The Agrinautica

   Many many movies, books, and television series have addressed the idea of what happens if aliens arrive at Earth. Usually the aliens want to kill us all, but sometimes they just want to probe a few people and draw pictures in their fields. But what happens if the aliens are friendly and helpful?

   What if the aliens take pity on us with our populations of impoverished and hungry? Using their alien technology they generously offer to sell anyone anything they need at a price they can afford. Benevolent? Yes. But a disaster for the world economy!! Thousands would become unemployed! We'd immediately begin to run a huge trade deficit with the aliens!

   I've always been a huge fan of strategy games. I've been a player of Dune II, Red Alert II, Warcraft II, Age of Empire II, Civ II & III, Starcraft, and possibly others.
   Originally, opposing sides had either units that were more or less exactly the same, or at least units that looked different but were functionally identical. Then the makers decided to change it up, make the strategy a little asymmetrical and give the various sides different sorts of units. Starcraft even made the means of production slightly different. One very major aspect has always been the same though: the economics.
   Invariably, one must harvest something in order to produce your tanks. It is odd to me that this should be the unexceptional rule, since throughout history only Columbian narcoterrorists have really had such a direct corrolation between production and military output. Normally, the military strategists have a set budget. Yes they have to fight fluctuations of it in Congress, but dear god don't make THAT part of the game. Not only is it unrealistic, I find it incredibly annoying, as keeping an eye on my workers and balancing production between economic capital and military units is not what I play strategy games to do.
   In addition your vehicles will have a build cost but no maintenance cost. This allows one to simply continue to build up bigger and bigger armies over time. This is also very unrealistic, as the limit to military build-up on a strategic scale has always been available support budget, not build time. For example, I would imagine the "cost" of an infantryman is somewhere near half the yearly cost to maintain him anyway, or such (since what you're paying for is primarily just paying him during training). So you see, this is not only unrealistic, but also effects the strategic interplay of the game.

   I think it would be interesting to make a strategy game that not only breaks from the standard harvest-based economics, but has the various factions work on different economic models. Here is what I thought up:
Democracy: The military forces of a democracy will have a set budget. However, for every person they lose (counting both infantry units and members of vehicle crews), they lose some of their budget (as popular support for the war goes down). Consequently the Democracy forces will want to emphasize stand-off attack weapons and expensive technology that will minimize losses.
Communism: Communist forces will have a set budget. It doesn't matter how good you do, the budget comes from those who produce in accordance with ability, to those who need in accordance with need. In fact, your budget might even go DOWN if you're doing well in the scenario. Purchase of additional units, however, isn't done by paying a set price, but rather requesting the units from central command, whom will decide whether or not you really need the unit, and send it to you with substantial delay. (= Units are cheap, however, and maintenance costs, especially personnel pay, is low. Available units are quite technologically advanced for their costs.
Local Warlord Kleptocracy: Budget depends on holding on to certain key stratego-economic points. Also, likely funded by a Democratic or Communist force by proxy (this money will probably just be a set amount). Kleptocratic forces will probably use cheap out-of-date predecessors of Democratic/Communist units, and technicals, and such.
Insurgents: My main thought with insurgents is that whereas other factions will have structures and vehicles, as is usual in strategy games, the insurgents will have primarily only personnel units. For example more units will be recruited by a "recruiter" individual, whereas for most other forces they'd come from barracks and such. There will be some buildings however, such as weapons caches and bomb factories. The basic idea is that most insurgent units will only be detectable up close so they'll be hard to find. I'm not sure how they'll be funded. I'm thinking they'll get a certain bounty for killing enemy forces, and perhaps budget increases when the enemy accidently kills civilians. ...and maybe a small permanent budget to tide them over - this is the money Iran is giving them ;)
Narco-Terrorists: Think FARC-EP. They'll be the only ones to work like most stategy games -- budget will come directly from operating and harvesting hidden drug fields and labs.
Mercenaries: The Mercenaries work for whomever and are entirely funded via bounties on destroyinig enemy units.

   And of course, as I noted above, maintenance costs should be such that the size of your forces is limited by the budget, and can't grow ad infinitem until you can zerg rush your enemies with mammoth tanks. You'll have to actually utilize tactics and strategy to destroy your enemy!



   So there you are. I think someone should make this game.

   The other day I could not for the life a me find Rockstar and had to subject myself to some obscure energy drink called "Ludicrous."
   And this brings up the question I know is on all your minds, whats with all these energy drinks? Whats the difference? How do I know which one is right for me?
   As a benevolent service to you my readers, I embarked upon an epic quest to sample and review every energy drink I could get my grimy little hands on. I found 13 different types of energy drinks and tried them all. I then spent three hours hallucinating, followed by three hours with too little attention span to do anything but twitch, followed by 48 hours of restlessness. The things I do for you, the readers!!
   Among other things I learned in this adventure, is that the FDA does not recommend you consume more than 500 millegrams of caffiene per day, or three of those 16 oz ("two servings") energy drinks. Also among the vitamins advertised on most energy drinks is taurine. Taurine is believed to aid in digestion among other things, is an essential vitamin for cats, and is found in human milk (but not cows milk). It is called "taurine" because it was discovered in ox bile. As such, the amount of taurine in a drink can be said to be the measure of bullshit involved.

Major Brands - those most commonly available
Red Bull - Usually at $1.99 for 8oz, Red Bull weighs in at roughly twice the price of most other energy drinks, for as far as I can tell about equitable ingredients and taste. As such the even remotely financially conscious should avoid this bougousie beverage like the plague. By “Red Bull gives you wings” they really mean “here at Red Bull we’re giving you the bird.” (80mg of caffiene per 8oz)
Original Red Bull - see this entry for discussion of the original red bull which may have started it all.
Rockstar - man I just had a Rockstar again after having consumed only other energy drinks for awhile in the interest of this research, and man, I think I’m going to have to readjust some of the other descriptions now, I’d forgotten the divine goodness that is rockstar. (150mg of caffiene per 16oz)
Lost - the energy drink for persons that are professions other than rockstars – for example my erstwhile roommate Chen, an aspiring adult entertainment star, swears by Lost. It costs the same as Rockstar, is slightly harder to find, and tastes perhaps just a skoshe more intense.
Power Horse - tastes like Rockstar et al, only a little less sweet I think. (151.36mg caffiene / 16oz) (created by Hansens)
Monster - Much more flavoursome than Rockstar. At first I liked it but then after having a number of them (they were on sale 25% at Safeway) decided the flavoursomeness was getting old and Rockstar is indeed preferable. (created by Hansens) -- Also some friends of mine have invented a monster based drink they call either the Testicle or Monsticle. Basically its 25% Monster energy drink, 75% vodka (!), bite into a lime and toss it in, chug whole thing -- allegedly you can barely taste the alcohol. And the lime floating in it looks like a testicle or something. More research on this one still to come no doubt!
Monster Assault - a little more like soda and a little less that Red Bull / Rockstar “energy drink” flavour, tastes very sweet – I’d give it a B- (160mg caffiene / 16oz)
Full Throttle - Full Throttle, the Cocoa-Cola entry in the energy drink category, goes for some kind of lemon-lime flavour. In my opinion, it totally sucks. Interestingly, because Cocoa-Cola is behind it, Full Throttle can be found almsot anywhere. Its perhaps even more pervasive than Red Bull.. but I've never met someone who drinks it.
No Fear – I bought two of these on the way to Oxnard because they were two for one, putting them at $1.30s per 16oz. They tasted kind of like Full Throttle but worse. No Fear is the Sobe energy drink. I dunno if they have a deal with the “No Fear” clothing line or what.

Obscure Brands
Joker Mad Energy - I dunno what to say but that it tastes like rockstar but slightly different… more tart? At first I really liked it but half a can later I’m giving it a lower rating, I dunno if that’s because I was really thirsty at first or what.
Hanson’s Energy Deuce - I’m not sure what the deal with this stuff is, considering that I’m pretty sure Hanson’s makes Monster (among other things, they have the same contact address). I found one battered can of this on the shelf at Albertson’s once. Maybe it’s a relic of the predesessor of Monster? Only it tastes different. I could only describe the taste as “I can’t believe it tastes like that!” not necessarily in a good way, but not necessarily a bad way.. just.. wtf to the mouth. Jason liked it.. said “its not like being kicked in the mouth like other energy drinks.”
Independent Energy - tastes like grapefruit. I suppose it might be good if you’re into that kinda thing? I’m not into that kind of thing.
Ripped - This energy drink has seriously somehow managed to capture the taste of getting your ass kicked by a wave and receiving a mouthful of sea-water. Though without the salt content, its still disgusting.
Ludicrous - distinguishing feature: hella sweet. I mean in the taste sense, not the frasky sense.
Wired - 90mg of caffiene per 16oz (90 mg Inositol, 46mg Taurine), and at $1.19 for a 16oz can at Nugget, I used to live on this stuff (as the cheapest energy drink by far that doesn't taste like ass. In fact none of the ones that taste like ass are that cheap either). Unfortunately The Nugget hasn't carried it for months so I couldn't compare it to the rest. I haven't compared it to Rockstar but I'd say its at least second best to Rockstar by my reckoning.


Bonus: For extra points find the UC Irvine ID card, the 24 oz can of steel reserve, and the energy drink prominantly missing from the photograph.

PS: Don't worry mother, I didn't really drink all 13 at once and hallucinate etc.


In 30 in 30 News
   I'm particularly pleased that 30 in 30 participants are starting to get into the spirit of interacting with one another. hereticxxii has posted challenges for myself, meowmeowpants and metalphoenix. In turn, xaositecte (whose name, btw, I find on his journal and cut/paste from there whenever I need to write it since its impossible to spell) has challenged hereticxxii himself.

   I had mentioned before how it would be nice if all the current 30 in 30 participants' entries could be displayed in one place. I decided toward that end to create another livejournal which would list all participants on its friends list (and only participants). So meet arrrghonaut. Add http://arrrghonaut.livejournal.com/friends/ to your bookmarks as "30 in 30". (= Also I created FAQs about that livejournal and about 30 in 30 if you are interested.

   Alright ladies & gentlemen, it is time to have the talk. That's right, I've been meaning for awhile now to sit down and have a serious talk with you about the birds and the bees.

   You see, last summer while I spent my time killing countless small furry animals, I learned a few things about a secret order some of us like to call Hymenoptera. What I mean to say is I'm going to tell you about the bees and the other bees now.

Honey Bees - Are actually more like orange & black than yellow and black if you think about it ... and believe me I had more than enough time to think about that. If they live in a man-made box its a hive, if they've made their own nest somewhere its a feral colony. Colonies are much more prone to diseases than hive boxes (as boxes allow them nice evenly spaces straight corridors for cleaning), and so bees thoroughly benefit from their interaction with man. And yet some fascist vegans refuse to consume honey for god knows what reason.
   In what sounds like a classic science fiction story (only, its true) some mad scientist brought 26 Tanzanian queen bees to Brazil in 1957. They subsequently escaped and have created the entire "killer bee" population that has since spread up from there to the southern reaches of the United States. They really are not at all as scary as people make them out to be, just a little more defensive than more common Italian or Hawaiian bees (who spend their time riding vespas or hula dancing, respectively).
   Incidently the difference between these bees was caused by natural selection. In Europe bees were primarily cultivated by beekeepers, so the more "userfriendly" docile ones were selectively bred. In Africa, however, sustainable apiculture (beekeeping) never constituted a significant portion of the bee population -- rather, honey was harvested by destroying hives (both by humans and animals), so the colonies that survived were the "meaner" ones. So... suck it creationists.

Hornets - Some people, especially the elderly, like to refer to any wasp-like insect from a yellow-jacket to a humming-bird as a "hornet." I really don't know where they got this idea. Hornets are an endangered species in Europe, and have never been wild on the American West Coast. So seriously shut up about them. Also, I found an amazing cinematic quality video of an epic battle between hornets & honey bees, I can't believe its for reals.

Wasps - There are two main types of wasps one finds here in California (and a number of rarer types). Unfortunately the wikipedia article on them sucks so I'm going to have to go entirely from memory here. First off, if you don't know the difference between wasps and bees (and I've found an alarming number of people don't), you are in my opinion an idiot and I'm not going to take the time to explain. The two main types of wasps here though are the Golden Umbrella Wasp (Polistes Aurelius) (which is yellow and orange), and the European Paper Wasp (Polistes Dominus), which is slightly smaller and more common than the Umbrellas. Dominus wasps have sharp construction-vehicle yellow-and-black markings. The two species act essentially the same so I'll talk about them together henceforth.
   Now wasps look fricken scary, and whereas in elementry school I used to freak out my classmates by holding honeybees in my hands, I always gave wasps a very wide birth. Well it turns out they are actually the most pacifistic of the Hymenopterids I've had experience with, and will only sting you if you assault them personally. It could see you looting its nest and killing its children and if its not on the nest it'll just say "fuck that, make love not war" and go be emo.
   Funny story time: once we got this call and the lady told our fearless leader David Mardner that every time someone rang her doorbell a wasp would come sting them in the face. Knowing that wasps are not aggressive like that, David dismissed this claim as clearly the product of hyperbolic wasp hysteria. He took the call, and arriving at the house proceeded to the door and rang the doorbell. A wasp came out of nowhere and stung him him the face.
   Turns out the wasp nest was actually in the doorbell.
   Actually getting stung by a wasp is so rare that despite being employed killing them for over a year, my coworker Jeremy had never been stung by one. He once expressed an interest in actually trying to get stung by one to know how it compared to other stings (he'd been stung by everything else already). What a nut.

Bumblebees: Now bumblebees, on the other hand, are fucking flying battlestations. Fortunately one only rarely comes across their secret lairs, and I never had a bumblebee call during the summer I worked as a bee buster. Bumblebees live in colonies of a few dozen up to maybe a hundred. To quote wikipedia "Often, mature bumblebee nests will hold fewer than 50 individuals, and may be within tunnels in the ground made by other animals, or in tussocky grass."
   Jeremy once got a bumblebee call. It was on a hillside with small bushes. At first he couldn't find it, but then he stepped on a particular shrub and heard an angry buzzing sound that rapidly got louder. Suddenly a few dozen of these angry little deathstars launched out of the ground under the bush and set upon him. Bumblebees you see, can and will both bite and sting (and not die from stinging you), and are also capable of a certain degree of burrowing/tearing (I would of said they're closely related to Carpenter Bees, but Wikipedia is telling me they're no closer related than both are to honeybees, whatever they fucking look the same except Carpenter's are all black), so they'll land on your protective bee suit and start trying to burrow/tear a hole to jam their stinger in. Also I'd imagine they must have been somewhat resistent to our +3 nerve gas attack that kills other things immediately, because otherwise Jeremy would have made quick work of them. Jeremy sustained at least one sting in this encounter and he said it hurt and swelled up in a manner exponentially worse than the other stings he'd received.

Yellow Jackets: These guys are actually pretty underrated. I would have thought they were no worse than honeybees .. wrong. We get a call for yellow jackets, we call for backup. They're smaller than honeybees, so they are better able to get into any orifice they can find in your trusty bee-suit. They bite rather than sting, which just means a single one can get you about a million times more than a single bee could. Seriously, killer bee infestation: no problem -- yellow jackets: call for backup and break out the most potent chemical weapons.
   Yellowjackets are actually a type of wasp, but they look more like skinny honeybees (that are yellow and black). Interestingly, they are carnivorous. I once saw one carting away a disembodied bee head from a destroyed honeybee colony. Morbid bastards.

Mud Daubers: Are another type of wasp. They build mud nests on the underside of eaves. Apartment complexes would pay us a 100 bucks to get rid of them, we'd show up and bat them down with our hands or a broom if out of reach. These things will not sting you, and actually, like the paper wasps discussed above, are beneficial to have around, since they eat less pleasant things like spiders, and pests that are harmful to your gardens. So we've actually talked potential customers out of having us kill wasps before (since our boss Dave actually loves insects, and the rest of us, we get paid whether or not we kill shit so no need to be malicious / waste time & chemicals).


   So yeah, now you know. I actually find wasps strangely fascinating. I had two pet dead wasps named Romulus (a Dominus) & Vortigern (an Aurelius). Hey, people have butterfly collections, and no one says thats weird. I was going to try to collect a specimen of all the rarer types of wasp, but I only came up with this plan late in the season and didn't get a chance. Also I found a dead queen bee from a kill and placed it prominently in our office with a sign identifying it as "Queen Amidala."

   Quick update on 30 in 30. Current participants appear to be xaositecte, tonytornado2003, meowmeowpants, metalphoenix, memeworrywort, kilkenny, hereticxxii, anyamartinez, and jnel (friends-only though). Hopefully I didn't forget anyone?
   I realize it would be nice if all the participants could be perused in one place. I'll come up with some kind of devious solution to this.

   In the mean time you should check out this crazy video meowmeowpants found of someone completely flipping out in an office and throwing computers around. I also thought this post by metalphoenix was kind of neat.

   And speaking of things that are neat. 28bytes made a periodic table of presidents:

Click here to see 28bytes entry on the subject.

   Once again it is June. June is a month of danger, adventure and change. June (was) the month of finals, getting kicked in the head and sent the hospital in an ambulance, epic roadtrips across the country, and significant other events. Possibly because its when the school year has always ended, June has always felt to me more like the rollover to a new year and time to reflect on the past year than New Years itself.

   And of course June is traditionally the month of blogging every day. I feel this is appropriate to a month of introspection, reevaluation, and change. The tradition of 30 in 30 of course focuses on introspection of blogging -- in the selection of topics and how they're portrayed one must always consider the intended audience and purpose of the blog. When one is just casually blogging whenever one feels like it this isn't nearly as much an issue as when aiming to blog daily.
   And of course, this keeps one thinking more deeply about things. To come up with something worth writing about daily one has to go through the day thinking about all kinds of things that come up, exploring whether one can come up with something interesting to say about anything that comes up. And this of course, leads to a lot of critically evaluating daily things which one otherwise wouldn't pause to think much about.

   People occasionally scoff at the idea of blogging, and expecially having a livejournal. And I don't entirely blame them -- I have poked around livejournal a bit searching for intelligent life out there and it appears that a good fifty percent of it is this depraved thing called "fandom" where people (A) make a lot of icons from screencaps from their favourite anime movie, vote on them, and get in fights over alleged "stealing" of them from eachother, (B) write sordid "fanfic" about how their favourite characters go on (in their minds) to have highly inappropriate relationships with eachother, (C) etc. Another 40% or so is in cyrillic and who knows what they're saying but sometimes they post cool pictures. BUT
   While this overflow of insipidity certainly casts aspersions on the idea of blogging, I think it should be understood that blogging can also be quite meritious. There certainly is no better way to keep in contact with a large number of people you don't talk to every day. And its certainly a better use of time than watching TV or playing computer games. I happen to really like to write, and I don't know what other venue I'd have to do so if it weren't for blogging. I suppose I could start the Great American Novel, but personally I don't think there's any point in writing if no one is going to read it.

   Anyway this month I have plans for some philosophical rants, stories of drama and debauchery, random interesting facts (which may involve possums), stuff about bees (such as the fascinating story of Apis mellifera capensis, I know you're excited!), and more!
   Also already today xaositecte, tonytornado2003, and meowmeowpants have officially made 30 in 30 entries. Additionally metalphoenix has which is exciting because she wasn't recruited by me. I envision a day when 30 in 30 has a momentum of its own ::gazes off into the distance::

   I've always been a huge fan of strategy games. I've been a player of Dune II, Red Alert II, Warcraft II, Age of Empire II, Civ II & III, Starcraft, and possibly others.
   Originally, opposing sides had either units that were more or less exactly the same, or at least units that looked different but were functionally identical. Then the makers decided to change it up, make the strategy a little asymmetrical and give the various sides different sorts of units. Starcraft even made the means of production slightly different. One very major aspect has always been the same though: the economics.
   Invariably, one must harvest something in order to produce your tanks. It is odd to me that this should be the unexceptional rule, since throughout history only Columbian narcoterrorists have really had such a direct corrolation between production and military output. Normally, the military strategists have a set budget. Yes they have to fight fluctuations of it in Congress, but dear god don't make THAT part of the game. Not only is it unrealistic, I find it incredibly annoying, as keeping an eye on my workers and balancing production between economic capital and military units is not what I play strategy games to do.
   In addition your vehicles will have a build cost but no maintenance cost. This allows one to simply continue to build up bigger and bigger armies over time. This is also very unrealistic, as the limit to military build-up on a strategic scale has always been available support budget, not build time. For example, I would imagine the "cost" of an infantryman is somewhere near half the yearly cost to maintain him anyway, or such (since what you're paying for is primarily just paying him during training). So you see, this is not only unrealistic, but also effects the strategic interplay of the game.

   I think it would be interesting to make a strategy game that not only breaks from the standard harvest-based economics, but has the various factions work on different economic models. Here is what I thought up:
Democracy: The military forces of a democracy will have a set budget. However, for every person they lose (counting both infantry units and members of vehicle crews), they lose some of their budget (as popular support for the war goes down). Consequently the Democracy forces will want to emphasize stand-off attack weapons and expensive technology that will minimize losses.
Communism: Communist forces will have a set budget. It doesn't matter how good you do, the budget comes from those who produce in accordance with ability, to those who need in accordance with need. In fact, your budget might even go DOWN if you're doing well in the scenario. Purchase of additional units, however, isn't done by paying a set price, but rather requesting the units from central command, whom will decide whether or not you really need the unit, and send it to you with substantial delay. (= Units are cheap, however, and maintenance costs, especially personnel pay, is low. Available units are quite technologically advanced for their costs.
Local Warlord Kleptocracy: Budget depends on holding on to certain key stratego-economic points. Also, likely funded by a Democratic or Communist force by proxy (this money will probably just be a set amount). Kleptocratic forces will probably use cheap out-of-date predecessors of Democratic/Communist units, and technicals, and such.
Insurgents: My main thought with insurgents is that whereas other factions will have structures and vehicles, as is usual in strategy games, the insurgents will have primarily only personnel units. For example more units will be recruited by a "recruiter" individual, whereas for most other forces they'd come from barracks and such. There will be some buildings however, such as weapons caches and bomb factories. The basic idea is that most insurgent units will only be detectable up close so they'll be hard to find. I'm not sure how they'll be funded. I'm thinking they'll get a certain bounty for killing enemy forces, and perhaps budget increases when the enemy accidently kills civilians. ...and maybe a small permanent budget to tide them over - this is the money Iran is giving them ;)
Narco-Terrorists: Think FARC-EP. They'll be the only ones to work like most stategy games -- budget will come directly from operating and harvesting hidden drug fields and labs.
Mercenaries: The Mercenaries work for whomever and are entirely funded via bounties on destroyinig enemy units.

   And of course, as I noted above, maintenance costs should be such that the size of your forces is limited by the budget, and can't grow ad infinitem until you can zerg rush your enemies with mammoth tanks. You'll have to actually utilize tactics and strategy to destroy your enemy!



   So there you are. I think someone should make this game.

Other Previously Unreported Happenings From Davis
   Monday Morning, if I recall correctly, I had lunch/breakfast with revchad and lysandra at Crepeville. In my capacity as a reverend, I officially blessed their marriage, something we'd been meaning to do. To do so I blessed a nearby bottle of ketchup and invoked its 57 varieties of such sauce as a blessing.

   Tuesday I hate a late lunch / supper with Miss Rosejean Weller at Woodstocks Pizza. That evening she & I and Shemek and his girlfriend Dasha hung out ... and went back to Woodstocks.
   They called it an early night, however, shortly after midnight, because Shemek had to catch a plane to Poland the next day. As such, I caught up with Gabi and Cate out in South Davis and hung out with them for awhile.


Today
   Today (back in OC), I worked. We had bees in The Aquarium of the Pacific, which was pretty cool.
   As we were leaving the parking lot behind the Aquarium, we noted that a couple was extremely obviously having sex in the front passenger side of a small car. Rude.


In Other News
   If I am indeed going on this Epic Roadtrip from the 18th through the 29th, that leaves me only four days remaining days of regular 30 in 30 blogging. This puts me in the unusual position of having many MORE ideas I want to blog about than I have time for!!! (And here I'm filling up slots with crap like THIS!) (=
   Also, fear not, for while I am gyrovaging about I will be able to complete the noble 30 in 30 quest through the miracles of phone posts.

   One classic of the 30 in 30 repetoire thats been an easy update idea since 2004 has been the entry known as "5 by 5." This entails coming up with "Five New Television Series Ideas by 5pm." It was invented by StephenL back in 30 in 30 I, and quickly echoed by Lerani and Emosnail. I suppose this idea won't save you if you've already waited past 5pm, but hey. And though its after 5pm now, I promise I thought of my ideas before then. d=


Five New Television Series Ideas
5. Americas Next Top Normal Person - a group of random (yet mostly normal) strangers are compelled to live together and interact in a tense environment, for some reason, and ::gasp:: who ever handles everything with the most well-adjusted social skills is rewarded!
4. Host Idol - Aside from all the drama thats fostered among the contestants of most reality shows, I also feel like most of the hosts / judge panels get seriously egomaniacal through their overenjoyment of the power of being the "host" (though I get the impression that Tyra Banks was always like that, via hilarious clips of her talk show that are echoed elsewhere for the hilarious egomania content). What I want to see is all the smarmy judges / hosts from everything from American Idol to "Flavour of Love: Charm School" (and especially Tyra and her cohorts) and have THEM compete with eachother and be subject to eliminations. They would have to compete at normal things your average person might have to deal with. Additionally, there will definitely be scrutiny of their qualifications as judges, where they will be judged by professional review-writers, judges, and other persons qualified in the area of evaluating and judging people.
3. Supervillian Intern - A comedy about an entry-level intern working in the organization of a James Bond-esque evil villian. Activities will involve, photocopying, office gossip, avoiding being killed by the good Secret Agent, finding a contract killer to take care of some "former" employees (who have been seduced by the Secret Agent?), feeding the killer mutant sea bass, etc.
2. When the Zombies Come - Zombie movies are so popular, and yet, as far as I am aware, no one has ever made a TV series about surviving the zombie onslaught. Wtf, this is gold. You could go on forever as the cast tries to survive post zombie-apocalypse.
1. Simple Life: County Jail - Paris Hilton's exciting adventures in county jail! Except that she's managed to escape. But she may get put back in because Judge Sauer is pissed.

   ...And on that note, wtf. I am loathe to even grant famous-for-nothing celebrity Paris Hilton such newsworthy credence, but I had to rant. As you probably know she was sentenced to jail-time for driving on a suspended liscense. Judge Sauer very specifically ordered that her time could not be served in any manner other than in a jail. She checked in at 11:38pm on Saturday, and checked out shortly after midnight this morning. Time in jail: three full days, plues about two hours. Time credited as having served in jail: five days, since the 22 minutes on Saturday counted as a day and she was released after midnight today. I think thats weak, but thats not the half of it.
   She was released for "medical reasons." Some rumours say she was refusing to eat the food. Other sources say that she was "emotionally distraught and traumatized" by her fear of jail. Tough cookies! Anyway, not everyone is on the retarded-wagon: the city attorney has filed a Contempt of Court petition against the Sheriff for releasing her against the specific provisions of the court order; and Judge Sauer, who was "advised" but not consulted, regarding the disobeyment of his order that she stay in jail, has ordered her to appear before him tomorrow morning to plead as to why she should not be sent back to jail. I applaud Judge Sauer for sticking to his guns. In conclusion, judges are awesome. (=


   In other news it appears I will in fact need to go to Davis this weekend, as, though its possible I won't be needed as a witness, the District Attorney's office apparently won't know that until the day of. And it might be Monday or it might be Tuesday. So I'm driving up there so that I'll have maximum travel-plan flexibility.

   Time to update on 30 in 30! I do this, btw, so there is a central place to look and see how everyone is doing. Also, since as we know I like to reminisce about years past, its almost impossible unless at the time I posted about what everyone else was doing.
   Also, participants, if you haven't already you should join the 30in30 community. By viewing the friends list there you can see more or less most of the participants on one friends list ... plus some people who haven't left the group from last year. (=


Days 4 & 5 of 30
   ironlioninzion: Clash of Civilizations, & Clash of Republicans; xaositecte: What Would You Do If You had 30 Seconds of Uninterrupted Radio Broadcast Airtime to Say Anything, & What Happens in the Airforce When Someone Gets a DUI; beastmario: Blood & Steel, the joys of fighting, and answers to the earlier questions he'd posted; eazyt: has been taking the philosophical route, with a post about Embryo Ownership Rights and First Date Activities; thanew: In Defense of Ultimate Fighting Championships, and The Second to Last Episode of Sopranos (spoiler-warning); Jeff4mvh: "30 in 30 is Sucking the Life Out of Me" and some short funny video clips, Blogger Killed For Being Right About "Knocked Up" (don't panic, its satire); metalphoenix: Working till 11 and the difficulty that gives one in updating before midnight. Also notes that in 1969 the United States government made it illegal to have contact with aliens from outer space, which is such sauce but I suppose it has the intended effect of making it officially government business to know whether or not you've been abducted. Why "Josie & the Pussycats" is a Contemporary Masterpiece; neugotik: Quotes from a 2 Yr Old, and A Thai Statue; bartgroks has been posted various small entries;


At This Point in 30 in 30 I:
   Day 4: By day four the differences between those with blogstamina and those without was becoming apparent. This day brought the first failures to post, neither mrkevincostner nor oystercracker posted this day, though they picked up again the following day. shekb managed to succeed where jdryznar & incomple were consistently failing, by making a funny entry about Bush & Cheney; lerani posted about the Garfield movie and how it tries to portray itself as edgy; stephenl posts an ode to a jelly doughnut; and apoplecticfittz hits blogging gold with The Ten Blogging Commandments (Blogmandments?).
   Day 5: apoplecticfittz composes horoscopes; stephenl realizes that even if he posts the most boring entry he can, he'll still get 31 comments, and lerani hates him for it, but actually writes a nice little entry about her drunken loathred for the whole undertaking. feuders goes off the deepend. shekb effectively summarizes the fate of the bloggist in a post about how despite all his other failures and shortcomings, at least one of his entries comes up number six on a google search.

30/30 III - (2005)
Day 5: Le Blog D'Arthur - One of my favourite of my own entries, I discuss 30 in 30 of the year 1486, how a guy named Golden Snacks saved England, and other such. pavel_lishin posts about using an ipod holder to sneak a flask of vodka into a wedding, go team!
Day 6: Reisig for DA - District Attorney Candidate Reisig spends his lunch break being nice to people who are protesting him, solidly earning my admiration. Now his office is prosecuting my enemies muahahaha! JK. They say they can only get me 36 hour notice as to whether or not I'll need to testify on Monday or Tuesday though )= (which is such sauce since its 450 miles away!!)