Stopping America's Killers

I have great sympathy and compassion for everyone in Colorado who lost someone on Friday. Twelve families had their lives turned upside-down, in the middle of the night, when they found out that a loved one had been shot and killed in, of all places, a movie theater. The victims ranged in age from 6 to 51. As a parent, I can't imagine how horrible it would be to lose a child.

But the movie theater shooting wasn't the only thing that happened on Friday. On the same day:

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• 21 Americans were killed by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (primarily aspirin and ibuprofen).
  
  Source: Annals of Internal Medicine.
  

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• 38 Americans were killed by juvenile diabetes.
  
  Source: Journal of the American Medical Association (vol 286: pp. 1195-1200).
  

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• 84 Americans died by suicide.
  
  
  Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  

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• 90 Americans were killed in car accidents (not including alcohol-related accidents).
  
  Source: Journal of the American Medical Association (vol 291: pp. 1238-1245).
  

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• 124 Americans were killed by alcohol-related injuries (such as drunk driving).
• 179 Americans were killed by alcohol poisoning or alcohol-related diseases (such as alcoholic hepatitis or cirrhosis of the liver).
  
  Source: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
  

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• 226 Americans were killed by Alzheimer's Disease.
  
  Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  

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• 1,180 Americans were killed by tobacco. (That's almost 100 times the number of people that died from the  Aurora movie theater shooting).
  
  Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  

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• 1,512 Americans were killed by cancer.http://www.csdp.org/research/1238.pdf
  
  Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  

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So... instead of (or in addition to) speaking up with your views about gun control (or lack thereof), please take 60 seconds and give $5.00 to one of the following causes:

1. American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
2. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
3. American Lung Association Of The Upper Midwest
4. Fisher Center For Alzheimer's Research Foundation
5. Action on Smoking and Health
6. Center for Science in the Public Interest

All of the above charities received 4 stars (out of 4) from Charity Navigator, indicating that they maximize the amount of money spent directly on the prevention of suffering, disease and death. If you can't decide, just roll a die (seriously).

While you're at it, please make an appointment to give blood. More than 12,000 Americans will require a blood transfusion today.

I have several friends who died long before reaching old age. None of them were shot by a stranger in a movie theater. The Aurora shootings are horrific and headline-grabbing. But arguing about how James Holmes bought his guns and ammunition has little effect on the lives of everyday Americans.

I really do feel for the families in Colorado. But there are many more people that are suffering, and they need your help.

Thank you!

Clay

10 Best PG-13 Comedies

It's summer, which means a bunch of girls at my house on a Wednesday night trying to watch R-rated movies on Netflix. As we don't want to be the house where everyone saw Ben Stiller's nutsack (or Will Ferrell's nut sack), we drew a line at PG-13.

The problem is, PG-13 is a weird niche. It's where a lot of crappy comedies end up -- movies that are squeezed out in 6 weeks with just enough raunchy jokes to fill a commercial, but not enough to give the movie an R rating (see, for example, "The Waterboy").

The true comedy classics (Toy Story 3, Back to the Future, Elf, Monty Python and the Holy Grail) are all PG. And the laugh-out-loud comedies of the 21st century are all rated 'R' (Harold and Kumar, 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Hangover, Borat, Role Models) or worse than 'R' (the director's cut of Team America: World Police).

Nevertheless, here are ten PG-13 movies worth watching. As if the world needs more giggling tweens.

1. Happy Gilmore
"The price is wrong, bitch."

2. Stranger Than Fiction.
This is not a laugh-out-loud movie, and not aimed at 12-year-olds. But it's excellent, and I couldn't leave it off the list.

3. Keeping The Faith.
Like "Stranger Than Fiction", this is less silly than the rest of the list, but surprisingly good.

4. Big Daddy
12-year-old girls love watching 5-year-old boys urinate in public.

5. Baby Mama
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have enough talent and chemistry to overcome to mediocre writing.

6. Blades Of Glory

7. The Simpsons Movie

8. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Mini-me is single-handedly responsible for the sequel getting ranked above the original.

9. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

10. Wayne's World

Honorable Mention:

Mean Girls
The only feature-length movie written by Tina Fey.

The Other Guys

Tower Heist

Date Night

Rush Hour

I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry

Austin Powers, International Man Of Mystery
Austin Power fans will want to see this movie ranked higher, but I didn't enjoy it as much the 2nd time around.

Dumb and Dumber
12-year-olds love jokes about diarrhea.

Bruce Almighty
This movie is just like "The Shawshank Redemption" except that they replaced Tim Rollins with Jim Carrey.

Liar, Liar.
Some people like Jim Carrey and some hate him. If you like this movie, there are about 6 other movies just like it (the best of which is Leap Dave Williams).

I'm sure I've missed some. That's what the comments section is for...

As an aside, IMDB.com (with more than 500,000 votes) thinks that "Inception" is the 14th best movie of all time. Better than Star Wars. Are you fucking kidding me?!?

1992 Dream Team vs. 2012 Team USA

Kobe Bryant just announced that the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team could beat the 1992 U.S. Olympic Team (more commonly known at the Dream Team).

Michael Jordan's response: "I just laughed".

For some bizarre reason, there is no baseball today. So I'm going to break down the Dream Team vs. Team USA matchup.

Before you read the position-by-position breakdown, it's worth noting that I tend to think that the players of today are better than the players of yesteryear, across all sports. Manny Ramirez was a better player than Babe Ruth, even though Ruth has many more "Win Shares". Ruth abused his body, did no off-season training, and played against a much smaller talent pool.

In the NBA, conditioning and coaching (and defense) keeps improving. Players study more tape than they did 20 years ago. The international talent pool keeps growing. Bill Russell won 11 Championship Rings, but I bet he couldn't beat Tim Duncan 1-on-1.

With that in mind, here's my breakdown:

Position	Dream Team (1992)	Team USA (2012)	Advantage
Point Guard	Magic Johnson	Chris Paul	Dream Team
Shooting Guard	Michael Jordan	Kobe Bryant	Dream Team
Small Forward	Larry Bird	Kevin Durant	Team USA
Power Forward	Charles Barkley	LeBron James	Team USA
Center	Patrick Ewing	Tyson Chandler	Dream Team
Bench (PG)	John Stockton (PG)	Russell Westbrook (PG) Deron Williams (PG)	Team USA
Bench (SG/SF)	Clyde Drexler (SG) Chris Mullin (SF) Scottie Pippen (SF)	James Harden (SG) Andre Iguodala (G/F) Carmelo Anthony (SF)	Even
Bench (PF/C)	Karl Malone (PF) Christian Laettner (PF) David Robinson (C)	Kevin Love (PF) Anthony Davis (PF)	Dream Team

Final Verdict: Dream Team wins, 4-3.

Comments

Point Guard

Statistically, Magic Johnson is the best point guard ever. He is frequently compared to LeBron James - a freak of nature that could play any position. I love watching Chris Paul, but he's no Magic Johnson.

Shooting Guard
I hate Kobe. Just when the team I'm rooting for (Spurs, Celtics, Suns, Thunder) is about to win, he sticks in the dagger. However, MJ is the only player I've ever seen play who had more last-second heroics. Also, MJ was 4 years younger than Kobe is now.

Small Forward
As much as I hate Kobe, I love Larry. Born in Boston, I was a huge Celtics fan in the 1980s. But Durant's better, and he finally proved to the world this year than he can carry a team as well as Bird.

Power Forward
James normally plays Small Forward. But on a team that needs size, I think his role will shift to Power Forward, where he's better than Sir Charles.

Center
The Dream Team had two Hall-Of-Fame centers: Ewing and Robinson (they each started 4 games). Chandler is fun to watch, and he's more fun to root for than Dwight Howard. But he can't compare to either of the Twin Towers of Ewing and Robinson.

RPG Ability Scores, Part III: Fantasy Draft

For the last installment on ability scores, a fun way to create an entire party, borrowing from the fantasy draft feature in Baseball Mogul.

Step 1: Everyone Rolls Up One Character
Each player generates one set of stats, rolling 4d6 and keeping the best 3, and recording the stats in the order rolled. The GM does the same.

Here's an example with 4 players:

Table Cell

Alex

Beth

Clay

Daryl

GM

STR	10	18	12	14	17
INT	14	11	11	11	17
WIS	11	9	7	12	11
DEX	12	12	10	11	14
CON	15	16	13	9	7
CHA	15	18	11	11	13

We see that Clay rolled a pretty bad character. But that's OK because he's going to pool his rolls with everyone else before divvying them up.

Step 2: Re-Rolls
Each player picks one of the stats that they rolled and re-rolls it, keeping the highest score. We are trying to build the best party, not the best character. So, Alex chooses to re-roll her WIS score, in hopes of having at least one high Wisdom score to choose from. Here are the scores after the re-rolls (shown in [bold]):

Table Cell

Alex

Beth

Clay

Daryl

GM

STR	10	18	12	14	17
INT	14	11	11	11	17
WIS	[12]	[16]	7	12	11
DEX	12	8	[13]	[16]	14
CON	15	16	13	9	8
CHA	15	18	11	11	13

Step 3: Throw Out The Boring Scores
To keep things interesting, remove the *middle* score from each row. This preserves the interesting scores (the high rolls and low rolls), but also keeps the average score near 12.2 (the average result of rolling 4d6 and keeping the best 3).

The remaining scores are the ones that players will "draft" from (shown here, sorted from high to low):

STR	18	17	12	10
INT	17	14	11	11
WIS	16	12	11	7
DEX	16	14	12	8
CON	16	15	9	8
CHA	18	15	11	11

Step 4: "Draft" The Scores
Player #1 ("Alex") picks first. She can pick any score in the table, but she can't change what stat it applies to. If she picks the '18' in the STR row, she has to use it for Strength.

Alex wants to play a thief/rogue, so she picks the 16 DEX. Here are the characters after Round 1 of the draft:

Table Cell

Alex (Thief)

Beth (Cleric)

Clay (Fighter)

Daryl (Mage)

STR			[18]
INT				[17]
WIS		[16]
DEX	[16]
CON
CHA

For the 2nd round, we reverse the draft order, so that Player #1 doesn't get to pick first in every round:

Table Cell

Alex (Thief)

Beth (Cleric)

Clay (Fighter)

Daryl (Mage)

STR		[17]	18
INT				17
WIS		16
DEX	16
CON			[15]	[16]
CHA	[18]

And here's the completed set of characters (before racial adjustments):

Table Cell

Alex (Thief)

Beth (Cleric)

Clay (Fighter)

Daryl (Mage)

STR	12	17	18	10
INT	11	14	11	17
WIS	11	16	7	12
DEX	16	8	12	14
CON	8	9	15	16
CHA	18	11	15	11

Summary: Each character gets a very good score in their primary attribute. But unlike systems that let players arrange stats as they like, they can't dump their low rolls in their least favorite stats (usually some combination of INT, WIS and CHA -- depending on character class). So you end up with some high stats in places where you wouldn't expect them (like the Thief with an 18 Charisma) and some potential weaknesses (such as the Cleric with an 8 Dexterity)

RPG Ability Scores, Part II: Counting Dice

As a follow-up to yesterday's post about generating ability scores that are both random and balanced, here's a system that treats all six ability scores equally, and more easily adjusts to different power levels.

Step 1: Roll 14d6

Note: For a "low-powered" campaign, use 12d6. For a "high-powered" campaign, use 16d6 (or more).

If more than 8 dice show the same result, re-roll the extra dice.

Step 2: Count the Dice

Count up all the dice showing '1'. The number of 1's determines your Strength score using the following table:

Dice	Score	Dice	Score
0	8	5	16
1	10	6	17-
2	12	7	17+
3	14	8	18
4	15

Repeat this process for all the 2's (INT), 3's (WIS), 4's (DEX), 5's (CON) and 6's (CHA).

Step 3: Tweak The Totals

If you recorded "17-" or "17+" for any of your scores, do the following:

1. If you rolled a "17-" and "17+", ignore them (they cancel each other out).

2. If you rolled a "17-", subtract one point from any ability score (not reducing any score below 8).

3. If you rolled a "17+", add one point to any ability score (not raising any score above 14).

Step 4. Re-Arrange

I prefer to simply swap any two scores at this point. It ensures that you get a variety of characters. But you can use whatever system suits your campaign.

RPG Ability Scores, Part I: Random *and* Balanced

Putting on my nerd hat for a minute. Ever since the late 1970s, I've struggled with the problem of generating ability scores in tabletop role-playing games (this problem also carries over into CRPGs and MMOs).

In the original Dungeons & Dragons, ability scores (such as Strength and Dexterity) were rolled using 3d6. It was a lot of fun "rolling up" stats, seeing your character come to life before your eyes. But the randomness was really unsatisfying (and unfair). My cousin always had the knack of rolling about three 18s for each character, while the rest of us stumbled around with an 8 Dexterity and 3 Charisma (yes, my first D&D character actually had a 3 ar

In 1979, my best friend bought me a copy of the Champions role-playing game (now part of the Hero System). Characters were no longer random. You had a fixed number of points to divide among your various characteristics and abilities. It was great have every character built on an equal footing. But we lost the fun of "rolling up a character".

Also, point-buy systems lead to all characters being the same. For example, all fighters will "max out" their Strength and spend the fewest points on less useful characteristics (like Charisma).

To solve these problems, here is the system I use in my own RPG, but it also works in most iterations of Dungeons & Dragons.

You may notice that I'm determining ability scores in the same order in which they were presented in the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (now referred as "1st Edition"). As I said, I've been pondering this problem since the 1970s.

Step 1: Roll Your Ability Scores
Determine each of the first four ability (STR, INT, WIS, DEX) scores randomly, by rolling 4d6 and keeping the best three. Record the abilities in the order in which you roll them. Set any roll below 8 equal to 8.

Step 2: Add Up The Point Cost
Using the following table, add up the point cost of the ability scores that you already rolled.

Table 1: Ability Score Point Cost

Score	Cost	Score	Cost
8	0	14	6
9	1	15	8
10	2	16	10
11	3	17	13
12	4	18	16
13	5

If the total cost of your first four ability scores is below 4 or above 25, go back to Step 1 and re-roll those scores.

Step 3: Complete Your Ability Scores
To determine your final 2 ability scores, look up the total cost (from Step 2) on the following table:

Total Cost	CON	CHA	Total Cost	CON	CHA
4	18	13	15	10	15
5	12	18	16	14	11
6	14	17	17	10	14
7	17	13	18	10	13
8	17	12	19	13	9
9	11	17	20	12	9
10	13	16	21	8	12
11	16	12	22	9	10
12	16	11	23	10	8
13	10	16	24	9	8
14	15	11	25	8	8

After filling in your CON and CHA scores, you may swap any two scores.

I find that this is a great way to create random characters that are also balanced. And the final swap at the end gives you just enough control to create a playable character that still has some interesting quirks.