No, I didn't die, I've just been negligent and uninspired. How euro-american of me.
Here's a few notes from my days:
I hexed myself by checking out a disc golf lot on ebay yesterday. This guy is selling his entire arsenal (and asking for $200) because he has sustained a
career ending injury. There's no way I want his set but after viewing his lot I went out and tweaked my wrist that same day. I'll have to lay the plastic down for at least a week but probably even longer.
I'm not blaming the hex...it's my own damn fault! I've played 5 rounds in four days, plus the horseshit, plus manual labor at the school. Pushed it too far too fast and now I got to be mellow. That's life, eh?
Back east I played seven courses in two and a half weeks! "It ain't braggin if it's true!" My passion, however, needs some moderation.
You may have missed this one. The homeland security thinktank in cooperation with evil scientists have created a LED flashlight that can make you shit yourself while vommiting uncontrolably. Whoa!
A real life “light saber” that can subdue anyone in its path? This new type of non-lethal weapon comes in the form of a flashlight that totally incapacitates whoever looks into it. The LED (Light Emitting Diode) Incapacitator has been devised by Californian research and design company Intelligent Optical Systems, with funding from the US Department of Homeland Security. It emits bright pulses of light at rapidly changing wavelengths that cause disorientation, temporary blindness, nausea, and even vomiting. The handheld device, which has already been dubbed the “puke saber”, is currently in its prototype stage, but soon could be a conceivable weapon used by authorities to restrain offenders. Sources from Homeland Security say that it could be in the hands of thousands of policemen, border agents and National Guardsmen by 2010.
The LED Incapacitator works by emitting a strobe of ultra-bright, multicolored, pulsing light. Once pointed at an individual, the built in range finder measures the distance to the nearest set of eyes and then adjusts the level, output and frequency of this beam, to unleash an optimal and continuously changing pulse. This results in giving the eyes and the brain no time to adapt, and whilst temporarily blinding the subject, it also causes a disorientating effect. Hence, the subject is overwhelmed by the strobe both physiologically and psychophysically. Inventors of the LED Incapacitator, Bob Lieberman and Vladimir Rubtsov, say that the effect of having the light shone into your eyes wears off within a few minutes. They are reportedly taking great care to make sure the strength and duration of the strobe falls within all safety guidelines for the eyes. “There’s one wavelength that gets everybody,” says Lieberman. “Vlad calls it the evil color.”http://www.gizmag.com/go/7775/
The evil color?!? Whoa!
Now you already know who this weapon will be widely used against...patriotic americans standing up for their rights during various forms of public protest. (and the idiots on jackass.) I'm gonna let you in on a huge secret though...one which makes the puke saber an entirely useless waste of diodes...the most powerful antedote to such a vial and hideous invention...are you ready?
don't look at it!
And finally, during my time off another inventor and innovator passed away. Please read this entire obit. I never thought I would say this but I think it's the best one ever written (no hyperbole)! This just touches me in the heart and makes me fuzzy inside(for real). I love stories of adults doing special things for children and I especially love when that thing goes on to start an empire. Three cheers to the largest auto manufacturer in the storied history of our civilization. Give it up for Jack Odell! One man who used technology to make people happy instead of violently ill.
Jack Odell, 87, Designer of Matchbox Cars, Is Dead
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: July 17, 2007
Jack Odell, a self-trained engineer whose daughter’s mischievous habit of taking spiders to school in a matchbox prompted him to make her a tiny steamroller as a substitute — an invention that led to Matchbox Toys, maker of 3 billion Lilliputian vehicles in 12,000 models — died on July 7 in London. He was 87.
His son-in-law Josh Walsh, who announced the death, said Mr. Odell had had Parkinson’s disease.
The steamroller, made of brass and painted shiny red and green, satisfied Mr. Odell’s daughter, Anne, and so impressed her friends that Mr. Odell raced to meet their demand. It seemed a dandy toy: just right for a child’s hand but hard to swallow, no batteries, violence-free, quiet and costing just pennies to make.
By the next year, 1953, the steamroller and vehicles like it were rolling off a production line in a small factory that Mr. Odell and a pair of partners had set up in a former London pub, The Rifleman. After the steamroller came a Land Rover, a London bus, a bulldozer and a fire engine. In 1954, the 19th vehicle in the series was rolled out: a dainty MG TD roadster, the first Matchbox car. The toys quickly spread to the United States where they typically sold for 49 cents.
They were finely wrought things. Mr. Odell designed one machine to spray-paint tiny silver headlights on the models and another to mold interiors. All the dashboard dials were in precisely the right place. Some cars had more than 100 die-cast parts, including windshield wipers and ceiling hooks.
By 1962, he told The New York Times in an interview, Matchbox was knocking out a million toy automobiles a week, more than the number of real ones made by all the world’s major automakers combined.
“We produce more Rolls-Royces in a single day than the Rolls-Royce company has made in its entire history,” he said.
John William Odell was born into a poor family on March 19, 1920, in north London. He was expelled from school at 13, and later said he could not remember the reason.
“Let’s just say I was a bloody rebel,” he was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper. He took a succession of jobs, including driving a van and selling real estate. Hired as a movie projectionist, he was fired after he put the film in backward. During World War II, he served with the Royal Army in Africa and Italy, working as a mechanic.
After the war, he found work at a small die-casting firm, sweeping the floors. Deeming the engineering work there mediocre, he figured he could do better, his son-in-law said, and decided to open his own shop.
His mother, however, refused to let him do so in her house, so he joined two war veterans at their shop. They were Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith (unrelated). They had named their company Lesney Products by combining the first syllable of Leslie’s first name and the last one of Rodney’s.
Mr. Odell and Leslie Smith soon found themselves running the shop after Rodney Smith, seeing no future in it, left. They initially made small products for cars like door handles and dashboards. Their first toy was a toy gun.
Mr. Odell made his historic steamroller in 1952. It had to fit into a matchbox because of a school rule barring any bigger toy. (Spiders fit quite nicely.)
Vehicles kept coming, in both number and kind. A milestone came in 1953 when Mr. Odell designed a model of the coronation coach of Queen Elizabeth II. More than a million were sold.
Mr. Odell visited automakers throughout the world to copy their new designs. The automakers appreciated the free publicity the ubiquitous little vehicles represented. What many consider Mr. Odell’s triumph, his 1956 collection of turn-of-the-century classics, involved deep historical research.
At its peak in the late 1960s, when it released its Superfast line of toy autos to compete with Mattel Incorporated’s Hot Wheels cars, Lesney operated more than a dozen factories. In 1982, it fell into receivership and was sold to Universal Toys. It was later picked up by Tyco Toys, which was acquired by Mattel in 1997.
Mr. Odell is survived by his wife, the former Patricia Hilsdon, two daughters, three stepdaughters and a brother.
His passion for detail was suggested by an oft-told story of how he had swooped down on a young engineer working on a tiny Ford Model T to say that the driver’s seat, a centimeter wide at most, was not padded enough to be realistic.
“In my obituary,” Mr. Odell said in 1969 as quoted by The Daily Telegraph, “I want it said I was a damn good engineer.”
