myspace

Hello everyone, I answered a few more comments before writing this post. I did what I swore on a bible I would never do! I made a myspace. Check it out:

myspace.com/karlhench

YAY!! Now I have another internet thing I won't be able to keep up with regularly!!

Long overdue FAQ

This is my long overdue responses post. I'll try to address a bunch of the comments that people made on previous posts because I am lazy and haven't been keeping this up.

If you had a really specific comment that you wanted a response to, remind me on this post or send me an email. I'll be getting to my email today or tomorrow.

FAQ:

Karl, what do you do other than D&D?
Well, I work at Loyola Medical Center as a research assistant. We do Cardiovascular Physiology research, and my job is awesome. Also, I play some video games. Nintendo is the best. I work with a youth group in Wilmette on the weekends. Since I got back from filming the show, I go out a lot, too. Danielle makes me go to clubs that I probably would have never thought of going to before. It's pretty fun, and I think the old me wouldn't have liked it.

Karl, I was sad when you and Danielle left the mansion.
So was I.

Dude you are totally not a geek!
Yes I am. But I'm also a very social person. I function very well in almost all social situations. I think the reason why I was cast on the show is because the one social arena where I constantly fail is with girls. Especially the ones that I am interested in. Also, I have a personality that people would like to see on a reality show, and I did have some room to grow.

What was school like for you?
Actually, I was kind of a jock in college. Captain of the cross country team, most valuable, that sort of thing. But my roommates and I really kept to ourselves a lot of the time. Also, I had goals like getting all 120 stars in Mario 64 and finishing all the sidequests in Ocarina of Time, so that kept me from doing a lot of social things.

Do you play online rpg's?
Nope. I could never get into them, and I don't really see myself getting into them. I can't explain it, they're just not really my thing.

Do you play other rpg's besides D&D?
Unfortunately, no. I started D&D when I was 18, and have been playing ever since. As any gamer knows, rpg's are kind of an expensive hobby. The books cost like forty bucks a pop, and I can't afford to keep up with other rpg's. Stick to one thing and do it really well is what I always say.

What characters have you played?
Haha, this is my favorite question just because I come up with awesome names for my characters. My first character was an elf ranger named Ralph. He was killed by a subversive member of our party. Next was Fnya, a human barbarian. I don't know what happened to him. Then I had Filthy Gimp, an orc barbarian. He's still around I think. Then came Francois, a french halfling rogue. He was awesome, but met an early end to a roper. I had a drow wizard named Tadryn who I never played because the DM introduced me to the party tied up and unconscious. Another party member dealt a coup de grace without even giving me a chance. Then I played Tedryn, another drow wizard. He was pretty good. We played through the City of the Spider Queen module with him. He's still alive and is like 18th level. My most recent character was a Warforged fighter named Roebit. I like that race. A lot. I also had a really powerful druid in there somewhere, but I don't remember his details. I'm DMing right now, and we're working on a high to epic level module called Bastion of Broken Souls. I'm loving it because the story is really good. I just hope my players like it too.

Do you still run regularly?
I'm trying to get back into it. I used to be relatively fast. Tyson and I want to run a marathon together, but right now he could totally whoop my ass. Although, I ran the Phoenix marathon a couple years ago without training and ran 3:30. That's pretty solid. I used to be able to run a mile in under 4:30, but I'm more of a 5K/10K/half marathon kind of guy. At my college, I have the fifth fastest 10K(6.2 miles) time in the school's history (a somewhat unimpressive 34:30). But my crowning achievement is having the third fastest 8K(4.98 miles) time in the school's history, which is 27:19. One of these days I'll get back into my training, and we'll run that marathon, Tyson!

I saw you the other night at a club, do you remember me?
Probably! I love attention, and when people recognize me, i won't forget because it makes me really happy!

OK, so that's all I can think of right now... Any more questions, I'll try to answer them in the comments or in a later post.

Theories...

So, I have developed a theory. Well, I can't give myself all the credit for this one. Actually, someone else told me about it, and I thought it was great, so I'll pass it on to you all. My theory is that people like to smell other people's farts. Here's a scenario that is the basis for this theory:
The farter lets one go, and announces it to the world "Whoah, I totally farted!!"
If the audience didn't want to smell it, they'd run away immediately. However, I've seen on several occasions that members of the audience will instead sniff the air, then declare in horror "AWWW! You did!!!!" Then they proceed to run away. The first sign of warning should have been enough, but they actually wanted to smell the fart, since they stuck around to actually smell it. It's subconscious. Also there is a social stigma that smelling farts other than your own is gross. I'm not admitting to enjoying the aroma of other's farts, but only throwing a theory out there regarding this behavior. I only seek to find why people would linger when it has been clearly established by a vocal claim that a fart was indeed let loose.

Speaking of lingering, my friend Matt from grad school recently opened my eyes as to why fart smells seem to linger. It's because the olfactory receptors for the fart smell are G-protein coupled receptors, and the important thing about that type of receptor is that it has a prolonged response. So next time you fart, exclaim "A G-protein coupled receptor agonist has just been issued forth from my rectum!" I'm sure people will understand and run away.

Also, I got my new glasses! I'll try to upload a picture into this post, and I'll probably have a somewhat forced smiling expression.


nice new glasses you got there, pal



I will be selling my old broken ones on ebay soon, so check it out!

Thoughts on BATG Episode 5

Now that my 15 minutes are over, I'm free to talk about "what really happened and stuff." Ok, I actually did like this episode better than the other ones. For some reason, my comedic genius came out a little more in this episode, and people got to get a better idea of what I'm like, which is not just a hornball like the first couple episodes seemed to show. I just want to point out all my funny lines, because I'm proud of them. I can't remember how I came up with them on the spot like that.

"I think I know how Al Gore felt in 2000."
"Is there a zoo around here? Because I got these pythons!"
"Well, we didn't want anything to get broken."
"Anyone want to play Dungeons & Dragons?" (on the bus)

I kind of have to explain that last one, I think. We got onto the charter bus, and there was a whole bunch of free stuff, like baseball caps and mugs and playing cards, and also, little bags full of dice. Well, I grabbed all the dice I could and that is what prompted me to ask if anyone wanted to participate in a roleplaying session.

About the party challenge:

I know there was no one at my party. I don't understand either. I handed out invitations. Still, nobody came. I'm pissed because that challenge had nothing to do with party planning. I throw awesome parties all the time in Chicago. I help friends throw awesome parties all the time in Chicago. Parties that have one to two hundred people. I'm serious. We go through many kegs and bottles of booze. People have fun. Also, I justified the fact that no one came to my party because I won that hand of Solitaire without cheating. I wasn't sure that was possible to do until that moment. The truth is, perhaps I didn't hand out as many invitations as the rest of the guys because Joe and I went to the bar to watch the World Series for a little while. COME ON!!! The White Sox were playing and I'm a die-hard Sox fan!!!! And we didn't have TV or radio in the mansion!

About the poker challenge:

I think I almost froze to death that day. Everyone else got to start by taking off their shoes and socks, while I had to immediately lose my shirt. Danielle knew how to play poker, she just had a hard time playing against a shark like Cher. Danielle wasn't pissed that Cher was bluffing, like she says, but she was pissed that Cher was bluffing and blatantly intimidating Danielle and then being smug about it. It's one thing to play the game, it's another to play like that against people who are much less experienced than you. You don't see the high stakes poker players go to a small time table just to intimidate and mess with the other players, do you?

About my partner:

I love Danielle. She is one of my most favorite people in the whole world, and probably my new best friend. We are incredibly similar, almost to a point where it's weird. But it's not weird. It's cool. Danielle is very smart. She just says goofy things a lot and makes up a lot of words. She makes me laugh all the time. The coolest thing about us being paired up is that I don't think I mentioned that I'm from Chicago. Later on, we found out that we live like ten or fifteen minutes apart. Of all the contestants on the show, we live the closest to each other. I'm glad that Danielle and I were paired up and I wouldn't have had it any other way. The experience would not have been nearly as fun with any of the other girls. We got along extremely well on the show, that's why you never saw any clips of us disagreeing or fighting. If I had to guess, I'd say that we probably got along better than any of the other teams.

About the elimination:

The fact that we were sent to elimination was kind of my fault. I had been drinking in Vegas, and I told Brittany that I felt we could beat Ankur & Jennipher or Wes & Sarah. I also think that perhaps Joe and Brittany sent Jennipher & Ankur because Joe is all about helping other people out. I think he wanted to put the ball in Josh's court and force him to man up and pick Wes & Sarah even though he knew Cher would be upset. Josh didn't.

For anyone talking crap about Danielle in the elimination round, you need to make like a tree and get out of here. Look at the questions. She got all the difficult ones. First of all, she was standing 30 feet away from the monitor, so she couldn't read the poker hands properly. She knew that A. was a flush, but she picked D. because she saw a full house and knew that a full house beats a flush. The cards were extremely difficult to read. What's the highest number on a roulette wheel? WTF? I don't think any of the girls in the house could have answered that, and of the guys, probably only Joe. I sure as hell couldn't. The Blackjack question. Danielle has never played blackjack before. We didn't study blackjack. It's an easy question to you and me, but not to someone who's never played before. Overall, compared to how many cards are in a deck, how many cards are in each suite, and which of these has the highest odds, Danielle got screwed and it wasn't fair.

I'm upset because they edited my first question. It was extremely difficult when Mike asked it in the mansion. I swear, it was something along the lines of "In eighteenth centure, people from the Dominican Republic used to have secret meetings called this, and now the word refers to an all night party with electronic music." I know the first part of the question is there to intimidate and confuse the geeks, but it was a long and difficult question, and I think they should have given me a little more credit and not edited it. The P Diddy question was easy, everyone knows the Black and White Ball or whatever it's called. I looked surprised when Ankur got that one question about the correct number of drinks wrong because we studied together, and we studied that exact fact, and I'm pretty sure he answered what the book said.

I must say that I think this was and probably will remain the most emotional elimination this season. Mike was tearing up a little bit. Danielle was bawling like you wouldn't believe. Jennipher was too. I think a single tear ran down Ankur's cheek. Matt, the guy who gave me my exit interview was crying. I was crying during my interview (God I hope I'm not the only guy who cried). When we walked out the door, most of the crewmembers were outside crying. We weren't supposed to go home yet, it was bad luck. This may be kind of egocentric of me, but I honestly believe that if the producers had had their way, the final round of the show would have been Danielle & I vs. Thais & Tyson, but they couldn't interfere with the game, so it didn't work out.

Now I will keep watching because I hope Joe and Brittany win! Go Chicago!!

Thoughts on Episode 5

Everyone's been asking me for my thoughts on episode 5, so here they are: So, I have to say that I liked this episode more than any of the other ones. We begin episode 5 pretty much where episode 4 left off. The Death Star was destroyed, but we find that the Rebels are under siege on Hoth. Luke goes to Dagobah to receive some Jedi training from Yoda. Han-Solo and Princess Leia go to Bespin and meet Han's old friend Lando Calrissian. Lando turns on them and hands them over to Vader. Vader freezes Han in carbonite and gives him to Boba Fett. Luke flies to Bespin and duels with Vader, who chops off Luke's hand and admits that he is Luke's progenitor, prompting everyone in the known universe to quote him whenever they are near someone named Luke by saying "Luke, I am your father."

If the fact that I wrote this off the top of my head doesn't prove I'm a geek, I don't know what does.

Oh, also, Yoda reminds Obi-Wan's spirit that "there is another" (alluding to Leia).

God Giveth and Taketh Away

So, I just had one hell of a few days. Does that sentence make sense? At any rate, I dropped my phone on Sunday as I hopped out of my car to get gas. It was one of those Razr phones from Motorola. Now it is several pieces of a Razr phone from Motorola. It was destroyed from the impact of a three foot fall, and all the data was unsalvageable. I lost all those beautiful pictures and ringtones and phone numbers that were on there, and I'm really frustrated about it. Worst of all, I had just put this Link sticker that I got in an issue of Nintendo Power on it like a week ago. Why couldn't you protect my phone, Link? How can we expect you to rescue Princess Zelda? I thought to myself, well, it's a good thing I won some money on the Superbowl! So I got a new one on Monday, a black Razr. Unfortunately, the Link sticker couldn't be peeled off without being mutilated. Then, yesterday morning, as I was drying my glasses after a shower, they snapped in half!!!! WTF!! At first I taped them together with orange tape and thought to myself, "If only this had happened while I was in the mansion..." So now I need to get new glasses, too! There goes all my loot from the Superbowl!

My grad school buddy Josh gave a seminar today entitled Reagents to Measure and Perturb IP3 Signaling in Living Cells. It was really good! Also, he acknowledged me in the credits for giving him technical assistance. Thanks Josh!! Before the show started, Josh and I used to get together on Thursday nights and play Zelda and Mario and stuff. Now the show is on that night, so we don't.

Also, if you haven't already, everyone should also check out Chris's blog at

chrisgeek.com

and buy a T-shirt at

geekfitters.com

Yay the Superbowl

Was anyone else disappointed with the commercials this year? The only good one was the one with the monkeys, and you can't go wrong with monkeys. I played squares with some friends of mine, and actually won some money because I had 0 & 1, and the final score was 10 to 21. I'm also happy because the Steelers won. I love the Bears, but since they choked, I had to go with Pittsburgh. Everyone from my college was giving me crap for rooting for them because Mike Holmgren's wife went to my college, and so did their daughters. But come on! If it was that important to Kathy Holmgren, don't you think she'd be in Detroit watching from the sidelines instead of on a Missions trip in Africa? Honestly, where are her priorities?

Oh yeah, I want to thank everyone who's been posting comments!! I'm really busy most of the time, and can't always respond to them all, but I'll try!

Black Adder and Naked Men Laws

Yesterday I watched a show called "Black Adder" for the first time ever, and now I'm hooked. It's a comedy on BBC America starring Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) and Hugh Laurie (House MD). House is one of my favorite shows, so of course I had to watch Black Adder. I thought the funniest part was that Hugh Laurie speaks with a British accent. I guess he's been faking his American accent on House. Well done, Mr. Laurie! At any rate, Black Adder has slapstick humor, get-rich-quick schemes, and quick wittedness or something. I heartily recommend it.

At the gym this morning, after my workout, I was changing back into my clothes after a shower. While I was struggling to put my shoes on (since I'm a lazy bastard and won't untie them), a good-natured old naked dude offered me a shoe horn. I applaud him for the effort, and it was a nice thing to do, but there should be laws that state that if you're in a locker room and naked, you shouldn't talk to anyone. I've actually put a lot of thought into this. There have been several occasions in the past where I'll be walking through the locker room and a naked guy (naked guy 1) will greet his friend (naked guy 2), failing to realize that I (not naked guy) is walking/standing directly in between them, and that I feel compelled to turn my head in the direction of naked guy 1 because I can't tell if he is greeting me or naked guy 2. I then proceed to probably turn red because I just looked directly at a naked dude. So, I propose to my local legislature that naked people should be silent in locker rooms. Failure to comply will result in a punishment like getting sprayed with a fire hose.

Level 1 Bouncer / Level 10 Jerk

Hello people from Wikipedia!

I never get recognized in public! It's no fair. Tyson and Ankur get recognized. Last weekend I was hanging out with Danielle at Level and someone walks up to her and is like "Hey, you're on that Ashton Kutcher show!!" Then Danielle said, "So's he," and points to me. The person was just like "oh hey..." and continued talking to Danielle. It was a girl, too, and I assumed that most female viewers would be more interested in talking to the geeks rather than the beauties. Also, whenever we go to a club or something, the bouncer usually lets the girls in for free. Then he slams an arm across my chest and says, "The gentleman can pay!" That's when I grab the arm which he had thrust against me only moments ago and throw him through a plate glass window. At least that's what happens in my mind. I wonder why most bouncers are such jerks. I've only encountered one or two that try to reason before resorting to force. I guess it's their job to not take shit from anyone. Or maybe it's just that the bouncers at Level are jerks.