A while back I watched, "What The Bleep Do We Know!?", a movie about quantum physics and the true nature of reality. There was a segment I found particularly intriguing, in which multiple microscope slides of water were shown. Each slide was accompanied by a short message. I believe originally, all the water was the same. However, at some point, a group of people was gathered and asked to focus on a single idea, which was represented by a specific short message. One idea, "Peace," was focused on, and a picture of a sample of water nearby was taken. They did the same thing for "Love" and a few other positive ideas. All the slides of the "positive" water samples contained beautiful crystalline structures. But there was one that looked a sickly yellow. Its accompanying message? "You make me sick. I will kill you."

That just blew my mind! The whole point was that your thoughts and feelings have a definite impact on the molecular structure of water. And since we're made up of 70% water ourselves, it is important to get our minds under control. The segment of the film I believe also had a sample of holy water, that was as beautiful under the microscope as had been the other "positive" samples.

So that's all well and good, I thought. Months went by and I hadn't heard anything relating to the concept of, "Think this and your water will do that." Until recently.

Yesterday I stumbled across a website called "Aquafrequencies: Super Health Through Light Frequency Software." I read about it at a forum, and then decided to see what the site was about. Apparently the creators behind the site have developed a software program that is used to charge up water with cures to various problems. Overweight? Use the fat loss function. Smoker? Use the function to quit smoking.

At first, I thought this looked cool. Interesting. Promising, even. After all, some of the information they provide is specialized knowledge that conveys how informed and educated these people are. The software itself is free to try for 15 days, but costs $30 for every 15 days after that, or $50 for every month. Or, if you were really hardcore, you could pay $300 for an unlimited license.

So I figured, wow, if it's really worth $300, there must be something to this! But of course, you can set the price of plain rocks at $1,000,000 per stone.

How does it work? Apparently, from what I can tell, you load the program and set up what you want it to do to your water, and the level of "power output." Then you put a glass of the purest water you can find near your computer's monitor, and focus on it. You think about the water, and imagine how you want it to change. "Fitness water…Water that will make me lean and toned…Happy water…Improve my mood…"

Sure, but how does the program work? Apparently it uses the light output in your monitor to send specific "frequencies" through space to alter the structure of the water. And you can do this remotely, if you'd believe it. From one room, you can charge up your bathwater. Then charge up a glass of water. Then go take a bath and drink from the glass at the same time.

Supposedly many people have had "miraculous" results with this program. I was reminded of an episode of one of my old favorite shows, "Sliders." In one of the later seasons, Quinn Mallory had fused with an alternate (an different-looking) version of himself to provide an exit for Jerry O'Connell and an entrance for a new actor. The character's name was changed to just "Mallory." In one episode, Mallory drank some special water containing nanobots that cure all ailments and communicate through frequencies of light. He then left the universe where he gained the water and visited a new universe, where he started a cult. See, the nanobots get into your brain. If someone else drinks the special water, they can communicate with you through the use of the nanobots and invisible beams of light. Mallory built a community with a single consciousness around the special water. Aquafrequencies also uses special water as a cure-all. Coincidence? Probably. Or is it?

Back to the forum. One person mentioned how this reminds them of the "magnet craze" that swept the populous a few years back. "Magnets cure everything!" Lots of people believed, and reported amazing benefits. But now that "industry" is suffering from the same woes experienced by a found-out snake-oil salesman. The person at the forum said they figure Aquafrequencies is just as bogus.

I've noticed a few things on the Aquafrequencies site that struck me as "extremely lame." Basically, they say, "If you use our program, then X should happen, which is good. But don't be alarmed if nothing happens at all, because there's a reason for that." So they make an excuse for if and when their system won't work. But why would they need to, if it really worked?

Here is the extensive, 6-page instruction manual. On page 2, it explains how to adjust the "power output." One suggestion says, "Start the slider at either 0% or 100% and move
the slider until it feels right." Sounds like things are starting to get a little less than concrete.

A little lower on the page are instructions for what to do with "prepped" water. "Drink the water, and note that this will also increase the effectiveness of both Bathing and Showering." Great! Let's get clean! But I'm sure they really mean, "It will increase the effectiveness of whatever you were trying to do, whether it be lose weight, quit smoking, or improve your skin." So why didn't they say that, instead of some weak generalization?

There's a page with ideas for "experiments" you can do, like "prep" some water and give it to your cat. They say, "Chances are the pet is going to prefer the treated one, although in some cases they might know something that we don't (like, I don't want that one - it has too much energy!)." What??!! The whole point is to give the water "energy," and now they're saying "watch out for too much?"

In "What The Bleep Do We Know!?" they had an entire group of people focus their minds, and they successfully changed the structure of multiple samples of water. A priest could also do this. So all it really takes is incredibly focused thought. I have no idea what the point of the Aquafrequencies program is. It seems superfluous.

Some of the benefits that have been reported include enhanced mood, more energy, and a oneness with oneself. Why? The use of the software entails drinking pure water and thinking pleasant thoughts. Whether the program works or not is uncertain, but what is certain is that drinking lots of pure water and thinking positive are two tried and tested methods for improving one's life. Maybe Aquafrequencies figured out that not many people do that, and that those people would allow some piece of software to steal the credit from two basic, natural principles. For shame! Unless it really does work…

Sometimes when I'm watching a commercial on television, I reflect on how the polished message of the company is truly absurd, and how it could be conveyed as such.

Take for example, a commercial for some low-calorie food item. I'm not sure which. The tag line is uttered by a woman enjoying the guilt-free snack. She says, "Hey, a girl's gotta eat." Which implies, "Hey, a girl's gotta eat this."

So I figure, just because she says it, doesn't make it so. But how best to parody this commercial?

I imagined a montage of women saying, "Hey, a girl's gotta eat," while doing something to demonstrate that blind catchphrase obedience is not always a good thing. First, a random lady sits down to a plate of cheesecake. An entire cheesecake. Fork in hand, she stares dreamily at the dessert, and says, "Hey, a girls gotta eat." Not so bad, right? Some people, women and men, have actually done that. I know I've wanted to. But the montage continues downhill from there.

A few clips later, a heavyset woman is sitting in a pile of empty pizza boxes, candy wrappers, and assorted garbage. Her face is covered with food, including chocolate frosting from a cake she's eating off the floor with her hands. "Hey, a girl's gotta eat," she says.

It just keeps getting worse, until finally, a morbidly obese woman is out for a stroll. Across the street, she sees little Jimmy Carver, a gaunt orphan, receive a gift from a compassionate stranger. At the pretzel stand, a woman buys him a salty treat. The woman herself is poor, and that's the last money she had, but she knew that little Jimmy would appreciate a pretzel more than she. It's the first food he's had in days. Upon receiving the gift, his face lights up. He can barely bring himself to eat the pretzel, it's so beautiful. As beautiful as his smiling benefactor. Tears can be seen in the eyes of the pretzel vendor. Meanwhile, on the other side of the street, the obese woman decides on a course of action. She lumbers across, stopping traffic, and makes her way to the pretzel stand. Pushing aside the kind stranger, she grabs the pretzel out of little Jimmy's hand and takes an enormous bite. Mouth full, she mumbles to saddened orphan, "Hey, a girl's gotta eat."

Sure, that was pretty gruesome. And sure, let's all hope it never happens in real life. But the moral of the story is, you can rationalize any action, but the rationalization doesn't always make it right.

And what really grinds my gears about the original commercial and its use of, "Hey, a girl's gotta eat," is the fact that it's obvious a girl's gotta eat. Everybody needs to eat. And there are plenty of alternatives to the food product in question. It's like using, "Hey, a guy's gotta breathe air," as a rationalization for breathing Coca-Cola's Bottled Air For Men.

Bottom line, the commercial could have given women a better reason to choose their product than to simply say, "This is food for girls, so girls, eat up!"

I'm no black hat expert, but I have heard the term, "scraper site," which I believe is used to describe a site that is automated to scour the web for suitable content, which it then copies onto itself.

Over the past couple of weeks, Misinterpreted.org has apparently become mildly attractive to a few different scraper sites. I've received 13 comments so far from random sites that upon visiting display either a snippet of a certain post I made, or the entire post itself.

I remember learning a scraper site's goal is to capitalize on the content generated by owners of websites that aren't very well-known. I think what happens is the scrapers end up ranking in the search engines in the areas that really should be occupied by the owners of the scraped sites.

The fact that I've only gotten 13 comments so far doesn't really bother me, since I'd only worry if I was getting such comments left and right. And since each one contains a link back to a bogus site, I don't approve them.

The plus side is that each of my posts that has been copied onto another site features a link back here, so that's good. Although I wonder if Google and other search engines will penalize me for having a few "bad neighborhood" links?

Cheater cheater pumpkin eater… Don't scrape me, bro!

Heroes is absolutely incredible. They have the option to make it complex, and they do so brilliantly. Monday, amnesiac Peter took his Irish gal pal for an unplanned trip to 2008, where over 90% of the world's population has been ravaged by disease. Peter and his lady are separated, and she is deported back to Ireland.

Then, Peter goes back to some other time, possible present-day, possible the time of the previous generation of heroes, Linderman's, generation. He meets Adam, the immortal samurai Hiro just made an enemy of, 400 years in the past.

All right, so the guy's immortal. That means all healers are immortal. That means Claire and Peter are immortal, and previous future Sylar was as well.

Back to the issue at hand. Peter left the future where "9 out of 10 dentists agree…that they're dead," but his girlfriend is still there! And you just know they're going to save the world again like they did at the end of Season 1. They stopped the bomb, and prevented the devastation and ensuing development of an anti-hero police-state. So they'll stop this disease too. But where does that leave Peter's lady?

In "Back to the Future 2," old man Biff in 2015 traveled back to 1955 giving his younger self a sports almanac with all the winners in every major sporting event for the next 45 years. 1955 Biff got rich. When Doc and Marty left 2015, they returned to 1985-prime, which was a Hell version of the time they once knew. Doc and Marty left Jennifer, Marty's GF, on a porch swing in 1985-prime. Then they went back to 1955, fixed history, and returned to the original 1985. There, they found Jennifer on the same porch swing.

How did that work? If Doc and Marty fixed the timeline in 1955, then the versions of them that were in 2015 a few days prior would have ended up back at the original 1985 to begin with, and would have brought Jennifer home and probably woken her up at some point. Like, "Here, your home now. Good night." How did she jump from 1985-prime to the normal 1985?

Well, anyway, if Heroes does that, and Peter never goes back for his GF (like that would happen), then she'll first show up in Ireland in the diseased 2008, having been missing for a few months. Then, Peter and co. will change history, cleaning up 2008. At that point, his GF will be in Ireland in the clean 2008. Or will she?

I think what could happen instead is that she randomly appears in clean 2008 at the time and place where she showed up with Peter in dirty 2008. She'd randomly appear in NY, and wouldn't be sent to Ireland because there wasn't any disease to mandate deportation. But does she show up without Peter? Hmm…

The way around this conundrum would be to have Peter go back to diseased '08 and bring GF back to 2007. I think they'll do that.

Alternatively, Peter and friends could first save the world, and then Peter goes to clean 2008, picks up GF, and returns with her to the present (by that point, the present would probably be the end of Season 2).

But man! I wish they'd explain what would happen if she were just left there, in a future soon to be rewritten. I'll bet there are a lot more interesting possibilities than what I've come up with.

"Give Blood Today!"

So I got to thinking, who would benefit most from working at the Red Cross? Philanthropists? Humanitarians? No… Vampires!

Years ago, vampires became avid Red Cross volunteers. Legend has it the the RC was even started by a vampire.

Being immortal, the vampires waited as decades went by for the opportune moments to assume power in the Red Cross. Eventually, the RC became an organization that is secretly run by a head vampire, with scattered vampire agents throughout.

Every year, the Red Cross saves lives, and whatever blood no one can use is given as a kickback to the vampire in charge and his loyal following.

But what's to prevent him from selfishly ingesting all the batches containing rarest blood types before it is determined that no one needs them?

I haven't been visiting YouTube as often as I used to, so yesterday I thought I'd check it out. None of the videos really caught my eye, except for one with an interesting thumbnail. The image was of a logo that looked a little like this:

I thought, "Wow, what's that about?" Watching the video, I learned that it was a satire on all the negative comments out there on YouTube. A lot of people have been known to not put a lot of thought into what they say when they're feeling mean. iHate is a fictitious service that can correct that, by eliminating the need to come up with actual comments through a system that will generate them for you.

The video really was hilarious. And I just saw someone's post that now there's actually a real iHate, apparently in the same satiric spirit! It blew my mind…

A little while ago I made a post about a mouse that miraculously infiltrated my secret lair. The steps I took to assure his imminent and painful demise included an adhesive mousetrap and a sonic repellent device. Apparently, my efforts have been for naught…so far!

Last night, a little before going back in time from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m., I noticed the same black flash of fur, trailing the same path as I had glimpsed days before. Quickly I realized that the mouse may have stepped into the adhesive panel, as I knowingly placed it in his path, judging where he might return based on where he had already been. But alas, the trap was clean. So I redoubled my efforts.

I have since added, in addition to the current Anti-Mouse Weaponry, 2 d-CON mousetraps, using yellow processed cheese as bait. As well, I have added some cheese to bait the adhesive trap. I thought it didn't require bait to be effective, but baitless, the trap has proven itself unworthy.

So now, there are three separate mouse traps of two different kinds spaced around the mouse's apparent hangout area, plus the electronic high-frequency siren. Hopefully there will be further results to speak of.

I did have the thought that maybe it's not a mouse at all, but rather a gremlin-creature come to herald in the Apocalypse. We'll wait and see.

I've ridden a stationary bike before, and I think it's a great tool to help someone get some exercise. I noticed that when watching a movie with a lot of heart-pumping action in it, it's easier to stop thinking about the pedaling, even while working harder and burning more energy. So a few weeks ago, I thought back to an episode of a cartoon I had seen, (maybe "Doug?") in which someone visited a modern gym with a stationary bike in front of a screen. The screen could display a scenic route, or a tougher course. I believe the video images reflected the actual progress the rider was making on the bike.

I thought, "Cool!" If only there were a bike like that where you could hook it up to your TV and ride through a well-made movie! There'd be ups and downs in the plot, emotional peaks and valleys, and all the while all it takes is your pedaling to save the day. The emotional involvement in the action on-screen can make it a lot easier to enjoy riding a stationary bike. I wondered, "When will they come out with the home kit?"

They already have! Today, I saw a commercial for the Fisher-Price Smart Cycle. For $90, you can get your little tyke his or her very own stationary bike that comes complete with a video game system built in. You just hook it up to your TV, insert one of the game cartridges, and BLAMMO! As you kid pedals and steers through the on-screen courses (yes, the bike can be steered!) he's exercising, learning, and having fun all at the same time. Not only are the games interesting, they also contain simple educational lessons. This product is incredible. I never could have guessed that somebody already thought it up.

When I was searching for it on Amazon.com so I could get the name right, I came across another version of this idea for grownups and kids alike. It's called Qmotions Funfitness for Xbox. This system is different from the Smart Cycle in that it is designed for people who already have their own stationary bike. You attach sensors to your bike's pedals, hook the system up to your X-Box, and then play whatever racing game you already own. I guess the Funfitness system basically turns the pedals of any stationary bike into alternate X-Box controller. I'm not quite clear on how you steer, but I'm sure there's a way.

This is great! Maybe someday they'll make Qmotions a little more like the Smart Cycle and come up with their own games, specifically geared toward bike riding. It just makes me wonder… "What will they think of next?"

Yesterday I dusted the cobwebs off my copy of Opera, an alternate web browser which I don't use very often. I mainly go between Internet Explorer and Firefox. So I opened Opera, checked for and loaded the updates, and I was ready to roll. After surfing for a little while I began to notice something. All of the pages were loading quite quickly. It was as if I had already been to each one, and had a cached version stored. But that couldn't be. Opera hadn't had a chance to cache any pages, since I haven't used it in a while. And pages I’d never visited before were coming up fast too!

I was thrilled. I thought, "Yes! The ultimate browser! Finally I can surf almost as fast as I can think!"

I played around with Opera, seeing how quickly pages I knew took a few moments to load on other browsers would come up. It seems to me that Opera is faster in a relative sense. If a page is fast in IE, it will be really fast in Opera. If a page is very slow in IE, it will be slow for Opera, too, but still much faster overall. "Opera Slow" is indeed pretty quick.

This all piqued my interest, so I did a short search for why Opera is so fast. I didn't search very long, but one of the results i found mentioned how Opera loads things in a different order than most browsers. Sounds fine. Great even!

Or so I thought, until later when I found out that Opera apparently has had a history of flaws, especially when dealing with CSS. I found and read an article by Andy Budd called "Why I Don't Care About Opera." He basically explains how Opera started out as a possible end to the reign of Internet Explorer, but then got left behind by all its competitors collectively, and ended up a browser that usually "breaks" when confronted with CSS.

What does this mean? Well, I guess it means that there's a browser out there that can run circles around the others speed-wise, but won’t necessarily display things the way webmasters had intended. So the question is, am I willing to wait just a little longer for a website to load correctly?

I think I am. Sorry, Opera.

I've created a small widget for this site that displays the ever-growing number of zombies mingling with the general population, along with a Red Button that will launch a devastating nuclear strike on them.

For Illustrative Purposes Only:

Every so often, an outbreak of zombies occurs. When that happens, the widget will display the number of the restless undead. Left to their own devices, the zombies will spread their condition, infecting many, many others, until the whole world is overrun. But you can stop them!

When it looks like they're starting to get out of control, all you have to do is press that little red button. But remember! The Nuclear Option is always a last resort…