VICTORY IS MINE!

Got you, you little poo-on-the-keyboard-making rodent.

Yes, the humane trap ultimately lead to death, as John will explain.

Trust me, with the things I was coming up with, drowning him was the most humane thing to do.

For instance, I had fancied setting an example for all the other vermin, freezing him in a block of ice and turning it into my favourite decoration a la Han Solo in Jabba's palace, keeping a collection the more mice I caught. But I decided there'd be too many drawbacks, including storage. Also, I might be percieved as a freak.

Some of you are probably squirming at the sight of a dead mouse. But hey, I eat meat and wear leather, too. I've even had white lab mice as pets and I assure you, they're just as verminy (though perhaps a little more antiseptic) as their cocoa-colored cousins.

As a wise man once said, "You're awfully cute, but unfortunately for you, you're made of meat."

Let's see what else we catch tonight...

%$#@*&^ mice.

I've discovered something no person should ever want to find:

There's mouse poo on my keyboard.

Either we have some winter visitors in the apartment who like to surf the web, or my computer 's optical mouse has developed conscious thought and is now developing a digestive tract, too.

Just like in that episode of Star Trek...

Oooogie...

Now and again, I forget why it is I don't drink in excess of two beers.

This morning, after sharing 12 bottles between me and John at a friend's party last night, I remembered.

Treacherous brain. Why can't you warn me about this stuff BEFORE I go ahead and do it?

Oh, sure, harmless, they say...

From BBC: U.S. military unveils heat-ray gun

The US military has given the first public display of what it says is a revolutionary heat-ray weapon to repel enemies or disperse hostile crowds.

Called the Active Denial System, it projects an invisible high energy beam that produces a sudden burning feeling.

Military officials, who say the gun is harmless, believe it could be used as a non-lethal way of making enemies surrender their weapons. ---(Ed: STOP OR WE'LL GIVE YOU A CRISPY TAN!)

Officials said there was wide-ranging military interest in the technology.

"This is a breakthrough technology that's going to give our forces a capability they don't now have," defence official Theodore Barna told Reuters news agency.

"We expect the services to add it to their tool kit. And that could happen as early as 2010."

'Blast from an oven'

The prototype weapon - called Silent Guardian - was demonstrated at the Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.

A beam was fired from a large rectangular dish mounted on a Humvee vehicle.

The beam has a reach of up to 500 metres (550 yards), much further than existing non-lethal weapons like rubber bullets.

It can penetrate clothes, suddenly heating up the skin of anyone in its path to 50C.

But it penetrates the skin only to a tiny depth - enough to cause discomfort but no lasting harm, according to the military.

A Reuters journalist who volunteered to be shot with the beam described the sensation as similar to a blast from a very hot oven - too painful to bear without diving for cover.

Crowd control

Military officials said the weapon was one of the key technologies of the future.

"Non-lethal weapons are important for the escalation of force, especially in the environments our forces are operating in," said Marine Col Kirk Hymes, director of the development programme.

The weapon could potentially be used for dispersing hostile crowds in conflict zones such as Iraq or Afghanistan.

It would mean that troops could take effective steps to move people along without resorting to measures such as rubber bullets - bridging the gap between "shouting and shooting", Col Hymes said.

Next thing they'll say is that they're working on rocket skates and Broadcast Energy Transmitters and Weather Control machines. Better yet, how about that HALO suit?

Living the Dream...

One of the Avatar: The Last Airbender fan artists I regularly watch on DeviantArt has made every fan's dream a reality.

Rufftoon has announced she has been hired on by the good people at ATLA to work as a storyboarder! This Montrealer was contacted by the team apparently, and kept things hush hush until she was hired.

All I can say is: ho-lee-shit. We bow before her greatness.

Why? Well check out her beautiful and hilarious gallery of fan strips. Including my personal favourite:

Squee....

If you haven't heard me rant about these books before, you'll hear it now.

Go read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy: The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; and The Amber Spyglass. The filming for the movie, starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green and others is done, and it's in post-production, to be released sometime this year.

I nearly peed myself seeing that some production stills were put up on IMDB. Of course, even with the flop of Eragon (I might add, I didn't enjoy the book all that much whereas I LOVED His Dark Materials), my hopes are high for this film. Why? Because it has talking armored polar bears. Or at least, the book does.

What's really troubling me is that I don't see any of the daemons--shape-shifting animal counterparts everyone in this alternate universe is connected with--in the stills, but that might be because they haven't added them in yet (they also talk, so maybe they'll all be CGI. Who can say?)

I can only hope that, while Pullman had been initially very impressed with the adaptation the writers had worked on, we don't end up with another ruined children's fantasy. I don't think my heart can take any more.

And for all you Neil Gaiman fans: SQUEE.

Where have all the Blossoms gone?

As I am wont to, I suddenly blurted out loud, "What ever happened to Joey Lawrence?"

Yeah, admit it, you remember him: he said "Whoa" before Keanu ever made it cool.

Thank god for the Internet and imdb. Turns out Joey's still acting, just not in anything good. Short answer: the biggest thing he's done since leaving Blossom was a stint on American Dreams.

Now you're also thinking to yourself: Joey Lawrence...wait, didn't he have a CD or something? In fact, he had two.



On a sadder note, I learned a while back that another 90's teen heartthrob Jonathan Brandis committed suicide back in 2003. He was the "Wesley" aboard seaQuestDSV, and was the voice actor of one of my favorite cartoon characters, Mozenrath, on the Aladdin TV series.

How sadly goeth the heartthrobs...

Awooooo....bee-doo-bee-doo....

Ripped from the BBC:

Iwao Takamoto, the US animator who created cartoon dogs Scooby-Doo and Muttley, has died aged 81.

He was responsible for characters from The Flintstones and The Jetsons when he worked for the Hanna-Barbera studio.

And he assisted in the design of films including Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians and Cinderella, during a career spanning more than six decades.

Mr Takamoto was a vice-president at Warner Bros Animation at the time of his death, caused by heart failure.

He said he created Scooby-Doo after talking to someone who looked after Great Danes.

Something to keep your brain up at night...

What would happen if you put Schrodinger's cat and Pavlov's dog together in the same room?

Waaah...

I want one.