Blog Roll

Quick question--is the correct term Blog Roll, or is it Blogroll?

In any case, I added The Adaptive Curmudgeon to mine.

And I see that mupedalpusher at Defends Her Own added me to her blog roll--and she doesn't look too crazy, so I'm adding her too.

Hah

...and when you least expect it, JEFF GOLDBLOOM.

Books of 2010: Double Play

Haven't done this for a while, so I have two books to add to the list. Continuing my John Ringo kick, I read "Yellow Eyes," which I think has the worst, least applicable cover art out of any book in the Posleen War. Seriously, read the book and tell me what is going on on the cover. It detailed the happenings in Panama during John Ringo's alien invasion, with a large focus on naval warfare, particularly the USS Des Moines and USS Salem. I found it to be pretty entertaining, or at least much better than "Eye of the Storm."

The second book that I read was Sun Tzu's "Art of War." I got about halfway through it in High School before I gave up on it, so I decided to give it another go. I thought it was pretty interesting, and the addition I read was annotated with many little stories from Chinese history which illustrated Sun Tzu's sayings.

So. I give "Yellow Eyes" I give 8/10, and "Art of War" I also give 8/10.

U-G-H spells "UGH"

I know this is going to sound weird to you east-coasters out there, where it is already 6:00 as I type this, but man it's early. I think that bacon sandwich last night was just too much for me, as I've woken at 4 o'clock and can't get back to sleep. Oh well. Gives me 4 hours to do... stuff... before going to class. Wheeeeee.

Not sure I should say this

I was looking for something unique for my brother for Christmas, and Breda had that link to a store on Etsy, Ties that don't suck, and then I may have done a slight brain skip, and wound up looking at Cravats, and thought my brother would like those (as he has some strange Steampunk tendencies), and then I may have wound up buying two... you know, one for him and one for me. Why? I don't know. Maybe someday I'll travel to Virginia and get in on some of that reenactment action, or maybe some Cowboy action shooting. Or maybe just so I can look stylish when the coming collapse of civilization finally happens. In any case, it will go well with my wool vest.

BEST... MONDAY.... EVAHR!

Not only did I have enough home-grown bacon to make a cup of bacon grease, but I just found out that I don't have lab this week, and indeed, I am completely done with labs in my undergraduate career. 

MEAT!

Yesterday, I was given about 30 pounds of meat, probably two-thirds of it home-grown bacon, and most of the rest in deer sausage. What am I going to do with 20 pounds of bacon? Seriously, I'm taking suggestions. I'm contemplating bacon and eggs for breakfast and BLT's for lunch for the next year, but that might get a little old.

That's after I stuffed most of it into the freezer.

It's about 1/4" thick!

On a related note, I love my ranch friends.  And their attempts at dieting.

Sunday Music: Day By Day

Sometimes I just gotta go back to that earnest 90's Christian music. Nothing else is quite like it...

Last Christmas...

Yesterday I helped my ranch friends find, cut down, put up, and decorate their Christmas Tree, and watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Charlie Brown Christmas. I know I'm going to be sick of Christmas stuff here in another week or two, but right now it's still novel and exciting.

What better way to sicken the feeling but by using a cheesy 80's song!



Sorry, that may have been uncalled for.

Not only is this a fine example of Mainstream Journalism

But, since it's NPR, it's also an excellent use of your tax dollars!

"That Fat Lip Might Give Obama Street Cred"

I have some issues with this.
1)  You say having stitches on the prez's lip got in a basket ball game will make North Korea respect Obama?
2)  Not only that but you call it a "valiant" injury compared to Bush choking on a pretzel and Clinton tearing a tendon while golfing?  No.  From the 1828 Dictionary we can see

VALIANT (a): Performed with valor; bravely conducted; heroic; as a valiant action or achievement; a valiant combat.

Let me repeat myself:  No.  It's basketball.

And lastly,
3) You call me racist for disagreeing with most of Obama's policies, and then you go and write this? Give. Me. A. Break.

I think one of the comments sums it up nicely:

"'Street cred' - with who? Not this country. Doing your job would be street cred. What next, is Obama going to do a prison stretch to help him sell albums or the next 'bill'?"

Are you prepared to be confused?

I think it's a commercial. But not a very good one.  Between the annoying music, Dr. Horrible lookalike, and product that appears to be only marginally functional in it's advertised use, it's hard to see why I should buy it.

Yes, I went there

It's the day after Thanksgiving, so It's time for Christmas Music!





Straight No Chaser is awesome...

Triptophan Trip

Why? Because it's there!

Thanksgiving Hymn

Come, ye thankful people, come,
raise the song of harvest home;
all is safely gathered in,
ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide
for our wants to be supplied;
come to God's own temple, come,
raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God's own field,
fruit as praise to God we yield;
wheat and tares together sown
are to joy or sorrow grown;
first the blade and then the ear,
then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we
wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come,
and shall take the harvest home;
from the field shall in that day
all offenses purge away,
giving angels charge at last
in the fire the tares to cast;
but the fruitful ears to store
in the garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come,
bring thy final harvest home;
gather thou thy people in,
free from sorrow, free from sin,
there, forever purified,
in thy presence to abide;
come, with all thine angels, come,
raise the glorious harvest home.

Hope you have a great Thanksgiving, surrounded by food, friends, and family.

Cold-Weather Advice

If the weather outside is frightful...

...make hot buttered rum!

I'm Thankful For...

I'm thankful for Thanksgiving break. Seriously. I just now swapped my pajamas pants for some fleece pants and put on a wool sweater. On a day like this...

...a body shouldn't have to go outside.

You need more theremin in your life

I can tell from here.

Huh?

I finally got around to doing my school loan "exit counseling" today.  I was struck by the irony of the section called "Money Management Tips," which gave tips for keeping a balanced budget so I could pay the fed.gov back.

...

Imagine that.  The federal government giving me tips on balancing a budget.

Okay, what's the deal?

The day started out at 1 degree and snowing. Then the snow stopped, the sun came up (though not out), and the temperature started dropping. Now it's down to -2 or so and looking to only go down. I was under the impression that the temperature was supposed to go up during the day?

On a slightly related note, don't you just love those guys with the snowblower who are so happy to have a piece of powered equipment that they go out and do the whole block, even though there is only an inch of snow?

STOL Competition

One of my goals in life is to get a Piper Cub. Someday when I'm rich and famous.

Gratuitous Gun Porn

A friend has recently come into possession of an old K-frame (I think) S+W in .38 special. I know pretty much zilch about revolvers (so don't ask me the model, age, or anything else...), but the gun was so pretty I had to share.  It's too bad I only had my cell phone with it's crappy camera on me at the time.  I do know that the gun rode in the door of a pickup truck for many years, but that's about it.

For all you zombie fans out there

A bunch of normal looking guys impersonating a creepy-weird pop star who had zombie makeup on. So I guess I don't know if this is really for a zombie fan, but I still think you'll like it.

KA-BAR Update

Over the weekend I was contacted by KA-BAR after emailing them and sending them this picture, and was pleasantly informed that they would replace it at no cost to me.  Customer service!  I am still thinking about alternative clips that might be used, or possibly just getting a whole nother sheath, but it sure is nice to know that I will have something for it, at least.  Currently the knife is hanging on some p-cord around my neck under my shirt, which is inconvenient if I want to get at it. 

Anyway, I thought I would let you all know how it goes...

Sunday Music

Despite Jon Foreman's recent, slow decent into Bonoism (the tendency of a pop artist to think that his opinion is the only one that matters), I still love me some Switchfoot.

-8

I thought I might share what -8 degrees fahrenheit looks like for those of you in warmer climes.

 

And this is at 8:00 in the morning. On Tuesday the high is supposed to be -3.  Hey, but my jeep started right up!

out of contact

I'm trapped in a snowdrift today, and don't know when I'll get out. Amazingly, there is also wireless access and homemade cinamon rolls in this snowdrift. More later... by the way, do you know how hard it is to blog from a Kindle?

Pleasant music to wake up to

Just a continuation of the music from last night. Enjoy what I think is possibly the best song written by man:

Pleasant music to go to bed to

I'm a big fan of a cappella music. I blame it on Homeworld, which had Barber's "Agnus Dei" (best song ever, by the way). I also blame Homeworld for my rather large Yes collection.

Broken TDI Belt Clip: this is what we would call a "setback"

Trying out the TDI today with the clip facing outward, I may have accidentally... broke it into two pieces.

The clip seems to have been built with a much thinner belt in mind than my double-leather-layer Beltman belt, which causes the end of the clip to point out far enough that it can catch on stuff.  And break.  I don't think this is covered under the warranty, but I emailed KA-BAR just to see.  For now I might try hanging it on some P-cord.  I was also looking around for other sheath options, and there are a few out there.  Something else would be finding some other type of hook and attaching it--does anyone know of a place to find belt hook hardware?  I looked around Google but nothing much popped out at me.  Something kinda like this.  It seems like it would be easy to just use the existing holes and hardware that came with the TDI to attach something like that.

Anyway, that's the news from Lake Wobegon.

November 19, 1863

Gettysburg Address from Adam Gault on Vimeo.

Think what you will of Lincoln, he sure knew how to speachify.

From New Jovian Thunderbolt.

I need someone else's opinion on this

Because I sure can't decide what to think.  It looks so awesome, but the potential for failure is very large, too...



Seen first at The Smallest Minority, and Kevin is obviously in the awesome category...

Books of 2010: Possum Living

I finished "Possum Living," by Dolly Freed just recently, after buying it at the beginning of the semester for kicks and giggles.  In case you didn't know, I have some quiet survivalist tendencies, which mostly manifest themselves in growing and storing food (which is hard to do while I'm at school) and stockpiling stuff like ammo (which is also hard to do on my current jobless budget).  So when I saw that the subtitle was "How to live well without a job and with (almost) no money," I was intrigued, as I was at the "suburban self-sufficiency" vibe.  Plus it was first published in 1978, so I figured it would be good for a laugh at outdated advice if it turned out to be horrible.

And, yes, it did have a bit of outdated advice (such as "Don't buy health insurance," which is now supposedly mandatory...), but it also had quite a bit of good practical stuff, albeit without too much detail.  A few of the things gone over that I want to do someday are gardening, growing rabbits for food, and, of course, moonshining (that one's actually rather high up the list, but don't tell anyone).  The book avoids detail (as I said) and really focuses more on the attitude. 

So, I give it a 7.5/10, for being a mildly informative, slightly anachronistic, somewhat entertaining, very libertarian "don't take no crap from nobody"-type book.  Now, excuse me while I go look for an old pressure cooker and some copper tubing...

I don't know about this

What do you think about having three columns?  I am getting sick of having to scroll down so far to get to stuff on the sidebar.  This might give me room for some more random junk to put out there, too.  I don't know how it will all work out...

Added: no, that wasn't right. How about this one?

Added II: Try this on for size...

More J79 Fun

As I mentioned here. my Aerospace Propulsion class was researching the J79 jet engine.  We were researching it because today we went on a field trip to a place that has a few J79's that they use to supply air to some other tests.

 They've also got some very large hybrid rockets that they are testing, and some other cool stuff.  They just run it right in the hangar like that.  Pretty cool stuff.  Sorry I'm not too specific, but I don't want to have to kill you.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Let me be clear-I actually don't mind cold weather.  It's just... when the forcast looks like this...

...I kinda would like a little bit more warning when it gets below zero...

Essential Wardrobe Items

"Jayne Is My Role Model" T-shirt and handmade wool Jayne Hat.

 

Everyone should have them.

Blogroll

Well, in an effort to clean up my bookmarks and keep everything up to date, I am doing a Blogroll Update!

In no particular order (I don't want to be too organized, you know), here we go!

First is Butch Cassidy at The Runt Compound.
Then comes JP at Eyes Never Closed.
After that comes Father/Son duo PawPaw at PawPaw's House and DLG at The Displaced Louisiana Guy.
Fifth is Wilson at wilsonblog.
Then is Scott McCray at MacBourne's Musings.

I would be remiss for not mentioning Linoge (and WizardPC) at Walls of the City, that I added a while back but never said anything about. 

And I think that takes care of it.  I'm thinking about messing around with my layout, here, and make two columns for less scrolling to get to stuff.  Maybe not though, as then I would have to, you know, actually do something.  Perhaps I could organize the blogs differently also...

Hmm.  Well, in any case, welcome to the blogroll, one and all.  So far I keep a reciprocal blogroll, and if you don't look too freaky-weird I'll keep that policy.

Added: cybrus, at Lost and Found

Some good music

I was looking for something a little different to get my mom for her birthday, and found this album on Amazon. It's pretty "interesting," but still good.

KA-BAR TDI

By popular demand, I unveil what knife was hidden in that box. It's a KA-BAR TDI, in the small size.

They call it a "self-defense knife," to be drawn with the gunless hand. It comes with a plastic sheath with a metal belt clip that can be switched from side to side. I'm still trying to decide how I'd like to carry it. I currently have my keys, my leatherman, and my XD on my belt, so finding an ideal way to do it is like playing a game of tetris.

So I kinda bought it as a fallback for going to school with, as I can't carry my gun there.  But I kinda bought it just because it looked cool and I had money burning a hole in my pocket.  You can never have enough knives, right?

And FTC, FCC, FAA, FUC, and ETC-- my money was spent on this product.  I spent it freely, and willfully.   No one gave me anything.  No one asked politely.  No one forced me to.  No one.  You are the one with the sound of jackboots playing in the background while you stomp on the first amendment. A pox on you and your house!

I can't see my house from here!

Because there seems to be some sort of cold white substance floating downwards though the sky.

Yep, it's officially winter.

Nothing to see here, move along

Poll: 4 in 5 Support Full-Body Airport Scanners

The comments there are very telling. Mostly they revolve around "Huh? That's not what ANYONE AT ALL IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY THINKS!  ARE YOU EVEN CONNECTED TO THE SAME PLANE OF REALITY?"

Thanks, CBS. Why is it that I don't believe you?

TSA:  Burn it up, and burn it down.

P-cord

Hmmm... now that's... kinda cool actually. I wouldn't pay for theirs when I've got 300 yds of P-cord in a box somewhere.  What do you think about the Parachute Cord Rifle Sling?

Dear TSA

Dear TSA: you need to go.  You need to go now.  Your previously annoying antics have grown to be truly disturbing, a representation of everything wrong with bureaucratic creep.  You are a personification of Benjamin Franklin's saying, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Dear TSA: I know you are out there, and I know that you watch the blogs (even my humble little one).  Which frankly, is also somewhat disturbing. But I know that you have people working for you, normal people, who aren't "bad guys," people who are just doing their job.  Unfortunately, these people have come to rely on an institution that stands against everything that makes my country great.  These people have become accomplices to your agenda by way of their complacency.  They should not stand for your policies any more than I should.  As long as they do, I can not feel sorry for them if my words cut.

Dear TSA:  I know this may sound harsh, but I truly believe that we should burn you to the ground, and keep you in the history books only as a horrible warning.  You are nothing that should be kept, and I am ashamed that you are a part of my country.  It is telling that your Wikipedia entry has only a "criticism and scandal" section, with nothing detailing your non-existent triumphs.  It is telling that at this point if you had a success story, most would dismiss it as a staged publicity stunt. You are useless, and you should never have gotten beyond that brainstorming session in the U.S. Capital Building back in 2001. 

Dear TSA:  you are nothing to me, you are nothing to America, and you have no hope of gaining our love or respect.  You have jumped the shark, and I hope to see my tax dollars spent on something else, anything else, very soon.

Regards,

bluesun

Calm down...

I just typed up a tirade on certain current events (expect it in the morning!) and needed something to calm down with. This was a good choice:

Well, there was a happy ending, at least

After a completely stereotypical and horribly horrible Monday at school (which involved absolutely NO productivity on my part WHATSOEVER, but still used up my entire day), a big brown truck stopped by and left me a present!

What you see there is about 80 bucks worth of practical consumer therapy.

Hope you had a better Monday than me!

Rangel Hearings

"It's not corrupt. It may be stupid. It may be negligent, but it's not corrupt."
--Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-New York, before walking out on his ethics hearings.

From Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary (see sidebar for the link), we see:

STUPID, a. [L., to be stupefied, properly to stop. See Stop.]
1. Very dull; insensible; senseless; wanting in understanding; heavy; sluggish.
O that men should be so stupid grown, as to forsake the living God.
With wild surprise, a moment stupid, motionless he stood.
2. Dull; heavy; formed without skill or genius.
Observe what loads of stupid rhymes oppress us in corrupted times.

NEGLIGENT, a.
1. Careless; heedless; apt or accustomed to omit what ought to be done; inattentive to business or necessary concerns. It is applied to a particular instance of neglect, or it denotes habitually careless or inattentive. 2 Chronicles 29. 2 Peter 1.
He that thinks he can afford to be negligent, is not far from being poor.
2. Regardless.
Be thou negligent of fame.

CORRUPT, v.t. [L., to break.] Literally, to break, separate or dissolve. Hence,
1. To change from a sound to a putrid or putrescent state; to separate the component parts of a body, as by a natural process, which accompanied by a fetid smell.
2. To vitiate or deprave; to change from good to bad.
Evil communications corrupt good manners. 1 Corinthians 15.
3. To waste, spoil or consume.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt. Matthew 6.
4. To defile or pollute. Exodus 32.
5. To entice from good and allure to evil. 2 Corinthians 11.
6. To pervert; to break, disobey or make void. Malachi 2.
7. To pervert or vitiate integrity; to bribe; as, to corrupt a judge.
8. To debase or render impure, by alterations or innovations; as, to corrupt language.
9. To pervert; to falsify; to infect with errors; as, to corrupt the sacred text.

...

So, tell me again, why would we want a stupid and negligent congressman even if he isn't corrupt?  It seems to me that a stupid and negligent congressman fits the definition of a corrupt congressman pretty well.

Hmmm...

By the way, TSA are _not_ destroying contraband, including liquor and ammunition. I doubt they expect spiked drinks or triple-charged pistol ammo.

--Oleg Volk

From the comments here...

Not that I'm advocating anything, *of course!*, but still--hmmmm...

Trolling the Interweb for the Finest in Random Crap

So you don't have to!



And, as always, Dr. Ashen supplies the goods!

Say it ten times, fast

"The Lede: Beck Sees Soros as Iran Does"

Is that not one of the most awkward headlines you've seen?  Though, truth be told, it DOES kinda roll of the tongue...

This is an odd coincidence

I was messing around on Youtube the other day, and discovered something strange. It seems that about every music video called "Here I Am" is freaky-weird.

We have VERY tall pop cowboys and cowgirls in slow motion. This is so ridiculously overblown and cheesy it hurts.

We have Turkish oil wrestling which involves shoving your hand down the other guy's pants (!?!?!?!?). Seriously, if you only watch one of these, watch this one.

We have probably the most normal one of the bunch, with a whiny-sounding chick pouting to herself in a dark room.

And the classic Air Supply ballad, which involves men who take themselves much too seriously and have much too much hair.

Is there some sort of Law of the Universe that says if you write a song called "Here I Am," you have to take yourself too seriously?

Were you aware of this?

They remade the best FPS of all time?



A friend just got it and invited me down to play it. I hope there's still a DK mode!

Feel the Sound!

I spent an hour and a half yesterday listening to jets on Youtube. Looking for a J79 howl, and finally found a good one.



I will use the excuse that I am supposed to be researching the J79 engine for my Aerospace Propulsion class, but then how would you explain the F-18 videos, and the F-14 videos, and, well, all the other planes that don't use J79's?

Yes, yes I am an airplane geek. You can blame my dad, who thought that living in the landing zone for the local airport, a bare mile from the end of the runway, was a feature, not a bug, and raised me to look up any time I heard a distant rumble.

Speaking of Unrelated Things

Who was speaking of unrelated things? No one, but now that you mention it,

Obama: Pelosi is 'outstanding partner'

"I think Speaker Pelosi has been an outstanding partner for me," Obama told reporters today in South Korea.

AAAAAGGGHHH! TOO MUCH INFORMATION! TOO MUCH INFORMATION! MY MIND! OH, MY MIND, HOW IT BURNS!

Armistice Day

To all who have served our country in the armed forces, at peace and at war, I give thanks.

Whatever happens, we just keep rolling along

My brother just sent me this video. I laughed, and I laughed... and now you can enjoy it while I go to Helena and take a 4-hour test.



WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN is right.

GRE Today

Today, I don't have classes, due to it being Veterans Day.  Instead, I get to drive all the way to Helena to take a 4-hour test that I may or may not ever need to use.  Whee.

Though to be honest, Grad School is looking more and more like an option as graduation rushes up on me.  The other alternatives include such fun options as finding a basement that I can live in, or maybe if I'm lucky, a job at Ye Local Fine Fast Dining Establishment.  Obama, I wish you would go and pull a Warren G Harding on us all and just... stop... talking...

I can almost smell the winds of change

Borepatch, this one is for you.

In METE 2020 today, whilst talking about aluminum production (a very energy intensive process, with large amounts of CO2 produced as a byproduct--any hippie worth his hemp should weep triple amounts of sweet sweet tears over every aluminum can alongside the road, as the pollution load must be truly staggering--but I digress!), the professor said "I don't know what you all think of global warming, but you can see that there is quite a bit of carbon dioxide produced with this process..."

My eyes nearly bugged out of my head.  "WHAT?  YOU'RE NOT JAMMING IT DOWN MY THROAT?  WHAT RACE OF ALIENS ABDUCTED ME, AND WHY DID THEY PUT ME IN A WORLD SO CLOSE TO THE ONE I LEFT?"

Another unrelated thing

When I got home from school today, there were two cop cars outside my apartment.

Just another day in the 'hood, yo.

Another Sciency Poem

Corrosion is really exciting
Electrons and metals are fighting
They're under assault
Rust is the result
Holes in the tank you'll soon be sighting

Why yes, sometimes I DO get bored in my classes. Why do you ask?

An Unrelated Chemistry Poem

Can't remember where I heard this first:

Little Johnny was a chemist
But now he is no more
For what he thought was H2O
Was H2SO4

And that, kiddies, is why they don't let you have food or drink in the labs.

What do you say to that?

My roomate just ran in to the apartment and told me "Hey, we're going to go smoke our pipes."

I said, "Please, take as long as you need." What else could I say?

Pandora find of the day

Groovy.

Snow, Sun, and Autumn Leaves

Well, I can complain about the weather, but I always think that it's prettiest after it's snowed and the sun comes out.

That's some hardcore Scrabble

Where in the world do all of these random music videos come from?

Question on the correct application of rum

When making a rum and coke, is it acceptable to mix two different types of rum? My Mt. Gay Elipse seems to go very well with the Gosling's Black Seal. These are my proportions:

2 pts Coke
1 pt Mt. Gay
~3/4 pt Black Seal
a titch of lemon juice

You know, on second though, I don't care if it's correct. It's tasty anyway! As Red Green says, "It's not smart, or correct, but it's one of the things that makes us who we are."

Crap Weather

On the one hand, I'm glad that it's finally snowing. I like snow, for some reason, and usually enjoy cold weather.  On the other hand I really really wish it wasn't snowing.  We've had absurdly nice weather the past month--last year it started snowing in October. 
 

But yesterday I stood out in the church yard and played hackysack for an hour...

Al Franken

No comment.

It's Monday...

...and I'm feelin' good...

...the paranoid brits...



...the modern crooner...



...and the classic...



...at least, I can lie to myself to feel good. It is, after all, Monday. Can't expect too much.

DST PSA

"FALL BACK! FALL BACK!"

(Loud "time warping" noise)

"WE JUST CHANGED AN HOUR! MAYBE IF WE WORK TOGETHER, WE CAN GET IT BACK BY SPRING!"

Afternoon Gun Porn: XD9 Subcompact and stuff

Just because.

That's the Springfield XD9 Subcompact, the Beltman Belt, and Blackhawk! "Leather Compact Askins Holster."

Books of 2010: Super John Ringo Edition

In the past two weeks I read four books by John Ringo, all in the Posleen War Universe:

1) Gust Front
2) When the Devil Dances
3) Hell's Faire

and the latest one in the series, set about 50 years after the original series:

4) Eye of the Storm

I last read the original series as it first came out. This time I didn't read the first book--Hymn Before Battle--because I guess I just didn't want to. So there. The original series is a quality "Military Sci-Fi/Kill all Aliens" collection of books. "Eye of the Storm," however, takes an interesting twist (sarcasm). After kicking the Posleen out of their arm of the galaxy, guess what happens? An evil collection of Alien races invade! Don't get me wrong, it was a fine book--it's just that the first third or so was going in one direction and then it seemed Ringo decided he needed a Deus Ex Machina to pull the story back into familiar territory.

I highly recommend the original Posleen War Series--I would give those books a 10/10. "Eye of the Storm," however, seemed just a little bit too contrived. It was also the first in a new sub-series, so maybe it will take off in the future. I would give it a 7.5/10, still perfectly acceptable, but not outstanding.

And that's four more books added to my total. Counting them up is going to take me a goodly bit when the end of the year gets here.

Music for Friday Evening: The Man's Too Strong

Don't know why, but I've been listening to a lot of Dire Straits today:

I am just an aging drummer boy, and in the wars I used to play
And I've called the tune to many a torture session
Now they say I am a war criminal and I'm fading away
Father, please hear my confession

I have legalized robbery, called it belief
I have run with the money, I have hid like a thief
Re-written history with armies and my crooks
Invented memories, I did burn all the books

And I can still hear his laughter
And I can still hear his song
The man's too big
The man's too strong

Well I tried to be meek, I have tried to be mild
But I spat like a woman and sulked like a child
I have lived behind walls that have made me alone
Striven for peace which I have never known

Well the sun rose on the courtyard and they all did hear him say
"You always was a Judas, but I got you anyway
You may have got your silver but I swear upon my life
Your sister gave me diamonds and I gave 'em to your wife"

Oh father please help me
For I have done wrong
The man's too big
The man's too strong

And I am now accepting interpretations as to how these lyrics fit into the current political landscape.

Breaking News

Am I a bad person that I laughed and smiled with joy when I read this?

MSNBC Suspends Olbermann for Political Donations.

Without pay. Company policy. Couldn't happen to a nicer wackjob.

Little known fact about me

I don't know if I should be saying this somewhere where people can, you know, actually listen, but I watched a lot of Bob Ross growing up. Sometimes on Saturday morning I would watch him instead of cartoons. Maybe that's why I liked this picture so much:

I also would watch a lot of cooking shows and british comedies in the afternoons. Good times...

A thought

Tell me what you think:

A progressive is one who expects the worse and prepares for the best. They think that my guns are going to go out all by themselves and rob banks and kill grandmas, but they don't ever think that it could be them who gets mugged.

A conservative is one who prepares for the worst and expects the best. They don't expect anything to happen with an inanimate object that is sitting in a bedside table drawer, but they keep it there just in case someone comes through the bedroom window at O dark hundred.

Can ya bleeve it?

I walked all the way to school just to find out that my 8:00 class was canceled. Not that I'm complaining, or anything.

As a Karate Expert...

I say this song is rockin'

Blatantly stollen and ripped off from KurtP

...Here. Because they are just so awesome.



And the apology for the PETARDS:


Does crocodile taste like chicken?

Now I wonder where I could get some Bundaberg Rum in the US?

I always wondered how they did that...

I had to watch a bunch of these videos for some homework.

I always wondered how they made piping--I wasn't sure if it was extruded or what.



Now you know. This edumacation brought to you by bluesun!

It's that time of year...

I was walking home from school at 2 in the afternoon, and there was frost on the grass along the sidewalk even though it's been sunny all day. The three weeks of autumn is about over, I guess.

And completely ignoring the warning in the last post...

SUCKIT SALAZAR! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

To the Tea Party, Republicans, et al.

Election music

I thought I might repost this video--



Ima watching the results start to come it...

Another day, another missed goal

Hmmm... for whatever reason, my school gave us today off.  I had grand intentions of working on a big, mean ol' take home test all morning, but see I got sucked into this John Ringo series...  I finished one last night, and just had to go on to the next, so I started it this morning and finished it at noon or so.  Then I had to eat lunch (reading is hard work!), and now I am goofing off on the internet and listening to David Bowie.  Time to get going, I guess. Or at least change out of my pajamas.

November 2 PSA

St. Jayne says: vote today. Or else.

Go vote against the incumbent, for they all think they're God's gift to humanity and they deserve the job. Go vote for the craziest person you can find, because then at least politics would be more interesting, and you know they all take themselves too seriously.

I think I could do that job

They're remodeling one of the buildings on campus right now, and there was this truck parked outside it all last week:

That sounds like it could be an entertaining job! "Give me a big enough hammer, and I can move the world." I wonder if they're hiring...

Lost: One Elk II

Over hill and dale, all morning, and not so much as a hoof print. I think it was a teleporting elk. Frustrating.