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Rocket Jones

June 26, 2007

More LEGO Virtuosity

Hella cool, in a deep down in your gut kinda way.

Posted by: Ted at 05:52 AM | Comments (815) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

First Hockey Post of the Upcoming Season

Check out this hilarious rundown on the NHL draft.

Enjoy live blogging like this:

5:38: Playing the role of Blues GM John Davidson today, none other than Dr. Phil! That's a surprise! They take Swedish centre Lars Eller, who just downgraded from Swedish beauties to Missouri girls in the span of three seconds. You have to feel for Lars. I don't remember a porno series called "St. Louis Erotica."

Koooooooo-dooooooooze to Off Wing Opinion for the link.

Posted by: Ted at 05:35 AM | Comments (63) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 25, 2007

Views and Reviews

Over on the sidebar, I've updated my list of recently viewed flicks, and the new reviews are up at Joe Horror. This week, I give my take on Werewolf Woman.

Posted by: Ted at 11:45 AM | Comments (31) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Murdering Capitalist Running Dogs, One Family At A Time

The headline says it all:

In German crash test, China's Brilliance BS6 sedan fails miserably

"Fails miserably" is the understatement of the year. The thing is a deathtrap, and after seeing the photos of the crash results, you'll realize that "deathtrap" isn't hyperbole.

Posted by: Ted at 11:36 AM | Comments (51) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Smile For The Camera, Even If You're Wearing A Mask

Thanks to a good bud for sending me this link:

The traffic cameras in England are called Gatsos after the manufacturer. Apparently destroying the cameras has become popular sport. Here are four pages of photos showing how people fight back against government surveillance.

Posted by: Ted at 05:24 AM | Comments (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 24, 2007

Mama Always Said I Was Good Fer Nothin'

Thanks to Michele, who's taking a brief break.
$5425.00

Mingle² - Online Dating

I wonder if that's calculated by the pound?

Posted by: Ted at 05:55 PM | Comments (69) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

This Looks Like Fun

In Garrett County, Maryland, a new resort has opened that features a man-made white water rafting course. Built with boulders quarried from the mountain and concrete, there are steel plates at the bottom of the run that can redirect the current to alter the difficulty of the experience from class II to class IV. Cost is $50.00 for a two hour slot, which includes about a half hour of instruction, and four or more runs through the rapids. The water recirculates through a calm "lake" portion as you circle back to the top of the rapids. Looks like they offer kayaking classes too.

Posted by: Ted at 05:46 PM | Comments (59) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Return To Nature?

Like many other parts of the country, our local area has suffered from an explosion of McMansions: those bloated, overgrown houses on ridiculously small lots. Some of these huge homes are set within 10 or 20 feet of each other, and their front and back yards are as small as the ones in a regular townhouse neighborhood.

I'm not griping about the size of the homes, I'm griping about the density.

Driving past one such new development going up, we noted that each unit was four stories, with the bottom floor being a garage. They were shot through with oddly shaped windows to appear upscale and trendy, even unique if you ignored the thirty other homes in sight with the exact same floorplan. They call this one "The Villages at Rippon".

martin house.jpg

I call it "The Purple Martin House at Rippon."

Posted by: Ted at 05:26 PM | Comments (71) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 21, 2007

News From Iraq: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly

If you aren't reading Michael Yon, you should be. He's been embedded in Iraq for quite some time now and writing about what he sees.

About the current big operation going on:

The enemy in Baqubah is as good as any in Iraq, and better than most. That�s saying a lot. But our guys have been systematically trapping them, and have foiled some big traps set for our guys. I don�t want to say much more about that, but our guys are seriously outsmarting them. Big fights are ahead and we will take serious losses probably, but al Qaeda, unless they find a way to escape, are about to be slaughtered. Nobody is dropping leaflets asking them to surrender. Our guys want to kill them, and that�s the plan.
A positive indicator on the 19th and the 20th is that most local people apparently are happy that al Qaeda is being trapped and killed. Civilians are pointing out IEDs and enemy fighters, so that�s not working so well for al Qaeda.

Unvarnished truth about civilian casualties, access to information and the daily lives of coalition troops in Iraq. From the point, not from inside the Green Zone.

Posted by: Ted at 04:46 PM | Comments (56) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 20, 2007

Rocket Content

I am now learning the art of making my own electric matches. The point being that you dip the electric match into pyrogen* to create an igniter. The igniter is slipped into the core of a pyrodex pellet which is then placed into the heart of the rocket motor. When the pyrodex pellet is ignited it simultaneously builds the pressure in the combustion chamber, preheats the fuel grain, and burns the fill hose away from the injector which allows the nitrous oxide to make its contribution to the magic of thrust-producing science.

Very. Loud. Science.

*From the Rocketflight Products website comes this description of their Magnelite Igniter pyrogen:

Once ignited the pyrogen burns for approximately one second at a temperature around 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit! Amperage requirement for successful ignition is 5 to 6 amps at 12 volts DC per igniter.

FYI: 5,400 degrees is very close to the temperature of the surface of the sun!

Science, baby!!!

Posted by: Ted at 05:38 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

New Reviews!

Over at Joe Horror. My contributions this week include reviews of The Curious Dr. Humpp, Waxwork and Waxwork II: Lost in Time.

Posted by: Ted at 05:03 AM | Comments (42) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 19, 2007

Pushing Up Happy Little Daisies

If you're a Bob Ross fan, you'll get the joke up above.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that You Tube has quite a few Bob Ross "Joy of Painting" episodes available, as well as plenty of wicked funny parodies of the gentle man.

Thanks to Brian J though, for pointing out this video inspired by Bob Ross, titled "Why I Don't Paint People". I love it.

Posted by: Ted at 07:18 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sweet Dilemma

Over at The Ministry of Minor Perfidy, Bastille Day has been chosen as D-Day for a soiree involving alcohol, cigars and Axis and Allies.

Alas, like most summer weekends, that particular day offers choices for this social butterfly. The following day, July 15th is Mookie's birthday (she was born, appropriately enough, in Landstuhl, Germany), and we had tentative plans to travel south to see the musical that she is costuming this summer.

If not culture, then Bastille Day also offers my next chance (and last before mid-August) to launch rockets. Despite the lack of posting about them, I still build and fly, and am looking to try some new tweaks to my hybrid system.

And now, the opportunity to push cardboard around and determine the fate of nations via the cast of the die (note to self: check the local game-geek store for yellow dice to honor the French). It's not easy to find people to play wargames with. Correction, it's not easy to find people to play wargames with that you aren't ashamed to be seen in public with.

It's probably no accident that Buckethead lives far out in the countryside at the end of a long dirt road.

Posted by: Ted at 05:28 AM | Comments (130) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 18, 2007

Targeted Ads

I was reading that news story about the flooding going on in Fort Worth, Texas, and along the column were ads for "Nostradamus Online" and "Surplus Army Tents". Make of that what you will.

Posted by: Ted at 11:17 AM | Comments (58) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Call Me Paranoid, But...

In Warning From Space, aliens came to Earth to "help" mankind. Here's what they looked like:

We responded (rightly, to my mind) by shooting at them.

Recently, I think they've decided to try again. They've developed a disguise to appear friendlier and more likable, but I'm not fooled:

When he jumped out of the box, I was so startled that I responded (rightly, to my mind) by shooting at him.

We've been wanting a bigger television anyway.

Posted by: Ted at 05:41 AM | Comments (31) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Terrorism Goes To The Movies

I don't have a "Beautiful Sarcasm" category, so this will go under "Cult Flicks" and "Links".

The title is "Terrorism Goes to the Movies" (yep, I stole it for the title above), and it was written last September. Here's a snippet about the movies Alien and the sequel Aliens:

...I have to point out that I was repelled by the socio-political message this movie sends. A team of US Colonial Marines is dispatched to a colony to kill illegal alien beings there. No one mentioned obtaining approval from the United Nations for unilaterally attacking these illegal aliens. And the diplomatic factor was absolutely non-existent, no effort whatever was made to deal reasonably with these illegal aliens, to give them a chance to stand down and cease their hostilities. At no point did the US characters ever ask, "Why do they hate us?"
While it's true an illegal alien killed every member of Ripley's original Nostromo space ship crew without any warning whatever, a stunning surprise attack that terrorized the crew during a meal, there were no follow-up efforts to negotiate any sort of peace with the freedom-fighter -- they just unilaterally decided to kill it, as was the case with a group of these alien beings in the sequel. After the first attack on the Nostromo, everyone should have simply turned the page and moved on. After all, what's passed is past, it's old news. In the sequel, there was no patience or diplomacy whatever in dealings with the illegal aliens, the crew simply attacked and attempted to kill all of them they could.
What if the illegal aliens were driven by an ancient religion that required them to kill all the members of any other species they encountered? Who were these Marines, to question that cultural ideal? The message this sends about such creatures is that the only way to stop them is to kill them, or they will always be striving to kill you. The Marines should have done some yoga instead, and asked themselves again and again, "Why do they hate us?" They at least should have sent in some inspectors -- and if that failed, they should have given the inspections more time to work. Nothing in the world will deter terrorism more effectively than giving inspectors more time.

There is so much more there, funny and oh-so-true.

Posted by: Ted at 05:23 AM | Comments (31) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 17, 2007

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Liz and I travelled to the wilds of Maryland last night to see our local team, the Potomac Nationals, play the Frederick Keys. We met up with Nic and Victor and had a great time, although I discovered to my dismay that the P-Nats (a cringe-worthy nickname, if ever I've heard one), suck just as bad on the road as they do at home.

Afterwards, being that we were only a few miles from CharlesTown, we went there and Liz spent a few hours playing the slots. We dragged in, tired but happy (and a tad poorer), at 5am. Liz is still sleeping, and I've spent the morning enjoying Father's Day cards, talking to the girls on the phone and just generally chilling out.

Life is good.

Posted by: Ted at 11:41 AM | Comments (51) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Twisted Logic

Methane is a greenhouse gas.
Greenhouse gasses are causing global warming.
Termites eat wood.
Termites fart a lot because of their diet.
Termite farts are methane.
New Orleans was overrun with termites.
Flooding New Orleans killed trillions of termites.
The government is responsible for flooding New Orleans.

Why isn't the federal government getting credit for the single greatest action in recent history to reduce the production of the greenhouse gas that causes global warming?

(inspired by this post)

Posted by: Ted at 09:40 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

You Learn Something Every Day

For instance:

The vervet monkey has a vivid blue scrotum which pales when the animal falls in social rank.

But knowing that is mere trivia. The inquisitive mind wants to know why?

Follow that link and be enlightened. Heh.

Posted by: Ted at 08:31 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 15, 2007

Near Perfect Shopping Experience

I love shopping at Wal-Mart. It's really quite amazing how every store has pretty much the same stuff, and the economies of scale really keep prices remarkably low. It's not the greatest quality stuff in the world, but it is reasonable quality for an excellent price, and that's why people shop there.

Their inventory and distribution systems work with an efficiency that would've made the Nazi's proud. Their employee drones are helpful and friendly in an eerie stepford wives sort of way.

I'll bet the corporate fat cats rake in the bucks, sitting in their opulent mansions in Sweden, thanking their lucky stars that the anti-globalization crowd leaves them the hell alone so they can take advantage of Sven Everyman...

Wait... Sweden?

I'm sorry, I typed "Wal-Mart", but what I meant to type was "Ikea". I've never heard of any opposition to them. I assume that they get a pass because they're European.

I love the goofy names they give everything. Bookshelves called "Turgid", comic book organizers with a name made up of letters never meant to be consecutive. If they sell a "Muuki", I'm sure it'll be something weird and wonderful like a tofu-wringer or something.

Their showrooms are masterpieces of marketing and psychology. You start at the beginning and follow the arrows on the floor, and you don't get out until you've seen every last thing on both floors. There are convenient shortcuts, and they're not hidden but they are very unobtrusive. You're not supposed to notice them, you're supposed to see every last thing on both floors.

Nothing is free, everything is reasonably priced. I bought some bookcases today and spent a buck for a hank of rope ("Tot", with a long oh, hehe) to tie the trunk lid down. The engineering of the bookcases is magnificent, as was the packaging. For the money we'll get years of use out of them.

The only problem I have with Ikea is the lack of outrage about their corporate existance. I mean, if I'm going to shop at a globe-spanning mega-corporation, I want the guilty pleasure of being reviled for excessive and notable conspicuous consumption. I demand the sly satisfaction of knowing that I'm pissing off a commie or tree-hugger just because I've entered the store. I'm being denied the opportunity to annoy organized labor!

C'mon people, where's the hate?

Posted by: Ted at 09:27 PM | Comments (777) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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