Every once in a great while I see people talking seriously about Bigfoot’s existence and shake my head.

And big surprise (not) that we shouldn’t believe in the most recent phony Bigfoot sighting either, cooked up by a car salesman and now-fired police officer:

On August 12, [Steve Kulls] said, Dyer and Whitton "requested an undisclosed sum of money as an advance, expected from the marketing and promotion." Two days later, after signing a receipt and counting the money, Dyer and Whitton showed the Searching for Bigfoot team the freezer containing what they claimed was the carcass: "Something appearing large, hairy and frozen in ice," Kulls wrote on the Web site.

Credit Mr. Kulls sleuthing who runs the site SQUATCHDETECTIVE.COM (pictured above) for giving me the best laugh of the week. Just look at the Squatchdetctive homepage and try not to at least smile. I especially enjoyed the tagline: "Investigation of The Bigfoot Enigma"

Umm, what enigma? I’m not some super outdoors guy but I’ve got grandparents who have been all over the Pacific Northwest and when I was younger I tagged along. The Pacific Northwest is supposed to be Bigfoot territory, right. In my grandparents 80-odd years in these parts and my nearly 40 years, we’ve never encountered Bigfoot.

I’m willing to believe (but not in a freak-like way) in the existence of extraterrestrial beings but it’s a big hairy no, no, no on Bigfoot. I’ll take my chances with Loch Ness being more real than Bigfoot.

But back to the laugh of the week, SquatchDetective (SD). The flaming logo which doesn’t have a transparent GIF background looks like it was cooked up using some online generator. The SD badge with ‘Bigfoot XING" looks like just the type of road sign we’d encounter while out hunting wild mushrooms or elk.

Add to that the Squatchdetective MySpace page and SD radio show every Monday night at 9pm EST. I’m curious what type of callers a show like the Squatchdetective gets? I decided to record my Squatchdetective eyewitness report, please listen to my terrified Bigfoot Utterz and see if it makes the cut.

I need your help solving the enigma!

For as long as Microsoft has charged $49.99 a year for Xbox Live Gold subscription, we’ve seen people saying it should be free.

I’ve had a few discussions with non-Xbox Live gaming friends who think Microsoft is being greedy by charging. Don Reisinger at CNET news is among the latest to complain:

So what does Microsoft need to do to right the ship and really turn things around? Announce that all Xbox Live memberships will be free and all gamers can play online without a hitch. It’s radical, for sure, but it’s the best move Microsoft can make right now.

The "best move Microsoft can make" … really?

And turn what things around anyway? Sales results in relation to Xbox Live tell a mixed story at best. The link Mr. Reisinger provides to Gamespot as evidence of sales slumps offers the following quote: "While Microsoft roundly thumped Sony in software sales." Huh?

Just recently the Xbox 360 bested the PS3 in Japan in weekly sales for the first time ever. Again, looking at the Gamespot link, the system sales for the PS3 and Xbox 360 are about the same with the Nintendo DS and Wii way ahead of both systems.

What about hot games like Soul Calibur IV? The Xbox 360 sold 218,900 while the PS3 sold 155,800. What was the #1 selling game? Not Wii Fit, surprisingly, which clocked in at #2 with 369,600, it was NCAA Football 09 for, you guessed it Don, Xbox 360. The PS3 version sold 242,500.

These numbers between the PS3 and Xbox 360 from an Xbox Live standpoint would mean more if there were an equal number of systems in circulation. As it stands, one can’t say that more of the same game was sold on the PS3 because gamers could use network play for free. I don’t know if/when the PS3 sales will catch up as they are still sluggish for a system that offers something the Xbox 360 doesn’t: built-in Blu-ray player and better hardware durability.

No, they aren’t "basically the same" online gaming experience
Mr. Reisinger needs to go back and spend more time comparing and evaluating the game libraries with networked gameplay for each of the three systems and revisit what he wrote. He couldn’t be any more wrong about them being "basically the same."

We own all three game systems (3 working Xbox 360s 1 working Xbox 360 Elite, 1 Wii, 1 PS3) and the Wii from a networked gaming experience is easily the worst, very little in the way of being able to play networked games with your friends. The Mii system, although typical Nintendo cutesy comes up short. I am puzzled why Nintendo hasn’t stepped up their network play games strategy. They could kick both Sony and Microsoft’s butts — if only they’d try harder.

The Wii needs more game titles with network play. They are slowly adding more networked game titles, but if you follow the history they didn’t see online network gameplay as that important, and their lackluster networked game library shows this weakness. The Wii didn’t get the hit game Rock Band until recently and last time I checked you couldn’t buy individual Rock Band songs through the Wii network. You can do that on both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Basically the same as the Xbox 360 and PS3? No way.

The Playstation Network, also free, is definitely gaining ground on Xbox Live, but there are still too few games that offer networked gameplay and they need more classic arcade ports. My favorite shooter on the PS3 is the gorgeous game, Super Stardust HD. If you have a PS3 and don’t have this game, stop reading and go buy it now. Sony released a $4.99 upgrade for the game recently, but we still can’t play co-op over the network. Major bummer.

At the same time, the PS3 does have some really fun games that are network playable. Their network strategy is a lot better than the Wii. I also like the fact that they built in a web browser and use it effectively throughout their system. My biggest complaints with the Playstation Store are inventory and to a lesser degree organization. I’m hopeful when HOME hits this will creatively solve the organization part, but games are still coming a little too slowly. More great games = more players = stronger network.

And where are all the cool old school arcade titles? In the Xbox Live Arcade. It’s one of the major differences for Xbox Live over the other two. The Wii store allows buying old NES, SNES, N-64, NEO-GEO, Sega, etc games and you can get a few arcade titles like Q-bert, Sprint and Joust in the Playstation store, but one only has to surf the Xbox Live Arcade library for 30 seconds to realize how much deeper and broader the Xbox Live Arcade titles are comparatively. No competition.

On the Xbox 360, although I don’t have an accurate count, there seems to be hundreds of games, including the aforementioned diverse lineup of arcade games that allow networked play with voice chat. It’s more the exception, than the rule, that an Xbox 360 version of a game does not come with some sort of networked play or at the least an active leaderboard. And the Xbox Live blade is a much better UI than the Wii and I like it better than the Playstation Store which sends me through too many submenus. I don’t want to click forever to find out what games I don’t already own.

Some of the comparisons I made between the networks are admittedly subjective, but the body of evidence suggests that there is no way these three networks are basically the same. I didn’t follow

How Microsoft could make Xbox Gold more valuable
In our household of five we currently have *4* Xbox Live Gold subscriptions and sure, I’d love to have that extra $200 a year, but I’d rather see the Gold membership give us more perks for the paid memberships than going completely free with heavier ad saturation.

Give Gold Members added perks like the following:

• one free arcade game a month or quarter as part of my Gold subscription and/or a certain number of free Microsoft points so I can spend them on songs from Zune Marketplace, arcade games, whatever
• free Creators Club, none of that $99 a year extra garbage
• HD video rentals at the same price as standard definition. And offer a 1080p option, I can get those through DISH, why can’t I get them through Xbox Live?
• the ability to turn off and/or customize blade advertisements. The Xbox Live blade has gotten increasingly worse with ads. Sure, they are targeted mostly to promoting content available in Xbox Live and I can understand the need for ads with the free Silver membership, but I’m getting more annoyed by them as a Gold subscriber
• let us have a freaking web browser! This should be free to both silver and gold level, but if they want to give additional perks to Gold, then maybe it could be a more powerful web browser that is integrated with special features for some games.

The Xbox Live Silver subscription has always been free, but gamers quickly learn that for online networked play you need a Gold subscription.

Silver should have free networked gameplay
Being able to play with as many friends as you can, the global arcade if you will, is the best part of online gaming. Comparing scores is alright, but being able to play co-op with a friend across the globe and kick butt on the videogame bad guys is where the real fun is at.

In that spirit, I actually agree with Don and Alfred at Zune Max that Microsoft should make online networked play free for Silver members. I still very much disagree that they should completely do away with the paid Gold subscriptions. It’s not a bad model to charge for subscriptions. Just make sure the paid subscription has worthwhile features. I think Microsoft could stand tweaking the Gold subscription a bit and would definitely deal a blow to the PS3 if they made online networked play free for Silver members. Will they? Time will tell.

My son has been asking about guitar solos lately. In past posts I’ve talked about how I think it’s a mistake when first learning to play guitar worrying too much about scales and theory, but as you progress in skill level and want to start improvising and soloing, scales are no longer optional. He has already learned some basic chords as well as how to read tablature and play a few parts of songs. He hasn’t learned any scales yet.

This brings up questions like: what is the best first scale to learn on the guitar? What’s a good way to memorize this scale? My recommendation is practice, repetition and keeping the information in front of you:

The blues scale shown as a desktop background above is a common scale used in a lot of music. Not only blues, but good old rock and roll. Staring at it as a desktop background might help to burn the pattern into your brain.

The blues scale can be played in any key with the root note (circled in red) indicating the key you are playing. For example, if you are playing on the fifth fret, E string, you’d be playing the blues scale in the key of A. Drop down to the third fret E string and you’re playing in the key of G.

The pattern on strings is as follows (shown playing in key of F), note for beginning guitarists that the 6th string is the top most string from top to bottom and is the lowest sounding, while the 1st string is the high E and often denoted in tab as a lowercase e:

6th string E: frets 1,4
5th string A: frets 1,2,3
4th string D: frets 1,3
3rd string G: frets 1,3,4
2nd string B: frets 1,4
1st string e: frets 1,4

One of the first things I learned about the guitar was that a note 12 frets above is the same note an octave higher. So if you do an open E string and move up to the 12th fret and play on the same string, that is the E key again, on the 13th fret that would be F and so on. Here is a list of the notes from fret 0 - 12 on the 6th string:

0 1 2   3  4    5  6    7  8  9 10 11 12

E F F# G A♭ A B♭ B C C# D E♭ E

These notes repeat themselves on frets 12-24 like this:

12 13 14 15 16   17  18   19 20 21 22  23  24
E   F   F# G  A♭ A   B♭ B   C  C# D  E♭ E

Tip for beginning guitarists: if you want to make it easier to solo high pitched notes, be sure to buy/play a guitar with 24 frets. I believe most, if not all Ibanez electric guitars, have 24 frets. That’s the guitar I bought for my son to practice on. The Gibson Les Paul guitar I bought has only 22 frets. You can reach 24 fret notes on a 22 fret guitar, you just have to bend the strings. This can significantly increase the difficulty of soloing these higher notes.

You can see from the blues scale chart on my desktop that if you played the root note (circled in red on the screenshot) starting on the 7th fret 6th string, using the following pattern you’d be playing in the key of B:

6th string: 7, 11
5th string: 7, 8, 9
4th string: 7, 10
3rd string: 7, 10,11
2nd string: 7, 11
1st string: 7, 11

Got it? This is the very first scale and pattern I’m showing my son. I’ve recommended he start each practice session by playing the blues scale front and back several times saying aloud the key he is playing in, working his way up the fretboard. At the same time working on his speed and alternate picking (back/forth/back). Through repetition one can become quite fast at playing these notes.

Once he’s practiced the pattern, I recommended to him to play the notes out of order, adjusting the speed and bending, hammer-ons and pull-offs. This is the stuff that guitar soloing is made of and a lot more fun than just repeating the scales over and over again. You have to start somewhere.

This basic knowledge coupled with memorizing the scale pattern above comes in very handy when riffing, improvising and soloing on the guitar. You could also make music in any key by sticking with this scale. So if you were playing a chord and needed a little riff to go along, the blues scale could help.

Rock on.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a comedy in or out of a movie theater that’s made me laugh out loud. This past weekend I tried unsuccessfully to convince my wife to see the latest Star Whores, pun intended, "Clone Wars" (which might be a blessing considering the many unfavorable reviews). Second choice was "Tropic Thunder" with Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black and Tom Cruise.

source: box office mojo

Whatever you want to say about Robert Downey Jr’s offscreen problems — and he’s had many — his acting skills are superb. You can see why he keeps getting solid starring roles. In Tropic Thunder he goes into an area that seems almost universally taboo in this day and age, blackface, and yet he pulls it off. His portrayal of an actor who can’t get out of the grips of his role had tears in my eyes during some spots. Ben Stiller’s lead character has similar same hang-ups, a victim of one too many sequels and trying to get past a role he played that was panned, but loved by his a niche following.  Jack Black’s character was famous for fart movies and has an unhealthy penchant for drugs off screen. I’m not a big Jack Black fan but this was him at his funniest.

Tom Cruise sporting a beard and some heavy make-up plays a movie exec with an anger management problem. Cruise should do more comedies and get away from the whole action and drama movie scene for awhile.

The backdrop of the movie is the making of a Vietnam era war flick penned by a character played by Nick Nolte of 48 Hours fame. The trio of Black, Downey Jr and Stiller are dropped into a jungle where cameras will catch their every move. Away from all the pampering actor trucks and special favors given to stars. It takes a humorous amount of time before these actor soldiers realize they aren’t shooting a movie, they are embroiled in a real conflict with drug harvesters that require real soldier actions.

There aren’t enough movies that make fun of themselves and do so creatively. Example: before the Tropic Thunder movie started there were previews of the movies the characters in Tropic Thunder are playing. Talk about spoofing where you sleep. I’m going to take a few points off for parts that could have moved a little quicker. Pretty much all the parts right before the ending sequence were too slow narratively and could have been edited out to make the movie tighter.

As far as controversy and the parts that could make you cringe: I didn’t find the humor surrounding the mentally retarded character ("Simple Jack") that Ben Stiller’s character played funny. I’ve never found humor involving the mentally challenged or disabled people humorous. Maybe it’s because I know people are disabled and there’s nothing funny about being disabled.

It seemed like if "Simple Jack" had really existed, this movie would have drawn protests far greater than Tropic Thunder has done and rightfully so. And if filmgoers are to believe Stiller’s character would take on such a blatantly offensive project, why would he do it when his action movie sequels were less dangerous content? Plausibility problem for me, nevermind whether or not one thinks humor about the disabled is funny.

As the LATimes opinion piece aptly points out:

The "retard" jokes are a harder case, and I don’t quite buy the rationalization that Ben Stiller’s performance as "Simple Jack" derives all its laughs from its lampooning of Hollywood’s naive lionization of the mentally challenged. Yet it’s funny in a sophomoric, guilt-inducing way. I confess that I laughed both at "Simple Jack" and the Downey character’s advice to Stiller’s character never to "go full retard" if he wanted an Oscar.

The action movies Stiller’s character were most popular for ("Scorcher") seemed much more plausible and easier territory to score with laughs. I think Stiller and company could have used the action movie character scenes with more humor and am somewhat puzzled why that wasn’t used instead. It seemed more like a cheap shock jock type device rather than a vital part of the film. As for the protesting groups, I think you have somewhat of a point, but you probably did more to promote the movie than hurt ticket sales. It didn’t work for me. A friend had to tell me you were protesting, but I probably would have been more intrigued to see if the film was offensive if I’d known you were protesting. That’s always the danger with drawing too much attention to something you hope others won’t pay to see. Controversy sells tickets.

Tropic Thunder is a comedy worth seeing. The LATimes review reminded me that it borrows somewhat from Galaxy Quest in that the actors extend their roles beyond the screen, but I think it’s a different enough twist that it’s still creative.  Grade: A-

Are you a true writer? Not ‘true’ as in a super secret club that only published authors or elite snobs belong. If the only writing you do is on a blog that you think nobody reads, you could still be a true writer.

You could be a true writer and not even have a blog. Heck, you could be a true writer and not even have an internet connection. It’s not where one writes that is important, it’s what and how one writes that does.

Criteria for being a true writer

I’ve come up with nine qualities that no true writer should be lacking:

1. Desire. If you experience withdrawal when you don’t write, even when it’s material that others may never see, that’s the mark of a true writer. You must do it. You are driven. It’s not a choice. You don’t write only to have others read, you write because it’s an insatiable need.
2. Read. You can’t write if you don’t read. It’s how you learn the language and the beauty of the craft. It could be argued that the best true writers read more than they write. Much more.
3. Furtive imagination. You often think about what you are going to write when you aren’t writing. Perhaps it’s laying in bed or on a long drive, but the cogwheels of your brain never stop spinning.  They might be spinning at this very second.
4. Quality control. You hone the skill of recording your raw imagination and thoughts to paper or digital ink. Accurate, honest and laced with passion. Through editing (#7 #8) you can make these thoughts even better, but before writing down an idea you measure its worth through your own quality control.
5. Practice.  You understand that you can’t get better if you don’t actually do something. You make plans to write something down regularly, even if it’s only a partial thought and/or something you don’t publish today.
6. Fresh meat. You do not like to trip over what you’ve already written and despise plagiarism. If somebody else saw what you did and published first, then step aside and give that writer credit. In the blog format where retelling and word repackaging is the norm, not the exception, this can be very difficult. Being fresh and original in a sea of talent might be the most challenging aspect of the blog format. This shouldn’t stop a true writer but it should weigh on his/her mind.
7. Trunk. I don’t know any true writers who are trunk-less. The trunk used to be a place for unpublished works and drafts, but these days is a set of digital computer files or unpublished database(s). True writers understand that what you’ve written today could be more or less useful in the future. The trunk is a snapshot in time. Knowing when to pull material from the trunk and publish is part of a true writer’s quality control skill. 
8. Edit. It’s the one part many writers hate, myself included, but it’s a cruel reality. You must edit. I enjoy the blog format of publishing because I can get away with less editing than all other formats combined, but total editing abandonment isn’t the mark of a true writer. You must learn to delete words, sentences, paragraphs, pages and even nuke your favorite posts. Just because. Yes, this is different from #4 Quality Control, because editing happens after the words are in place. Your quality control filter happens before it is written and after it has been edited. An editor takes what is there and shapes and molds. While the editor role in internet publishing might seem to be a dying art, a true writer knows how important the editor role is in improving the work.
9. The dreaded ‘other.’ There can be no true writer list without the ever important ‘other’ entry. This wildcard is your criteria for what quality makes a true writer. You, friendly reader, are what make published writing satisfying. The payoff for unseen mental blood, sweat and tears. What is the one quality you think every true writer must have? What have I overlooked that no true writer should be without?

I’ve read famous authors like Stephen King describe writing as an obsession; something he couldn’t imagine ever not doing. Sure, with fiction you need fresh ideas, but there are always ideas and it’s hard to keep an active imagination like his down. I’m reluctant to go as far as labeling true writing an addiction, but it is on some levels.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a true writer. The blog format fits the bulk of my current publishing output, but some other type of format could come along and claim my writing time tomorrow. Someday I might stop writing at this particular blog, but I will never "retire." A true writer never retires, s/he dies. Perhaps at the keyboard, caught eternally in mid-thought.

There have been a couple web personalities who have talked about quitting or retiring from blogging recently and at the risk of falling into a potential attention whore trap I’m not going to use names in this post. You probably know these people as I’ve written about writers (I hesitate to use the term ‘bloggers’ as I think of blogging as a format, not a type of writer) like this in the past in posts like: Is it the blog or the blogger that holds subscribers? One of my goals in 2008 was to avoid falling into linkbaiting schemes and writing too much about web personalities. These people get far too much undeserved attention already. Call this my fresh meat filter tweaking. This leaves more space for highlighting passionate, compelling work by unknown true writers.

How many true writers are reading this post? I’d like to subscribe to you, please make sure your blog URL is in your signature.

Damn, who invited the Toxic Avenger over to take a swim in our pool? This photo was taken last week — before the end of summer cleaning.

Not the greatest timing either, it took a couple days to make it swimmer-friendly. Just in time for the scorching heat weekend. Dumping chemicals in, straining and filtering like mad. Go filter, go! Never did it get the water clear, but at least turned it blue.

And this morning, I’m trying the Mountain Dew like soda called Mountain Breeze and am struck by how similar it looks to the pool water last week.

A disgusting (algae-ridden pool) and tasty green (soda), take your choice. I don’t care much for Mountain Dew, but Mountain Breeze isn’t bad. Do you have a favorite soda clone? Or is it all original or nothing? Water or lemonade, heck limeade since we’re talking green, would be better for us.

Five months. That’s the average amount of time each Xbox 360 system has lasted before dying in our home. Yes, we use surge protection. No, we don’t beat up the hardware.

Now 2 of 6 our Xbox 360s have crapped out in the time since we’ve bought the PS3 and Wii.

The word ridiculous, maybe even astounding, comes to mind when describing how poorly the Xbox 360 hardware has performed for our family since April 15, 2006. I can think of only one other piece of gaming hardware — the Rock Band drum pedal — that has failed more than twice per year. We’re on drum set #3 since our first purchase November 2007, and I’m hoping Rock Band 2 drum kit which comes out soon will be more durable and have a longer lifespan.

At least two times per year our family is reminded of the lousy workmanship of the Xbox 360 hardware. Two times or more a year to say: “this sucks” or using today’s hot buzzword: FAIL.

You’ve probably guessed what the picture above means by now. Around dinner time last night we came home with Soul Calibur 4 and tried to fire up in my seldom used Xbox 360 Elite.

Three red rings. Nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

And here I was thinking the Elite would be different. This is a machine that had maybe an average of two plays per week over the course of 16 months. Still it holds the record in our home for the longest lasting Xbox 360, but that’s not anything to brag about. A discouraging 16 months before lighting up the three red middle finger salute. Thankfully we were smart enough to purchase the Best Buy warranty plan for 80 bones. We took it back and above you see me holding Xbox 360 #7 and Xbox Elite #2.

An now the history of our Xbox 360 carnage.

Xbox 360 systems that have died since April 15, 2006
#6: Saturday August 18, 2008. Three red rings of death. We used Best Buy replacement plan to swap out with brand new Xbox Elite.
#5: January 1, 2008 (Happy New Year, Microsoft!). Status: three red rings of death, unrepaired. Under warranty, Microsoft replaced within a month.
#4: Xbox 360 broken November 3, 2007. Status: broken disc tray, unrepaired. We replaced this system by buying a new Xbox 360 Arcade package (and yes, bought 2-year warranty).
#3: April 2007. Status: red rings of death, replaced three weeks later on April 23, 2007
#2: September 22, 2006. Status: red rings of death, replaced on October 20, 2006
#1: June 14, 2006. Our first Xbox 360 dies. Didn’t even make it two months.

Moral of Xbox 360 story: always, always, ALWAYS buy an extended warranty
I can’t recommend more strongly based on our own customer experience that not buying an extended warranty for an Xbox 360 is like having an orgy with a bunch of streetwalkers without wearing a condom.

The Xbox 360 still has the best live gaming experience out there, including the best selection of games to play online, and we will continue to replace the systems as they fail within warranty. But based on our experience to date, it’s reasonable to assume that out of warranty breakage heretofore could result in there being less Xbox 360 systems in play in our home. I love gaming and would replace dozens of game systems to play games that I enjoy, but having more than one of the same system constitutes a luxury and the Xbox 360 luxury tax has become very high.

Calculating an average of $300 per system and average Xbox 360 death rate of 5 months equals $60/month for the hardware cost only, not counting Xbox Live or the cost of buying games. Talk about an expensive hobby!

We still have 4 Xbox Live Gold accounts, although we’ve setup one of those to non-renew. Our oldest son doesn’t play Xbox enough to warrant having a Gold ($49.99/year) account. He’s 18 now, he can pay for it himself if he wants. If he looks at extending the life of his Xbox 360 he might be wise to play it only a couple times per year and maybe, maybe it will make it to his 21st birthday.

How long until Xbox 360 death #7 is recorded? Early 2009 if you play the averages, but wouldn’t bet against that happening by the end of the year. Double digits by 2010? Only the Xbox afterlife knows.

Ok, if there is a joke here somewhere then I don’t get it.

What is the deal with this Swedish Furniture Generator? I’ll have to ask my friend Marcus from Sweden to explain or in the meantime, maybe some other readers might get the joke. Or is the joke on me and this is a useful tool of some kind?

Wondering what prison life was like in the 70s? Fortunately I don’t know what prison life is like in any era, including the present, but got a firsthand look at what it’s like, or rather used to be like as a tourist. Check out the castle-like look of the Old Montana Prison.

The Old Montana prison, originally constructed in 1893 in Deer Lodge, Montana hasn’t been used since 1979 and has become a tourist attraction. The wall shown above is twenty-four feet high and extends four feet underground. It was built entirely with convict labor and no inmate ever successfully tunneled under the wall.

At the time the prison was retired in favor of the new prison about 4 miles away it had around 300 inmates. The new prison has 3,000+. Old Montana Prison is located just off Interstate 90 heading east to Butte or west to Missoula.

View Larger Map

For $9 per person (good for both Saturday and Sunday, if it’s a weekend visit) you can tour most of the prison and get a feel for what it was like being a Montana prisoner as late as the 70s. It’s an unguided tour, but you can schedule a guided one if you want for more bones.

As part of the admission a tour brochure points out plenty of highlights, like the "out of bounds" written in the concrete in blood red paint with white writing. Inmates who passed this line without permission and/or guard escort could be shot by the guards above. It took three different keys to get through the gate to the outside, lowered by rope from the guard walkway above.

Too bad tourists are not allowed to walk along the guard walk-way. It would be great to see the prison though the guard’s eyes, but some of the prison is roped off for safety and liability reasons. As it is, the walkway on the ground are starting to crack and show their age.

I was kind of surprised by the size of each prison cell. Sure, not much space for two people, but I had imagined the cells would be even tighter conditions.

I so don’t look good wearing bars. Walking down the hall outside the prisons raised the hairs on the nape of my neck. Something downright spooky about the cold concrete floor outside the prison cells which counted 50 in number, four floors high. Ghosts of past inhabitants existence spiritually imprinted on the concrete?

Four floors above where this picture was taken in 1959 there was a riot that ended in a bazooka blast and a murder suicide of two inmates, Jerry Myles and Lee Smart who orchestrated the riot. The damage from the bazooka was never repaired and can be seen from outside in the second long window from the left in the picture below:

How did prisoners spend time in their cells? Some used their cells as hiding place as plotting ground for escape and contraband. The prisoner seized contraband exhibit showed off some elaborate shanks, rope made out of toilet paper, a bible with the center cut out for smokes and much more.

Inmates who repeatedly couldn’t follow the prison rules were subjected to a Hollywood-style hyped hole. Yes, the hole exists. After 10 days in the hole with only bread and water served twice daily, a physician would examine the prisoner and if he was ok, he’d go back into the hole for 10 more days. After the hole punishment was ruled "excessive" the hole was never used again. The memory remains.

Now look at the inside of the hole below and see if you can imagine being locked in this cell with no light, no human interaction for 10 days and only two rations of water and bread a day? I’d be thinking of roaches crawling around with me in the dark …

No thank you. Would rather stay on the right side of the law. Leave the ball and chain to others. If they aren’t doing this already, they should bus neighboring town school kids and take them through a guided tour of the prison. Deterrent, yes.

I’ll admit being curious how prison live in 2008 compares to prison life 30 years ago. Have you ever toured the inside of a prison either past or present? Or want to admit [gasp] to seeing the inside firsthand?

The Mloovi widget uses Google translate to create machine translated versions of text in RSS feeds. According to data from Google Analytics readers from Canada represent the second largest group for this blog, so it seems like making a French version available should be higher up the site admin priority list.

So here you go, French readers, a machine translated version of MakeYouGoHmm.com:

Mloovi only provides partial RSS feed translations which forces foreign language readers to click through on the permalinks to see full Google translated pages that look like this:

From what I’ve heard from those who speak multiple languages (I don’t), human translation is far superior to machine translation, so I wouldn’t expect a very good quality translation. However, if you do speak some other language a lot better than English — which begs the question how would you understand this post to begin with? –  this tool might come in handy in getting the gist of what is being spoken about in blog languages.

I’ve used Google translate in business to help me out in understanding non-english websites and it has been useful.

With that in mind, consider the above French Mloovi Hmm feed semi-official until some kind soul who could translate these blog posts manually or until a better machine comes along. Thank you for reading.