Here are a few of the sites and articles that caught my attention this week.

Legend of the Green Dragon is a text-base online RPG. It's a bit silly but fun. (Hat tip to Ringmaster)

DevFund is a new project that Chris J Davis has started. Seems like an interesting way of connecting developers and money on a small scale.

The Ten Tastiest Food Photography Tips from PhotoJojo has some good information for getting the best out of food. Hopefully I'll be able to incorporate this into my own work.

As part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewer's program, I was recently sent a copy of Careers in Crime: An Applicant's Guide by Michael Weinberg. This book is a send up of the typical job hunting books that try to cover the "best jobs" in a given field. It's filled with statistics, example of practioners of different jobs, and ratings. Each job is summarized, descriptions of working conditions, environment, likelyhood of arrest and more are given for each job from counterfeiter to prison wife.

This book seems to be exactly as advertised. It's funny, and actually informative on several levels. While not a book that you're likely to sit and read in one session, it's a great book to keep in the bathroom. Many sections made me laugh out loud and read them aloud to the people around me. (Oddly, sometimes people find this annoying.)

My only real complaint about the book had nothing to do with the writing. The copy editing was terrible. There were many misspellings as well as an entire paragraph that was cut off mid sentence. Usually with advance reading copies there is a note that it is not the final version, but this book did not carry that notice and didn't appear to be a specifically printed Advance copy.

Overall I'll give Careers in Crime a 3.5 star rating.

People who use the term "Flyover States" or think "Middle America" is interchangeable with "Dumb-Ass" should be kicked in the nuts. Seriously. Just because you live near an ocean doesn't make you special. You want culture, we've got plenty, and we don't consider it to be just something for the elite. We have some of the best universities in the country. I've been to art museums in New York and London and they don't hold a candle to the Art Institute. Yes, New York and LA have an international reputation, but that reputation doesn't give the people who happen to live there some sort of special magic. Oh, and by the way, without us... you'd have no damn food. So, shut the hell up.

A group calling themselves "Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War" disrupted Easter Mass at Holy Name Cathedral. Apparently, they determined that the best venue to voice their opposition to the war was:
A) In a Church
B) In a church that has vocally opposed the war
C) During a service
D) During a service on one of the most important Holy Days in the Christian Faith
E) By splashing fake blood on people at the service who were dressed in their Easter best.

Regardless of your opinions of the war, or the Catholic Church, I think you should be offended by the actions of these people. I don't understand what kind of logic goes on the heads of people like this. These actions will alienate them from people who are religious and oppose the war, and will definitely add fuel to the fire of people who do not oppose the war who feel that protesters are generally misguided and more concerned with getting attention than accomplishing anything useful.

First, the name of their group: "Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War"; I don't know about most people but "Catholic Schoolgirls" brings to mind soft porn more than anything else. Clearly, at least some of the group were not schoolgirls in any sense of the word (being male) and if they were actually Catholic they would most likely have more respect for their faith than to interrupt mass in this fashion. Then there's the choice of venue. It takes no guts at all to protest in a church opposed to the war. You are, quite literally, preaching to the choir. It seem that the only reason to stage a protest in this fashion is because you are afraid of actually having to face opposition to your protest. They knew there would be cameras, but security would be minimal and inclined to be gentle. No one is likely to attempt to shout down your "message". Finally, if you're going to commit a felony to further your political aims you should make sure it counts. The fundamental voice that Americans have is their vote... and felons can't vote. If convicted, these people have sacrificed their long-term voice for a single whisper.

There are people defending them, but I can't help but wonder if they'd be so inclined to defend them if they had staged the same protest in a synagogue, a mosque or a Buddhist temple on a major holy day. While I believe these people have the right to protest the war, and if they truly believe that it is wrong, that they have an obligation to do so. But their actions were misguided at best, and outright stupid at worst. They should be ashamed of themselves and others who oppose the war should be ashamed of them as well.

Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I? I'm going to post some of the links I've found to be interesting this week. Here goes.

Book Lamp It doesn't do much yet, but looks like it's got some serious promise. Anything that can find me new books to read is worth checking out.

And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The Wow this is hard. I missed 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 25, 30, 34, 35, 36, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, and 47. I expect that Dad could do better than me, maybe Phil.

Recycle By Mail Now you can recycle small electronics for free by mail. I may be taking advantage of this soon.

Animoto Create a fun video slide show. 30-second videos are free. Longer ones are cheap.

Strange Maps Lots of very cool stuff on this site.

Do you like this idea? Want more? Let me know.

Last night I got a chance to go to the meeting of the Midwest Chapter of the Health Physics Society. It was pretty cool. We heard a presentation about Exelon's plans to build a new nuclear power plant in Texas, and what's involved in the prep and planning, as well as the timeline for construction. It's been 25 years since a nuclear power plant has been built in the US, so the technology has changed greatly, as well as there being very few people with experience left in this country. They're hoping to bring a plant on line in about 2015, and this is considered a very aggressive timeline! Wow. After the presentation (and a fantastic dinner) we were given the opportunity to visit their Emergency Operations Facility. This is where everything is coordinated if there is any kind of emergency at any of the nuclear power plants in the midwest. The setup is pretty impressive, with everything right at hand including maps of the area, plant diagrams, flow charts, feeds from instrumentation, and at least three layers of communication redundancy. They told us that when they have drills, they actually assign staff to act as the "media" and that those staff member can be as aggressive as the real thing (including following people into the bathrooms).

TBWITWW likes to cook, and for the last year or so, she's been assisting with the culinary program at a store downtown. Ben, the chef who was the coordinator of the program (and a really fun guy), had his last day on Saturday. Last night a few of the "regulars" got together at Suite Lounge to send him off in style. Now, as any respectable chef will tell you, bacon is the perfect food. So in keeping with that, all of the gifts were bacon-related including a nice selection of actual bacon, a bacon air-freshener, bacon mints and, even Mr Bacon vs Mssr. Tofu Action Figures. During the course of the evening, it was determined that henceforth the group would be refered to as the "Baconites."

And it was good.