Huge fire that started today on the Hollywood Hills. We stood there waiting for the Hollywood Sign to catch fire..luckily after a few hour it was under control..though the Hollywood sign on fire would be an awesome picture (hate to admit it)..haha. I'm glad no homes or lives were lost. (I enhanced the contrast a bit cause the smoke was kinda hard to see)

[source Shanty Cheryl at flickr.com]

Great shot Cheryl. Thanks for letting me use it. Very eerie.

There's more on the fire at dailybreeze.com. Apparently two youths playing with fireworks started it. If you want to see more photos there are plenty more on flickr.

I'm glad he sign didn't go. I love L.A. just the way it is, warts and all.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

-- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999), 9-10.

[source americanstate.org]

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - A Vancouver firefighter and his son have been charged with assaulting an officer and obstructing police following a weekend confrontation downtown. Parts of the incident were also caught on tape and posted to the popular video website "YouTube".

Vancouver Police say 44 year old Curtis Mason, and his 20 year son Grant Mason were each charged with 1 count of assaulting a police officer, and 2 counts of willful obstruction of police. Vancouver Fire Captain Rob Jones Cook confirms a 13 year member of the department has been charged.

Police say the incident started when 3 officers were called to investigate a single car crash at Seymour and Robson. Constable Howard Chow says two occupants of the car were extremely confrontational with the officers. One man identified himself as an off-duty fireman. Chow says a major fight broke out between the 3 officers and 2 men, before they were finally subdued and arrested. The female driver of the car received a 24-hour license suspension for having alcohol in her system. Meanwhile, two police cruisers heading to the scene for back-up ended up crashing into each other a few blocks away.

The YouTube video clip shows police officers struggling on the ground with two men. Firefighters in full gear stand around them, and at one point, another officer runs over and appears to hit someone with a baton a couple of times. Chow confirms the YouTube video is of the Vancouver incident.

[sources News 1130 and JDDM at the Canucks.com Forum]

"A first-class passenger on a flight from Delhi to London awoke find the corpse of a woman who had died in the economy cabin being placed in a seat next to him, British Airways said Monday."

[more at source: Newsvine]

I guess she was just dying for an upgrade. I'm here all week. Try the veal.

More Internet Safety Tips at CRACKED.com

I read MAD and CRACKED lots as a kid. I'd often get a couple of theses magazines in my Xmas stocking.

I didn't know you could make a hot dog so unappealing.

Carol has mentioned Make Magazine to me before, but I wasn't really interested until I saw Mark Frauenfelder (also a blogger for Boing Boing) on the Colbert Report the other night. Now I'm hooked. I love this stuff. Nerdy cool for sure. We've subscribed and now get both the hard copy and digital editions.

I think the first thing I'll build is the $14 Steady Cam from volume 1 of the magazine. I've seen it before but I'm feeling more inspired now.

We're going to subscribe to subscribing to Craft Magazine as well at Carol's urging. She needs to knit me a pie. I'm not sure why. There's a lot of cool stuff there too.

They're not all terrorists you know.

*** NOTE: Had this test said I were stupid I don't think we'd have ever seen this post. I'm not stupid. ***

Canada is ranked No. 1 in a new world popularity poll that looked at attitudes toward 12 major nations. Israel received the worst rating of the group.

[source: Sympatico / MSN]

The bottom three: U.S., Iran and Isreal.

Last year I went shooting with some gaming buddies of mine outside of Seattle. I took some video but haven't done anything with it, until now. It was fun. I think it's time to head down there again.

This guy was:


[more at source]