Things to Do...

Its been a busy couple of weeks, but a lot has happened. For one thing, it was my BIRTHDAY! I didn't get too much, but what I got... ohhh man.

God of War 3

     

       I got it, and boy, it was pretty sweet. The Gameplay mechanics were perfect, with combat, platforming, and puzzles placed just right so as not to make it feel repetitive. The scenes are just epic, and often times I thought I was watching a CG cutscene. Nothing tops that first scene with Poseidon and Gaia. 

       Speaking of Gaia, I wasn't too happy with how the story turned out, but I guess it fit the games purpose of giving an ending to Greek mythology and the trilogy. The weapons are pretty awesome (except for the Claws of Hades, those were just... meh), my personal favorite being the Nemesis Whip (!). 

The God Delusion

       Yeah, I read it, and Dawkins actually makes a pretty good case for atheism (although his constant use of the term Darwinism is rather annoying...) He doesn't do a thorough dissection of miracles, which somewhat irks me, but his discussion about cargo cults and such was very enlightening. For better or worse, this book definitely estranged me from religion even more.

Dinosaur Discoveries

       I luv William Stout's art. I always have, ever since I was but a wee lad. He just makes his dinos look so primal, and yet so modernized at the same time. There were, of course, some minor inaccuracies (pronated hands, anyone?), but those are forgivable for some pwnsome (yes, yes I did just say that) illustrations.

      BTW, my love for William Stout's art probably stems from the fact that his art appeared on the cover of those wonderfully cheesy dino documentaries of the late 80s and early 90s. You know what I'm talking about, the ones with Gary Owens and that jazzy beat. Videosaurus is what I believe they were called. 

Thats enough for now. I'm tired and have B-Day party to go to in about an hour. Happy days, everybody!

Time is Short, but Here's a lil' Snippet of What's to come...giggity

Been swamped with stuff (high school, yadda yadda). I know this doesn't look good this early on in my blogging career, but bear with me. As for the undead brain-eater warning above, speculate on what it'll be, my few readers!

Apologies, Raptor Jesus, and thoughts on Creationist /b/tards....

Genesis 4:The Downfall of Man

Raptor Jesus was happy in his creationism, and had many sexes with the man and woman. But one day, Satan appeared as snake. The snake proceeded to kidnap the man and have many sexes with him. After threatening the man with more raep, the Satanic Serpent told him to steal RaptorJesus' apple. The Raptor Jesus was nowhere at the moment, but he came as soon as he heard what happened. He banished the man and woman from the Garden of Eden (which had yet to be mentioned) using his pwnsome fire sword.

Genesis 5: The Flood

Today was a good day on earth. Raptor Jesus was happy, and aminals and sidewalks frolicked throughout the land. Howevar, man had become sinful,and even though he didn't care, Raptor Jesus didn't do anything. Rpator Jesus than met his friend Noah at the Bar and grill. Raptor Jesus was disatisfied at Noah's...stuff, idunnolol. So Raptor Jesus promptly killed Noah. Raptor Jesus proceeded to steal Noah's wife and children. He then built a boat. The boat sat there and was never used. Raptor Jesus' many mutant offspring were dumpedin Africa and adopted by the (now defunct) band Brangelina.

Apologies for the lack of posting, life has been very busy with school and whatnot. Onto a topic I've wanted to cover for some time now...

       If you've looked closely at my posts, or have previously conversed with me, you will know my disdain for Creationism (Young Earth Creationism, to be presice). The fact that this belief actively encourages ignorance of Scientific principles and, y'know, reality in general is justification enough to at least makea rebuttal, if not despisethe belief.

      

       I know people who are creationists personally, and they don't know shit about Evolution and biology in general. But they are good and well-meaning people, but misguided. One friend was convinced there are no transitional fossils because she had read Ken Ham's (*shivers*) "The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved". Oh goody, a book full of half witted reasoning and misrepresentations of actual Scientific findings.

       Another person, my grandmother actually, was confounded on how one could believe in Evolution and the Bible at the same time. I rrecall how I had to meticulously explain to her, over the course of several weeks, what evolution says, and what Genesis says, and how to reconcile the two.

       The point I'mtrying to make is, creationism can affect one's ways of thinking. It can make one delusional and give them a false sense of justification for their faith. It is dangerous, not because it threatens science and the facts, but it pours biggotry upon the world's flocks of Christian sheep, who will willingly soak up like a sponge what the man up on the podium is shouting.

      I'm no atheist (nor agnostic) and though I do have an open, skeptical mind, I love the faith tradition I've grown up in and its community (Catholicism), and though I don't accept half of what the Church throws out there, I do believe in some  form of supernatural (whatever that means...) being.



*Consider this a cursory introduction to future post on IDiocy*

Your Friday-ly Dose of... Raptor Jesus!

Genesis 1: In the beginning, there was nothing, and then Raptor Jesus roundhouse kicked that nothing and told it to get a job created the Earth. Just the Earth.


Raptor Jesus than worked his buttocks off for 7 6 days and made a bunch of lulzy stuff like aminals and aminal crackers and humans and Young Earth Creationists (they're not human) and sidewalks. Raptor Jesus saw that it was good, but even though he thought it was good, he thought he'd do the same thing again, but different this time, in Genesis 2.


Genesis 2: In the beginning, Raptor Jesus, made the Earth (just the Earth) again. Raptor Jesus felt like ribs, so he took one of the man's ribs, and somehow the first woman was made, i dunno. Raptor Jesus was happy this time, and was content in his splendiferous creation.


Yes, this will be a regular thing. Feedback is appreciated!

Why I don't (or do?) buy the Magically Transforming Triceratops

       Jack Horner and I do not have a good history. True, he discovered the Maiasaura nesting colony and was one of the brave pioneers during the Dinosaur Renaissance, but he's gone fairly strange in the past couple of years.

       No doubt everyone remembers the horrid Tyrannosaurus scavenging fiasco that happened way back in 200-something. I won't go into that right now because a) that's not what this post is about, and b) there are far too many flaws in it. 
                                                
                                            
                        
                                                                                                        Paleontologist FAIL


       Horner's come up with two new hypotheses as of late. One (the one that has actually been published) deals with the synonymization of Pachycehaplosaurus, Stygimoloch, and Dracorex (best name EVAR). This one, having read the paper, sounds right to me. But his other idea... oh boy.


      Everyone knows Torosaurus and Triceratops are closely related. Horner took it a step further, and suggested that Toro is simply the final growth stage of Trike. I'm skeptical, as one could surmise by reading the title.


      1.  Torosaurus averages out at about 25 feet, while Triceratops rounds out to approximately 30 ft. Okay, so Trikes grew huge, and then shrunk 5 feet?*


      2. Triceratops must have gone through an awfully big change very late in life...I mean, the horns straightened out, the skull elongated and holes grew in, and all the epoccipital shrunk in.


     However, I did notice some odd looking skulls that have features of both Trike and Toro...

From the Triceratops Wikipedia page

From the Museum of the Rockies' Website

     As you can see the first is the classic specimen on display at AMNH. If it weren't for the solid skull, no doubt this would have been reclassified as Torosaurus (or not, whatever. Taxonomy is confusing), and the second looks much more like a Trike, but has small holes developing. 

In conclusion: I DUNNO LOL.

     

                                       

Tyrannosaurus Sex: Reflections

Okay, so I watched the program. It was decent, and there were at least fewer inaccuracies than in CotD (an UBER infra-sounding ParasauROFLus [copyright Tom Holtz)?). The main ones I spotted were:

1. PRONATED HANDS!?! DO NOT WANT! Seriously, it can't be that hard to get a theropod's hands right. Although the bit about Tyrannosaurs using the forelimbs to support the body is still plausible IMO.

2. They seemed awfully concerned about how "big" the dinosaurs were. Not that isn't something to contemplate, but was it really necessary to provide detailed diagrams? Perhaps this is just me being a teenager, but come on!

3. Wrong Sauropod feet. For like the 40 th time. But this is forgivable, since they're not making a documentary about dinosaur feet, now are they?

4. Stegosaurus' plates were probably unable to change color, at least according to Tom Holtz's authoritative 2007 "Dinosaurs". I quote pg 233 "The problem with these two hypotheses (plate-color changing and blood vessel warming) is that the plates, like spikes and all thyreophoran osteoderms, would not have been covered with skin. Instead, there would have been a layer of living tissue and then a layer of horny keratin covering them. And keratin, as dead tissue, would not be full of blood vessels. So a stegosaur plate couldn't gain heat, loose heat, or change color quickly."

*BTW, I demand a second addition of Holtz's book, DEMAND IT!*

5. Am I the only one who hates it when generic terms like "titanosaur" are used over and over again, and the audience doesn't know what titanosaur they're talking about? Granted, it can be inferred that the titanosaur of which they speak is Alamosaurus, but they could at least make it easier on us (me?).

And know, behold the glory that is TYRANNOSAURUS SEX!

Copyright Raul Martin

NSFW or not? You decide.

Tyrannosaurus....SEX?!

That's right! Discovery Channel's finally done it. Full blown archosaurian pr0n.

lol, Not really. The new program, Tyrannosaurus Sex airs tonight at 10 pm. Let's hope this redeems the horror show that Clash of the Dinosaurs was.

Links ahoy:

Discovery Channel's videos

Random News Article on the Program