Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures - Episodes 12-15

At long last, I have listened to and edited for publication the next exciting installments of our Pokemon adventures.



Episode 12 (2:26:22)

In this episode Patrick and Yuki try their hand at fighting the local talent in Pewter City, while elsewhere a young mystic prepares himself for a gym battle, eventually going on to break Brock's Geodude with his shiny new Nidoran and it's Double Kick. Will the character's paths meet? Well obviously. Why did you even bother asking? Meanwhile, IRL the players are trying the Milk Challenge. Truly it is a laugh a minute here.

Finally I do some subtle railroading, and get the players to progress the plot.
The main bulk of story starts with all the them facing...a random encounter! Has there ever been a less appropriate term for something? The team find some Shinx, one of which Yuki captures to the tune of "DO WANT IT'S CUTE", despite Redrinder's attempts to gain maximum Exp from them. Duri9ng the course of this battle we find out that Patrick's Diglett, Dig Dug is apparently some kind of eldritch abomination, who devours it's foes in order to gain their powers.

Under direction of a mysterious stranger shaped remarkably like two long bits of metal that might carry some form of locomotive, they make their way to a small village just off Route 3. Ceil is a small village with little to few ameneties. They are greeted by Everard Joss, the village reeve (mayor, more or less) who gruffly informs them that the person they were looking for, Tara Gillian, has long since moved to Johto with her family. The group investigates the Gillian household, and locate a trail of psychic energy leading out of the village towards a cave.

This cave is guarded by a man with two fierce looking dogs, a Houndour and a Houndoom. The team are undaunted however, as Redrinder possesses the Houndoom, forcing it to run off a cliff, breaking its neck in the fall. No, really.

Episode 13 (1:38:23)

Following last time's horrifying events, the team move on as if nothing ever happened. Clearly they have suppressed the most defiantely traumatic memory of the death of a living, sentient creature by one of their own and there is every possibility that this will come back to haunt them. Just saying.

Progressing through the cave, all kinds of creepy stuff happens, with patterns swirling on the wall, amassing in a slithering mess of red light in a subterranean dome. Redrinder's Growlithe uses Odor Sleuth, dispelling the illusion, revealing the Mismagius hidden beneath. The group enter battle with the ghost, taking chunks out of it's health until it disappears, much to the irritation of Redrinder, who assumed it had actually been beaten. They then set about pokemon hunting, resulting in many Zubat falling, and Redrinder catching a Gastly.



Episode 14 (1:01:14)

Redrinder, having been stolen away by the Mismagius that had previously escaped, finds his way back to the group. Having done so, the group decide that they need to rest up. Burning through some snakes they make it back to village of Ceil, where they are taken aside by a kindly old lady and given food and lodging for the night. They wake up in the morning and deide to do some investigating. Heading to the Gillian household, Redrinder finds a pendant that, upon using his mystic powers, he works out belongs to the same organisation as the guy who attacked the others in Pewter. Shock! He also gleans a vision of the cave interior, seeing a large carvern filled with trainers working their pokemon to the limit, and beyond, and at the centre of it all, is the mayor! What does this mean? Who are these people? What will happen next? Find out....in the next paragraph!

Episode 15 (1:09:29)

In which our heroes go back into the cave. Bonsai tries to search for Abra. In a cave. Yeah. He doesn't find any. When they progress they find themselves faced with a wall of pure shadow. After some brainstorming and experimenting, Bonsai and Patrick team up and create a field of electricity through the use of Mist and Thundershock. This breaks the consentration of the two Haunter blocking their path, revealing them to the group. They consequently beat them. Onwards they go, finally making it to the cavern seen in Matt's vision. Alas, Everard was expecting them and the hapless travellers find themselves facing a room full of trainers.

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A2 Physics - Radioactivity: the Discovery of the Nucleus

Well Christ, that 30 day thing really did a number on this blog, didn't it? You got bored, I got bored, and then I just stopped updating. Well, I officially declare that a failed experiment. Clearly I cannot adequately differentiate between various favourites without narrowing it down to a single point, without getting overwhelmed and pretending it doesn't exist. Instead I might suggest a track or two on occasion, but all in all I will now be going back to the Pokemon chronicling/regular blog format.

Currently however I am revising, and I thought it might be a good idea to use this as a tool to help me. So get ready for some edutainment, folks! Today's picture heavy topic is Radioactivity: the Discovery of the Nucleus.

See, the thing is, until relatively recently, we didn't really know what we were made of. Some philosophical ideas had been thrown around for millenia that if you keep halving something that you would eventually get to a point where the cheese could no longer be halved. This tiny bit of something was referred to as "Indivisible", or ἄτομος (átomos). This was known as Atomism. The origin of this thought is widely credited to Democritus and Leucippus, though there are some (Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, to name but a couple) who attributed it to Moschus the Phoenician, who they believed was Moses. Of the biblical fame, yes. The guy who laid down the basis of a majority of the world's religion may also have sparked the thinkings that created a good large chunk of modern science.

This guy strikes me as being significantly more badass than that Jesus prick.

However people still believed that we were made up of the classical elements, and while such a theory is still prevalent in modern popular media, most college textbooks tend to prefer teaching the periodic table. This was due to the foundations laid by 17th century "natural philosopher" Robert Boyle with Corpuscularianism, similar to atomism, except "corpuscles" could in principle be divided. While he didn't create the idea, Robert Boyle argued in 1661 that matter was composed of various combinations of different "corpuscles" or atoms, rather than the classical elements of air, earth, fire, water and dragon.

Things didn't really progress for a while after, Corpuscuthingy being the prevalent thought of the time, until the science of chemistry was developed. In 1789, French nobleman and scientific researcher Antoine Lavoisier discovered the law of conservation of mass and defined an element as a basic substance that could not be further broken down by the methods of chemistry. Later, in 1805, discovered the John Dalton proposed that each element consists of atoms of a single, unique type, and that these atoms can join together to form chemical compounds, prompting him to become thought of as the originator of modern atomic theory. Further lines of reasoning were made by one Johann Josef Loschmid, who in a scientific landmark, worked out the size of molecules in air, and botanist Robert Brown, father of what has come to be known as Brownian motion.

In 1869, building upon earlier discoveries by such scientists as Lavoisier, Dmitri Mendeleev published the first functional periodic table. The table itself is a visual representation of the periodic law, which states that certain chemical properties of elements repeat periodically when arranged by atomic number.

Now bear with me, if you haven't left already, because here is where we finally near the content of the A2 syllabus (assuming you haven't found the last 4 paragraphs as fascinating as I have). In 1897, the electron was discovered by J. J. Thomson while pissing about with cathode rays. In doing so, he discovered that they were a component part of every atom, thus overturning the then prevalent belief that atoms are indivisible. Thomson postulated that atoms were therefore made up of the negatively charged electrons distributed, possibly in rings around a uniform sea of balancing positive charge. Thus was created one of my least liked scientific names, the Plum Pudding Model.

Douse it in brandy and set it alight, then get back to me.

Thus it was that in 1909, under the direction of Ernest Rutherford, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden bombarded gold foil sheets with α rays, then known to be positively charged helium atoms. Lets take a more detailed look at that. What Geiger and Marsden used was an evacuated metal box, containing an alpha source lined up with a gold foil, and a scintillator (A zinc sulphide screen that emitted light when hit by an alpha particle). What was observed was that most particles travelled straight ahead with little to no deflection. 1 in 2000 were deflected however, and very occasionally, 1 in 10 000 would be deflected at a greater angle that 90°. Some would even bounce right back to the source, an action that would be impossible for a diffuse cloud of positive charges, as Thomson had suggested. It was, in Rutherford's words "as incredible as if you fired a 15 inch naval shell at tissue paper and it came back." to give you an idea of just how surprising this was.

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From this, Rutherford interpreted the results as suggesting that the positive charge of a heavy gold atom and most of its mass was concentrated in a nucleus at the center of the atom. This was the creation of the Rutherford model. He went on to use Coulombs law of force and Newton's laws of motion to explain his results, and through the use of different metals in the same experiment he worked out that the magnitude of the charge of a nucleus was +Ze, where e was the charge of an electron, and Z was the atomic number of the element.

So there we have it. The history of the discovery of the nucleus. I could go on to the size and density, but that's decidedly mathsy, and while I love maths, it doesn't translate very well into the historical documentary format I have going here, and I fear I would end up breaking into degree level stuff, which I just do not need distracting me this close to exam time.

At any rate, I hope you enjoyed it. It has probably helped me, if not you, at any rate, and that is really the main aim here. No offence.

Please note that this won't be a daily thing as it is entirely likely that I will be a) busy b) doing other things and more likely c) procrastinating

Ja mata ne!

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On Vocalists and Emotion in Music

Another post will explain consider and debate my hiatus. Moving on.

I was just watching a Top Of The Pops compilation program. It was on of those ones that focuses on the old stuff. A look back to the good old days when any idealist will tell you the music was wonderful and perfect and just better than the nonsense we have today. Ignoring the fact that there was as much shit back then as there is now, it begs the question, what was it that makes the 60's and 70's such a memorable time for music? And like I'm sure many before me, I think I've worked out the answer.

Take a look at this fun fuelled number by young Suzi Quatro.



The bass probably bigger than she is. It's using a frankly bland chord progression that was used by more or less everyone in rock then. But damn if they aren't having fun. They are thee on that stage enjoying themselves and the music. Ok, next slide.



A wonderful song about Rod and his concerns about a relationship with an older woman. As everyone knows it features a classic mandolin part. But who is that on the mandolin? Legendary radio DJ John Peel! He's not even playing the thing. They literally just asked him to come on stage and mime. In addition, they start playing football. They start playing football! On stage, middle of the song and they're kicking a ball about.



This guy, like him or not, had a godly voice. That thing is powerful, evidently powerful enough to cause women to spontaneously throw their underwear at him. And you can tell he just loves to sing. He enjoys it. Ok, one more.



I don't need to tell you how good these guys are. Seriously, if you don't like the Rolling Stones you're not allowed to be my friend. No, really, no joke. I'm as serious as Bill Hicks on marketers.

Now watch Mick. Look at him singing. He loves it. He's on the stage and he is doing what he loves. This is fun for him. It's fun for all of them.

And that's my answer. Back then so many more people played music because it was fun, because it was somewhere they could throw their energy into and enjoy themselves. With the every growing presence that is the music industry these days, it strikes me that music has become more of a job. A career path. There are plenty of people now that do it for fun, sure. There were people back then who were doing it for money, fame, or whatever. That's fine, you know, whatever you want. But don't think that you're making good music. Good music comes from wanting to do it. From actually enjoying it. This especially applies to vocalists. I get the impression that many contemporary vocalists are simply there to say words, and as a vocalist that pisses me right off, because at the heart of it, the vocalist is the most relatable part of a group. The music can be magical, but the vocalist is the one getting your message across, your band's bridge to the listener, that they may cross and join you on your journey, as opposed to merely being spectators. Words are helpful and music is integral but its all for naught if the face isn't emoting.

This is by no means an anti selling out post. Not at all. This is just a message to enjoy what your doing, mean what the fuck you're saying or sit down, shut up and let the people who really want to be here have a turn.

Alright, there's 40 minutes left in this Friday, so I just have time enough to remind you all of the original Friday song. Here is the original goth band, The Cure. Have a good weekend.

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The 30 Day Song Challenge - Day 6 - A song that reminds you of somewhere

This one is more of an artist as a whole, and again a bunch of artists could fall into the same catagory for the very same reason. The somewhere in question is the apartment my parents used to own in Portugal when I was very small. The reason is that they used to play these particular artists all the time as we didn't always being over too many CDs, and my parents, being the music loving people they are just played whatever they had. It is probably this that lead me to enjoy this sort of music, thus starting off my life long passion with the auditory arts. Out of these artists, including such greats as Bowie, B.B King, Iggy Pop, and Neil Young, I choose, for no particular reason, the chilled, the powerful, the legendary Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed.

Enjoy, bébé.

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