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Having played Guitar Hero, I find I listen to songs differently.   Now when I hear a song on the radio, I will listen for the lead guitar part and will try to picture how well the song would fit into the game and how fun or difficult it would be to play.  Some songs, like Don’t Fear the Reaper, have a good guitar part in the middle but might be rather boring for the rest of the song.  I know they probably don’t need any song suggestions, but it’s fun to think of some.

Another song I thought would be good was Hotel California, but I checked and someone else already thought it was a good idea and put it into Guitar Hero World Tour.  They need more Zeppelin too.  I’m thinking that the guitar solo in Heartbreaker would be the highlight of the game.  And some Johnny B. Goode wouldn’t hurt either.  Ooh… Clapton’s Layla (the fast one, not the slow, unplugged one) would be fun too.  And Sultans of Swing.

Okay, for the last two suggestions I cheated and peeked at Guitar World’s list of top guitar solos of all time.  On a lighter note (pun intended), I also recommend Hocus Pocus by Focus and Frankenstein by the Edgar Winter Group.

Some radio stations are all-Christmas format, so I usually don’t find a lead guitar part in those.  Although… Christmas Eve in Sarajevo could be a good candidate for Guitar Hero Holiday Edition.

And not to be left out of a trend, the Christian bookstores are selling Guitar Praise.  That way, you can enjoy wholesome fun with the entire family, playing Christian/praise/worship songs on the guitar.

“Give thanks to the LORD with the lyre; Sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings.”
– Psalm 33:2

The new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace is set to open later this week.  The last one, Casino Royale, was good, but it had two problems.  The first was that it was a Sony Picture movie displaying Sony shots of Sony products.  Some parts seemed more like Sony ads than a real movie, such as when he is viewing the Sony security camera footage on Sony TVs using Sony players, or when he is sailing on his Sony boat and he looks at his Sony laptop.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a Sony boat.  But if Sony had made boats, I’m sure they would have been featured prominently.  The other problem is a smaller one, but one from which Tomorrow Never Dies suffered badly: explaining too much to the audience.  In that one, the actors explained what they were doing as they did things.  Very annoying.  At least Casino Royale had a secondary actor “narrating” to help out the audience.  Something like whispering “He has the 5 and 7.  He needs the 6 to win.” to someone else while Bond is playing poker.  But enough with the trivial complaints.

According to one interview I read, Barbara Broccoli, the producer of the Bond movies, has said that Quantum is the name of the Sinister Organization that Bond is fighting.  Quantum is really QUANTUM, an acronym in the tradition of SPECTRE, but QUANTUM is so secret that not even she knows what it means.  So, to help her out, I have some suggestions of what it could mean.

What does Quantum stand for?  Try …

• Quit Using Acronym Names To seem Ultra-Mysterious
• Quest to Undertake Another National Target by a Universal Mob
• Quintessential Underworldly Archenemy, Needed To Upset MI6
• Quarrelsome Underground Association of Nuclear Threats and Undermining Morale
• Quiet, Unassuming Agent Negotiates The Ultimate Movie
• Quipping, Urbane Agent Neutralizes The Underling’s Moves

The last two apply more to Bond than to QUANTUM, but I liked them so I included them.  If you have any more suggestions, please add them in a comment.  Thanks.

“For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.”
– Mark 4:22

At work I use a laptop, and at my desk I have a second monitor.  When my laptop is at my desk, it is connected to the docking station, and I have the laptop screen and the stand-alone monitor both active.

When going to a meeting, I will close the laptop, undock it, and then open it at the meeting.  Occasionally, I am greeted by a warning when I open the laptop.  Sometimes the warning appears after I go back to my desk and re-dock.

Actual un-retouched screen shot of the warning
Click on the image to see it full size.

I tried to set the screen resolution to zero by zero, as Windows XP recommended, but my computer wouldn’t let me.  Plus the warning is wrong.  How could zero be the best display size?  I know I could check the box to not show the message again, but it is just so amusing to read.  And reminds me to put realistic checks in any software I write.

As with most warnings that Windows generates, I will ignore this one too.

“Surely God will not listen to an empty {cry,} Nor will the Almighty regard it.”
– Job 35:13

The same co-worker who appeared in Tuesday’s post also mentioned something else, completely unrelated and on another day.

Did you know there are glow-in-the-dark tattoos? And blacklight (UV) tattoos? I had no idea until my co-worker said that a friend of his had a glow-in-the-dark tattoo. I forget what subject we were discussing and how we got onto tattoos. It’s a skull, I think, made of regular ink but the eyes are filled with the glowing ink. So they appear empty during the day or in lit rooms, but they glow when it’s, umm, dark.

I was going to link to some websites, but most places that show examples of tattoos are not completely family-friendly. So I’ll let the curious reader find those sites himself. But I will say that one of the more interesting examples of a blacklight tattoo was someone who had bones (i.e. skeleton) drawn along his arm and hand and fingers, with the correct bones at the appropriate places. During the day, no one would really notice his arms. But when he would go under a blacklight (say for laser tag), then his arms would appear like an X-ray.

I didn’t see one of these, but I’m thinking the Cheshire Cat would be a good candidate for one of these inks. It seems that the blacklilght ink is fine, but glow-in-the-dark inks can be radioactive and are not recommended. There are ways other than tattoos to have your hands glow.

“So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.”
– Exodus 34:30

Yesterday I bought a reel to store my 100′ extension cord. Until yesterday, it had been sitting in a less-than-neat pile. But now it is organized.

While I was setting up the cord reel, I noticed a warning on the label. It said to unroll the cord before use.  I initially thought “why bother with that?” Isn’t the point of the reel to keep the cord in a nice coil? Why not let it stay coiled, like the garden hose does? It doesn’t complain at all. Then the lessons of how to make an electromagnet came to mind, and I thought there might be something to it.

There is some argument about whether it is induction causing the issue or just the normal heat associated with voltage drop for such a long wire. Normally the heat would be able to dissipate along the surface area of the cord. With the cord wound tightly however, there is much less surface area. Normal household loads for a moderate time should not cause any problems. But I would still be careful not to let any metal go into the core of the cord reel.

“He covers {His} hands with the lightning, And commands it to strike the mark.”
– Job 36:32

Growing up in my family, I was informed that humans have a separate dessert stomach. I don’t remember when this knowledge was conveyed to me – it is one of those things that everyone just always knew. No matter how much you ate for dinner and no matter if you could not eat another bite of beef/chicken/pasta/insert-other-dinner-item-here, you could always eat some dessert. And this post will show you the science behind the dessert stomach.

After investigating the matter further, I have concluded that, although many people indicate the dessert stomach does not exist, it does exist. This is in stark contrast to the ridiculous notion that some people have a hollow leg where all their food goes. Those who eat a lot, more than would be expected, are said to have such a leg (or two, in extreme cases). For some reason, I have never liked that saying. The stomach doesn’t go anywhere near the leg. It would be absurd to have the digestive tract go down into the leg and then back up. It would have to be early in the digestive process, in order to allow people to eat a significant amount, so the plumbing would be quite crazy.

But the dessert stomach exists; it exists in your brain rather than in your belly. It is a psychological concept known as the law of diminishing returns. It says that more is not necessarily better. For example, 5 cupcakes won’t taste 5 times as good as one cupcake. At the end of your meal, you have consumed enough beef so that the return on taste has diminished. More beef doesn’t taste good anymore. And the same goes for potatoes, green beans, or whatever else you have for dinner. Each dinner item has been eaten and the initial tastiness has decreased, such that you do not want to eat any more of them.

But now dessert arrives. This is a new food group, a new taste that has not appeared in your dinner yet. This is the second part of the law of diminishing returns – in order to be satisfied, you need something new. So your mind tells your body that this should be good, and your body sets aside the feeling of being full – but only for this new taste. And thus: the dessert stomach.

“So they ate and were well filled, And their desire He gave to them.”
– Psalm 78:29

Here is my first Java applet. For those who don’t know what a Java applet is, it is a little program.

Just click on the square below to start. I think everyone should be familiar with the concept. The goal is to get the numbers in order. Click on a number next to the blank square to move that square into the now formerly blank spot. To reset the grid to a new random order, use your browser’s reload button.

“But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner.”
– 1 Corinthians 14:40