Lynn from Reflections in D minor has put together the latest quiz to show just how uncivilized we are. Personally, I'm such a gentleman I take the dishes out of the sink before I pee (who recognizes that quote?).

Anyway, the choices are in the extended entry, and my preferences in bold. more...

Posted by: Ted at 10:04 PM | category: Links
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I watched Bound last night, starring Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon.

What is it about Gina Gershon that women find so attractive? She's not a classic beauty, but she is easy on the eyes, and I suspect that there's something more than just physical looks that drives ladies wild.

For the record, I really like the movie.

I just stumbled across another little interesting movie tidbit. The flick Donnie Darko (very odd so far) just started, starring Jake Gyllenhaal who also played Homer Hickam in October Sky (rocket movie, yay!), and is also the brother of Maggie Gyllenhaal, who starred in Secretary and plays one of the sisters in Donnie Darko.

No Kevin Bacon's were harmed during the making of this post.

Posted by: Ted at 10:30 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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1 I really like Donnie Darko--it's wierd, but compelling...

Posted by: Susie at July 11, 2004 02:23 AM (veDkk)

2 I saw "Bound" at an art house cinema when it first came out. Personally, I imagine the attraction to Gina Gershon comes from putting her next to an annoying Jennifer Tilly. But then again, Gina was just so intense and, let's face it, the girl knew how to use tools and guns. What's not to love?

Posted by: dawn at July 11, 2004 02:59 PM (Zgn4s)

3 Gershon is extremely hot... she's got that "look" that all men like... like she'd screw you into a coma or something... but don't listen to her sing....

Posted by: Madfish Willie at July 12, 2004 09:07 PM (yN46R)

4 It's those lips. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Posted by: Kin at August 25, 2004 10:42 AM (t9u+J)

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Gahan Wilson. You may recognize his style, if not the name. Wonderful cartoonist who appeared for years in Playboy and National Lampoon, among other publications that teenagers searched through looking for pictures of boobs.

Posted by: Ted at 09:30 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Saddam's visit to court, soundtrack provided by ZZ Top - Sharp Dressed Man.

Thanks to Travelling Shoes for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 08:24 AM | category: Links
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Here ya go, Susie. No links for monkey boy, but in his honor I just watched Bride of the Gorilla, starring Raymond Burr, from 1951. Good flick.

Posted by: Ted at 10:20 PM | category: Links
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I'm discovering that trying to read internet sites not specifically formatted for PDA viewing can be a royal pain in the butt.

Eric McErlain's Off Wing Opinion is wonderful. He's got a dedicated mirror site that formats everything nicely, so that when I 'sync' and it gets downloaded, it shows up beautifully on the screen of my iPAQ. So I get all the great OWO sports articles in a handy, easy to read format.

On the other hand, sites like Scrappleface or USS Clueless are difficult to deal with because of scrolling issues, as in horizontal scrolling, because the pages are too wide and don't format properly (if at all) when being downloaded.

Now it's certainly not their problem, because I imagine it's another bit of work involved to put up a PDA-formatted site with your content, and who wants more to do just for a relatively few readers.

So I was wondering, might it be possible to use an RSS aggregator to collect posts from hither and yon, using it to strip away the problem bits, and then point the AvantGo channel to the RSS output?

Must do more research...

Posted by: Ted at 11:51 AM | category: Links
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World Court Rules Isreal's West Bank Barrier Illegal. Oops, I think they misspelled "effective". I've struggled with this one, because of the parallels between this wall and the Berlin Wall. Major (and critical) differences exist, but the two absolutely share the trait of being effective.

Moving right along...

The headline should've read "This Security Briefing brought to you by the letters 'C', 'Y', and 'A'". What exactly was the reason for that worthless little infomercial? Besides having something to point to later when the idiots start whining about not being warned, that is. Intelligence gathering is difficult and an incredibly inexact science art, and people need to start admitting that. The best organizations in the world get it wrong as often as not, and you'll seldom hear about the successes because it can compromise future operations. Yet now we get officials holding nonsensical press briefings to say the same thing they've been telling us all along in anticipation of some future molehill-sized fingerpointing fest.

Norbizness does this so much better than I do.

Redefining "jumping the shark".

All right, that's enough. I just saw a headline about cell phones damaging sperm, and the first thing that came to mind is "hang up while driving and getting a hummer".

Posted by: Ted at 06:10 AM | category: Links
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There has been some buzz in our little corner of the 'net about a certain someone posting her fuzzy grainy miniscule picture on her blog.

This isn't her.

This isn't either.

Nope.

But I bet you wish it was.

PS. I have a date with her. Neener neener.

Posted by: Ted at 05:05 AM | category: Links
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1 It's supposed to be a secret.

Posted by: Jennifer at July 09, 2004 08:37 AM (9idqe)

2 Nice try. You should post a better picture to disprove my thinly-veiled slander.

Posted by: Ted at July 09, 2004 09:06 AM (blNMI)

3 It took me a year to put THAT one up.

Posted by: Jennifer at July 09, 2004 09:17 AM (9idqe)

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Here is NASA's latest press release about the Student Launch Initiative. You may recall that one of the prizes in the Team America Rocketry Challenge was for teachers to attend education-related workshops. This is one of 'em.

I'm lazy this morning. Links to the Student Launch Initiative and Team America Rocketry Challenge are at the bottom of the press release, or you can use the Search box up in the right hand corner here at Rocket Jones.

Posted by: Ted at 04:54 AM | category: Rocketry
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Famous novelist or not, I'd have to vote no.

Thanks to Jennifer (who never links me) for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 07:06 PM | category:
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1 Ya think the ol' Creator of This n' That might just be jealous that he's never been invited to join MuNu?



And my vote's definately No, too.

Posted by: Linda at July 09, 2004 06:56 PM (mmKG+)

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I just finished lunch, a "spinach pocket" from a little coffee shop downstairs. It sounded intriguing. They took spinach and a whole bunch of mushrooms (more than I expected, but it was too late to tell 'em to hold them), threw it on the grill, topped it with a scoop of cottage cheese, then melted provolone over the top. Folded into a hot flatbread, it tasted better than it sounds.

Not that I'll be ordering it ever again.

Posted by: Ted at 12:27 PM | category: Square Pegs
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For Dawn, who probably needs these more than anyone else I know.

Posted by: Ted at 11:18 AM | category: Links
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Scaled Composites has released the telemetry data from the historic first flight into space by SpaceShipOne, and despite the success of the flight, it wasnÂ’t flawless. At one point near the end of the 76 second burn of the composite rocket motor, the automated pitch control quit functioning, forcing the pilot to switch over to the backup system. The slight loss of control cost SpaceShipOne some 6 miles from the expected altitude and caused the craft to reenter the atmosphere farther south than anticipated.

The data also shows that pilot Mike Melvill experienced weightlessness for over three minutes, and experienced 5gÂ’s during portions of the reentry.

This flight alone was not enough to win the X-Prize. The goal is to make two flights into space with the same manned craft (capable of carrying three people) within a two-week period. At a recent press conference, Burt Rutan would not rule out additional test flights before going for the prize.

Posted by: Ted at 09:42 AM | category: Space Program
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I've signed up for the AvantGo service for my iPAQ Pocket PC. What this means is that I can subscribe to selected online publications and have content downloaded onto my PDA. It's free, and so far the obligatory advertising is unobtrusive enough to make it worthwhile.

I'm wondering what kind of news service(s) y'all think I should get. They offer standards like The Wall St Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as Rueters and BBC. I was even pleasantly surprised to see the Christian Science Monitor available. I've got my own ideas about these, but would like to hear yours.

I'm just learning about how AvantGo actually works, but so far it's been fairly straightforward. I've successfully downloaded pages from a couple of technology pubs, plus Space.com and The Sporting News, and this morning I created a custom 'channel' for Eric McErlain's Off Wing Opinion. We'll see how that works this evening when I synchronize with my home PC.

Who needs Tetris? I've got words!

Posted by: Ted at 07:43 AM | category: Links
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Thanks to Susie and Johnny-Oh, I now know where I am on the highway of life.

(in the extended entry)

PS. Some beasties like bogs. I am one such critter. more...

Posted by: Ted at 06:32 AM | category: Links
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(original post here)

There have been countless stories written about a variation of the "Last Man on Earth" theme. Besides the classic "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson, Damon Knight's short story "Not With A Bang" is an interesting take on the situation. Originally published in the Winter/Spring 1950 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, it's also included in the excellent anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Slay Ride.

Posted by: Ted at 06:09 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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A blonde and a lawyer are seated next to each other on a flight from LA to New York. The lawyer asks if she'd like to play a fun game. The blonde is tired and just wants to take a nap, so she politely declines. The lawyer persists and explains that the game is easy and lots of fun.

He explains, "I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer you pay me $5.00, and vise versa." Again she declines and closes her eyes. The lawyer, now agitated, says, "Okay, if you don't know the answer you pay me $5.00, and if I don't know the answer I'll pay you $500.00."

This catches the blonde's attention and, figuring there will be no end to this torment unless she plays, agrees to the game.

The lawyer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?"

The blonde doesn't say a word. She reaches into her purse, pulls out a fiver and hands it to the lawyer.

Okay says the lawyer, your turn.

She asks the lawyer, "What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four legs?"

The lawyer, puzzled, thinks for a while and then takes out his laptop and searches all his references, no answer. He taps into the air phone with his modem and searches the internet and the Library of Congress, no answer. Frustrated, he sends emails to all his friends and co-workers, to no avail.

After an hour, he wakes the blonde and hands her $500.00. The blonde says, "Thank you", and turns back to get some more sleep.

The lawyer is more than a little miffed, so he wakes the blonde again and asks, "Well, what's the answer?"

Without a word, the blonde reaches into her purse, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep.

And you thought blondes were dumb.

Posted by: Ted at 05:20 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Group A thinks that the way to reduce gun violence is through more education, while Group B wants legislation to deal with the problem.

Meanwhile, Group A thinks that legislation is needed to reduce the number of abortions, while Group B believes that education is enough.

Lots of facets to this one, consistency isn't one of them.

Posted by: Ted at 06:00 AM | category: Square Pegs
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This time around, my fancy has been caught largely by technology posts, which isnÂ’t unprecedented I suppose.

First stop is Murdoc Online, with his look at Great Lake water levels and a splash of cold perspective to those who need it. Good story, great ending.

Al talks about what IÂ’ve always suspected about pilots. You have to be detail-oriented, level-headed, clear thinking, quick reacting, and have the black soul of DeSade. Quoting Rick Riley:

”I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning.

"Bananas," he said.

"For the potassium?" I asked.

"No," Biff said, "because they taste about the same coming up as they do going down."

Guess who just got back together after a bunch of crap?

My buttcheeks.

Next up – and somehow I got my mojo on because this is flowing incredibly well – here’s a story about a French sculptor who created a piece to honor the Americans at D-Day, and the support she received from other French to keep the project moving forward. Thanks Casey, from The Gantry Launchpad for pointing this one out.

Who likes roller coasters? In our family, roller coasters ranks right up there with cheese and hugs on the list of important things in life. Five years ago we took a family vacation dubbed “Roller Coasters and Rockets”: a week-long rocket launch sandwiched by multiple day stays at two amusement parks. Ooo baby ooo baby ooo (you can quote me if you'd like).

So if youÂ’re like us, youÂ’ll definitely want to stay away from LegoLand in San Diego. Read the sad details over at QandO.

Whack-a-Mole. Smack down an elected idiot. Same concept, courtesy of Stephen at Hold the Mayo. My letter is drafted and goes out tomorrow.

So whereÂ’s all the technology posts, eh? Like a centrifuge spinning faster and faster, the weightier subjects all collect at the bottom. Yeah, I know, whatta crockÂ…

Anticipatory Retaliation points the way to a site that shows you how to use your microwave and common household chemicals in the right proportions a nifty little toy to measure the speed of light.

I liked Michael Gross much better in Tremors than in Family Ties.

Bad movie physics. As in bad physics in movies, not physics in bad movies. Check it out and be prepared to howl. Thanks to Transterrestrial Musings for the link.

Remember when I talked about inflatables in space? Perv, IÂ’m talking about this post. Rocket Forge points out that it looks like the Chinese are interested in the technology, and Bigelow has been moving ahead with prototypes.

File this one under 'science fiction': Kim Jong-Il, beloved leader of North Korea, loves golf.

The "Great Leader" routinely shoots three or four holes-in-one per round, the government-controlled media reported.

And finally, just because someone must be last, is a nifty story from AEBrain about Coca Cola and the potential to ruin someoneÂ’s day in a National Security kinda way. The proposed solution would never work, it makes too much sense. Look for revised (and obscenely expanded) rules to be published soon.

So thatÂ’s it. Bananas and butt cheeks, Michael Gross and inflatables, and of course the obligatory BDSM reference from Bondage Rocket Jones. Have fun.

Posted by: Ted at 04:47 AM | category: Links
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Over on the right column, in the usual place. That and new banners is about all the furniture rearranging that happens here on Rocket Jones. It's a guy thing.

Posted by: Ted at 09:06 AM | category: Square Pegs
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