Random (or not) Videos From YouTube

This is too cool - first someone did the Lego Bible. Now, it's Lego Johnny Cash!!

I am waiting for someone to do a Lego LOST at some point. Hmm, I wonder if it's already on YouTube?




And even more Johnny Cash - in Lego form.







I was right. Here is the first Season of LOST, in Lego form.

Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Just a quickie post tonight (or this morning, whichever you prefer. Local time is 12:53 AM as I begin writing this). I have enjoyed the Astronomy Picture of the Day ( or APOD) website for years. Basically, a new photo related to astronomy in some fashion is displayed each day, along with commentary. But yesterday's and today's photos are pretty cool, even for APOD.




First, this APOD photo above (for Sep 19 2008) shows a star very similar to our Sun. But check out the small fuzzball above and to the left of the star, about 11 o'clock. That is no star. It is a huge gas giant planet (we have those here in our star system as well - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) massing about 8 times the mass of Jupiter. What you are looking at is an actual direct image of another planet. Now, astronomers have inferred the existence of so-called extrasolar planets time and time again, other planets orbiting other stars. But this is the first time we've ever gotten an visual image of another planet outside of our Solar system. I think that's something of a milestone.





Next up we have the APOD for Sep 20, 2008. It was taken during the Aug 1 total solar eclipse, and the photographer used 55 separate exposures, ranging from 1/125 to 8 seconds. Normally in a solar eclipse, you can't make out the details of the lunar service. But here you can. I just liked this photo for some reason.

There's actually alot more stuff I could blog right now, but it's getting late so I'll try and post something tomorrow.

Animal Rescue 911

Operation Hummingbird Rescue was a complete success! Here's a quick recap.

1) Apparently, a little hummer flew in the back of the store yesterday before closing time. I never got him to fly out, so he stayed inside overnight. No food, which is bad for hummers.

2) This morning, I found him motionless on the floor. Animal Rescue quickly went into emergency mode - I mixed up some sugar water (25% sugar by volume, as recommended by Wikipedia), filled a Styrofoam cup which I had cut low so he could sip the sugar water, and placed the cup in front of the bird.

3)Within minutes, he began to sip - gingerly at first, but eventually he was guzzling it down. And then he flew off.

4) Mission Accomplished! Another successful rescue by your local Animal Rescue Team (but not cats - they can just die)

Some Youtube Fun

This video makes me laugh every time I watch it. The model falling down is worth a chuckle or two. But it's the news anchor's belly laugh as he watches the clip over and over - THAT is what makes me crack up every time.

Irony

...and yes, recognize the irony of declaring my blog to be dead, then suddenly I am posting more frequently than ever.

I Am A Total Geek!

I downloaded the first season of LOST. I was just now watching LOST on the SciFi channel, when I recalled I had this particular episode(Pilot, Part 2) on TV also on my computer. So I started VLC player (it runs circles around Windows Media Player 11 or whatever number they're on now) and played around a bit, and now I have my computer and the TV playing the same episode of LOST almost perfectly in synch. Maybe 5-10 milliseconds difference.

Dang, they went to commercial!! Blast, now I have to resynch it all over again!

Some Thoughts...

My sister sometimes creates lists of things on her blog. I don't know if I can reach 10 in this post, but we'll see where it goes.

1) The Hurricane Ike frenzy here in Texas is reaching epic proportions. I actually read on the net today that Galvestonians living in certain low-lying parts of the city were warned by the National Weather Service that refusing to evacuate Galveston means certain death.

Certain death?? DEATH??? Isn't that a bit...uh...extreme? I thought so at first, but after doing a little research on Galveston, it seems that things really are bad. I'm just not used to hearing the NWS say things like "certain death". Usually it's stuff like "Tornado Warning" or "Flash Flood Watch". Then they go on to explain that a tornado watch means the conditions are right for the formation of tornadoes. I wonder how they explain the "Certain Death" alert? "We've just issued a Certain Death alert for Galveston County until 10 PM this evening. This means that conditions are right for YOU TO DIE!!!!"

Ha. I just made myself laugh trying to visualize that weather bulletin.

2) Not all people are insensitive, ignorant blow hards. (But alot of them are). I was in the drive through at Starbucks today, waiting for my latte (yes, sugar free, with nonfat milk, so its only 75 calories - and very good!). I was at the window waiting, and I saw some kid walkin across the drive thru in front of me. He was 18-20 or so. I watched him stop at the trash bin - you know. the one they locate along the drive thru so people can throw out trash? Well, apparently, people had been throwing out ALOT of trash today, because the trash bin was brimming over with trash - no room for any more. Anyway, I assumed the kid was going to toss something in as he walked up to the trash - but he didn't. Instead, he pushed on the overflowing trash (causing some water to spew forth - ewww...garbage water (Homer fans should catch that reference)). He managed to push the extruding trash down into the barrel, clearing the entryway for more trash from peeps' cars. Watching this, I assumed he worked there and was coming in for his shift (he wasn't in Starbucks uniform yet)
I got my latte, pulled forward and said something to the kid about getting the garbage water all over himself while clearing the trash. He nodded and said "Yeah, man, I don't even work here, but I can't believe how insensitive and uncaring some people are, making a mess of things and not even trying to clean up. So I thought I'd do it for them."
I was suitably impressed. For his good deed, he got garbage water all over himself. But I thought it was still a nice thing to do. Alot of us "old fogies" (I can just hear Gil laughing right now - one of my coworkers, he is. Gil is 70-something years old, and he calls me "just a pup" sometimes.) -- anyway, alot of old fogies have a negative impression of today's youth. This rep isnt ENTIRELY undeserved, but the old peeps tend to generalize and apply this negative impression to all the kids today. It was nice to see one of these kids doing a nice thing for no reason, and not for some reward. He didn't even know anyone was watching.

3) I have always liked Charlie Gibson on ABC News. While alot of the other 'big-wig' anchors are pretty liberal (even thought they porport to be objective - but the liberal bias does come through often), Gibson, while a liberal, has always manged to not let it affect his news-telling. However, in his interview with Governor Palin (part of which was aired yesterday) he revealed a shockingly biased approach to Palin. Gibson did ask some tough questions - and he should. I have no problem with that. But several times he asked some loaded trap questions, attempting to either catch her in a mistake, or put words in her mouth. I have never seen him do that with anyone else he's interviewed. I hate to say it, but the liberally-biased mainstream media has been engaged in a fortified campaign to smear and belittle Palin. Since these liberals think of themselves as the progressive, enlightened ones, I would have thought that they would be championing a woman with the chance to be our new vice president. But they are trying to throw her under the proverbial bus - except Palin refuses to go down. I like her - the way she handled Gibson last night was superb. And I've lost several points of respect for Charlie Gibson.

4) Palin lost a few respect points with me last night as well. When talking about nuclear weapons, he pronounces 'nuclear' as 'nook-yular'. -5 points for you, Governor.

5) Mob Wars is adddictive. And I need more people to join my mob. Please, please please send me an invite. My Facebook profile is here. You can add me as a friend, then send me an invite for Mob Wars if you've already started playing, or I can send you an invite to play Mob Wars and join my mob.

6) Following on the heels of my first observation (see #1 above) about the NWS, here's another bizarre tidbit. NWS officials in Galvestion are recommending to the stay-puts that they write their social security number on their arm using a permanent marker, in order that will be able to identify the bodies.

!!!!!!WOW!!!!!!!! These NWS guys are hard-core.

7) Watching a hurricane make landfall is something I'd like to do someday. But not this weekend.

8) Dang, I'm out of things to add to the list. So eight is all you get this time.

Political Stuff

I'm looking forward to the VP debate coming up on Oct 2. Palin vs. Biden - sounds like a boxing match (which it might actually turn into!)

Thoughts On Mob Wars

Do you play Mob Wars? I know I do. (Pathetic attempt to sound like Andy Rooney, sorry)

The whole thing began with my sister. She needed more mobsters, apparently, in order to do more jobs on this game she was playing. She begged me to join (well, begged is a little strong, ha ha, but more dramatic) so I caved in and signed up. I had no plans to actually play the game, of course.

And then I decided to kinda just check Mob Wars out. Not to play it, mind you - just to see what it was all about. And then my brother-in-law asked me to join his Mob as well. And I started playing, and now I actually have several times a day where I experience a desperate need to check in on my mob, to make sure I haven't died due to a hit put on me (Thank you, Big Breasted Bertha, for my first death). And it has just snowballed from there.

There is a screen in Mob Wars where you can check out the stats of rival mobs. From there, you can also access the attack, punch in the face, and hitlist buttons. The funny thing is that when you check on the status of your own mob, the same screen appears, along with the punch in the face/hitlist options.


I figured that Mob Wars wouldn't actually let you punch yourself in the face.

I WAS WRONG!!

I clicked the punch link, and lo and behold, I got a status message saying "You punched yourself in the face, dealing yourself 6 damage".

I wonder if the hitlist option works on yourself. It would be like committing suicide, I guess. Suicide by mobster.

You're right, that was lame.


Note: If anyone would like to join my mob, I would be grateful. I still need 5 more mobsters so I can smuggle drugs by sea. Look for me on Facebook and add me as a friend and I'll send you an invite to join my mob.

My profile on Facebook is here



PS - I just saw a preview for the Simpsons season opener - the 20th season!!! The Simpsons has been on for a fifth of a century. How cool is that??

I've got a bad feeling about this...

That's no moon. That's a space station!!

Uh, no. This is really Mimas, a satellite of Saturn. But the resemblance to the Death Star is uncanny. Maybe Darth Vader is out there, about to attack Earth, ha ha.