More Fun

Abby's

Velvet Hooka

Yay RTS

Yay EA Games is developing a new game in their arsenal of cool RTS (real time strategy) games.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., April 20, 2006 - The epic struggle between the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and The Brotherhood of NOD continues…and the third Tiberium War is about to begin. Welcome back, Commander. Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that Command & Conquer™, the groundbreaking series that put the Real-time Strategy (RTS) genre on the map, is returning in full force with Command & Conquer™ 3 Tiberium Wars*. This highly-anticipated next chapter takes the popular series back to its roots in the Tiberium universe and features the fast, fluid gameplay that Command & Conquer is known for and a gripping story that will redefine storytelling in RTS games.

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Feeling of News Titles

"Man says he's on heroin to avoid jury duty" - Awesome... Finally someone steps up to the worthless procedure we still use.

"Nicole sideman, Keith Urban honeymoon begins" - Who cares?

"Men with older brothers more likely to be gay" - I'm starting to think America is just plain bored...

"NASA wrestling with same old problems" - Maybe it's because our one agency to develop technology for the future, our future, is the most under budgeted.

"Coming soon -- mind-reading computers" - It's about time...

Weekend Fun

Enough Said...

I'm a Loser Baby, So Why Don't You Kill Me

Scientology hurts people a lot. It hasn't stood the test of time, which makes it more of a cult than anything else. I researched Scientology for my college journalism graduate studies project and here's what I found.

As it's core tenet, Scientology teaches that all the bad things in the world come from negative life experiences. For example, if you were bitten by a dog as a child, without realizing it you might develop an irrational fear of dogs (preventing negative life experiences is why they insist their babies be born in complete silence). Using special auditing techniques and e-meter technology, both of which Scientology claims L Ron Hubbard created, they believe they are able to remove these bad thoughts from your body.

This premise of Scientology, when explained as being part of science, seems reasonable enough to get people started in the cult.

Read full story here...

Next Project

Now that my pond project is done (I am working on getting pictures up), I have decided to move right into the second project - patio pergola.

More on this as I research cost and such...

Drama Llama

New House Project

The first project of my backyard experience is the Koi pond (see concept to the left). I'm going to excavate one of the corners of my backyard to create a mound. Using the newly developed elevation I will construct a two tier waterfall into a 100 gallon pool.

Designing and landscaping the pond was easy, the next part, using mathematics to come up with size, was more challenging. I used the simple calculus formula to calculate actual gallons of the two waterfall tiers and the pool: V = Pi * r^2 * h (where v=volume, r=radius and h=height or depth). It looked something like this:

V = (Pi * 4^2 * 3) + 2(Pi * 1^2 * 1.5)

This was very important to determine equipment, plumbing and electrical.

Now the only problem is ordering the rocks (both price and weight)... I should begin development in the next few weeks - I will keep posted on progress.

Other backyard projects include:

• Two tier cedar deck
• Above ground hot tub
• Stone bar
• Cedar pergola
• Built-In BBQ and/or fire pit
• Landscaping

Pet Store Fun

Birds are cool...

Another New Toy

I know it's been some time since that last post... Many things have been going on which regrettably forces me to neglect the blog.

Anyways, I made it down to the gun show last week at Dallas Market Hall... This was a first Texas experience for me and I must say, not the last! I was in the market for a Bulgarian AK-47 and some discounted 7.62x39 ammo which I was able to find abundant at the show (at least mostly).

After searching around I started to get weary about finding a Kalashnikov that I liked and for a good price. I finally stumbled upon Military Gun Supply's booth and quickly found Romanian WASR-10's (a post-ban variant of the Russian AK-47/Kalashnikov) which was good enough for what I was looking for. They are of lesser grade then the Bulgarian but I was just looking for a weapon to shoot around with at the range, not a fine collectors item.

Once I got home, I quickly rounded up my stuff and headed to my friends ranch out in the country. His land has proved to be a good spot before and he owns a modified Chinese SKS which is similar to my new weapon.

Firing a Kalashnikov is truly unique... Not only can you identify the sound from a far away but everything down to the firing system to simplicity wins my battle over this and the rival AR-15 (M-16).