MaDuce

"Let sleeping giants sleep" doesn't apply to just the US.

CUTE!!!! I hope they fill that horses tummy full of yummy and squeeze it!!

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I am not sure why I never shared this here before (or even if). Just a file I give to friends on Halloween. It contains one of my older books and a couple incomplete chapters to an upcoming one. The complete book was written a long time ago when I had very little experience in story writing, is small and has allot of historical errors and I will probably redo it entirely but I think it still maintains the spirit of what happened. The preview chapters are to a prequel of the complete story and were put in this file mid-production and have allot of empty spaces and blank spots. For example, calling someone a "commander" rather then his name and rank which may have not been worked out yet at the time. The complete story is about Vlad the Impaler's military campaign against the Ottoman Empire. Enjoy! http://www.mediafire.com/download/3cz713scpacsj07/Hallowen+gift.rar

Thanks fellas. A REAL model of Neuschwanstein is probably going to have to wait a while. I AM planning a model of Hunedoara castle but as a miniature for a digital movie I have been trying to get made for a few years now.

My friend's daughter has the 2014 model (which she got in 2013 for some reason). That thing is HUGE but a major step forward in interior quality and comfort from previous models at least that I can see.

Any news on our squeaky hearted friend?

BTW. One of my models from back in the day.

Hay, I found some old pics from earlier this year and figured some of you might like them. I use to be a well known card model artiest but gave up the hobby years ago. Earlier this year I got an itch to make a castle model and I learned that my neighbor's daughter was turning 7 and in to fairytale castles and such, so I took that as an excuse to build this. It's not a serious model. You can see if you look carefully that it was more or less just cut and tossed together, with allot drawn on that; on a serious model, would have been built. At the request of my neighbor to "keep it within a certain size", I also intentionally made the model shorter, front to back. And; being a quick throw together, I made no effort to check to make sure the parts that haven't been shortened were in accurate proportion and I can say with confidence that most of them are not. LOL. It still came out OK IMO. The look on that kid's face when she got her birthday present was unforgettable which made the project even more worth while. Some day, I am going to go back and build a REAL model of this castle. Until then, enjoy!!

They've been working on this stuff for a long time. The only surprise is that they aren't further along then they are. This technology is NOT compatible with a legal system that has any respect for basic human rights. The day politicians and courts start making laws and regulations in relation to what people are thinking as opposed to what they do and how they interact with PR is going to make the world an extremely unpleasant place to live in. Especially if there are any flaws in the technology. For example, if you were NEAR a homicide at the time it happened and knew all the people involved. If a detective asks you about it and you get a picture of the homicide taking place, even though just imaginary guess of what happened, you could find yourself charged with a murder you didn't commit.The day when they can read your thoughts word for word in full sentences and pull pictures from your thoughts is still a long way off. Good for us but bad for our children.

lol. True!!

Kidnappers tend to hide their victims sometimes out of distrust for their victim but mostly because people are looking for them. In other words, the chief motive for hiding their victims is those looking for the victim, not anything about the victim themselves. You see this pattern in pretty much all high profile kidnappings and lower profile kidnappings tend to be little different. If you want a good example of this, when I lived in Alaska, a child prostitution operation was busted. They didn't find 8 and 9 year olds offering their services on street corners. What they found were a bunch of starving, half dead and; if my memory is correct, some actually dead children in the basement of some bar or the like. I've seen allot of reports on cartel and other human trafficking operations and almost all of them follow very similar practices. Their job is to seduce girls in numbers. They rarely go to the trouble to have much, if any relationship with their victims once their victim is trapped. They usually just hand them over to someone else but sometimes act as a pimp. Unfortunately my knowledge of human trafficking comes mostly from cases that happened physically close to home and research in to the cartels and I have fairly limited knowledge about how regular old street prostitution works. In both cases these guys tend to know their way around, so if you catch them, you can probably use them to track down the victim. There is always a chance she's selling herself on a street corner and an even slimmer chance she's having the time of her life with her "friend" but more then likely she's locked in a basement somewhere in the USA or under tight control somewhere south of the border. Lets not give your hopes up. You can start by trying to hunt down a picture of this guy and some info on him. If nothing else, we can compare him with photos and profiles of known criminals of the type. The information given suggests that someone already has very useful information on the man that could be used to hunt him down. FWIW, a huge portion of the human trafficking in the US and south America is orchestrated by the same groups responsible for more then 80% of America's illegal drug trade. When you buy street drugs you are more then likely sponsoring the kidnappings and trafficking of not only adolescents like this girl but even small children. If it's evil, these people are doing it.

Research. Hundreds of cases of organized crime as well as many kidnappings, some of which were close to home (I went to school with Jaycee Dugard and ran in to one of the kidnappers at Twin Bridges DURING the kidnapping). Human traffickers and kidnappers usually hide their victims, especially when they know allot of people are looking for them. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. We have seen at least 1 picture of the victim. But not the trunk that's keeping her locked up. That could help. My sister and now grown niece live in AZ. I'll have them keep an eye out. There's allot of prostitution here in the Sacramento area. I'll keep my eyes pealed and I am sure Mr. Robobot will too. But again, kidnapping victims are usually hidden from public eye.

Anyone got a picture of him? It'll be easier to find him then her

LOL. That's cute!! Looks more like she's a cookie munching ghoul then then a brain eater. "yyyuuuUUUUUMMMMyyyyyy.......coooooOOOOOOOKIIIiiiiieeeeee......" I myself haven't dressed up on Halloween in years but I decided to make an exception this year and dress up as Leatherface withe Barak Obama's face stitched on. Unfortunately car trouble killed that plan. Ironic since; in the end, I ended up running errands all Halloween.

I'm afraid I didn't have a camera; digital or film back in 1999 when this all happened. I DID at one time pick up a disposable camera but none of the pics taken had anything to do with the dog incidents. And besides, the attacks always happened after dark, save for 2 or 3 which happened between dusk and sunset. Even if I had a camera it's not like I would have stopped to take pictures after it happened. In most cases, I stood still or moving very slowly for a minute or 2 to make sure the threats were gone and then got the hell out of there.That "magic .22lr" was a H&R M949 with a custom trigger pull I gave it. Out of the 30+ guns I've owned in my life, I still have only a dozen or so. That gun is not among them. I believe I mentioned that the M1 Carbine was an unrelated incident. I was just present when someone put his terminally ill dog down. He shot the dog in the jaw and the bullet came out his nose. So I quickly followed up with a double tap to the head to end the poor animal's suffering. This happened out in the woods near a designated firing range. Whether this occurrence is out of the ordinary for that time I don't know but I frequently do things no one else does and have offered proof to you folks when available to offer. But I don't BS you or anyone else and I would appreciate you not judging your peers so rashley.

For a time when I lived in Florida I was without transportation and had to walk to and from town every day. I was routinely attacked by a pack of wild dogs on my way home most evenings and frequently had to shoot them. My gun of choice was a .22LR even though I had larger caliber options. The reason was because I could target and accurately hit specific body parts on the move, under stress. I killed allot of dogs but never shot a dog twice, except for a double tap with my M1 carbine on an innocent dog that had been mortally wounded already. My cartridge of choice for self defense was the CCI stinger. Undoubtedly doesn't make as big a mess as the 9mm or .45 but the ability to shoot for critical parts (the brain) more then made up for it's lack of punch. That's not BS. That's direct personal experience and allot of it. LOL. Great story. I've done tests with the 7.62x39 (using an SKS) and found that it changed direction upon impact better then any other cartridge I had experimented with. You can also find pictures of Chinese executions with AKs that show the victims heads completely gone above the eye sockets. But yeah, I can easily imagine a gut shot would be just a hole poked in the target. WOW!! That story closely mimics a mini parody of Bon Jovi's "Shot Through the Heart" that I wrote when I was 18. I think I still remember all the lyrics. Let's see.... SHOT AT A COP People talk about a man named Mel. The man robbed a taco from a Taco Bell. He ran outside where a cop was waiting. He shot him with a .25 cal Jennings. SHOT AT A COP WITH A JUNK GUN. HE BROUGHT OUT A MAGNUM. HE SHOT HIS HEAD BUT THE BULLET BOUNCED OFF. HE BROUGHT OUT A MAGNUM. HE BROUGHT OUT......A MAGNUM. When that bullet bounced off the cop's skull, he shot Mel with a .50 cal Desert Eagle. People argue about what happened to Mel. Some say he's in Heaven. Some say he's in Hell. SHOT AT A COP WITH A JUNK GUN. HE BROUGHT OUT A MAGNUM. HE SHOT HIS HEAD BUT THE BULLET BOUNCED OFF. HE BROUGHT OUT A MAGNUM. etc.

Unless I am misunderstanding the description, it doesn't make any sense to me. The more you have things dangling out there, the more things are going to move around. Your arms also grow substantially weaker and less stable when extended out. I have tried all the modern supposedly revolutionary or expert off-hand shooting postures. In the end, these old-school methods are the only ones I've found to be at all worth while: Precision shooting at a distance in a clean environment: http://www.riflesilhouette.com/images/StandPosition.jpg Pretty much any other situation, including tactical/combat. I've found that; with enough practice, this one sort of overrides all the modern fancy stuff. It DOES take time and practice though. http://www.hunter-ed.com/images/drawings/rifle_position_standing.jpg

This all reminds me of a conversation I saw on the Tonight Show. Jay Leno was picking on some celebrity for having a Vespa. He said, "Don't you laugh at me Jay. I happen to know that YOU have a Vespa too." Jay Leno replied, "Yeah, but I keep it in the trunk of my Harley."

Hay Mr. Robobot. You weren't hurt in that big shoot-out this morning, were you?

Yep. Earlier this year I claimed around $250 owed to me by the electric company in Florida. Funny, considering that when I left Florida they were still claiming I owed them. I guess I was right after all. It must have collected interest over time because the money dispute was in double digits, not triple.

LOL. Sounds like aerodynamics hinder it at high speeds. I don't know why but my Camaro gets better gas mileage at high speeds. Yesterday I went from Sacramento to Placerville (around 30 miles) and it took me a little under or around a gallon to get there. When riding around town or on back roads I get about 25-28mpg.

54mpg? That IS pretty impressive.

The only thing interesting I have to share is my 98 Camaro, and it is just now entering the "ugly" stages of a complete body and interior makeover. So basically, I have nothing worth sharing ATM unless you wanna see some low profile wheels, mid-production carbon fiber stuff and chopped up fiberglass. I'm basically making it look like a blend of the Arrinera Venocara, Lamborghini Aventador 50th anniversary and McLaren P1, so the end result will be pretty nice. But right now it's all in pieces. Well, here are a few pics, just what was on my phone. Part of the door. The rough carbon fiber egg shaped thing on it is a cover for the instrument panel and obviously mid-development. The instrument panel at a later stage. At the time of the photo it was wet with it's 1st or 2nd pigmented resin cote. It looks more stable now then when this picture was taken. The openings are also there now. If I hadn't misplaced it I would have installed it by now. One of the wheels. The car with foam board guides. It's hard to explain what these are but sort of like guides/place holders for fiber glassing. I took the picture because even though they're not precision made, fine tuned or part of the structure, they at least give a good picture of where the project is heading. The car came with a crappy race steering wheel that has a thing on top that blocks visibility of the gauges. So I ordered a race steering wheel with fake/painted on carbon fiber and synthetic leather. Then I replaced the fake stuff with the real thing. This picture was from early in that process, with the real carbon fiber installed but the synthetic body still on. This one is from much later with real suede installed. There's more work to be done but this is pretty close. Mostly just fine tuning the carbon fiber and some suede additions. Later on I'll add some audio controls to the steering wheel as well along with a few little misc. features.

I've known people who had Blackthorn ARs explode on them with less then 100 rounds through them.