Leon Czolgosz

Yellow Car

I used to carpool everyday to work with my friend Cooper. The drive took the same 25 miles on the highway to and from Topsham on I-295. We played a game called "YELLOW CAR."

It works very simple... when you see a yellow car, you try shout out "yellow car" before the other person spots it. Taxi cabs and other work vehicles don't count and the car must be totally bright yellow. It is very simple, but also very addictive. Throughout the ebbs and flows of playing it over 2 years, we ended up with the final score: Josh:429 - Cooper:422.

While searching to find any evidence of this game elsewhere online, I did come up with this little nugget: http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=5402

Milwaukee Brewers

During my first year of teaching at Mt. Ararat High School in 2002, one of the students was a young man named Mark Rogers.
http://www.brewerfan.net/ViewPlayerProfile.do?playerId=695


His slow progress does not seem to have slowed up the Brewers though. As of today, they hold the best record in baseball at 21-10, and appear very strong. We we will see though...

http://www.jsonline.com/index/index.aspx?id=33

Cooper Dragonette

My good friend Cooper recently joined the ranks of the arists. He specializes in fantastic landscape paintings from his travels around New England including Cape Elizabeth, Chebeque Island, Maine, and Upper Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Here are his websites:
http://cooperdragonette.com/
http://cooperdragonette.blogspot.com/

Cooper used to be an art teacher at Mt. Ararat High School, where we were collegues. In addition, Cooper used to live in my neighborhood in the West End of Portland. This unfortunate relationship meant that we used to carpool together on a daily basis.

Kramer

I have been a fan of the TV show, Seinfeld, since 1993. In that time, I have made it a habit to watch the show at least once a day during the week; (it is part of my post-work ritual). However, I have had a hard time lately of getting into the show. This is because my favorite character on the show, Kramer, played by the actor, Michael Richards, has been in the news lately. I just can't enjoy it anymore.. it has been tainted. I do not know if I can ever look at Kramer the same way again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sEUIZsmTOE

How does 'Duck Hunt' really work?

With the introduction of the latest and greatest video game systems being introduced, I took notice of the new Nintendo "Wii" system. What makes this different is that you use the motion-sensing controller and physically make the movements that you are trying to do in the game. For example, if you are playing a Baseball video game, instead of pushing a button to swing the bat, you would actually stand up swing the "Wii" controller itself. While I am not a big video gamer at all, nor do I even own a system, I really liked this idea. If not anything else, I requires children (and adults too, I suppose) to get up and move their bodies instead of just sitting on the couch.

However, seeing this system in action reminded me of a somewhat similar interactive video game system of my childhood, the Nintendo "Duck Hunt gun." As a child, my cousin and I would sit for hours aiming the gun at the television screen, lining the flying ducks in the sights, and then firing the trigger, shooting the ducks dead. At the time, the game was very fun in a simple sort of way. As a child, I never gave it much thought how it worked... I just thought that the TV was somehow receiving a signal from the gun, and registering where on the screen it received it, and then either registered a hit and miss. However, I was was watching the commercial for the new "Wii" system, it hit me... there is no way a TV can receive anything through the screen. So, how they heck did the 'Duck Hunt gun" work? How does the game know where the gun in aiming on the TV screen?

My research tells me that the gun actually worked the exact opposite of that of my childhood understanding. Stripped of the high-tech accoutrements (by 1980s standards, anyway), it's the oldest trick in the book. You think you're using the gun to shoot at the TV, right? But really the TV is shooting the gun.

Here's what happens. You shoot at a duck, which appears on an ordinary TV screen. The gun is connected to the game console; pressing the trigger blackens the screen, then causes a duck-shaped white target to appear momentarily. If your aim is true, a photo sensor in the gun detects the shift from dark to light, and bingo--dead duck. In short, the TV emits the light pulse and the gun detects it, not the other way around.

For technical details, see www.howstuffworks.com/question273. htm, which includes a link to Nintendo's 1989 patent on the technology. The patent explains how the dark-to-light shift prevents you from cheating by pointing the gun at a steadily shining light source, a weakness of earlier light guns. You'll also learn how multiple targets can appear on the screen at the same time and how more advanced systems can indicate on the screen exactly where your shot "hit."

Take that, "Wii."