Draxon

If it's a sewing pattern, I'm interested. I've just started to learn how to make pony plushies (and sewing/embroidery in general).

I posted this on my Facebook page, and then I decided that more people should have access to this madness. This seems way too long for my profile feed, so I decided to give the blog system a try. Not sure if this is an appropriate application, but here's how my status update went: I had the strangest dream last night. I woke to find myself staring up at the stars, and two people, apparently in another dimension, were arguing about the time period I was in based on the location of the stars. There was some mention made of Rome, but eventually they realized that I was in Japan about a thousand years ago. Apparently there was a zombie war which nobody knew about in modern times because almost every Japanese person was wiped out and they decided to be quiet about it. I got up and saw a knight in armor with a sword looking into the distance with horror, and I heard the screams of someone getting their head sawn off by a chainsaw sword about a foot wide and eight feet long. The knight ran off, and the monster with the chainsaw sword called in to his boss using some sort of communication device, and then ran in pursuit of the knight. But then his boss showed up, another monster riding a spindly, four legged creature, wielding some sort of lance, and the first monster dropped to the ground in fear and let him pass. The first monster then got up and used his communication device again. My vision went bright, and suddenly I was in a helicopter somewhere in modern day America, sitting next to two people who I knew were members of SHIELD. One was the knight who fled from the monster with the chainsaw sword. He wore his old garments, minus the armor, and there was a long blood stain passing down his back from his left shoulder and towards his center. He dismissed it with a passing remark. The other person was missing the left half of his face. What was there was a concave depression, as though his face had been pressed inward, and it was dark purple in color, with several silver, circular protrusions in the side near the middle of his face. I knew that other people who looked at him didn't see half a face, but a full, normal one, and never had reason to suspect anything. I also knew that his special talent was charisma - he could get anything out of anyone, and get them to do anything, just by having a conversation with them. I then found myself walking towards a small house in a suburban neighborhood, my two companions walking ahead of me, and then I woke up. There was more to the dream before all that, actually. First I was in a pizza restaurant with my parents. I had my laptop and headphones with me, and I was watching the livestream of the first episodes of the new season of a certain show (so now I don't need to watch them, apparently). After they were done, I boarded the bus which took me to the train station in Camden. I was drinking and fell asleep in my seat, but groggily woke up just as the bus was pulling into the station. Then I boarded the train. As the train traveled across the Benjamin Franklin Bridge from Philly into Camden (I'm aware of the discontinuity, but it's a dream), I saw a man riding his bike on the tracks like an idiot. He steered out of the way as we approached. Then I was in a dark house with five friends, and we suddenly found ourselves having to defeat a monster with the magic of friendship. That's all I'll say about that. Suddenly I was in the same house, but my friends were gone, a lot of strangers were milling noisily about, and I had a cooler with some beer and soda. I proceeded to drink all of the beer, and then I felt bad about it. I walked through the door where the monster had been and found myself in a small grocery store. All of the items on the left side of the store were geared towards Easter celebrations, and people were crowding around that section. I continued through the door opposite the one I had entered, and found myself in a narrow corridor with strange food vending machines. Most of them were open so that one could reach in and take what they wanted, but that would be stealing. Two of the machines stuck out for me. One had empanadas for $6.34. I thought that price was insane. I continued down the corridor, only to spin myself suddenly around because I realized I had passed a walnut vending machine. I exclaimed, "Oo, walnuts!" and nearly felled a girl who had been walking just behind me. I apologized and moved to the walnut vending machine. It was ridiculously overpriced, too. I continued through the rest of the corridor. I emerged in a sort of massive flea market. Not wishing to miss out on anything, I willed myself to obtain super speed and skated around the market incredibly fast. I then decided it would be quicker if I could jump super high as well, so I did. It got kind of out of hand. After browsing and not buying anything (finally, something true in real life, too), I lay down on the steps of some sort of ancient, ruined temple, and fell asleep. It was on those steps that I woke up to find myself staring upwards at the stars.

My favorite is boogie2988. You'd be hard pressed to find a more positive individual, although his alter ego Francis is the complete opposite of that description. Definitely check him out!

My wallet, keys, pocketknife, lip balm, cell phone, comb, watch, and one of those travel size tissue packets (they come in handy) (pun intended).

What I would like to see in Season 6 is a further development of the Cutie Mark Crusaders following the events of last season. They really can't use the usual routine as in the past, for obvious reasons, so it would be good to see them make use of their talents outside of Ponyville (which might happen, anyway, since the theme of Season 6 is exploring Equestria). Also, more Trixie and Queen Chrysalis.

Normally, I do my best to avoid involving myself in online discussions which have a propensity to become inflammatory. However, when the topic is related to public health, such as in this conversation, I feel compelled to offer a counterargument. Here is a recently published article relating the findings of studies investigating the possible health effects of e-cigs: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/vaping-linked-host-new-health-risks I should warn everyone to take the title of the article with a grain of salt. As the article itself states, it's still unknown definitively what sort of health risks are associated with vaping. But, shocking titles are more likely to grab attention, so there it is. That said, give the article a read. According to the studies, there may be a host of health effects associated with vaping, even in the absence of nicotine. One thing the article does not state (but which may be indicated in the research articles themselves) is the identity of the e-cig liquids used in the study, which means that it's possible that these adverse health effects are an isolated phenomenon exclusive to those particular products. On the other hand, if that were the case, it raises some questions about manufacturing standards for e-cig products, or their authenticity. If the studies are a faithful representation of e-cigs in general, then it would be unwise to consider them a risk-free alternative to smoking. As the article states, however, it may still be a better choice than smoking itself. For now, this is all speculation, since more research is required to draw any sort of substantial conclusion. But my point is that it is far too early to decide that vaping is a safe, or indeed safer, alternative to smoking. There is insufficient research to support the truth one way or the other. For my own part, I have thought about vaping, and think I would actually enjoy it, but ultimately I decided to wait until health studies were performed and I knew for sure what I was getting into. It's not something I want to wake up and regret one day - my own grandfather died of lung cancer from smoking.

I'm not really in the habit of posting gifs, but here are a couple of funny ones I have on my computer:

"Me not working hard? Yeah, right! Picture that with a Kodak Or, better yet, go to Times Square Take a picture of me with a Kodak" *bangs head against wall*

Mostly, it's a day on which many of my friends are unavailable. I guess you could say it's an annual virtually guaranteed day to myself, and that ain't bad. Always look on the bright side of life...

I've been distracted all weekend, and it's been nearly impossible for me to do my homework. I think what I need is a day off with a friend. One might be coming for a visit next weekend; if so, that'll be the first friend who's come for a visit in eighteen months.

I found a really great article detailing the challenges involved in the design, manufacture, and construction of the stellarator: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-plasma-physicist-discusses-wendelstein-x.html The tolerances involved are absolutely insane, not to mention the stresses placed on the machine during operation. It takes a special team of innovative, dedicated, and persistent people to put a project like this together and make it work.

Successful nuclear fusion would be a gigantic leap forward, so this is exciting news. I do agree with Mesme Rize, though, in that the big fossil fuel corporations would see this as a threat. To be fair, it is, and a lot of people would lose their jobs if suddenly fossil fuels were obsolete (except probably petroleum for automobiles). Let's hope nuclear fusion can still become a reality in spite of the resistance that's sure to arise.