And now, a shredder so bad-ass it's able to eat a whole car. Now that's recycling.

HardOCP answers the question we've all been asking: how many hard drives does it take to stop a .50 sniper rifle round? The answer is as cool as the question.

Sometimes luck is bad, sometimes it's good, but for a turtle named Lucky, fortune seems to include the use of furniture sliders. He certainly doesn't seem to be suffering. He's certainly a lot more energetic than our own leopard-spotted tortoise!

... for not checking her own blog before posting. I'm moving the office this weekend, and so am less able to error-check than I normally am. Ah well, two completely different takes on the exact same article is still amusing, if not particularly informative, eh?

Who the hell is going to pay them after the Rapture? I mean, no pet sitter in their right mind gets paid $110 for long term watching of a pet.

Our service is plain and simple; our fee structure is reasonable. For $110.00 we will guarantee that should the Rapture occur within ten (10) years of receipt of payment, one pet per residence will be saved. Each additional pet at your residence will be saved for an additional $15.00 fee. A small price to pay for your peace of mind and the health and safety of your four legged friends.

It's the next best thing to pet salvation to a post Rapture world.

"AMCG," we hear you ask, "that wonderful preacher with the tent came by my town and ensured I was ready for The Rapture. My soul is clean with minty freshness, and his ability to guide us through judgment is ensured by my large donation. We've known Fluffy the Cat was going to hell since she crapped in my new shoes. But what about Skipper? He's such a sweet dog!"

Fear not, friendly fundie, AMCG is here to help! Presenting Eternal Earthbound Pets, a service which promises to, for a modest fee, provide an atheist to care for your pet once you have been taken up to your ultimate reward. Act now! The spelled-in-reverse bone-gnawing deity you save could be your own!

AMBER ALERT IN OSHAWA, NY - 3 YEAR OLD GIRL TAKEN BY MAN DRIVING NEWER SILVER TRUCK Ontario PLATE # 72B 381.

Contact your local law enforcement if you have details on this alert.

No, Ellen, you can't have one:

Yesterday at around 7 a.m., Morgan Pitts, a 36-year-old propmaster who works out of Silvercup Studios in Queens, had an Encounter With Nature. While on a routine coffee run near his Greenpoint home, he heroically and rather nonchalantly saved a baby falcon from a dangerous urban environment...

That sound you here is Ellen and Amber "squee!!"-ing several hundred miles apart at the same time.

Seven Awesome Acts of Nature.

As with most Hollywood fantasies of starting over, attempting to completely disappear is much harder than it would at first appear. There were a couple of times in my life, long ago, when doing just that would've been relatively straightforward. I discarded the idea for precisely the reasons stated in the article.

When is a spiral not really a spiral? When it's a bunch of differently-colored squares, that's when. It's likely our visual centers evolved in response to the pressure of finding ripe fruit in a tree, not to counter some clever damned scientist in a lab. Fun!

To recycle the sex toys drop it in the mail. Please clean them first. Yes, they can be used sex toys. They can also be unused. They can even be broken sex toys. When the toys arrive at the Dreamscapes Recycling location the toys are clean and disassemble into parts. The parts are then sent to select recycling facilities. Every part of each sex toy is recycled and/or disposed of responsibly: the batteries, the hard (no pun intended) plastics, the rubber, the silicone, the metal, the motor and any e-waste.

I vomited a bit in my mouth with this one.

Come check us out! Lowest prices, 0% financing and $0 down!

Visit your local shelter today!

The latest fully-functioning replica of an Me-262 is complete and available for sale at, for what it is, a pretty fair price of $650,000. This one comes with replica "kills B-17s dead" rockets, too! One of these days I'll get to see one of them at an airshow. That will be a very good day, indeed.

The Spectator: "My Grandma Is An Angry Mob -- And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt." The guy who coined that "hell hath no fury" line obviously never knew a pissed-off gramma.

Fellow Arkansans may find Blanche's schedule of interest. Especially since she seems to be changing it a lot. I wonder why that is?

... I've packed up my office for only the second time in thirteen years. Oh, no worries, we're just moving. Up the street even. Zone gets transferred tomorrow night, and then the real fun begins when it's time to move the servers. I'll end up just a block from where Ellen works!

The "Fail" Blog.

Observation: there seem to be a few reports of iPhones hissing, steaming, or cracking.

Headline: Apple investigating iPhone explosions.

Well, it did make me read the article, after all.

The new Beloit College Mindset List, which details things incoming freshmen have "never" and "always" known, has been revised again. #64 took me a few seconds to get my head around, since I've bought a CD in a cardboard case in the past year. Then I remembered what they really once were like.

Leave it to the Germans to combine fitness with its opposite. If any of us who regularly do a group ride on the weekend had one of these, I think it'd be a whole lot easier to get extra people to come out, eh?

Happy Birthday, Ellen!

The trick is remembering that "I want low key" in guy-speak is fundamentally different from "I want low key" in chick-speak.

"Ric Romero here, reporting live from Britain. Scientists have detected a link between UFO sightings and UFO depictions in the popular media." What I think is interesting is how similar stories of mysterious flying objects were reported in the 19th century, except there the craft were depicted as giant boat-like machines attached to balloons. There's definitely something going on, but I think it has more to do with the space between our ears than it does the space above our heads.

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” -- Calvin.

Hey, why not drive four supercars across the country? There was one in there even I didn't know what it was, other than pretty. You'll have to scroll down to the start and read up, but I thought it was worth it.

The conclusions of the Obama-appointed panel to review NASA policy are beginning to leak out. My memory may be failing me, but this sounds a lot like the options being kicked around before Mike Griffen took over and rammed the Ares concepts through. Regardless, things don't look real bright for Ares I fans. From what I've read, I'm not completely sure that's a bad thing.

So how many years did Bill Murray's character spend in Punxsutawney? The answer seems to come close to what the director just threw out there in an interview long ago. Go to see what nerds like me (and most of the guys who read this site) do when they get the bit in their teeth. Stay to watch the NERD FIGHT!!!

It would seem the author of The Lord of the Flies wasn't a particularly nice man. I guess it's one of the requisites of the English upper class, to have one's dark past revealed after one's death.

And now, a woman dancing with a stripper pole mounted on a rickshaw being pedaled through Manhattan. I got yer cash cab right here. Link is SFW.

Ron gets a no-prize filled with genuine buttery goodness for bringing us this past tale of a future that didn't come to pass then, but could today. How could someone be so prescient? Well, 1978 was the first time in the past thirty years when the economy was in the crapper, confidence was low, and progressives held all the cards. The second time had a better politician at the helm. The third time... well, let's all hope the third time is not the charm, in this case at least.

Oh, and I can cast each role in the story using a buddy of mine. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out who ends up in which role.

It would seem there's a reason Ellen growls at those cute checkout girls when we go grocery shopping. Me? I'm clueless. The only way I know the cute chick thinks I'm cute is when Ellen's hackles go up. Otherwise I'm the same ol' clueless computer nerd I always have been.

Normally Cracked's various lists are, to me anyway, a little lame, but this "5 creepiest sex scenes in comics" was fun anyway, because I remember reading the issue which held their #2 (as it were) entry. I don't recall being disturbed by it, I just thought it was kinda weird. Being, as I recall, 13, I was much more interested in the improbable proportions of the tightly costumed super-ladies. The stories were just excuses to get them to move around.

Dude. I was 13, in a small Arkansas town, before internet pr0n. Of course I was desperate!

Mark gets a hopeful but shaky no-prize for bringing us pictures of the Ares I-X test launcher in the VAB. Looks like they'll finally need to open all the doors to get this one out. It's been, what, something like 35 years since that last happened?

Look who they're fitting with artificial limbs now. Apparently it's a permanent one, which answered the question of how they were planning to deal with contact sores.

Another August, another trip deep in to Indian Country (aka the-inlaws in NY) for a family reunion. Posting will be light, but pictures are sure to follow. The Milano made it fine until we hit a wall of traffic 5 miles from the destination. The brake boost packed up after 20 minutes of stop-and-go in that heat. It'll be fine after sitting overnight and cooling off. Another part to put on the list. The a/c was wo...nderful and absolutely no overheating problems! Beats the heck out of driving a Nissonda or Kiundai.

Looks like Battlestar Galactica is getting yet another do-over, this time to the big screen. This could, and IMO likely will, end up being so much vaporware, but hey, it is Larson's property after all.

Ok, see if you know the punch line to this one... four perps run into a store, handcuff the employees, and pistol-whip the one who resists.

This being America, the punch line goes the way it should.

To me, the fact they were handcuffing everyone is very significant, and dangerous. In my opinion, it meant the perps were going to make sure nobody would be around to identify them when they were done. Any violent death is tragic; that said, some are definitely more tragic than others.

Speaking of delusions of grandeur:

1972 Alfa Romeo Spider, in fair shape [...] runs great and with this engine the top end is over 200 mph!

The mind boggles...

I've often heard it said a person who doesn't break the law has nothing to fear from the police. I would counter a police officer who's doing the job correctly has nothing to worry about from a citizen who knows, and plays by, the rules. Plus, the chick who plays the homeowner at the end of the film is hawt.

Oink oink oink.

The BBC's F1 Mole has more details on why Michael Schumacher had to cancel his comeback. Sounds like he would be just one solid thump away from his head falling off. Yeah, I think that would make me reconsider, too. Because you know they asked me next, right?

Yes, I do know what "delusions of grandeur" means, thank-you-very-much!

An innovative UAV manufacturer is making a pretty impressive effort at redefining what can be called an aircraft. I wonder how noisy the weird seed-like one is when it "glues" itself to the wall?

Wow...just wow.

Fans of secret and abandoned places should find this collection of pictures of abandoned subway stations of interest. I'm pretty sure the Toronto station was used in the filming of the Matrix, but it's too early in the morning for me to research and be sure.

Historian Victor Davis Hanson recently visited the Mediterranean and penned these various thoughts on his journey. Useful not only for the political insights, but also for impressions and tips from someone who's visited the area many times over many years.

Gotta love Florida. Where else can a dog get his leg bitten off, whilst illegally off the leash, drinking from a pond, by a 10 foot alligator, in a public park characterized as "a popular recreation facility"?!?

Yeah. 10 foot alligators are definitely what I want to see when I take my kid over to the swing set! Welp, there we go, strike Florida off the list of "nice places to live."

Ron gets a rambling but no less entertaining no-prize for bringing us a bit of left-center disgust with the shambling mound that is the Obama administration. Oh, don't worry, the author does plenty of Bush slamming too. I don't want to take you people too far out of your comfort zone.

By using a different base for its cement, a British company has created a concrete that "eats" carbon dioxide. I think. The article looks a bit spin-tastic to me, but whaddoIknow?

Gee. If only there was a phrase to describe what happens when entrepreneurs are given incentives to meet a growing demand. Oh, wait...

Scientists in China are claiming to have discovered a strong link between rain an flower evolution. Seems creating a solution to the problem of grazing dinosaurs (which is, as I understand it at any rate, the most widely accepted explanation for flower evolution in the first place) also created a vulnerability to rain, which flowering plants have been working to solve ever since. Their solutions are as many and varied as anything else you'd expect from nature.

A guy seen tossing his girlfriend through a window fell in after her and was fatally injured in the process. Unfortunate that such things are so unusual. The court system would be much more straightforward if it were otherwise.

Coming to an obsessive blog about science fiction, anger, and cats near you: the Alfa BB video series. Sharp eyes will note the lack of a shift knob and the non-stock steering wheel. Even though it's fuel injected, mine sounds pretty much the same, but only if I pull the air cleaner off first. And I'd love a garage like that. LOVELOVELOVELOVE!

Hey, man, I'm not attacking anyone, I just have the same questions this guy does about recent "fishy" statements about health care. I mean, the Dems keep telling me to not believe everything I'm told, because some people out there have an agenda and might be prone to distort things.

I'm not pointin' any fingers, I'm just sayin'...

Looks like the Chinese are trying to field an effective missile-toter. Ask the B-52 boys how effective an ancient bomber design can be when you operate beyond the reach of the other guy's air defenses. Once these things go active-duty, you suddenly have the potential for three or four hundred cruise missiles heading across the Taiwan Straight at the Seventh Fleet. I guess it's time for the MSM to remind us all why we don't really need all those advanced weapon systems, eh?

Looks like Schumacher won't be making a comeback after all. The injuries sustained after a previous motorcycle accident had been mentioned when his name was first being toss around. F-1 cars are capable of more than three G's of lateral force, so having neck or upper back injuries is a very real problem when trying to race in that series.

Like those glittering little squares that tend to litter any well-traveled intersection, scientists can tell there's been a collision between planetary bodies by the shards of glass they leave behind. Explain that one to the adjuster!

Olivia: "Daddy? Watchadoin?"

Me: "I'm typing."

Olivia: "About what?"

Me: "About a guy selling a $6000 Mercedes for $100,000 because he thinks he's Christ's grandson."

Ellen: "What?!?"

There's car crazy, and then there's car crazy.

That sound you heard was Ellen's head exploding with candy. Amber's too, most likely.

Note: video is safe for work, but the site itself seems marginally NSFW. Watch it at home.

Making the rounds: scientists have created a "touchable" hologram that uses ultrasound to reproduce the "feel" of an item. Oh, don't worry, people are already talking about what it might all imply for the obvious application.

I'd like to think a furries convention would be a fun place for little kids to visit and see all sorts of amazing and cute cartoon characters. And, as long as Olivia's hand is held firmly in mine, we might even think about visiting one.

By watching it on TV.

Across the room.

With our eyes half shut.

Maybe.

Thanks to a rare edge-on view of Saturn's rings, the Cassini space probe has imaged what appears to be a large object punching through one of them. Personally, I suspect Dick Cheney is behind it all.

Child leashes would seem to have more uses than you'd initially suppose. For whatever reason, we never seemed to need anything like that. Maybe girls are less likely to run off?

Fun with kazoos!

You've gotta be kidding me. I distinctly remember reading about the roll-out of the B-2 in Aviation Week, sitting in the magazine section of the Mullins library on some week day, let's call it a Wednesday. The airport-inspired long couches looked great, thin in black leather with aluminum arm rests, but got uncomfortable after about fifteen minutes. The place smelled of manila folders left out too long, stale tea and dusty paper, with carpet you can still find in any good convention hotel. It was all done in classic 70s black-and-white, accented with brutal bare concrete that was cold to the touch in winter, but merely rough as the college year opened.

I'm quite happy how Facebook has allowed me to hook back up with many of the friend I had back then. We've come a long way. Some have changed in ways unexpected, and yet stayed recognizably the same. Others have merely grown much wiser than they already were. The rest, well, the rest remain pencil scratches, fading but recognizable, just waiting for a retrace.

The B-2 is now 20. That library is unrecognizable, if Google maps is any indication, since I haven't been back since 1993 or so. But the friendships endure.

And really, that's all that's important...

I have no idea what to make of this, other than it's got a lot of interesting pictures, which seem to transition from black and white to color. It was interesting enough for me to scroll to the bottom.

Note: contains nekkid people.

Looks like if Obamacare passes, after retirement we can all look forward to sorta-mandatory discussions about death and dying every five years Or sooner, if it looks like we won't make it to the next five year discussion. It's not the content in particular that bothers me. It's that the state has decided that it's a good idea to remind me I'm going to die soon. And it's decided to keep reminding me, you know, in case I forget. Because, I tell ya, if it's one thing seniors forget, it's that they're gonna die soon.

Via Instapundit.

Problem: You work at a place where accidents happen at very high speed around a race track that's more than twenty miles long.

Solution: Horsepower. Leave it to the Germans to over-engineer something to the point it goes right out the other side and becomes amazingly cool.

Every year one of the Drs from my work leaves for a month to go visit family in Goa. Each year he brings Olivia back a new dress. He has nothing to do with picking them out. Apparently his cousins know all about Olivia and they pick the outfit out for her.

US travelers thinking about going international may find this guide to "do's and don'ts" of various cultures of interest. The article is, of course, more interested in presenting colorful examples than it is in providing a consistent, useful guide, but I always find it fun to learn the details of exactly how specific countries differ from our own.

A snoring duckling! How cute!!

Go to watch goofy Italian sedans going balls-out down various medieval donkey trails. Stay to see if those Italian sedans end up collecting any of the insane Frenchmen crowded on the sides of the road (minute 9-ish). And the song at minute 4-ish.

There's camping, and then there's camping. Driving tourism dollars to a small North West town is all well and good, but did it have to involve sparkly vampires?!?

By using innovative new techniques and devices, scientists have created a new technique to induce "out-of-body" experiences. The idea is that this sort of thing can be used in therapy to help physically disabled people more easily and successfully incorporate prosthetics into their daily lives. I think. Once they started talking about mirrors and vibrators I sorta lost my concentration.

Oh shaddup, you. That wasn't what I was talking about.

I think.

Airplanes do a lot of things well. Offroading isn't one of them. Just by the pictures, it doesn't look like a complete write-off. But what do I know? That's one expensive excursion right there, folks.

A Taliban leader in Pakistan may have been killed by a drone attack. This was the one Taliban press releases was saying killed his wife and a whole bunch of other innocent women and children. Hey, if it's in a press release, we gotta believe it, right?

Bah. Why mount up that crazy hunter's deer when you get get all artsy with it instead? Something tells me my mother-in-law would be less than pleased if one of these suddenly appeared on her wall.

A friend recently wondered what a truly outraged Ellen might be capable of. This sounds about right. I can say with some pride that, while I have done any number of boneheaded things under the influence, I've never made someone so mad at me they actually set me on fire.

NASA's Kepler planet-search probe has now proved it can in fact detect planets, by "finding" ones already discovered by other means. Unfortunately it also appears overly sensitive to cosmic rays, which seem to be causing it to spontaneously shut down every once in awhile. Here's to hoping they find a work-around, or that it doesn't affect the mission too much.

While a bit "fluffy", this editorial about how women are turning to motorcycles in increasing numbers was still of interest, even to a guy like me. Mainly, I guess, because it includes brief advice on the sorts of bikes one should look at as a beginner.

No, not for me, I'm askeered of those things. A few other people I know either are getting or want to get one. Those people.

By using sophisticated new x-ray techniques, scientists have been able to create 3-D models of long extinct spiders. Turns out, they were just as creepy 300 million years ago as they are today.

So, was Van Halen's legendary "no brown M&Ms" really just a way to suss out careless promoters? Their shows always were known for incredibly complex staging.

Look out, everybody, they've turned Squeaky loose. By all the accounts I've read, she's still just as nuts now as she was more than thirty years ago when she waved a gun at President Ford. With a few notable exceptions, age tends to plane the edges off crazy, so maybe she'll fit back into society. Who knows?

Why don't I like Cash for Clunkers? This is why:

Cash-for-clunkers amounts to a rounding error in Tim Geithner's nose-hair at this point, which is probably why at least some liberals seem so genuinely baffled by the disproportionate criticism it has drawn. But for some of us it's also a nearly perfect symbol of economic statism run amok. The federal government is taking from the many, giving it to the less-than-many, destroying functional cars, funneling money to an auto industry that it already largely owns (at a hefty taxpayer price tag), then taking multiple (and multiply premature) bows for rescuing the economy and the auto industry in the process.

Now now, read the last paragraph too, because I agree with it as well. Strangely, this was not rated as "fascist" by the twirling moonbats who infest Fark's comment areas. The MSM is still on its knees in front of Obama's pants, but they now seem to be demanding a peck on the cheek before they do their duty. Could these things be marking the beginning of the end? Heck all I'm hoping for is the end of the beginning.

Problem: Lead paint is dangerous to children.

Reaction: WE'RE FROM THE GOVERNMENT, AND WE'RE HERE TO HELP!!!

Unintended consequence: Classic children's books disappear.

Hope and change, people. Hope and change...

I have absolutely no idea what to make of this. I bet the shoes cost $300, easy.

By using various new breeding techniques, scientists have created a bacteria which generates 8 times as much electricity as its "wild" ancestors. Yep, you hear right, bacteria which creates electricity. And all this time I thought bacteria that pooped diesel oil was a neat trick. These new guys just saved a step!

Scientists claim to have discovered a structural difference in the brain which appears only in those qualified as "psychopathic." Will this be a valuable new diagnostic tool, or yet another example of a new, more expensive sort of phrenonlogy? Only time will tell.

From the, "we-know-the-truth-lets-make-some-numbers-up-to-support-it" department, we have a report which claims kids today cost $221,000 over the (presumably) 17 year period you're responsible for. Which begs the question, who cuts their kids off when they turn 18?!?

See, Ellen? I told you we could've gotten a Ferrari!

In fact, by the end of the funeral the flies buzzing around the body's open wound became so persistent the funeral home placed a white veil over the corpse's head to protect it.

Every family's nightmare.

That's the problem with "Teh Intartubes", they have a really long memory. I very well remember dozens of slashing stories on the previous generation of fighters when they were first introduced. Too expensive, don't work, not needed, all over the place. Then, fifteen or so years later, the same networks, and sometimes the same reporters, would run glowing stories about how wonderful they were in the Gulf War.

At least now we can hold their feet to the fire a little earlier than normal, eh?

It's nice to see that the right can be just as prurient as the left, and the political operatives of the left can be just as effete as those of the right. Those of you who think the whole business stinks and wonder why they can't all just grow the f- up should read up on how ante-bellum politics was practiced in this country. Then you'll discover the sad truth... they already have grown up.

Well, maybe not attack, but certainly march. Annie gets a no-prize that's entertaining but no threat to DCI for bringing us proof that even the lady who shushes you has a sense of humor.

WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday.

About 6 percent of people were prescribed an antidepressant in 1996 -- 13 million people. This rose to more than 10 percent or 27 million people by 2005, the researchers found.

Sad really. Many of them are misdiagnosed too.

It's all fun and games until your reality show "performance" violates your probation. Go for the "yeah, right, pull the other one" explanations from the principal. Stay for the comments from her pimp-tastic lawyer.

The good news: Alfa is still working on some sort of crossover SUV. The bad: it seems we're only going to get that, and a top-of-the-line sedan, some day. If the 500 is a success, maybe that'll convince Fiat that the US is a potential market for its smaller, less-expensive cars.

Yep, asleep under an umbrella.

Florida is having a huge problems with pythons in the Everglades.

Just goes to show you, it you can't take of it, don't own it.

Well, I'm still not completely sure if mermaids exist, but it would seem that, if they do, Allah says it's OK to eat them. Something tells me they probably won't taste like chicken. Too bad the Imam won't be able to advise if we should use a Chardonnay or a Merlot.

It seems the most recent F-22 accident was ultimately caused by a test pilot almost blacking out at exactly the wrong place & time. Getting killed by supersonic wind force sounds like a quick way to die, but not a particularly neat way. Of course all those MSM outlets that ran not-so-subtle reports blaming the F-22 itself for the accident will now be publishing contrite, prominent, front-page retractions and corrections, right?

Right?

American health care: expensive, but darned well worth it. I think point #10 can't be emphasized enough. In fact, I have a theory that one of the reasons why our health care is so expensive is because we're actually subsidizing all these other nationalized health care schemes. I'd like to think we could put a proviso in some policy somewhere that would prohibit the export of any US-developed medical innovation for 10 years, just to see what would happen. I can't figure out how to really enforce it, unfortunately.

Via Instapundit.

Leave it to the English to create a story with proper grammar, containing simple words, that makes no sense whatever. They do love their eccentrics, I'll give them that...

Ah, progress. It now appears that, for the comparatively affordable price of $8,000, you, too, can get your own satellite launched. The press release makes it sound like a grown-up version of those electronics kits you used to get from Radio Shack. Except, of course, this eventually gets to go into space. Progress is good!

Annie gets a tasty but scary-looking no-prize for bringing us Steve! Don't eat that!, a blog which chronicles the various culinary experiences of its eponymous author. All those things you cruise past in the grocery store, that look curious but too scary to actually try? Yeah, he tries them.

[T]ake away the profit motive, and what's left doesn't deliver results quickly or efficiently, if at all.

I've said this elsewhere, but it deserves repeating... we all expect government to f- it up. If government f-'s up the roads, I'm stuck in traffic jams for the next 10 years. If government f-'s up health care, I die.

Me? I'm counting on the boomers' legendary narcissism and shrieking lack of spirituality to fund us all to immortality. Obamacare is going to get in the way of that, either through taxation or the oozing amber of government regulation. You only disagree with me because you think most of these people shouldn't be alive anyway.

Via Instapundit.

Olivia got invited to a company picnic of some school friends. She loves her cheetahs! Scott and I are wondering how long she won't let us wash her face!

The glamour has long faded from the job of a flight attendant, but the occupation still captures the imagination of a public fascinated by the constant travel and work above the clouds.

"A lot of passengers complain that flight attendants don't smile, but I can't tell you how many times I've stood at the boarding door with a smile on my face greeting people and they will just ignore me," said Heather Poole, a flight attendant for 14 years who writes for the travel Web site Gadling.com.

So much for my next career.

Japan's fascination with robotics seems to have made another step in bringing us a genuine C3PO. It sorts looks like a person trying to run across ice, at least to me.

And now, a building that falls over and rolls across the street. No, really!

He... He... he sees white people!!!

I'm not completely sure what the point is, other than it's funny. And it'll likely offend a few of the folks on the left side of the peanut gallery. If it does, my work will be complete.