Woah science

Some time ago, I had an idea for a story. That story would start with the main characters flying through space on a ship that happens to fly straight through the center of the universe. Good stuff. Pretty quickly in (current estimate is between 20k and 25k words) one of the characters, a demented, sociopathic genius, activates a device, just as it passes through the center of the universe, and is able to destroy the universe and recreate it, however he wants it.

Luckily, most of the other main characters witnessed this device's activation, thus, they and the ship they were on survives, allowing them to undo the madman's work.

One of the questions I had to answer for this story was: "What the heck kind of device does this guy have?" It was one of the big ones, a pressing question that kept me from going forward. I haven't actually written that part, yet the thought dogged me.

But then July Fourth happened. In between explosions and grilling, lab-coated scientists in Switzerland, playing around with the Large Hadron Collider in CERN, discovered what could, maybe, possibly, be a Higgs Boson. Good enough for me.

The Higgs Boson is referred to as the "God Particle," a name which pisses off many a scientist, because all it really does is provide a testable hypothesis for the origin of mass in elementary particles. I copied that sentence from wikipedia and like, every word is linked to something. In truth, the concrete discovery of Higgie would leave more questions than it answered, mostly about the unification of quantum chronodynamics, the electroweak reaction, and gravity, as well as the ultimate origin of the universe.

Thinking that maybe I could use this particle as a basis for Crazy Guy's device (I call him CG in my notes because I don't have a name for him yet), I started researching, and I think it's doable.

The device would have to create a "Vacuum expectation Value (VeV)" of  246 GeV or General electron Volt (basically, 1.602×10⁻¹⁹ joules times 246). This is the VeV of a Higgs field, which is the field required to create the Boson unique to that field (Hence: Higgs Boson).

This diagram shows the HB interactions with other particles shown with the Standard Model. It's totally dissing Photons and Gluons

At the time of activation, CG's device would create the field, as well as a HB particle inside that field. To do this, the device would have to incorporate a particle accelerator (of which the Large Hadron Collider is the biggest in existence) to create an HB. This is where the "genius" part of crazy guy would have to come in. He has, in theory, developed a way to have a Higgs Boson be created just as it passes through the center of the universe.

And now all science goes out the window. I really have no idea if what I've said up to this point makes sense to someone who actually understands this gook, but from this point on: what I say, goes.

As Higgie passes through the center of the universe (Or "Into the point" as CG calls it) it simultaneously destroys and creates all matter. Because an HB is both its own antimatter and CP-even (Which means it would be the same if it was switched with its antiparticle and its left and right were swapped) it accomplishes both at once.

However, the last aspect of the device is that it draws matter...a DNA sample perhaps...from the user. It then imprints this sample as the new standard model for the universe.

This means that CG is able to create the universe in his own image and with his own rules. He is immortal, invincible, all-knowing and all-powerful. He is God, and king, and he rules forever. Yet his universe is still built on rules, and even he cannot break them.

Except that the people that witnessed him activating the device are also preserved, just as they are, stuck in a ship floating in space. And they are the only ones that realize what is going on.

Addition! Crazy Guy's name is unofficially Ulysses Divus. Which means that it's official unless I think of something better. Fun facts: "Divus" (pronounced Dee-woos) in Latin is the male singular of God, immortal, or deity. The female singular is Diva. Eh? Eh? Yeah.

Bulb

   It is a forgone conclusion that whenever I attempt to do something, a project, a task, a chore, that I will either break something or hurt myself. The first and only time my father asked me to help him rotate the tires, I lost one lug nut and swallowed another. A few months ago I was cutting down a tree branch with a trimmer, and, in a whirlwind of motion that I have yet to explain, I found myself caught by an ankle up in the tree, ten feet away from where I had been standing, the trimmer lying on the ground mockingly still and my trapped body swinging in the wind.
    Well, this afternoon I tried changing a light bulb. My parents had left the house for some function and I was left with this simple task. It was one of three light bulbs in the kitchen fixture, set in the center of the ceiling. I thought first to get a light bulb their storage area, but realized I didn't know what kind to get and, given my track record, would finish the project with a birthday candle stuck in the socket upside-down. I went into the kitchen and starred up at the fixture, determined to figure out which one was burnt. I flipped the light on and temporarily blinded myself. Recovering, I saw which bulb was burnt, and pulled a kitchen stool under it. Before I mounted it, I decided that it would be best to turn the light off again. I removed the small cushion that was on the stool because I knew that it would slip out from under me. Proud that I had remembered that fact, I climbed onto the stool. However, I misjudged both my height and the height of the stool and crashed the top of my head into the ceiling.
    After a brief lie down on the hard kitchen floor, I regained my stance on the stool, crouching slightly to avoid another bump. I realized I didn't remember which bulb was burnt out. So I climbed down, marched to the switch, took a good look at the fixture, turned it on, and blinded myself again.
    Eventually I discerned which bulb needed changing again, and carefully climbed onto the stool. I carefully unscrewed the screws keeping the white dome which covered the bulb in place, but dropped one of them onto the floor before I could get the dome down. It seemed to be waiting for the chance to escape, because as soon as I got down off the stool and placed the dome on the table in the center of the kitchen the screw had vanished. After crawling around for a few minutes, bumping around under the table (and accidentally mistaking a short black twisty tie for the screw) I found it, trying in vain to wedge itself through a vent on the runner. I had a funny thought about calling the screw "Steve McQueen" to mock it into submission when I heard an ominous grating noise from the table. Peering level with it, I saw the white dome about to roll off the other side of the table.
    Diving through the legs, I superbly caught the dome moments before it would have smashed like a snowman hit by a wrecking ball. In doing so however I managed to fling the screw at the wall, and it might have known it was never really going to escape because it decided to bounce off and smack me perfectly in the forehead.
    It rolled flaccidly as I got up, dome in hands. After I secured the dome and the screw, I got back up to ceiling-height and unscrewed the burnt bulb from the fixture. Carefully stepping back down, I noted the bulb's wattage and placed in on the table. I then found the right kind of bulb to replace it with; the last one. I climbed back up, nearly bashing my head again. I started to screw the new bulb in to place in the fixture, and when I thought I was done I bent down to get the white dome.
    I heard the bulb fall loose with a heart-stopping "ping." Bent forward as I was, I attempted to jump down into the path of the bulb (The last one!) to catch it, and catch it I did. Unfortunately I also landed with one foot right on the stool's pillow, sending me skidding across the hardwood floor. I tried to catch the table to stop myself, but ended up with the burnt out bulb in my other hand instead of the table it was resting on. I crashed into the sink, bashed my knee into the cabinet below it, slipped backwards and conked my head on the floor. One of the two bulbs had broken when I landed, smashed so that only a tiny jagged mountain range remained where it had been. It was only the burnt bulb, but I still had to clean it up.
    By the time I had cleaned and finished everything, I had two bumps on my head, a small mark where the screw had hit me, a bashed knee, and a broken light bulb.
    But I considered it a success, because I didn't end up hanging by my ankle in a tree. And don't you think that wasn't possible.

Trailers and their Clobber-related Results

I like me some movies. You know this. I've seen two movies in the theaters this month, Captain America and Cowboys and Aliens. Both are about as you'd expect:

1) Captain America punches Nazis. (and Hugo Weaving!)
2) Cowboys fight Aliens. (And Olivia Wilde!)

Anyway, one of the best parts of my movie-going experience is the previews. Some people may hate them but I love them. It shows us new movies before they get widespread online and lets us see them in glorious picture and sound.

But it doesn't always work that way, sometimes the movies themselves fall short of what people would call "good." Sometimes they fall short of what people would call "Allowed by the Geneva Convention." And sometimes they fall into the narrow category that I, solely, have been entrusted to:

Each movie trailer will be rated on the "clobberin' scale." 
____________________________________________________________________
The Good:

1) "Warrior":

Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, and Joel Edgerton punch each other. I want to see this one.

Rating:

"Better Things To Do"

2) "The Help":

Southern Belles and Black maids. Would go if offered.

Rating:

"A Genteel Clobbre"

____________________________________________________________________
The apprehensive/anxious:

1) "Lion King 3D":

Nothing surprising, of course, but darn it if I didn't get shivers everytime I saw it.

Rating:

"You Betta Watch Yo'self"

2) "Tower Heist":

I like Ben Stiller and I like Eddie Murphy, but recently their performances haven't been received well. Maybe we'll be lucky.

Rating:

"DIY Clobbering"

____________________________________________________________________
The Bad:

1) "Contagion":

Virus? Sure. Good? Maybe not. Only if I didn't have to pay.

Rating:

"Guess What Time it is"

2) "Battleship":

Really? Like...really. You're doing that. That's real. I think they could just subtitle this "Liam Neeson Hates Himself."

Rating:

"Incoming"

3)

Here it is. The Big Banana. The Hot Burrito. The Suck-tastic Soup.

Watch at your own risk: Gulp

Rating:

We all do.

Insane People

After 60 plus days of constant pain, I have finished the nightmarish torture known as The Insanity Program. It is, purportedly, the toughest DVD workout program in the world (though this is probably no longer true).  Today is the first day since May 23 that I can arrive home from work, and immediately eat food. By the second month it was no longer a question of “will I throw up in my mouth” but “how much.”

I spent a lot of time with the DVDs, so much that I nearly had the phrases the coach used to motivate us and make us laugh.

There were lots of people in the videos doing the exercises along with us, some were rotated in and out, but some were more of a constant. I suspected the requirements for getting the job of “background exerciser” was one-third fitness, one-third acting, and one-third hopelessness.

Regardless, I got to know them and their little pieces of character. So, here are some of them, whether they appeared every time, or on only two of the ten different workouts that I did for 60 days. Each person will be accompanied by a real quote from the workout program.
                                                                                                                                                                    
The Coach

Mr. T

“This is Insanity, and it’s going to kick your butt.”

Big bad Shaun T is here to whip you into shape. If that demands he awkwardly touch your abdomen during an exercise, then deal with it.

Shaun is a fountain of wisdom. “Dig Deeper.” “Work.” “Power.” “Contract the core.” And all that from just one of the workouts. His knowledge of the physical is extensive, and his step-by-step instructions on each exercise will make sure you do it in the correct form.

If, for some reason, you fail to do it in the correct form, Shaun T does not judge. He only asks that you try harder the next time, drink your water, and prepare a batch of P90X “Results and Recovery” formula for daily consumption, and refuel your body.

DO NOT FORGET TO DRINK YOUR RESULTS AND RECOVERY FORMULA.
                                                                                                                                                                    
The Poster Child

“Woo!”

That quote may not make sense, but it does once you realize that, unless she is asked a direct question, that is all she says. Her name is Tania, and she is the only person who has her nails done right before a workout. She is at the right-hand of Mr. T, and she is the one that he goes to the most often to check progress. She is in all but one of the DVDs.

My friends and I nicknamed her “Chun-Li…”

…because in the fit test, where you track your progress, she obliterates any kind of record you will ever have in the leg-based exercises. Slowly, we learned to detest her. The pandering, the unneeded enthusiasm, the obvious brown-nosing. But what we really hated the most was, on a few of the exercises, Shaun T will help her with the exercises, by holding her legs in the air or something.

After some research, I found my sentiments echoed on everything from personal blogs to the Beachbody forums itself.

I didn't even have to make this!

                                                                                                                                                                     
The Interesting one

"It feels like s***!"

Her name is Adriana, and she says a total of one sentence for the entire sixty days. And that one sentence is 25% cuss. It comes after Shaun T asks her how it (the exercise feels).

There's that, and then there's the time she spits a wad onto the floor during an exercise.

Yeah!

                                                                                                               
The Aryan Nightmare

*Quote not found*

Because he never says a thing. That's why. Chris (Black Chris, as we call him, because there is also a White Chris) has tattoos. And if you ever get him angry he will punch your throat all the way through.

But he looks like the kind of guy who will never get angry. He looks like the kind of big black guy who will serve at the soup kitchen and offer to walk girls home and they will say yes because he's like 6' 4" and 250 lbs and the kindest guy alive.

Also, there's this one exercise called Power push-ups. Do a push up. Now jump to your feet by squeezing your abs really fast. Now drop back down and do a push-up. Continue that cycle until you die.

Chris can do these so fast and so well he could probably punch your throat all the way through with his stomach.
                                                                                                                                                                      
The Failure

"Wheeze"

This is the person put into the exercises to make you feel better about yourself. I honestly don't know if she has a name, but if not The Failure, I would call her Gumby, because her legs and arms turned to jelly at the slightest amount of work.

I think she was in maybe two of the workouts, which is the lowest of any except people that aren't even noticed. She took a lot of breaks and is prominent in the front of the group, which is wierd unless they planned it.

                                                                                                                                                                

So there they are. There are more, like the Guido, the Geezer, and the Creepy Guy, but this is enough for now.

And if you're interested, Insanity does work. It's incredibly difficult to motivate yourself to do it and a beast on your joints. You lose weight but it isn't designed to give you muscle mass. You should only do it if you are already fit and and want to lose weight. I did lose weight.

Ugh I was so fat

But I also gained muscle, just because of all the exercise I did.