American Cuisine

They're kinda chewy by themselves. I recommend mixing with Navajo and sautéing in lard for an hour before baking.

Birth of an Iceberg

Footage of a chunk of glacier breaking off to create an iceberg.

Friday Timewaster

Hanna in a Choppa.

The CH-53 Sea Stallion is the largest helicopter ever to perform a complete aerial loop -- piloted by a jarhead, natch.

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Zombies?

Formula Half

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Hat-tip to Kirk M.

Hobbiton Now

It's overrun by sheep. Which I must say is preferable to hobbits, as sheep are considerably less annoying.

Piclick for more.

Darwin loves...

...snakes:

Mack Wolford, a flamboyant Pentecostal pastor from West Virginia, hoped the outdoor service he had planned for Sunday at an isolated state park would be a “homecoming like the old days,” full of folks speaking in tongues, handling snakes and having a “great time.” But it was not the sort of homecoming he foresaw. Instead, Wolford, who had turned 44 the previous day, was bitten by a rattlesnake he had owned for years. He died late on Sunday evening.

Can I get an "AMEN"?

No? Well... how 'bout a "DOH!"

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Thursday Tune - Abney Park

It took me a bit to decide which would be a good intro piece by this band.  I've been seeing these guys every year since their first appearance at DragonCon few years ago.  Their band concept is Steampunk airship pirates.  They blend sorta techno electronic with mandolins, concertinas, violins, guitars and percussion.  This album was specifically a collection of what they titled Aether Shanties.

Enjoy

Thursday Tunes

A Thursday Tune from reader Jeff W. I'll let him introduce:

"Jaco Pastorious, one of the truly great electric bass players playing the Cannonball Adderley\Joe Zawinul tune Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.

Laptop speakers may not work, you really want to hear the bass lines with this one."

On my first listen, I noticed that about halfway in, it gets really funky -- and that's a good thing. I adore bass and guitar funk. Makes me feel all 70s-ish, before the world went totally nucking futs, (and I had to get a job).



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Religion of Peace™

More Peace and Tolerance than you can beat with a stick:

Religious hardliners have ordered the deaths of four men and two women after they were filmed dancing together at a wedding in northern Pakistan, according to local police and relatives. A traditional jirga, or tribal council, condemned the six to death for “staining the honour” of their families after they defied local customs that require men and women to remain separate at weddings.

Suicide bombing of schools? Awesome!

Flying planes into buildings full of innocent people? Perfect.

Genital mutilation of young girls? It's just the right thing to do.

Dancing at a wedding? EVIL! Kill them all.

Yeah, Islam is a perfectly reasonable religion...

Is that the garage?

How 'bout some new doorways, granny?

A boozed-up driver tore through a 96-year-old woman’s Long Island house on Monday, spinning such a devastating path of destruction that the stove wound up in the back yard

The driver’s mother, Susan Anderson, was in shock when told her about the crash. “Oh, my God! This is not like her. I don’t know what’s going on,” the shaken-up mother said. “She doesn’t have a car in the city. I don’t know whose it is.”

Oops.

“She has her own life; she’s been away for a couple of years now. I don’t even know who her friends are,” her mother said.

One of them owns (er, owned) a Mercedes.

Nothing seemed wrong,” said the friend, who did not want to be identified. “She likes to have fun after the job, but nothing crazy,” the friend added.

"Nothing crazy." You know: have a few drinks, throw her legs over her head for an hour, drive an $80K import through granny's house... All in a weekend's entertainment.

Anderson and an unidentified man riding in the car suffered minor injuries.

I'm guessing that's Mercedes-boy. Never let 'em drive your ride, buddy -- even if they have chrome around their lips.

Serious Paintball

Damn, these people are serious about their paintball.

Invis-O-Cows

I've actually seen this sign (or one like it) in person. They're posted all over the road that runs from the Pohakuloa Training Area down to the Hilo coast on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Along with Fundy and Curmudgeon, I walked that entire road back in 1989. You go from a volcanic, blasted hellscape to the most lush dairy country I've ever seen over the course of only a few miles. And they aren't kidding about the invisible cows and the fog. You can't see your own hand in front of your face while in the morning fog, let alone a cow.

Darwin loves...

...parachutes:

Former Hoboken resident Robert Ranieri III, 29, died Tuesday in a skydiving accident over Lake Tahoe in California.

Ranieri was making a skydive to celebrate opening his new business that teaches people how to operate parachutes

Not qualified for position. Ineligible for rehire.

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Game over man...game over!

For those of you lucky enough to live in Houston (or a few other select cities in Texas) I ran across a shop that will speak to your retro gaming soul. They had a booth at this year's ComicPalooza which is how I stumbled across them. With a selection of old consoles and games from the 2600, Intellivision, C64, Segas, Nintendos, to 3do, TI-99, and other obscure systems. New stuff coming in frequently apparently and they do do mail order. Click here to have a look.

Docking Dragons

Of course, it's a Dragon that would be a cornerstone of commercial space flight. And everything I have read and seen about SpaceX leads me to believe they have the right idea and will do the best at it. Until, inevitably, the Federal government regulates it into the ground.

Leap

Well, that didn't take long to go from fantasy...



...to reality:

Friday Timewaster

Rune Raiders, an interesting mix of RPG and grid puzzler.

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Should have retired it

A sequel to Blade Runner is in the works. I do not consider this a good thing.

Blade Runner is one of the very few examples of the motion picture as art. It stands alongside Citizen Kane and 2001: A Space Odyssey in its timelessness and purity of vision. It is not something that should be serialized. I have watched the movie dozens of times over the last 30 years, and it continues to amaze me each time I see it, (most recently in glorious 1080p HD; that was a real treat).

Ridley Scott is one of the best directors and producers in the biz, (ignoring that abomination of Andromeda Strain which he made for the SciFi Channel), but I just don't think he can pull this one off. Here's hoping I'm wrong.

Thursday Tunes

I'm gonna mix things up with a new feature: Thursday Tunes. Like the Friday Timewaster, it will be a once-a-week post, but focused on music rather than online games. All contributors are encouraged to participate, since more is better when it comes to music. The idea here is to post stuff that's a little "off the beaten path," -- i.e., don't go posting links to 1980s pop hits or the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth. We've all heard those.

On the other hand, it's pretty obvious the readers of this blog are people of intelligence and keen perception. I think it's safe to say that teenage deathmetal/rap mixes are off the menu. Keep it tasteful, please. That's not to say that everyone's going to like every piece that I or others may post; musical tastes are a very personal thing. The point is that it might turn you on to a genre or style you've not previously encountered. By all means, if you think it's crap feel free to comment as such, (not that anybody here needs any encouragement in expressing their opinions...).

To kick it off, I present to you "I Remember" by Kaskade and Deadmau5. It may sound familiar if you've played a certain game on the Wii. This style of music is most often referred to as progressive house. It originates from a combination of early '80s house mixes out of Chicago, European trance and electro, and very often some subdued vocals. This particular piece is made special by the vocals of Haley Gibby, who possesses a voice that is both softly seductive and powerful. She is balanced by the suspends and builds of Kaskade and Deadmau5's electronic backgrounds to create a sort of mesmerizing electro-pop feel.

Enjoy.




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