We Are Here: The Pale Blue Dot

So far this week I've presented you with a story about possible alien abductions, a very cool video of a space shuttle flying through the night sky, a picture of a time traveler and video game art created with post it notes. I post a lot about video games, movies, space, art and any other random thing that catches my interest. This might be the most important post I ever give you. If every person on this planet watched this video our planet would be a much better place. I'm not going to lie, I got a bit teary eyed near the end of this video.

Space Shuttle Launch

Here is a really cool video of a space shuttle flying through the night sky. It almost looks like a comet blazing through the sky. Or an alien invasion. Whatever. It's absolutely spectacular.

Attempted UFO Abduction

Two teens in New Hampshire claim they were sitting innocently in their car, when a UFO levitated their entire vehicle off the ground and tried to abduct them. Here is the witness testimony.

My name is E and I'm eighteen years old. I live in Laconia. Last Saturday night, my boyfriend D came up to see me and we went out. When we got to (edited), in Laconia, we parked in the back in the separate parking lot. We turned off the car and it was totally silent.

We were just sitting there and I looked up at the moon. I saw this weird black-shaped object. And then, I said to my boyfriend, "What was that?"

He looked up at it and he said, "If it gets any closer, we need to leave."

I kept staring at the moon to see if it was just a plane or something. It moved back across the moon. It was huge and it looked like it was zig-zagging or changing shape. I couldn't tell.

He said, "I think it's coming closer." It flew so fast over the trees getting closer to where we were. It felt like it was zeroing in on us. It blocked the moon. And then, we started panicking and driving away.

Teens Survive Weird Ordeal With UFO That Levitated Their Car I thought were were going to hit the Bingo building. We turned left but it felt like we went off of a jump – you know that feeling? like we were on a rollercoaster? And we were in the air. I was trying to pay attention to everything that was going on but it felt like I couldn't. When I looked up, everything was black. The smell was not nice but it was like something you could stand. It was an odor I've never smelled before. I heard absolutely nothing – it was silent. I felt immobilized like I had no control over what I was doing or over my body. I could see nothing. It was like opening your eyes in a pitch black room.

I felt really nervous and scared. I don't remember crying or screaming. I held on to the center console because I felt like I was lifted. I was holding on so tight that my thumbprint is imprinted on the center console.

And then, when I finally realized what was happening, I was so close to the windshield that my body was going forward with my arms behind me. Everything was black. I heard a loud noise like a horn. Once. And then, the car just dropped.

I hit my eye on the dashboard and the airbags came out. I couldn't believe what had just happened. I held my face and I looked over at my boyfriend. I saw that his left arm had blood. I said, "Are you OK?" I looked at the windshield and it was cracked, totally, but only on the passenger side.

I could see D but I couldn't see anything outside. The only thing that made the car drop was the sound of the loud horn. When the car dropped, there was a loud boom. After that, we just drove so fast out of there. The smell went away after we drove away. And I started crying. And I said, "What the h-l just happened?" My boyfriend said, "I don't know, I don't know." I didn't feel like they were following us.

When we got home, my Mom said that she could hear me from the outside while I was freaking out. I couldn't stop crying. My Mom said, "Calm down and tell me what happened." I said, "You're never going to believe me." "Is it my car?" she asked.

And I said, "Let me explain," because I felt that if I didn't explain it fast enough, it was just going to go away from my mind.

At about 12:15 am, a cop arrived. I told him what had happened while I was sitting down at the dinner table. My boyfriend was sitting next to me – it was then that I noticed that there was no more blood on his arm or his clothing. The cop didn't believe me at first until he finished looking at the car. He told my Mom that there was no reason for the air bags to come out because nothing else on the car was damaged. He didn't check underneath the car but we found out later that the underside was totaled. The cop said that he was going to the place where we had been.

I just felt thankful that we'd gotten out of there. But I couldn't stop crying for more than 2 hours afterwards. My Mom said, "You should go take a shower and get the airbag dust off of you." But I didn't want to be alone at all. I felt lucky. And there were no scratches or anything anywhere on my body . . .

I am better now. I still worry about seeing this thing again and I pay attention to the sky at night. I really don't go out at night, anymore, because I'm scared.

This is a pretty interesting story and you can read all about it at this link. Oh they also have the boyfriends story over there as well.

Time Traveler

This picture is part of a museum display focusing on the 1940's in Canada. Take a look at it and see if you can find the time traveler.

Yeah that guys looks totally out of place. Over at the website Forgetomori, they have an extensive analysis of the photo and the mystery man. Sure you can go to their website and read about how no single item of his wardrobe is technically out of period. I say forget the facts and just go with your gut on this one. That guys is a time traveler if I've ever seen one.

Allow Me To Retort....

Kind of makes you want to live a high rise doesn't it. :)

Neo Geo Music Video

To celebrate Friday I give you a music video about the Neo Geo arcade cabinet.


I'm sorry if this gets stuck in your head.

8-Bit Destruction

What if video game characters destroyed New York City? Judging by this video it would be terribly awesome.

160 Arnold Schwarzenegger Quotes

It doesn't matter if you like him or hate him but I grew up enjoying the hell out of Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies. For me it didn't matter that the plots made no sense or that the acting was horrible. They had lots of explosions and that was good enough for me. Someone out there must have thought the same thing as me because this collection of 160 Arnold quotes is 100% pure awesome.

Shiny Suds!

This video was created by Method to drive interest in the Household Labeling Act which would require cleaning products to list all their ingredients on their labels. It's a good cause and a hilarious video.

:)

Man animated propaganda is the best.

Supergirl

I've always been a Superman fan but never really got much into Supergirl or any of the other Super spin offs. In fact looking back I think it may be directly related to the Supergirl movie from the 80's but I can't be certain of that.

Dean Trippe created this image of Supergirl basking in the sun and I just feel in love with it. It's so simple yet so poetic. It kind of makes me wish more things like this popped up in comics.

Massive Attack's New Video is a Massive Attack

I've never really listed to the band Massive Attack in the past. I've heard of them but I've never really heard them. For their new album they are releasing a bunch of low budget video made by different directors and this one caught my attention.

Massive Attack-Splitting the Atom-directed by Edouard Salier from edouard salier on Vimeo.

Weekend Projects

This video has been floating around the internets for a long time now. This weekend I plan to master the quick T-shirt fold seen below. Wish me luck.

Moon

The movie Moon was kick ass and if you haven't seen it yet you should see that ASAP. The movie Moon is not what this post is about though, this post is about kick ass moons floating around in our solar system.

Iapetus

"Even a cursory glance at Saturn's moon Iapetus reveals it to be an oddball. It is two-toned - one half is black, the other shining white - and strangely shaped, flattened at the poles and squashed at the sides as well. A ridge runs halfway around its equator, giving it the appearance of a walnut shell." read more








So basically when the sun hits Iapetus it melts all the snow and ice on that side of the moon. The water vapor then blows around to the dark side and forms frost giving it the white sheen it has. It's about as close as we can find in our solar system to planet Hoth.

Kick Ass Rating:


The Moon

"The moon's bulky dimensions may be a reflection of its unique origin. Moons are generally thought to form in one of two ways - either by coalescing from the same cloud of debris as their parent planet, or as wandering objects captured by the parent's gravitational pull. Our moon had a more bloody birth, when a large protoplanet collided with the young Earth 4.5 billion years ago and cast out a glowing ring of melted and vaporized rock, some of which condensed to form our satellite. That ancient cataclysm might have been lucky for us, as the moon helps to stabilize the axial tilt of Earth, removing one source of extreme climate change that might otherwise have afflicted our planet." read more

The moon gets a few bonus points for being our moon which is cool because you can see it without a telescope at night and sometimes during the day. We have sent people to walk on it and someday we may even have scientific laboratories on the moon. Just imagine the wonderful pictures a telescope on the dark side of the moon would capture. The Moon however loses a point for resembling Folor. Folor is a moon from the Star Wars video game X-Wing which is pretty cool but because it wasn't in the original trilogy I have to deduct one point. It also loses a point because of funding cuts to Nasa which means that at least in the immediate future we will not be returning to the moon. :'-(

Kick Ass Rating:


Io

"Pockmarked with sulphurous pits, bathed in intense radiation and shaken by constant volcanic eruptions, Io is the fiery hell of the solar system.

Despite being cold enough to be covered in layers of sulphur dioxide frost, this large inner moon of Jupiter is the most volcanic world known, spitting out 100 times as much lava as all Earth's volcanoes can muster, from a surface area just 1/12th the size. Io's surface is dotted with bubbling lakes of molten rock, the largest of which, Loki Patera, is more than 200 kilometres across." read more

Io can be found orbiting the planet Jupiter and sounds like our own version of Mustafar. This would have been a five star moon had Mustafar shown up in the original Star Wars movies.

Kick Ass Rating:


Pan and Atlas

"Most moons are either round and smooth, or lumpy pieces of space rock. Saturn's Pan and Atlas, on the other hand, come straight from the set of a 1950s B-movie. With a central bulge set inside a disc-like ridge, they bear an uncanny resemblance to your stereotypical flying saucers." read more







Although Pan and Atlas resemble flying saucers they lose points in the kick ass ratings for not being anything like a planet from Star Wars and being kind of boring. They do get a boost in the kick ass ratings for possibly being an alien mother ship waiting to attach Earth.

Kick Ass Rating:


Titan

"It is perhaps the strangest of all moons because it is so eerily familiar. The newly revealed face of Titan has the same weather-beaten features as Earth: lakes, hills and caves; branching river valleys; muddy plains and desert dunes. The thick nitrogen atmosphere holds fog, mist, smoggy haze and rain clouds. As one scientist commented when the first images came back from the Huygens probe in 2005, it looks just like England." read more




I'll be the first to admit that Titan should get a kick ass rating of five stars. In fact when I wrote up this blog last week it had five stars. This whole paragraph was about how cool the moon was and how it was like so many planets from Star Wars and it got bonus points for being like Earth as well. Then I found out about the next moon and sadly Titan had to take a hit in the kick ass ratings.

Kick Ass Rating:


Mimas

"The highest-resolution-yet temperature map and images of Saturn’s icy moon Mimas obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft reveal surprising patterns on the surface of the small moon, including unexpected hot regions that resemble “Pac-Man” eating a dot, and striking bands of light and dark in crater walls." read more


OK so right out of the gate Mimas would get a kick ass rating of five stars just for looking like the Death Star. Add to that the fact that it has temperature pasterns that resemble Pac-Man and this moon gets the lock on most kick ass moon. I mean really how much cooler can it get than this?

Kick Ass Rating:

I want to thank Mike for the link that prompted this post and if you are interested you can read more about weird worlds on the New Scientist website.

A Short Letter to the Drivers of Madison, WI

Dear Drivers in Madison, WI,

I have a few points to make that will make driving in our city a much easier task for all of us.

1) Turn Signals
Please use them when making a turn or changing lanes. It makes it easier on everyone if we know where you intend to go.

2) Changing Lanes
See Point #1. Also if you are going to change lanes do not speed up in front of someone and then slow down as they slow down to let you in. Doing so only ends up annoying you both, please continue at your current rate of speed and they will be happy to slow down and let you in*.

3) Dual Turn Lanes
Stay in your lane. For the love of god how hard is it to stay in your own lane?

Thank you for you time and attention Drivers in Madison, WI. I hope that this information was helpful and hopefully it will creates a more pleasant driving experience for all of us.

Sincerely,
Bradley J. Mackey

* Assuming they aren't a jerk

Unbelievable Dinner

Well it's Monday again and what makes Monday better? If you said funny videos you are correct.

Unbelievable Dinner - watch more funny videos

The Gates of Hell

Behold the gates of hell.



I'm a liar this isn't the gates of hell. It is a big flaming pit that has been burning for almost 35 years in the desert of Turkmenistan. The story goes that some Russian geologists were sent out into the desert to search for natural gas deposits. They found one and in order to burn off the natural gas to get into the large crater beneath them they started it on fire. 35 years later it's still burning.

Predator Win

Speaking of Predator did you know there is a new Predator movie coming out this summer? I did and I think it looks pretty cool.

WIN!

Lego Star Wars + Stop Motion Animation = EPIC WIN!


I do find it a bit sad that this one youtube video is better than half the Star Wars movies.

Facebook vs. The Internet

OK I knew Facebook was huge but I didn't realize they pretty much owned the internet.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

That is kind of scary if you ask me.  Maybe it's time to delete my Facebook profile after all.

Portal Gun

Just when I thought the internet was done with all the Portal jokes I find this video on YouTube.  The best part is that it actually made me laugh.