On Friday night Connecticut’s daughters of the derby revolution came together at the CT Sports Center to face up against their first international opponent: Montreal’s New Skids on the Block. Unlike their most recent bouts, which have focused on CT’s secondary team the Yankee Brutals, this match-up would require the furious skating skills of CT’s elite: The Stepford Sabotage. With their matching pink and green uniforms, the Connecticut girls presented themselves as a force to be reckoned with.

The Stepford Sabotage!

Let’s take at look at the line up for the home team

      Luciana Pulverotti 110R (Captain)
      Eleanor Bruisevelt 33 (Assistant Captain)
      Black Cherry C-4
      Chelsea Grin 777
      C. Mya Rage 86′d
      Doomcake 13
      Ether Bunny 2KO
      Girl Fawkes 5NOV
      Milla Lowlife 40oz.
      Miz ConsepJen 7
      Murphy’s OUTLAW 15
      Parker Poison 3
      Pearl Jammer GO
      Pepper Grind-Her 10
      Revengela 1-2-3-4
      Violet Riot 911

Montreal’s The New Skids on the Block, dressed in black, had driven for 8 hours for a weekend of derby. Their match with CT was the first of three, the second on Saturday against Washington DC, the last against New York’s Suburbia.

      Cheese Grater 289
      No Holds Bard 2X4
      Lyn-dah Kicks 75
      Beater Pan-Tease 1976
      Trash N’ Smash 118
      Romeo 222
      Wrath Poutine 30
      Georgia W. Tush 40
      Lady J 88
      Rae Volver 39
      Smack Daddy 3X
      Bone Machine 1111
      Izzy Skellington 182
      Jess Bandit 8
      Iron Wench 516
      Lil Mama 12
      Ewan Wotarmy 7734
      Beals on Wheels 89
      Karla Shnikov AK47
      Nameless Whorror 202

Standing Room Only

After introductions, the girls skated up to their starting positions. The first jam saw Chelsea Grin facing Iron Wench at the jammer line. The girls stood posed for speed, but at the first whistle the pace proceeded at an unusually slow clip. It appeared that Montreal was purposefully limiting the speed of the pack to give their fastest jammer the greatest opportunity to pull points.

The unexpected strategy seemed to catch the girls in green off guard. Iron Wench quickly sped through the pack getting lead jammer status and circled through the pack twice scoring nine points for her team before Chelsea could recover from an early hit by Canadian Nameless Whorror.

Eleanor Bruisevelt faced Ewan Wotarmy next and pulled in eight points for the Sabotage after Ewan found herself sent to the penalty box for cutting the track.

Eleanor is declared lead jammer

Stepford’s momentum was a bit erratic at the start. In part, their drive seemed to falter each time Iron Wench had the star on her helmet. Iron Wench followed her nine point first jam with fifteen points in her second and thirteen more in her fourth. Black Cherry and Pearl each stole lead jamming status from Iron Wench once during the first half (Pearl off a beautiful whip by Miz ConsepJen,) but Iron Wench still pulled in 49 points in the first half. Forty Nine Points!

Jammer Iron Wench dodging Pepper's powerful block

At half time the score was 78 to 40 with the New Skids on the Block in the lead. The girls from Montreal were proficiently keeping our jammers away from the lead jammer position. In the first half, the New Skids were awarded lead jamming status for 11 jams compared to just 8 for the Stepford.

The crowd had not given up on the hometown girls as they returned for the second half to fight back against the visitors. Eleanor brought some life to Connecticut after she returned from a penalty with a vengeance to outskate Ewan Wotarmy 14 to 10 in the fourth jam.

Eleanor Bruisevelt celebrates her successful jam!

Next up, Milla LowLife maintained Stepford’s momentum against Georgia W. Tush. She sprinted off the starting line holding hard along the inside of the track. Her speed let her sneak through the pack to quickly secure lead jamming status. She followed with two more laps, scoring eight unopposed points for Stepford.

The New Skids on the Block, however, were not to be outperformed. Iron Wench and Ewan Wotarmy followed with seven and six point jams respectively. The Connecticut blockers did their best to limit the damage, but the points continued to accumulate for Montreal.

The packs were playing especially hard in this bout. Collectively between the two teams, this bout saw 69 trips to the penalty box. All of the girls were taking a serious beating on the track. Their ability to keep skating hard after such jarring blows stands as testimony to their hard training.

Black Cherry on a crash course with Smack Daddy

As the final jam came to a close, the score showed the visitors ahead 151 to 93. This was a brutal bout that showcased the passion these women have for their sport.

Statistics!!

      Lead Scorers:
       The New Skids on the Block
            Iron Wench 77pts (9 leads in 13 jams)
            Ewan Wotarmy 32pts (5 leads in 7 jams)
            Georgia W. Tush 19pts (5 leads in 9 jams)

       The Stepford Sabotage
             Milla LowLife 39pts (5 leads in 9 jams)
             Eleanor Bruisevelt 34pts (2 lead in 9 jams)
             Black Cherry 13pts (3 lead in 5 jams)

      Penalty Queens:
       The New Skids on the Block
             Ewan Wotarmy: 6 Trips
       The Stepford Sabotage
             Chelsea Grin: 6 Trips

      MVPs!
            Iron Wench
            Luciana Pulverotti

Luciana and Iron Wench pose with their MVP metals

Special thanks to all those who help make these bouts a truly entertaining experience. Special kudos to the organizers, the refs, and the CT Roller Derby sponsors. If you’d like to learn more about roller derby I encourage you to visit the CTRG website located here.

Oh Sunday, I decided to spend some time in the kitchen. I recently received the latest edition of my Everyday Foods subscription and inside it had a recipe for a very hearty looking Beef Bourguignon. After my black belt pre-test on Saturday, I thought I might need some extra protein, so this seemed like an appropriate choice.

This recipe called for a dutch oven (or cocotte), so I went ahead and picked one up at Target. Mine is a 6 QT Lodge cast iron enamel coated beauty.

I love red.

The dish itself was heavy. It had mushrooms, carrots, 3 lbs beef, bacon, garlic, onions, tomato paste, flour, wine, and chicken broth. It cooked for nearly 3 hours and came out epic. (Similar recipe here)

Served with a side of mashed potatoes, it was the perfect meal for a Sunday feast.

I strongly recommend the recipe, the magazine, and the pot.

After months of waiting the day finally came on Saturday for the 2010 CT Roller Derby season opener. To cheer on the Roller Girls may have been their largest crowd yet. With 15 minutes to game time the long line for entry curved its way around the Connecticut Sports Center. Inside, derby enthusiasts squeezed together to try and find enough room to watch the action. Action they wanted, action they got. On Saturday the fourteen Connecticut skaters that make up the Yankee Brutals faced tough opposition: the Backyard Bullies from Westchester County.

Let’s take a closer look at the teams. First the Hometown Heroes.

Yankee Brutals

Babe Vigoda #56
Paula G. ImNaughty #NC-17
Anita Chainsaw #992
Cali Ripskin #DV8
Crash Corpse #6ft
Dee Nasty #921
Guns N’ Bruises #2012
Girl Fawkes #5Nov
I. Harley Knew’em #81
Jean Mutation #X2
Murphy’s Outlaw #15
Pam Terror #9
Pepper Grind-her #10
Rinko Starr #64

This was Pepper Grind-her’s first bout since her return to derby and it was great to see Fawkes on skates again after her injury in Pittsburgh last year. Welcome back Pepper and Fawkes!

The visiting team, the Backyard Bullies, was founded in 2007 by former CTRG Slim Fast and Suffah Kate. The team’s close proximity means a lot of crowd support and perhaps the making for a great rivalry.

The Backyard Bullies

Anya Nerves #3.14
Auntie Climax #39
Crash Sprawldisplat #810
Hot Ta’ Wally #451
J.Knee Bones #77
Kickin McNuggins #6
Lil eve L #DV8
Milkstud Piglet #2%
Rita Wayward #86
Robin Graves #R1P
Sasha B. Otch #417
Satan’s Cheerleader #667
Slash Borden #40
Smashing Pumpkin #1979

This bout had strong potential. Both teams are somewhat young and fairly evenly matched. At 7pm Hitman Hank welcomed the crowd and the action got underway.

Things started quickly for the Backyard Bullies, who captured the first two lead jamming statuses. Connecticut seemed a bit disorganized at the onset and after Jean Mutation had an unfortunate introduction to the penalty box early on, Slash Borden capitalized and gained a strong 10 point lead in the second jam. Her blockers were holding Anita Chainsaw back with brutal efficiency. Rinko Starr had slightly better luck gaining the first lead jammer status for the girls in blue off of a beautiful block by Girl Fawkes that sent Backyard Bully Rita Wayward to the ground.

The girls were fighting hard for control of the jams. Dee Nasty and Sasha B. Otch raced it out in the fourth jam, Sasha forcing an early conclusion to Dee’s control of the track. Hot Ta’ Wally began her night with four more unanswered points for the Backyard Bullies.

Things were looking grim for the Yankee Brutals.

It was only the 6th jam of the bout as Pam Terror rolled up to the jamming line, but I couldn’t help but fear that if Pam couldn’t pull in a few points that the rest of the bout might be difficult to watch. Shame on me for doubting the competitive drive of the home town girls. Pam’s skates ignited and she circled twice before having to end the drive. Co-Captain Paula G. ImNaughty kept up the momentum tying the score at 14 as Westchester’s Lil Eve L struggled to recover from the aggressive shoulders of the Yankee Brutal’s defense.

As the first half progressed, Suburbia showed greater group solidarity. Few jammers slipped through the wall of the well organized heavy hitting New Yorkers, though their tactics were also sending more of their team to the penalty box. The point gap grew. Suburbia secured a healthy lead. As the girls skated off to rest up during intermission, the score was 67 to 25. Could Connecticut pull it together in the second half?

It’s always enjoyable when the derby organizers find an entertaining show for intermission. What’s certain is that when it happens, it’ll be anything but a typical intermission. This month we met CT Combat, a martial arts group based out of Oakville, CT. Two students demonstrated basic fighting techniques with their instructor. The combat demonstration was followed by a rollerskate roll-off with the crowd competing to win a giant chocolate roller skate!

Does that need repeating? A giant chocolate roller skate. Awesome!

When the girls returned to their benches, the crowd was ready for more action. Pam Terror started the second half with the star on her helmet pulling 7 points away from New York. Cali Ripskin, who has been skating less than a year, came up next and kept things going for Connecticut with nine more points. The jams of this second half were far more even. But their new spirit wasn’t enough to break the healthy lead that New York had built up in the first half. Halfway through the second period the score stood at 63 to 100 when Murphy’s Outlaw began her run as Jammer. The opposing jammer, Sasha B. Otch found herself on the way to the penalty box early in the jam along with two of the New York blockers.

Murphy Outlaw had an amazing opportunity!!! The Connecticut team had a full skating team on the track while Suburbia only had two blockers to slow the tide. The Connecticut blockers rolled to a virtual stop letting Murphy work her magic. 17 points later the Connecticut crowd was screaming in support. 20 points separated the teams. Pam Terror did her part next by dropping that lead from 20 to 16. Sadly for the hometown fans, that would be the end of the comeback. Sasha B. Otch finished the bout with an aggressive final jam taking the final lead jamming status and ending the bout by dramatically tapping her hips. The end score was 89 for the Yankee Brutals and 113 for the Backyard Bullies.

It was a great night for both teams and their fans. This was one of the most riveting roller derby bout’s I’ve seen. The roller girls were skating hard and both teams showed great strength in adapting to their opponent’s strategies.

Top Scorers!
Backyard Bullies: Slash Borden #40 with 26 points
Yankee Brutals: Pam Terror #9 with 35 points

Interestingly, by my notes the Yankee Brutals actually claimed more lead jamming positions than their rivals (17 for CT vs NY’s 16). The ability of the Backyard Bullies to capitalize on there fewer opportunities and not sacrifice any points while they controlled the track overcame their more regular appearances in the penalty box. Milkstud and Sasha both had 5 trips to the box! Hot Ta’ Wally and Auntie Climax were right behind them with 4 trips each. Meanwhile CT’s biggest offenders were Murphy’s Outlaw and I Harley Knew’em who both only had 3 trips out.

The next time we’ll be seeing the skaters, CTRG’s Stepford Sabotage will be taking on Montreal’s New Skids on the Block on Friday March 5th. If you’re looking for more information, head over to the Connecticut Roller Girl’s website here.

Great job to all the skaters!!

Let’s find out how loud it would be if all the toddlers in China, localized to a single point, started screaming in unison.

China population: 1.3 billion
The age of toddling is roughly defined as 12-24 months
China Population, 0-4 years in age = 120 million
Assuming roughly equal distribution amongst that age bracket, that’s about 30 million toddlers.
According to this site, babies crying can reach about 115 decibels. Gah. that’s loud.

Now, let’s look at decibels.
While you can’t just add decibels together, you can use this handy equation:

10 * log((10^(a / 10)) + (10^(b / 10)))

Where (a) and (b) are two decibels that you are adding. To expand this to 30 million crying toddlers it’s best to use a program. I started with excel using a simple loop:

Sub Pop()

Dim i, limit As Integer
Dim multiplier As String

i = Cells(4, 5).Value
limit = Cells(3, 5).Value

Do
multiplier = Cells(6, 4).Value
Cells(5, 2) = multiplier
i = (i + 1)
Cells(4, 7) = i

Loop Until i = (limit + 1)

End Sub

This macro loops through the equation substituting in the current sound level and adding one baby at a time until we reach the limit set by the user. Ideally, the culmination of 30 million babies.

The problem here is that I’m not a very efficient programmer and this program runs excel’s memory dry after a mere 25,000 babies. After four times through the program, I was getting decibel levels of about 165 for 100,000 screaming toddlers. But, since we need 30 million, and I didn’t want to have to click through the program twelve hundred times, I had to call in the big guns. Enter Ryan Schenk.

Ryan Schenk took my code and re-implemented it as a ruby program. Take a look here:

unless (NUM_BABIES = ARGV.first.to_i) > 0
abort(“You need to tell me how many babies are crying\n” +
“\nUSAGE:”+
“\nruby cry_baby.rb 1234 # Where 1234 is the number of babies”)
end

SINGLE_CRY_VOLUME = 115.0
current_decibel_level = 0.0

NUM_BABIES.times do
current_decibel_level = 10.0 * Math.log10( (10.0 ** (current_decibel_level/10.0)) + (10.0 ** (SINGLE_CRY_VOLUME/10.0)))
end

puts current_decibel_level

He has 8 cpus on his computer so he can run 8 of these scripts in parallel, each computing the volume of 30m/8 babies. Ryan deems this the most efficient way to do it, one process per cpu core.

THE GRAND TOTAL:

189.771212549937 db

OH MAN.

Let’s compare our result with other sounds (source 1, source 2)

You’ll note that all the toddlers in China, operating as a singularity, screaming in unison is almost as loud as a Saturn rocket.

Dang.

Fun side notes:
This analysis looks at pure decibels and as such acts as a very rough estimation. If somehow the babies were screaming in different phases there would be the possibility that the babies crying would cancel each other out resulting in zero sound.

Hmm. this makes me wonder if you could build a speaker to read the sound wave of a crying baby and immediately respond with the inverse wave canceling out the cry.

We could call it Dr. ShutUp.

This Christmas I got a present that feeds my unhealthy obsession of pineapple. It’s a pineapple slicer.

Amazon has a nice little photograph sequence here which shows the process.

Sure enough, it works just as described!

Thanks for the great gift Mom and Dad!

Can you even fathom the awesomeness of Ryan Schenk’s latest mobile?

This mobile features Charles Bronson wakestyle kiteboarding over an angry ocean. Underwater is a shark with a laser beam attached to its head, fighting a t-rex in snorkeling gear. Placing money on the fight is a barracuda incarnation of Tom Waits, to the backbeat of a mermaid playing Kerry King from Slayer’s flying-v guitar through a stack of Marshalls.

Let’s look at each part in extreme depth.

Charles Bronson Kiteboarding

Ryan Schenk reports:

I made several revisions of Charles Bronson to get him structurally sound enough to support himself from the arms. This is the first revision, which didn’t make it into the finished mobile, but looks pretty good.

You can see his wake boots and his Slingshot Fuel in the background.

The final Chuck Bronson was made out of 4 sheets of cardstock laminated into a curved shape by using a mold inside a vacuum bag.

Appreciate Bronson’s incredible bravado.

The Mermaid

You can feel the crushing crunch of this mermaid’s distortion. Appreciate the guitar, expertly made to mimic the flying-v guitar designed by Kerry King from Slayer.

The Mermaid with her stack of Marshall amps.

My heart is warmed by the thought of underwater distortion.

Laser Head Shark

Simple. Elegant. A shark with a laser attached to his head.

The Barracuda

This raspy voiced barracuda comes equipped with top hat, cigarette, and a stack of money clutched tightly in its confident fin.

Snorkeling T-Rex.

If you thought it was safe to enter the waters, you were wrong. Perhaps the most renowned predator of all times might be lurking beneath the waves in full snorkeling regalia. Be wary.

Great job Ryan Schenk.

With a few exceptions, I’ve been carving my mom Santas as Christmas gifts for the past few years. You might remember Kung Fu Santa and Climbing Santa from years past. This year, inspired by a beautiful artistic camel owned by a coworker, I decided to carve a Persian Santa with an accompanying camel.

With the aid of new recently acquired carving equipment, this years work went a bit more smoothly than years past. Enjoy!

Step 1: Find some wood and draw the front view of your santa.

Step 2: The rough cut. I don’t have a bandsaw, which would have made this eternally easy, but I do have a chop saw which was a good start and dramatically reduced the carving time.

Step 3: With the front view cut, I drew a side view and trimmed whatever I could with the chop saw. Admittedly, any tool would have been better, but ya work with what ya got.

Step 4: With the general shape already taken care of, it’s not a lot of work to get in there to start rounding corners.

Step 5: Having the general shape of the Santa complete, I started in on the camel. Conveniently, the shape of the camel allowed me to use a jigsaw instead of the chop saw.

Step 6: I have a new carving tool which obliterates wood. While awesomely carvrific, it’s also brutal. I held the wood with a clamp just in case the tool took off on me. I didn’t really feel like loosing any fingers. The legs were trimmed down using this monster new tool.

Step 7: Here’s the camel after rounding.

Step 8: One of the best methods for detailing on wood is a burning tool. I have a burner which pumps current through a sharp tip. By digging the tip into the wood you can quickly burn away very specific patterns. Here I’ve drawn the area that I want to burn.

Step 9: Here’s the first pass with the burning tool. You’ll note I also added some creases in the Santa’s elbow.

Step 10: I love the look of burned wood, but if all carvings were left with the burned look, then collectively they’d look stupid. It’s always tough to start painting after the burning, but you gotta do it.

I start with a white primer coat. My camel would be blue with red and gold highlights. Check it out:

Step 11: Paint the Santa. same theme here, white primer with gold blue and red coverings.

Step 12: After painting, I applied an antiquing coat. It’s kinda like dirt paint. It makes things look older and accents the shadows on your piece. Here is the final result of the Santa and his camel on my mom’s fireplace mantel next to a few other Santas.

Merry Christmas Mom!!

Last year at this time, Jess in Ukraine intercepted a bunch of prints from their path to the trash after her Ukrainian school decided to get rid of them. She was kind enough to give me one as a gift during my visit. I chose the one below because of its awesome color and the amazing artistry in the chains and lighting.

I knew it was about the youth army, but could only speculate as to the true story behind the prints. UNTIL NOW. This morning I got an e-mail. Jess in Ukraine was talking to her language teacher and got the whole story behind her collection of salvaged prints!

Here we go:

Malchish Kibalchish was a little Soviet boy like any other. He worked at home with his family. He took joy in his play and worked steadfast through his chores. One day a man on a white horse came into town. He announced that he was forming a people’s army to help defeat the German Army. Malchish Kibalchish watched as the town gathered together its fathers, uncles, and elder brothers and sent them off with the man on the white horse.

The seasons wore on and the day came when the man on the white horse returned to Malchish’s village. The man was visibly tired and worn but held his head high. His horse’s tired gait betrayed the struggles on the front line.

His torn clothes hanging wearily from his shoulders, the man announced that they were doing well but needed more support. He asked for the help of the able elder men of the town. Malchish watched as the man on the white horse led his village’s able grandfathers and seniors off to war.

With much of his family off at war, Malchish Kibalchish had taken on a greater role at the household. His hopes of seeing his family’s quick return faded when he saw the man return one more time to his village. Now without a horse, the man struggled to walk forward. He brought news of near victory, but pleaded for more help.

Malchish Kibalchish stepped up proudly “Come on young boys. We have been helping everyone at home the whole time our fathers, uncles and grandfathers went off to fight and now it is our time.”

Malchish and the young privateers headed off with the man and began their fight on the lines. The Fascists were falling under the renewed spirit of the Soviet army.

This is where his arch enemy comes in. Jess remembered his name as Malchish Spalchish. He was a fat and spoiled son of a fascist. The fascists tell Spalchish that they will give him barrels of candy and soda if he will tell them where Kibalchish has his headquarters.

Spalchish accepts his role as traitor and readily tells them. The Fascists find and capture Kibalchish. They chain him up and torture him, demanding the secrets of the Red Army. Malchish remains stoic in his refusal to speak.

The Germans kill him.

There is a monument and a ship named after Malchish Kibalchish. All of the Young Pioneers go to his monument when they are officially sworn in to salute Malchish Kibalchish, the most loyal and bravest Young Pioneer.

Wow!

I’ll try and get photos of some of the other prints that Jess got her hands on so that we can see more pictures from the story. Special thanks to Jess for the new information!

When you’re a kid, those forty-five minutes of playtime before dinner feels like 15 years. Similarly, the 15 years between 30 and 45 feel like forty-five minutes.

It seems somewhat intuitive that since we have less experiences as youth that maybe time feels slower, decades later the information isn’t as new and exciting so perhaps life feels faster.

Jesse took this concept one step further. Assuming a 100 year life, he drew a curve 1/X where X is number of years old. While nothing fancy, the graph can be integrated to show the percentage of your life your next year is. For example, at birth 100% of your experiences are new, fresh data. Year two, the newness has a potency of 50%. By year fifty, your new experiences are dwarfed by the previous 49 and your life experiences account for only 2% of your knowledge base.

Jesse integrated under the curve for blocks of time representing 25 years. Here are his results! (click on the graph for full size)

How curiously depressing!

Today, just for kicks, I decided to take my temperature throughout the day and graph it. Over a 12 hour period I took 28 temperature readings. I figured this exercise would give me a control for when I do get sick and also provide some insight into how body temperatures change throughout the day. I took a temperature reading about twice an hour, though I didn’t do it on the clock so the data points are not perfectly spaced.

Researching the experiment before I started, I found the following graph on the American Psychological Association’s website. It shows a normal temperature expectation for a day person and a night person through a waking period.

37 Celsius = 98.6 Fahrenheit

Now, let’s see how my temperature scatter plot measures up to that norm

And now with a trendline

Analysis:

Average temperature: 97.14F (36.2C)
Lowest: 95.4F (35.2C)- 8:45am
Highest: 98.3F (36.8C)- 4:25pm

It should be noted that these temperatures resulted from a mostly sedentary Mike D. I’ll try and remember to bring my thermometer to Kung Fu tomorrow and see what happens to my temperature post workout.

RYAN SCHENK EXPLAINS IT ALL!
Online directions!

When you’re looking for directions online using an online map program, the code running in the background is really intense. There are two steps: Geocoding and Driving Directions generation.

Geocoding is the process of taking a text string, in this case your zip code, and converting that into lat/lon coordinates.

Driving Directions, on the other hand, is the process of taking a lat/lon coordinate, and then, through the use of geomagnetic flux lines, normalized of course for solar storms, constructing a sort of computer model of a divining rod, which when coupled with a probabilistic finite automaton and run through an iterative simulation, can sense the interruptions of qi lifeforce caused by our highway system. Through a virtual meta-dowsing and coupled with a type of dynamic numerology, one can record the Mystical Path and True Will of this automaton’s divinations as it traverses the energy lines of a global-scale chiromancy. This is approximately a O( double exponential ) operation.

The good news is, Google Maps provides API services for driving directions, with geocoding built in!!

And there you have it!

Ryan Schenk Explains it All!

A short while ago I was talking with Shamus about batteries. Specifically, Lithium Ion Batteries. Lithium Ion Batteries are everywhere (ipods, kindles, laptops, phones, etc.). and Shamus and I were debating the importance of letting a battery go dead before recharging. Was it necessary or harmful? Here are the two most important facts we learned:

#1. Keep it half-charged
#2. Keep it cool

Do not completely drain your batteries between charges. If you grew up with Nickle Cadmium batteries as I did, you might be familiar with the idea of battery memory. This is the tendency for batteries, if they are charged too often, to have unused cells that lose their potency.

Lithium Ion batteries don’t have this disadvantage. In fact, letting your lithium ion go dead regularly is not good for shelf life. Internet sources suggest that if the voltage of the battery drops too low you then the individual battery cells can reverse charge, causing permanent damage. That said, for digital devices that have a ‘fuel gauge,’ letting the battery go dead is the easiest means of re-calibrating that gauge so that it’s accurate. The general online consensus suggests letting your Lithium Ion battery drain completely about once every 30-50 cycles.

Inconveniently, if you keep it at 100% power you have loss of power as well. To quote Wikipedia:

high charge levels and elevated temperatures (whether resulting from charging or being ambient) hasten permanent capacity loss for lithium-ion batteries

Sadly, I searched around on the internet and could not find a real reason as to why this is. All the websites agree, but they also all quote one another. If anyone knows a battery expert, hook us up. We want credentials!

This chart from BatteryUniverse.com does a good job of summing up temperature and battery charge levels. Crazy!

For your laptop, the best way to get additional cycles out of it is to unplug the battery when the laptop is plugged in. That way, you’ll drop its active temperature and keep it from overcharging. For your ipod or phone, just let the charge dip to 10-20% before recharging, with a full recharge once every 30-50 cycles.

For these few disadvantages, Lithium Ion batteries have one of the best energy/weight ratios and are exceedingly popular. I hope some of these tips help you extend the life of your equipment.

My sister recommended MJ Hyland’s Carry Me Down after I finished Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves last year. She described it like this:

House of Leaves is truly unique, but at times it seems like the author is exploring new writing styles just because he can – more for the gimmick than for the act of telling the story. Carry Me Down is just as unique in its main character and the means of the story, but it never feels forced or fake.

I didn’t read the book right away because it wasn’t available on Kindle. Thankfully, there’s a really handy website called Mysteria which will regularly ping Amazon to see if they have the book you want converted as ebook. Conveniently, Mysteria e-mailed me about Carry Me Down on Thursday just before my flight. I promptly downloaded the book and read it on my westward journey.

Nothing makes a flight more enjoyable than a good book to read. And mostly, I agree with Alicia’s opinion above. Carry Me Down never felt forced and it had a subject matter that was very clever and mostly untouched in the literary world. That said, I don’t think you would ever want to put Carry Me Down and House of Leaves in the same sentence let alone the same bookshelf. House of Leaves is a suspenseful book whose subject matter steps far into the paranormal – Carry Me Down is just a story about a boy. There are no endless hallways or monsters lurking out of view, it’s just decent story telling.

It’s a pretty short book too which is nice. I read it in about 6 hours of flying.

Next up, I’ll be reading Going to Extremes with book enthusiast Tony E. If you’d like to join our impromptu book club, pick the book up and plan on finishing the first 2 chapters by next weekend.

Until then, keep reading!

I expect a lot from ice cream store Ben & Jerries. I’ve never been disappointed!

Check out this ice cream cozy that my roommate Brian has.

the cup and the pint.

the pint… in the cup

perfect!

SO AWESOME!

On Saturday night the Connecticut Roller Girls amassed once again at the CT Sport’s Center, this time to do battle against visiting team The Utica Clubbers. Unlike many of the recent bouts where the Stepford Sabotage has been in the spotlight, this bout highlighted CT’s second team: The Yankee Brutals.

The crowds came in huge numbers to watch the girls skate. In all the bouts I’ve watched, few have been as tightly packed as this one. With 15 minutes left before game time, the bleachers were full. But the crowd kept pouring in. The anxious fans didn’t have to wait long. As 7:00pm rolled around, M.C. Hitman Hank strolled out and started the night. First to be introduced were the Utica Clubbers.

The Utica Clubbers are a newer team having formed in late 2007 in Central NY. Nine girls came out to play supported by their coaching staff led by player Little Bastard (#5).

The ladies of CNYRD:

A Lee Thal Vixen #91
BamBam ThunderJam #54
Farmer’s Slaughter #36D
Grrrl Next Door #69
Gutshot #56-89
LadyDieMentia #3
Mean Squeak #27
Murder Antoinette #999
Slay West #13
Vy O Later #921

Dressed in pink, the Yankee Brutals came out for their introductions next with a few new faces in their ranks. Let’s say hello to the hometown heroines:

Babe Vigoda (co-captain) #56
Paula G. Imnaughty (co-captain) #NC-17
Anita Chainsaw #992
Cali Ripskin #DVB
Crash Corpse #6ft
Dee Nasty #921
Guns N’ Bruises #2012
I. Harley Knew’em #81
Jean Mutation #X2
Murphy’s Outlaw #15
Pam Terror #9
Rinko Starr #64

This was the debut bout for Cali Ripskin, Crash Corpse, Dee Nasty, and I. Harley Knew’em. This was also Jean Mutation’s first bout back after an extended leave. Welcome back Jean!

After the obligatory ‘derby how to’ for all the first time visitors, the action got underway. Utica’s Gutshot rolled up to the jamming line to oppose Murphy’s Outlaw. On the first whistle, pivots I. Harley Knew’em and Farmer’s Slaughter started the pack off. On the second whistle, Gutshot took got a quick few steps ahead of Murphy’s Outlaw. Not one to be left behind, Murphy’s Outlaw stayed close as Gutshot expertly weaved through the pack. As the jammers came around for their first scoring pass, it was all Gutshot could do to sneak one quick point and end the jam before Murphy’s Outlaw had a chance to follow suit.

The jams proceeded in this fashion for much of the first half. It seemed like a perpetual give and take. The Utica Clubbers would get a point, and the Yankee Brutals would be right behind them to get the next point. As testimony to this, the girls traded off lead jamming status with almost eerie balance.

(note: data presented here came from my unofficial notes)

Especially noteworthy in the first half was Gutshot’s taking advantage (with 12 points) of a late end of jam call by Murphy in the 4th jam and Farmer’s Slaughter’s exceptional skating in the 6th as she screamed past the pack along the outside edge of the track pulling in four points. Connecticut had its own moments of glory, my favorite being Paula G’s remarkable resistance to a strong hit by Slay West in the 16th jam. Slay came barreling around the first corner and dropped her shoulder right into Paula’s side… but Paula had braced for it and instead of Paula going down, Slay careened off balanced and fell to the ground. Paula took advantage of her downed opposing jammer and scored four points for the girls in pink.

The first half ended with 53 points for the Yankee Brutals and 51 points for the Ultica Clubbers.

The second half was an entirely different game. The Yankee Brutals put Pam Terror on the line and while Utica was focused on getting Gutshot past Paula G, Pam came out of nowhere, took lead jamming status, and snagged 4 more points for her team. Perhaps it was these early points from Pam that turned on Utica’s aggression… but from that jam onward the ladies of central New York found themselves heading to the penalty box with an unfortunate regularity. Jammer Mean Squeak got sent out on a penalty jamming against Rinko Starr… and then right after she got back in, she cut the track and was sent out again! Not a team to pass up an opportunity, the Yankee Brutals hit hard and hit strong. They snagged lead jamming status for the first 5 jams of the second half and widened the score gap from a nail-biting two (53 to 51) to a dominating forty (91 – 51).

The blocking support for the jammers was essential for Connecitcut’s break-away. I Harley Knew’em, Babe Vigoda, and Cali Ripskin each had key moments where their shoulders cleared the way for their approaching jammer.

As the clock ticked down those final seconds the Utica Clubbers got back a little life, though it wasn’t enough to recover from Connecticut’s onslaught.

End score: 115 to 81

Statistics!

Most Valuable Players!
Yankee Brutals: Murphy’s Outlaw
Utica Clubbers: Farmer’s Slaughter

Penalty Queens
Connecticut:
Pam Terror: three trips
Guns N’ Bruises: three trips

Central NY:
Mean Squeak: five trips

I had the pleasure of attending the after-party at the Westside Bar and Grille on Whalley Ave in New Haven. It’s great to see the social side of the roller girls and the camaraderie between them. I Harley Knew’em got up on the mic and thanked Utica for visiting and applauded everyone’s support. It’s truly a wonderful group of people AND, you can join them if you’re so inclined. The CT Roller girls are having try-outs this Thursday November 12th. If you’re interested in getting additional information you can e-mail info@ctrollerderby.com

Or, just head over to CTRollerDerby.com

Great job to all the players and supporting staff. Saturday was a huge success.

With the bead board up, it was time to throw in some appliances. I got a great deal on a refrigerator from the Sears outlet store. Regularly $2,500, I got mine for about 1/2 price. Awesome! It has some scratches, but they are conveniently hidden on the wall side of the appliance.

Whoa! Huge Fridge!

The Oven was reasonably simple, though I had to build a little stand of wood for it to sit on.

The brand new oven cooking the very first pizza.

The Range… was a complete disaster. I bought a snazzy gas range, but the one it was replacing was some weird funky non-standard size. When I got home and tried to fit the new range… it didn’t fit at all. This was extremely frustrating. In order to get it to fit I had to buy a tile cutting blade and tear apart my counter. The end result was totally snazzy and completely worth it. Check it out:

Awesome! (note the under cabinet lighting and the flashy new hood)

It was now time to pick a color for the front of the soffit. Because I love red more than anything, it was the obvious choice. I got a lot of flak from friends who didn’t think the red would go with the wooden cabinets, but I think everyone agrees that it came out pretty sweet.

Once it was painted red, Shamus helped me with the crown molding. And hooooly crap crown molding is annoying. Thankfully, I purchased a chop saw to make the job easier. Without it, the job would be 1000x more miserable.

The end result:

Snazzy!

The end of the pennisula, with the exciting new pendant lights.

The three pendant lights brightening up the kitchen.

Overall, the project was a huge success. It was extremely painful to endure, but the result is beautiful. I’m so happy with it. The lighting is awesome. Four bright lights underneath the soffit, three more centered in the room, three pendant lights, and brand new under cabinet lighting which adds a lot of character and convenience when chopping and cutting delicious things. Someday I might re-do the cabinets as well, but for now I’m pretty happy.

A kitchen is a hugely important part of a house. I’m proud to have this new kitchen at the House of Rock.

Halfway point celebratory photo.

Originally, I had planned on just using dry wall as a ceiling. This decision was changed however after a conversation with a few guys at work who really voiced an appreciation for bead board.

Bead board is a set of patterned tongue and groove boards which can be tightly pressed together to create an elegant finished look.

Tongue and Groove!

We started on the south wall, and slowly moved across the room.

Beginning the bead board

It went together pretty easily. The hardest part was cutting the holes for the light fixtures.

We are men of ACTION.

Special thanks to Shamus for bringing his propane nail gun. The thing was essential to the job. Without it, this effort would have been a failure.

Thank heavens for Shamus’ nail gun

Making progress

We kind of got into a rhythm. My dad and Jesse would size the pieces and cut them while the rest of us held the pieces in place and nailed them. Occasionally, we’d need to hammer them in, but mostly the tongue groove system worked effortlessly.

Tony being a champ.

Almost there!

Bead board = complete.

With the bead board up, it was time to take a break and start looking at some appliances. I wanted to have a fully operational battle station kitchen as soon as possible.

Tune in tomorrow for appliances and trims!

With the old soffit down, it was time to start building.

The plan was to build both soffits out about the same distance. That way we could put lights into each soffit and have a gloriously lit kitchen once all was done.

The first framework in place.

Anchoring the soffit

Dad D taking measurements!

Whoever put up the last soffit did a terrible job. The structure was anchored to loose boards and it was all very haphazardly constructed. We wanted to do a bit better. You’ll notice in this next picture that I’m hammering in a board between joists in order to provide a support bracket. That way we could anchor right at the edge of the soffit, and at the same time better support the drywall that would go on the soffit’s front.

getting into the work.

Thankfully, House of Rock resident Brian is an electrician. This proved extremely handy as he did all the lighting.

Brian running the wires for the pendant lights.

Once the soffit was up, we put drywall on the front.

Drywall – in action!

Tune in tomorrow to watch the bead board ceiling come together!

First task was to tear down the dropped ceiling. One would expect that this wouldn’t be too brutal, but in some areas above the dropped ceiling was plaster – and plaster is nasty nasty stuff.

My roommate Brian and I filled about 30 big black trash bags with plaster and ceiling debris. It was nasty. At its worst there was probably 2-4 inches of ceiling shards covering the entire floor.

Tools and some very minor debris.

The joists above as well as plaster remnants on the right.

With the main ceiling down, I had to make a decision on the soffit. The soffit is the part of the wall above a set of cabinets that extends outwards a bit. We had a little one above the range but none above the sink.

After some great advice from friends and family, I decided to tear down and rebuild the soffit as well.

Tony S. looks forlorn.

The soffit before the tear down.

Shamus and Jesse help tear down the soffit.

Soffitless.

Tony helps by cleaning up the area above the cabinets.

Finally, we were ready to start building the new soffit. My dad had come down to CT with his van, so thankfully we were able to easily transport the needed 2×4′s back to the House of Rock. At this point, we were ready to begin construction of the new kitchen.

Back when the winter months were turning summer and my schooling was coming to a close, I decided it was time to rid the kitchen of its dropped ceiling. A simple task? Hardly, though at the time I didn’t truly understand the scope of said project. Thankfully, I had a lot of support from great friends and family, and they helped me turn our kitchen from a kitchen of mock to a kitchen of rock.

This week the features section will guide you through the process.

First, here is the general layout of the kitchen at the House of Rock.

There’s the beloved peninsula which protrudes at a strange and unique angle from the wall, a handy gas range, and wall mount electric oven and a tiny fridge!

When Jesse and I first purchased the house, my mother excitedly took photographs of each room. Here are two pictures she took of the kitchen, right when we first moved into the house.

Take note of the dropped ceiling and the old appliances. Here’s a view of the kitchen in use that shows the peninsula dead on.

Step 1 was pull down the dropped ceiling.
Tune in tomorrow to see the start of the deconstruction

I bought a new acoustic guitar from a co-worker. He had a beautiful Martin that wasn’t getting any use and so he gave me a fair deal on it, and I promptly purchased it. It has a very mellow cool tone and works beautifully with chords. Finger-picking is quiet, but I’m adapting my playing style to accommodate.

Check it out!

Pete Wilk was kind enough to take some time post-polo a few weeks back and take some pictures of my new kung fu sword. The sword form is a beautiful one and part of the reason for this is that the sword is such an attractive weapon. Check it out!

Awesome!

Thanks again to Pete for the great pictures!

This past Wednesday Sarah and I went to Blue Hills at Stone Barns in Westchester, NY for dinner.

As I mentioned last week, this is no ordinary restaurant. The most obvious difference is that the chefs will cook meals for you from what is available and freshest, not cookie cutter meals from a typical menu. Sarah and I had very high expectations and I’m excited to report that we were not even remotely disappointed. I find it a rare opportunity to be so utterly stunned by quality and presentation. I have never tasted food like I did on Wednesday, and I fully suspect that I won’t again until I return to Blue Hills at Stone Barns. I honestly did not know that food could be so delicious.

Our reservations were for 9:30pm. Upon arrival we parked the car and walked up a stone path into a beautiful courtyard. We entered the restaurant and were escorted to our table. The table was a rectangle one, up against a wall. The greeter pulled the table back allowing us an opportunity to step in and sit side by side on a bench facing the restaurant. It was a unique seating arrangement. The room had, at most, 30 tables. Some were large circular booths, others edge seating like ours.

This was not a place where I felt comfortable playing paparazzi – I took no photographs inside the restaurant. Instead, where necessary, I drew some MSPaintings to get the basic idea across, and also scoured the internet for photos from those more bold than I.

The room itself had a tall white parabolic ceiling contrasted by elegant curved I-beams. In the center, was a large wooden table with a huge arrangement of leaves and greenery extending upwards from a vase. The far end of the room had a mural separating the dining room from the kitchen.

Ulterior Epicore posted this picture in his flickr set.

Our waiter approached.

He was of medium build with a shaved head and thick rimmed dark glasses. He wore a suit with a tie decorated with the colors of Blue Hills at Stone Barns.

“Would you like to start your evening with some champagne?” he asked. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but in retrospect this restaurant is a celebration in itself and to start with a champagne toast now seems quite fitting.

Our waiter brought the wine list. Since our visit, a few have asked what the nationality of the food was, but really… it was a blend of tastes and cultures that can only be described as American. There were French, German, and Spanish wines on the wine menu, but Sarah chose an Italian variety. Our waiter noticed that I did not order a wine and offered to bring over their selection of non-alcoholic grape juices. I agreed, and decided to go with a beautifully sweet non-reduced white Navarro grape juice. I wouldn’t think of grape juice as elegant, but that’s exactly what this beverage was.

“Are you familiar with how we do things at Stone Barns?” our waiter asked as he handed us menus.

“On the right, you’ll see the options for courses. The farmer’s feast comes in two different sizes. The eight course meal and the five course meal. They both have the same quantity of food, though you will get a greater variety with the eight course meal. Additionally, on Wednesdays and Thursdays we offer a three course meal.”

I think it’s safe to say that this trip was a treat, so to do anything other than go for gusto would be sinful. We chose the eight course meal.

“On the left,” our server continued, “you will find a list of ingredients that we have available in the kitchen tonight. Everything is fresh and is from either the Blue Hill farm or other local farms which are noted below the ingredients list. Take a look over the ingredients and then I will return and ask some questions.”

And look we did. The list was epic. From the simple “eggs” to the exciting “Nasturtiums” the list had all sorts of different greens and meats. Our server returned and began his interview.

A picture of the ever-changing menu, from this restaurant review.

“Any food allergies here?”
“No lactose please,” Sarah raised her hand
“Does your lactose intolerance extend to goat cheese? or butter?”
“Goat cheese and butter are fine, just no milk.”
“Are both of you okay with nuts?”
we nodded
“eggs?”
we nodded
“duck? lamb?”
we nodded again
“seafood?”
“I think we’d like to avoid seafood.” I replied
“Very well. Avoid both shell fish and fin fish?”
“Actually, fin fish is okay. Just no on the shell fish.”
“Excellent! Thank you both very much, your first course will be out shortly.”

And he zipped off.

Not three minutes later, a server came bustling out of the kitchen with two wooden blocks in hand. I had seen the impaled fruit and vegetables on the website so I was extremely excited that this would be the first plate.

There were five impaled vegetables: A large stalk of fennel, fresh cherry tomatoes seasoned with salt, two green gherkins, small yellow tomatoes, and two green leaves (omitted from the drawing above). The vegetables had all be seasoned with salt or otherwise and were so fresh and delicious. The cherry tomato was as good as best tomato I’ve had from my father’s garden.

Not moments later, another server appeared carrying a wooden block. He placed it on the table, and announced in a thick accent “Corn Syrup.” We nodded in confused appreciation, and he left.

“Corn Syrup?” Sarah turned to me in mild disgust. “Is that what he said?”
“I’m not sure, let’s ask the main waiter when he returns.”

“Excuse me” I asked, intercepting the head waiter as he passed, “we missed the introduction for this food. Could you tell us what it is?”
“Cauliflower soup.” he replied.

And oh heavens was it delicious. It was warm and tasted like heaven. Also, it renewed our faith in the restaurant after it had been shaken slightly by our poor hearing. Next up were tiny unmatched tomato burgers and tiny sesame seasoned zucchini impaled on long wooden spears. The tomato burgers were bite-sized and bursting with deliciousness. I think the single bite it took to eat that tomato burger might have been the finest of the night. Truly a perfect blend of tastes.

I don’t like zucchini. I loved this zucchini; it was salty and the sesame seeds added a slight crunch.

Next up, a new server brought out a selection of prosciuttos and face bacon.

Face bacon.

I actually found a picture of the face bacon from this website which had a review of the restaurant. Here goes:

It tasted like a really good bacon. I have no bad words for anything that tastes like delicious bacon. Next up, a new server brought two short flutes of a clear liquid. Tomato gazpacho. The transparency was remarkable given the extremely fresh and potent tomato flavor. Tomato, it turns out, was a prominent player in the evening’s dinner. Presumably because this is prime time for tomato harvest.

At this point, Sarah and I got a little nervous. We counted seven plates, and we were worried that we only had one course left. When our main waiter returned to refill our water glasses, we commented on the deliciousness of the meal. “Excellent,” he replied, “and we’re not even quite through the first course!”

Once again, Sarah and I got a little nervous. This time because we realized that we had a lot of eating left to do.

The first course was concluded with a extremely beautiful presentation of a tomato caviar soup. From across the restaurant came two servers each holding a tall white ceramic pitcher and a bowl with a wide wide rim, not unlike a flipped sombrero. One walked to Sarah’s side of the table and the other came to my side. In unison they placed the bowl down in front of us. Just off center in the bowl was the caviar. The two servers raised their pitchers and, again, in unison poured the rich tomato soup over the eggs. The soup had a dark smokey flavor. The caviar wasn’t remotely fishy, but instead had a robust texture and added to the soup’s richness.

With the soup came a basket of homemade potato bread served with a side of Blue Hill butter, churned right there on the premise, and a small dish of tomato salt. If regular salt were AM radio, than tomato salt would be no less than having Soundgarden beamed directly into your living room via lases from space to play a personal concert for you and your loved ones. Tomato salt is great.

And thus concluded the first course.

Things got much more straight-forward after this first course. Instead of a wide assortment of greens and meats, the rest of the courses were served on a single plate. At the beginning of our meal, our waiter reported that we could expect six savory courses and two sweet courses. Our next plate was a tomato sorbet which, despite its name, was considered savory.

This Blue Hills dish looks very similar to our tomato sorbet. I found it at the Spamwise Chronicles.

This dish had a light strawberry something on top and was a fresh stepping stone into the next course which came out shortly thereafter.

Now, it should be noted that I don’t love fish. I can swallow it if I must, but it’s not a personal favorite. Meanwhile, Sarah dislikes cauliflower – though she had been impressed with the earlier soup. Still, we were both hesitant when our third course reached the table.

It was a piece of Sturgeon on a bed of curried cauliflower.

I love fish.

This was the most delightful cut of fish that has ever existed. Sarah also enjoyed the cauliflower. I now honestly believe that if you give your most detested food to a highly skilled chef who has access to the freshest ingredients, then anyone might become a believer. Granted, we were unable to test this theory with my most detested food, the olive, as it was not on the ingredient list.

Before our fourth course, a waitress came over with a glass nest within which there were four eggs.

“As a precursor to your next course, I wanted to tell you a bit about our eggs here at Blue Hills. We have 1,500* chickens on site which share their time between grazing in the fields eating worms, grass, and grubs and time in our rolling egg houses where we feed them only fresh vegetables and grains. This lifestyle yields extremely flavorful, colorful, yolks.”
*paraphrased. I don’t remember the exact number of chickens, though it was definitely jaw droppingly high

Moments later we were brought a just slightly cooked egg atop mushrooms and kale. Once again, I can’t speak highly enough about this dish. Sadly, I could find no pictures of this dish on the internets and it’s extremely hard to MSPaint a cooked egg.

By the time, Sarah and I had been at the restaurant for about an hour and a half. We were halfway through our dinner and we were very nearly stuffed – but I knew that there was no degree of fullness that would prevent me from eating the dishes they put in front of us, they were too good.

Next up was course number five. It was duck served on top of seasoned carrots and almonds. There was a slight sweetness, like cinnamon, on the carrots. The restaurant staff gave us knives, but there was no need. The meat was so tender that you could cut through it with a half-melted plastic spoon.

I had trouble finishing this course. The sweetness of the carrots coupled with my sweet grape juice and the limited space in my stomach made for a challenge. I did my best, but didn’t finish every carrot. For this I am ashamed.

We had a slight break before our next meal. The table was cleared and our head waiter returned to let us know that the main course was on its way. Moments later, large white places were placed before us. The server reported that this was lamb neck served with small potatoes, onions, and broccoli.

It was divine. Seriously. The food was stupidly delicious. This meal has setup my mouth for many moons of disappointment.

Our two sweet courses came next, and here was the only time when Sarah and I were served different dishes. I received a fromage blanc served on a bed of sorbet. Sarah received a grape sorbet served with fresh fruits. The second sweet course for me was plums served with ice cream. Sarah got plums in some sort of sweet sauce.

Lordy.

We decided to order a cup of tea to conclude our evening. We decided on chamomile served with a side of honey – from the blue hill bees. Earlier, the people sitting next to us had ordered differently and a large cart covered in greens from which the waiter would personally cut up your desired tea fillings and mix the tea for you there.

Looking back on the night, I can only speak praise. We counted 12-15 servers who helped serve our table and every bite was heavenly. Friends. I know it’s expensive. I know it might be a drive. But you must go to this restaurant. You haven’t experienced food until you’ve been served at Blue Hills at Stone Barns.

I will return.

WARNING: SPOILERS.

I finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle this weekend. On Sunday I relaxed for the better part of the morning prone and closed to the world reading my book. The writing kept me captivated and it wasn’t a challenge to just read for 4+ hours straight.

Repeat warning: Spoilers.

I really disliked the ending. When I told my mother that I had finished the book she said

Mom D: “Oh, right. That’s an Oprah book club book right?”
Mike D: “I think so, have you read it?”
Mom D: “I haven’t. Was it depressing? All Oprah books seem to be depressing.”

And yes. It was depressing. It ended in a giant pile of sadness. I really dislike disheartening books. I mean, it’s fiction. Why create a book that provides a path of misery for your reader? Some people might enjoy a good gloomy book. Perhaps it leads them towards a better understanding of life’s unfairness. Perhaps those cynics readers find it a more realistic story. But not me. For me, the best thing about a sad book is that it boosts my joy for those books that end with justice and a happy couple walking into the sunset.

Are there any people out there who prefer a depressing ending to one that is happy in its conclusion? I wonder if there’s some metric that could help define which sells better: the joyous finale, or the dismal one.

Out of curiosity, now I want to check to see what percentage of Oprah book club books are actually depressing.