Do NOT try this one at home kids.

Triggering lightning with rockets.

Yes, more like this, please.

A Fusion Thruster for Space Travel.  I'd quote from the article, but it's quite short and very accessible.  Just go read it.
There, that's your hope-for-humanity fix for the day.

More from the "Coffee: Greatest Addition Ever!" guy

C.G.P. Grey probably drinks too much coffee (and coming from me, that's saying a lot) but he does have an amusing personal blog that includes his semi-infamous politics in the animal kingdom video section.  I'm still digging around on his professional blog, not sure if it'll make the daily blogroll or not.

A New Jeep. ?

Maybe?  Something smaller than the current land yacht?  We'll see.
Wonder if it'll come in at under $80K?

Coffee: The Greatest Addiction Ever!

In a four minute video, seen here.
Oh yeah!

New Terry Bisson book.

TVA Baby, it's a collection of short stories.  I'd never read much of his stuff beyond They're Made Out of Meat (which is in every nook and cranny of the net, but now you have the 'official' link to the story, go read it).  He always struck me as a faster-witted, funnier version of Phillip K. Dick.  And as it turns out, that was a fair assessment in more ways than one: compare Fire on the Mountain (John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry is successful and alternate history ensues) to Dick's The Man in the High Castle (Allies lose WWII; again, alternate history ensues).  Anyway, a couple of stories into TVA Baby I'm having a great time.


Dream Team: Quentin Tarantino makes a rapid-fire vignette movie from several Bisson short-short stories.  I can just hear the dialog in They're Made Out of Meat being bounced between Jackson and Travolta.  (Jackson speaks first.  I double-dog dare you to read the story now, with those two voices stuck in your head.)

A bad week for stars.

James "Gunsmoke" Arness
Ryan "Jackass" Dunn
Clarence "E Street" Clemons (click the link & watch the video)
All dead, and it's only Monday.
Glad I ain't famous.

The A/C compressor for my car'd better be in this week.

Or else.
It's 10:30 this morning and 91 degrees in the shade already.  And it's only June.

On this Father's Day...

One of the usual suspects passed a copy of this book around down at the Mockingbird a week or so ago.  Now it's on YouTube, read by Samuel L. Jackson: oh hell, I won't give away the punchline, just click the link.

Beautiful.

More pictures at discovery.com