This Land

I found this surfing the internet. If you don't understand this, shame on you!

Five surgeons

Five surgeons were taking a coffee break and discussing their work. "I think accountants are the easiest to operate on," said the first surgeon. "You open them up and everything inside is numbered."

"I think librarians are the easiest to operate on," said the second. "You open them up and everything inside is in alphabetical order."

"I like to operate on electricians," said the third. "You open them up and everything inside is color-coded."

"I like to operate on lawyers," said the fourth. "They're heartless, spineless, gutless, and their heads and their asses are interchangeable."

"I like engineers," said the fifth. "They always understand when you have a few parts left over at the end..."

Source : HumorArchives

Password

More from NotAlwaysRight

(We get a LOT of calls like this.)

Him: “I locked myself out of my computer, and I cant get in and I need to get in! My password doesn’t work!”

Me: “Okay, we can do a password reset for you.”

Him: “This is really important, I need to be able to log in!”

Me: “Okay, sir, no problem. Can you just verify your login ID for me?”

Him: *verifies*

Me: “Okay, great. Now can you verify that your Caps Lock is not on?”

Him: “What? That’s stupid, why would I…oh.” *silence*

Me: “Sir?”

Him: “…it just worked all of a sudden, thanks.”

Me: “…”

Source : NotAlwaysRight

A Sign

Source : Sinfest

More Stories

Been reading more of them on 365 tomorrows.

All quite short (less than 600 words) and some of them are quite decent.
Some of my favorites so far:
Birthday Boy
Take Me To Your Leader
A Mother's love
Turing Test (if you don't know what a turing test is, here's the wikipedia entry)

Go out with a Bang

Short story on a site filled with short stories.

New Words

Aquadextrous (adj.) Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes.

Arachnoleptic Fit (n.) The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug (n.) Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at 3 in the morning and cannot be cast out.

More here

Celebrity comic book cameos

Sometimes a celebrity will appear in a comic book and it can be good if done well. But that isn't always the case. Some of these are just plain wrong...

If only... (Part 3/3)

The final part of this Centron story. If you haven't been following, here's the beginning.

I was glad when I want to get a few new transistors and I didn't find Chloe waiting for me. I'd have gone somewhere else, if I'd trusted another shop to have what I needed. But this was a special electronics store for a special clientel. The owner was a bit strange and looked as if he had been shocked one to many times. But that's okay, I'm not exactly normal and the guy is a genius when it comes to hardware. However, whenever I deal with him, he looks at me like he wants to take me apart. We also usually don't do small talk, which I like but this time he felt talkative.
"Your friend isn't here today. It's strange because she came here every other day"
She probably finally came to her senses and stopped chasing dreams. What is it with humans and their dreams? I can barely remember what they were like, but -
"Must have something to do with that guy yesterday." The shop keeper continued "Seemed like a big agrument and him then dragging her off like that."
My thought patrons stopped and suddenly my mind flooded with the electronic chatter. Radio waves are everywhere and it's gotten worse with the global WiFi project. And I can feel them all, like waves carrying botled messages that keep crashing into me. The police band shouted in my ear.
< ... female caucassian child found dead ... battered ... assualted ... identification Carpenter, ... father wanted for questioning ... whereabouts unknown ...>
If only I - Suddenly I could actually hear something clicking in my positronic brain. The presence that lingered called out for access. Within moments my very thoughts directed the central processing unit of the moon base to start the facial recognition software via three satelites and a local router. The police might not know where he is, but I had found my target and only one thought remained. It was as if I watched from a distance as the body that I currently possess flew out of the store and headed to the nearby motel.
It wasn't hard to find him. It's as if he wanted to be found, as if he was rubbing it in.
The door did not demonstrate to be an obstacle. And then I was face to face with a man, if you could even call it that. Within moments I had him pinned against the wall. He wasn't that though against some one his own size. "I didn't do it, whatever you think I did, I'm innocent" I let him ramble on a bit as my hand squeezed down on his neck. The presence cried out for blood, drained fresh from the fleshy creature. My hand shook as it desired to be bathed in the red substance. Every thought went out to the small girl who had asked for my autograph, the one person in the world maybe worth saving. But I was held back by a final memory. "They bring the bad guys to justice".
It didn't take long to drop him off at the nearest police station, and I waited long enough to see them cuff him and drag him in.

So here I am, standing on a tall appartement building. I've already contacted Shade and he's on his way so I just need to stall a bit. The van speeds around the corner, money bills fly out as the driver punches the gas once more. From here I can see that he's covered in scales, so this should prove to be interesting. Let's be a hero.

Warhammer carrying cases

Source :Ctrl+Alt+Del

Metro messages

"To the gentleman wearing the long grey coat trying to get on the second carriage -- what part of 'stand clear of the doors' don't you understand?"

More here

Save me... (Part 2/3)

The continuation of the Centron story I posted yesterday

I honestly can't understand girls. I've found it more difficult to relate to humans since my recent accident but young girls are a completely seperate enigma. Especially this one. The self-proclamed biggest fan named Chloe just became quiet and stared for a while, as if she gathered up all her courage.
"Could I have your autograph?"
This sounded a bit too familair for my taste. All I wanted was a metagraph for my analysis...
"I'm sorry, I think you have me confused with some one else"
The small girl gave me a look indicating that there weren't a lot of cyborgs walking around New York these days.
"Nope, you're definitly the super hero; Centron"
"I'm no hero, small human"
"But you stopped a murdering robot and vanquished a terrible vampire"
This is one well-informed girl.
"It's more complex than that, there's more to being a hero than just killing bad guys"
Chloe seemed startled by what I said.
"Of course there is, heroes don't kill 'em, they bring the bad guys to justice"
This is where I gave in. I wasn't in the mood and had a space ship to repair. I tore off a piece of the receipt I got and cribble my name. Chloe beams with excitement as I give her the paper.
"Thank you very much. I'll treasure this. But I'd better get going before my dad gets angry at me for staying away for so long."
She runs away and I walk into an alley. I jump up and take flight. It takes me about two minutes to leave Earth's atmosphere and this usually gives me time to think. This time I thought up new and inventive ways for Shade to do these pick ups for me.

Unfortunatly a few days later I find myself in the city yet again. The thermal transducer broke which I needed for my infra red spectral analysis of the ship. I was quite suprised when I saw Chloe standing next to the electronics shop where I had met her a while ago. When she saw me, she jumped up and run towards me.
"I knew you'd be back. I've been coming here everyday after school in the hope of seeing you. No one believed me at school when I said I met you."
"What is it you want this time, child? You already have my autograph"
She suddenly looked down.
" ... I lost that ... but I have a better proposal"
"Which would be?"
"Well... could I be your sidekick?"
"Why would I need a sidekick?"
As I said this, the prospect of some one to pick up stuff did seem very appealing.
"Eeuhm... I'd always be by your side, helping you fight crime, delivering witty comments when the oppurtunity presented itself and you'd come and save me whenever I get kidnapped and stuff."
However the annoyance of coming down every few days to shop seemed less than that of having to babysit a child. I have enough of that with Shade.
"Sorry, not really interested"
With that I walked away but I had a feeling she wasn't going to give up just yet.

A strange creature indeed... (Part 1/3)

Part 1 of 3 of an extra story about Centron (The first of many if I have my way)

I rarely visit New York anymore. There's no need, nothing to do here, no evil corperations to bring down and no one for me here. I prefer it on the base anyway, away from humans who remind me of a forgotten past. And it's been very quiet these past few weeks. Not even the type of quiet that comes before the storm. It's the usual quiet where people go about their lives, stuff happens but nothing I really need to concern myself with.

But unfortunately if I want to get this alien ship analysed I need some supplies and since Shade isn't around on the count of it being so quiet, I need to go get them myself. Here I am, brain the size of a planet and I'm doing grocery shopping.
I've had to select my suppliers carefully and dress up in hat and long trench coat to go do these things. And then I still get strange looks walking down the street. People fear the things that they don't know and a human mind trapped inside an android body is right up there with spikey hair guy wagging his tail.

They all react the same. Suddenly crossing the street, whispering among themselves. But I don't mind or even care, not since I became this way or maybe even before.
As I walk away from a recent heavy duty metagraph purchase, I find my way suddenly blocked by a small creature gazing up at me. I look down to analyse the obstacle. A child, no more than twelve years of age, wide eyed, bewildered and with a tiny voice.
"It's is you, isn't it? You're part of that new super hero team that's been protecting the city recently."
This is a new reaction to people meeting me for the first time.
"What's it to you, small human?"
"I've been following your adventures in the papers since you guys formed. I've even saved all of the clippings. My father always tells me off about it, says you're no more than a bunch of renegades. But I know better. And out of all of them, I think you're the coolest."
With a large smile, the tiny girl adds
"My name is Chloe Carpenter and I'm your biggest fan"

V for Vendetta in Kinetic Typography

Iron Man New Trailer

Tropic Thunder Trailer

Error Messages

More here

Comic Urban Legens

Some good reads.
I like the one about Kevin Smith killing of a character which he wasn't supposed to.
Or how all the alliterationsin comic book character names was because Stan Lee couldn't remember them all...

A Strange Pain...

Christopher Cobb had a knack for dying and not staying dead.

When he was young, Christopher was the smartest kid in class. Everybody knew he was going to make it big some day, however it's these types of kids, like Christopher was, that make excellent targets for bullies and such. He would later look back on his childhood as being a very unhappy one, one with no friends and all time spent behind a computer or pulling apart some mechanical device. All of the therapists he would later frequent, would attribute this period of his life the fault for his lack of faith in humanity.

Of course, once he got out of high school and into a prestigious university that changed, a bit. He tried to spend as much time as he could alone but now he had a very social room mate, named Barry Bovinski. Barry was in the university's athletics team, had a sports scholarship and was determined to get Christopher away from his computer every second he could. He dragged him to every party he knew about and they soon became friends. It was at one of these parties that he met Sarah Sirianni and it wasn't long before he fell madly in love with her. Sarah was an arts major, ballet dancer and daughter of Mister Sirianni, founder and CEO of Sirianni Tech. Those few years were the happiest of Christopher's life. His therapist would later tell him to embrace this time and not shun it. Christopher would say that the only purpose those years served, were to give him false hope.

Things got bad in Christopher's third year. He accidentally found a strange bottle of medication in the room and confronted Barry about it. Barry told him that it were just some pills to give him the 'edge' that he had gotten from his trainer. Christopher pleaded with him to stop and Barry said he would. But after a bad run, Barry started taking them again and Christopher found out. He asked again if he would stop but Barry got angry with him and they got into a fight. Afraid of what the drugs were doing to Barry, Christopher went to tell the Dean. This was followed by a massive investigation and Barry among a few others were expelled.
If that wasn't bad enough, a few months later whilst driving back from visiting Sarah's parents, Christopher and Sarah got into an accident when they hit a tree that fell onto the road as their car was passing by. Luckily a passerby saw the crash and called an ambulance. Both of them were quickly rushed to hospital. Whilst in the ambulance, Christopher almost died when he went into cardiac arrest but was revived in time by the doctors. Unfortunately Sarah wasn't lucky, and upon arriving at the hospital she was declared dead.
It took several months for Christopher to fully recover and he was never the same again. He became more of a shut-in than he had ever been before and had developed a limp, even though the doctors could find nothing wrong with his knee. This is around the time he was forced on wave upon wave of therapists, who all described his limp as survivor's guilt.

Christopher soon found a way to vent his anger at world by writing computer viruses that tormented thousands of computers. He continued this until he was caught and banned from using any computer for three years, not to mention pay a serious fine. And this is where Urban Explorations came in. They offered to pick up his tab and at the end of the three years, offered him a job at their company. He was to work on a new kind of virtual interface. With his unfriendly attitude and general dislike of other people, he soon became loathed by his colleagues. When the time came to test the machine, they were all glad that he had gotten the short straw.
It was during this test that Christopher died again. While they were loading his mind into the computer a power drain knocked out all of the electricity in the Urban Explorations building. What happened to Christopher's mind was similar to what happens to your game if you shut of your game boy whilst saving. Without a mind, his body soon died and Christopher was trapped inside the Urban Exploration main frame. His mind sought a way out, a way to interact with the world. He found this in a forgotten corner in the basement. A long abandoned project where they tried to reverse engineer an android that had came from outer space to wreak havoc on the Earth a number of years back. The reason of the discontinued was a presence suddenly appearing in the body, a dark and vile presence. Efforts to remove it failed. And in the end it was deemed too dangerous and the project was scrapped.

In his new body, Christopher escaped the building but was soon captured by two super heroes, Copycat and Shade. Brought back to Urban Explorations, he was presented with a new job offer, help a newly formed super hero squad. Christopher reluctantly agreed.
With the loss of his own body and implantment inside a robotic body, he felt utterly disconnected from humanity and his world was a dark and cold place. In fact, as far as he was concerned Christopher Cobb was dead and he was something new. He called himself Centron and severed all of his ties with his former life. The only thing that still reminded him of his previous existence was a strange pain in his knee.

Rising Sun (pt 2)

Rising Sun Corp.
MEMO: 1789.2.29 (ARCHIVED)

As instructed I've kept a close eye on the crew currently occupying the Firefly-class formerly known as X-913.
One of my agents recently managed to board the ship under false pretenses and I now have a limited feed aboard the ship.

Since my last report the crew left Hera to head out to Greenleaf. They took on cargo and passengers both legally. From what I could tell, the first part of their journey was quiet. However a number of the passengers on board weren't who they say they were. But then who is nowadays? Because of a course miscalculation they had to stop at New Melbourne for additional fuel. It was in the second part of the journey that things became interesting. First they passed an Old Trans-U model, which I can only assume was a real Reaver ship, not one of ours. No incident occurred however. Later in the journey one of the passengers was murdered and the crew timely rounded up the suspects and made a quick investigation. They reached the conclusion that it was a suicide, I'm not inclined to agree with that fact but it's really of no concern. The reason their investigation came to an abrupt end was that they were intercepted by an Alliance ASREV, apparently the murdered passenger was carrying an emergency signal ring. The Allaince told them to stand down and prepare to be boarded. They let the ASREV dock but opened fire as he marshals boarded the ship. With use of grenades they made quick work of the Alliance officer and their ship. After this encounter they quickly returned on their journey to Greenleaf, abandoning the derelict ASREV in the hope that they wouldn't get caught by the Alliance.

Some interesting observations I've been able to make using the new feed.
The ship's pilot, Luz is continuing with his endeavor to check for listening devices of various sorts, he has yet to find ours but with his persistence I'm worried how long it will last. He also seems to have an innate distrust in people, even members of his own crew. We might be able to use this later.
The ship's captain, Nathaniel seems to handle well under pressure, making split decisions, taking quick control of a situation and coming up with complex plans in a moment's notice. He also seems to appose the Alliance and doesn't seem to have a problem with killing. His first priorities seem to be to his crew and not getting caught. I'm confident that he will also display these qualities on any missions we send him on and thus could be a valuable ally. We will of course at that time have to make it clear that it is in his best interest to help us.
The ship's engineer remains a mystery, my team still has not found any background about him. What worries me more now, is that he has shown himself to be more than capable in combat. I'm uncertain if he's a danger to our plans or his own intentions.
The ship's companion has taken permanent residence in one of the shuttles, using it to fly to one clients she might have. She has shown herself to be more than willing to help the crew, even on their more obscure jobs.

I'd also like to express concern that another corporation might be keeping an eye on the crew. I can't really say anything right now but I will let you know something when I know more.

Regards,

Black

May I take your order?

Chinese - English menu with very liberal translations.

An Expensive Temper Tantrum

Great story that's definitely worth a read on Notalwaysright (which I recommend you also bookmark because there some really great stuff there updated regularly).

The White Lobster

An island where hardly anyone works and yet everyone is very rich. So what's their secret? The White Lobster.

Diverting course

Downright cruel

How can you be so harsh and yet so cool at the same time. A story of a man who finally got back at his neighbours.

E-Mail Travel Distance

I've been reading a lot of stories lately about tech support services and the funny things people ask, but this story tops it all. It's not really funny but it's a really head scratcher. Apparently the statistics department of a campus in the USA could no longer send emails further away than 500 miles...

My only trouble with it is that it's kinda technical at some points (although I can't really think of a better way to explain it).

Lego Death Star

Sometimes I wonder what target audience Lego has these days, because this thing is just gorram impressive

The Ring

This would be an interesting idea for a third movie (or fourth, how many are there?)

Source: xkcd

John Cleese’s “Letter to America”

He's finally fed up with it and takes the only remaining action.

Rising Sun (pt 1)

Rising Sun Corp.
MEMO: 1789.2.15 (ARCHIVED)

I've acquired the data core and have sent it along the agreed delivery route.

As I mentioned in my last report (index 1789.2.07), contact was made with Nathaniel Hawk and an agreement was reached for him and his crew to retrieve the data core from the Prometheus research station.
After a single meeting, I directed him towards Jim's Used Space Ship Lot where I had made agreements to have the Firefly-class ship X-913 delivered upon payment of 2100 credits. A point of interest on the character of Captain Hawk is that even though he was made aware of the arrangement, the proprietor of the ship yard managed to swindle the full 3000 credits that I had given Nathaniel for the ship and repairs.
After inspecting the ship, Nathaniel hired a crew to do the job.
The first he hired was a pilot by the name of Luz. I would like to note that I'm unsure at this point if this man is a danger to our operation. Outwardly he seems innocent, but he searched his own ship various times for listening devices, obstructing any attempts I would make to place them. My sources also tell me that he throughly investigates any abnormalities that might indicate tampering. I have put in a request for a more detailed background check on Luz.
Nathaniel also hired a mechanic. A second troublesome figure, who might be a problem. I tried my own background check on the mechanic but could not find a single record on the cortex. Thus far I have even been unable to confirm his name. The only thing I can report is that he attires himself in black garments with black sun glasses and never goes anywhere without a gun.
Nathaniel also has taken on a companion, Morena. At first she was a passenger but now she has permanently taken residence in one of the ships shuttles. I've been unable to find anything out of the ordinary about her but I'm going to get in touch with my contacts within the Guild.

Despite my original doubts, the crew performed admirably and efficiently in retrieving the data core. Morena and the mechanic swiftly acquired the location of the Prometheus station from Harker, who as I had reported had in turn learned the location from merchants who had stumbled across the station.

However it should be noted that Nathaniel showed some questionable behavior. While on the mission to retrieve the data core, he also took along some passengers and some cargo, namely a race horse bound for Beaumonde. My sources tell me that on route to Beaumonde the crew woke up to find the horse missing without a trace. One of the passengers by the name of Don was then discovered covered in blood and eating an unknown meat-like substance. He's also reported to have been very delusional. The response of Captain Hawk was to dump the horse container on Whitefall and abandon the passenger on Beaumonde.
I've sent a more detailed report to the psycho-analysts to determine if this kind of behavior can be used to our advantage.

Following the psychological report and background checks, I believe that this crew has potential and it would be in the best of the companies interest to keep an eye on them. I also strongly recommend them for any future mission that need to be run in this area.

Regards,

Black

Night Sky

A tutorial about finding constellations in the night sky. Always nice to know where Jupiter is...

10 Disasters that could end it all at any given second.

Here you can find 10 causes which could obliterate the entire human race in a short amount of time. This includes thinking ourselves out of existence.

As to when this tragedy will happen, I refer to the blog of a friend of mine

4th edition review

A review for the newest version of dnd.
I'm not sure lyrical covers this....

Flip Chart