JamesSavik

Zombie carols: God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay, Shoot walkers in the head, to put them down to stay, To save us all from the zombie virus, When all hell has broken lose, Lock and load all your weapons, Lock and load, Lock and load all your weapons RIGHT NOW!

Nukem till they glow festively!

Prompt 633 ____________ The Machine Lt. Geiger's squad of Marines sat in their briefing room of the transport Quantico. In peace time, Alliance soldiers pulled all sorts of duties and this appeared to be no different. When there was something difficult, dangerous and probably deadly afoot, that is when they call the Marines. The twelve men of his squad were neatly arrayed in the chairs. The other five squads of the platoon were all sitting together, looking smart, perfectly on time and wondering what was going on. Geiger looked at his tablet computer and saw that Captain Gearing had sent a message to his squad leaders: "Civilians: what can you do?" Everyone seemed to get the message at the same time. There was a collective sigh. Marines began to do all manner of tasks on their tablet computers. Given a spare minute or two, they would use it for all it was worth. Seven minutes late, Captain Gearing entered the room followed by three other men in in the uniforms of the Alliance Scout Service. Geiger stifled a chuckle. Not all the Marines did. The Alliance Scout Service had an unfortunate acronym but, it suited them rather well in Geiger's experience. The few Scouts that he had met weren't that impressive. The Scouts, as they were more politely called, pulled long, deep missions into unexplored parts of the galaxy charting unexplored space. They were all science and tech types with limited social skills that made them loads of fun at parties. Their small science ships jumped from system to system cataloging, charting and mapping everything their sensors could light up. Gearing said, "Gentlemen, this is going to be a background briefing. This information is all classified. You'll soon discover why. We're about to pull some hazardous missions and you need to know where we're going and what we are going to do once we get there. To get us started, this is Master Scout Zimmerman." Zimmerman was an elderly gentleman wearing the white uniform of the Scout Service with four red pips on his shoulder. Gearing's eyebrows arched as that indicated the equivalent rank of a Rear Admiral in the Fleet. Zimmerman made a few key strokes on his computer pad and a holographic star display. He began, "For the last three years, the Scout service has been working its way core-ward along these four sectors: 921, 922, 923 and 924. We've cataloged something on the order of twelve thousand star systems. Our crews are professional and experienced and when we lose two of them in the same general area, we take notice. Here in sector 922 we began to find artifacts of an advanced civilization. As we went deeper into the sector, we have found the wreckage of another extinct civilization. This one is big, advanced and not nearly as old as the Sagitta ruins we discovered sixty years ago. From here am going to turn over the description of the civilization to Dr. Ives." An older female senior Scout traded places with Zimmerman and began speaking, "I am Specialist Sloan. I've been working on the ruins of the Empire for the last year and a half. I call it the Empire because from what I've seen, it appears to fit. This civilization appears to be related to humans." At that, almost everyone in the room was either speaking or stunned silent. Gearing knocked on the table and there was silence. Sloan touched her computer pad and the star map zoomed in. She continued, "We haven't penetrated very far into the Empire yet. We have only touched the fringe. Like we said, These ruins are only on the order of fifteen thousand years old. So far we've discovered that the Empire was destroyed in what we assume was a civil war. We aren't sure about that but, we know for certain that their machines still operate. Our scouts were destroyed in what appear to be minefields." "Here on the map you see one of Empires frontier systems: Gillette 637. We have been able to get in this system and we've discovered quite a lot about them. This outpost seems to have been an industrial colony.

Especially bad this year?

Stormtrooper cat gets hiz orders...

Ewwww!

Important Holiday reminder- NOBODY REALLY LIKES FRUITCAKE!

Fraggin nip dealers!

Look out for Satan Claus- you know he's out there!

Hork the halls with loads of hairballs... fa la la la lalalala

Magician by RE Feist Book 1 of the The Riftwar Saga.

I think my cat needs rehab. He's dealing nip and hanging out with strays. He's always talking back and fighting. He stays out all night and comes home all bedraggled and smelly. Lot's of new kittens in the neighborhood look just like him. He's either spaced out or hyper. He has mood shifts between lethargic, irritable. He's always paranoid and hides when cops drive by. Anybody have any suggestions about my delinquent cat?

NASA VIDEO: "Supermoon Trilogy!" --Tonight's Moon Kicks Off a Series of Three Supermoons on December 3, 2017, January 1, 2018, and January 31, 2018 (WATCH Video) December 03, 2017 Source Link: Daily Galaxy Mark your calendars: on December 3, 2017, January 1, 2018, and January 31, 2018. A supermoon is a Moon that is full when it is also at or near its closest point in its orbit around Earth. Since the Moon’s orbit is elliptical, one side (apogee) is about 30,000 miles (50,000 km) farther from Earth than the other (perigee). Nearby perigee full Moons appear about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than full Moons that occur near apogee in the Moon's orbit. “The supermoons are a great opportunity for people to start looking at the Moon, not just that once but every chance they have!” says Noah Petro, a research scientist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. It’s hard for our eyes to distinguish these small changes in size when the Moon is high amidst the vastness of the night sky. But any time you catch a full Moon as it rises or sets, while it’s suspended low on the horizon beaming through the silhouettes of trees or buildings, its apparent size might make you do a double-take. You almost feel as though you could reach out, grab the glowing orb, and drop it into your coffee cup. Even more so if it’s a supermoon. If you can only catch one episode of the supermoon trilogy, catch the third one. It will be extra special. First of all, the January 31st supermoon will feature a total lunar eclipse, with totality viewable from western North America across the pacific to Eastern Asia. The Moon’s orbit around our planet is tilted so it usually falls above or below the shadow of the Earth. About twice each year, a full Moon lines up perfectly with the Earth and Sun such that Earth’s shadow totally blocks the Sun’s light, which would normally reflect off the Moon. “The lunar eclipse on January 31 will be visible during moonset. Folks in the Eastern United States, where the eclipse will be partial, will have to get up in the morning to see it,” notes Petro. “But it’s another great chance to watch the Moon.” The Moon will lose its brightness and take on an eerie, fainter-than-normal glow from the scant sunlight that makes its way through Earth’s atmosphere. Often cast in a reddish hue because of the way the atmosphere bends the light, totally eclipsed Moons are sometimes called ‘blood Moons.’ “We’re seeing all of the Earth’s sunrises and sunsets at that moment reflected from the surface of the Moon,” says Sarah Noble, a Program Scientist at NASA headquarters. The January 31st supermoon will also be the second full Moon of the month. Some people call the second full Moon in a month a Blue Moon, that makes it a super ‘blue Moon.’ Blue Moons happen every two and a half years, on average. With the total eclipse, it’ll be a royal spectacle indeed: a ‘super blue blood’ Moon. Sometimes the celestial rhythms sync up just right to wow us. Heed your calendar reminders. On the three dates marked, step out into the moonset or moonrise and look up for a trilogy of sky watching treats! The Daily Galaxy via Moon/NASA

Mount Agung on Bali Erupts! Mount Agung on Wikipedia London Express live coverage

FOUND: Cat was on my porch this morning. Ate 3 big cans of tuna. Was muddy from the rain, so we gave him a bath. If you know of anyone who is missing a Tabby let me know

I have a theory about banned books list. I think if a book is put on it, that is probably good for another million readers. If I ever heard that a book was "banned", I had to read it to see what all the noise was about.

What's not to love about cats?

It sounds to me as if someone is thinking in terms of black&white when a spectrum is really more appropriate. Sure- when you pick up a comic book you aren't going to get Tolstoy. On the other hand, when you pick up Tolstoy, you aren't looking for the comic book experience. It depends on what you are looking for. Batman or Anna Karenina? Judge Dredd or Pierre Bezukhov? We don't read things for the same reasons. God knows why anyone that's not held at gunpoint would read Tolstoy. It's a screaming, eye watering bore. Some people, obvious gluttons for punishment. actually do suffer through it. Maybe they are looking for a historical perspective on Czarist Russia. Although there is some brilliant Russian literature, I would rather be flogged than to try to read it. Now we're back to the comic books and graphic novels but, if there is anything we've learned from that genre, there's more depth to it than we give it credit for. People have and do read comic books and graphic novels for a whole spectra of reasons. Like the alienation of the X-Men and redemption through community. Like the destruction of the nameless man and his recovery of self in V for Vendetta. Like the Punisher's quest for justice. No- it's not War and Peace but it is dealing with more complex themes and ideas that the genre gets credit for. If it did not deal with the human condition, it wouldn't keep drawing people back in. Science Fiction has been defined by some as speculative fiction. It asks the child's question what if... What if we colonize other worlds? What if we develop radical new technologies? What if we meet alien civilizations that have very little in common with us? These are worthy areas of exploration. If we do colonize other worlds, will we repeat the mistakes of imperialism and colonialism? If we develop radical new technologies, how will they effect us? If we meet alien civilizations how will they see us? The same can be said for science fiction- while some of it is obvious fluff, some of it asks some pretty deep questions. While it is easy to dismiss a great deal of it, some of it can't be. The best of it has a rare capacity of being both worthy and readable. Herbert's Dune can stand next to anything in terms of complexity, richness of plot and the questions it raises. Heinlein's Starship Troopers is another example of a book that is geared towards a young adult audience but addresses serious political and moral questions about civic responsibility. Yes- when it comes to science fiction some people will read, relax and enjoy- feet up, brain off. If they are reading the right stuff, perhaps completely by accident, they will be exposed to ideas and questions that really do matter.

Classic Calvin