If you’re in the United States and you’re going to vote this year, you must be registered. In many states, the deadline is either today, Saturday, October 4th, or Monday, October 6th. Do it for yourself, your neighbors, your kids, your future, Jessica Alba wearing nothing but electrical tape, whatever. If that’s not enough (how can Jessica NOT be enough?), here’s four-and-a-half minutes of Hollywood celebrities (and a slightly slanted message) to convince you. Then get yourself to a library and take five minutes to put some data on some paper, you slacker.

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Original Source: Hollywood Wants You Registered to Vote

If you think Christmas stuff gets started early, you probably missed the fact that Garden Ridge had their Halloween super-center up in their stores on August 1st… that’s right, two months ago. Since then, Walmart, Target, and seasonal chain stores (like the Spencer Gifts-owned Spirit Halloween franchise) have put their new merchandise out. If you’re looking for stuff that’s less painted Styrofoam and more upscale, try your chain hobby stores.

One thing I must say for all this stuff is that it’s going away from stupid-looking Hillary Clinton masks and back to scary things like quivering corpses and headless brides. Yes, Halloween is swinging back toward the scary side and not just dressing up like your favorite football star (which those guys do every Sunday anyway). Plus, there’s the scary theme park night likes Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights.

I love October… don’t you?

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Orignal From: October 1st is Here… Ready for Halloween?

The twisted individuals who run the web comic Least I Could Do periodically run “finish the sentence” contests for fabulous prizes (or just plain fun). In either case, I thought I’d share my entry here while calling attention to idea itself.

“The Hadron Collider caused…” the polar ice caps to refreeze, global temperatures to stabilize, and hurricanes to become less powerful. No, wait, that’s what happens when you play Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” in reverse… sorry, I was confused by the question.

Think you can do better? Prove it.

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Orignal From: Finish this Sentence: “The Hadron Collider caused…”

In addition to all the rumors about CD Tray cupholders, mouse footpedals (look at the old Singer sewing machines), and people looking for reverse buttons to “back up their hard drives,” I’m always amazed at what an uninformed, average person makes from what seems like foolproof instructions. Case in point:

Customer: “What is the Hotmail code to link my site?”
Consultant: “I’ve never heard of that.”
Customer: “All these sites ask for that.”
Consultant: (thinking) “Um… spell Hotmail for me?”
Customer: “H… T… M… L. That’s Hotmail code, right?”

Contrary to what Microsoft may think, “HyperText Markup Language” or HTML (the code that websites are generally written in) has nothing to do with their free email service (at Hotmail dot com). Best laugh I’ve had since watching squirrels jamming out to rock and roll on my birthday e-card!

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Orignal From: “What is the Hotmail code to link my site?”

Okay, a while back some friends in the table-top gaming world were playing around with some futuristic science fiction concepts, specifically around the future of space travel and even colonization. As a “futurist concept,” one of the things I’ve always played around with was the idea of an electrical thruster based on light pulses, or a “light pulse thruster.”

The Newtonian problem with that you can’t propel something without propellant, like rocket fuel or even explosives. There have, however, been successful tests in creating materials that can move energy through it from one side to another, like those combination hot-or-cold coolers you plug into the wall. It merely moves heat (energy) through a plate either toward the inside (making the inside hot) or to the outside (making the inside cool). If this can move heat/energy, the idea is focusing that energy into some type of thrust.

So far, no one has figured out a way to convert electrical energy directly into thrust without using up a consumable fuel, creating the limitation of no fuel, no go. This brings us to the “Emdive,” a Chinese concept that is essentially a power source hooked up to a nozzle that will, theoretically, create thrust. Most physicists say it cannot work based on everything I just said above (and a few more technical reasons, too), but if it DOES work, it would revolutionized the space industry and everything from manned space flight to interplanetary travel.

Crap. I could have made a fortune… if it works!

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Orignal From: Dang, I Should Have Patented the M-Drive

Is this it? My official license to have a midlife crisis? I don’t FEEL tardy…!

What no one tells you when you’re 10 or 20 is that, as you get older, your brain still thinks it can do things your body is telling you not to. Fortunately, as a creative man-child Libra, I’ve never really listened to the whole “act your age” bit. With all the preservatives the media tells me I’ve consumed over the years, shouldn’t I expect to live forever?

I don’t worry that some of the music and media I enjoy is made by talented people half my age, kids young enough to have possibly been, in a parallel world, my own adult children. I will say that, with the current state of technology where it is, it’s a wonderful time to be creative and be seen creatively. At the same time, I also grieve that there are entire generations being left behind and even stricken lonely because they either refuse to accept or cannot embrace modern communication, whether it be cell phones, texting, or the Internet. Never before on this planet in recorded history has such a wealth of information, opinion, and ideas been readily available, and I’m happy to be employed in a sector which keeps me informed and on top of much of the latest innovation that’s moving it all forward.

Yes, I’m older, but I don’t see myself as old; that’s for younger people to do. It’s easy to look back and think, “If I knew when I was 20 what I know now… wow.” Unfortunately, you have to really live through it to get the benefit of that experience. Those up-and-comers won’t understand this until they’re my age (if they ever realize it all), and that’s something I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

And to everyone on the road up ahead of me, looking back and laughing now that I’m at the top of the hill, why didn’t any of you tell me there’s ANOTHER hill up ahead?! I hate you all… happy 40th birthday to me!

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Orignal From: Two Score, Four Decades, or XL in Roman Times

What better way to wish someone a happy birthday than by sneaking into a church in Iceland to play a song on of the largest pipe organs in the world? Watch for a little something extra at the end… what could it be?

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Original Source: Happy Birthday, Auntie Maim!

I have just updated a mirror site attached to this domain at called Darker Anthology. While I drop ideas here and comment on film via MovieCrypt.com, I’ve decided to take up the mantle of fleshing out some of these twisted ideas I’ve been building up now for the last twenty years.

From traveling the world in the US Navy to being married and divorced, it’s been an interesting few years, and while my articulation putting words to paper has improved, I’ve suddenly felt the need to start sharing some of this stuff and see what happens. I’ve started with reposting a few words from this site, but look for the new stuff to start trickling in very soon and with more frequency.

I’ll only repeat this about a dozen times: it’s gonna be dark.

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Orignal From: Darker Anthology Returns

This seems like a reasonable question, yes? The so-called super-collider may be running by the time you read this, but any number of the experiments they’re running could (supposedly) cause a time loop (ala Groundhog’s Day), a series of micro black holes that will rip the world apart, or recreate the actual Big Bang and reset everything to zero. If you MUST know for sure if the space-time continuum is still intact, check out Has the large hadron collider destroyed the world yet .com for the simple answer. For an extra treat among all you code monkeys, read the page source, too. Credit goes to NeedCoffee.com for tirelessly looking for this trivial stuff.

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Orignal From: Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed the World Yet?