Ian Wood

I bought the new AC/DC CD a couple of days ago. I've been a big fan for a long time. Surprisingly, I didn't really like the CD all that much, but after a while, it kind of grew on me.

That is kind of odd, just the other day, I was listening to the radio while on the road, and they were also talking about minor earthquakes here in Oklahoma, where I'm from. They're not all that uncommon, however, the magnitude of them has been increasing lately.

It's always sad to see something like that go though.....Well, I suppose they'll always live on emblazoned on DVD.

US software behemoth Microsoft has doubled a cash reward for information on the whereabouts of a Canadian boy who ran away from home after his father took away his Xbox game console, it said Tuesday.

Brandon Crisp, 15, took off on his bicycle from his Barrie, Ontario home on October 13 -- Canada's Thanksgiving holiday -- and rode east along an old rail line.

He has not been seen since.

His father told local media he had removed Brandon's Xbox, built by Microsoft, after noticing changes in behavior since Brandon started playing "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" online.

The boy started skipping school, stealing money and ignoring his studies, his father said.

A local newspaper, the family's Internet service provider and Child Find offered a 25,000-dollar (19,500-dollar US) reward for information leading to his return.

Microsoft topped it up with another 25,000 dollars, the company said Tuesday in an email to AFP, "hoping for his swift return."

"Like everyone, we are deeply worried about the disappearance of Brandon Crisp," the company said.

Exhaustive searches have not turned up a single clue beyond the boy's bicycle, found last week with a flat tire.

Police are said to be examining who Brandon played with online. "Law enforcement has contacted Microsoft about this matter and we are cooperating fully with them," said Microsoft.

On Sunday, 1,600 volunteer searchers packed up their reflective vests and ended their efforts to find him, while police stopped their air and water search.

In an interview with the daily Globe and Mail, the boy's father, Steve Crisp, said he had not known how important the gaming system was to his son and how he would react when it was taken away

Experts commented that gamers may form bonds with fellow online players.

"This had become his identity, and I didn't realize how in-depth this was until I took his Xbox away," Steve Crisp told the Globe and Mail. "That's like cutting his legs off."

"This is such an issue that hits every parent out there, with video games that are starting to control our kids' lives," he said.

"I just took away his identity, so I can understand why he got so mad and took off. Before, I couldn't understand why he was taking off for taking his game away."

Now, Brandon's father says he just wants his son to come home.

Copyright © 2008 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of AFP.

I kind of like how it can be viewed both ways, since seeing the movie first then the Voyager Series, I thought of that myself whilst watching the series for the first time.

Awesome wallpaper! Too cool!

A little butchering never hurt anyone... lol

Wow, talk about taking unnecessary steps lol. I think a simple no would've been easier...

WESTFIELD, Mass. – An 8-year-old boy has died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision in western Massachusetts.

 

Police Lt. Lawrence Valliere says the boy lost control of the weapon while firing it Sunday at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman's Club. Police say the force of the weapon made it "travel up and back" to the boy's head.

 

The victim was taken to Baystate Medical Center where he died.

 

His name was not immediately released.

 

Law enforcement officials say although the incident appears to be an accident, police and the Hampden District Attorney's office are investigating.

 

Efforts to reach officials with the private club were not immediately successful.

 

and they say guns don't kill people....

 

Your comment is absurd. Guns DON"T kill people. In this case, a child died because some idiot adult(?) allowed an 8 year old boy to fire a machine gun! Why does an 8 year old child need to know how to fire an Uzi? Was he a terrorist in training or something? What kind of parent would allow his 8 year old child to fire a machine gun? The organization behind this "Expo" should be sued into bankruptcy for even allowing children to get close to weapons like this.

I agree Kor37, I've been to quite a few gun shows before, and I've never seen one let an 8 year old shoot a firearm, that's pretty fishy... And an Uzi at that, the only gun I had at that age was a nerf gun...

The smell of my dogs little presents out in the front yard.....mmmm

When my sisters ever had boyfriends and my dad caught wind of it, he usually kept a gun instead of a pipe, thankfully he never used it....

He’d never seen a gas pump fire sparked by static electricity before, but all it took was a quick check of the immediate surroundings for Lynchburg, Va., Fire Department Marshall Greg Wormser to see how catastrophic such a blaze could be without the quick thinking of gas station staff and firefighters.

“With that kind of fire, there are several thousand gallons of gas that are right beneath the pumps underground,” says Wormser, who was on the scene in November for a gas pump fire in the rural western Virginia community. “And that fire can burn as long as that fuel is there.”About 100 static-sparked fires occur at gas stations each year, according to Fowler Associates, a Moore, S.C.-based electrostatic research and consulting firm. The fires most often result from easily avoidable mistakes committed by a driver while fueling. “I’ve worked on these tragic accidents, and have seen cars blow up from static at the gas pump,” says John Fagan, professor of electrical and computer engineering for the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Okla.

Fagan says these fires start with the static electricity that all cars accumulate while driving as air passes over them. Static electricity is especially problematic when it’s cold and dry — 10 to 15 percent humidity or less — making winter the prime time for static fires.

During fueling, fumes can leak from both the fuel tank and the pump nozzle. If you get in and out of the car several times, the car's static electricity can be transferred to your body. If enough static is built up, it can cause the vapors to ignite if you come too close to the fumes near the pump. “The fuel doesn’t ignite, but the vapor from the fuel,” Wormser says.

The Lynchburg, Va., blaze was caused when a woman started pumping gas, then went back into her pickup truck to get her cell phone. After exiting her truck, she touched the gas pump and there was a spark. The truck quickly caught fire, melting the gas pump and burning the truck. “It was a case of someone doing something that was an unsafe act. She went into a car and came back out,” Wormser says.

Fortunately, the station had an emergency shut-off program that was quickly triggered by staff to restrict the underground fuel being supplied to the gas pumps. As such, the blaze, which started quickly and was described by the fire department as a “total fireball up under and around the vehicle,” was contained before there were any injuries. Damages of around $20,000 were incurred by the station, and the vehicle received several thousand dollars worth on its own.

To avoid static fires, Fagan suggests not getting in and out of your car while pumping gas, wearing shoes with rubber soles that can “ground” you, and discharging static by touching the nozzle tip to a metal surface that’s away from the gas tank before fueling. Fagan says a spark is also possible when the nozzle touches the metal ring of the gas tank opening.

Advice like this has helped reduce static fires. Fowler Associates estimates there were about 1,000 of these fires a year as recently as six or seven years ago, about ten times the current rate.

Steve Fowler, president of Fowler Associates, says it’s possible for motorists to become lax as static fires temporarily fade from the public consciousness. There may be fewer, but the fires aren’t less dangerous, he says. “People have a short memory cycle about these things.”

Static fires received a lot of attention about a decade ago, after a couple of infamous gas station blazes, one in Oklahoma that resulted in a fatality and another in Las Vegas that caused the victim to become severely burned. Surveillance footage from the Oklahoma fire eventually wound up on the Internet, creating a sensation.

The national news media picked up on the issue, with network news magazines and cable networks such as CNN running investigative reports. Amid the furor, gas companies such as ExxonMobil installed signs at gas pumps warning consumers to remain at the nozzle while fueling, not to get back into the car while the gas is pumping, and not to pull the nozzle out of the tank during a fire. Most gas nozzles now have warnings of the danger of static fires as well.

Mechanical preventative measures have also been introduced, such as the OPW Nozzle, a touchpad designed in part by Fowler that grounds the user when a driver touches the nozzle. Other protective devices include covers for nozzles that prevent fumes from escaping during fueling.

“These fires don’t necessarily happen everyday, so people tend to take it lightly. But it’s a very serious issue,” says Charles Sunderhaus, a risk manager with OPW Fueling Components in Cincinnati, Ohio, which has produced a video of “dos and don’ts” for the gas pump.

Most of the warning signs from OPW and trade groups like the Washington, D.C.-based American Petroleum Institute stress not getting in and out of the car while refueling, because it’s been found that most static fires start that way. Fowler says 80 percent of static fires are re-entry/exit fires, and 80 percent involve women. One theory for why more women are involved in static fires is that perhaps women go back into their cars to get a credit card or cell phone from their purse, whereas most men carry their wallets and cell phones on their person.

But even if you do get in and out of the car, it’s still easy to prevent a static fire. “If you grab the steering wheel or the side of the car, you discharge and then you aren’t carrying static electricity,” says Bob Renkes, executive vice president and general counsel for the Petroleum Equipment Institute in Tulsa, Okla.

These preventive measures and informational campaigns are combining to make static fires relatively rare, especially considering that there are about 160,000 gas stations in the U.S. handling about 12 billion refuelings each year, according to the American Petroleum Institute, based in Washington D.C. But most experts say that educating the public more than any physical device at the gas station is the best way to insure safety.

“The strongest tool in the prevention tool box is people knowing that these fires do in fact occur, and know the conditions under which they occur,” says Robin Rorick, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute.

By John Adams

Provided by Forbes Auto

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This kind of situation always creeps me out.

8686

Oh Deanna, (sigh) lol

Health Tip: Microwave Your ToothBrush

Fri, 10/24/2008 - 10:20am by FitSugar

If you're like most people, you get a new toothbrush every six months, but you really should be changing your toothbrush more often, like every three to four months. When the bristles get worn and lose their rigidity, they don't remove plaque as well. But you should also do some maintenance within that three months, when your toothbrush is just sitting out in the open. After all, think about all the germs and bacteria floating around that would love to attach themselves to your moist toothbrush.

So to prevent colds, flu, and other sicknesses, once or twice a week run your toothbrush through the microwave on high for 10 seconds immediately before brushing your teeth. If someone in your home is sick, you may want to sterilize it in the microwave each time you brush. If you're the one who's sick, after the illness passes, ditch your old toothbrush and replace it with a new one.

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I've heard of doing this before...

Talk about extremes lol.

Well, at least he's willing to bury the hatchet..

It's seems like a promising idea, I'm looking forward to reading more about it in the future.

Wow, Very nice!

NEW YORK – Just two weeks after a Nobel Prize highlighted theoretical work on subatomic particles, physicists are announcing a startling discovery about a much more familiar form of matter: Scotch tape. It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers.

Who knew? Actually, more than 50 years ago, some Russian scientists reported evidence of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off glass. But the new work demonstrates that you can get a lot of X-rays, a study co-author says.

"We were very surprised," said Juan Escobar. "The power you could get from just peeling tape was enormous."

Escobar, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, reports the work with UCLA colleagues in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

He suggests that with some refinements, the process might be harnessed for making inexpensive X-ray machines for paramedics or for places where electricity is expensive or hard to get. After all, you could peel tape or do something similar in such machines with just human power, like cranking.

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Ap Science Writer – Wed Oct 22, 8:59 pm ET

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Who knew?

I thought it was a nice touch, and it was also to see Lt. Barclay as well. Also I thought it was cool to throw "Captain" LaForge in there too.

Haha, if I was to ever steal something as insignificant as deodorant spray, I would carry a gun lol, or BB gun at that. I mean if you can't slip out of a supermarket with deodorant, you gotta be a lousy thief lol.

Oh man, I can't say I've ever seen an aggressive deer....

Wow, you would think that something that important would be worth going back for lol, then again with forensic technology now, I'm sure that he would've been located by the blood left anyway...

Hello all. I was just curious as to how everyone plans to celebrate Halloween, if you do. I know we don't go trick or treating (At least I know I don't lol). I always have a friend that throw a costume party that I attend every year, it's a lot of fun. Anyways, Halloween is right around the corner!