Huffing – Slightly-Mad Social Science Video

View On: Revver YouTube Metacafe Funny Or Die!

This is a “Special Message” From Slightly-Mad Science regarding “huffing.”
From Medicinenet.com:
Inhalant abuse (commonly called “huffing”) is the intentional inhalation of chemical vapors to attain a mental “high” or euphoric effect. A wide variety of substances, including many common household products, are abused by inhalers.”

(Seriously though, huffing is very dangerous and can kill you on the first try. Find safer hobbies…like full-contact kickboxing.)

Basically, I recorded my stepdaughter acting hyper and silly, and decided to make a video about it.

MRSA Suxx0rz

For those of you that don’t know what MRSA is (a particularly virulent form of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus infection), go here: Mayo Clinic on MRSA.

I’m not going to go into details, but my life was pretty much on hold as a couple of close family members came down with MRSA – one requiring hospitalization through most of last week. It was kinda close for a while, but they’re both recovering nicely now and doing much better. Modern medicine gets teh win.

Unfortunately, I think it’s going to be a while before I stop having paranoid freak-outs if I even suspect my 6-month old is getting a small pimple or blemish.

Red Octane Store and Best Buy gouging Guitar Hero 3 Wii owners or is Toys R Us just cutting us a break?

I finally picked up an extra guitar controller for the Wii.  Online multiplayer is nice, but it’s better to do it in person.

Odd thing, not all stores had the same price.

I frequently shop Best Buy, partially because they don’t have Fry’s out here, and because I can buy online and pick it up at the store if it’s something I know will fly off the shelves.  However, this time I bought it from Toys R Us, where I nearly never go.  Why?  Because they had it $10 cheaper.

Well, that’s strange.  So I look around.  Amazon, Toys R Us, and Wal Mart have it for $59.99 (Wal Mart is actually $59.74), but Best Buy and the Red Octane Store have it for $69.99?  So, either TRU/Amazon/Sprawlmart bought in such bulk that they can afford a $10 price cut, or Red Octane and Best Buy figure they can hit consumers for an extra $10 because people are suckers.

So if you need another guitar, definitely check around on the price.  It’s apparently worth at least $10 for you.

Potential Energy – Slightly-Mad Science

View the video at these sites (click the link):

Revver Vume YouTube Lulu.tv Veoh Red Orbit MySpace Video

This Demo is Dangerously-Stupid.  Don’t try this at home.
From http://www.slightlymadscience.com/.
Potential Energy: PE=mgh.  The energy stored by moving a mass to a height above the surface of the earth, which turns into Kinetic Energy when dropped due to the force of Gravity.
That’s all well and good, but can you BREAK STUFF with it?  SURE!  At Slightly-Mad Science, we love breaking stuff! 

Random Thoughts for the past week (3/11/2008):

Random Gaming Stuff

Picked up Super Smash Bros: Brawl last night from Best Buy. Haven’t played it yet. Definitely need to at least check it out to see if my Wii is going to crap out on me. :/ At least Nintendo (again) is being highly proactive by addressing the issue quickly.

Been playing Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War: Soulstorm recently (hence why I didn’t play Smash Bros yet). I’m a big fan of Real Time Strategy and Turn Based Strategy games. The new races focus a lot on a new resource (Faith for the Sisters) that allows them to use specific powers. The Dark Eldar have abilities that aren’t even tied to units, which seems to counter-balance the lack of defensive emplacements.
I’m playing through the single player campaign with the Sisters of Battle. My main complaint with the single player campaign is that on “Normal” difficulty the AI is decent for Annihilate objectives, but for “Take and Hold” objectives (which are set for any world with an Ancient Gate) it’s crippled. I’ve been able to easily win those maps by building a handful of basic units and immediately sending them out to capture the points. You have to hold a majority of the critical points for 6 minutes – which is easy as the AI doesn’t send forth more than a token effort until the time is nearly up. The AI definitely needs tweaking there, since those maps are fairly strategically important, and should be more of a struggle. Other than that, it’s been fun, and I look forward to checking out the new units for the other races and finding unique ways to use them to torment my foes.

Video Update

My “Potential Energy” video should be out this week. Weather this weekend didn’t allow me to catch up as I had planned, so hopefully I can get the rest done tomorrow or Thursday. After that, I have a demonstration of Magnesium which will be a lot more interesting that you might think.

COOKIE!!!

I was surprised to find out that they made a “Tickle Me Extreme” version of the Cookie Monster and Ernie. I was trying to find a Cookie Monster hand puppet at the time (yes, it’s for a video…just nod and smile), and ran across it on Amazon. And yes, I bought it.

Weird Dream

Last night I had a dream that involved a dwarf named Moradin, who was around during a great war with the Orcs (think Lord of the Rings kinda thing). He wants to fight valiantly, but he’s a bit more skittish than the average dwarf. He is unwilling to fight unless he has a full suit of plate mail. Problem is, he lost all of his posessions and money during an early raid in the war, so he has no weapons, and no armor. wanting to help, but fearing to fight, he spends a fair amount of time avoiding getting involved in major conflicts, but venturing onto the battlefield afterwards to try to help the wounded and scavenging pieces of armor from those who can no longer use them. For some reason he refuses to scavenge a weapon, and wishes to earn it through honest fighting. Towards the end of the dream he’s managed to gather a decent amount of armor, but he’s missing the breastplate. However, he decides to confront a party of orcs that have separated from a main battle group to raid a poorly defended monastery. He lies in wait therin, waiting to bash the first orc who comes through the door with a giant candlestick holder (they have those in monasteries, doncha know?). At which point my dog Jack got startled by a noise and jumped into the bed – waking me up.

Much nicer than an orc, but still shouldn’t fall on you in the middle of the night.

Upset stomachs and a couple Pomegranate Smirnoff Ices apparently make for strange dreams.

Mental Distraction

I read a blog right before leaving work, and didn’t want to reply until I went home.  The “debate” in my head that resulted in the previous blog had me very mentally distracted.

My wife and I had an appointment after work.
The plan was to drive straight to there from work.

I went straight home.

Once I realized my error (took my stepdaughter saying “why are you home?!?”), I drove to their office on the northwest side of the city.

The appointment was actually on the EAST side of the city (and yes, I knew that previously).

I drive to the east side, walk into the building, realize that it’s the WRONG BUILDING (next door).

I finally make it to the meeting.  Mind you, as I hate being late, I had allowed myself enough time to do all that, and still make it to the meeting early.

With Regards to Personal Responsibility

I tend to be a strong believer in “personal responsibility.” I’ve gone as far as to say “in any situation you’re involved in, your personal responsibility is always a factor.” I am going to try to state this conclusion of mine in a logical manner.

I wasn’t always this bad, I might have been WORSE.

I have always had an…”odd” sense of humor. Starting when I was in elementary school, I’d write parodies, comic skits, and drew comic strips. Of course, since we didn’t have handcams at the time, instead of video I’d do audio recordings.

I posted a personal ad when I was 23 and again when 24. You also had to make a voice greeting for it. I decided that if a prospective mate could deal with my rather crazed humor, we’d probably get along fine. So I laid it on kinda thick.

Figure it might be goood for a laugh at least. So…without further ado, an odd insight into the mind of Mad-Science. (Audio Only)
Ad 1

Ad 2

Activision/RedOctane announces Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Have they jumped the shark?

Anyone that knows me personally, knows I’m a lifelong gamer. I also enjoy casual games such as Guitar Hero. I have every release so far, but I’m concerned with a new trend Activision may be starting. They’ve announced a future Guitar Hero release (Reuters) that is exclusively Aerosmith content.

One of the things I liked about Guitar Hero was it’s general appeal by having a large variety of music to choose from. If you want more songs from a specific band, you could download those songs (though it’s sad the Wii version has no downloadable content yet). For me, it’s a “party game,” so having varied content is a plus.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Aerosmith and they’re a decent choice (best selling american rock band). I also like Guitar Hero. But does this mean they’re going to start making releases for other specific bands? Is this a trend? Sounds like they’re feeling threatened by Rock Band’s sales. Will we be seeing a flurry of band-specific releases? Is Guitar Hero: Spinal Tap far behind? Maybe I’d be happier if they announced Guitar Hero: Dethklok or Guitar Hero: Weird Al.

High Voltage Antique – Slightly-Mad Science Video

Links to Video: Lulu Revver Vume Metacafe YouTube
I recently obtained a “Violet Wand” (not to be confused with a “Violent Wand” which is what Harry Potter fans use when you make fun of them).
It was made over 80 years ago, and still works. It’s a nice example of applied physics, and ALSO how some will try to scam you into buying quack medical devices claiming to cure almost every known disease. Perfect for Slightly-Mad Science.
Time for some antique high voltage!