In incredibly bad taste

Yet very funny. MAD TV looks at all you can do with Apple’s new iPad:

😀

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Sailing a sea of diamonds

Now this is a marvelous possibility: distant Uranus and Neptune may sport diamond icebergs floating in a sea of liquid diamond:

Diamond Oceans Possible on Uranus, Neptune

Oceans of liquid diamond, filled with solid diamond icebergs, could be floating on Neptune and Uranus, according to a recent article in the journal Nature Physics.

The research, based on the first detailed measurements of the melting point of diamond, found diamond behaves like water during freezing and melting, with solid forms floating atop liquid forms. The surprising revelation gives scientists a new understanding about diamonds and some of the most distant planets in our solar system.

Fantastic, in the truest sense of the word. It sounds like something from the wildest imaginings of the authors of scientific romances in the 19th century, or Pulp writers in the 1930s.

Neat!

(via Instapundit)

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Well, phooey!

I thought I had scored a bargain on eBay: two almost-legendary adventure modules for D&D and other roleplaying games, Plague of Terror and Street of Gems, from an obscure Maine publisher called The Companions. Part of their Islandia campaign (a world designed by taking a topographic map of Maine and flooding it to the 500′ mark), these were eyeopening products for me: detailed settings, believable motives and plans for the non-player characters, and timelines of how things would proceed if they players didn’t interfere. Yet they didn’t restrict the players in any way: they were free to do what they wanted, and the world would go on around them.

So, when I saw good copies of these two up for auction, I knew I had to have them. Sure, I already had a copy of each, but I wanted more. And, fully admitting this just wasn’t rational, I bid $25 for each. I waited and prepared to curse myself, even as I quivered with anticipation. Yes, I now have some idea of how crack addicts must feel.

Then some reprobate outbid me for both. His madness was greater even than mine, paying over $40 for each.

Curse you! (Shakes fist at heavens)

Ah, well.  Probably for the best. I wonder how high he was willing to go?

Oh, and Happy New Year! (Hey, it’s still January, and this is the first post of 2010, after all.)

ADDENDUM: I forgot to mention, I did score a copy of Runequest II in good shape for what I thought was a reasonable price. I’d lost my own copy years before, so it wasn’t all bad on eBay. 🙂

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