Welcome New Readers

I have recently acquired what I believe will be several regular readers and so I say welcome. Perhaps this means I'll soon be able to get more than 1000 hits on this site. And so to them I say welcome.
Today's blog is about villains. Nearly every movie, book and comic book has a villain in it (except for crappy dramas that rely on interpersonal and internal conflict). There is a very fine line between super hero and super villain. It often depends on the point of view. To the British of the 1770's the revolutionary Americans were treasonous terrorists. Villains often could have been hero's if not for some bitterness, spite or resentment introduced to their lives. But what makes a villain and what makes him good at what he does? Quintessential, a villain must inspire hatred in either the protagonists or in the audience. Merely causing fear or pain or injustice is not enough to be really evil. Instead, the victims must vow to exact vengeance on their nemesis. Ideally this must be difficult for the good guy(s), that way there's actually some plot.
In nearly every comic book, the super hero has some weakness which his arch rival attempts to exploit. Knowledge is power and so if the villain knows for example the hero's secret identity (often quite contrary to their usual appearance to the world) then that villain has the upper hand. I rather like Superman as an example. Kill Bill vol. 2 explained it quite eloquently. Clark Kent is Superman's critique of the human race- cowardly, weak and physically flawed (the glasses). But even when he's Clark Kent, he's still Superman on the inside and drops everything to go do some good deed. No matter how hard he tries, he would never stop being Superman. Clark is merely a camouflage cover so that he can blend in with normal society. If Luthor were ever to discover that duality, then Superman would be rendered powerless against him. Bringing Luthor to justice would automatically mean having to accept that everyone would know his secret and that he would never be able to partake in casual society again. It would be lost to him forever and not even Superman has courage enough to give that up.
Until the final resolution, the villain is the one that has the most fun. Toying with the hero's, dangling false leads in front of their noses. Inevitably however, villain always slips up. Otherwise the audience would be outraged at the conclusion and the series would quickly end. The villain's tragic flaw is usually pride. Pride in one's work leads to bragging and the villain makes the mistake of revealing his sinister plot before the job is done. In the really good comics, the hero's even learn something from the villain. The reasons for his megalomania or other such condition as revealed through a very open rant encourage the heros to prevent other from going down the darker path.
Be on the look out for villains everywhere... Mwahahahahaha!!!

National Geographic

Yesterday the public library held a book sale, at which there was quite alot of crap, but also a couple of gems. I picked up a copy of Darwin's "On the Oriin of Species" and "The Descent of Man" for a dollar as well as the major works of Levoisier and Faraday and some other chemist who's name I can't remember for another dollar. I also picked up a whole bunch of old national geographic magazines. Unfortunately they didn't have anything from 1919 (the year I really want because it contains an article by on Barnum Brown) but they did have 1920, 1921, 1922 and 1923. Despite this wide range of years, none of them were complete. There was another collector there competing with me for posession. As a result I got a little over half of each of the above mentioned years. I normally wouldn't have wasted my time on National Geographics that don't have a Paleo article but for $1 each, it seemed like too good of an offer to pass up. The Wee book in in Edmonton near where I used to live offered National Geographics from the 1920's for $32 CAD each, so I feel that I got a really good deal. Even if I can only sell them for $10 USD each, I'm still making $270 USD profit on a $30 investment. If anyone would like to buy some old Nat Geo's off me for $10 a piece, I'd be more than happy to sell. Otherwise, I'll just be mailing them back to California to join the rest of the Gelnaw Library and Museum.
Just as a side note, I'm at the public library and the guy sitting next to me at the computers is watching copious amounts of gay porn. I reallize that it's gay pride week or month or whatever, but that is just rediculous.

William Gelnaw's Guide to Frugal Living

The people at google have recently reintroduced the ignorant masses to one of my favorite words; frugale. Unfortunatly, They spell it Froogle so it matches the parent company and now nobody anwhere will be able to spell it properly (heaven help us if it ever makes its way onto spell check lists). I have often found myself trying to explain to people why this word is such an appropriate discription of me. If you know me and know the meaning of the word, then its clear. But when the girl is asking if you want a private dance and all you have is ones, I find myself coming up with synonyms like cheap, pennywise, thrifty, a miser etc.
Frugal is not only a word but an idea that is sorely out of use. People today really don't know how to save their money. Granted, there are alot of circumstances in life that prevent one from being able to save (like getting knocked up), but for much of the population there is no excuse. The American economy practically runs on the fact that Americans buy more than they can afford thereby keeping inflation and interest rates pretty constant. As such I have decided two write the great unamerican novel (or manual). "William Gelnaw's Guide to Frugal living" or just "The Guide to Frugal Living" will instruct the ignorant and spend happy populace of this great nation in the ways of making their money last. If it works en mass then its true that my followers will see an initial reduction in the quality of their lives, but in the long run they'll be glad. I've come up with a few chapter headings as follows:

Never Pay full Price for Retail

Making it Last

Shared Living Arangements or Try Living at the Office

Never Buy Name Brand

The Gender Difference

Peasant Vision

Ebay, the Dollar Store, the Salvatio Army and You

Comparison Shopping

Don't have kids, Please

The Credit Conspiracy

It's Cheaper to Keep'er

Sugar Mamma's/ Daddies and You

Don't Let Grades Get in the Way of Your Education, Attending University for Free

Gambling Losses

Charity

The Tax Man Cometh

Police Auctions, the Repo Depot

Don't Have Much, Will Travel

Free Lunch and other Myths (getting/stealing free food, and pot lucks)

Grow Your Own, Make Your Own

Penny Wise but Pound Foolish

Black Hills Institute

Yesterday, I went to The Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City South Dakota, and it's awesome!!! It's only a three room museum (the mineral room, the fossil room and the gift shop) but its great. When I picture what I would really want my own museum to be like, I picture something like that. It is the former home of Sue the T. Rex and is the perminant home of Stan of the same species as well as several other Tyrannosaurs of various nick names. Generally, I think t sucks that they had Sue taken away by the FBI and then sold to another museum for $8.3 million (all procedes going to the guy who was leasing the land from the Soix). The institute saw no money from that sale despite the fact that they gave the guy $5000 to dig on his land, and pumped thousands more into its excavation and partial preparation. In spite of this, and the fact that the owners both did some jail time for alleged fossil poaching, the institute seems to be doing ok. The skull of Stan is quite possibly the best preserved dinosaur skull I have ever seen. Ironically, they also have a cast on display of MOR 555. I can't imagine it should have been too hard for the Chicago field museum to sell them or even give them a cast of Sue. The Institute should have at least have been offered a discount (you know, for finding the damn thing!!!). They've also got awesome displays of lagerstaten fossils from the Green River Formation, Lebanon (Yay lebanese fossil exports) and the Solenhofren, Germany. They've also got the biggest, best preserved Euriptyerid I've ever seen.
I highly recomend a visit to any avid fossil nerd. Admission is free but please give them a donation. They've earned it.

writing friends

I've been getting the impression lately that I may be trying to contact people by the wrong e-mail addresses. I've sent out a couple of e-mails to friends but I get the impression that nobody is getting them. Either that or they just haven't written back yet. Michelle wrote me back and did it rather promptly. I've written Sudeep twice in the last two months and haven't gotten any reply. Perhaps he feels bad about the fact that I spent more time with Michelle the last time I was in California than with him. If that is the Case, I'm sorry dude. Ok, that could explain one lack of response. What's wrong with the rest of you. I lead a really boring life here in South Dakota and it means alot when I get correspondence.

perminance and imperminance

I was surprised today to find out that the wiki that I created about the value of public participants in field work still exists despite the fact that it was at one point slated for deletion due to its enormous size. It's no longer under the heading field work, but you can get to it from a link in that heading or using the above link. I am kind of depressed that whoever relocated it specified it as archaeological despite the fact that there isn't one archaeological organization that I surveyed. He must not have even read the abstract.
Besides checking out my old Wiki, I've been filling up my G-mail account. I think I must be the only person to have already filled close to 30% of my free Gigabite of space already. I've been sending myself my digital photos so I can get them off of my memory card. I didn't want to burn them onto a cd yet because it seemed like only 240 megabytes of an available 700 would be a waste of space. In retrospect I should have just burt the cd as a session and added more later. Oh well.
In other news, somebody took my idea and is making a whole lot of money off of it. Well, actually they just had a similar idea and are making money off of a limited academic circle. There's a book called "the dinosaur paper 1676-1908" (dates may be wrong here) in which it repuplishes all of the original papers starting with the very first description of a dinosaur and going to the start of the 20th century. My idea was a bit more limited in scope. I just wanted to do this for each major journal that published dino papers separately. Whoever compiled this is briliant, and clearly very hard working. I have no idea how they got some of these papers. Anyway, I must have this book. Unfortunately, It's just as costly as a text book ($75 USD) so I think I'll wait until I can get it used. Or, since I'm only buying used texts now, I think I'll use what I save on those to buy it. I've spent alot lately on my paleo adiction (Lebanese and Moroccan fossils) so I think I should wait.
Another book that I'm really sorry that I have to wait to buy is Alfred S. Romer's "The Osteology of the Reptiles." It looks like a great book but its about $110 USD. That's alot for book that hasn't had a new edition in over 30 years and doesn't have a single color plate. Perhaps some money making scheme of mine will cover it. Who knows?