Sunday - June 26, 2011
A Summer Evening In Clinton
We had our first aerial visitors of the season this evening. It was a pretty nice day, fairly dry after the last few days of rain, not too hot, with just a slight breeze. And that means it’s time once again for the evening balloon races.
They launch from the parking lot of a nice restaurant a couple miles to the west of us, and play fox and hounds while floating eastwards across the county. I don’t know if it’s because of the lay of the land - it’s pretty flat between here and the restaurant, except for the slight rise of the hill we live on the backside of - but once or twice a year the balloons seem to have a bit of trouble maintaining altitude right about the time they get to my back yard.
So when I hear that magnificent throaty FFFFWWWOOOOOOOOSHH I know it’s time to grab the camera and run outside.
They got away this time. Sometimes they don’t, and we’ve got the balloon squad running all around bringing one down and deflating it. Not today. Today they turned those massive burners on full blast and rose up and over the roofs, just barely!, and went on their way. By the time they’d drifted over the 3rd row of buildings they were probably 75 feet up.
My neighbors are so blase they didn’t even go and look. Me? Out there in a flash. Hot air balloons are kind of like leprechauns; if you catch one when it comes down in your yard you get a free bottle of champagne instead of that fabled pot of gold. So I pay attention. Just in case.
More pictures below the fold. I don’t know why the zoom feature seems to push things back so much. The building in these pictures couldn’t be 75 feet away, and hot air balloons are pretty darn huge. But somehow most of the sense of presence that makes them so magical is lost in these pictures, except for the last one, which is also a link to the fullsize image, which does have the magic.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/26/2011 at 07:48 PM
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (0)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Wednesday - June 22, 2011
Hurtigruten!!!
Between June 16 and June 22, Norwegian Barents Sea cruise line Hurtigruten made the scenic trip along Norway’s wild and lovely western coast, and the entire 1280 mile trip was broadcast live on Norwegian TV station NRK. What the heck, daylight was lasting 20 or more hours a day until the Solstice. The travelogue was live the whole journey, and lasted 8040 minutes, which is a bit more than 5 1/2 days. More than 1.3 million people clicked in to see the streaming media online, and who knows how many watched it on EU cable stations.
And me, I came home from bowling (we won 4-3 and remain in 1st place!) and decided to do a News From The North post, which I haven’t done in a long time. And there it was. Hurdy Gurdy? No, Hurtigruten!
After months of planning and technical preparation, state broadcaster NRK was ready to “go live” Thursday night with its marathon coverage of a Hurtigruten voyage from Bergen to the line’s turnaround point in Kirkenes.
Viewers will be able to follow every minute of the trip on NRK’s channel 2, until it ends on Wednesday morning June 22. All other programs, also news broadcasts, have been removed from the channel’s schedule for 5.5 days.
The voyage is also being streamed on NRK’s web site.
The journey is known as “The World’s Most Beautiful Sea Voyage”. The broadcast will amount to more than 134 hours of continuous coverage as NRK cameras mounted all around the Hurtigruten ship MS Nord-Norge chart the five-day voyage.
NRK officials hope the program will be registered in the Guinness book of world records as the world’s longest documentary program.
Passengers who took the round trip voyage had 34 ports of call on the trip north, with activities like dog sledding, a stopover at an ice hotel, a 3 hour Viking feast in a genuine longhouse, plus seeing the beauty of the nearly fractal coastline’s bays and inlets. Said by National Geographic to be the prettiest natural coastline on earth, it’s a fabulous journey for those who can a-fjord it. ( Come on, it’s Norway. I am legally required to make at least one fjord pun )
From the southern city of Bergen up “over the hump” of the North Cape to Kirkenes on the Finnish border covers almost the entire Norwegian coast. Greatest tourist advert ever, and nearly everyone at the TV station got the week off.
What else is happening up north above Europe? Well, a multi-level natural gas field has been found north of North Cape, the Russians are ready to start drilling their part of the Barents Sea oil fields now that the apportioning agreements with the Norse countries are finalized; the find at the Fedinsky High undersea plateau is purportedly significant, the oil and gas boom will probably give a new lease on life to the dying Russian Arctic port of Amderma; the boom is so big that Gazprom has negotiated to build and lease several more LNG tankers, and Gazprom is hiring support workers for it’s arctic oil derricks. Unfortunately for now the jobs are limited to housekeeping and cooking, and they really would prefer to hire local men.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/22/2011 at 10:18 PM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (0)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • An Easy Test
Take a scrap of paper and write down your choices. Look at each picture and decide whether
A) the person on the left, or
B) the person on the right
is actually a guy in drag.
Question #1:
Pretty easy, right? Ok, let’s make it a little harder.
Question #2:
Still not challenging enough? Ok, let’s move on.
Question #3:
Question #4:
Posted by Drew458
on 06/22/2011 at 12:28 PM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (7)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Friday - June 03, 2011
An Easy One
I’m beginning to hate these things. I think Peiper is too.
I never saw one until this afternoon, but they are on television quite often. I’m still not 100% sure how they work and don’t think I really care enough to research them.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/03/2011 at 01:49 PM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (3)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Wednesday - June 01, 2011
A honey of a problem
Bee swarm shuts down corner in New York City’s Little Italy district. Who knew the NYPD had their own beekeeper?
A giant swarm of bees covered a mailbox on a Little Italy street corner Tuesday, closing down the sidewalk for hours and drawing dozens of curious onlookers.
Thousands of bees attached to the side of a mailbox at the corner of Mulberry and Grand Streets around noon Tuesday, forcing police to close off a portion of the sidewalk and keep an eye on things until the bees could be safely removed.
“It’s like a movie scene. It’s pretty cool.” said Mike Costabile, 25, who works nearby and was out getting coffee when he noticed the swarm. “I kind of wish there were more.”
The mailbox, located in front of the Italian-American Museum at 155 Mulberry Street, was hard to make out under the blanket of bees covering almost one entire side. The museum was closed at the time. It did not appear that anyone had been hurt by the swarm.
An NYPD-sanctioned beekeeper arrived about 3:30 p.m., working with another local beekeeper to carefully herd the thousands of bees into separate containers.
“This is one of the largest [swarms] I’ve seen,” said Elie Miodownik, of the New York City Beekeepers Association, who estimated the swarm at about 15,000 bees.
He arrived at the scene wearing full beekeeping gear after getting a call about the incident, and joined the NYPD beekeeper in corralling the insects after locating the queen bee.
Once the queen was identified and removed, the two scooped thousands of bees off the mailbox to be brought to other hives in Queens.
Looks like another sting operation successfully completed by the NYPD.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/01/2011 at 11:56 AM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff • Music •
• Comments (1)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Friday - May 27, 2011
Scientific conversions
Flapjawman sends this from Afghanistan!
Scientific Conversions
1. Ratio of an igloo’s circumference to its diameter = Eskimo Pi
2. 2000 pounds of Chinese soup = Won ton
3. 1 millionth of a mouthwash = 1 microscope
4. Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement = 1 bananosecond
5. Weight an evangelist carries with God = 1 billigram
6. Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour = Knotfurlong
7. 16.5 feet in theTwilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling
8. Half of a large intestine = 1 semicolon
9. 1,000,000 aches = 1 megahurtz
10. Basic unit of laryngitis = 1 hoarsepower
11. Shortest distance between two jokes = A straight line
12. 453.6 graham crackers = 1 pound cake
13. 1 million-million microphones = 1 megaphone
14. 2 million bicycles = 2 megacycles
15. 365.25 days = 1 unicycle
16. 2000 mockingbirds = 2 kilomockingbirds
17. 52 cards = 1 decacards
18. 1 kilogram of falling figs = 1 FigNewton
19. 1000 milliliters of wet socks = 1 literhosen
20. 1 millionth of a fish = 1 microfiche
21. 1 trillion pins = 1 terrapin
22. 10 rations = 1 decoration
23. 100 rations = 1 C-ration
24. 2 monograms = 1 diagram
25. 4 nickels = 2 paradigms
26. 2.4 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital = 1 IV League
27. 100 Senators = Not 1 decision
Posted by Christopher
on 05/27/2011 at 04:57 PM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (2)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Wednesday - May 18, 2011
A remake almost as good as the original
Watch it now before it disappears. The Israeli music group Fishman and the Pioneers recast their Yalla Ya Nasrallah tune from a couple of years ago. This time they did it for dear old Osama. The graphics aren’t quite as good as the first one, but it’s still a great tune. It’s a rush job, but timeliness matters more sometimes. The original Yalla Ya Nasrallah video was pulled from YouTube for “violations of terms of service” but can still be found on Google Video.
Stolen from Jewlicious, a decidedly pro-Israel blog, who aren’t quite wetting themselves with laughter over the news coming out about Osama’s porn stash, but they sure are having a good snicker. Goats Gone Wild!
In public, bin Laden is the pious, self-proclaimed vanguard of a violent Islamic uprising. Alone in his compound, he’s beating it like it owes him cash.
PS - that girl on the train at 1:42 looks familiar, doesn’t she? 
Posted by Drew458
on 05/18/2011 at 10:33 AM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff • Music • War On Terror •
• Comments (2)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Tuesday - May 17, 2011
Tuesday WhatsIt
I found this little beauty on a ramble around the internet this morning. It’s made from sturdy ceramic, with a smooth porcelain glaze all over. I don’t have exact dimensions, but my guess is that the opening on the small end is about 2”, maybe plus or minus a little, and the opening on the large end is about 5”, thereabouts. So the whole thing stands about 5 - 6” high. It might weigh a pound or more; a heavier one of these is probably a good idea.
This design ought to be a significant improvement over the standard model. I hid the company name, but they are quite famous in certain circles for their expensive first class product line which completely modernizes an ancient, ancient process by using one core technology left over from the late steam age mixed with another core technology that finally emerged in the mid 70s.
What is it? What is the actual name of the product? Who makes it?
UPDATE! And the answer is ...
Posted by Drew458
on 05/17/2011 at 10:16 AM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (13)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Wednesday - May 11, 2011
Is the real test this easy?
Ooh, fun. A sample Citizenship Test. Set it for 50 questions and your home state and it generates a random exam. I hope you all can score at least 90%. If you take the test several times you’ll see that there are about 80 questions in the whole queue; quite a number of the same ones keep popping up from iteration to iteration.
Some of the questions are rather sneaky; Pennsylvania is a border state with Canada. For about 40 miles along the shore of Lake Erie. And while we generally split the Great Lakes with Canada, Lake Michigan is all ours, so Illinois is not a border state. So you might learn a little trivia.
h/t to comments at Stoaty’s
A little update: Newsweek recently gave such a test to 1000 natural born American citizens. 38% of them failed. You can take their sample test here - read the question, provide your answer, then click to get their answer (it’s not multiple choice) and see how it goes. I got all 40 correct, and it took about 3 minutes to click through all 80 screens. The Daily Beast wrote a couple pages about what it all means, and it looks to me like they blame it on a lack of income redistribution, a lack of Federal control over all the States’ education systems, and a dearth of unions running our political institutions. SAY WHAT??? Horry Clap, this guy Romano is a friggin commie.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/11/2011 at 10:18 AM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (5)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Friday - April 22, 2011
Easter Basket Answers
Adopted on April 14, 1939, the Blue Hen chicken had long been used as a motif in numerous political campaigns and in many publications. During the Revolutionary War, the men of Captain Jonathan Caldwell’s company, recruited in Kent County, took with them game chickens that were said to be of the brood of a famous Blue Hen and were noted for their fighting ability. When not fighting the enemy, the officers and men amused themselves by pitting their Blue Hen chickens in cockfights. The fame of these cockfights spread throughout the army and when in battle, the Delaware men fought so valiantly that they were compared to these fighting cocks.
The University of Delaware names their teams The Fighting Blue Hens. I’ve known that factoid for ages. I never gave it any thought, just assuming it was a cute name. I didn’t even know that Delaware had taken on a domestic fowl as their state bird until today, although I did know that for a very long time chicken farming was big business in that state. But blue chickens? Come on. No such beastie. Animals come in lots of different colors, and some can be specially bred to come in some rather unusual colors, but you don’t get blue much at all. Sure, there is a breed of Siamese cat called a Blue Point, and that some of them have silvery gray fur that is said to be “teal”, but they really aren’t blue. Once you get away from the fish and reptiles, you don’t get much green either. Who ever heard of a green dog? Or a purple cat? Is it even possible?
So I was quite surprised yesterday when I was reading Stoaty’s latest post, in which she and Uncle Badger acquired some new chickens for their backyard farm, and that one of the chickens was blue, although in chickenology this colored bird is called a lavender. Naturally she named the hen Violet.
I know next to nothing about chickens. Why should I? I have heard that white chickens lay white eggs, and that red chickens lay brown eggs, but this could be some chicken shit story told to me, the guy with EPN, Extreme Poultry Naivete. So to answer that childhood Easter basket question, Do blue eggs come from blue chickens?, I looked it up. And the answer is: it’s possible.
The Araucana chicken is “native” to South America, mostly in Chile. It lays blue eggs. This chicken is an ancient crossbreed between a Polynesian chicken that has no tail, called a Collanca (pictured left), and a Quetro, a small regular looking chicken that lays pinkish brown eggs. The Araucana already existed when the Conquistadors showed up, and is one of the main supporting bits of evidence in the anthropological theory that South America was first populated by people crossing the Pacific on rafts, long before those other folks came down from the land bridge up in Alaska during the last Ice Age. You could be a wiseguy and say it’s a big bullet in their chicken gun. A chicken without a tail can’t fly at all, which is a good thing when crossing the Pacific on a raft because it saves you the embarrassment of having to yell “Chicken overboard!”. Araucanas came to the awareness of the outside world (white folks) in the early 20th century and became quite popular for awhile. By chicken fanciers. Whose existence is also news to me. Not being a farmer or ever even knowing anyone who was, it never crossed my mind that there were show chickens and people who were mad about chickens as a hobby. Well, outside of those weird Japanese who raise those chickens with the 10 foot long tails, but come on, the Japanese specialize in weird and I won’t put anything past them. So the Araucana chicken was soon bred with other kinds of chickens, so much so that pure Araucana birds have become hard to find. There is another crossbreed called the Americauna, which is a dreadful pun on “Americana” that can’t be blamed on me. That bird also lays blue eggs, but it has a tail. Many other breeds were crossed with the Araucana and the Collanca, but the crosses don’t lay blue eggs. They lay colored eggs, which tend towards olive green or reddish blue. There is even a somewhat genetically stable bird called an Easter Egg chicken, which is a bit of a catch-all name for any polyglot bird that carries the blue egg gene. They can lay eggs of any color, but rarely if ever lay the pure blue eggs that the Araucana and the Collanca lay.
The chicken fancier folks have formed clubs worldwide. There are Araucana Associations everywhere, even in England. They selectively breed their chickens to bring out desired traits, and one of those traits is feather coloring. So the answer “it’s possible” is actually true: there is a lavender variant of the Araucana chicken. With pedigree! A blue blooded blue bird that lays blue eggs. And that’s a special kind of happiness for parents of very inquisitive children at Easter time.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/22/2011 at 10:29 AM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (2)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Saturday - April 16, 2011
Weekend WhatsIt
I understand how these are used, and I think I can understand why they are needed. I think this one is rather pretty, though some say it’s not the best of its kind. I wouldn’t know, this thing is not part of my world at all. But I bet every liberal on the west coast can identify this thing in half a femtosecond.
Made from stainless steel, it stands 3” tall and is just over 2.25” wide across the large flat end. Which isn’t really flat but actually slightly convex. I guess that means it wobbles around on the workbench?
Posted by Drew458
on 04/16/2011 at 05:19 PM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (4)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Thursday - March 17, 2011
Quickie Post
Is it just me, or does this squirrel look just like Don King?
Posted by Drew458
on 03/17/2011 at 10:54 AM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (6)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Saturday - March 05, 2011
New board game
While trolling the ‘member’ feed at Ricochet.com I found this gem:
Drew, peiper, I hate to say this, but we’ve gotta do some serious revisions on the ‘Categories’. The Skipper’s been gone for a while and world events have progressed.
Posted by Christopher
on 03/05/2011 at 11:28 PM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
• Comments (6)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Tuesday - March 01, 2011
Oy, such a holiday
IHOP is giving out free orders of pancakes today in hopes of raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Stop in, eat up, and drop a couple bucks. Bacon and coffee not included.
Since beginning its National Pancake Day celebration in 2006, IHOP has raised more than $5.35 million to support charities in the communities in which it operates. While IHOP’s National Pancake Day typically takes place on Shrove Tuesday, this year, the company will host its free pancake event one week earlier on Tuesday, March 1 to build buzz and excitement prior to Shrove Tuesday. With your help, we hope to raise $2.3 million for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and other local charities!
Known also as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras, National Pancake Day dates back several centuries to when the English prepped for fasting during Lent. Strict rules prohibited the eating of all dairy products during Lent, so pancakes were made to use up the supply of eggs, milk, butter and other dairy products...hence the name Pancake Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday.
How about that one, lefties? A corporation getting involved in a Christian tradition in a Christian manner! I’m expecting protests, judicial fiats, and cries of racism to be all over the news.
An explanation of the title for Americans: in the UK they consider pancakes a dessert item. Seriously, the thought of pancakes for breakfast is anathema to them, even with a double side of bacon. Worse, they don’t even have proper Bisquick over there. Sure, they have something in that bright yellow box you can bake with, but it’s not the same. Peiper will attest to that fact; I’ve had to send him emergency supplies of the stuff.
On the other hand, England does do this holiday better than we do. Being Britons, with their great sense of tradition, they hold pancake races, and have done so for hundreds of years now. Since 1445 - long before Columbus came over here in his leaky little boat - they have been running about in public with pancakes. I’m assuming that those are actually fresh pancakes, and not the original ones from 1445, but with the English you never know.
Oh, you think this is another one of my “fake but accurate” posts, that I’m making up the sport of pancake racing? Ha! Surprise!
The annual pancake race in Olney
Posted by Drew458
on 03/01/2011 at 10:22 AM
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining • Fun-Stuff • Religion •
• Comments (2)
•
Trackbacks(0)
Permalink • Five Most Recent Trackbacks:
LAAR She Blows! Part One
(2 total trackbacks)
Tracked at Planes Ideas Blog
[...] CABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEB [...]
On: 07/12/11 01:57
The Tactical Cowboy
(1 total trackbacks)
Tracked at Sights Service Blog
[...] E LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE [...]
On: 07/10/11 08:30
Nasty Dirty Money
(1 total trackbacks)
Tracked at Money Reviews Blog
[...] ONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLES [...]
On: 06/17/11 08:31
Amazing aerial images taken by daring Allied pilots on secret missions during WW 2
(1 total trackbacks)
Tracked at Hookers and Booze
peiper over at Barking Moonbat EWS found some absolutely kickass aerial photos from WWII. I grabbed this one because I’m a big fan of the movie A Bridge Too Far.…
On: 11/23/09 04:14
Clear Thinking and Straight Talk
(1 total trackbacks)
Tracked at baldilocks
Let Them Fight or Bring Them Home Read all of it--and tell every American you know to do so. (Thanks to BMEWS) UPDATE: The author of the above blog is…
On: 10/02/09 09:29
DISCLAIMER
THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.
Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
- Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
- Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.
Copyright © 2004-2008 Domain Owner
Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
RSS 2.0 
Atom 
