Put Some New Shoes On.

So, the Wife likes shoes. There's a surprise. Here are some shoes that I made for her as a Christmas present.
Inspired by the television show The Big Bang Theory and slightly amended from the original. This is how I went about painting them.

Star Wars, Angry Birds Style.

When I had first seen reports of Angry Birds Star Wars I had thought that it was perhaps a joke or maybe just some fan art or something. I didn't look into it any further to see if it was true as it did not hold my interest enough to warrant investigation. Little did I know at the time of how wrong I was.
The Bear likes to play Angry Birds on Starbucks iPhone occasionally. He plays the free trial version of Angry Birds for the iPhone since there is no way that I am paying money for it! One occasion just a couple of weeks ago The Bear asked if he could play Angry Birds but Starbuck was on her way out to work so she suggested that he play on my phone instead. I didn't have Angry Birds on my phone so I decided to download it from the store. Since my phone is an Android phone the full game of Angry Birds would be free. I knew that The Bear had enjoyed playing Angry Birds Space on Granny Sue's iPad so I searched for the Angry Birds Space game on the Google Play store. I found it with no problem but I also found Angry Birds Star Wars on the store right next to Angry Birds Space. My reaction to discovering that Angry Birds Star Wars was a real game downloadable from the store and not a joke as I originally thought was one of both amusement and dismay. I asked The Bear if he wanted Angry Birds Space or Star Wars. He chose Angry Birds Star Wars.

The School Bell.

It's Wednesday 12th September and I'm on my way to pick up The Bear from school. He started school just last week and is very excited about his new school. He likes his school uniform and his school bag and books and p.e. kit. Today will be the second time that I have collected him from school. I have had to take half a day off from work to be able to pick him up. I took him to school for the first time last week on Thursday. For the first 2 weeks he is attending only half days in order for him to become accustomed to the new environment of actual schooling. At first I found this to be bizarre as I was of the opinion that if he is going to school then he should just go to school and get on with it from day one but my opinion quickly changed after the walk to school with him on that first day.

Yahtzee

Presented with a challenge by the Numberphiles, my son and I embark upon a long and arduous journey. With the odds stacked against us, preparations completed and precautionary measures in place, we bravely take the first step on this voyage into the unknown.
Now, I say "unknown" but what I actually mean is "known". The entire task was known, as were the odds. The only unknown quantity were the results of the exercise.

Read on after the jump to find out what I'm on about....

Scientific Progress Goes ......

Hiroshima Cenotaph

Today, Japan held a peace memorial marking the 67th anniversary of the worlds first atomic bomb attack. The Hiroshima bombing claimed the lives of more than 140,000 people and destroyed 70% of the city of Hiroshima itself.  The bomb, named Little Boy, was said at the time to be 2000 times more powerful than the largest bomb ever used before. It was the equivalent of 12-15,000 tons of TNT and devastated an area of 5 square miles. The "Atomic Age/Era" was well under way.
The first nuclear device had already been tested on July 16th 1945 by the U.S. Army in the Jornada Del Muerto desert. The test of the 20 kiloton nuclear device was considered a success and less than a month later the only 2 atomic bombs ever to be used in actual warfare had been used. This was indeed a new age for science and technology. 67 year's later there is not a single element of life as we know it that is not affected by that event. Political and environmental, social and financial, biological and technological: all of these things are influenced across the globe by the single, massive event 67 year's ago today. The world was struck so hard that the reverberations are still being felt. The 67 year anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing is marked by a somewhat different technological advancement.

Friday Favourites #3

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily, joyfully, playfully, watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical.

Untitled Fiction. Prologue.

I sat staring at the back of Scorpio's head as he lay on the bed facing away from me. He had been missing for almost a year now and seemed to have returned only to deliver some strange cryptic message. He lay motionless on his right side, naked but covered by a thin white sheet. The sunlight spilling though the window in the mid afternoon cast a silhouette of his body through the sheet. I noticed beads of perspiration on the back of his neck and his breathing was deep and heavy. He was not sleeping. He had just finished speaking the last words he was ever to say to me. He had not moved from the position he was laying in since I discovered him there only a few minutes earlier.