Birthday Games

If you'll recall, I got some games for my birthday. I thought it would be fun to briefly review them to let my readers know whether they might like the games or not. Keep in mind they are the PS3 versions, but in all cases are also available on the 360. I have not read about any significant differences between the console versions, but if there are differences at all, I'll note them.

Tomb Raider: Underworld

Here's the bottom line: If you played Tomb Raider: Legend and Anniversary during the last console generation and liked them, you will continue to enjoy Underworld, which ends the trilogy. By the time the game ends, all of your questions are answered and all plot strings wrapped up. The game is drop-dead gorgeous, and definately a contender for "best graphics of the year." Crystal Dynamics has managed to incorporate wonderfully diverse and lush environments--every level feels organic, and the sense of scale is beyond compare. The water effects especially should be lauded. Lara's animations have improved thanks to motion capture, and her face is able to convey a bevvy of emotions that the last console generation wasn't able to capture. The graphical powerhouse, however, actually creates a few problems: namely, figuring out where you can and cannot climb or move to. Ledges and rocks meld into the background elements with such ease that finding your way around becomes more challenging than it needs to be. Additionally, there are minor framerate issues.

The game's real stumbling block, however, is the camera, which requires a level of manhandling I am unaccustomed to. Virtually every change in direction requires a change in camera angle, and there are times when the camera does not want to behave as it fights between what it wants to show you and what you want to see. The game is also startlingly low on unlockable content. Concept art is great, but where are the alternate outfits? The red-blooded male in me longs for the jaw-dropping "evening gown" and "bikini" costumes of Legend (they'd look a whole lot better on the PS3). These costumes were absent in Anniversary, and actually the costumes in that game were disappointing (ooh, skinless model and burned Natla? Great!). You do get one alternate costume upon beating Underworld, but it's only available in one level, and it's really just an different color of the default costume. What really gets my goat is that 360 owners can look forward to two exclusive downloadable costumes soon. There is no DLC scheduled for the PS3 version, which really bothers me.

Okay, I'm just gonna come out and say it: One of the guilty pleasures of the Tomb Raider franchise (even the Crystal Dynamics series) is seeing Lara's cleavage bouncing around while she explores ancient, eldrich ruins. Throughout the entire series run, that "feature" has remained omnipresent. To see it cut entirely from Underworld is, frankly, a letdown. Moving on...

I've heard many online complaints of game-ending bugs plaguing all three versions of the game, but Eidos has only acknowledged one, on the Wii. I will admit that the game can be a little "glitchy" if you're trying to wedge Lara into environmental places she's not supposed to go. Often she'll get stuck in an animation loop, but simply ducking or jumping away usually solves the problem. Tomb Raider: Underworld is going to appeal to a very certain kind of gamer, but for that one type, it's a wonderful game.

Hey, what about the Wii? Yes, Underworld is also on the Wii, but it seems to be a port of the PS2 version, which means that the production values are much, much lower. If I had to go with one, I'd choose the Wii version, just because the Legend engine looks better on the Wii than the PS2. At least, that's what Anniversary taught me.





Bioshock

At the other end of the gaming spectrum, Bioshock is a first-person shooter. Back when the 360 version hit stands, it was hailed among many publications as the "Game of the Year" for its twisted, disturbing storyline that channeled Ayn Rand, and freedom of choice in terms of gameplay. The art direction is stunning, I will say that. The game takes place in 1960. Your plane crashes into the sea near a lighthouse, and with nowhere else to go, you swim toward it. As the doors swing wide, you are greeted by a bust of Andrew Ryan, founder of the underwater dystopia Rapture. You descend to this sprawling city in a bathysphere, and while your purpose is not immediately clear, it soon becomes one of survival and vengeance. Bioshock indeed has a gripping story, aided immensely by the 20's and 30's-inspired art direction and soundtrack. It's as if time stopped in Rapture, save the scientific achievements brought forth in its depths. Although the art style is entirely different than Underworld, it is just as beautiful. The story is told through Doom 3-like voice recordings, but also through the propoganda written on the walls and the messages proclaimed from overhead speakers.

As a shooter, Bioshock definately feels different than industry standards like Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4. You cycle through a fairly large number of guns (and one melee weapon) with your right hand, and an ever-expanding group of magical powers with your left hand. Rapture's scientists developed the power to manipulate genetic codes, giving people aesthetic or military powers in the process. Originally you could simply change the size of your nose, but later people were given the ability to freeze or burn others, or control insects. Things quickly fell apart. The weapon-based gameplay is not as strong as it is in a game like Call of Duty 4, as you must use a combination of powers and bullets to stop the crazed throngs who currently inhabit Rapture. Weapon switching is a little unreliable, and even low-level thugs can present considerable challenge if you're not spot-on with aiming. Luckily, Bioshock gives you ammo in spades--you are never low on it, and there are enough MP boosts to keep your magical powers afresh.

What makes the combat unique in Bioshock is that you have lots of freedom. You don't need to rely exclusively on your gun and powers. You can "hack" a medical station to deliver poison to those seeking aid, for example. Damage an opponent enough and he may run to a nearby medical station only to be gassed to death. Set a baddie on fire, then watch him run for a big puddle (Rapture is leaking) to put out the flames. Switch to your electricity power and zap the water, conveniently stopping the thug as well. Once you discover the research camera, you can take pictures of enemies to discover their weak points. Every battle is one of choices: You can take the easy way out and just run-and-gun, or use the environment to your advantage. It's nice to see that kind of player choice in an FPS game.

On the other hand, much of the player choice is governed by the "hacking" minigame. Virtually every mechanical device in Rapture can be hacked, and usually must be if you're going to survive long. The minigame is exceedingly simple--switch pipe pieces around until you get one continuous pipe from point A to point B--but the sheer volume of hacking is problematic. You can hack vending machines, ammo machines, health stations, droids, and a few other things. It seems like every room in the game has at least one hackable thing in it. The rewards for successful hacks are great, and the player is encouraged to hack everything he or she sees, but it does get old.

However, the game's art direction, plotline, and sheer volume of available powers (if you choose to use them) are reason enough to check it out. I think I'm nearing the end of the game, and I love it despite the constant hacking. The PS3 version (just released) already has DLC not included on the 360 consisting of "challenge rooms" for players who are just that good. Give it a shot!

A Carpaceless Turtle

This week's Nature reports on a new ridiculously primitive turtle, Odontochelys semitestacea, described by Li, Wu, Rieppel, Wang, & Zhao (above). It comes hot off the heels of another basal turtle, Chinlechelys tenertesta, and the two offer competing ideas about how the turtle shell originally formed. First, let's talk about Chinlechelys, because I never got around to posting about it. It's an incredibly fragmentary turtle, but interesting in that one of the fragments shows that the carpace (upper shell) is made of osteoderms which fuse to expanded thoracic ribs. In Chinlechelys, that fusion is incomplete. In modern turtles, the dorsal osteoderms fuse onto the expanded thoracic ribs in the embryo. The reason Chinlechelys is important is because it demonstrates two things: (1) The carpace was originally made up of rows of armor plating; and (2) the thoracic ribs expanded independantly of armor fusion. Which event happened first is hard to say, but Chinlechelys shows that the two are separate occurrances.

The picture above, from Chinlechelys' description, shows a hypothetical sequence of events leading to the modern turtle shell. The two animals on the left are speculative. The third one from the left is Proganochelys, and the far right is Chinlechelys.

Well, leave it to evolution to screw up our understanding of the world. Enter Odontochelys, a turtle more primitive than either Chinlechelys or Proganochelys by a few degrees. It has a fully-developed plastron (lower shell) but no carpace. Did you hear that? It doesn't have any carpace armor! However, it does posess expanded thoracic ribs, so it was a wide-bodied animal with. It was also marine and, better yet, had lots of teeth in all regions of the mouth.

So that throws the Chinlechelys' carpace hypothesis out the window. Odontochelys presents the idea that ancestral turtles were shallow marine animals that developed a plastron to protect their bellies from predators, and only evolved the carpace later, but not initially from osteoderms. The skeletal structure (expanded thoracic ribs) was already in place, and probably evolved originally to join with the plastron. The ribs probably expanded for structural support. So while the armored carpace hypothesis isn't completely wrong, Odontochelys shows that more works needs to be done. The authors suggest that dermal osteoderms may have never been present, and that the full carpace evolved through "intramembraneous ossification within the carapacial disk." Or, more simply, the spaces between the expanded ribs, filled with dermal or cartiligionous tissue, may have simply ossified through evolution. No dermal armor necessary!

This is an unbelievably exciting and important find, and what's more, the authors did a phylogenetic analysis of the animal and found it group with sauropterygians! That would make turtles diapsids, a contention I've never really understood. It's still exciting, though!

UPDATE: In the "News & Views" section of the issue, Reisz & Head suggest that Odontochelys descended from carpaced ancestors, but lost the dermal ossifications secondarily after moving into the sea. Many modern turtles do this, like leatherbacks and soft-shelled turtles. I could really go either way here.

Happy Turkey Day!

Turkeys in the Cretaceous were bigger, more dangerous, harder to kill, and--honestly--a little gamey.

Image credit and link (by request): Google Image Search for Beipiaosaurus.

Sketchbook Sampler

While rooting through some of my older artwork (approx. 2% of my total output is saved; the rest goes into the trash), I came across some gems that I don't think I've yet shared on this version of the blog. Old readers may recognize some of this art from WPF v.1. Let's hope the formatting doesn't go to hell...

The Band
Way back when Guitar Hero first hit the streets (couches?), I imagined my friends getting together in a virtual band. There's Marcus (El Diablo) on bass, Luke Nielson (Teh_Luke) on lead guitar, Erik (Erikardo) on drums, and Dan (The Man) on vocals. Don't ask me where the designs came from, because I don't have any idea, aside from a few key bits and pieces. I can totally see these guys playing Ted Nuget's "Strangelhold."

DinoNoir
I really like film noir. I think it's kind of a lost art form in movies--you never really see it anymore. The closest we've gotten for awhile was Sin City, which simultaneously honored and parodied true noir. Where do you go for good film noir? Oddly enough, many of the Batman: Animated episodes were heavily noir-influenced. Anyway, I wanted to do a noir comic with heavily stylized dinosaur characters. The star detective was going to be an ankylosaur and the villain was going to be a Tyrannosaurus rex that headed up a corrupt corporation in the black-hearted city of Fossiliferous. Spinosaurs worked the docks, our hero had a Stygimoloch sidekick, and it was going to kick ass. I had lots of plot twists in mind, like the villain's men discovering the skeleton of a real T.rex, implicating that "modern" dinosaur descended from more ferocious ancestors, or Eve (the first woman) walking into the detective's office one day, asking him to look for her missing husband. Sauropods were the only dinosaurs that did not evolve to such high ranks, and served as basically beasts of burden in Fossiliferous.

So yeah, lots of cool ideas, but none of it really came to fruition. Maybe some day...

TMNT
I love the Ninja Turtles. I thought the recent CG movie was a big step in the right direction, with the rivalry between Raphael and Leonardo finally coming to a head after just being implicated in the many comic iterations. The comic has gone through four "volumes" (the current volume is pretty much dead in the water), including many, spin-offs including Tales of the TMNT, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, and a show based on the new animated series. I don't think any comic has yet done the turtles justice save for two: The third volume of the canonical comic, which was published by Image (and subsequently de-canonized by Mirage) and the few storylines of the Archie Adventure Series which dealt with the turtles in the future. I've always pictures the TMNT as much darker then they're often portrayed. The Image series screwed them up pretty good--Raphael got half his face shot off, Leonardo had his left hand bitten off, and Donatello became a cyborg. A lot of fans balked at this radical change, but I think it energized the series. My own drawings of the Turtles follow the Image example. I wish that volume would have lasted longer, as it was canned (for various reasons) before wrapping up its story.

Prehistoric Wierdness
This first picture is Psittacosaurus, and I drew it after first reading that awesome paper describing "quilled" parrot lizards. I stayed relatively conservative, and went a little nuts with the coloration. It's clearly an unfinished sketch (where's the jugal horn?) but I like the energy this guy has. The second picture is just something I made up. It looks like some kind of ape-armed dicynodont, doesn't it? The upper jaw is very narrow, and the dentary has some bizarre upwardly-directed flanges for reasons I'm unsure of now. It's an example of speculative evolution--I like drawing animals that do NOT, but COULD, exist.

Kratodracos lunensia

Kratodracos is the most recently-described dragon known to science, known from Italy and published earlier this year by Gardner (2008). A relative newcomer to draconology, Garder named the beast as a rather tongue-in-cheek reference to the main character of God of War, a video game series starring a brutal Spartan warrior. The man is certainly apt, as is the species name, which reflects the dragon's mostly nocturnal habits. Obviously a member of the Dracolympidae, Kratodracos possesses the numerous spines and plates so characteristic of that group. This animal, however, is unique is a number of ways, including the hypertrophied claw sheaths on the fingers and toes, which resemble scythes. The wings are broad but oddly constructed: There are four wing-fingers, and the thumb has been lost, replaced by a spike-like "cap." The patagium only stretches between the wing-fingers and the elbow, with no connection to the torso. Furthermore, a finger-like projection arises from the elbow, although it is not connected to the patagium or the bones of the wing-arm. The projection looks like a finger but is immobile. Embryological studies are required before the projection's osteological origins can be known.

Kratodracos is a deep red color, with pale yellow claws and a yellow underbelly. The patagium is also pale yellow, though blue and black eyespots are visible on the outside of the patagium. The inside of the mouth, including the tongue, is a deep blue color. The animal's shoulder spines are yellow, but the dorsal spines, knee spines, and cranial spines are black. While Gardner didn't see any females during his time with Kratodracos (that he could tell), he was able to to witness what appeared to be the mating ritual of the male.

As night fell, one male switched between walking and flying up a high peak near his cave home. The dragon stood bipedally at the highest point of the hill, spread his wings regally, and, for lack of a better term, "coughed" loudly into the night sky. After about fifteen minutes of this, the dragon settled to onto all fours to, Gardner imagined, await a reply. No answer came, and after an hour of restless waiting, the male glid back down the hill and retired to his cave. Throughout the night, several other dragons were heard, hoping for mates. This could also be a case of territorial advertising.

Painfully little is known of Kratodracos, which is understandable given its very recent discovery. It is smaller than Dracospartus, standing only five feet tall (when bipedal) and ten feet long. It is not as flightless as its larger cousin, but is clearly on its way there, as the male described by Gardner seemed to prefer flying and walking equally. Like Dracospartus, the species may display significant sexual dimorphism in terms of armor plating and spines.

Gardner, N. (2008). A brief encounter with a new species of Greek Dracolympidae. European Journal of Draconology 109(1): 47-50.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm not usually one to toot my own horn, but I let myself do it at least once a year: my birthday. Today I turn 26, that ripe old age when colors begin dimming, and food tastes worse. I'm afraid it's all downhill from here, especially from the perspective of a CF patient, as I am now middle-aged. But hey, I got a bunch of cool birthday stuff. The in-laws sent me a Best Buy gift card, which I immediately used to acquire Tomb Raider: Underworld (it's so beautiful) and the final season of Fullmetal Alchemist. My parents, pitying me after that whole Guitar Hero: World Tour debacle (I told you about that, right?) sent me that game plus the guitar, but without the drum kit (good riddance). Finally, my darling wife bought me Bioshock, which has been called the most significant game yet developed in terms of social commentary, so I'm eager to play it.

Ironically, I'm at work today, and I'm not having my birthday dinner until tomorrow night. Scott and I are preparing for an EPIC debate in front of Gina's argumentative writing course on Wednesday. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Also, my once-a-year moment of superficiality. I present to you all The Most Genetically Perfect Woman on the Planet (aside from my wife, of course). I know, I'm a bad person.

Meanwhile, back at R'lyeh...

A long, long time ago, I promised my own artisitic interpretation of Great Lord Cthulhu, the best-known of H. P. Lovecraft's morbious Great Old Ones. That promise was not made in vain--in fact, I have been tirelessly attempting a reconstruction ever since. Cthulhu is terribly difficult to draw. The goal is always to capture the raw horror of Lovecraftian lore, while avoiding Earthly analogues as much as possible. Now, granted, Cthulhu is described as having various anthropomorphic features, but it was my goal to steer away from that. You see far too many bat-winged, claw-handed squidy demigods in Lovecraft art. But alas, those pieces have their grounding in the literature. From the titular Call of Cthulhu:


"...simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature.... A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings. Another, recovered by police from a raid on a murderous cult, "represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind."

In all of Lovecraft's descriptions of the beast, the octopus head and narrow wings persist. As for the anthropoid outline, perhaps this is a case where man sees himself in all things. Merely having a head and two arms might give Cthulhu his hominoid characters according to the madmen describing him in the literature. Claws on the hind and fore feet? How about claws instead of hind and fore feet? The octopus head is more suggestive of a boneless, muscular body. Perhaps Cthulhu is more mollusc than tetrapod? Perhaps Great Lord Cthulhu looked something like this:



Here, the arms end in horrible tentacles, the lower body is a sort of hellish caterpiller, and the wings are not wings at all, but elongate spineous processes. Bear in mind this is only a DRAFT. It's the first Cthulhu drawing I've done that I didn't absolutely hate. Let me know what you think! Lovecraftian beasties are terribly hard to get "right." And remember, I've drawn one other: Dagon, from the story of the same name.

Book Recommendation

I just read Donald Prothero's excellent Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's for anybody interested in science, the scientific method, or how science works and progresses. While the book has two distinct themes, Prothero's main point is to provide an understanding (for those without one) of how the discipline works, and why it works as well as it does.

During the first half of the book, Prothero takes Creationist arguments about evolution or, more often, science in general, and tears them limb from limb. The man gives the best all-bases-covered rebuttal of "flood geology" that I've ever read. The man isn't trying to be mean, but rather is showing why science comes up with different conclusions than men of the cloth, and why the latter's arguments never hold water.

The book's second half discusses animals not known to exist in Creationist circles: transitional forms (eek!). Everything from lampreys to arthropods, Euparkeria to birds, fish to amphibians, Dimetrodon to mammals--the fossil record is wonderfully complete, and this book really lays it out there for you. Prothero is careful to recognize that there is no such thing as an ancestor-descendant relationship. Aside from a few recent extent examples, you can't point to, say, Archaeopteryx and say that it's on the direct line to birds. That's impossible to test. However, based on the number of characteristics it shares with birds (and dinosaurs), you CAN say that Archaeopteryx is probably kissing cousins with that hypothetical ancestor.

It's also worth noting (as Prothero does) that the fossil record will never be 100% complete. The fact that we have any fossils at all is miraculous, so we're lucky to have recovered such transitional forms as Tiktaalik and Yanoconodon. It's also damn cool that some transitional forms are still alive today, like coelocanths and velvet worms. So really, while you can't show a steady progression of fossil forms (or living forms) (for theoretical and practical reasons), you can do this:

Esthenopteron: Shallow-water lobe-finned fish, semi-mobile head, folded enamal teeth, pectoral and pelvic fins show "humerus-ulna/radius-lots of little bones" structure.

Tiktaalik: Shallow-water lobe-finned fish, semi-mobile head, folded enamal teeth, pectoral fins capable of bending at "elbow," allowing the animal to do a push-up, otherwise structure similar to Esthenopteron.

Acanthostega: Shallow-water tetrapod, mostly-mobile head, folded enamal teeth, loss of all but pectoral and pelvic "fins." Structure of fins similar to Tiktaalik except the "finger bones" have been arranged in a half-moon fashion around the distal end of the radius/ulna, giving the creature eight distinct fingers. Still restricted to water, retains fishy tail.

Ichthyostega: Potentially amphibious tetrapod, mobile head, folded enamal teeth, large pectoral girdle suggests possibility of limited terrestrial movement, limbs larger than Acanthostega, but still had more than five fingers per limb, retains fishy tail.

I mean, how can you not see the progression there? That example and many more are found in Prothero's excellent tome, which I highly recommend.

Alas, Blogroll, we hardly knew (some of) ye

Regular readers might notice that my blogroll has shrunk considerably. I've decided to implement a policy here at When Pigs Fly Returns. In order for a blog to qualify for blogroll status, it must be updated with at least some attempt at regularity. Now, there are some sites, like Mark Witton's flickr page, which are updated...oh, twice a year (zing!). However, I don't consider Mark's site a blog so much as an art gallery, and I leave it because I think it's really wonderful art. The same goes for John Conway's site.

Alas, among this recent blogroll slaughter was Dino Frey's Weblog, which hadn't seen an update in what seemed like forever, and Wannabe Paleontologist, because I (and I assume others) no longer had permission to access the site. Sadly, The Caw Box, run by my friend and fellow paleoartist, Raven Amos, also had to go. She contributed heavily to the Archosauria art show but only managed 16 posts since...um...April (that's two posts a month, on average).

On the other hand, I did add one link to the roll: the Smithsonian's dinosaur blog, authored almost entirely by our good friend Brian Switek (Laelaps). The man runs two awesome blogs now and he's writing a book. Not sure how he does it, but check out his secondary blog, dear readers!

Jugoceras horriblus

The largest and most ferocious modern wyvern, Jugoceras horriblus (Northrop, 1985) lives alongside two dragons, the basal dracolympian Spinodracos dysonii and the bizarre cat mimic, Felimimus paradoxus. By all accounts, Jugoceras does not relish the company, and chance encounters between it and Spinodracos are violent and brutal (Naish, 2005). This great wyvern can grow up to forty feet long, although a large portion of that length is made up of neck and tail, both of which are surprisingly thick and muscular. Aside from its immense size, Jugoceras is notable for several reasons. First, it has a full compliment of five toes, and one is fully reversed. The individual toes are fairly short and terminate in large black claws. The wyvern is heavily armored, with black plates running down its entire ventral side and light brown, keeled plates running from between its shoulderblades to the end of the tail. Both ventral and dorsal plates overlap to provide some flexibility. The keels on the dorsal tail plates are taller than those on the body. The animal's neck is decorated differently on its dorsal surface: The plates are small, retangular, and do not overlap. Their keels are more like spines. Black, conical spines erupt from the skin just to each side of the dorsal cervical plates.

The head is unique among wyverns in that it is short, squared-off, and fairly narrow. Northrop described the teeth as "oversized," comparing the dentition to Ceratosaurus nasicornus. Jugoceras has a very broad range of binocular vision. Its most striking cranial features are what its namesake: Each jugal bone is equipped with an impossibly long and rigid horn. Additionally, a small nasal horn is present just above the external nares. Like many wyverns, Jugoceras is capable of breathing fire. Yates (2001) noted that rather than using its fire breath for attacking prey, Jugoceras "spurted" its fire breath, and seemed to use it primarily for intimidation. Indeed, Naish never mentioned the giant wyvern using its breath weapon during encounters with Spinodracos, where such an offense would be an obvious advantage.

The oddities, however, do not end there. Jugoceras has short arms but long metacarpals and extremely long, but thin, phalanges. Unlike most wyverns, there are five fingers in the wing. The first fingers is short and flexible, and is used for terrestrial movement. The other four fingers end in similarly elongate claws. As they have no use in flight, Northrop concluded that the claws must have a display function. Not surprisingly given its bulk and unusual wing construction, Jugoceras is restricted to the lower, less snowy sections of the Alps and spends a lot of its time clambering about the rocks on all fours. It feeds mainly on ungulates. Juveniles have never been observed, though we can probably assume that they are not as weighed down as their parents and may live a very different lifestyle.

While Jugoceras obviously presents a great many unique derived characters, it also displays some obviously basal ones. The five-toed pes and manus, for instance, make it more primitive than even Eowyvern. It would appear that the wings were once useful for flight, but the creature's lifestyle and enormous bulk preclude such ability. A small, squarish head and overszied teeth may be primitive for the group, as Eowyvern also demonstrates these characters. Mantell (2001) placed Jugoceras in its own family, the Jugoceratidae, and placed it below Eowyvernidae. He cautioned, however, that Eowyvern could represent a basal wyvern that independantly lost many basal features, such as pentadactyly and quadrapedality. In that case, Mantell argued, Eowyvern would likely originate from a more basal clade than Jugoceras, as Jugoceras is more derived in its wing construction and ability to fly.

Northrop, A. (1985). Comments on a gigantic wyvern from the lower Alps. Natura Historia 392: 322-331.

Naish, D. (2005). Jugoceras is unquestionably aggressive toward Spinodracos. Draconium 46(1): 56-58.

Yates, A. (2001). Fire-breathing behaviors among wyverns. European Journal of Draconology 102(3): 294-297.

Mantell, G. (2001). A broad look at wyvern systematics. European Journal of Draconology 102(2): 305-311.

SVP '09: Yikes

SVP is in Brisol, England next year! Yahoo! I can go to London and see the natural history museum and Darwin's grave (and house), and various other things!

Wait, how much are plane tickets? $1350 for the cheap seats? And that doesn't include a week spent in London before the conference itself--hotel room plus food would probably eat up some more moolah. And then it would be off to Bristol, where more hotel costs and food would further set me back. Add to that the cost of whatever swag I would inevitably buy at SVP and the natural history museum, and we're talking...hmm...carry the five...a shitload of money.

I can't afford that right now, though it's almost a year out. Right now, I think the most parsimonious thing to do would be to commit to conferences held in the United States. Even going to Cleveland (halfway across the country) was a hard pill to swallow, financially speaking. Just throwin' that out there.

Yahoo!

My boy won! I stopped watching the election coverage at 8 o'clock, and by then Obama had 338 electoral votes to McCain's meager 155. If that's not a mandate, I don't know what is. The man's got a big mess to clean up, but I believe he's up to the task. Palin was kicked offstage and will come back to Alaska, probably to a sympathetic populous. I wouldn't be surprised to see her run for senate in the future. Since Ted Stevens will probably will (by a slim margin) over Begich, even though Stevens is a convicted felon, Palin (or Parnell) will get to appoint their own senator once Uncle Ted is hauled from his senate seat and into the slammer. Alaskans can be very stupid sometimes.

So Palin would be running for senate against the person she appointed in 2012. She'll probably win. I don't think the national spotlight is in her best interest. When the lights go up, the cameras roll, and her cue cards are taken away, Palin tends to shoot herself repeatedly in the foot.

Sadly, thought the presidency is an enormous step forward for the country (both governmentally and culturally), several states took an equally huge step back by banning gay marriage and/or adoption rights, including California, where I thought such a ban would be virtually impossible. Since the Supreme Court ruled a few years ago that banning gay marriage in California was unconstitutional, about 18,000 gay and lesbian couples have tied the knot there. The question now is what the legal status of those unions is. So we like black people now, but we still don't like homosexuals.

But hey, it's over now, right? That's something.

It's OVER

Did you get out there and vote today, America? Because you really should. I did this morning, and it felt good. Now, aside from two weeks, maybe a month of post-election/campaign commentary, I think we're in the clear. "Talk of the Nation" and "All Things Considered" (two of my favorite NPR shows) will start discussing other things, and life will go back to normal.

I voted for Obama/Biden. Critical thought and rationality allowed me to do this. I'm not sure what percentage of the American people will follow my lead, however, as we tend to be skiddish, easily frightened, and deathly afraid of change. A lot of McCain's zinger labels stuck to Obama. I'm sure that right now, people are voting for McCain because they think Obama is a terrorist (thanks, Palin) or a socialist (do you know what Socialism IS?). Also, there's the whole McCain/Palin "anti-science" thing. That rubbed me the wrong way since Day 1. Palin doesn't understand why scientists do genetic research on flies (would she prefer we do our genetic research on people?), and McCain's science opinions fall in line with our current president's (makes...me...angry).

But no matter who you're voting for, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. My enthusiasm for Obama is matched only by my cynicism regarding American's inability to vote for somebody other than the old white man. I won't be surprised either way tomorrow morning. But I'm just glad it's over...pretty much over.