Several weeks ago I was poking around Wil Wheaton’s blog and found a link to RFJason.com who had taken an image of the Enterprise, NCC-1701 D from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and overlaid it onto real world images using Google Maps. Well, I just got my blueprints for my favorite ship, Serenity, so I thought I would give it a try with some Earth that was locations. I’m using some of the locals from RFJason for comparison, as well as some of my own places, starting with a few from Wisconsin.

Wisconsin State Capital in Madison. I know the building quite well and was really surprised on how closely Serenity matches up to it on width and length. The Capital is about twice as high.

Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin Badgers Football team. Something tells me the crew of Serenity are not Badger fans…

Read more »

I was playing around with ancestry.com and found myself, which was quite cool in itself I thought. Playing around I found a line going back 24 generations to a grandfather born in 1229, before that the farthest I was aware of was 16 generations back to 1524. Then I noticed a little button to find famous people related to you. So of course, I couldn’t resist. Some of the highlights:

Lyndon B Johnson, 36th President of the United States of America, 6th Cousin 2 times removed
Dwight D Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States, 7th Cousin 4 times removed
Elizabeth Virginia Wallace Truman, First Lady, wife of Harry S. Truman, 8th Cousin 3 times removed
Walt Whitman, Poet, 7th Cousin 5 times removed
George Orwell, Author, 9th Cousin 5 times removed
William Avery “Billy” Bishop, Canada’s first combat ace, more WWI victories than any other British pilot

Thats as close as I will ever get to being famous or important :p

Angel, my female sugar glider, passed away last night. She was five. I had her for almost two years. She was a normally a shy timid little thing, but she had her moments where she would get brave and warm up and want to play. She loved her mealies and yogurt drops and play with her big brother Shady.

Good bye sweetie…

In case you wondered, and are male - these are the rules we abide by. If you are a girl reading this, then you can just refresh your memory.

MEN RULES: Now here are the rules from the male side.
These are our rules!
Please note… these are all numbered “1″ ON PURPOSE!

1. Men are NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat.
You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down.
We need it up, you need it down.
You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports. It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides.
Let it be.

1. Shopping is NOT a sport.
And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want.
Let us be clear on this one:
Subtle hints do not work!
Strong hints do not work!
Obvious hints do not work!
Just say it!

Read more »

Chernobyl, Ukraine, Ocober 1995.
I have always been fascinated by the aftermath of the events that took place over 21 at the power plant outside of town Pripyat known as Chernobyl. On April 26, 1986 at 1:23 am a series of design flaws, human error and lack of communication merged resulting in the worst nuclear disaster of all time. The aftermath has caused the death of thousands of people, the abandoning of entire towns within 20 miles of reactor 4 and billions of dollars in clean up costs. Some people have been able to get into the exclusion zone with their cameras to show the rest of the world their results.

The first site I encountered years ago, Kidd of Speed was one of the first internet sites to show images of the area today. Their is controversy over the some of the details of her story, but her pictures speak for themselves.

Read more »

People are not the only ones who are hilarious while drunk:

Read more »

I’m have switched back to WordPress for the 4th or 5th time. One of these days I’m going to learn my lesson and just stay with WordPress.

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Edwards2005/Highlights/index.html
Goto the bottom of the page.

C-12 Huron, B-2 Spirit, KC-135 Stratotanker, MC-130 Hercules, C-17 Globemaster III, B-52 Stratofortress, F-117 Nighthawk, F-16 Fighting Falcon, T-38 Talon, F-16 Fighting Falcon and a F-22 Raptor. All in the air. All together.

Damn. Just damn.

Only thing missing is an SR-71 :p

This guy has tons of other great pictures at his site, check out
http://www.richard-seaman.com/index.html

Supposedly, Albert Einstein wrote this riddle, and said 98% of the world could not solve it.

There are 5 houses in 5 different colors. In each house lives a man with a different nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same beverage.

The question is: “Who owns the fish?”

Hints:

* The Brit lives in the red house.
* The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
* The Dane drinks tea.
* The green house is on the left of the white house.
* The green house’s owner drinks coffee.
* The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
* The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
* The man living in the center house drinks milk.
* The Norwegian lives in the first house.
* The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
* The man who keeps the horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
* The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
* The German smokes Prince.
* The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
* The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

The see the answer, hit read the rest of this entry, but not until you have tried to solve it! And no cheating using the web! Pen and paper (or Excel) may come in handy.

Read more »

I found this at http://jaegamer.livejournal.com/30529.html

I’ve got another hobby horse… I know that there are gamers and industry folk reading my LJ, and this is for you. A group of soldiers in Iraq are putting together a RPG convention, and they are desperately in need of materials. Let’s bury these men and women in so much gaming material they won’t run out till they’re old enough to retire!

Selectively quoted from Gamegrene.com. Additional material from SPC Amberson.

Our Gamers in Iraq When President Bush ordered troops to Iraq, he probably never imagined that he would be ultimately be responsible for what very well could be the very first D&D convention/game day ever held in a war zone. Ziggurat Con, being held June 9 from 1200 to 2100 hours at Camp Adder/Tallil Airbase, is open to all allied military personnel and civilian contractors in Iraq.

KBR and MWR (the army’s Morale Welfare & Recreation Department) have graciously allowed service members to use part of the Community Activity Center to hold the Game Day. The Ping Pong room will be set up for RPGs (Role-Playing Games, not to be confused with the rocket propelled grenades which share the same acronym), and the DVD Movie room will be playing Anime Movies all day in support of the event.

 The largest problem with running a Con in Iraq, of course, is that there are no local stores or game publishers, and few game books on the post. Even dice are in short supply, with many soldiers breaking the unwritten taboo held by many gamers and sharing dice. Thankfully, many game publishers have also lent their support, and have agreed to supply game products to help the Con along. aethereal FORGE, Sovereign Press, Final Redoubt Press, Goodman Games, Paizo Publishing and Steve Jackson Games are among those that have thrown in their support for the convention. But Amberson indicated that the soldiers could definitely use more.

 ”This convention is currently in drastic need of prizes and giveaways for the troops,” he said. “Everything donated will go directly to the troops, or to MWR to use as loaner books for the soldiers.”

For more information, contact SPC David Amberson at the following address: david.amberson (at) iraq.centcom.mil

Donations can also be sent to SPC Amberson directly at the following address:
SPC David Amberson
A Co 86th Sig Bn
APO, AE 09331

They’re planning to run the following games (and will be happy to get additional games).
Babylon 5 RPG, Cyberpunk 2020, D&D, D&D RPGA, GURPS, Historic Miniatures Battles, Magic Tournament, MechWarrior Miniatures, Rifts, Shadowrun, Starship Troopers, White Wolf System-Vampire, White Wolf System-Werewolf, XCrawl

 Let’s get those games out there!

Update: SPC Amberson says they’re expecting around 300 people. Not bad for a war zone! Martin Rayla of Treasure Tables reminds me that Amazon will ship to military addresses, in case you’d like to use them.

Update: muskrat_john aka John Kovalic (he of Dork Tower fame) is not only spreading the word via his LJ, he also says:

 I’m making damn sure everyone at the con gets a comic book or two. I’m also sending a ton of trade paperbacks for door prizes, as well as Out of the Box games, Munchkin, Chez Geek, Mag*Blast and, of course, Chez Grunt.

 Update: Additional places to send gaming stuff - Games for GI’s. They send stuff to all forward deployed troops.

We are currently at an address where we can ship all care packages through military means free of charge. If you’d like to find out more making a contribution or volunteering, or if you’d like a copy of our needs list, I may be contacted at zacharythefirst@hotmail.com. Additionally, if you have a friend or loved one you’d like added to our care package list, contact us, and we’d be happy to do so.The address and central distribution point to send your contributions is:

Games For G.I.s
c/o Zachary Houghton
PSC 62 Box 6902
APO AE 09643

Update: from Dave Amberson - they would be delighted to get PDF products as well. They have laptops and access to printers…