Things we learned from the 80s

In my last poll, 2/3s said Windows 8 will give something new for Apple and Linux users to laugh at, and 1/3 said they are looking forward to having another excuse not to get stuff done.

On to my next poll:

The 80s were a great decade, a time without (much) war. A time when people yelling, that other peoples lifestyles would cause the destruction of the planet, were given tin foil hats, not their own TV (News) shows.

Of course there were dangers we didn't know about.

Which of these would you have liked to know about in the 80s:

That Milli Vanilli were ahead of there time.

Milli Vanilli caused a huge scandal when it was discovered that they didn't actually sing, they just lip synched to stuff done by studio musicians. Now that is almost standard, if not signers use Auto-Tune a computer program that adjusts the singers voice to match the music.

Sigfried and Roy, some things do taste better with age.

Roy worked with Lions for decades, but was not tender enough to eat.

Starring in Music Videos makes you stab baseball players.

Tawny Kitaen appeared in several Ratt videos and was the only reason Whitesnake made the charts. In 2002 she made the news again for stabbing her husband, Chuck Finley, with a stiletto shoe. Since then she has been in and out of rehab.

“The Jungle” is quite fattening.

Axel Rose welcomed us to The Jungle, he didn't tell us how high the Calorie count was. He did warn us that, “You're gonna Die.” He didn't say it was from Type II diabetes.




By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

I can't add anything more.

There has been a lot of stupid statements made over the last week. I tried to think of a post condensing them, but Andy Borowitz did such a great job at it I am in awe. G.O.P. SPLIT OVER TO EMPHASIZE MISOGYNY OR RACISM

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Windows 8 Poll

In my last poll voters were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Half liked the idea of being like Carbon forming long chains of bonds, bonding with several elements at once and having those bonds feel useful. Half wanted to live like Helium, not bonding and not reacting.

Personally I couldn't imagine living life without bonding or reacting.

On to the next poll:

Speaking of not reacting, Microsoft is going to release Windows 8 next week. This news has broken records as to the sheer amount of people that just don't care. So:

What is the most positive thing about Windows 8?

More for Mac and Linux users to laugh at.

Equalizes users, nobody can understand it.

A new excuse for not getting stuff done.

Finally a new OS to ignore.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Shut-up Stupid Sunday: Attacking the facts

Okay, the GOP and Fox news has decided they aren't even going pretend that they have any grasp of reality. Instead they will just gripe about reality has a liberal bias.

There has been a lot of noise about the moderators in the debates doing things like, asking follow-up questions that reveal Ryan's economic plan has no actual plan, and fact checking when Romney tries to pass an obvious lie.

The complaints are that facts have no place in the Debates.

Here are actual facts that the Romney/Ryan team feel are unfair to them:

The President did call the attacks in Libya acts of terror.

The unemployment rate is below 8%, lower than when he took office.

The war in Iraq is over.

The President did give the order to kill Bin Laden, and has directed Special Forces to hunt down and kill members of Al-Qaeda more aggressively than any anti-terrorist operation since Israel's Mossad hunted down the Plotters of the Berlin Olympics massacre.

The question of “if” women should enter the workforce has been settled, a long time ago. (And they don't like being in binders, very few like the three-hole punch.)

The #1 cause of abortions is unintended pregnancy. Contraceptives lower the number of unintended pregnancies.

Obama was born in Hawaii.

An economic plan with no specifics is not a plan.

The auto bailout saved millions of jobs.

The list goes on and on. The Romney team might not like these facts, but that doesn't stop them from being true.

So to everyone yelling that it's unfair to Romney to bring facts into the debate, I say, “Shut-up Stupid. I agree with you that facts and reality are unfair to Romney. But Romney's and the GOP's only argument in this election is that Obama is doing a bad job. If that is your position then you should be able to find real true facts to back that up. While lying is never good, if the GOP campaign dealt with a different approach to problems that face this nation it would be one thing. But if the ONLY thing you are campaigning on is that Obama failed as president, but you have to lie in order make that case then you have no case, period.”

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Finding Strange Things in Familiar Places

One thing I love about the Universe is whenever we take a new look at something we find things that are totally unexpected.

The latest example of this is the discovery of an Earth sized planet around Alpha Centauri B. The planet is much too close to the star for life to have evolved as we know it, but it is still a great find.

Alpha Centauri's two main stars are by far the most studied stars next to the Sun. They are our closest neighbors and are very similar to our own Sun. One is a little hotter, and one is a little cooler. They are only a billion years older than our own Sun.

For thousands of years humans have looked at the Alpha Centauri system with bigger and bigger telescopes comparing it's stars with our own. After examining all that time it still surprises us with something new.

When you think about it that is pretty much true of all science. From looking at the Cosmos and “knowing” that the universe is made up of atoms and energy, then looking closer and finding out those make up only 3% of the universe. To looking at the Moon after believing it to be fully explored and finding water. It's truly amazing what happens when you give something that has been examined over and over, one more look in a different way.

In science, writing, and all aspects of life, there it's always worth giving things another look, you never know what you might find.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Elemental Poll

It's unanimous everyone who voted in my last poll thought I should renew the contract on my Kraken. This will give the Evil Minions something to play with, and I will enjoy the tax advantages.

So today I will RE-LEASE THE KRAKEN!

On to my next poll:

In the TV show Breaking Bad the theme for the credits is to highlight the people's names with the chemical symbols for different elements. I always wondered if they got to pick which element they would be. It would be terrible to get an element that didn't represent who you are as a person. Here are some of the more colorful elements:

Hydrogen (H): As elements go Hydrogen is kind of a slut, (Not that there is anything wrong with that as long as proper precautions are taken). Hydrogen will energetically bond with anything that isn't too Nobel for that sort of thing. It will bond individually, in pairs, or if it hooks up with Carbon it will form long chains of bonding. The other elements must get nervous when Hydrogen is around as they know it will try to bond with them. It's such a charmer that it usually does.

Helium (He): Helium is the opposite of Hydrogen. It thinks it's too Nobel to go around bonding. Helium and all it's Nobel gas friends not only don't bond, they don't even react. They are the snobs of the elements.

Carbon ( C): Carbon forms strong bonds with a lot of elements. It really likes to form long bonding chains. It uses these bonding chains to do a whole host of useful stuff.

Osmium (Os): Dense and Tough. Both the heaviest element and the one possessing the greatest compressive strength, Osmium is handy to have around in a fight.

Ununoctium (Uuo): The rebel element. It's totally unstable, lives a short but exciting life. It is a member of the Nobel Gases, but true to it's rebel nature it is a solid under normal conditions. It doesn't like to bond but that's okay as it doesn't live long enough to form a bond. It's half-life is 0.89 ms.

So which element would you like to be?

As always vote on the upper-left hand side of the page.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Shut up Stupid Sunday: Moderate Mitt Romney?

This has been bugging me for the last week. After the 2012 Presidential Debate, the Mainstream Media was saying the Moderate Mitt Romney showed up. Moderate compared to what?

One thing he said, “...we’re a nation that believes that we’re all children of the same God.” really irks me.

How is it moderate to say that roughly 20% of the population simply doesn't exist?

The number of Atheists in this country is quickly catching up to the number of people who go to church. 20% to 30% of Americans attend church services. I believe these people exist. How is it that Mitt Romney doesn't believe I exist?

Even George W. Bush knew that Atheists existed. He didn't believe they should be citizens, but he knew they existed.

Has the Overton Window shifted so far to the right that believing that the President should believe in all Americans isn't the moderate stance?

I will grant that Romney has been trying not to insult fewer Americans, from 47% are lazy and dependent on Government hand-outs, to Ryan's claim 30% of Americans are “takers” and now saying 20% of Americans don't exist.

There is nothing moderate about trying to exclude any group of Americans. You can disagree with them and take moderate or extreme positions. But there is absolutely nothing moderate about being a bigot.

In our communities we all work together, play together, work to see our goals and dreams accomplished. People who shout out bigoted things in public are shunned and their friends look at the sidewalk with embarrassed looks on their faces.

If being a bigot in public isn't socially acceptable, how can it be considered a “Moderate Position” when Mitt Romney says bigoted garbage?

So to all those in the mainstream media that say the Mitt Romney that showed up at the debate was the moderate Mitt Romney, I say, “Shut-up Stupid, Hate and Bigotry towards Americans is not a moderate position! There is nothing moderate about someone running for President that hates 1 out of 5 Americans.”

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Writing Wednesday: God Save our Scream Queens

One thing that really miss from the movies I grew up on, then the B-Movies I used to rent was the Scream Queens. The girls who would go over the top in their reaction to the first dead body they ran into before turning into the kick-ass serial killer fighter that saves the day.

Now the leading ladies in movies aren't expected to show any emotion when something bad happens. If things continue like this a horror movie might start out like this:

Leading Lady is sitting on a park bench. Serial Killer in mask rides by on a bike and throws the severed head of her boyfriend into her lap.

Leading Lady (picking up head and looking it over): Oh, it's Bob.

Leading Lady sets head down opens up her scheduling app on her phone: I guess dinner is off.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go back to the fifties movies where the women were in the film just so the hero could have someone to rescue, but I'd really like for the female stars to react a little to the horror going on around them.

What about you? What do you miss from the old movies?

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Kraken Poll

With one vote Cannibal Nazi Zombies were found to be the scariest monsters Vekman has taken on.

On to the next poll.

Back in 2010 I took out a two year lease on a Kraken. It was a great deal at the time. The Kraken market was hot and it was tough to get your hands on one. Over the last couple years I've found that I really don't use my Kraken that much. Sure having a Kraken is handy, but nowadays there are many Kraken alternatives out there. That's probably why the Kraken market is in a slump.

Now that my lease is up, I was wondering should I:

Buy a new Kraken

Do without a Kraken

or, Re-lease the Kraken

As always vote on the upper left side of the page.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE