$3 BILLION of your tax dollars to study Antarctic Jell-O wrestling and shrimp on treadmills

Y'know, I doubt that even if I were smashed drunk and high on acid that I could have ever come up with a headline like that on my own...

A laundry-folding robot, studying the metabolism of shrimp being exercised on treadmills, and researching wrestling in Jell-O at the South Pole are among the "projects" sponsored by the National Science Foundation which have been funded with THREE BILLION DOLLARS of OUR tax money!

Other stuff that we've paid for through the NSF: "a YouTube rap video, a review of event ticket prices on stubhub.com, a 'robot hoedown and rodeo,'" and "a virtual recreation of the 1964/65 New York World's Fair".

I'm just trying to visualize how exactly a shrimp is put on a treadmill...

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Team Covenant churning out new Monsterpocalypse maps!

I've written tons before on this blog about my mad love for Monsterpocalypse: Privateer Press's awesome game of giant monsters and metropolitan destruction! And if you haven't checked it out yet right now is a great time to give it a looksee. Privateer Press recently announced that the game was moving to a non-collectible format (making it much easier for new players to get into it) and a full-length Monsterpocalypse motion picture from DreamWorks involving Tim Burton is currently in pre-production.

And now those ever-clever folks at Team Covenant have come through with - ta-daaaah! - new Monsterpocalypse playmats! Introduced at MonCon 2011 this past weekend where attendees were treated to the convention-exclusive "Mayhem on Memorial" map (I really wish that I could have made it to MonCon, ahh well hopefully next year :-), the Covenant Maps Campaign brings you a new playmat every sixty days, with the maps designed to inter-relate with each other across a larger Monsterpocalypse story-driven narrative. As the Team Covenant guys put it...

In addition to igniting standard Monsterpocalypse play, each Covenant Map comes with a printed story that acts as the next chapter of a continuous, fictional campaign revolving around the struggles of all of the monsters and factions involved in the game. These stories are epic, and relate directly to the happenings on the past Covenant Map and how those occurrences have led to the current map.

But of course there’s even more to this! Each map not only comes with a story, but also a scenario that is the direct result of that story. This scenario will pick up where the story ends, putting the fictional conflicts onto the map itself, ready to be resolved by YOU, the players. The next chapter of the story, and the map pertaining to it, will then be created based on the results that YOU report.

And 'course, the map itself will no doubt come in handy for years to come! Team Covenant has set up three subscription plans, beginning at $22 and change charged bi-monthly. Looking at the exceedingly high quality of the "Mayhem on Memorial" map, that's a darned good deal! I'm looking forward to unleashing my precious Lords of Cthul upon these new maps :-)

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New area business: Two Girls & A Truck Landscaping

Lately quite a number of good people that I know have decided to start up their own businesses. Here's another one and as always, this blogger is more than happy to direct y'all's attention to it :-)

Based out of nearby Oak Ridge, Two Girls & A Truck Landscaping is a landscaping and lawn servicing company owned by Tammy Marcum Buck, Linda Marcum and Oscar Marcum. Don't have time to mow your lawn? Let the Two Girls do it for you! They can help you wherever you're at in the vicinity of Greensboro, Oak Ridge, Summerfield, Madison and Mayodan etc. And right now they're offering a special: $35 of cutting, weed-eating, trimming and blowing for up to half an acre. They're also offering a 10% discount for elderly and disabled. Two Girls & A Truck Landscaping will give you a free estimate on your landscaping needs and annual contracts are available.

So if your lawn is looking more and more like a bloodthirsty jungle, check out Two Girls & A Truck and hire them to tame it!

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Exciting times for Egyptian archaeology!

Seventeen previously unknown pyramids are among more than four THOUSAND newly discovered sites in Egypt that have been located using infrared imaging by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. One of the locations that is being studied is the real life city of Tanis (AKA the Egyptian city that was consumed by the year-long sandstorm and where Indiana Jones had to foil the Nazi raiders of the lost Ark of the Covenant :-)

Meanwhile, archaeologists at the Great Pyramid outside of Cairo are using a tiny robotic probe to get the first look at the inside of a newly-found chamber within the mighty ancient wonder. Among the images that haven't been seen in 4,500 years: red-colored graffiti that might have been left by workers building the pyramid. There is also evidence that the door to a whole new secret room has been discovered.

Maybe someday such technology will let us get really lucky and help us to find Jimmy Hoffa :-P

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Remembering Aunt Tom

It was in 1935 that Connie Wright approached Samuel Knight to ask if he could have Ora Lee's hand in marriage.

Sam Knight - my great-grandfather - had six sons, and only one daughter: the apple of his eye. But Ora Lee was so synonymous with her half-dozen brothers and also quite the tomboy that she had picked up a nickname that would stick with her throughout her life: "Tom".

"No," Great-Grandpa Knight told Connie: "You can't marry the girl, but I'll let you take any of the boys off my hands!"

Ora Lee Knight was 16 years old when Uncle Connie came a'courting for her to be his bride. Uncle Connie passed away in 1984 and between he and Ora Lee they had 49 years of beautiful marriage that produced four children and a whole posse of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

This past Friday morning, the fine lady who so many of us knew best as "Aunt Tom" departed this earthly realm, to be with the Lord she had faithfully served all her life and to be reunited with her husband and so many others who had gone on before. She would have turned 92 next month.

Aunt Tom, well... she was a character and a half. She was so many things: wife, mother, grandmother, farmgirl, a country cook in the grandest tradition, and active in her church. When she was 65 she went back to school and earned her GED, which was something that we were all so very proud of her for accomplishing. Prior to that she worked for more than twenty years at one of the grocery stores in Reidsville.

Aunt Tom was someone that I saw quite often. Her house sat on the hill right above the road that I live on. It was common to see her mowing her own lawn until recent years. And I would stop by to see how she was doing every so often. A few years ago when I ran for school board, she told me that she was proud of me for running and she gladly let me stick up a couple of signs on her roadside.

And now, she's gone. And I'm only now realizing just how strong a fixture she was in my life and those of so many others. Aunt Tom was a sweet woman and epitomized so much of what I've thought it means to live the loving and humble Christian life. But gone though she may be, she'll never be forgotten.

Until we meet again Aunt Tom, I shall miss you. But I'm so very thankful that God has brought you and Uncle Connie together again :-)

(Very special thanks to Allison Stultz for providing such a great photo of Aunt Tom!)

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THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW ends today

"Our long national nightmare is over."

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Les Misérables: Dude arrested for stealing Sonic Slush makers

Being reported this hour that a guy not far away from here in Lexington, North Carolina has been arrested for stealing two Slush machines from a Sonic Drive-In. He was caught when he attempted to sell them to a recycling center.

According to the Fox 8 report, the slushy makers are valued at $15,000 and George Jensen, Jr. tried to sell them for about $165.

This is the kind of story that ever since finally reading Atlas Shrugged a few months, makes me giggle for all the wrong reasons :-\

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