Starship dimensions: comparing the size of spaceships from many Sci-Fi series’.
David Wain, co-creator of The State, on A.V. Club
Diagram of the location of Trans-Neptunian objects, like Pluto and Xena Eris.
Comparisons between very different sized objects. It’s loads more fun than it sounds.
Filed under 1_Link / Picture Dump
MacGuyver debuted 24 years ago in 1985. I was a die-hard fan as a kid, growing out of it for a while, then turning back to the reruns fairly recently. Someone out there is a much bigger fan than I am. Here is a listing of many major shooting locations for the show, occuring throughout its 7 seasons and a little beyond.
<a href=”http://www.rdanderson.com/macgyver/location/location.htm”>MacGuyver Shooting Locations</a>
Filed under 1980s, Movies & TV
Check out my very good friend at Kanteker’s Blog.
Synopsis for One of the Coolest Movies Ever (Wikipedia)
Funny “Republican Disease” rant. Trust me, it goes both ways.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and His Wife Go RV’ing.
Filed under 1_Link / Picture Dump
I found this at HaHa.nu. Get the original file here.
Filed under Computers & Technology, Music
Top Ten Philosophical Movies Within This Author’s Memory
Free Audiobooks (lots of Classic Literature)
Filed under 1_Link / Picture Dump
My disorganization, your gain. I know for a fact that I’ve posted some of these, but I’ve also tweeted some of these without posting here, and vice versa…whatever, here they are.
Filed under 1_Link / Picture Dump, Video Games
Yes, it’s Eid ul-Fitr, the start of the Muslim Fast! I had no idea what Waldo’s religious affiliation was…
Filed under Misc.
With the 9th anniversary of 9/11 behind us, the deadliest terrorist attack on New York City prior to 9/11 occurred a whole 80 years prior, or 89 years ago today. A horse-drawn carraige carrying the explosives was left at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street, with grisly results. The very-gory details can be found at Damn Interesting [link].
Filed under History
(2009 Aaron: Painfully sappy lyrics ahead. You have been warned. I’m guessing this is about 1996.)
I’m dying to survive
in this love I created
but I feel so restricted
from the things that I can try
Don’t you know that I dream of you
Every night of my life
You cut me like a knife,
and with your love you run me through
I have no where to hide
From the feelings deep inside
I know I can’t deny
That I love you too, no matter how hard I try
for our sakes, to run away
The feelings always stay
I’ve forgotten all the days
before I saw you come my way
The path that lies before me
Is clear enough for me to travel
Even if my life does unravel
I only want to be
With you, and in the end
I want to see your face
My life would be a waste
If you could not become my closest friend.
Filed under Writing & Poetry
I found this via Hark, a vagrant, one of my favorite web-comics. Being Canadian-themed once in a while, it reminds me of the lack of respect the Dakotas get, except spread throughout an entire country.
Filed under Music
The Toy Man
Jumping Beans, Nerf UFO, Squishy “Squoosh” ball, boomerang,
All through his life, Phil had been interested in small toys. His first had real small toy had been a G.I. Joe, one that he’d bought himself with some money his Grandma had given him for pulling some weeds in her backyard. The guys G.I. Joe’s name was Roadblock, and he Phil had bought him because Roadblock was the baddest ass in the entire Joe team. To Phil, that was what mattered. Not that he had the biggest gun, though that helped. It wasn’t that he was black, though that helped too, because in the Northern Midwest White America, he knew that believed in the “Mr. T”, “Black Power, scaring the shit out of whitey” attitude. belief everyone” belief. It was the fact that Roadblock had a presence about him, especially on the cartoon show. You simply didn’t fuck with Roadblock. Simple as that.
Well, everybody seemed to enjoy fucking with Phil. He was that kid on the playground, you know the one, who just took what you gave him. You could put a shoe into a buttcheek, steal his glasses, or shove him into the chain link fence. After And so on. Up till third grade you could at least have the satisfaction of sending him off to the teacher in tears. After that, he just took it. No tears, no hiding, no nothing. Just gone.
In the forth grade, I became his friend.
Filed under Writing & Poetry
Da Da Da by Trio (embedding disabled)
I just remember this from a Volkswagen Ad from the 1990’s. This one in fact:
Which brings us to Ballmer and Gates.
Filed under Music
The power of the mind is a wonderful thing. At least it was. Now it is nothing but. Without control it is just a mindless torrent of death.
My name is Eric, and I am writing this with no pen, no keyboard. My mind is in direct contact with the computer right now. I am, for all of my knowledge, the strongest human being in the world, or at least in the local 500 mi Radius vicinity. Forgive me if my wording is strange, but right now I don’t care.
I am 19 years of age, just entering College, Black Hills State University to be precise, and I was a normal boy–man, until twelve weeks ago today. That’s when it started.
—-page 2 —–
“So, what did you do today?”
“Well, not much really. Classes were fine, but nothing much happened.”
“That’s too bad. You could change that, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”, Eric said. “I try, but it doesn’t work.”
“Maybe try in different ways, then. Have you – hold on, I have another call, can I call you back?”
“No, I better go anyhow. Bye Dad.”
“Bye Eric. Keep your spirits — [BEEP] -p, woah, I better get that. Bye Eric!”
Relief passed over Eric as his father got off the phone. Eric tried, harder than he ever had in high school, but nothing seemed to be enough. It never ended – the failure – and he was alone here.
The phone was ringing. It was his mother, he thought, so he let the machine take it. Eric was right, as always. I mean, who else could it be?
College life was no life as far as he was concerned, Eric thought. I can’t find anyone, I can’t even talk to them. My roommate is an asshole who can’t even say hello, let alone be nice, and all of my teachers have no clue.
Filed under Writing & Poetry
(This is news copy I wrote for a college radio job at Black Hills State University’s radio station, “The Buzz”. I left any inconsistencies, spelling errors, and cases of incorrect verbiage untouched.)
Hello, I’m Aaron, and this is a Buzz NewsBreak.
Thousands of black men are marching on Washington today, where they’ll hold a rally at the Washington Mall. The rally is part of a Million Man March, organized by Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam.
One small group of the rallyers walked 130 miles from Philadelphia to the meetingplace in Washington. However, there are some Black Leaders who say they will not march at all because they say, Farrakhan is a race-baiter.
Many others see the march as a positive way that black men can build self esteem by enforcing good values such as taking more personal responsibility for their lives, their families, and their communities.
Hundreds of Buses from all over the nation arrived this morning in Washington, where several thousand attended a service last night.
Supporting the rally is ex-presidential candidate Jesse Jackson, while President Clinton is not supporting the meet. Clinton cites Farrakhan’s controversial viewpoints as his reasoning for the lack of support.
Filed under Writing & Poetry
When this theme song is done right, regardless of the instruments involved, it brings tears to my eyes. I realize this was supposed to be somewhat funny, but man they did a good job. I thought this would be a good video for a day that always brings me down. Peace on Earth and goodwill toward Men and Women, whether good, bad, or Fugly.
Filed under Music
The dark skies never ceased to worry Frank as he slowly paddled further and further from the security that was once his Space Freighter. For some unknown reason, his ship had repowered its thrusters, which had been dormant since the initial firing at Mars over 13 months ago. Since then, he had been napping.
A rather rude awakening, Frank awoke about half-way through the massive atmosphere of this planet, still not sure what type of planet it was, or even if it supported life (namely his). He had supplies for poisonous or hazardous planetary travel, but he had only enough for a couple months, and it would likely take longer for rescue.
Lucky, Frank thought with a sigh. Lucky to be alive.
According to his wrist radar, there was an island about 10 miles to the south. Again, lucky. He enjoyed reading while he wasn’t shipwrecked, about old rescues and trials of war victims, dating back to the first wars of America. Who knew that he’d be a victim of anything similar.
(2009 Aaron note: the ‘trials’ are not courtroom trials, but a synonym for ‘difficulties’.)
At the bottom of the page, there is a strange drawing. 
Filed under Writing & Poetry
40% of Twitter messages are pointless babble.
Quite a few creative Wine labels.
The tame photo-shoot with a notorious picture of Roseanne Barr as Hitler.
Filed under 1_Link / Picture Dump
(Game / Technology Idea – Me 2009)
Title: Frog Insane / Seabuddy
– Frog clicker
– Frog hops based on clicks
– Chat with frog
– frogger mini-game
– karopi kidnapping
Tamagotchi – upon death, the fish eat him
Strange Tamagotchi (circled)
1. Fun: eat insects (like monkey boy), cross dresses (models in front of mirror), juggles fish
2. Feed – shows him getting thinner – overfeeding crowds in the fish. Under feeding shows clothes falling off.
3. Exercise – turn into muscular Arnold character. Bench presses a thrashing shark.
4. If desperately hungry, a hook with a worm appears, and he eats it. (Not Suicidal)
5. Prays for further spiritual growth.
Display: what buttons? Currently: Feed, play, stroke.
?Fish Tank? *crack glass when angry (glass strength)
* Add rocks for increased happiness.
KEEP IT SIMPLE to start.
(Display drawing: looks like a fish tank with wood grain top and bottom)
>> post-it note stuck to sheet: an old prayer list
1) Pray for clarity in mind
2) Pray for the safety of Bush and his family
3) for my family
?) Social distortion
Filed under Writing & Poetry
Interesting simple way to remove excess hair. Since I was 13, I’ve gotten a few stray weird mutant hairs here and there on my face and ears. This would seem like a viable solution, but nah. I guess I’m just posting because of my fascination for the simplicity of this method.
typed page:
when was the first time I decided to do it? when was it…was it 1997, or earlier?I threw the computer out the winder at that point, and watched it slowly fall to the ground…but it stopped before it reached the bottom of the alleyway. The world stopped, but I kept on moving. I moved the world another foot, maybe 3 until I felt it was fine, it was the only place it was necessarily the one way, the soul fool presence, the one position, the rightness of the nightness, and it was fine. It was fine, and I was finally. Fine, I’ll get the computer before it falls, and lead it back into my room, or else my possession, my self, will be fallen on the street, broken into a million pieces. I can’t have that somehow. I can’t let my soul go. Even though I don’t make use of it at all, I don’t write, I don’t even read. I’m lucky to listen to my book on tape for an hour a night. I can’t even feel anymore, I feel numb, about 10% of what I was. I don’t feel angry, I just work at my job, and I’m better at it than I ever was, but I stopped feeling a while ago, I left my friends behind save my one best friend, but even she I don’t give my all, I leave her behind as I melt inside my lack of ego, and the world falls away as I fall out of the window toward the alleyway that doesn’t exist, but I feel the buildings closed in around the narrow alley, so narrow, almost no light reaching the street, and I look up to the world above, and it feels so far away from me. I miss being able to see the stars, but I’m lucky to see the sun these days. I need to stop the world from moving and get myself back up to the top of all this. I need to reach the top of that fire escape, and see the sun again, feel the true wind instead of the suction between the buildings pull me off the ladder, try to throw me back down into the street. I’m better than everyone at one thing that I don’t even use. I make mild musings and think they are the most profound things, I do these things I don’t even really like that much. Not bad people, just the opposite. But I’m not one among them, I’m one away from them. I don’t feel in the programming as they do, I just mildly relate to what they do. I am a writer, I write, and I don’t play games, I don’t write or break code. I just let the words flow through my fingers, as I write books, books and books of stories and poetry and worlds of my imagination better to myself than anyone else, even the mighty King. I write my stories better than anyone else can tell them, and I do it better than anyone else on Earth. I am a writer. I am a writer. I am a writer. I need to create Henry’s life. I need to create his love, and his pain, and his redemption, for it will be his, he does not walk away from his truth once it becomes his vision, as I must not walk away from Henry’s truth. I am Henry in a way. I am muddled and waking up, slowly, and I need to schedule time to work out, and time to write, every night. I am writer. And I write.
Sparklehorse – Ghost Of His Smile
(handwritten on back) If it falls to someone other than me to improve this world, it might be damnation for me for the missed opportunity to serve.
Filed under Writing & Poetry
I am the one who knows. That is my name, given by a race of man that has long since passed away. I am also known as the older one, the one who feeds, and the one who has forgotten, although those three names are really not who I am, not anymore. I once was a man, but now I am as far from that as I am from a bird or a snake. Now and again I can communicate in this way, pen to paper, although it is so primitive to me now that I have difficulty even thinking.
There are things in the world that should be so obvious to someone who knows, but even I am surprised now and then. I should think I should never wonder any longer, but I do not. I have seen too much not to wonder. It is difficult to explain this in a way you might understand, but the more you see, the more you really see the world, the more you want to see, and the more you wonder about, unseen. The only way I have seen the pattern repeat itself is with the want of money, land, and possessions, for all three are wants that never seem to negate after time. It is something deeply human, even more primitive than that I suppose.
Filed under Writing & Poetry
One of my favorite blogs turns Five Years Old today. Dr. Strangelove is a fellow refugee of the Cow God worshipers (Gateway 2000 Tech Support), and has a sense of humor I can relate to. Be sure to check out his site <a href=”http://siouxfallsstrange.blogspot.com”>Sioux Falls Strange</a>.
Filed under Blog
The ten poly-rands. (2009 Me: This was a catch-phrase I used to denote a random list of…something.)
1. Circle of bells (Headband)
2. Small baggie of crushed roseflower.
3. A half-decomposed sparrow.
4. A greenish blue stone, polished
5. A round, ornate, convex mirror
6. A keychain with a soundmaker attached.
7. A rusty cross – made with railroad ties
8. A domino with 5/2 on one side, and a sloppy infinity sign on the other.
9. A deep blue marble
10. A dark, deep blue pen.
Don’t let the turkeys get you down – Ronald Reagan
(2009 me: HOLY CRAP. I am officially weirded out now.)
Filed under Writing & Poetry
<a href=”http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=42464″>Unhappy Hat.</a>
Filed under Misc.
Story ideas:
1. We life in Sioux Falls, commute to Minneapolis and Denver on the hypertrain – subsonic train goes 422mph. Sioux Falls is still relatively clean and crime-free.
2.Sioux Falls is 600,000 pop. – 9x the size though. Humongous homes due to cheap robotic labor.
3. Religion has changed to a very open relationship – further along the chain from 1900 to today
4. 2 Female presidents, 1 Black, 2 Hispanic. Currently a new president, white, who’s wife has recently been killed by pro-leftist assassins, and the daughter of the previous president.
5. Surge of Earth Music, and the cocooning of mankind. (note: This refers to writings by Faith Popcorn. -2009 Aaron)
6. Another remake of “Fever”
7. Crystal microphone – similar to iMac splers (sp?)
8. Cross lasers – creating psychedelic visions in mid-air – focused lasers doing such
9. Need a newer form of music (which will predict approximate highs and lows in the economy for 45 years)
10. Blandiose (Bland but Grand) cars with few exceptions, but cars drive themselves for the most part.
11. Entrance of the flying – grid – net cars (hero’s car is stylin’, totally. Update of a ’56 Chevy)
12. Alexander Spense. Goes by “Skip” Sense.
> Land Beyond the Sun – Jim Gordon
13. New Drug – Electrodes touching pleasure & sex centers of the brain.
14. Optic wire replaces TV. Gross as possible as it just smothers the eye.
15. Video game – virtual chases for exercise. Running down a perp, running away from a tiger on city streets, etc.
That’s it. Feel free to steal these ideas. No, really, I do not want them.
Filed under Writing & Poetry
Okay, here’s the scoop: I’ve been lugging around boxes and boxes of old poems, drawings, and random writings for many years. It’s getting old to have to hang onto all these old, yellowing pages. So, I’m going to share them with you. For those who will attempt to read onward: COURAGE. This is only the first of many, many installments.
Untitled poem: no date
And now I sleep
beneath the earth
and in the
nothingness I burn.
I still Live
I still breathe
I still continue
to be free
And I’m starting to feel free.
Filed under Writing & Poetry
An interesting how-to site on what to do if you’ve somehow totally screwed yourself over and ended up in the middle of the woods without a working cellphone, GPS, or compass. <a href=”http://www.learn-orienteering.org/old/nocompass1.html”>How to not die in the forest and use shadows to make a compass.</a>
Filed under Science & Space
Bugloaf 
Old Writings #12: Quenthrust (3-2-93)
(Note: This was my version of the book “Fatherland” by Robert Harris. I still have never read the novel, but I liked the ideas, expanding them with the South winning the Civil War, thereby weakening the United States and not allowing it to fully enter World War 2. I was about 17 when I wrote this.)
Wednesday, August 11
The lights of the neon lights are bearing down on me again. Just flashing over and over again.
Wednesday, August 11
11:40 pm
Messages until 11:00 on Sundays and Wednesdays of the 8th month. No messages on the MegaBord at this time.
Wednesday, August 11
Of course, I think silently, it’s not really neon. The videoscreens were made to send out the neon-like light, to penetrate this city’s endless dank and foggy nights.
No civilians are supposed to be out tonight. None of them have the proper clearance to.
It is a holiday, one of the two major ones in August. The National Commission is thinking of combining the two holidays, thereby limiting vacation time and increasing national productivity. I don’t think that it will happen though. The Confederate people of this nation old their holidays, their holidays of triumph, in very high regard.
Today is Independence Day, a day for staying home with your family, viewing into your mind numbing television, to kill your free will, to imprison your mind like the rest of America. Everyone is supposed to tune in to all the civil celebrations at this time, repeated from earlier in the day; all the fireworks, all the rebel songs of the South, and finally the pledges of allegiance to the Rebel and the Nazi flags, standing side by side, floating lazily in the wind. I attended one of these celebrations earlier, as all officers and ex-officers are required to by law. I must keep up the charade if I am to win.
No one is supposed to be on the streets unless they are of a certain rank in the ‘Corps. It all seems rather insane to me.
I walk down the street dressed in my full-length, brown, leather trench coat, with my briefcase in hand and a cigarette in the other. I tried to quit smoking once, a long time ago, but the stuff they put in these now makes it awful hard to.
I push up the rim of my horned rim glasses, thick as old Colt-Cola bottles of the olden days, right up until they got the neruosteel cans. I miss the bottles, so much that every now and then I’ll pull one of the two that I saved, wash the dust out of it, and slowly fill it up with Cold or R.C. Cola. I miss not having to do that.
The Ad-Verts on the twenty-feet-high MegaBord televisions still show off the bottle, as the actor drinks the Colt Cola, as if to show the world that there still exists a couple Colt bottles in the world. I hate them. I hate them all.
A soldier comes up on my left, and I tilt my Fedora at him, the best I can muster at a salute. He nods, the neo-swastikka glimmering in the reflected light of the nearby MegaBord set. He is not marching. I don’t think, in the past forty years of my life, that I have ever seen a basic streetsoldier, even at this hour, not marching. The only time that they aren’t required to march is in combat. They are slipping every day.
Something is wrong. He’s a lookout man. I hear the clatter of boots, walking slowly on the asphalt pavement, to an alleyway on my right. Out of the corner of my eye I see him run to an awaiting motorcycle with another man driving it. He gets on and rides off.
My eyes begin to redden, my vision is turning crimson in the depths of night. A bloody tear drips from my eye, following my nose until it drips from the tip. The blood drop lands on my right shoe, but I keep on walking, ignoring it. This always happens.
A bell sounds out from the MegaBord thirty feet back:
“BING-BONG! It is now Eleven Forty-Five P.M!
Have a safe and happy Independence Day!
Brought to you by the Confederate Broadcasting
Network, A C B N, Channel Seven. Thank you,
and Good Night! BING BONG!
Behind the noise of the MegaBord, a clanking of metal reaches my ears. It is a soda pop can, R.C. Cola from the sound of it.
This is one of my few talents in life. That among about four things. The first talent is the ability to identify what type of popcan is clattering along, simply by the sound of it rolling along the ground. This trick I learned at the Nazi Training Camp I attended in my youth. The Colt-Cola cans, then called Colton Cola, sound a bit lighter and they clatter a little bit more than most, and the R.C. Cola cans are about the heaviest ones out there. The neuro steel is virtually indestructable except when recycling, but are nearly useless
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Filed under Blogsmith Commentary, Writing & Poetry