Space shuttle

Looks like space shuttle Discovery is all right and can return safely to earth a lil' over a week from now. And even the whole foam shrapnel problem is being dealt with, possibly allowing the September launch of ( I think ) space shuttle Atlantis.

Now Atlantis is the important misson launch. Discovery was just for resupplying the ISS and testing flight safety procedures. When Atlantis goes into space, it will be carrying new sections of the unfinished space station that are long overdue. I'm excited ! This station is a huge step into space.

NASA is already working on pushing further into our solar system, leaving the earth orbit work to future private enterprise. This means that the Federal government is lessening it's grip on travel off planet. Potentially this might allow entreprenours to ply their ideas and breakthroughs for getting into low/middle/upper earth orbit and beyond. And since this is business based on eventual profits rather than a beaurocratic behemoth like NASA which isn't based on accountable profit making, we could see some REAL innovations! Private enterprise tends to be more productive than Federal agencies.

Possible private experiments could include Solar Sails, Improved satalight telecommunications, compounds developed in near zero-g environments, Biomedical tests, Plasma rockets, and even a few tantalizing theories postulated by Robert Winglee. Not to mention the prospect of mining asteroids in deep space for rare or even previously unknown substances ! Like I said, I'm excited !

Of course, this will start slow. Just tourists briefly hopping into low earth orbit, then after that will be resorts for longer stays. Eventually multiple deep space stations for permanent residents both scientific and otherwise. What we rilly need right now is a major breakthrough on artificial gravity that is economical, functional, and reliable. Well, that and extending the human lifespan (hopefully indefinitly) !

Live long and prosper, dude.

Dreadnautical

Just messing around here in photoshop. No sketching. Only PS as a medium. Something quick and simple. I hate illustrating large bodies of water so I consider this to be good practice for bigger and better things in the future.

I'll try some more water based themes eventually.
That's a tentative promise...

Corner32

D'OH !!!

Time to formulate a plan. Or scratch yer butt.
One of those options will take place...
:-D

Mnemosyn

...just put your lips together and blow. You do remember how to whistle, don't you...?


This week's Illustration Friday's topic is 'Aging' and I decided to go with a Horror based theme for my submission. Just imagine if you had been dead for so long that after all these decades (or centuries) that you have forgotten things. Important things. Even silly things.
Like how to whistle.
Aging is a terrible disease, and I hope that there will be a cure for it some day soon. That way I will have someone to talk to thousands of years from now.

Hey, I get lonely sometimes. It's good to hear a familiar voice occasionaly.
Just try to remeber my name after I have it changed, ok...
:-)

New links

I've added the groovy artists Isay, and Gingerpixels to my Summoning links.
Give these talented ladies a hello and a hug from me.

Also a belated Apple computer link in my Brain Food section.

'later gator...

Corner 31

Ooooooo. Viscious Circle !

Sorry for the lack of updates in terms of posts and comments, blogger is messing with the software again and more than half the time when I try to post or comment blogger won't let me. I keep getting blank pages or notifications that my Javascript or Cookies is turned off on my computer.
Well, for bloggers information, my imac's javascript and cookies are on and working fine and have been since I started using blogger. But since I own a mac, blogger has repeatedly screwed over mac users with their new software, which is not very bright. After all, if your software isn't backward compatable, then you will always shut out quite a few people no matter what !

That is bad customer service. Even Chacha-Vision is having trouble with her blogger account, and I don't think she uses a Mac. She has trouble with adding comments, and posting new articles and I'll bet she's not the only one. And as some of you may have noticed, blogger also tends to gobble up the occassional comment and makes it disappear forever.

I hope blogger fixes this series of problems. When I started using blogger back in around February none of these problems occured. I enjoyed several months of blogging bliss. Now I seem to bash my head against a programmers wall instead of being part of an internet communication system.

Blah !!!
:-(

Lazy Kitty

It's Illustration Friday again !!!
This week's word is 'Tranquility', not a bad choice of subject matter, I must say. So I decided that a napping tabby is just the right fit for this topic, y'know...full belly, tired from chasing butterflies outside, saving the universe...those sort of things can tire you out pretty quick. As a result, just flop down and relax on the floor, maybe in the doorway to annoy anyone trying to walk in.
^_^

Oh, yeah...
Meeeeeeoooooooowwwww !!!
^_^

Illustration Friday 'Karma'

Did I just hear thunder...?
:-D

It's Illustration Friday again, and this weeks topic is 'KARMA'. I decided to do something dreary and sad. This poor person has endured a rilly bad day. So what's gonna happen tomorrow ? You got it, GOOD KARMA !
Maybe a forgotten tax return worth $9,000. Maybe a fantastic job offer from out of the blue. Maybe a brilliant discovery that makes you famous. Maybe a chance meeting with the love of your life.
Hope. Hope. Hope.
Reach for it, baby !!!
:-)

Errata again...

It's blabbermouth time again, so pull up your chairs- all you lurkers out there- whilst I waste yer time and blather on about things you may/maynot be interested in...

I'm sure that you have heard (those who care) about the new Space Shuttle Discovery mission: Get into space and back again in one piece, preferably with a live crew. Oh, yeah, and do some more work on the International Space Station Alpha. I hope this mission and the next mission go without any problems, we desperately need to conduct maintenence and repairs to the space station, not to mention actually finishing the construction of said object d' art. So far little if any science has been conducted onboard this structure due to the fact that there is currently room for only 2-3 astronauts to survive up there, and you need that many astronauts just to keep the complex thing running and stable within it's orbit. Without further modules added to the station, there is no room for additional astronauts, and no-one to conduct experiments on computer/biochemical/medical/biological/metalurgical/chemical type ideas in a micro-gravity environment. Essentially we have a very big, very expensive, very high maintenence dormatory that should be used for research, yet is incomplete for that important work.
NASA has almost always been screwed when it comes to federal funding. That means corners get cut and risks are taken, just to accomplish their basic goals. With all the pork barrel spending being done to build 'sports stadiums' and 'museums of paper and cars' (don't ask about that last one...) it's no wonder NASA has a shoestring budget.

Y'know what's rilly funny ?(I'm being facetious, of course) The funny part of all this is that most elected officials who are in charge of how much funding, if any, goes into Science and Technology...generally know nothing about science and technology. They sure know how to talk endlessly about nothing, but sci and tech are distant smudges on their peripheral vision. And even if they understand a small portion of it, they rarely fund important projects due to the fact that they are there not to do good- but to get re elected. Nice. Stem cell research is less important than getting votes. Makes you wonder what would have happened if Pennicilin or Asprin or the Intergrated Circuit were pushed aside as 'fringe quackery' by these buffoons who are in charge of spending American Tax Dollars.

Check this out, teleportation, has gotten further along and is starting to get the attention it needed 4-5 years ago. This opens up the possibilities of Far Caster portals like Dan Simmons wrote about in his Hyperion novels. Even on a small, non-organic, level the potential is enormous. Just read the article and see for yourself. This is cutting edge technology, so why is it I have to dig around to find it ? It should be on the front page of the newspaper, instead of some millionare athlete or other nonsense. We've got kids in high school and college who are smart enough to utilize this and other new emerging technologies yet instead of fostering and nurtering them, we focus only on achievements in sports and gossip. Nice.

Who will be our next Einstien or Madame Curie if all we allow is someone to get rilly good at playing with balls ?

Well, I'm about done rattling my bonebox. Hope you learned something, hope I made some sense, hope I'm not wasting my time pointing these things out.
Hope, hope hope.
Wonderful word, but it's arrival tends to be rather ephemeral.
s.

Corner30

HUFF PUFF !!!

HUFF PUFF !!!

Illustration Friday 'Metropolis'

At first I had the thought to do something from the 'Metropolis' animated film from Japan (see earlier post I did weeks back) but decided against that. Then I thought about Superman and his city 'Metropolis', but I've already done a superperson theme (see ComicChic). Lotsa ideas popped into my teeny tiny brain. But I wanted something fun and cute.

What's fun and cute about big cities ?

BAM !!!
Think SMALL cities !
That was fun and cute.
Now I want every lurker out there to watch your step, not because the ant community is vulnerable (cause it's not, it's made o' cement, Nyah Nyah !!!) but because a lotta itty bitty ants are sunbathing and they don't want your human footsies to block the sun.
:-)

Hell Michigan

Talk about infamy. I guess the rest of the world now knows our secret.

Yes.
Hell exists. And it's here in Michigan. (And you all thought it was Detroit)
:-D

Errata

Just some random thoughts here.
Deep impact is supposed to happen tonight. This is a NASA project launched sometime in January this year. It's a refrigerator sized probe that will launch a projectile that will impact with a comet, thereby exposing what's under the comets' surface. I luv this Star Trek type stuff ! I'm excited ! The collision should happen somewhere around 2 AM July four (tonight). Watch the skies !

On Wednesday I went grocery shopping but when I tried to start the car to go back home, my electrical system was dead. I thought it was a dead battery, so I got a jump from a friendly passerby. But nothing happened when the jumper cables were hooked up. So I called the free towing service and the towtruck operator showed up, he looked at the battery, tightened the bolts on it, and told me to start the car. Vrrrrrrrrrrroooooommmmmm !!!!! It was just loose bolts ! He told me that he's been getting a lotta calls that ended up like this. I've never heard of this before, but I guess the heat (over 90 degrees in the shade)and engine vibration can cause funny things to happen to yer vehicle.

Have you ever noticed that the major new networks always report fluff and nonsense 75 percent of the time, like obsessing about Micheal Jackson and Paris Hilton, but only report about foreign stories when there is a direct link to America (such as money-Iraqi oil, and vacations-Indonesia). But I know that there are about one dozen civil wars going on in Africa where tens of thousands of women and children are being raped and enslaved and tens of thousands of men are being slaughtered. I know that NPR reports this stuff, but where is FOX and CNN and MSNBC on this horror ? Oh, that's right. They are obsessing about American celebrity and politics. Some of the politics I can understand, but not when it degenerates into screaming heads sitting at a table when there are cooler heads who are getting ZERO tv time.

Whatever happened to 'The Airtight Garage' movie that was based on Jean Giraud's heavy metal stories ? Some European animation company was supposed to be working on it, but it's been years. And when will the 'Elfquest' movie get finished and see the light of day ? I've been waiting for Wendy Pini's masterpiece to make it to the big screen since 1988 !

I'll shut up now, that's enough news to keep ya Googling for a while...
:-)

Corner29

YIPES !!! Hey...

Illustration Friday 'Sport'

Sorry for being late, Blogger has been messing up a lot lately. Blogger wouldn't let me post new items on this blog due to their new software upgrade that skrews anyone who owns a Mac, uses OS 9, and uses Internet Explorer. Their solution ? Spend a large chunk o' money and get OS X and get a new browser.
Gee, that's convienient.
Sorta like, 'hey, we moved the service you use to the far side of the moon, just hitch a ride on the next space shuttle launch, oh and you gotta pay for that outta yer own pocket'.
Nice.
But I lucked out and now it's currently working like it should (I hope) so here is my entry for 'Sport'

Roping varmints is a classic cowboy sport, but what do you do when ya lasso something that just doesn't fit into your world view of the natural order. In other words- WUT THA HECK IS DAT ?
Well, it's a CHALUPA-CABRA, the Taco Bell secret ingredient that we were never meant to find out about. Who knew ?
Well, I did...

:-)