If you've been alive for any length of time you've probably been exposed to the wonderful, moving phenomenon that we call music: Patterns of sounds pleasing to the human ear and effective upon the mind. Music is a complex enough phenomenon that people spend their entire lives studying it and its effects upon the human condition. The psychology, the neurology, the mathematics, the accoustics, the physics... or, like some, they are called to compose or perform music of their own to enrich the world around them. (Whether or not some styles of music can be said to enrich the world …

After many months of near misses and scheduling conflicts, Kyrin finally got Lyssa and I to join him for a Friday evening at Piratz Tavern (8402 Georgia Avenue; Silver Spring, MD; 20910; phone 301-588-9001 to cap off a long work week. Hasufin, Lyssa, and I piled into the TARDIS and set course for Silver Spring around 1900 EST5EDT, which we figured would be late enough to dodge weekend traffic on the Beltway.

It wasn't, actually, but we still made decent time without actually being fashionably late.

Piratz Tavern is a very small, unassuming place on a corner across the street …

Well, not so much. I was hoping to riff off of a famous Red Dwarf quote or two to make this post more entertaining, but after a few revisions it's just not coming together the way I'd hoped, so I'll spare your delicate sensibilities and optics the horror and push on.

As the title to this post suggests, I'm in the heart of Alabama on assignment. Granted, it's not too bad... the people down here are quite friendly, and the stereotypical southern hospitality isn't a stereotype, it's a way of life. People down here are so nice, polite, and helpful …

Prosthetic retinas are leaving the experimental stage and now are in live animal testing to shake the bugs out. A number of housecats with a condition similiar to retinitis pigmentosa, which causes blindness by killing the rod and cone cells that make up the retinas have been implanted with silicon chips 2mm on a side that replicate some of the functions of organic retinas. The chips are covered with microscopic photodiodes that register light levels, produce miniscule electrical impulses, and feed directly into the optic nerve. Similiar implants have been used in a small number of humans with this disorder …