I really enjoyed it! I have a feeling this game is going to catch on in a big way. You can play with 2 to 4 people. Sometimes each person is looking out for their own interests, other times players need to work together to stop a different player's advances. So two players can be at each others throats on one part of the board, but best buddies somewhere else.
I liked it because it was very easy to learn and the games only lasted about 20 minutes. I can't wait for the online version, this will be a multiplayer sensation!

My Fish Allergy

I don't mean for this to turn into a blog about my health problems, but I think I finally figured out an allergic reaction that has been stumping me for years. About seven years ago I mysteriously started getting outbreaks of small blisters on the fingers of my right hand. They would start out as little fluid filled bumps that would eventually break upon, leaving my skin very rough and itchy. Since would happen about once a week, my skin would never actually heal in those spots. I was dating a medical-ish student at the time and she decided it was a fungus. It wasn't. The next logical assumption was an allergic reaction to some chemical I was getting on my hand. I systematically went through the list of everything I touched with my right hand. At first I thought it was some kind of soap. I washed my car once a week, maybe that? Nope. Ok, maybe it was the hand-soap at work? Nope. I decided it must be the dish-soap, so I started wearing rubber gloves to wash dishes. I saw no change and decided it must be a latex allergy. Of course, the gloves I was wearing to wash dished were made of Latex, so I bought a non-latex type. Still no change, blisters on my hand every week. I did go to the doctor about it. I got about what I expected, a 15 second conversation and a prescription for a steroid creme. The creme didn't help.
About the same time I did discover that I was allergic to eel. The grocery store near my work started selling fresh sushi, which became my new favorite lunch item. Well, I quickly drew a link between the eel rolls that I loved so much and these little red dots that would appear on my skin near my eyes. The dots were kind of like a pimple but not quite. Although small, they were still very noticeable. The crappy part was that it took forever for them to go away: sometimes more than a month, just from eating one eel roll.
Alas, I stop eating eel and all is right with the world again. Then just this year the same thing start happening with salmon and talapia. Now I've never had a problem with these types of fish before. My suspicion is that I'm not actually allergic to the fish but rather something the fish farmers and feeding them, maybe all those antibiotics or the pink dye that gives the farm raised salmon it's appetizing color perhaps.
With wedding season in full swing I decided to give up fish for the summer. I didn't want red dots on my face for a series of social engagements. After not having fish for two months, my hand has been blister free for the first time in years. How about that? I was allergic to fish this whole time. Odd allergy though. I always thought a food allergy was systemic. It's crazy to think only a very specific patch of skin would have an adverse reaction.
I''m sure there are some other people out there with the same condition. I did read one post on a dermatologist's website by a person who described the red dots around his eyes exactly as I have had them. He even listed all pills and medication he took. One of those pills was a 1000mg fish oil capsule. The dermatologist, replied with: must be eczema, you need a steroid creme. Ha!

Explosive Tinnitus: at least I'm not alone!

For the past month, just as I'm falling asleep I hear a really loud bang. The first couple times it happened, I got up and looked out the window, convinced that someone was shooting a shotgun outside my house. I started to suspect that I was just hearing things because it didn't ever seem to wake up anyone else. It happens to me a few times a week now. As a matter of fact, it happened to me just a few minutes ago. I was just dozing off when, BANG, I hear what sounds like a balloon popping right beside my head (or more precisely, inside my head). Well there was no going back to sleep for me after that. I decided to do a little research and wouldn't you know it, there is actually a name for this condition. It's called "Explosive Tinnitus". No one knows what causes it although it appears to be harmless. The case studies I read describe exactly what I am experiencing. Loud banging, like a gun shooting, just the patient was falling or had already fallen asleep. It's happened to me a few times while I was already asleep. It really scaried the crap out of me!

Leave me a comment if you experience this too. There aren't many documented cases in the scientific literature but some suspect that explosize tinnitus is drastically underrecognized.

Should we start calling it a lower lip strap?

Can someone please explain to me why I keep seeing members of the military, police and marching bands with chin straps cinched way too short? What good is a chip strap if it's under your nose? And if it is so incredibly uncomfortable to have a strap under your chin, why in the world would you want it too short? Although I've never had to wear such a piece of head gear myself, I think that adjusting the strap too long, so it is just dangling and loose, would be more comfortable. Is it a fashion statement? Any ideas?

Merry Christmas!

Is tasering a cop 'assualt with a deadly weapon'?

I'm not all that keen on trigger happy cops tasering anyone who looks at them funny. For a "non-lethal" weapon, a lot of people seem to die after they've been zapped. But I have a question that I'm sure will get answered soon enough: If someone were to taser a cop... would that person be charged with assualt with a deadly weapon? It's a catch-22. If no deadly weapons charge is filed then cops might be getting zapped a little more often. If it is a deadly weapon charge is filed then it establishes a double standard. Like I said, I'm sure this will happen sooner or later on its own.

Stop with the AI references already!

Can everyone (especially the mainstream media) stop referencing "artificial intelligence" like it actually exists? It appears that artificial intelligence, despite having been developed yet, is in everything from Halo 3 to Maytag dishwashers. Or should I just jump on the band wagon and re-brand my fishcam with "artificial intelligence".

Web 4.1 (Web 4.0 SP1) - A minor update to the future of connectivity!

Web 2.0 has barely caught on and people are already fighting over who gets credit for coining the term "web 3.0". Well, I want everyone to know that I am staking my claim for "Web 4.1" or alternatively "Web 4.0 SP1" . Originally I wanted to claim one of the major revisions of the web but "Web 73.0" was the first one available. So instead I'm going to take credit for a minor revision.

We all know that Web 3.0 is going to be awesome and will probably hang around for a while. But I doubt that Web 4.0 will be ready for prime-time when it ships. After six months of floundering connectivity, the first service pack will be released to fix some flaws and security issues. But don't get too excited about it. With all the talk of Web 5.0 on the horizon and all the problems with incompatible code of Web 4.0, most people will just probably skip Web 4.0 entirely and go straight to Web 5.0.

No I don't "Gotta Have" this crap.

Do you know what I'm tired of?? Tech articles that have titles like "Must Have Gadgets" and "Gotta Have Gear" and then list a bunch of crap that I can't afford and can actually live without. Am I to understand that if I don't own (or want to own) any of these things that my life will be somehow sub-standard? It seems like every news outlet, in print or on the web, has these same stupid articles. Why don't they title them something a little less sensational, like "Stuff That We Got for Free So Now We Have to Write About It" or "More Crap That Cost Several Hundred Dollars and has a USB Port".

It's Great to be a Florida Gator!

The worlds largest party was in Gainesville last night as many many thousands of fans rushed University Avenue at the end of the NCAAF championship game. I'm happy to say that I was there! First a basketball championship and now football, we're getting good at celebrating in the streets here!

Breakfast on a Stick

I stumbled upon this lovely item at my local grocery store last week. In case you can't see for yourself, it is a sausage link wrapped in a chocalate chip pancake. And to meet the needs of young professionals trying to beat the morning rush, the wonderful folks at Jimmy Dean have placed this delightful treat on a stick. This is a perfect example of what happens when you leave a 13 year old in charge of new product development. Don't get me wrong, pancakes and sausage are two of my favorite things for breakfast, but chocalate chip... on a stick? I'm guessing that these won't be available much longer since they were being sold at a hefty discount and there was still a stack of them sitting there. Hey, Jimmy Dean... stick to making corn-dogs.

The Beach, Beer and NASA

I celebrated the 4th of July in Cocoa Beach this year. It worked out well since the Space Shuttle blasted off while I was baking in Florida Sun. The picture to the left was my view of it from the beach (about 20 miles away from the launch pad). It's too bad I'll miss the twin sonic booms on Discovery's return.

Isn't Florida great? (see picture of sign) I used to live in Pennsylvania... the most ass-backwards of the 50 states. In Pennsylvania, you can't buy beer at a grocery store or even a liquor store. It must be purchased at special "beer distributors" that are only open a few hours a day. You can still buy a beer in a bar or restaurant though. It's nice to know that Pennsylvania's politicians have curbed drinking at home and made it necessary to drive for a drink. (Did you know that PA is one of three states whose population has decreased in the last census?)
Anyway, I'm glad that Florida has it's priorities straight. Keeping those kegs off the beach, haha!

Crazy weather channel math.

Notice anything odd about The Weather Channel's forecast for tomorrow? "A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible... chance of precipitation... 0% ! WTF weather channel? Talk about covering your ass! I wonder if any of the forecasters at The Weather Channel have taken a class in statistics. As I learned it, a 0% chance means that that something is not possible!

Miss Vickies Cleavage?

This is a Miss Vickies potato chips bag. Look at it closely. Notice the lace with the bow in the middle directly above the word "JALAPENO"? Now to me, that looks like the lace along the top of a woman's blouse. And if that's a woman blouse... then doesn't the "V" in Vickies look suspiciously like cleavage? I've presented this idea to several people and everyone thinks I'm just obsessing about breasts.
So what do you think? Is the "V" cleavage or not?

UPDATE!!
Fellow blogger, Hairy Carrot, informed me that the Land O Lakes Indian girl has a very sagging set of breasts herself. Apparently those aren't her knees sticking out from under her dress. Using some surgical skills I picked up from Dr.90201, I was able to do a little augementing of my own. (cutting her knees out and setting then over the box of butter she's holding) See the before and after pictures below.

Before:
After:

Design Competition Winner!

I won a medical device design competition in my Problem Based Learning graduate class. The challenge was to design and build a wearable device to minimize essential tremor. Essential tremor is a neurological disease that causes uncontrollable shaking of the head and hands. Anyway, after a lot of late nights of drilling and sawing, I finished my prototype last week and gave the presentation yesterday. The judges liked my design the best. I got this snazzy certificate and $150. You can see me wearing the gizmo in this picture. It uses viscous dampers to suppress the tremor. Check out my "projects page" for a better explanation and the PDF of the presentation.

Glenoid fossa, Subscapularis, Coracoid process...

Tomorrow is my final anatomy exam. For some reason, my graduate program requires us to dissect cadavers along with learning the names of every wrinkle of every organ in the human body. The novelty of cutting up dead people wore off about 5 minutes after I started this class. It meets a few times a week and lasts four hours each time . My attention span, on the other hand, lasts about 30 seconds. Combine that with the fact that it starts at 8 am and you can see why I'm happy that it's almost over. Actually, it's the exams that I hate most. There has to be a better way... All we do is memorize 500 latin names that all sound the same and forget them as soon as the exam is over. I was hoping that this class would at least make me sound smarter when I talking about the human body. No such luck. I still call an arm, an arm, and a toe, a toe.
It wasn't all bad though. There were plenty of unique experiences this semester. Like when I held someones heart in my hands or when I accidentally broke the cadavers arm (and all her fingers too). There are several, more gruesome stories I could share but I don't think everyone wants to hear that.
There were 5 bodies for our class to work on. The one body smelled so bad that even the professor refused to do anything with it. He affectionately become known as "Stinkey". Most of the other bodies were quite overweight which made it a group effort to flip them over. Luckily I spent most of my time on the cadaver of a very, very old women. She didn't have much muscle on her, but then again she didn't have much fat either.
Anyway, back to studying!

Chomp!

Toilet paper and fireworks filled the air last night as we (the Florida Gators) won our first NCAA basketball championship. After the win last night, people poured into the streets to celebrate. I only live a couple blocks from all the action so I joined in. The police were there too, riding their horses through the crowd but they let the party burn itself out naturally. I took the oppurtunity to do a cart-wheel across a normally busy University Avenue. No one got killed and no cars were set on fire so I guess it all worked out just fine. Go Gators!

My new nephew, Kenny!

I'm an uncle now! My sister gave birth to her first child last week. I haven't had the oppurtinity to meet the little guy yet since my sister lives in PA. Maybe I will in about a few weeks when I have some time between semesters.

Mobile blogging?

Bear with me while I figure out how to do this mobile blogging thing. BTW, this is the street I live on. I snapped this picture with my phone on the way back from class. I'm somewhat impressed with the quality of my camera phone.

Picobay attempt #78

I finally decided to make myself a decent website. I've had this domain name since 1995 and this is the closest I've come to something reputable. I don't expect to treat this as a traditional blog (my life isn't interesting enough to post that much stuff), but I like the ease with which I can update this baby. That's probably the reason I never updated my previous attempts.... firing up an outdated version of FrontPage, trying to make it do something it wasn't designed for and then FTPing the whole mess to the server.

At the moment my templates are still "under construction" so bear with all the dead links.