• I don’t have much to say. Um, yeah. Except in some cases…
• I have too much to say. When I really get going on a subject, I’ll end up with walls of text about space probes or megabytes or hamburgers. tl;dr
• I lack focus. My blog is too general to even appeal to me.
• I’d rather do than write. I’ve tried to write about my interests, but writing about them necessarily takes time away from doing them.
• I lack the ego. It really takes the wind out of my sails when there are hundreds of millions of blogs and there is literally no reason for anyone except the people I know to read mine. Besides, I could just tell them what I want to say directly. But then they don’t get to deal with my superfluous italicizing.
• I never know how to end a post. Um, yeah.

Time-traveling bosons can try as hard as they want, but the Large Hadron Collider’s real Achilles’ Heel?  Bread.  And birds,  apparently.

A bird dropping a piece of bread onto outdoor machinery has been blamed for a technical fault at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this week which saw significant overheating on parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic safety detectors would have shut down the machine.

I admit there are some eventualities you just can’t plan for, but come on!  How are you going to destroy the world if you’re thwarted by bread?!  I mean… no.

(via Universe Today, Bread Dropped By Bird Causes Problems for LHC.)

Instead of writing one novel, which can really wear a person out, I want to write a bunch of  short stories.  If a NaNo attempt is partly a terrible decision, here is the other part: I want your suggestions for titles of stories.  Not plots, just titles.  I already have a few titles in my head, like the following which I found while cleaning up some old documents (and can’t even remember writing).

JT Admiral Makes a Sandwich

“I’m hungry,” JT Admiral announced to his empty office. The office, unsurprisingly, did not respond. Satisfied that the room hadn’t gained sentience when he wasn’t looking, JT set out to make a sandwich. His quest was quickly curtailed by the fact that Omega 12, the curiously shiny space station he called home, was under attack by an unknown force.

“Egad!” he exclaimed.

“Admiral!” a nearby crewman of some sort shouted, “The station is under attack by an unknown force!”

Having recently used ‘egad’ to express surprise, the Admiral needed to choose a backup interjection.  “Gadzooks!” he exclaimed.

It’s sort of cheating since there’s a bit written already, but I just won’t apply it toward my word count.  So then, dear readers, toss a few titles my way and we’ll see what sticks.

Small Worlds is a short, simple Flash game about exploration. There’s not much to collect, nothing to kill you, and an almost non-existent ending.  The music is okay and the control is kind of meh.  But the level design is amazing, with loads of detail and atmosphere packed into a retro style. Though there’s nothing to be earned from doing so, if you’re anything like me you’ll avoid your goal until you’ve explored every corner of the map.

Hey, pretty neat. One problem: where did I get a signed copy of this CD? I can’t remember! And who is John Sid? The signature obscured by the sticker is definitely John Flansburgh’s, consisting of a bespectacled smiley face in place of the “o.”  I can only assume that the top signature is one of John Linnel’s pseudonyms; he has been know to sign things “J.Lo Linnel” among others. This does not solve the problem of where this CD came from, however. Anybody have any ideas?

They come in sets of seven (of course) and are available for preorder for the low, low price of 198 rubles! That’s, like, seven bucks! Great for sticking on your refrigerator, car, metallic knee, or ferrous satellite hull!

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