Good Afternoon Ladies &
Gentlemen,
Pretty standard week thus far… Dizzy’s aunt has a
retirement party this weekend… but aside from that, just getting excited for our
trip to Utah next week. Free agency has been crazy in the NBA. The Warriors
somehow convinced the Jazz to take on some dead weight contracts so they could
get Andre Iguodala, which makes them a BEAST if they stay healthy. Aside from
them & the Brooklyn Nets, everybody else seems to either be content with
what they have or bailing on this year in hopes that they can get a good draft
pick and/or free agents next summer. Management can’t really say it… but
basically about three-quarters of the NBA seems to mark this year up as a loss,
presuming that the Heat will dominate or something & they’re gearing for the
next few years. Is it wrong? To tank in the present so that you can compete for
the next few years (allegedly)? Eh… whatever, they’ll get their money because
people will still pay… and that’s what really matters,
right?
NBA 2K13 Update: No tanking for the Milwaukee Bucks in
the 2013-2014 season in my virtual reality. We swept through the Celtics &
76ers. Now facing the Heat in the conference finals, then probably (barring the
computer doing what it likes to do & making my team do random stupid things
& the other team do amazing impossible things) the winner of the Lakers
& Suns (GASP!!!) in the NBA Finals. My money’s on the Lakers since… well,
they like to match me up directly against the best small forwards &
two-guards like Paul Pierce, LeBron James, Kevin Durant & Kobe Bryant on a
regular basis. I’m quickly becoming a defensive powerhouse to match my
marksmanship on the offensive end now that I’ve figured out part of their
ridiculous system. Oh… and I just turned 21 on the game so… I may be a hot
commodity on the free agent market soon.
Monday night, the new roommate… we’ll call her Temp
(since she won’t be around long) watched the Roman Polanski-directed film
“Chinatown” starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway & John Huston. This is a
classic film noir movie in the same vein as the Bogart pictures from back in the
day… you know, private detective, dame in distress, lies, double crosses,
murder, corruption, all that jazz. The story basically starts when a private
investigator (Nicholson) is hired to catch a cheating husband… only he later
finds out that it wasn’t the real wife (Dunaway) that hired him… it was somebody
else… and now to save his reputation & business… and maybe his pride, he
wants to get to the bottom of why he was played a fool. Also, the husband that
he was found dead after drowning during a major drought… so now, he’s caught in
a tangled web of corruption, power, money, wealthy family drama, and all that
other stuff. The movie was shot splendidly to match the feel of 1940’s Los
Angeles even though it was made in the early 70’s… and appropriate storytelling
for the genre. I’ve only seen a few Polanski flicks (“The Ninth Gate” &
“Carnage” recently) but he seems to thrive on keeping the audience in a state of
confusion & unsettlement so that they better personify with the main
characters… even when the characters have less than desirable traits. It’s a
great system & it seems to work for him… now if he could just stop diddling
teenagers he might be considered among the elite filmmakers… but hey, we all
have our vices I guess. The flick is great. I’d say check it out. It’s on
Netflix. You’re welcome. Here’s the news…
SF to LA in half an hour? – That’s right… there coming up with a way to go from
Chinatown to Chinatown more rapidly. Commuting is a way of life for most Bay
Area residents. Many people traveling from the East Bay to downtown are
accustomed to an hour commute each way without traffic. Some people even commute
to Southern California several times a month, spending several hours each way
either in the car or fighting through airports. What if there was an alternative
to flights and car rides? If it was up to Tesla CEO Elon Musk and a Colorado
company, an answer could come sooner than we think. That answer is called… the
Hyperloop
System
Musk, the man behind both Tesla Motors and SpaceX, has spoken about a high-speed
transportation system known as the Hyperloop, a tube transport system that would
allow passengers to travel at high speeds. The proposed system could reduce
trips between San Francisco and Los Angeles to minutes, and reaching the East
Coast from California could take under an hour. Okay, calm down, let’s hear it
out. Crazy as it seems, the company ET3, based out of Longmont, Colorado, has
already been hard at work making this a reality, calling their project the
Evacuated Tube Transport. Yes… I’m thinking about Futurama too… it’s perfectly
natural… but still, let’s hear it out.
How Does It Work? The Hyperloop has been vaguely
described by Musk as a "cross between a Concorde, a rail gun, and an air hockey
table." Well f**k, I’m sold!!! A better description might be an elevated tube
system with a magnetic levitation system similar to high-speed bullet trains.
The kicker would be the enclosed tube, which would provide a nearly
friction-less surface for individual capsules to travel in. ET3's Hyperloop-like
project already has a number of schematics and plans already in place. They
claim an automobile-sized, six-passenger capsule constructed for "outer space"
travel conditions could easily reach speeds of 4,000 miles per hour on longer
journeys across the country or across continents. In theory, this elevated tube
system could be built for a tenth of the cost of high-speed rail and a quarter
the cost of a freeway (numbers which I’m sure will change once reality sets in).
The projected cost for a passenger to travel from Los Angeles to New York is
$100. (WHAT??? ON A BUS??? What do you base those numbers on? I want that deal.
It says $299 on Greyhound’s as I type this) The tubes could be connected to form
a new superhighway across the United States. They could go underwater and
connect to Alaska, Hawaii, and the rest of the world… and then the moon. Oh, NOW
you think I’m crazy? Anybody remember the proposed “elevator to space”? ET3 has
already built mock-ups and prototypes and is planning a 3-mile test run by the
end of 2013.
Expanding on Older Ideas - Despite the ingenuity of the
idea, it isn't actually that new. In 1972, a paper written by physicist R.M
Salter described a tube system known as the Very High Speed Transit System
(VHST) that could send people across the United States in under an hour. The
system was composed of a series of underground tubes arranged in a network
across the country. While several technical problems existed with the idea at
the time (no sh*t), Salter also concluded, "The general principles are fairly
straightforward: electromagnetically levitated and propelled cars in an
evacuated tunnel." The one primary difference between Salter's plan and ET3's is
that the VHST would need to be underground, with massive amounts of excavation
required. If the Hyperloop or Evacuated Tube Transport was built and succeeded,
it could make California's current high-speed rail project obsolete. With a
budgeted cost of $70 billion, the high-speed system currently under development
would take passengers from San Francisco to L.A. in three hours, potentially six
times slower than the Hyperloop. So what do you think? Bullet train going 150
MPH or riding one of those bank tubes at roughly five times the speed of sound?
No coin rolls please. Yes, in theory, it’s a great idea… and I look forward to
the results of their tests… but yeah, it’s up there with Hoverboards,
Teleporters, Dilithium crystal-powered warp drives, Metachlorians, Hypersleep
chambers, Unobtainium, Flying Cars, Death Rays, Death Stars, Weather Dominators,
Unicorns, Pegasuses (Pegasi?), Dragons, and just about everything else that’s in
“test phase” as it’s been for many, many, many years. Still, it’s an awesome
concept… good luck, Mr. Musk!
Batman Update – Batman is more than a man… he’s a
symbol… a myth… a legend with which some can use for good… or evil.
Unfortunately, some young whippersnapper has briefly taken the symbol for evil.
A 16-year-old boy wearing a Batman shirt and mask broke into a building at the
Colorado State Fair… then turned himself in to police after seeing his likeness
on the news. The Pueblo Chieftain reported that the boy is one of three accused
of breaking into the Fair's VIP building early Thursday. The trio took
televisions, a laptop and an empty cash register (Wah wah…). The suspects
managed to lock themselves in the building and had to break out. KRDO-TV aired
surveillance video of the suspect dressed as Batman. After the video aired, the
boy turned himself in to police. Authorities plan to seek charges including
burglary and criminal mischief. The boy wasn't named because of his age
(doubting it was Bruce Wayne… but wouldn’t that be funny). Spoiler alert: Police
were still seeking the other two suspects… who unfortunately weren’t dressed as
Superman and the Flash as part of Pueblo’s bizarroworld Injustice League (patent
pending). By the way, this story just made me think of my dream from a few years
back… and I’m thinking that I may have to see about turning that into a little
bit of a comic (so that DC can sue me down the road for using their characters
& get their cut, which I’m okay with… after expenses). I’ll keep you posted
on that one… and now we need a story of a Batman saving people. I wonder if he
was involved in that plane crash at SFO this weekend… the world may never
know.
Why Soccer Sucks #523 – Now, I consider myself a fairly
passionate sports fan. You may also agree that soccer fans are among the more
passionate sports fans in general as well. Yes, I said soccer, so it’s not
mistaken for REAL football. Obviously there are players in the NFL that… are
basically horrible human beings. Just watch any episode of Sportscenter over the
past 15 years or so… and I’m guessing there’s at least one reference to yet
another player assaulting, murdering, stealing from, running over or shooting at
somebody else (or themselves if your name is Plaxico). However, the game itself
is typically not life or death (that comes afterwards with the head injuries)
like it is with soccer. The latest tale: One man has been arrested in northern
Brazil after a referee who fatally stabbed an amateur player over his refusal to
leave the field was decapitated by a mob, police said on Saturday. I didn’t make
that up. Referee… STABBED a player. Why? Because he wouldn’t leave the field.
Repercussion for the referee? Trial? Discipline? Nope. Decapitation! Basically it's the equivalent of the "Fail Mary" referee then stabbing Golden Tate... and the Seahawks crowd ripping him to shreds. Instead, I think they met up earlier this week to "hug it out" or something. Twenty-year
old referee Octavio da Silva stabbed the thirty-year old player Josenir dos
Santos on June 30th after dos Santos refused to heed his order to leave,
police spokesman Kena Souza told Reuters. A mob then turned on da Silva, killing
him before severing his head in the remote town of Pio XII, named after a former
pope (pope during WWII). A 27-year-old man was arrested on July 2 and police in
the regional headquarters of Santa Ines will continue to investigate the
incident, Souza said. Brazil has made significant strides in lowering homicide
rates in recent years, as millions were lifted from poverty (and placed in
poverty adjacent further away from the town center), but it faces mounting
pressures to show it is a safe place for tourists before 12 Brazilian cities
host the 2014 soccer World Cup and Rio de Janeiro the Olympic Games in 2016. In
Rio de Janeiro on the day of the brawl, Brazil's national team handily defeated
Spain in the Confederations Cup, considered a test run for next year's much
bigger championship. The eight-team tournament was marked by an unexpected wave
of demonstrations, some violent, in part to protest the $14 billion being spent
on World Cup preparations amid a lack of adequate public services. So yeah…
Brazil isn’t prospering as a nation… but hey, they’ve got the World Cup &
Olympics coming. Look at what that did for Athens in 2004!!! Anyway, angry dads
at little league games don’t seem so bad now, do
they?
Apocalypse Update – My God! This may be the most
frightening update yet… the evil reptile would-be overlords have become aware…
and our using our own infrastructure against us. A French post office employee
had the fright of her life when a meter-long (3.3-foot) python slithered quietly
out of a parcel and rubbed against her. The woman was alone in the post office
in the village of Blenod-les-Pont-a-Mousson (which I believe means “Village of
the Mouse Pants” in French… Lilie?) in eastern France on Friday evening when she
felt the chilling caress and screamed for help. Firemen caught the fugitive
reptile and discovered a second one in the parcel. The pair were identified by a
vet as ball pythons - non-aggressive snakes that coil up into a tight ball when
threatened - and donated to a nearby zoo. "They're not dangerous but they're
very impressive," an officer said. Ball pythons are popular with snake
enthusiasts as pets but are also a protected species for which owners need a
legal certificate stating they have not been taken from the wild. Customs
officers raided the home address, in France, of the parcel's sender, where they
found no certificates but two other snakes, a stuffed caiman and a stuffed
turtle which the owner had been trying to sell over the Internet. The post
office stressed that its terms and conditions clearly forbade the shipping of
animals, live or dead… and I’m sure the offenders were given a stern talking-to
as opposed to a fine or felony or something. What does this mean? Certainly
these miniature ball pythons were test subjects… like sending monkeys into space
first… test the waters to see if their heads would explode before the mass
transportation of weaponized viper squads throughout the world. They may have to
reconsider their strategy after being caught… but perhaps that’s just a few
“biohazard” stickers away. They’re cunning… they’ve been around since the
dinosaurs… they’ve already survived a few apocalypses that they may or may not
have had a hand in… so they’ll do what it takes. We just have to be ready. Be
careful out there opening your packages. Always have a machete ready. Besides…
it helps with opening the package sometimes
too.
Anyway, that’ll do it for today. We’ve discussed
basketball, movies by pedophile directors, bullet trains to hell (LA), Batman
going bad, deadly soccer mobs & slither bombs. Kind of a busy day for most
blogs… but not for us… and just think, it was a slow past few days. Have a great
day everybody!!!
