Ooops #75

So, um, does anyone have a backhoe and a couple tons of lime?

Fuzzy Memories #12

I drove past the school I went to first grade at the other day. It looks closed, maybe converted to offices for some public deparment or another.

I didn't exactly have a stellar first grade year, or actually any while I was in school. I was too shy to read out loud, so it always seemed like I could barely read when in fact I was already pleasently enjoying actual grownup stuff. I can't ever remember a time when I couldn't read like breathing.

Anyway, setting the stage for the rest of my life, I never got trusted with any of the cool jobs, one of which was putting a new record on the player. But, on the last day of school, I got picked (oh sweet rapture!) to change the record! Things were looking up!

Yeah, uh huh. I walked into a filing cabinet and tore a gash on my temple. I never made it to the record player, since someone noticed my bloody head and swept me away to wherever. I don't remember. I wasn't even dazed. I could have accomplished the task perfectly well if I'd been allowed.

I still get sad whenever I think about this.

Whisky Tango Foxtrot Over #992

Moscow astrologist takes NASA to court
MOSCOW, July 4 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow's Presnensky Court has postponed until July 28a suit filed by Moscow astrologist Marina Bai against NASA over the Deep Impact project, Bai's lawyer said Monday.

"The trial has been postponed, as a NASA official failed to turn up at court," said Alexander Molokhov.

Bai demanded that the project - which culminated on Monday when a NASA probe collided with the Tempel 1 comet - be cancelled as an affront to her spiritual values, and because it upset the natural balance in the universe.

NASA experts said the project aimed to determine the composition of the comet and to prepare measures in case of a comet or an asteroid threatening Earth.

Experts deny any risk that the crash could alter the comet's trajectory and make it crash into the Earth. The comet weighs up to 250 billion metric tons, so the probe, which weighs 350 kg, was unlikely to cause significant orbital change.

"It was like mosquito hitting a 747," said Professor Iwan Williams from University of London, according to the BBC.

Equally absurd, said scientists, are fears that the parts of the comet disturbed by the blast will pollute the atmosphere, prevent solar rays from reaching the Earth, and cause eternal winter. Such speculation is complete nonsense, said Alexander Yakushev, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Space Research Institute.

Usenet Scrobblings #84

"Irrigation of the land with sewater [sic] desalinated by fusion power
is ancient. It's called 'rain'."
-- Michael McClary, in alt.fusion

Wow #14

That's a lotta dots.