Tag: miscellaneous

Could Somebody Please Explain to Me. . .

In honor of the collapsing economy, I went out last night and bought a new big-screen TV. Well, to be more accurate, I placed an order for one on-line and then went to the local store and picked up my order. Because I bought it on-line, the vendor offered – “free” – a portable DVD player; just put it in the electronic “shopping cart” and it’s added to the total order at no charge. OK, I’m never one to turn down an offer like that.

The little DVD player is this one, a Phillips 8.5″ LCD that has an iPod dock. (I guess this means that the iPod is officially the de-facto standard for portable personal entertainment.) OK, so it’s very cool. The entire unit is a bit smaller than a spiral-bound standard 8.5×11″ notebook, it comes with a plug-in charger, a cigarette-lighter (excuse me, power point) 12V charger, and an A/V cable that will let you plug the display into anything with RCA audio/video jacks.

What I don’t understand is why does this thing have a remote control?

YOU HAVE TO HOLD IT IN YOUR FREAKING HANDS TO USE IT.

Of course, the remote has a lot more buttons on it that the base unit. It would have been too difficult, I suppose, to put all those controls on the base unit instead of on the remote control that will get lost about a week after you take the thing out of the box.

I’m waiting for a wristwatch with a remote control, so you can set the time and date on your Timex without actually having to touch the thing that’s secured to your WRIST.

You’d Be Amazed What You Can Find on eBay

I just finished the John Ringo/Tom Kratman novel Yellow Eyes. One running gag throughout the book was “You’d be amazed at what you can find on eBay!”

How true. Via Blognomicon, how’d you like to buy a Roman Ballista?

Yes, this is for real. We are selling a full-size Roman siege catapult (or ballista), which we believe to be the only one of its kind (for at least 2000 years).

The catapult was recreated by a team of experts, following all known records, as accurately as possible – and then successfully fired. It was created for the BBC, for a programme called Building the Impossible, in 2002. It was built by the timber-frame team at Carpenter Oak & Woodland.

The ballista weighs approx 12 tons so postage or even buyer collection is not an option. Fully built, it is approx 7.5 metres tall and 8.5 metres long.

Originally, this cost over £120,000 to build – so we are only looking for serious bidders.

Our reserve price of £25,000 includes the cost of essential repairs to bring it back to a condition where it could be displayed, and includes delivery to any mainland UK destination.

Please note: if erecting is required at the buyer’s site, it will cost an additional £17,500 to the purchase price. It is essential that the site has adequate space for the crane and space for setting up. This will not fit in your average garden!!

I’d say not!

If the S is Really Going to HTF,

I think I want to buy one of these while I still can.

Abby of Bad Dogs and Such is getting ready for deployment to the Sandbox, and informs us that her unit has been issued the SPAX combat axe.

I’ve read a couple of reviews of the beast (including the one she links to), and it’s pretty impressive. Good enough for Marine One, good enough for my pickup truck.

“That was freakin’ awesome”

One bit of good news, for SpaceX the fourth time was the charm. They have successfully achieved orbit with their Falcon 1 booster toting a (non-)payload of 364 pounds of machined aluminum. CEO Elon Musk announced, “That was freakin’ awesome.” I imagine there was a bit of emotion behind that.

You’ve gotta love it. I want to see the video.