A great photoshopping contest is underway at Worth1000 called if Goths Ruled 2. Some really brilliant mock ups. My favorite is the reworked Minnie Mouse. Good fun.

September 13th: Today in 1948 Margaret Chase Smith is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first woman to server in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. She had a long career finally losing an election in 1972.

September 12th: Today in 2003 Johnny Cash died of respitory failure in Nashville, Tennessee. A couple of days ago John at Grumpy Gecko reminded me that it was the anniversary of Warren Zevon’s death, another artist I truly miss. I saw Warren Zevon many times in concert, he toured regularly and seemed to hit Georgetown [...]

September 11th: Today in 1777 George Washington was taught another in a long series of lessons on ‘What is a Flank and Why do they Matter’ by the British army at the Battle of Brandywine. The battle was a major British victory and led to the capture of Philadelphia. George Washington is an interesting figure [...]

September 10th: Today in 1846 Elias Howe received a patent for a lockstitch sewing machine. His was by no means the first sewing machine patent, but his persistence, combined with his alliance with two key inventors who improved his machine led to the first really successful sewing machines.

Saw March Of The Penguins the other day and enjoyed it. The movie did tend to run long in a few of the sequences but the photography was so good it didn’t really hurt it too much. The movie also gets points from me for not having an ‘until man came and ruined everything‘ lecture [...]

Beach Bamburgh

Originally uploaded by Tancread.

Another photo of Castle Bamburgh as seen from the beach. Although much of it has been rebuilt the castle really does give you an impression of just how dominating these castles really were in their heyday.

It is the end of an era as Wilkinson Sword is closing up the shop which has supplied the British military with its swords for more than two hundred years. Sadly the last man known to have wielded one of these swords in battle died last May at the fine age of one hundred and [...]

Every year Belloit College releases a mindset list to its faculty to show them some of the things that differentiate themselves from the incoming class. They recently released the list for the class of 2009, who were born in 1987. Not to be out done, McSweenys did some digging and found the list for 1918.

Here is a nice site on Japanese Castles I found this morning on Meta Filter. Some very nice ones in very good condition.