LUNCH!

While we're on the topic of water creatures (see post below) I thought I'd share with you what I had for lunch the other day at one of my favorite lunch spots: Phoenix Ranch Market. Behold my meal...

Yes that is an entire fried fish and, yes, it was delicious. I pretty much ate everything but the eyeballs which if anyone tells you they're good, they're not. They pop with gross eye goo in your mouth which has a less than savory flavor. Africans love 'em though...ahhh, mission stories.

Eagle Rays go on killing spree in Florida!!

Okay, I read this and thought it was a little nuts. And I don't know why I pluralized it, there's only one. No need to blame the whole Eagle Ray community.

Get this... "Judy Kay Zagorski was sitting in the front seat of a boat traveling 25 mph on Thursday when she was struck in the face..." by a friggin Eagle Ray!! This 75-pound ray literally flew out of the water and hit this lady square in the face. IN THE FACE!! This all took place in the Florida Keys yesterday. With all due respect to the deceased, this is an awesome story. The murder suspect is seen below...

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Photography

I love photography. I wish I had taken a class in high school or college when I had the chance. I'm sure I still do have the chance, but with work, piano lessons, and everything else that takes up time in my life, I don't know where I could fit the time in. Every summer for the last two or three years we've visited Mike's grandparents in Greer. Usually around Labor Day weekend we'll go and spend a relaxing and blissful weekend and only worry about what lake to go fishing or where we want to eat. I just love being out in nature so we've been playing with our simple Easyshare Kodak digital and with more and more practice we've been getting some really good pictures. Well, they look better than the first ones we've tried to take. We edited some of the photos on iphoto on our mac. Like I said, we're not professionals, but I need to find a good spot for some of these pics in our house because I'm so proud of them.

my::needs

So I was floating from blog to blog and saw something funny my sister in law did. She typed her name and "needs" into the google search engine and she found some pretty funny things. So I tried it. Here's what I found:

Kristi needs to know exactly what time she is to be doing something and exactly how (how did they know?)
Kristi needs to get out of the house more (that's always true)
Kristi needs to go to Home Depot and buy a filter for the exhaust fan over her stove (I didn't even know there was one up there)
Kristi needs to forget about last week (I usually do)
Kristi needs to be patient (who doesn't)
and my favorite. . .
Kristi needs Help (with a capital H)

That was kind of fun. Try it! Yeah for being bored!

Life in Mordor

In the last years of the Third Age of Middle Earth, Sauron bade the Nazgul to search the breadth of the land for the One ring, then he dispatched the lesser-Nazgul to fetch some Moutain-Dew. (source)

Goodwill had a sale on records!!! These are pure gold...

If Michael Jackson and Rick James morphed together somehow, this would be the result. One can only imagine how devastatin' it would be.

This is the first musical recording that led to four immediate restraining orders. They claimed the "touching" was figurative but the judge wasn't taking any chances.

At first my sister thought this was Italian, but I told her, "No, Italians have class." I think Mariah Carey covered his song, Touch My Body but she still remains in the shadow of Tino's enormous success.

What you don't see is Jethro, the fifth member hidden behind Maude's giant beehive. He quit soon after this picture was taken, sick of buying "groovy" polyester suits only to have them hidden behind her big hair.

Nothing shows you're more Rock 'n Roll then a no-shirt all-male hug-fest!!

When Jim agreed to be the subject of a reality show he had no idea they would go as far as making an album of him singing in the shower (with him in the shower on the cover).

By Request Only...because being forced to listen to Ken is considered torture in 18 states.

Awww, to live the carefree life of a Rock 'n Roll barbarian. Pillaging, burning and totally rocking with melt-your-face-off guitar solos!!! Oh yeah, and oil...lots and lots of oil.

I bet you a million dollars that's one of many flowers she's bought for herself.

With classics like "1913 Massacre" and "Don't Send My Mum to Prison" Wally skyrockets to number the number one spot on TRL.

God's child is in the top right. The rest, unfortunately didn't quite make the cut.

"Loves Nut/Mother..." That's what I got when i ran this through a translator. The "Nut" part seems to fit like a glove.

Wow... Do I really have to say anything? Nubs + Organ = A Crazy Good Time!!!

In a stunning event similar to the Uruguayan rugby team in "Alive!", Edmund (far left) was forced to eat the former, and oh-so tender and juicy, fifth member of the Christian Crusaders when rehearsal ran over into lunch time.

Am I going blind or does it look like that girl in the front can see? Hey...What are you tryin' to pull here!?

Try to follow me here: Freddie is the creator/director of Pulpit in the Shadows, a ministry dedicated to youth drug victims who then makes an album called All My Friends Are Dead on a record label called Rainbow and who wears go-go boots to a funeral. Am I the only one getting mixed signals from this guy?

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If I had $35 extra dollars...

This would totally be in my pocket...and be completely void of cash.

Sweet Nectar of Life!!!

The deliciously green drink you are currently beholding is none other than a Mint Julep from the Blue Bayou restaurant at Disneyland. This is in my top 2 reaons to go to Disneyland (the other is riding first car on Space Mountain). For the unfortunate people who have never had a julep, it's a minty, sweet drink that I could drink all day. I never have less than three glasses (I think I had 4 this time). Of course, that much of any liquid has repercussions of it's own (the baño kind) but it is so worth it. Oh, p.s. if you want to give this drink a go at anywhere but Disneyland, remember to order it virgin style because the non-Disney version is made with a hefty dose of bourbon.

WE STRUCK GOLD!!!

Okay, so we didn't go on a cruise and crash land only to find piles of gold. This is just a fun picture spot from . . . drum roll please . . .DISNEYLAND!! It's a part of Tom Sawyer's island that was redone to fit a pirates theme. Really, this was the best and most needed vacation I've had in my life. I've been to Disneyland before and I'll never get tired of it, but the second day of our vaca we went to UNIVERSAL STUDIOS!! I've never been there and they had some pretty cool stuff. I liked the Back lot tour the best.

Attacked by King Kong!!

Flash flood in Mexico.

An L.A. lookout and a crash site from War of the Worlds.

Even though we stayed at Disneyland from 9am to 10:30 pm, we only stayed at U.S. from 10am to 3pm. At 5 that afternoon, we went back to the hotel to take a nap that pretty much lasted until 9am the next morning. We only got up to eat dinner which took maybe half an hour. Luckily, our cloudy Saturday turned into a bright, beautiful and warm Sunday. So what do you do on a sunny weekend vacation in SoCal?

THE BEACH

And that is where we ended our vacation. Thanks Mike for a wonderful four day weekend getaway!

One more open spot to go to Mars…

There is a slight catch though; you can’t come back…ever. You get to strap into a rocket and NASA will shoot you all the way to Mars where you’ll get to do all kinds of research and fun stuff and…let’s see, am I forgetting anything…oh yeah, then you have to die there. Will that be a problem for you?

Yes this one way ticket to Mars may become an awesome, yet grim, reality for one lucky/unfortunate space geek in the future. A NASA engineer by the name of Jim McClane (and no, that’s not the guy from Die Hard) has concocted a mission which he is calling “Spirit of the Lone Eagle” It's a rather insane plan that actually makes some sort of sense. Here’s how McClane justifies his one-way trip to the Red Planet:

“When we eliminate the need to launch off Mars, we remove the mission’s most daunting obstacle,” said McLane. And because of a small crew size, the spacecraft could be smaller and the need for consumables and supplies would be decreased, making the mission cheaper and less complicated.
While some might classify this as a suicide mission, McLane feels the concept is completely logical
“There would be tremendous risk, yes,” said McLane, “but I don’t think that’s guaranteed any more than you would say climbing a mountain alone is a suicide mission. People do dangerous things all the time, and this would be something really unique, to go to Mars. I don’t think there would be any shortage of people willing to volunteer for the mission. Lindbergh was someone who was willing to risk everything because it was worth it. I don’t think it will be hard to find another Lindbergh to go to Mars. That will be the easiest part of this whole program.”

As crazy as it sounds, he’s right that there would be no shortage of NASA professionals and Star Trek nerds lining up for this “once in a lifetime/end of your lifetime” space odyssey. I wouldn’t necessarily sign up for this but it would be super interesting if this were actually introduced and carried out. Watch for the upcoming series on CBS; Survivor: Escape from Mars.

[Gizmodo via Universe Today via Danger Room]