Category: general

I was just reading the GPF archives (why? why?), and I came across this strip. Makes me grin every time…

If I ever get a virtual reality game, you can bet I’ll program it to change my clothes when I double-click my icon ;>

I guess there’s a convention for people who believe in aliens going on in Lima, Peru starting on Thursday. The news article has some interesting stories, the kind you usually only hear narrated by Jonathan Frakes.

Seeing isn’t always believing. Wendelle Stevens, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, said he believed in aliens after having investigated 100 cases, despite never having seen any himself.

Stevens, thought to have the largest archive of photographs of alleged UFOs in the world, says he worked from 1947-49 in Alaska with B-29 planes fitted with special scientific instruments to “detect the visitors.”

His work there began the year the U.S. military is believed by some to have hushed up two purported crashes of alien spacecraft within a month. The Air Force denies the stories.

Stevens, who said he did not believe in aliens before his work, said it was his job to debrief the crews of the B-29s and recounted how “the radio frequency spectrum went completely haywire … and the temperature in the airplane increased. (The crew) looked out and there’s a disc next door,” he said.

He said the crew shot photographs with four different types of camera, but the military suppressed the pictures. No Air Force spokespersons could immediately comment on his remarks.

Do you believe in aliens? Or (more relevantly) do you believe they’ve visited us?

Wil Wheaton turned me on to Harvey Danger‘s new CD, released for free by the band via Bittorrent and direct download. Is that cool or what? My copy downloaded with BitTornado in a record four minutes.

Their music seems to have changed since “Flagpole Sitta”, which was one of my favorite songs back when it came out. This album plays more like something by Ben Folds, which wasn’t what I expected, but it’s certainly not a bad thing.

Here’s Harvey Danger’s explanation behind their bold move, and here’s where you can get the music for yourself. You can buy the actual CD here, or you can contribute to the band here.

I’m finally catching up on Justin Klein’s blog. While he usually (at least for most of the past year) writes about life in Kyoto, this summer he took a whirlwind tour of Asia. I’ve only just now gotten to this post, wherein Justin describes a show he saw in Beijing entitled “The Legend of Kung Fu”.

Just stop and think for a moment about how awesome that is.

While far more commercialized than the Thai boxing matches I saw on the streets of Chiang Mai, The Legend of Kung Fu was everything I could’ve hoped for and more. The basic storyline of this highly choreographed production followed the training of a monk on his quest to become a Kung Fu master, demonstrations including everything from the various animal styles to weapons to “iron body” demonstrations where a guy would place his full weight on the tips of spears that had just been used to slice fruit, bending them with his bare skin.

I’m soooo jealous. It’s too bad Justin’s camera wasn’t able to capture more of the action.

The Augusta Chronicle has a piece about how global climate change is predicted to affect Augusta and the rest of Georgia. Here’s the basic rundown provided at the end of the article:

Georgia predictions
– By 2100, temperatures will increase by 2 degrees in summer, 4-7 degrees in winter and 2 to 9 degrees in autumn.
– Average rainfall will jump between 15 and 40 percent in summer and fall, and about 10 percent in winter and spring.
– Spring will arrive earlier, and summers will last longer, with corresponding adjustments in plant and animal life.
– Severe weather events will increase in frequency and scale.
– Sea levels could rise as much as 25 inches at Fort Pulaski, near Savannah, by 2100.
– Rising oceans will threaten marshes and could intrude on fresh- water supplies.
– Costs of protecting Georgia against a 20-inch rise in sea level are $154 million to $1.3 billion.
– More precipitation will alter agricultural practices, with hay and pasture yields increasing 25 percent, while grain crop acreage could decrease as much as 22 percent.
– By 2050, heat-related deaths in Atlanta, now averaging 25 per year, could increase to 60.
– Mosquitoes that carry malaria and equine encephalitis will expand their habitat.
Sources: U.S. Climate & Policy Assessment Office; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Sometimes I wonder…if we hadn’t invented heaters and air conditioners, would we already be extinct? What else are we going to need to invent to survive?

Jeph Jacques says,

This entire strip is basically a verbatim transcription of the kind of dialogue I have going in my head at any given time. I am kind of a weird dude!

Mmm, the charred flesh of dead animals.

O…M…G.

XD

Gabe got him good, didn’t he?

For security reasons, I run my Windows XP under a user account the majority of the time, and only use the administrator account for installing things or changing settings. These rules were imposed by my husband, for whom everything must be “just so”. His methodical, meticulous nature is a good thing 99.9999% of the time (trust me), but this particular demand is irritating to no end.

Ultimately, it’s not Sean’s fault–it’s the fault of the programmers of all the software I want to use. Thumbs, for example, can’t make thumbnails under a user account. It just can’t. Why? Why wouldn’t you want to let a user create thumbnails of photos? Obviously, this was an oversight. The program was designed with the assumption of certain administrative rights.

The same goes for the majority of the games I’ve installed that have high score lists. The games will freak out and crash because they can’t save the high score table. :>

So, damn you, software developers, for so insidiously foiling Sean’s perfect plan for network security.

The BoBs are accepting nominations. I wanted to nominate Somewhere on the masthead (because I’m such a fangirl), but the nomination page is totally confusing.

Look at this.

I basically can’t tell if the right column is supposed to be about me or the person I’m nominating. The Rules don’t clear this up, either.

So, sorry, Magazine Man…no nomination due to horrible site design.

(By the way, what is this? Two different awards with practically the same name, and the exact same abbreviation?)

I love Penny Arcade.

Via BoingBoing, a really cool piece of flash fiction. (Damn, I lost that book in the fire, too!) Apparently these guys will be putting out a new short story every day for a year. Crazy.

Publish these posts, or feel my wrath!

I’m just saying.

23 pages and counting!

(Yes, I am bored. Not bored in the traditional sense of having nothing to do, but bored in the “I’m too braindead to think right now” sense.)

Man…ReBoot is so cool.

The bright spot of my day today has been watching my tapes of seasons 1 and 2. Unfortunately they’re getting old. Also, somehow I recorded Judge Judy over “When Games Collide”, so I haven’t seen that episode in ages. (I don’t even watch Judge Judy!)

In any case, I love ReBoot. Bob = hotness.

:P