Getting a haircut at 9:13 PM

I've been begging my mom for a haircut for like... a month and a half now, and she finally gave in and sqeezed me into her oh-so-busy schedule. But I had one condition that had to be met...

Check it out:



Mohawk! Rawk Own, DUUuuud!

-Graydon L

The story of Jack Lucas at 11:46 AM

He'd fast-talked his way into the Marines at fourteen, fooling the recruits with his muscled physique... Assigned to drive a truck in Hawaii, he had grown frustrated; he wanted to fight. He stowed away on a transport out of Honolulu, surviving on food passed along to him by sympathetic leather-necks on board.

He landed on D-Day [at Iwo Jima] without a rifle. He grabbed one lying on the beach and fought his way inland.

Now, on D+1, Jack and three comrades were crawling through a trench when eight Japanese sprung in front of them. Jack shot one through the head. Then his rifle jammed. As he struggled with it a grenade landed at his feet. He yelled a warning to the others and rammed the grenade into the soft ash. Immediately, another rolled in. Jack Lucas, seventeen, fell on both grenades. "Luke, you're gonna die," he remembered thinking...

Aboard the hospital ship Samaritan, the doctors could scarcely believe it. "Maybe he was too d***ed young and too d***ed tough to die," one said. He endured twenty-one reconstructive operations and became the nation's youngest Medal of Honor winner - and the only high school freshman to receive it.

Excerpt from James Bradley's Flags of our Fathers. Taken from John Pipers Don't Waste Your Life

Homemade Flu Vaccine! at 4:19 PM

Ever wondered what's in a Flu shot? Well this video made in Canada, not only tells you what's in it, but how to make your own! Yummy :)



-Graydon L

I definitely need to get another hobby at 8:15 PM

OK, so I created another one. Yes, it's yet another LEGO Transformer! As before I wanted to try new techniques and I did in the end. My goal was to refine the hood-of-the-car-becomes-chest-of-robot system and I did an average job. It kind of left a lot of stuff hanging off the back, but I made it look OK by changing it into a jetpack, which you'll see later.

Well enough talk, time for pictures and video!



As you can see, it would be cooler if it had tinted windows, but it's not exactly possible with LEGO so I had to do without :)




I just added the spoiler this morning. At first it was one piece, but that didn't work, so I split it into two pieces and attached them to the legs.


And now, the transformation video! I sped up the middle because it would've taken far, far to long to do and there was a lot of tedious, small-piece work to do which wasn't very interesting, not to mention impossible to see!




Here are the pics for after the transformation:



Here's the jet pack from above, It's basically just a jet engine with flappy thingies hanging over it.




A close-up of the head. He actually looked a lot better than I expected when I was trying out different designs. This design really makes him look evil!



On the left of this picture you can see the rocket/missile/thing (it's that big roundish black blob under his hand) attached to his lower arm. It actually fires, which was a plus for me!

Well that's all for now, I do have another idea for a different transformation style that is used many times in the movies, but I think I may try to make a jet first :)

-Graydon L

LEGO Transformer: Swerve at 6:22 PM

OK, so I'm sure you thought that the LEGO Transformers that I last posted about were pretty cool, but this one blows those two out of the water!

I built the first version yesterday and late last night, but he looked rather... fat... to say the least. So I made several modifications and basically slid the belly fat up and made it into a chest (I guess he started working out!), added some guns, moved the head lower down on the body, and jacked up the wheels to give it more clearance when driving in it's car mode.

Another one of my goals was to copy another robot from somewhere else to test my skills at building with LEGOs. I would've copied from the movies, but good detail videos were hard to find and there were plenty on Youtube of other ones, so that's what I went with.

Here's my favorite, and the one I did most of my 'research' from. It's one of a series of ads for a German made car called the Citroen C4.



Pretty funny, huh?

And now, some pictures of the Robot in it's car-mode.

I named it 'Swerve' because (according to the all-wise name generator on Facebook) that's my transformer name :)



A (blurry) close up of the seats and roll bars.



From the front, with a good view of the steering wheel!



It's riding so low because it's on carpet, on a hard surface it's got about a quarter inch of clearance.



$0 down! 0% financing! Pay $0 for 6 months! Or lease one now for only $599/month!


And now it transforms!




It stands up on it's own!



I like this one, it makes his head look cooler!



Have a piece of THIS!



Swerve wants YOU for the Autobot Army!


-Graydon L

The Evolutionists keep working... at 6:04 PM

Here's a couple of articles I found in the Creation Magazine that we get from Creation Ministries International. I thought they were pretty disturbing.

Computer Game Spore: deception as a means to an end

Spore, a computer game released in September 2008, allows players to replicate the evolution of a creature from a single-celled organism to a space traveling civilization. Depending on the goals of the player, the creature can be a carnivore, herbivore, peaceful social networker, or a conquering predator

Designer Will Wright, best known for creating the Sims series of games, claims that the game is a 'philosophical toy' intended  to change the way people think, and cites science fiction, SETI [Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence], and 'astrobiology' as a sourced of inspiration for the game, and admitted certain aspects of the game are 'very Darwinian'.

In a New York Times article, scientists praised the game for getting evolutionary ideas across,  but criticized the simplistic and in some cases misguided way that evolution is presented. For one thing, player can 'intelligently design' their creatures to some extent.

However, Dr. Thomas Near hope that the game will cause people to accept evolution: 'This may be totally off about how evolution works, but I'd much rather be dealing with a student who says, "OK, I have no problem with evolution; I think about it the same way I think about gravity." If it does that, it'll be great.' He is not the first to condone deceiving students as long as they end up accepting the evolutionary worldview. (see, www.creation.com/deceive)

Christian parents should be aware of the evolutionary indoctrination even extending to computer games, so become increasingly vigilant to make sure that the messages that their children absorb are consistent with the true (Biblical) worldview. For more information see www.creation.com/spore

The New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/science/02spore.html

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Atheists advertise on British buses

The British Humanist Association (BHA), with the support of prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, has launched a 'No God' advertising campaign on UK buses. They have raised more than 36,000 Pounds to pay for posters on both the inside and outside of London buses with the slogan: 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.'

The BHA is considering extending the campaign to other cities, including Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

According to Dawkins, this campaign 'will make people think--and thinking is anathema to religion.'

Dawkins may well be right in relation to false religion, but he's wrong when it comes to Christianity. The one true Creator of the Universe has instructed that we are to 'Love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength' [emphasis added] (Mark 12:30). And He has instructed Christian believers to 'be prepared to have an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have' [emphasis added] )1 Peter 3:15, q.v. Isaiah 1:18) that other people might become believers while there's still time. 

Now that's something worth thinking about.

BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7681914.stm  21 October 2008

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-Graydon L

First and IPod. Now This?!?!?! at 1:54 PM

You've all heard about how Barack Obama gave the Queen of England an IPod loaded with all of his speaches, but wait till you hear about Lizzy's latest modern gadget... with some ol' school style wrapped around it... literally. Article found on Yahoo! Games.

The Royal Wii

Bu Mike Krumboltz

The Nintendo Wii has positioned itself as the gaming console for everybody. As it turns out, that includes the Queen of England. Well, sort of. It's not like Her Royal Highness went down to Wal-Mart and bought one with her summer job savings. Rather, she was given a special version by gaming company THQ.

What makes the Queen's "Royal Wii" different? It's gold-plated, sucka! None of that lame white plastic for Buckingham Palace — the Queen needs her bling! Gaming blog Joystiq reports that the gaming company is hopeful that the PR stunt "will amuse Queen Elizabeth."

Meanwhile, Geek.com writes that the gift is actually meant to build awareness for the upcoming game, Big Family Games. An ulterior motive? What?!? As the geeks put it, "for a game that is meant to include the whole family from kids to grandparents what better family to send it to than The Royal Family in England."

According to Game Revolution, Big Family Games is a collection of mini-games, including "golf, tennis, ladder golf, lawn darts, horseshoes, bocce," and more. So far, search interest is rather scant. However, should the Queen declare her love for the gift, expect the title to get a right honorable boost in the Buzz. Silly as that sounds, it's not out of the realm of possibility -- according to insiders, she was "addicted" to playing Prince William's Wii last Christmas. Now she'll have one of her own.

________________________________________________________________

To read the original article in it's original page, click here (Yahoo! Games: Plugged In)

-Graydon L

South Hit Hard By 'Derecho' at 2:50 PM

COOL!!!! You learn something everyday :-)

-Graydon L

Obama Spending Cuts Visualization at 9:23 AM

I just saw this video on Facebook, It definitely puts thing in perspective.

 

 

Pretty crazy huh?

The World’s Tallest Building at 11:13 AM

And I thought the Seattle Space Needle was tall! Take a look at the Burj Dubai.

 

 

Woah.

Will it Blend? at 5:21 PM

I just stumbled upon these videos on YouTube while searching for slow motion vids. I think they’re pretty cool :-)

 

 

 

 

Apparently, this guy is the owner of a blender company that sells “industrial strength blenders” and he’s become a bit of a celebrity by blending “un-blendable” items on YouTube.

 

You can see more of his “Will it Blend” videos on the Blendtec YouTube Channel

 

Happy blending! Don’t breathe this :-D

 

-Graydon

Peter Schiff Was Right at 3:28 PM

Just got this video off a Vodie Baucham Ministries blog post , you can read the original post here.

 

Anyway, on to the video. Watch Peter Schiff (who, by the way, was Ron Paul’s economic adviser) predict not only the recession, but the true cause, the timing, and the magnitude, way back in 2006 as so-called economic experts literally laughed at him.

 

Vodie Baucham puts it well, “I [can] barely keep my chin off the floor”. To be frank, I’m having trouble hanging on to my jaw as well ;-)

 

 

Whoa, whoa, whoa… wait a sec here… Back in ‘07 they said to buy Washington Mutual? Didn’t WAMU go down the tubes in late ‘08? Didn’t Peter Schiff say to stay away from finance companies? Didn’t Schiff say to buy gold shares? So where is the gold price now? I’ll tell you where the gold price is, it’s at almost $1000 per ounce!!!!

 

Go Peter Schiff! GO RON PAUL!!!!!

 

-Graydon

The largest Nuclear Weapon EVER! at 7:43 PM

I’ve been somewhat interested (more than usual) lately in the sheer awesomeness (if that’s a word) of nuclear technology in general. I found this vid on Youtube just a few days ago I thought it was pretty cool.

 

This is a portion of a Discovery Channel documentary about the biggest nuclear bomb ever made. The biggest, baddest H bomb ever… De Tsaar.

 

 

If you’re wondering about the really cool colored video window and control bar, these are options that you can easily change  when you embed the video from Youtube. That’s pretty cool too :-)

6 Top-Secret Aircraft that are Mistaken for UFOs at 11:01 AM

Here's a great article from Popular Mechanics Magazine about some military aircraft that have been the source for many, many UFO "sightings"

Click here to read the article.

-Graydon L

The Coolest Rube Goldberg Machine EVER at 2:17 PM

Rube Goldberg was a guy who invented the very time-consuming hobby of creating machines that took a lot of work to build and a lot of time to run but which only accomplished small tasks. Nowadays they’re known as Rube Goldberg Machines and they’re quite prevalent on YouTube.

Here’s one I just uprooted off the net, enjoy!

 

I don’t know about you, but I think somebody needs more chores every morning.

Comments on how they got the chess pieces to move will be gladly accepted :-)

-Graydon

P.S. I just got a Comment from Jonathan that said that the video didn't work for him, if you are having the same issue, please comment and tell me. Here's a link to the video on YouTube: Best Rube Goldberg Ever

A Very Strange... Um... Thing at 9:50 AM

Watch this crazy video and then try and think of what this black "formation" really is.

A strange cloud formation? A storm brewing? Aliens?!?!?

Nope... birds. Starlings to be specific.

Didn't I tell you it was crazy :-)

-Graydon L