Day 174 - (AP) "Stars To Be Right This Weekend", "Krull"s Original Title Was "Krul" But It Wasn't Enough, A Very Specific Cellular Plan, and We Delve Into The Many Little Appeals Of Peel

Mr. Gray

Prepare for the conjunction....

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Stargazers of the world are getting a treat this weekend.

On Saturday and again Sunday, Venus, Jupiter and Earth's moon converge for a brilliant night show.

Venus and Jupiter already are lining up in the western sky. In mid-February, the two planets were 20 degrees apart from a viewing perspective. The gap narrows to 10 degrees by month's end.

A crescent moon joins the show this weekend for a triple combination. The celestial encounter will be visible from around the world at twilight. The moon will appear closer to Venus on Saturday and closer to Jupiter on Sunday.

The moon then retreats from view, but Venus and Jupiter keep drawing closer. The two planets will be just 3 degrees apart by mid-March.

12:01 PM Mr. Silver
"And then a tear in time and space will open and the Old Ones will cleanse the Earth."

Mr. Brown

I still love this movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krull_(film)

11:44 AM Mr. Gray

Yeah...me too.

11:44 AM Mr. Brown

Every time it’s on, I watch it.

11:45 AM Mr. Gray

Liam Neeson before people knew who he was.

11:45 AM Mr. Silver

I saw it a couple times in the theater when it was new.

11:46 AM Mr. Blue

I’ve seen parts of “Krull”.  It was pretty strange.

11:47 AM Mr. Silver

They really tried to fit in a lot of "interesting stuff". 

Whoever wrote it said "Nah...not interesting enough...it needs a little something extra" a lot.

11:49 AM Mr. Gray

I bet it was a far better book.

11:50 AM Mr. Silver

"They'll need superfast horses." 

"Eh...not enough.  Make them so fast they leave fire trails.”

“Nah...still not enough. Make them so fast they leave fire trails and can run run over thin air." 

"YEAH!"

Mr. Blue

Overheard at Verizon booth

"What does the long distance cover?"

"The United States and Canada."

"Is Germany covered?"

"No."

1:56 PM Mr. Gray

"Is Germany in the US or Canada Sir? Did they win the war in '45 and I missed it? No..its not covered you moron!!"

1:57 PM Mr. Blue

Hahahah

1:58 PM Mr. Gray

Then just mumble something about the Holocaust and losing family and see how fast they leave.

2:02 PM Mr. Silver

"But you can call Mozambique and Andorra, sir."

"Oh, and a little town called Peel on the Isle of Man."

2:18 PM Mr. Silver

(looks up Peel)

I poison-gassed all of Peel in a roleplaying game once...

2:19 PM Mr. Blue

You monster.

2:22 PM Mr. Blue

Peel

2:23 PM Mr. Silver

You're making me feel guilty by sending me a lingerie shop in Peel?

2:23 PM Mr. Brown

They've got all sorts of yellow panties in there; you can see in the door.

lol

2:24 PM Mr. Blue

That's the first thing I saw when I dropped in on Street View.

What I’m saying is that you killed a bunch of sexy Manx girls.

2:27 PM Mr. Silver

Bah...Manx girls don't even have tails.

(make the connections)

Anyway...it looks like a nice place.

2:30 PM Mr. Silver

The game was post-apocalypse though, so the place was a little more...village-y.

2:31 PM Mr. Brown

Where is this again? The place is called Peel, but where?

2:32 PM Mr. Silver

Isle of Man

2:32 PM Mr. Silver

Yum "The Viking Takeaway" burgers and chips!

2:32 PM Mr. Silver

It looks out over the sea.

2:39 PM Mr. Silver

This is...um...

2:43 PM Mr. Silver

Seems legit

2:44 PM Mr. Brown

LOL

2:45 PM Mr. Blue

"Beautiful ocean viewing!*
*through 2 inch-wide, barred windows"

2:47 PM Mr. Brown

Yep

2:48 PM Mr. Silver

“Prison for hobbits in Peel now an exciting cafe and prison for hobbits!”

2:49 PM Mr. Brown

The streets are so small!

LOL

2:54 PM Mr. Blue

That's Europe for ya.

2:55 PM Mr. Brown

Look how small this Ford garage is.

2:58 PM Mr. Silver

Well, the Manx are only 3.5-4' tall, Mr. Brown.

2:58 PM Mr. Silver (to Mr. Blue) 

Will Mr. Brown bite on that “fact”?

2:59 PM Mr. Blue

It's island dwarfism.

3:00 PM Mr. Silver

If you keep following that road, Mr. Brown, you get to the prison cafe...and then a skate park...and then the end of the world in the side of a small cliff face.

3:01 PM Mr. Blue

Shawn F. is half Manx...hence his short stature.

3:01 PM Mr. Silver

Ooo!  Ruined castle alert!

3:01 PM Mr. Gray

I thought he was half hobbit.

I'm part Manx and not nearly that short! LOL

My grandfather came from Isle of Man

So yeah...Hobbit.

            3:03 PM Mr. Blue

Crud. He hasn't said anything.

3:03 PM Mr. Silver

Ah well.

3:03 PM Mr. Silver

Peel Castle

and from above

St German's Cathedral is underwater...that's where the tag for it is anyway.

3:09 PM Mr. Blue

That little bay is weird; a strange pentagon shape

3:11 PM Mr. Silver

Built by Satanists!

3:12 PM Mr. Brown

Good old little RV.

3:15 PM Mr. Brown

I’m out in a minute. Later.

3:15 PM Mr. Gray

Cya

3:16 PM Mr. Blue

50% of Manx women have 3 legs.

I think Mr. Brown actually bought the hobbit thing.

He just told me that you probably can't lay down in that RV "unless you're from that country".

3:17 PM Mr. Silver

Hehe!

I'll take the point as granted then, if no one objects.

3:20 PM Mr. Silver

Nice 3 legger pic.  Good catch, Mr. Blue

3:21 PM Mr. Blue

I bet she walks like a Pierson's Puppeteer.

3:23 PM Mr. Silver

Heh

3:25 PM Mr. Blue

Demolition Derby, euro style.

One thing I’m noticing is that a lot of these buildings look fairly new for the UK.

3:26 PM Mr. Silver

Very little reference to any Celtic past too. Just some suggestions in sign fonts.

3:27 PM Mr. Blue

I thought maybe Peel got bombed out during WWII and they rebuilt everything, but I don't see anything about that on the net. The oldest-looking part of the town would be the "newest" part of any city I remember in Wales or Scotland. Nice looking countryside.

3:31 PM Mr. Blue

I appreciate Google’s commitment to even the swampiest cow paths.

3:52 PM Mr. Silver

Wow

"Should we go up this?"

"It's a road on the map."

"It's a creek in real life though."

"Just go...you'll be fine."

"You'll?"

"I'll be waiting here, stretching my legs...hurry back."

Day 173 - Jack The Pooper, Mensch Are From Mars & Mooks Are From The Moon, The Not So Glorious Revolution, and There Are No Roads In Poland

Mr. Silver
Client name "Ripper". Previous caller, agent "Flasher".  What will be next?

"Yes, Mr. Pooper, I can help you flush your 2007 archive."

"I said erase."

"Sorry.  Well, let's get in there and wipe it clean."

"(click)"

 

Mr. Brown

http://www.marsanomalyresearch.com/evidence-directories/7-moon/moon-directory.htm

I like this site.

9:25 AM Mr. Silver

Ugh. Report 205.

9:26 AM Mr. Silver

"As you can see in the above 2nd image, there appear to be vague blurry blobs in it."

"As can be clearly seen, these are somehow different from the general blurry-blob characteristics of everything in the picture."

"The obvious conclusion is that we are looking at a bustling metropolis."

9:26 AM Mr. Blue

http://www.marsanomalyresearch.com/evidence-reports/2004/067/moon-towers.htm 

Do the people writing this actually believe it? I hope not.

9:31 AM Mr. Brown

Yeah. A lot of this stuff makes no sense.

9:45 AM Mr. Silver

"Another dead giveaway are these long shadows.  The hills casting them are obviously too small, based on my magical awareness of how large they are in a two dimensional photo at this angle and this far from the camera."

9:45 AM Mr. Brown

Yeah I was wondering about that.

LOL

10:00 AM Mr. Blue

Heheh

10:02 AM Mr. Brown

I like the one on the tire tracks. It is strange that the tracks are just not there.

10:17 AM Mr. Blue

I love the idea that there is a massive conspiracy that involves sending billions of dollars worth of equipment into space to send back doctored images that hide evidence for life forms.

Why even bother?

If you believe the more plausible conspiracies of the government hiding evidence of UFOs before we ever considered going into outer space, then we should have known what was up there without going. It makes for decent science fiction, but everything I’ve read on this site so far is completely bonkers if they're trying to be serious.

3:06 PM Mr. Brown

Do you think it could be possible our ancestors came from Mars?

Like when Mars was good.

3:07 PM Mr. Blue

It doesn't appear that way.

3:07 PM Mr. Brown

I know Mars should have had a lot of the same things as we have here at one time.

3:16 PM Mr. Blue

But we appear to be direct descendants of other primates on Earth. So how did we, along with chimps and apes and other things, go from Mars to Earth?

3:21 PM Mr. Silver

Stop being inconvenient, Mr. Blue.

No, we are not Martians.

3:21 PM Mr. Brown

Well, we could have came from there, at least in microbe form, and then everything evolved.

3:22 PM Mr. Blue

That's not the same thing at any stretch of the imagination.

You said "ancestors".

3:22 PM Mr. Brown

LOL

3:22 PM Mr. Blue

Yeah, and that didn't happen.

3:22 PM Mr. Silver

Being from Mars requires a species-ist mind-set, with the belief that we are unique creations not related to anything else on Earth.

3:22 PM Mr. Blue

Despite what that garbage website is suggesting.

3:22 PM Mr. Brown

Unless monkeys are smarter than they put on to be.

LOL

3:23 PM Mr. Gray

Maybe they are, and are just testing us. Like the Mice in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

3:23 PM Mr. Silver

Could we have been altered by a race of Martians, long dead?  I guess, yes.

3:23 PM Mr. Gray

I've read on that theory.

It does have some good points: no missing link found. Sudden enlargement of the brain to 3x the size of other primates in the same period of time.

3:24 PM Mr. Silver

Coherent stories of people and technology, written as gods and magic...

3:25 PM Mr. Gray

Look at the experiments we do on animals.....why is it hard to believe that someone else went "Oh, look at the monkeys....what happens if we do this to their DNA?

3:28 PM Mr. Brown

I don't believe anything on that site  I'm just looking at what they are saying and thinking about their claims.

3:32 PM Mr. Blue

My "alternate" theory to the idea that there are megalithic towers and structures on the Moon and a multi-billion dollar coverup of them is that there aren't, and there isn't.

3:34 PM Mr. Brown

Well, if we went to the Moon once or twice I believe that we could have kept going there, and built stuff, and are just not letting the public know.

You can hide that.

3:36 PM Mr. Blue

OK, that is possible. But it's 100% false.

3:37 PM Mr. Silver

There was quite a shift in subject unless I missed something while I was busy.

The validity of human DNA being messed with by aliens segued back to towers on the Moon?

Incidentally...why bother?

Earth is huge, and habitable, and we're stupid.

3:38 PM Mr. Brown

It really does depend on what is on the Moon to use.

3:38 PM Mr. Blue

And then why hide it, poorly I might add, with some Photoshop blur tool?

11:06 AM Mr. Blue

Perhaps Kim Jong-un is just a figurehead and there is a collective group making the decisions now that Jong-il is dead.

11:14 AM Mr. Gray

It would just be nice if they finally signed a peace treaty. Technically we're still at war with North Korea and its been how many years?

11:14 AM Mr. Blue

Almost 60.

11:15 AM Mr. Gray

I don't understand that kind of outdated thinking....North Korea....Cuba embargo. Do these old bastages honestly think that kind of stance is productive? Sheesh.

11:16 AM Mr. Blue

North Korea is pretty fascinating with their reclusive nature. I think it would be really interesting to go there before they inevitably wise up and reconnect themselves with the rest of the world

Successfully brainwashing millions of people for this long takes some serious effort.

I always find it weird how these really strict communist countries claim to be "for the people" and pro-worker and all that, yet they don't let anyone leave. So how good can it be? How can you convince your people it's better there than it is elsewhere if you're not allowing them to even leave?

11:24 AM Mr. Gray

Good point.

You have to wonder how they describe to their people what the rest of the world is like.

"Its a wasteland...crime...murder...food shortages....you are lucky we're taking care of you. What? You want to see it? No. No...you'd go blind or something. Here, let us give you some factory work to do."

11:25 AM Mr. Blue

lol

“Just have some more goulash.”

11:50 AM Mr. Silver

In the capitalist world, we throw money at stuff hoping that lots of it will accomplish something...in theirs they throw philosophy and order for the same reason.

"If we keep beating these on-paper principles in - under pain of death - for generations, the people will believe it's true and it could maybe start working as described."

The leaders can't admit failure! The manifesto sounds so clever; it must be true!

(That and we've blown countless lives, crippled the GDP, destroyed our cultural heritage, and talked up a failed ideal for decades.)

Fearless Leader reading copy - "I can't go out and make a speech in which the main topic is "oops"!"

Fearless Leader on balcony above crowd - "Loyal comrades of the Glorious People's Revolution! I stand before you today to say 'oops'! Sorry, folks, we screwed up. It turns out that the architects of the revolution were scrappy fighters and could write inspirational little books, but completely forgot to factor in people wanting to be happy, make a little money, and to be left the Hell alone. Who knew, right? Oh...all of you did...yeah. Anyway, 'oops'."

(We didn't have time to do this with oppressive religious societies, but I'm sure you dear readers can figure it out – Mr. Silver)

1:18 PM Mr. Silver

Poland

8 hits from Poland yesterday, 8 from Russia

1:20 PM Mr. Blue

Eww, Poland.

1:24 PM Mr. Silver

Weird...zooming in on Google Maps, there are towns all over the place, but no roads?

1:24 PM Mr. Blue

Poland?

1:25 PM Mr. Silver

Poland.

1:25 PM Mr. Blue

The population of Poland is 38,186,860.  Apparently it takes 38,186,861 poles to build a road system.

1:33 PM Mr. Blue

The reason my family emigrated from Nurnberg is because they were directly downwind from Poland.

1:47 PM Mr. Blue

Did you hear about the Polish guy that tried to accomplish something?

That's the end of the joke.

(Put this all in the blog please)

1:47 PM Mr. Gray

LOL

1:53 PM Mr. Silver

I'll refer to Post #21...

Hehe

Day 172 - "The Man With The Golden Square & Compass", Who Can Explain The Mysterious 'The Cult Family' Sign Hanging On The Mailbox?, and Why Not To Vote Dork This Year

8:29 AM Mr. Silver

I dreamed I was visiting my sister, and she took us to this huge mall. I have mall dreams fairly often for some reason. Anyway, I wandered kind of far and ended up going through a door into something more hotel-like. 

A not-impossible thing...I've seen hotels attached to malls before.

But this place was very quiet, and too “lived in”. As I wandered, I started wondering if it was more like a mansion. There were lounges, and set tables, and candles left burning, but no one around.

8:39 AM Mr. Silver

Mrs. Silver was there...we wandered around a bit, totally lost. 

8:41 AM Mr. Silver

Lots of smallish rooms, a lot of walking stairs up and down, and there were no windows.

I eventually started picking up on Masonic symbols, and realized a lot of people were starting to come into the rooms. (Glimpses, distant conversations, sounds of movement)

8:49 AM Mr. Silver

And I realized that it was a lodge we were wandering around, and all the Masons were coming in for a meeting.

So we started quickly, but stealthily, running around trying to find some way out.

8:50 AM Mr. Silver

I eventually spotted a heavy green curtain that seemed out of place, and there was a door to the outside behind it.

8:50 AM Mr. Brown

Scary Masons. LOL

8:51 AM Mr. Silver

It was better than my first Mason dream. My team and I got caught rooting through their library.

There was no certain ending to that one...just them politely showing us around their secrets, like a James Bond villain before ordering him to be killed.

8:53 AM Mr. Brown

“This is what my plan is, now I will kill you.”

8:53 AM Mr. Silver

Yup.

8:53 AM Mr. Brown

“I felt like telling somebody, but I can't let you leave now.”

8:54 AM Mr. Silver

Blofeld - "Let us pretend, Mr. Bond, that there are about 150 people in a dark auditorium who want to know what I'm planning to do with this new weapon..."

Bond - "People?  Where?"

Blofeld - "Oh, say, out that direction with us both in profile to them...just watching us."

Bond - "Go on..."

Mr. Silver

So Mrs. Silver got the book “Weird Pennsylvania”.

And the very first story was about the Cult House, and the road it's supposedly next to

with all the trees angling away from the building for about 200 yards...no one knows why.

The road is hard to find, and people are often followed by (varies) red trucks, or black SUVs appearing from "nowhere".

10:09 AM Mr. Brown

Yes, I remember that one. I've seen shows about it, and read about it.

10:09 AM Mr. Blue

Where is it?

10:11 AM Mr. Brown

Pennsbury Township. Cossart Road.

10:12 AM Mr. Silver

Right. So I got out the Google maps, hit “street level”, followed it, and it just stops...they didn't run it. The whole segment just stops at both ends.

10:15 AM Mr. Blue

Apparently the movie "The Village" was filmed on that road.

10:16 AM Mr. Silver

It was in it, yes.

10:19 AM Mr. Blue

The trees could have been bent over when they were saplings.

10:24 AM Mr. Silver

Personally I believe the scenario is:

"I have a lot of money, I don't want people driving my road, so I hired some guards.  Hollywood called...I gave them a couple days to film the stupid trees."

10:25 AM Mr. Blue

It doesn't look like there are more than 2 houses on that whole road, so it could be just some recluse.

10:25 AM Mr. Silver

Yeah.

With a CULT! (of no people)

10:26 AM Mr. Blue

No houses, but all the property looks tended. I see stone and wooden fences, mown fields, etc.

10:31 AM Mr. Silver

"Who can explain the mystery of the truck with groceries and other supplies disappearing into the woods at regular intervals at night?"

"Where could the similar truck with garbage possibly be going?"

"Aliens?"

"Or is it related to the mysterious land deals of one Trenton Isaac Cult III in 1795?"

11:12 AM Mr. Silver

"No one can explain the documentation at the courthouse.  Our investigators were repeatedly blocked in our attempt to gather this information by the lack of parking, navigating the revolving front door, the building directory, an elevator, a walk down the hall and a counter where the suspicious clerk asked us to sign a tablet, submit a records request and sit five whole minutes before we were finally allowed to check the records." 

Mr. Silver

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/26/conservative-columnist-romney-is-a-dork/

In other words "Mitt is a diplomatic disaster waiting to happen, and a shoo-in for international ridicule and dismissal as a fool, like George W. Bush."

12:01 PM Mr. Blue

He's a Mormon John Kerry.

12:01 PM Mr. Silver

Another glowing endorsement...

12:01 PM Mr. Blue

No decent candidates are going to waste their time running in this environment.

12:17 PM Mr. Silver

Here's another from our dork-in-chief candidate: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/27/romney-appeals-to-racing-fans-my-friends-own-nascar-teams/

12:18 PM Mr. Brown

Wow! He got the redneck vote.

12:18 PM Mr. Silver

Lost it, rather.

12:24 PM Mr. Brown

Are there any good Republican candidates?

12:26 PM Mr. Silver

You mean, like, that could win?

12:26 PM Mr. Brown

Yeah.

12:26 PM Mr. Silver

Oh, possibly. It's kind of too late though.

Their top three are all horrors.

Day 171 - Space Madness, Indian Taxonomists Still Looking For The Latin Word For 'Ewwww', Some Fans Only Watch NASCAR For The Head Injuries, "No Mr. Bond I Expect You To Fly!", Balloons That Bombed, and Mr. Gray Asks If Anybody Is Going To Be Out There This Weekend

7:54 AM Mr. Brown

I saw something on TV about a cosmonaut who sent a message back on one mission that they needed to bring them home. “I am not going to work with this corpse anymore.”

So he was ready to kill his fellow cosmonaut.

LOL

Big trouble.

That was the other problem they were looking into: The psychological aspect of the whole trip.

If astronauts go crazy before they get to Mars, it doesn't matter if all the equipment works or not.

8:02 AM Mr. Silver

Yeah...being prone to space madness is not a good qualification for an astronaut.

8:04 AM Mr. Gray

Space...MADNESS!!

8:04 AM Mr. Brown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_program_conspiracy_accusations

8:35 AM Mr. Brown

Do you think they would have actually sent men to die in space just to get ahead of us.

8:36 AM Mr. Gray

Yep.

8:36 AM Mr. Brown

So there could be dead men floating around in space right now, or even on the Moon.

8:36 AM Mr. Gray

Back then the risks were great, but both countries were pushing hard.

It wouldn’t surprise me; the Soviets kept everything very hush-hush on even Gagarin's flight.

Details weren’t released until after he landed, for the most part.

8:39 AM Mr. Brown

I know there are definitely dead dogs out there.

And mice

Rats

Monkeys

9:17 AM Mr. Brown

Speaking of lost cosmonauts: Hi Mr. Blue.

9:33 AM Mr. Silver

"And then in 1962, a French amateur radio operator purportedly recorded another Russian cosmonaut reporting in American English, strangely, that he hadn't been born yet and that he'd like to come down please."  

9:34 AM Mr. Silver

"The so-called 'Mr. Blue' tapes continued from this initial report over a span of the next 5 years."

9:38 AM Mr. Blue

Heheh

9:48 AM Mr. Silver

"Some several of the entries were quite short, including 'WTF!', 'Hello-oooo!' and 'JE-bus!'."

9:54 AM Mr. Brown

"At one point the radio enthusiast received a transmission saying 'This crazy guy up here thinks we can go through the center of the Sun, please bring us back.' "

10:01 AM Mr. Silver

Eek

Those fiendish Soviets!

10:03 AM Mr. Brown

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/23/scientists-new-amphibian-family-augurs-more-india-discoveries/?hpt=hp_c2

10:11 AM Mr. Silver

"Indian scientists discover earthworms with bones."

Weird beasties...

10:11 AM Mr. Brown

They lay eggs too. Strange.

10:12 AM Mr. Silver

Well, they are amphibians...so yeah, they lay eggs.

10:12 AM Mr. Brown

Its the Mongolian death worm! Aaaaaaaa!

No wait, its his cousin.

10:13 AM Mr. Silver

"The Mongolian Passive Worm-like Thing!"

10:13 AM Mr. Blue

“Big deal, I lay eggs.”

Mr. Silver

Repo from Mr. Blue:

I like the picture that they chose for an article about serious head injuries in NASCAR:

http://www.nwitimes.com/sports/motor-sports/nfl-concussion-fallout-raises-red-flags-in-nascar/article_8d3d784a-b49c-520f-8298-7540b88f509f.html

“Officials suspect that drivers leaving their helmets on the dash and performing ’The Happy Dog’ is a contributing factor.”

10:15 AM Mr. Blue

"I don't know how many concussions I've had in my career.. After my 10th concussion I stopped being able to count past the number 10."

10:24 AM Mr. Brown

Another contributing factor: Celebrating too early by removal of helmet at 200mph while yelling “Yahoo!”

10:24 AM Mr. Blue

Heheh.

Steering with crotch/genitals.

Celebrating victories by smashing glass milk bottles over one's head.

10:25 AM Mr. Brown

Another contributing factor to the head injuries of specifically the winners is the throwing of the checkered flag to them. The drivers are not always able to catch it, and get hit on the head with the pole.

10:26 AM Mr. Blue

"Controversial new NASCAR policy says all non-finalists will be cold-cocked in the jaw by Mike Tyson."

10:30 AM Mr. Brown

"More news on head injuries in racing: More celebratory backflips going awry"

10:33 AM Mr. Brown

"also reported in racing are more and more losses of middle fingers during the race."

10:35 AM Mr. Silver

"NASCAR officials are reconsidering the 4.5' high 'Celebration Steel Bar' across the finish line at the end of every race."

12:33 PM Mr. Blue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_007

12:35 PM Mr. Brown

They thought James Bond was on the flight and destroyed it.

12:35 PM Mr. Silver

I expected to see the jet in a tuxedo with a Walther PPK taped to a wing tip.

12:42 PM Mr. Blue

Every airline disaster Wikipedia article is so detailed.

12:44 PM Mr. Silver

Well, the accident reports put together for those things tend to run into the 10s of thousands of pages...There is plenty to put in a wiki.

12:44 PM Mr. Blue

Yes, but someone is reading those 10,000 pages and condensing them into very detailed and tense articles.

12:45 PM Mr. Silver

Yup. Aviation accident geeks.

I knew a guy that was both a train geek and camera geek.

12:46 PM Mr. Silver

One evening he treated the family to hours of slides of the time the Soviet Union let him in to ride across Russia.

Having no passion for either subject...well...maybe it was 20 minutes not "hours".

12:47 PM Mr. Blue

Heheh.

12:53 PM Mr. Silver

I took away from the experience that the USSR gave people jobs sweeping snow, jobs that consisted of stepping out one's hut to wave at the passing trains and then go back in, and that at at least one border they had to take all the trucks off the cars and change them to a different rail gauge standard to continue the trip.

12:54 PM Mr. Blue

Heh, on the Trans-Siberian?

12:54 PM Mr. Silver

I believe it was, yes.

1:56 PM Mr. Blue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Aerostatic_Corps kinda cool

2:01 PM Mr. Brown

Hmm. Balloons. Wouldn't last that long.

LOL

I bet they were a good target if the opposing force was close enough.

2:04 PM Mr. Blue

I don't know if muskets could shoot that high or accurately enough.

Even if they did, a couple dime-sized holes isn't going to bring one down right away.

2:04 PM Mr. Brown

You would still try to shoot it though, or the guys in the basket.

2:05 PM Mr. Blue

I’d shoot at the people shooting at me, first.

2:05 PM Mr. Brown

Did they use them to drop bombs?

2:05 PM Mr. Blue

Yes, in 1794 they dropped bombs.

They probably just had the balloons tethered to a certain point with a decent vantage of the battlefield.

2:13 PM Mr. Silver

For that period and for a long while after, they were only good for reconnaissance.

There is no effective weapon from a balloon like that.

Military air corps didn't even arm airplanes until partway into WWI, and they could actually select and move towards a target.

2:15 PM Mr. Brown

They had zeppelins at some point.

2:16 PM Mr. Silver

Yes...the first heavy bombers.

2:21 PM Mr. Silver

They were better as a psychological weapon, though.

A zeppelin payload was big compared to anything else of the day, but it was still tiny. Add that they weren't particularly easy to navigate, and had a tendency to deflate or burn.

2:27 PM Mr. Silver

They were safest when too high for defensive aircraft to shoot at them, but that was also too high to effectively bomb a target, so they'd go at night and navigate by comparing maps to collections of lights down below.

They'd drop their stuff, hope for the best, and try to get home the same way.

2:28 PM Mr. Brown

Night bombings. Always a surprise.

2:28 PM Mr. Silver

Hehe

Especially when they got home to learn they hit the wrong town.

2:29 PM Mr. Brown

“I think that might be the factory. Let's go down and ask for directions.”

2:33 PM Mr. Silver

I don't know if you ever ran across the bit with a zeppelin where they cranked down a guy with a phone in a little gondola to tell the bombardier when to drop a bomb. 

That was done at least once, and was successful.

The main problem was the shrapnel hitting the gondola.

The guide said he could hear the soldiers on the ground talking.  "There was one right below me, looking up.  He couldn't see me, but he was so close I heard him say to his buddy "Where ARE they?" 

I wanted to say "Right here" but I was too scared.

2:39 PM Mr. Brown

That would be crazy.

Mr. Gray

I'm just all blah. My car still isn’t inspected, all plans for the weekend fell through, so I've got nothing to do...blah.

9:25 AM Mr. Silver

(Pictures Mr. Gray in the "Is There Anybody Out There?" scene from "Pink Floyd - The Wall" by about 7pm Saturday night.)

Will you be needing chicken bones and smashed guitar parts this weekend, Mr. Gray?

9:35 AM Mr. Gray

Yes please.

(Mr. Gray's weekend - Mr. Silver)