TikiPrincess

Pluto has been demoted and it's no longer considered a planet. Uranus, on the other hand, continues to mystify and amaze us all with its deep, dark depths.

HINT: It's not a button on your keyboard :DI was watching a NOVA program last night on gamma rays and discovered lots of interesting things, including this thing they called "red shift."For those of you who can remember your science classes, light produces a spectrum of color: blue-green-yellow-orange-red. Since scientists can't pull out a measuring stick to measure distance in light years, they use the spectrum of light to determine approximate distances for things like stars. Stars which are close appear blue, so the stars we see in the sky are those that are closest to us. The more distant the source of light, the more it moves down the spectrum towards red. This is what they call "red shift."The interesting thing about gamma rays is that they don't produce light, so scientists had a difficult time determining how far away the sorce is from Earth. Then they realized that the gamma rays had to pass through stuff before reaching Earth, causing explosions when it came into contact with space dust. The light emitting from these explosions could then be measured to determine the approximate distance of the gamma ray's source. When scientists used red shift to examine these explosions, they were surprised to discover that the light was coming from the red area of the spectrum. That meant that whatever was producing the gamma rays was something very distant, but still powerful enough to reach Earth.

Heh, when I first went to Europe and walked into the bathroom at the hotel, I thought there were two toilets. One was a normal one, but the other had a faucet with hot and cold knobs and almost looked like a sink with a really long basin, except it was as low as the toilet. My cousin explained that it's a bidet and the water shoots out so you can clean up after using the toilet. The hotel also had a bar of soap on the ledge in case you wanted to feel extra clean. :DAnyways, it's interesting about the whole regulation thing because I live in California which is probably the most regulated state in the US. The local farmer's markets have everything from fresh fruits and vegetables to fresh eggs and organic poultry and even fresh fish. There's a farmer's market everyday in one of the many communities around, and they always have the freshest and ripest produce. The only thing missing is the beef and pork. There's a restaurant about 20 miles away that raises their own cattle on a farm nearby and I think they slaughter the cow either at the farm or the restaurant so they can say they literally have the freshest meat and the choicest cuts. I'm not a big fan of pork unless I'm eating something bacon-wrapped. As for the milk, well, I drink soy milk anyways because I'm starting to become lactose intolerant, but I don't think I could get it from anywhere but the market.

Heehee, I loved the sushi power one. Poor little Nemo.Anyways, I like the way you use fonts. They always blend well with the rest of the sig in both style and color. The Lady one looked a little smooshed and the proportions seemed off. I'm not digging the middle one that you posted for SabCannon with the dominatrix-looking nun. Her head kinda just floats there since the black gown beneath the white habit blends into the background. It doesn't have the same finesse as the others, kinda like you went crazy with the smudge stick.But I'm not much of a graphic artist, so I'd wait until someone more knowledgeable than me says something.

That seems pretty interesting. I know that they have eco-friendly housing how that's made from recycled materials, like the walls are made from used rubber tires and things like that, and the walls are painted in a way to conserve heat when it's cold and reflect heat when it's hot. It seems to me, though, that they could use electricity if they wanted to by using solar panels or wind energy. My father-in-law works for Edison, our local electric company, and he says that some people with solar panels installed generate more than enough electricity so that they can sell the energy back to Edison. Depending on where they live, they might be able to find a local farm that could supply them with poultry and dairy products without all the packaging. They could also talk to the butcher in the supermarket and ask him/her to wrap their cuts in paper rather than plastic and styrofoam. It seems like they're going too far in the extreme rather than using the resources available. As for the toilet thing... All I can think of is that when I stayed in Europe, it was customary to use a bidet rather than the toilet paper. And several other countries don't use it either. We just grow accustomed to our conveniences, but you'd be surprised how easy it is to live without them when you choose not to. I mean, look at M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.

For the most part, I don't like watching movies that have been made from books that I've already read, though for some reason if I read the book after watching the movie, I can still enjoy both separately, like The Princess Bride or Memoirs of a Geisha. There have been a few exceptions, like Lord of the Rings and the recent version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, but it had been so long since I read the books that many of the details were vague, I just knew the basic plot. While I understand that they have to cut things from the story for time, I don't really see why they have to add things just because producers think that the changes will appeal to a wider audience. It's even worse when they change key elements in the plot or decide to rewrite the whole ending, like the travesty the they tried pawning off as The DaVinci Code. A stage production or musical is often much more condensed since they have to allot time for set/costume changes and musical numbers. So I was interested to see how the stage version compared to the book. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West Gregory Maguire's novel builds upon the world of Oz created by L. Frank Baum in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Most people are more familiar with the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland as Dorothy, where they changed the color of the slippers from silver to red to showcase the wonders of Technicolor. Maguire sets his novel earlier than Dorothy's arrival and focuses on the girls who would become the witches of Oz, notably Elphaba, the green-skinned hydrophobic Wicked Witch of the West. Her mother is a discontented housewife who is seduced by a travelling salesman who gives her a mysterious green elixir and then rapes her. Elphaba is the result of that fateful night, born with a bright green skin and razor sharp teeth. Her "father," a preacher, believes that she is his punishment and a constant reminder of his failure to protect his parishoners from the evil of sin. He favors, instead, her younger sister NessaRose who is most likely not his child either but the child of a wandering Quadling glass blower who shows up on their doorstep weak and injured. He is welcomed into the family and begins an affair with Elphaba's mother, who gives birth to NessaRose and then a son, Shell. However, Nessa is born without arms, probably because of her mother's attempts to prevent another green child, and needs constant care and attention, and becomes the center of her "father's" attention, including a pair of glass-covered slippers that sparkled in the light. The sisters are accepted to Shiz University and Elphaba is forced to room with the air-headed socialite Galinda. Despite being an outcast, Elphaba is finally away from her father's oppressive rule and excels in her studies, especially her sorcery classes. Eventually she builds friendships with several classmates, including her roommate Galinda. She becomes involved in politics and works closely with her instructor Dr. Dillamond toward Animal rights. Dillamond, consequentially is a goat, who realizes that the rights of sentient Animals, who can walk and talk and reason like humans, are slowly being taken away. His murder sparks a reaction in Elphaba, urging her and Galinda, or rather Glinda in honor of Dr. Dillamond who had trouble pronouncing her name right, to travel to the Emerald City to beseech the Wizard to change the legislation. The Wizard refuses and Elphaba vows to stay and fight to undermine his rule, while Glinda returns to school to watch over NessaRose. Years later, NessaRose is able to move around without help because Glinda bewitches her slippers and she has become the political leader of Munchkinland. Following in her sister's footsteps, she urges her country to secede from Oz and operate outside the rule of the Wizard. Glinda, on the other hand, is less interested in politics and tries to do "good" while still looking pretty. Elphaba, in the meantime, grows powerful through her experimentation with magic and her discovery of the Grimmerie, a magical text from another world. The hunt for Dorothy takes up only about a fifth of the book. Elphaba is drawn from her castle by the news of her sister's death and the unusual circumstance of having a house fall from the sky. When she discovers that Glinda gave the shoes to Dorothy, she gets angry and demands the shoes back in memory of her sister and father. She covets them simply as a token of her father's affection, which she never had, as a payment for her youth spent caring and watching over her frail younger sister. Instead, she meets her untimely end through a bucket of water. I loved the concept of the book, but I wasn't impressed with the writing style. I would get bored often and put it down to do something more interesting. This is actually pretty amazing, since I usually devour books, not read them. I've plowed through Dostoyevski and read through poor translations of Beowulf. I've even read The Canterbury Tales in Ye Olde English, so it takes a LOT to get me bored with a novel. For the most part, though, Maguire is long-winded yet he seems to lack the ability to be descriptive. He talks around and around an event without ever giving a good description of the event. Having never been in the situation where I watch an adaptation of a book that I didn't like, I was interested to see my reaction. So, onto the stage... Wicked: The Musical As I said before, the show was condensed to fit into the 2 1/2 to 3 hour running time. Many of the side plots were done away with or assigned to one of the major characters. Music numbers were added. And major plot changes occured, including rewriting the ending. The sub-plot of NessaRose's biological father is omitted The Wizard gives Elphaba the Grimmerie because he can't read it, nor can anyone else from Oz. But Elphaba's unique powers are because the Wizard is actually her father, so he should be able to read it too. While the character of Fiyero is introduced during Elphaba's school year in the novel, he doesn't play a major role. The musical creates a love triangle between him, Glinda, and Elphaba. NessaRose is seen as a dictator who strips away Munchkin rights because she is in love with a Munchkin who is in love with Glinda. She uses the Grimmerie to take his heart hoping to make him fall in love with her, but instead causes his heart to shrink. Elphaba turns him into the Tin Man to save his life. Fiyero becomes the Scarecrow. Elphaba doesn't die from the water, she simply conjures smoke so she can disappear into a trap door, leaving her broomstick behind. She and Fiyero plan this so that they can escape and live in peace. I enjoyed the musical despite the changes. I really enjoyed the happy ending better than the vague, floating-across-the-sky ending that Maguire gives in his novel. I don't really think they needed to create a love triangle between the three characters, though. It seems to echo that whole stereotype that women have to fight each other for men, creating discord and competition between even the best of friends. The same thing with the whole NessaRose sub-plot. There's no reason why she couldn't be a political activist rather than simply in love with a Munchkin who didn't love her back.

Ahhh, the trials and tribulations of youth. Unfortunately, this will probably happen again even when you're done with all the high school BS. My brother and his best friend had a huge argument because the girl my brother liked made out with his best friend. And they're all in their 30s. So you have to learn how to deal and rise above it.

I borrowed the book from my mom Saturday night and finally got to finish it yesterday afternoon despite constantly being interrupted. (I've got family visiting from Ohio. Luckily, they're staying at my mom's house, not with me, otherwise I would still be reading the book!) I have to say that I'm impressed, and I cried through quite a bit of it. Rowling did a great job of tying up a lot of loose ends and explaining things pretty thoroughly. Of course, I've still got some questions that the last chapter didn't answer. They aren't really spoilers, but I'll hide them anyways. What I expected to happen did, but there were unexpected results. Anyways, I'm always sad when a series ends, either books or on TV, because that means I'll have to find another series to get hooked on.

As one of those obnoxious American tourists who can't be bothered to learn to speak a foreign language and expect everyone else to learn to speak some proper English, I've gotten into situations where I get lost while traveling. It was even worse when I was in Europe and spending one or two nights in a country, and then going to another hotel in another country that spoke another language. I couldn't get by on my mediocre Spanish when I was in France or Germany or Italy. So I would always grab a matchbook or stationary from the hotel I was staying and then run to the giftshop and purchase postcards of the places I wanted to see and a map. This way I don't even have to talk, I just show them a picture and they can point it out on a map. If I get horribly lost, I hail a cab and show them the hotel name and address posted on the matchbook or stationary.Almost every hotel has an employee who speaks some English, if not fluently, so rather than bother the police, I would try a hotel first. They deal with travellers all the time and usually know their way around the city. The concierge is your best source of information, so try him or her if that person isn't occupied.

And one by one the machines are taking over...Well, it's definitely more cost effective to have a machine check you in, but I can see that some people might abuse the system and enter information that isn't correct in order to get to the front of the line faster. Not to mention the fact that germs and bacteria are passed more often through skin contact than anything else. With all the sick people touching it, you'll need to wipe it down with alcohol after every user.Of course, if people used the emergency room just for EMERGENCIES as it was intended, we probably wouldn't have this problem in the first place. Healthcare costs are through the roof and insurance isn't much more affordable, so people use the hospital like a doctor's office when they've got a simple fever and clog up the line.

I think that cloning is only a part of the solution, but it's not going to fix the problems that brought the turtles to this state. When a species is allowed to reproduce unchecked, they will overpopulate and exceed their carrying capacity. Population spikes then drops, hardly ever rising back to its original level. If they are going to clone this turtle, they need to make sure that they provide an environment that allows this species to thrive while stabalizing it at the same time. Natural predators should be allowed to hunt, food source should be plentiful, and hatching grounds should be protected as well. I know that in a few of the US national parks, they issue a specific number of hunting licenses to control the deer population. I think they do something similar in Australia for the kangaroos. It's not meant to be cruel to animals, it's simply controlling the population in order to protect the cycle and flow of nature.Anyways, this kinda reminded me of that movie Titan A.E. where the spaceship contained the DNA of every species from Earth. They used the DNA to clone everything from plants to animals in order to recreate the world that had been destroyed.

There are some really good entries this time, so it's kinda hard to decide. I think my top three would be truefusion, imtay, and mojoman. Since I can only vote for one, I think I'm going to have to go with mojoman. I don't really like the font for truefusion's, it just didn't seem to blend well with the rest of the design. I liked Imtay's because all of it goes well with the tech theme, but it's just too dark. The render kinda gets lost into the background. Even though mojoman has a thick border, which I usually wouldn't go for, it works well here to frame the sig. I love the font and it blends well into the overall look. The flare from the back of the head really highlights the render at just the right spot. Playground:0 truefusion:0 Saint-Michael:0 Mich:1 Imtay22:0 Mojoman:1 master bacarra:0 AndrewM:0

Ratatouille, Pixar's latest feature, is about a rat named Remy, who aspires for something better than what life has offered him. His over-developed sense of smell and taste have led him to despise his colony's usual fare of garbage and cast-off food in favor of fresh foods cooked with spices and filled with flavor. Unfortunately, his father sees only Remy's ability to smell poisoned food, and he's employed as the food inspector, forced to smell garbage all day. Though Remy has been forbidden to enter the kitchen or get close to humans, he steals in there whenever he can for fresh food where he discovers Chef Gasteau on a TV cooking show and begins reading his cookbook "Anyone Can Cook." Like almost all Pixar movies, Ratatouille has an animated short before the feature film. Lifted is a hilarious take on alien abduction. Let's just say that there's a reason that abductions usually happen in the middle of nowhere as opposed to a big city. In my opinion, Pixar has never failed to create a great animated movie. Unlike its parent company Disney, who seem to have decided to rest on their laurels and create an endless string of sequels, Pixar focuses as much on story as they do on presentation, resulting in a completely enjoyable experience. The villain in the movie is a pompous chef with a Napoleon complex, who rules the kitchen with an iron fist. But his insecurities are cleverly revealed through the plot, creating a villain with layers and dimension. Remy's fellow protagonist Linguini is as equally insecure in his lanky and graceless frame, but as his popularity and fame as a chef grows, his confidence in his ability fails to keep up, no doubt because he knows it's all due to a rat and not his own talent. One of my favorite parts in the film is when THE food critic Anton Ego takes a bite of his dish and is instantly transported back to his past as a child and how his mother comforted him with the same dish. As a cook and lover of good food myself, I know how powerful food can be. The smell and taste of a turkey dinner instantly reminds me of Thanksgivings and Christmases surrounded by the love and warmth of my family. When my husband walks into the house and the smell of chicken adobo fills the air, his mouth starts watering instantly. Ratatouille captures this idea that life is food so eloquently. The only problem I had was that sometimes I couldn't understand Collette, Linguini's love interest. She spoke with a French accent like a few of the other characters, but when she was angry, she would speak faster. So the words sometimes blended together into a blur of words and varying inflection. Other than that, I loved the movie.

Ahh, the price I pay for being so sweet... :PUnfortunately, water just tends to make me itch more. Whenever I wash my hands, shower, or swim, my bites start itching again. My husband's new job is going to start paying for health insurance in September, so I'll be able to get my allergy prescription. The catnip oil sounds interesting, but I'm afraid of becoming the favorite playtoy of the neighborhood cats.

Yesterday, I had 5 new bug bites to add to the 3 that were already there. This morning, I discovered another 2. :DI have this histamine problem, so little bug bites end up being big, huge bumps that are sometimes three inches in diameter and the swelling lasts for a day or two before they reduce to normal size. Unfortunately, my house doesn't have air-conditioning, so we usually leave the doors and windows open to let cool air in. All of them have screens except for the front door because our dog wanders out when she needs to and we've got one of those pre-fab metal door with a pressboard facade thingy, so we can't install a doggie door besides the fact that it's a rental. However, our house is pretty old and the exterior is somewhat dilapidated, so I'm sure that insects could find their way in if they really wanted to. Anyways, I've tried lotions with DEET, but the stuff gives me a headache, and Skin-So-Soft didn't work. I don't mind the bites since there aren't many ticks around and, let's face it, no one's dying from West Nile in my area. I also know it's not fleas because my dog gets regular doses of Frontline. What I'm really looking for is something to help with the itching. I know if I took allergy pills, it might help control the swelling, but prescription costs too much at the moment and over-the-counter stuff makes me sleepy no matter how low the dosage. I have this stuff called "After-Bite" that's supposed to take away the sting, but it doesn't seem to work on me.Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Wow, I used to eat like that when I was in middle school and jr. high, but I learned a few things by high school. It's not really a well-balanced diet, but when you're young, your stomach can digest just about anything, so it's not like your killing yourself quickly. And if that's your bi-weely shopping list, then you're shopping way too much! (And where's the Ramen?) Cooking in the summer is always a little more difficult because it's just too hot to do anything in the oven. Sometimes it's too hot to cook anything on the stove. I like using a crockpot/slow cooker because it's as good as slow roasting something in the oven and generates less than a quarter of the heat. Velma started a topic on quick and easy meals here. Since I'm the cook in the house and my husband hates eating leftovers, I have to learn how to keep things under budget and reinvent it so it just looks like we're not eating the same thing that I cooked last night. Here are some of the tips that I can give you if you want to vary your diet without breaking your budget. Summer is the season for fresh fruits and veggies, which seem to be missing from your shopping list. It's great to have a cool, refreshing smoothie or slushie in the afternoon heat. Just throw a bunch of sliced fruits in a blender, a little bit of juice, and a handful of ice. For a smoothie, add frozen yogurt or ice cream and less ice. You can boost your veggie intake by adding a few slices of cucumber, broccoli clumps, or other veggies to these drinks because the sweetness of the fruit will mask the flavor of the veggies. You can also grill up peaches, nectarines, or bananas on the barbecue. I like to glaze bananas with a honey, OJ, and rum mixture while they're on the grill. If you plan ahead, you could have healthy meals all week and keep the cooking to a minimum. Next time you barbecue, throw a bunch of chicken breasts on the grill. Make sure you've got at least 3-4 leftovers to keep in the fridge. Now you've got grilled chicken that you can use to make tacos, chicken sandwiches, quesadillas, or enchiladas if you're feeling ambitious. You can also make chicken salad, which is kinda like tuna salad, though that's usually better with roasted chicken instead of grilled. But you can chunk up the grilled chicken and add it to a pre-made salad like those ready-pac or fresh express ones. Fry up a few chunks with a pack of stir-fry veggies, a dash of cornstarch or flour, and a splash each of soy sauce and sesame or peanut oil (use vegetable oil if you don't have anything else). Serve over some rice or noodles. Cook up a pound or so of ground beef or ground turkey and divide it so you can use some of it in spaghetti sauce and the rest of it in tacos. Or cook up a whole bunch and throw it in a crock pot with some chili powder, a can or so of kidney beans and some chicken or beef stock (depending on whether you used turkey or beef). You could have at least 6 servings from one pound of ground meat. Anything that you don't eat can be refrigerated for a week or so, or stuck in the freezer for a couple months. You can slow cook a roast following the recipe that I gave Velma in that link above. It's great on sandwiches. You can also shred it and roll it up in tortillas and fry up them up for taquitos. Or you can change it up a little and get a brisket cut, throw in a bunch of barbecue sauce and some beef stock. Shred it up for some barbecue beef sandwiches. Hope this helps!

hehe, when I read the topic title, I thought you meant that someone did this by hot air balloon, which didn't seem very special to me. But this is awesome! I always figured that the concept was plausible, but movies and cartoons never really use enough balloons to make it believable. When you think about it, 105 balloons really isn't too many. Seems like each one carries a little more than a couple pounds. That's assuming Couch is at least 100 lbs., but I'm guessing he's probably more.I'd have to agree with Unstoppable, though, it doesn't seem very maneuverable. You're basically at the mercy of the winds. If there's a strong thermal gust, you could spin a bunch and get all dizzy. I think that birds would be too scared to approach a great bubbly monstrosity, but what if you did get swarmed by a bunch of birds and they started popping all those balloons? That would be freaky!

Math is simply a way for us to translate and categorize the things that occur naturally. People had houses before the discovery of simple arithmatic. Yeah, so they didn't have skyscrapers or the Internet, but they eked out a living.On a side note, one of my math instructors talked about the usefulness of numbers as opposed to Roman numerals. Can you imagine having to multiply XLCIII by M?

very sexy!It's perfect, thanks Tramp! I'll make sure to attribute you.

Trap17, Xisto - Web Hosting, etc. are all part of the Xisto Corporation. I know that there was a bit of a struggle towards the beginning which you can read about in the Xisto Story. However, the forums survived and seems to have flourished enough to expand well beyond its humble beginnings. I'm pretty sure that there are only a few thousand who are actually active, less who are hosted and even less that are regularly active on the forums. There's an option to purchase credits if you are running low, so some people opt for that. Others use Xisto - Web Hosting or Qupis rather than post to earn credits.