Standoff of the Space Cowboys

This post is in response to a comment left by A.J. a few days ago:

Oh, and if you don't mind me asking what part of your Star Trek idea did the film incorporate? I think it's safe to assume it wasn't the part where they cover everything in lens flare.

The short answer: the creation of an alternate timeline, split off from the "canon" timeline, was something I was going to implement in my story.

The long answer. . .

The title of this post is the name that I was gonna give to my story. It's a silly name, loosely based on Gene Roddenberry's own nickname for Star Trek, "Wagon Train to the Stars". Nonetheless, in my mind the name stuck. The outline of the story is as follows:

A Federation Starship accidentally travels back in time to early 1960's Earth, crash-landing in the Caspian Sea. Their ship heavily damaged, and straddled between the Soviet Union and then US-allied Iran, things seem hopeless for the crew. Even if they could somehow manage to hide from the two biggest superpowers of the time, they won't last long without supplies.

However, they are quickly discovered and contacted by an oil tycoon hoping to mine the vast underground reserves of the Caspian Sea. The crew is offered protection and supplies in exchange for. . . well, they're not really sure, since the crashed ship is not all that terribly useful as an oil drilling platform. Neither is it terribly clear how an oil company, no matter how rich it is, can hide a bloody starship in the middle of the ocean from the Soviets and Americans. Still, the crew is hardly in a position to turn down his help. On top of all this, the crew has to clean up the messes they've made, like a photon torpedo landing on the border of two hostile nations, or crewmembers fleeing the ship.

Unfortunately, the ship's very presence in the twentieth century-- not to mention its contact with the oil company-- has opened up the possibility of historical alteration, destroying the timeline they know. However, the crew, initially, is in a position where they cannot be sure whether this is happening. The severe damage done to the ship's computer has almost completely erased its voluminous historical records. For instance, while some of the crew knew that an American president was going to be assassinated, no-one can be certain on what date it was supposed to happen. For all they know, the assassination that happened yesterday was supposed to happen tomorrow. As a result of this ambiguity, they cannot be certain whether their presense leads, in a hidden way, to the history they already know-- whether they were always part of history without even knowing it-- or whether history has actually changed.

The ship remains at the bottom of the Caspian Sea for five years. Up until this point, the crew has managed to adjust to their situation, and has seemed to contain any major historical changes. Unfortunately, the crew soon make what from their standpoint is a horrific discovery: a TV show called "Star Trek" that appears to be based upon their own future history.

AN ASIDE: Yes, yes, I went there. How cute of him, you all say. But aside from all the predicatable metafiction, I was always fascinated by the behind the scenes story of Star Trek. Indeed, it would be pretty interesting if they made a docu-drama TV series about the making of the show, with a title like "These Are the Voyages..." or some-such. It could serve as a sort of late-sixties companion piece to Mad Men (are you listening, AMC?).

Anyway, it's seeming more and more likely that history has indeed been changed and that the Federation, at least as it known by the crew, will never come to be. An ideological scism occurs, and the crew divides roughly into two camps: those who think that the original timeline must be restored, even if it means interference in the social and political structures of the day; and those who believe that this new history must be allowed to take its own course. The remainder of the series follows the conflict between these two camps.

That, more or less, was the idea of mine that was incorporated into the new film. There were all kinds of other aspects to this story, though. Most of them were only halfways thought through, and some might not have made it into the final version. Here are a few of those ideas, listed in no particular order:

- A powerful alien artifact stored within the hull of the ship-- this is actually what causes the time travel accident.

- A Klingon math genius who adopted the Vulcan way of life (can you tell it's fanfiction?) and is the only person who understands the artifact. She falls into a coma following the crash of the ship.

- An artificial insemination program that uses said Klingon's ova in combination with donated sperm to try and breed another math genius who can understand the artifact. This program does eventually create another genius, a young woman who is not only brilliant but also extremely volatile, due both to her Klingon genetics and her upbringing in a society that she doesn't really understand and that really doesn't understand her (she's not raised on the ship, but rather in contemporary human society).

- Remember the accused saboteur I mentioned earlier? As part of her plan to escape, she used nanobots and technobabble to change species, from alien to human. The process kills her within a few days.

- A human-Q hybrid, created to destroy the alien artifact (the artifact is like Kryptonite for "full-blooded" Q). As his powers are controlled by his human mind, he finds that many instances where his powers are used are either unconscious or occur in an almost rambling "stream of consciousness". The hybrid, very human in personality, is born in Venezuela and raised Catholic (SUBTLETY!).

- The whole series would be eighteen episodes long, and its structure would loosely be based on the James Joyce novel "Ulysees" ('Cause Bloomsday in Dublin is like a Star Trek convention-- that's my flimsy excuse and I'm sticking with it!)

That's about as far as I'll with this story for now. I know I keep promising a new Sailor Moon piece, and I'm working on it. It'll be up sometime.

I Used to Do Something That Was Almost Like A Real Job. . .

Image of Jeremy taken shortly after his thesis defence.

So, it finally happened. My paper, "Quantum tunneling and reflection of a molecule with a single bound state," has been published in Physical Review A. I promised in a previous post that I would write a summary of paper. So, with reading week quickly evaporating away, about eighty physics assignments yet to be marked, and a Japanese midterm on Monday, I thought I should get on that.

The approach I decided to take was a basic parsing/elaboration of the abstract, since that's the only part of the paper available to read on the internet without having to pay a fee. The abstract, by definition, pretty much lays out the content of the paper anyway, so with a bit of explanation you should be able to get the jist of what we, i.e. myself, Danielle Kerbrat, and my supervising prof Dr. Mark Shegelski, discovered and published. I'm going to assume that anyone who reads this has about high-school level science education, which means I'll have a lot of explaining to do.

Abstract:

In this article, we present the results of studies on the quantum mechanical tunneling and reflection of a diatomic, homonuclear molecule with a single bound state incident upon a potential barrier.

Hoo-boy. Where to start?

The "diatmoic, homonuclear molecule" is basically a pair of identical particles that interact with and, loosely speaking, "attach" to one another by means of an attractive force. Usually, the particles in question are atoms. However, our formulation is general enough to be applied to any pair of "attached" particles, such as Cooper pairs and excitons. These examples appear later in the abstract, so I'll explain what they mean later on.

When the atoms are attached to each other, we say that the molecule is in "bound state." When they aren't, we say they're in an "unbound state." To be in a "bound state," the atoms in the molecule must have lower total energy than two free atoms. To understand what that means, imagine a you're in a region that's entirely flat except for a small, bowl-shaped valley. If you're in the valley, you have to expend energy in order to get out of the valley. If you don't have enough energy to climb out of the valley, you're stuck-- "bound" to the valley. Another way of thinking about this is that, if you're standing in the valley, you have less energy than if you're standing in the flat plain. When two atoms are "attached" to each other in a molecule, what's really happening is that the force they exert on one-another creates a sort of potential energy "valley," whereas two free atoms are in a potential energy state more akin to standing in the flat region outside of the valley.

So what does it mean for a molecule to have a "single bound state?" In order to understand the behaviour of small objects, like atoms, molecules, electrons, etc. we had to discover a whole new set of physicals laws, which we call quantum mechanics. The problem with quantum mechanics is, well, it's weird. One of the implications of quantum mechanics is that, if two atoms are bound in a molecule, then they can only occupy certain energy levels-- we say that the energy levels are "quantized," hence "quantum mechanics." Think back to the valley for a minute. You could stand at the very bottom of the valley, or half-way up the valley, or two-thirds of the way up, or one-quarter, or any other place you like. With any given height up the valley, there is a corresponding potential energy level. In other words, the laws of physics do not restrict you to one or another given energy level in the valley. However, if the valley were like a molecule, you could only occupy certain specific energy levels. You could, say, be at the very bottom, or half way up, or two-thirds of the way up, but you could not be at any other altitude. When you're standing at one of the permitted altitudes, you could be said to be in one of the given "bound states" of the valley. Likewise, the atoms in the molecule can only exist in certain bound states. What these states are depends on the kind of molecules we're considering. For our paper, we consider a molecule whose parameters are such that there is only one bound state. If we go back to the example of the valley, that would mean that we can only stand at the very bottom of the valley-- no other altitude is permitted. One more thing that I may as well mention now is that the title of the paper mentions that we're considering a "weakly bound" molecule. This is akin to a very shallow valley. The implications of weak binding will be made more clear later on, so I'll leave it for now.

The other important thing mentioned in the above excerpt is the idea of "quantum tunneling." Purge your mind of the valley, for now I'm going to ask you to imagine you're riding a bike toward a hill. I'm also going to ask you to imagine, for the sake of argument, that once you start climbing the hill you stop pedalling you bike. If you were going fast enough before you started climbing, then you'll have enough kinetic energy to coast over the top of the hill and reach the other side. If not, you'll come to a stop before the crest of the hill and begin rolling back down. This makes sense, so of course quantum mechanics has to find some way screw it up. The way it does this is through the phenomenon of quantum tunneling (since my paper was published in an American journal, I will continue to spell it as "tunneling," and not "tunnelling").

What I'm about to tell you is strange, but since I'll have to discuss it eventually, and since it does have bearing on the explanation of quantum tunneling, I figure I may as well get it out of the way now. Do you remember in science class when you were taught that light behaves as a wave? Do you also remember hearing somewhere or reading somewhere that light is composed of particles called photons? Did you ever step back and wonder why scientists just can't seem to make up their bloody minds on the issue? Is light a wave or a series of particles? It must be one or the other, it can't be both. Well, according to quantum mechanics, light is both a wave and a series of particles. . . and so is everything else! Electrons, protons, atoms, molecules, your computer, you yourself. . . all waves. "But waves of what?," you might ask. Probability. Basically, the wave part of a given object, be it a photon, electron, atom, or molecule, determines the probability of observing that object at a given place (it also gives the probability of the object having a given momentum, but that's a whole other story). I'm oversimplifying a bit, but at any position where there's a crest in the wave, the probability of observing a particle at that position is high; wherever there's a trough, the probability is low.

This complicates the study of physics at the microscopic level quite a bit. Since the days of Newton, physics has always used particles to understand the laws of motion, with the implicit assumption that we can always take a measurement or make an observation and determine where the particle is at any given time. Additionally, if we know exactly where a particle is, what its speed and direction of motion is, and all of the forces acting on it are, it was assumed that the laws of physics could be used to predict its position and velocity at any time, past, present, or future. It was assumed, in other words, that the laws of physics act in a deterministic way. Quantum mechanics, however, says that, if we think in terms of particles, the laws of physics must probabilistic. But this means that we cannot use physical laws to make any solid predictions about the behaviour of a given object, rendering those physical laws next to useless. However, it turns out that if we think instead in terms the probability waves mentioned earlier, we have a lot more luck. Unlike particles, probability waves do behave deterministically. Understanding just how these waves behave allows physicists to make some very interesting, very counter-intuitive predictions.

In the macroscopic world that we all live in, this doesn't really amount to much. Even though there is a probability wave associated with each of us, the probability of any of us being exactly where we are is 100%. At the microscopic level, however, this becomes much more pronounced. One example of how much more pronounced it is quantum tunneling. Recall the proverbial hill I discussed earlier. The microscopic equivalent to the hill is something called a "potential barrier." Imagine some microscopic particle approaching a potential barrier with some given kinetic energy. If it behaved the same way as the bike climbing the hill, then the particle would definitely pass if it had high enough kinetic energy, and would definitely not pass if it didn't. But, you'll recall, nothing is "definite" as far as particles are concerned, and in order to make predictions we have to think in terms of the wave, or "wave function" in physicist parlance, associated with the particle. It turns out that, no matter what the energy of the incoming particle, a chunk of the wave will always manage to travel past the barrier. What this means is that, no matter what the energy of the incoming particle, there is some probability that the particle will be observed on the other side of the barrier. This is like the bicycle appearing on the other side of the hill even though it was only going fast enough to make it half way up-- the only way this could happen is if the bicycle travelled through a tunnel in the hill. Hence, "quantum tunneling." Make no mistake, though, the particle didn't "dig" its way through the potential barrier. Rather, the laws of quantum mechanics allowed the particle to travel through the barrier as though it were not there at all.

If we're only considering a single particle incident upon a given barrier, then it's relatively easy to calculate the wave function and thus find the probability of tunneling. However, when we start to consider more complex objects like, say, a diatomic homonuclear molecule, things get very ugly. Instead of one particle, we now have to consider two, which means we have to consider the object as having size and being spread out in space. Moreover, these two particle are being affected not only by the potential barrier but by the force attracting them to each other. This attractive force creates a "potential well"-- the microscopic equivalent to the metaphorical valley-- which must be taken into account as well. Recall also that the molecule can exist in any one of a number of bound or unbound states. As a result the molecule can undergo changes of state upon interacting with the potential barrier. These factors complicate things so much that the tunneling of molecules wasn't seriously investigated until 1994. Quantum tunneling of single particles, on the other hand, has been investigated since the 1920's.

From the next part of the abstract:

In the first study, we investigate the tunneling of a molecule using a time-dependent formulation. The molecular wave function is modeled as a Gaussian wave packet, and its propagation is calculated numerically using Crank-Nicholson integration.

(Our paper is actually a combination of two different studies. We had initially intended to publish two papers, but due to various circumstances we decided to publish both studies in a single paper.)

In quantum mechanics, you can look at things in either a "time-independent" way or a "time-dependent" way. For the purposes of describing the results in the paper, the difference between the two formulations is as outlined as follows.

In studies of quantum tunneling, we're usually interested in calculating the probability that a given object will be observed ahead of the barrier-- "probability of tunneling"-- or behind the barrier-- "probability of reflection". The time-independent formulation is very useful for calculating these probabilities, but it's not useful for describing what happens to the molecule as it's tunneling through the barrier. In order to study this, the so-called "tunneling dynamics," you need to use a "time-dependent" formulation. The problem is that this is quite a bit harder to do than using a time-independent formulation. For that reason, every study (that we're aware of) in molecular tunneling that came before this paper used a time-independent formulation. In other words, to my and my co-authors' knowledge, this paper is the first to use a time-dependent formulation to investigate the tunneling of molecules, making me and my co-authors the world's foremost experts in time-dependent molecular tunneling!

What's that, Alexandre Bilodeau? You're the first Canadian to win gold at the Winter Olympics on home soil? Big whoop.

Anyway. With a time-dependent formulation, we basically created a computer simulation of the molecule's wave function and calculated how the wave function behaves as it interacts with a potential barrier. That, in a nutshell, is what all that talk about "Gaussian wave packets" and "Crank-Nicholson integration" is referring to. It was a very difficult calculation. Like all previous work done at UNBC on molecular tunneling, we had to use the university's supercomputer in order to run the simulations. So what do we have to show for it?

We found that the molecule could take one of multiple paths once it begins to interact with the barrier. For one, it could reflect. Basically, the molecule hits the barrier, temporarily breaks apart (i.e. transitions to an unbound state), recombines, and bounces back from the barrier. This isn't really a surprising result. But a couple of the other paths it could take are surprising.

From the abstract:

It is found that a molecule may transition between the bound state and an unbound state numerous times during the process of reflection from or transmission past the barrier.

This means that, if the molecule follows a path such that it does tunnel through the barrier, it will break apart and recombine some number of times before it passes the barrier. The reason we think this happens is summarized, in highly simplified fashion, as follows. We chose to use a very thin potential barrier called a delta barrier. In time-independent studies, this barrier provided results that captured many of the features of tunneling when more realistic barriers were used. We think that when the molecule hits the delta barrier, there's a chance that one of the molecules passes the barrier, but the other is reflected by it, and hence the molecule breaks up. However, there is still an attractive force drawing the molecules toward each other, so the atom that passed the barrier may be drawn back toward the atom that remained behind the barrier and eventually recombine with it.

This leads into another surprising result, one that is not considered in time-independent studies:

It is also found that, in addition to reflecting and transmitting, the molecule may also temporarily straddle the potential barrier in an unbound state.

In other words, the molecule, upon contacting the barrier, stays near the barrier for a relatively long time. This is what happens when the scenario described in the last paragraph occurs repeatedly, only without the molecule recombining and entering into a bound state. Straddling, as we called it, does not occur for a molecule in the bound state. In order for a molecule to break up, it needs energy. This energy comes from the initial kinetic energy of the molecule. Straddling occurs when the energy needed to break up the molecule is nearly the same as the kinetic energy of the molecule, so that when the molecule breaks up, the atoms don't have very much kinetic energy left. Again, this is a bit of an oversimplification, but it captures the main physical features of what's going on.

In the second study, we consider the case of a molecule incident in the bound state upon a step potential with energy less than the step. We show that in the limit where the binding energy e0 approaches zero and the step potential V0 goes to infinity, the molecule cannot remain in a bound state if the center of mass gets closer to the step than an arbitrarily large distance x0 which increases as the magnitude of e0 decreases, as V0 increases, or both. We also show that, for e0→0- and V0→∞, if the molecule is incident in the bound state, it is reflected in the bound state with probability equal to unity, when the center of mass reaches the reflection distance x0. We verify that the unbound states exhibit the expected physical behavior. We discuss some surprising results.

The second study, unlike the first, was entirely analytical, i.e. pen and paper mathematics, with no computers needed. What we considered was the case of a molecule that was extremely weakly bound incident upon a "hard wall" potential barrier, that is a potential barrier that was very long and very high. The binding energy is the term e0 referred to above; the term V0 refers to the energy "height" of the potential barrier. We considered this case, initially, as a simple test of our calculations. It turned out that this "simple" case was actually very hard, and yielded very counter intuitive results, as I'll explain below.

Intuitively, what we expected to happen for the weakly bound molecule to come close to the barrier and break up, with the atoms reflected away from the wall. What we found instead is that there is a distance, x0, from the wall within which the molecule cannot remain in the bound state. The distance x0 grows larger the more weakly bound the molecule is. Furthermore, we found that the probability of the molecule being reflected in the bound state approaches 100% in the case of extremely weak binding and extremely large potential barrier height. Taken together, this means that a weakly bound molecule, coming towards the hard wall potential barrier from a very long ways away, comes to a within a distance x0 from the barrier, and is then reflected away from the wall in the bound state. To get a bit of an idea of how weird this is, imagine throwing a brittle champagne at a brick wall. You'd expect it to hit the wall and shatter, with shards of glass boucing back. If the glass behaved like a weakly bound molecule, what would happen instead is that the glass comes within 50 feet of the wall and bounces back, intact. A champagne glass is more than a little bit different from a diatomic, homonuclear molecule, I know, but you get the idea.

Connections between our results and investigations done in cold atoms, excitons, Cooper pairs, and Rydberg atoms are discussed.

Apart from the sheer difficulty of the calculations, another problem with the study of molecular tunneling is in connecting it to real world applications. Direct experimental applications don't yet exist. However, connections can be drawn to many real world systems. Rydberg atoms, for instance, can be modelled pair of weakly bound particles, i.e. a very high energy electon and an atomic nucleus + lower energy electons. Rydberg atoms can also combine to form very weakly bound molecules. Collisions of Rydberg atoms with the surfaces of certain materials has been investigated. This scenario is akin to a weakly bound molecule incident upon a hard wall.

The tunneling of other composite particle objects, like excitons and Cooper pairs, can also be studied and are a subject of research interest. Cooper pairs are basically bound pairs of electrons which exist inside superconductors, and are indeed what make supercondutivity possible. Excitons are weird things that form inside of semiconductors and other materials. Basically, when an electron in such a material becomes excited, i.e. gains energy (by means of a photon collision, for example), it leaves an "electron hole," or absence, in whatever state it used to be it. This "hole," weirdly enough, behaves like another particle, and what's more, it can become bound the excited electron, forming an electon-hole "molecule" known as an exciton.

So, there you have it. I've summarized my crowning acheivement as a physicist, and with that out of the way, I'll get back to work on what really matters-- Sailor Moon: The Movie!

If THIS doesn't convince Hollywood that I'm the man to write Sailor Moon. . .

Since August, I've been working on submitting a manuscript to the scientific journal Physical Review A. The work presented therein is an extension of my master's thesis work. This morning I received notification that the manuscript has been accepted for publication. There are still a few steps to go through, and I don't know yet when it'll be published. I'll keep you guys updated. Maybe in a future post, I can give the title, author list, abstract and a layman's summary of the results. Until then, it's time to celebrate.

Iliad 9/11

While attending the University of Victoria, I used to send out satirical essays -- well, essays may be too grand a word-- to my friends and family via e-mail (this was from 2003 to 2005, the days before blogging became widespread). While searching through my old e-mails, I came across one of those essays, entitled "Iliad 9/11." Basically, the essay used elements of Greek mythology, particularly Homer's Iliad, to satirize the 2004 US presidential election. So, because I was sick of posting videos, I thought I'd re-post the essay here, unedited.

Hi guys. I thought you might find this bit of news interesting, in light of the upcoming presidential elections.

A parchement was recently discovered by Turkish archaeologists which dates back to the 6th century B.C., the time of the legendary war between Greece and Troy. This parchment sheds new light on what was until now thought to be a settled matter of history.

The document, written in Greek, reveals that after the sacking of Troy, Greek warriors did not find Helen, wife of Paris, nor did they find any evidence that she had ever been in Troy. Moreover, it turns out that the Greek diplomats who were charged with searching for Helen did not find any evidence that she was in Troy at all. This means that the whole basis of the Trojan War was a lie!

It gets better. After the war, which raged for ten years and resulted in countless casualties on both the Greek and Trojan sides, a massive quarrel raged between Agamemnon, King of the Greeks, and Achilles, demigod and veteran of the Trojan War. Achilles charged Agamemnon with going to war on false pretenses, and called the Trojan War "The Wrong War, in the Wrong Place, at the Wrong Time." He also pointed out that, contrary to the official reports made by kings Agamemnon and Menelaus, there was no connection between King Priam, leader of the Trojans, and the kidnapping of Helen. Finally, he chargeed Agaemnon with squandering an perfect oppotunity to capture Aeneas, instead letting him flee, further adding that Aeneas could have travelled as far as Rome or Carthage.

Agamemnon contended that the war was in fact justified. While Greek diplomats did not find evidence of Helen's presence, he points out that king Priam did not allow diplomats access to his private palaces. He then stressed that he was guided by a 'higher power', ie Zeus, to fight against the Trojans, and that the Trojan people are better of now that the 'evildoer' Priam has been removed from power. He ends by questioning Achilles' war record: He has won many commendations for injury in the field, but medical records suggest that his only injury was to his heel!

Achilles, not impressed by Agamemnon's arguments, appealed to the Greeks to proclaim him as their new King. He accepted Ulysses, the handsome, well-rounded, down-to-earth country boy from Ithaca, to be his vice-king, despite his inexperience in politics (Menelaus claims that he never met Ulysses until the very debate chronicled here). He claimed to have a plan to get Greece out of Troy, as well as tackle other Greek political issues. He took a liberal stance on same-species marriages.

Agamemnon and Menelaus also appealed to the Greeks. He urged Greece to stay the course in Troy. He also stressed his belief that marriage is strictly defined as being between a Man and a God. (Women weren't considered 'people' back then. They were considered to be WMD's. Hahahahaha...). He accuses Achilles and Ulysses of being flip-floppers (First Achilles is out of the war, then he's in; First Ulysses tries to avoid the draft, then he urges warriors to keep fighting, then he tries to end the war he supposedly supported). Finally, he sicked Nestor, the aged warrior and staunch supporter of Agamemnon, onto Achilles and Ulysses. Nestors claims were quite exaggerated: "Achilles would wait for approval from Gaul before attacking another nation!", "He would make sure that the Greek army was reduced to fighting with spitballs!"

When Achilles questioned his claim, stating that he couldn't possibly believe that Achilles would reduce the Greek army to fighting with spitballs, Nestor reacted harshly: "I wish this was the age when I could challenge a man to a duel!" When Achilles replied that 6th century B.C. was, in fact, such an age, Nestor lost his nerve and struck Achilles in his heel, killing him. Ulysses, enraged, strung his bow amd, with the help of his son Telemachus, slayed Nestor, Agamemnon, Menelaus, and all the suitors of his wife, Penelope (heir to the Ithacan ketchup fortune). Ulysses then proclaimed himself King of the Greeks.

Thus democracy was born in Greece!

Historians are split on whether this document is indeed accurate, with 50% in favour of the authenticity of the document, and 50% claiming it is a hoax.

What do you think? Send in your vote to guy_on_bus@hotmail.com. Yes if it is authentic, no if it is not. Votes must be entered by November 2nd.




Mmmmmm....that's good satire!

Jeremy.

So. . . yay relevance?

My Sunday Morning

After a fairly late night of work, I went to bed. I was hoping to sleep in this Sunday morning, but at about six-thirty in the morning, I felt the slight pangs of a headache. After some brief effort to sleep through it, I eventually decided to get up. By eight o'clock, I was off to town.

I realized that this would be the perfect opportunity for a drive. I've frequently enjoyed travelling the back roads of Prince George. The peace and solitude of the countryside helped me clear my mind. I had already travelled north and east of Prince George far too often, so I decided to venture where I had never gine before-- south, down highway 97 toward Quesnel.

I found myself travelling down Red Rock Road West, some twenty to thirty kilometers south of Prince George. The nieghborhood of Red Rock consisted of a long gravel road, with a few houses and, to my surprise, a closed-down elementary school dotted along its sides. The road promised some intriguing exploration, but unfortunately my journey was to be cut short.

I am one prone to travel down side roads. When I saw a red pick up truck pull out of a junction on my right, I followed my foolish exploratory instincts and turned in. Alas, within fifty meters I saw the sign indicating a dead-end, along with a looped arrow which, to me, indicated a turn-around up ahead. Following the road over a small crest I found not a turn-around but a ranch. Dissapointed, and just a little frustrated, I turned the car around and headed back out, only to find the red pick-up barrelling along toward me. Ah, I thought, the man of the manor! He must have mistaken my simple and admittedly rather childish excursion as a visit of greater portent. A trivial, if embarrassing, misunderstanding.

And yet, a dread fell upon me at the thought this man, who knew of me through only the most awkward of contexts, being forced by his own routine to follow me out of Red Rock and into Prince George. I thus decided to turn to the right and continue further down the road, certain that the man in the red truck would break left toward town.

Yet, he did not turn left, but instead followed me to the right. My hands, in fear, clasped tighter to the wheel, and an anxious warmth flushed upward over my face. I wondered, did he sense in my confused detour not merely purpose, but malice? My thoughts raced, first to denial-- surely, he did not think me some burglar, scoping his house like a common vagrant? Yet even a surplus of experience, forged by the fires of common sense into a veritable blade of inference capable of piercing the heavist curtains of doubt, cannot truly hope to penetrate that mysterious force which shrouds the thoughts of men. And when confronted with such an overwhelming incomprehensible vastness, ones own thoughts, like the shodow's of Plato's Cavern, take on a life all their own. My heart raced as the pick-up followed ever closer, my eyes darting rapidly between the road ahead and the persuer behind. My thoughts, like the snowflakes of a winter's storm which first dart about in the wind before crystallizing into the frigid white terrain, converged into a single idea, a single word: escape.

On my left, as though summoned by my fears, another road appeared. Without hesitation, I bent left. The pick-up followed. There could be no doubt now. He was following me. And yet even as I resigned myself to the terrible reality of this misunderstanding I saw the pick-up dart to the right, toward the Red Rock Volunteer Fire Brigade headquarters. And then, a further relief: the Highway! I turned north onto the highway and accelerated; though relieved at the pick-up's departure, I soon noticed its driver deliberating with a pair of uniformed men, no doubt members of the fire brigade. In more rational times, the scene would have suggested the jovial camaraderie of old friends, perhaps even equals, brothers in that fellowship of volunteer fire brigadiers. Yet my thoughts, still trapped in Hollows of Plato, continued to rage on.

"That's the one!" said, no doubt, the pick up driver. "I have his license plate number! Alert the dispatchers! Rally the cruisers! We must not allow him elusion!"

And at that moment, indeed, in my sights appeared the form of a partol car, its side branded by the words "Red Rock Community Patrol," its sparkling electric lights of crimson and azure luminous even in the brightness of this fateful sabbath morn. I pulled to the side, and yet even as the police officer emerged from his vehicle, eliminating all doubt of his intended target, I was overcome not by fear but relief. I had tired of the chase. Now, at the very least, I was allowed an audience for my account of the preceding events, and with it, the chance for redemption. I rolled down my window.

"Sir, were you aware that this is a construction zone?"

I was not. I had no way of knowing that I'd pulled out of Red Rock into a construction zone. But, nonetheless, I was speeding, and I got a ticket for it. The police officer was pretty decent about my fine. He could have been much crueller than he was.

This was the first time I've ever gotten a speeding ticket. My spotless record, ruined!

By the way, the events described above unfolded in the span of about a minute and a half. Still, this story, in all its purple glory, has to be better than Star Trek.

My Story, Part II

I'm in lab. Again. Same as before.

To pass the time this time around, I decided to add another incomplete exceprt for my short story, "Achilles." This time, you'll actually figure out part of what the title means. Enjoy!

Megan had nearly forgotten about Peter's party. Though good friends since high school, they had not seen each other very often those last few months. Megan's tendon was healing, and Peters was visiting universities around the country. Her invitation to the party was almost accidental. She crossed paths with Peter at the shopping mall near his place.

"Peter!" she said.

He stopped in front of a t-shirt logo shop and turned around. Megan limped toward him.

"Hey, Megan," he said.

They usually hugged when greeting, but this time he didn't move, so she hugged him. They talked about the universities that Peter had visited. Megan thought it would be impolite to talk about her heel, and she didn't, apart from a brief mention about coming to the mall to try out her "sea legs." This had nothing to do with why she was really there-- or rather, it was as good an excuse as any. It was conversation at any event, even if it didn't compare to the beaches of Point Grey.

"Yo, Peter!" said someone else.

"Oh, Jim!" Peter said.

Jim emerged from behind Megan, standing at their side.

"Jim, this is my friend, Megan."

"Hi," she said.

"Hi. Jim." he said. They shook hands, and after some small talk, he then asked, "So, you looking forward to the party?"

And that's how she was invited. This was thursday morning. The party was friday night. A couple of hours after sunset, the guests arrived bearing gifts: nachos, vegetable platters with dip, fried wanton, some cases of beer. Megan had only remembered the party early that evening, just before she was about to go to sleep at her friend Mel's apartment. By the time she arrived at Peter's houce, most of the guests had already come. Still, there was enough room in the driveway for her to park her car. She knocked on the door once, and then again when Peter didn't answer. Finally, he opened the door.

"Megan!" he said. He was clearly surprised to see her.

"Hi," she said.

"Come on in!"

She handed him a shrimp cocktail on her way in through the door.

"Hope no-one's allergic," she said.

"Wow, thank you!" he said, admiring the platter.

She was pleased. She had stopped at a grocery market to buy the platter, even though she was already late. It wouldn't have been worth it if he didn't like it. She liked feeling like she still knew him after all. He set the platter on the kitchen table with all the other snacks the guests had brought. None of the guests were downstairs, and loud noises eminated from the floor above.

"We're just upstairs, watching the game," Peter said as Megan untied her shoes. "I'll see you up there, unless you need a hand?"

"I'm fine."

Peter walked up the stairs. Megan slipped her right shoe off first, careful not to bend her foot upward the way she always did when she took her shoes off before the accident. As she slipped off the other shoe, she heard Peter upstairs.

"Hey guys, my friend Megan is. . ."

His voice, and the sound of the TV, faded. Peter must have closed the door, she thought. Why would he do that? She made her way carefully up the stairs and through the door to the media room.

"Megan!"

"Hi--!"

"Megan, how are--?"

"Come on in--"

"Sit down--"

"Have a seat--"

"--how are you--?"

"Nice to meet you!"

Peter's friends, about ten in total, greeted her in unison, the moment she entered. They sat on a half-ring of sofas surrounding the TV, watching a hockey game. The couches were packed, save for a big, conspicuous gap between Peter and Jim from the mall.

"Hi everyone," she said.

"Have a seat!" Jim said, pointing to the empty spot on the couch. "We made room."

She moved to her seat quickly, trying not to block anyone's view of the TV. The room was dark, and she nearly tripped over a guest's leg.

"Oh no! Are you okay? I'm sorry!" the guest said.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine."

She say down.

"You like hockey?" Jim asked.

"Enough, I guess," she said.

"Canucks verses Oilers. Third period, score's--AWW!"

"AWW!" the others said.

"Reeeee-jected," Peter said.

"Aw shit!" JIm said. "So close. So close."

"How the hell does he get away with this all of a sudden?" another guest, a girl, said.

"What?"

"Not sucking, that's what!" the girl said.

"He doesn't suck," someone else said.

"He so sucks!"

"He's not the best."

"They've had him all season, he hasn't done shit all."

"Well, he did do shit all th-- OH!"

"OOHH!" they all said.

Megan's spot wasn't as big as it looked, and she was uncomfortaable between Jim and Peter. She actually didn't enjoy hockey at all. It was boring to her, and she started to wonder if she should have just crashed at Mel's place after all. It was another one of those times when she went without sleep for days, and the fatigue was starting to hit her. The room seemed to spin a little as the game wore on, and it was harder for her to keep her eyes open and focused.

The light came on suddenly. The game was over. Megan lifted her head from the couch. Everyone was standing.

"Don't get up, Megan!" Peter said.

He stood at the entranceway of the media room.

"Where are you going?" Megan asked.

"We're playing werewolf downstairs," he said. "But don't get up. SOme of the guys are gonna stay up here and play Halo."

Jim and the girl were connecting a game console to the TV.

"Do you play Halo, Megan?" Jim asked.

Megan didn't like how curious Jim was. She turn to the door, but Peter was already gone. The girl placed a contoller in Megan's ahnd, and the five other guests who stayed upstairs all took seats on the couch as the game began.

"Like Halo?" Jim asked again.

"Never played it," she said.

"You've never played Halo deathmatch?" the girl said. "You're missing out!"

"I'm more of a Metal Gear person myself," Megan said. "So how do I start?"

The girl took Megan's controller, pressed a few buttons, and handed it back to Megan.

"Just use the d-pad to type in your name," the girl said. "Whatever you want."

After a momeent of thought, and longer fiddling with the buttons, she entered the name of her player: Achilles. No-one asked whether this had anything to do with her foot. Within that very minute, the game began. Achilles and his partner, thrilla_in_vanilla-- who together made up team O'Doyle-- stood side by side on a beach near an otherworldly ocean. Their enemies, the Lesbian Seagulls, lay hidden in the wastes beyond. Guns in hand, they moved forward along the beach, the thrilla in long strides and impossible leaps, Achilles more cautiously. When thrilla was well ahead, he begun to shine a bright orange. He was under attack. He tried to dodge, but was down quickly.

"Leeessssbian Seagullllllll!" cried their enemies. They would be coming for Achilles next.

Achilles strode to a rock formation and-- after Megan asked which button made her guy crouch-- hid behind it. She waited, long enough for the trilla to return.

"Megan, where are you?" the girl who handed her the contoller asked.

"You're on my team, right?"

"Of course I am."

Megan, who briefly considered pointing out that the Lesbian Seagulls were both guys, instead simply mentioned that she couldn't ay anything that would compromise her to her enemies, who were within earshot.

"Well, I need some fucking help," the girl said.

Achilles rose and marched toward the plastered-on sun to the west(she assumed) following the faint sound of gunfire. Then, after much taunting between the players, he appeared. He was distant atff first, and Achilles could not tell if he even was a seagull, let alone lesbian. Quickly, and while still distant, the figure opened fire, hitting Achilles three times with a bath of orange glow. There was a rapid beeping sound that had to be Achilles' warning system. In a panic, he ducked-- this act, while accidental, helped him evade another stream of deadly energy from the opponent's gun. He circled while still crouched, searching for his enemy, eventually spotting the villain on a quick, straight approach. Megan could now clearly read his floating nametag, King_Dubya. She pressed a button, and before she was even sure the gun had fired, the king was slain.

"Aww!" one of the guys cried.

"O'Doyle Rules!" the girl said.

"Nice shot, Megan!" Jim said. It was the first time he had commented on anyone's markmanship that evening.

"Come on Megan, say it!" the girl said.

"O'Doyle Rules!"

Still unsure of how she had done what she had done, Megan vowed nonetheless that Achilles would vanquish the other foe on team Lesbian Segull-- Jim. Even if this wasn't his nametag, she knew by elimination that he must be the only other player in the game.

Unfortunately, killing Jim proved difficult. He was a talented player, and despite her best efforts, he always managed to escape Achille's clutches. The game went on for more than an hour, and Megan's joy og glory had faded. The hour was not without its conquests-- Achilles had slain the king three more times, to the cheers of her compatriots-- but those conquests were hollow next to the greater prize. The combat was exhausting, and Megan, by the shaking of her hands and the shortness of her nerves, could feel hunger coming on. But she could not yield.

Peter came upstairs to see how she was doing.

"Fuck me!" Megan said, throwing the contoller onto her lapjust a Peter entered.

"Jesus, chill out!" he team-mate said.

"Sorry..." said Megan.

"Hey Megan," Peter said. "You sound pissed."

Megan sighed.

"Yeah, I'm just kickin' everyone's ass is all," Jim said. "You'd be pissed too if you had to go up against someone this talented."

"You, talented?" Peter said.

"Hells yeah," Jim said.

"How you doin', Meg?" Peter said.

"She's kickin' ass too!" Jim said, overjoyed.

Megan lenaed her head back briefly, eyes closed. She didn't seem pleased with Jim's compliment.

"Are you hungry?" Peter asked of Megan.

"A little, but I can wait," she said. "How's the shrimp?"

"Good," he said. "We're all eating up down there. You should join us. It's no problem if she leaves, right?"

"No, we're just between games," Jim said.

"In a few minutes," Meagn said. "I still gotta kick Jim's Lesbian Seagull ass here."

"Really?" Peter said. "Okay, uh... Can I borrow Jim for a minute?"

Jim looked up.

"What is it?"

Jim stood up and followed Peter into an adjacent room, while the others waited for him to return. Their conversation was inaudible at first, but Megan, facing away from the two on the couch, was gradually able to hear.

"Look, I have..."

"I know you have, man."

"I have been...I've been trying all night."

"Why say that?"

"What?"

"That you're kicking ass?"

"'Cause I am!"

"Jesus."

"It's not like her hands are hurt, man."

"Jim--"

"Besides, she's kicking ass too. I meant that. I mean, for a beginner."

"But you know how competitive she is, right? Right?"

"Of course I do. So what?"

"Look, she won't tell this to anyone, but... look, I really think she needs to get some rest."

The conversation was inaudible from that point.

My Story

Naomi said:

Blog more you swine!

So I will.

I haven't posted in a while, partly because Christmas, partly because I'm still a little embarrassed about LOLWorf, and partly because I've spent the last month and a half roughly writing a short story. So, now that I'm getting back into the groove of school, I thought I'd put my time to its most productive possible use: showing you an excerpt of said short story.

Naomi, my mom, and Josh Sandu have all seen early drafts of the story. However, the excerpt below is something totally new, so hopefully they'll enjoy it as much as you will!

. . . :|

Just read it. And ignore the fact that one of the characters is named Josh. It means nothing.


Excerpt from "Achilles":

Josh. She met him at Pandora's Box a month before. It was a June the 16th party(the owner was of Irish descent, and considered himself a literature aficionado) but she didn't know this. She just knew that it was a party. A few people dressed in old black suits and dresses, and a couple of people went up onto the bar's small front stage, carrying thick tattered tomes with ugly covers from which they recited lines like "loth to irk in Horne's hall hat holding the seeker stood." But like Megan, most were there just to be there, for fun, and would have been there no matter whose day it was.

But Josh?

"Vain patience to heap and hoard," he said. "Time would surely scatter all. A hoard heaped by the roadside plundered passed-- uh, passing on. Sorry. Uh, their eyes knew years-- knew the years wandering and patient knew the dishonours of the flesh."

He would glance up from his book every moment or so, trying to catch brief sight of the tall limping girl at the bar.

"Who has not? Stephen said. Whaddaya mean? Deasy asked. He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell sideways open uncertainty-- uh, uncertainly. Fuck. Uh. . ."

Few noticed him fumble, and those who did didn't care to react.

"Is the old isdom-- uh, wisdom. . . Is this old wisdom? He want to hear from me." And with dramatic pause, he came to the part he had been waiting to speak.

"History," Josh said, "is a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake."

He finished his set quickly and unceremoniously, stepping down and going toward the bar and its limping girl, Megan.

"The rusty boot," he said.

Megan turned to Josh, who was looking at her foot.

"What?" she said.

"I said, the rusty boot. It's okay. Don't worry about it."

"Were you just up there?"

"Yeah. I'm Josh."

"Megan."

She shook his hand. Her friends had left her sitting at the bar, and though wary, she welcomed his company.

"I never caught what everyone was reading," Megan said.

"This," Josh said, holding up his book. "Ulysses. Best book ever written. It all takes place on the sixteenth of June, so every year people get together to celebrate it."

"Do you go to university?"

"Yeah."

"English major?"

"No. Business."

They continued to talk. No-one bothered to go offstage after Josh's recital, and even those in costume had partly disrobed, abandoning the act. Megan had eaten earlier that evening, but she was getting hungry again, so the two ordered meals and took a seat at a nearby table.

"So you're a runner?" Josh said.

"Yeah. Well, track and field in general."

"My brother was into sports. Competing, I mean. I hope you don't mind me asking , but was it a sports injury that gave you than limp?"

"Oh, this? No. Well, not really. It was a javelin, actually. I was at a practice, this was in spring, and a javelin flew right into my heel. It severed the tendon, and I had to get surgery to fix it."

"So it was a sports injury."

"No. If someone from the other team threw it, it would be a sports injury. This was just bad luck."

"Look, Megan, you're at a Bloomsday party. This is the wrong place to be arguing semantics," he said with a chuckle.

Their food arrived at the table. Megan ordered fried, and Josh ordered vegetarian lasagna. They were finished quickly, and just as quickly ordered drinks to wash the taste out of their mouths. They talked about insignificant things, long enough for Megan's friends to return and wish her goodnight, and for Josh's friends to return and join the two. During her conversation about being a runner, she was reminded of something she thought would be a good story. She had been running since before she could remember. Her mother had told her that when she, Megan, was little, she had no fear of going anywhere on those little legs, which her mother called Megan's "Arnold Schwartzenegger Legs." That was the story. She wanted to tell it to Josh, but didn't. She didn't tell it anyone, partly because she didn't remember until the wrong moments, but also because she never felt it appropriate to do so. As the night wore on and he talked with his friends, she felt a dull sort of regret over not telling him, and waited for another chance.

"You know it was based of a Greek legend, right?" Josh said. "The Odyssey, right? But where's the odyssey here? Where's the adventure? Like, what I mean is, you know, every adventure, every adventure was exotic, every adventure, like, it was a new land with something wondrous, something you've never seen. Like magic, gods, whirlpools, you know, monsters. Right? But here's this book with a guy buying a fucking. . . bar of soap, right?"

Josh laughed at his own words. His friend joined him.

"So where's the adventure? he said, and then with a deep, sudden seriousness in his voice, "Style. Style! That's the key. You can't have adventure in Dublin, I mean that's why he left!You can;t do it. You have to internalize the adventure. That's what it's all about. Stream of consciousness, the adventure within. The sexual adventure, man, everything. And he always does it in a different way, a new island. That's what the adventure really was, you know, that's all you could have."

"Tell that to Hemingway," one of his friends said, to which everyone chuckled.

Josh had an angular face which he always wore with a subtle half-smirk. As the night went on, Megan found his smirk more and more appealing, and when the bar fianlly closed she still wanted to be with him. So, after all of Josh's friends said their goodbyes, she was still beside him, limping along as he walked out the door.

"Well, Megan," Josh said once they were both outside, "it was a pleasure."

"You're not saying goodbye, are you? Leaving me all alone on cold Pandora avenue?"

He looked toward a streetsign.

"So that's why they named it Pandora's Box. I never put that together."

She laughed at Josh, and they both went along the sidewalk, south from Pandora Avenue toward the ocean but still far enough from it not to see it. He noticed Megan's limp again.

"Javelin, huh?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah." he said.

"Should you be walking?"

"Hasn't hurt me so far."

"Well, your limp begs to differ."

"It was a lot worse before," she said. "Don't worry, I'm a big girl."

Josh heart beat a little faster after hearing that. He pretended not to know why.

"You know, I can take you home, if you really are worried about being alone. You should see my ride. It's the lasted, imported, German bus pass."

Megan chuckled at that. Josh was pleased.

"But seriously," he said. "Just say the word."

"No. I'm not going home. Not yet."

"Why not?"

She realized she missed another opportunity to tell the Arnold Schwartzenegger Legs story again. It didn't worry her as much this time. She would find her opportunity. She start with that and maybe begin a whole list of stories with a running theme, like how she ran circles around the bored kids forced to attend her mother funeral when she was six years old, or how is was more of the same when her father remarried two years later, and maybe then she'd tell him about the ruckus she raised in the halls of Royal Jubilee while her sister, Helen, was being born.

"I don't live on my own," she said. "My dad lives with me, and he's been kind of unbearable recently."

Maybe its not a genetic thing, she thought, about the running. After all, Helen's mother had no relation to Megan whatsoever, and she ran all the way to Ontario, with Helen right behind her.

"He's going, I mean, we're both going through a rough time right now. My stepmon left him a couple of months ago with my half-sister. Took her to, uh, London. Yeah, London, Ontario. I always wanna say Paris, but it's London."

Josh slowly came to a halt. Megan didn't really notice this as she was talking.

"He's sick too. Diabetic. He's been diabetic since before I was born, but it's gotten worse. he's just. . . well, anyway."

She finally notice that she wasn;t limping anymore.

"End of the line," Josh said, pointing to the apratment building nearby.

"You live here?" Megan said. "That's convinient."

"Well, I guess I'll just. . ." he paused long enough so as not to give himself away. "Do you want to come in?"

It had been since the night before, when she walked out on her father engulfed in one of his moods, that she had been out of her house. The idea of rest sent a wave of warm fatique through her, as if in preparation. She knew what was coming, of course, she wasn't stupid. But she didn't mind it. She figured it was about time.

"Yes. I'd like that," she said.

With that, she followed him into the building.

And you, Peter, she thought with the corn thawing under her ankle, wouldn't you like to know what Josh did to me?

-----------

So there you are! It still needs work, and in its final form this part of the story will certainly be very different, but its a start. I think the biggest change that needs to be made is when Josh is talking Ulysses to his friends. I'll either scrap that or heavily modify it. But there will be little changes all over as well.

It'll probably be a long time before its ready to be published. If you're interested, I'll let everyone know how its progressing.

I Got Yer Freedom of Religion Right Here! Part II

Police in Afghanistan-- you know, the country we saved from an Islamist dictatorship-- have just arrested a man for publishing a translation of the Koran.

Afghan police have arrested a man accused of publishing an unofficial translation of the Koran that has sparked protests in parts of the country, newspapers said on Monday.

The translation into Dari, one of Afghanistan's main languages, sparked an emergency debate in parliament and protests in at least two parts of the country as key passages were changed.

Ghaus Zalmai, the publisher of the translation, was arrested on Sunday trying to cross the border into neighbouring Pakistan. Zalmai was also a spokesman for Afghanistan's attorney general.

"This is a plot against the religion of Islam, and no one will ever accept the book as the holy Koran," daily Armaan newspaper quoted judge Abdul Salam Azimi as saying.

"The Supreme court has ordered an investigation into this matter and to bring the culprits before the court," he said.

Perceived insults to Islam, such as the cartoons of the prophet Mohammad or alleged violations of the Koran have sparked angry protests in Afghanistan.

I'll give a bit of background on why this is supposed to be such a big deal in Islam. According to Islam, the prophet Muhammad, inspired by the angel Gabriel, recited the word of God to the people of Mecca. Muhammad's inspired words, as transcribed by his followers, became what is known today as the Koran, the holy, infallible word of God. Trouble is, that particular word is in Classical Arabic, and is so infallible that any translation of the book into other languages is considered invalid and, in this case at least, unholy.

Now that I've elucidated at least some historical and theological baggage, I'll close with a rant.

I don't like the war in Afghanistan. But in spite of myself, I still do buy the moral argument that Canadian troops should stay in Afghanistan to help fend off the Taliban. Unfortunately, the trouble with that argument is the government that U.S. coalition installed to replace the Taliban-- the one that Canadian troops are fighting and dying to protect-- is now, slowly but surely, beginning to resemble the religious dictatorship it was meant to replace by eroding one of the fundamental principles necessary for democracy, the separation of church and state. I don't mean to say that, based on this, the government of Afghanistan is as bad as the Taliban, not by a long shot. It's still possible that the case may dismissed in the courts, though based on the quote by judge Azimi, that's not likely. It's also still possible that coalition governments could exert enough pressure on the Afghan government to get them to dismiss the case. . . though that certainly won't quell future protests.

For some reason, the phrase "the lesser of two evils" seems decreasingly relevant here.

Quii

I've been taking a lot of useless internet quizzes in the last couple of months (How Logical Are You? What Kind of Pirate Are You? What Starship Crew Would You Be Part Of? etc.). Since some of these quizzes have cute little HTML decals for that person who just has to let the whole world know that they would indeed survive a zombie apocalypse, I decided to post a few of my prouder results.

If your blog were a movie, what would it be rated?



Why? Because my blog has three "fucks", two "asses" and a "hell." I shit you not.


Would you pass 8th grade science?

What's your bloated, useless corpse worth to science?

$5290.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.

How much electrical power could your bloated, useless, still living corpse produce?

422 WATTS Body Battery Calculator - Find Out How Much Electricity Your Body is Producing - Dating

That's 69% more than the average person. I could power 4 lightbulbs, 106 ipods, 2 XBox 360's, and at least one DVD player runnning The Matrix.


Finally, a fairly comprehensive quiz on political orientation. This quiz actually puts me quite a bit further left, and way more small-'l' libertarian, than most US Democratic presidential candidates, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton:

Adieu, like the icy pillar. . .

James Joyce and Samuel Beckett at the Pitch 'n' Putt.

Ulysses was cool.