Mythbusters

Today I watched Mythbusters and they were putting 1500 pound (3000 horse power) rockets on a car to answer "Can a '67 Chevy turn into a 350-mile per hour road warrior "

They were also testing to see if pop rocks + cola can cause your stomach explode (it didn't explode the dead pigs stomach until they added bicarbonate of soda).

My trophies 2007

My trophies 2007
Originally uploaded by dartril

These are my tenpin trophies. The middle one is for 2nd place. The others are for my highest game and series scores.

water fight

Today Fish and I had a water fight.

I soaked about 75% of his body LOL.

This is my weapon.

This is one of Fish's WoW charecters from a year ago wearing a full armor set witch I made for him.

Raptor

I was doing the quest The Bait for Lar'korwi on World of Warcraft and I had to place to items on a rock to summon

My pet was dead and I had to revive him and I did not have my buffs up.

WOW and Darkheart

Today I played WOW and I did a battleground where you have to capture a blacksmith, a farm, a lumber mill, a mine, and a stable, and by holding the bases to get resources the teams need to get resources up to 2000 to win.

My friend Darkheart is staying with me for 8 days

Power out

Last night the power went out right when we were about to have tea.

I grabbed the torch and Mum and Fish lit candles.

At the time that the power went out I had just cooked tea and has watching M*A*S*H.

Fish was playing Warcraft on the pc.

Mum was washing a pot.

The power was out for 20 min.

A friend said the police did it, to help resolve a hostage situation.

Mythos

Today I looked at Mythos, a game that a mate sent me.
Its kind of confusing but I think it will be a good game.

So far I've found out how to build things and train people.

I still need to learn how to attack.

WOW quiz

I got 30 correct out of 50 questions in the WOW epic quiz.

Today I'm looking for Cows with guns to show a friend.

Ballaarat Observatory

Today we went to the Ballarat Observatory for National Science Week.
We did a scavenger hunt.
The Jelbart building was built in 1918 - I guess, from the date over the door.
The longitude on the sundial was east 143º51'.
On the leadlight window on the front of the baker building there was a magpie and a kookaburrawith a snake in its mouth.
The federation telescope was opened in 2001.
The gears used to open the roof on the baker building were made by tennant&co in Edinburgh.
One of the leadlight windows on the baker building has a eye in the middle of it.
The observatory was built in 1884.
The Jelbart building has leadlight windows facing each direction, the window to North contained an N, to west W and to east E. The south window does not have a S.

WW2

TodayI'm looking for WW2 things in the year 1944 to show Fish, this is a howitzer.
These are some photos of the D'day landings.
This is the U.S. troops liberating Cherbourg.
This is the US troops entering St Lô.
It says here (Oct 14, 1944) that Rommel committed suicide - I gusee that is the short story- I( think I saw a show on tv saying he was forced to kill himself.
On sept 1944 Operation Market Garden began.
In dec 1944 the allies were sent to the Ardennes ( or Battle of the Bulge)

librarys

Today we went to the library so Mum could finish her assignment.
Fish played with the toys then when he was looking at a book, he found that he could read some of the words. We're all proud.
I explored some shelves - taking a look at Star Trek Star Fleet Academy stories, when Picard was a cadet. One of the back covers told me that Picard had failed in his first attempt to enter Star Fleet Academy. The first book in the series wasn't there, I'll check on the catalogue later. I put the Star Wars series books in numerical order.

I have been to 9 libaries:

• Wodonga (which even Mum doesn't remember),
• Wangaratta - a sunny place for kids to play, lots of kids books and junior fiction, and that great big snake and was just across the road from Lunch on the Run - my favourite lunch spot.
  
• Stawell - also had a warm space for kids to play and housed the Dragon's Den toy library (only open some times). Not so many kids books or junior fiction.
  
• Ballarat - A large collection of junior fiction and children's books. Fish likes the fun play space with its sitting/playing foam blocks. It is the only one that seems to have the books I like.
  
• Sebastopol branch - a small room for the kids collection and a little play area (it is a *small* branch)
  
• Wendouree branch - a small kids comfort area.
  
• University of Ballarat SMB campus - a shelf or two of children's books that Fish & I don't explore because we harrass mum to finish her photocopying so we can leave.
  
• State Library of Victoria - I thought it was boring because GUF showed us the chess collection, and mum dallied in the Cowan gallery. I want to go back to see the Experimedia centre that mum is telling me about.
• Mill Park - does have some of my Star Wars books, but I've been waiting ages for the Fifth book in the Star Wars Jedi Apprentice series, which has gone missing at Ballarat and they do not appear to intend to replace. I think not replacing it is unfair to people who want to enjoy the whole series, nor wise for the best use of the collection because who is going to read the rest of the series, if they can't read the fifth?
  

Then we came home and I stir fried beef for tea. Mum says yum and thanks.
Fish and I are taking turns on the computer. He played Warcraft and I played Rise of Nations.

Today we got the last three copies of horrible histories.

Fish and I played Rise of Nations together we played for an hour and a half and wiped out 4 nations. I was the US and he was the Russians.

Today I cooked tea: chicken and bean burritos.

Fish and I worked together on a map of warcraft a few hours.

Reader's Digest

Today I read two articles in August's Reader's Digest.

• one called Home Smart Home which is on the "homes of the future" by Max Alexander,
• which is based on Grace, the talking house. I like some of the ideas:
  
• projects a list of recipes that would use the items you put on the benchtop.
• a touch-screen computer you can stick rfid encoded postcards or invitations that could access the internet.
• smart glass that can be transformed into a TV.

• the second one is called "Three hours of Fear and Hope" by Kenneth Miller, which is about a plane whose front landing gear had failed. One of the passengers found comfort by his seat mate who said take a "swig of this" and passed him a plastic tonic water bottle and said "its leaded" - the man had smuggled aboard a litre of vodka and tonic.
  

d-day

Today I started looking at the WW2 battle (at wikipedia), Battle of Normandy (or Operation Overlord) which was the landings on the Normandy beaches: Omaha Beach, Pointe du Hoc, Utah Beach, Gold Beach, Juno Beach and Sword Beach. I saw a list of games that referred to Operation Overlord and some of the games were ones that I used to play called Medal of Honour (or moh).

Hall of Fame and how to care for a thermos

Mum wasn't impressed that I passed up the opportunity to experience the Hall of Fame with Helen, Graham & Richard - she thinks I should take up as many opportunities for new experiences and in-person learning as possible. So, here I am, having to find out what I missed. AFL's Hall of Fame web site shows pictures of what I missed but Wikipedia gave more information: with links to articles about all the inductees. While AFL's site gave some basic information about the Legends, it only listed the inductees.

Mum was even more unimpressed that I put milo and milk in the thermos. So my biggest lesson for today is not to put anything but water in the thermos.

Go 'pies!

Today I went to the football with Chris and Gabe (and Helen, Graham & Richard) to see Collingwood (go 'pies) vs West Coast Eagles at the Telstra Dome. The 'pies won 127 to 90. I was only there for the 1st half because Gabe is 2 and a half yrs old and got restless. Helen, Graham & Richard, who had come up from Portland, invited me to go the hall of fame with them tomorrow but I did not feel like going.

KILLING HITLER

Today I watched part 2 of Killing Hitler - a documentary on the British Special Operations plan Operation Foxley to kill Hitler.

I found an article at wikipedia and mum taught me note-taking strategies: identifying key and sub-points:

• an assassination attempt was never made,
  
• historians believe the most likely date for an attempt would have been July 13 or 14, 1944 when Hitler was visiting the Berghof.

• The plan was to assassinate Hitler on his morning routine as he walked unprotected to the tea house in the Berghof compound.
• The scheme called for the British to parachute a two-man team into the area surrounding the compound.
• The two soldiers were a German-speaking Pole and a sniper.
• The men would infiltrate the compound and get in place to shoot Hitler.

• Security around Hitler was minimal because he felt nothing could touch him.

• As a result, several attempts had been made to kill him,
  
• including one that took place during the planning of this operation, by a German officer named Claus von Stauffenberg.
  
• However, none of these were successful.
  
• Stauffenberg's attempt only injured Hitler.
  
• It did, however, have the effect that public appearances of Hitler were greatly reduced, to one or two per year, thus limiting the opportunities for another attempt.

• One of the first plans was to bomb the train Hitler travelled around in.
  
• SOE had ample experience with derailing trains (it was actually what they did most),
• but the plan was dropped because Hitler's schedule was too irregular, with stations being informed of his arrival only minutes beforehand.
• The following plan was to poison his tea,
  
• to which he was addicted,
  
• but this was considered too complicated because of the necessity for an inside man.
• Next a sniper was considered.
  
• A talk with a German POW who had been part of Hitler's personal guard revealed that at the Berghof, Hitler always took a morning walk,
  
• around the same time (after 10)
  
• and for the same duration (about 20 minutes).
  
• In addition, he wanted to be alone during this walk,
  
• leaving him unprotected near some woods,
  
• where he was out of sight of sentry posts.
  
• To top it off, every time Hitler was at the Berghof, a Nazi flag was put up, which was visible from the nearby town.
  
• A sniper was found and briefed and the plan was submitted.
  
• An inside man was even found,
  
• Heidentaler,
  
• the uncle of a captured soldier, Dieser, who
  
• was vehemently anti-Nazi,
  
• lived in Salzburg, 20 km from the Berghof and
  
• regularly visited a shooting range 16 km from the Berghof with likeminded shopkeepers.
  
• There had been some resistance against the plan,
  
• especially from a superior called Thornley,
  
• but he was replaced by a supporter of the plan,
  
• Templar, and
  
• Churchill was also in favour of it.
  
• The sniper and a Polish companion who spoke German were to be dropped by plane and sheltered with Heidentaler,
  
• after which they could make the approach disguised as German mountain troops.

• The plan was submitted in November 1944,
  
• but was never put into practice
  
• because there was some controversy over whether it was such a good idea.

• Hitler was such a bad strategist that it was believed whoever might follow him up might lead a better war-effort.
  
• Also, Germany was almost defeated and if Hitler were assassinated, he would have become a martyr to some, while also leading to speculation that maybe Germany would have won if Hitler had lived. Since the idea was not only to defeat Germany but Nazism in general, that would have been an unfortunate development.
  
• However, there were strong advocates on both sides and the plan was not put into practice because no actual decision was reached.
  
• By late November Hitler left the Berghof, never to return. He killed himself when the war came to a close on 30 April 1945.

I think they should have gone ahead with Foxley because it would have saved about 10 million lives (based on the historian's calculations in the documentary: Jews and others in concentration camps; Soviet and German soldiers in the Battle of Berlin; bombed cities).

Architectural fragment = Goa'uld cargo ship?

Mum showed me her link from that sculpture in front of the State Library in Melbourne that reminded her of the Planet of the Apes. When I looked at Lucy Tartan's photo of "Architectural Fragment" I thought I saw a Goa'uld cargo ship.