The helicopter's blades slice the night sky of the city like the knife of a ghost, the special forces upgrading making the machine as silent as possible. The helicopter stops and hovers as a black rope uncoils and falls down into the darkness of the city. Tall sky scrapers loom in the black sky, the windows ominously dark. A bulky figure slides down the rope into the pool of ink that disaster has painted on the city. The figure releases the rope when on the ground and the helicopter rises away, rope recoiling.

The figure is alone in the darkness. A crescent moon gives off a dull light that on any other night would be beautiful. Tonight it is sickly. The figure checks his tactical gear for the fifth time. A thick body stocking worn over the torso, arms, legs, neck. Kevlar armor strapped over top. A black vest with many pockets. Black pants, again rife with pockets. A thick belt with a thick holster containing a pistol and two double mag clip holsters. Dark boots with thick heels ready to crush. The lone soldier activates the light amplification goggles and stalks into the darkness.

Normally soldiers like this one travel at least in pairs, but this is a dire mission and there is more city then soldiers. Most of the city's still living citizens have been evacuated, but several pockets are trapped. These soldiers are here to save them. Get them together, keep them alive, and get them to a roof, tag it with an infrared beacon, and get the heck out of the city. With a minimized flash with the muffled sound of lead salvation and the first enemy goes down. The cleansing of the zombie infection has begun.

Another year past
Older, wiser, more to come
Now where is my pie?

Want to know about Gulf oysters before eating them? Visit the Be Oyster Aware and learn about all the things you'll need to know before eating oysters. How to cook them safely while making them extra tasty, what to do if you feel sick after eating them, (Ever seen that Mr. Bean episode? That might have been clams, though, but all the same...) and even learn about what happens after they are harvested.

Oh the great haiku
First five then seven then five
syllables there are

The latest hero to recently join the ranks of fighters for freedom and evil smiting is called The Engineering Enigma. The modus operandi of the Engineering Enigma consists of designing and personally manufacturing complex devices such as wheeled vehicles, personal aerial transportation gear, battle armor, crime fighting gadgets and weaponry, and even specially tailored traps and restraints for capturing specific villains. How the inventions work is always at question because their inner workings are always hidden and are designed purposefully to confuse people as to what their real use is until it is activated.

When The Space Turtle interviewed The Engineering Enigma, we asked where he learned to create such devices. He said he learned his skill while studying at Kettering University in one of the engineering co-op programs. The university, which offers co-op programs where you can learn at the school while working (and getting paid) in the same field to gain on the job experience, he says, was the key factor in becoming a superhero. He was able to save much of his money while in school and was able to make some devices between work and school which he sold to various hero organizations. This allowed him to invest and make more money which he now uses to make the gadgets he himself uses, as well as still selling or donating other devices to other superheros.

The following are some questions and answers from the interview:

The Space Turtle: "What is the main element behind how you fight crime?"

The Engineering Enigma: "Industrial engineering is the key to all I do. I take devices and gadgets that most people use already, optimize them, then disguise their function until I activate it. This takes the bad guys by surprise all the time."

ST: "Did you want to be a hero always?"

EE: "I did. As any boy knows, pretending to be a hero growing up isn't just imaginary, it is looking at future options."

ST: "Did you know how you were going to be a hero growing up?"

EE: "Actually know. Not until I was in college did I really find the "how" of the way I would be a hero."

ST: "Do you think your college choice had a lot to do with that?"

EE: "Well, I chose Kettering University because when I was on their website, it was tailored in such a way that made the place look like it was a fun place to be. Aside from being easy to navigate and being very informative, their Stickman videos were very amusing and had jabs and references to the popular culture I grew up in. It was great to see that at least someone there had a sense of humor. While there, I choose a field that interested me, and during the process, I found out how I could fight crime in a way that fit me perfectly."

ST: "What does Kettering say about having a hero come from their campus?"

EE: "Well, I haven't asked, but I doubt they mind. They are already ranked #1 in US News in their article about the best colleges of 2008, so I bet they'll keep holding on to the lead."

ST: "Is it true you created a fund to help children of superheroes go to college?"

EE: "I myself am one of the few superheroes who has more money then they need. Investing the money I made in college allowed me to be financially independent. Most heroes are barely scraping by. I created the Hero's Kids Fund to help the children of heroes go to college. This is all done in secret, of course, since most heroes have a secret identity."

ST: "Does Kettering know who you are?"

EE: "No, I managed to stay secret. The co-op assignments rotate every three months as well, so none of the places I worked for know which student I was. It was though though. I have sent some of the companies some devices I made to improve their programs and products since I've been designing things on my own. I let them patent the process in exchange for them manufacturing parts for me now and then."

ST: "Who is your arch nemesis?"

EE: "I don't have one at the moment. Seems many are reluctant to choose me. I'm sure I'll anger someone enough soon, though."

There were more questions to ask, but The Engineering Enigma has to answer a cry of distress. He left expediently by entering his small car which turned out to be a fast moving exoskeleton armor. Reports aren't as yet certain, but we believe he went to stop giant crocodiles from attacking a local pirate festival.

I just heard the news that Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's. This isn't new news, but news gets to me at the speed of sunlight on the Discworld, which, as you may know, travels very slow because of the large magical field of the Disc. I tend to try and not be sad and somber too much on The Space Turtle since it is meant to be a break from reality, but I felt like I had too mention this since this whole blog was in part inspired by Terry Pratchett who I hope doesn't decide to have a wizard cast a strange spell or send me to the Dungeon Dimensions for sorta kinda borrowing a space turtle from him. This one is a lot smaller and can't carry a world, just a man, as you may know if you read the stories that inspired the name of this blog.

I wasn't too familiar with Terry Pratchett until more recently when I played first Discworld: Noir, then have played the first Discworld game, but not to completion, and and seen The Hogfather movie, and more recently have begun actually experiencing the Discworld books via audiobook. They are brilliant works of art that are right up my ally, full of silliness and humor, wit and wisdom (of a sort), and style.

I do hope that those few dollars I have donated in the past to Alzheimer's research at least were enough to give a researches a good lunch that kept him or her going so they had a brilliant idea and made an advancement. It is always sad when anyone gets a disease like this, but when it is someone when who has influenced you in the way he has influenced me get is, it is all the more saddening. I love to write and his works really inspire me to think hard and carefully at how to make my writings more interesting and entertaining. I hope it has worked.

He released a speech on Thursday, March 13th 2008 and there is a link to it here. He hasn't forgotten how to be funny. You can donate here(it is in pounds, so if in the US as most of my readers are, you might want to find a different place to donate to, not sure).

Perhaps we can start a fund to go to Death's house and see if we can't get Terry's autobiography for him to he can read it and remember what he forgets, so long as we don't knock any hourglasses over while there.

What could have been a major spring time holiday disaster was averted by special forces troops today in a raid in an underground facility in Pennsylvania. As special forces troops invaded the underground compound, they found large caches of weaponry and stockpiles of candy and plastic false grass. The compound was also full of terrorist operatives, led by a renegade Easter bunny rabbit who was going to lead an assault against religious organizations who have openly claimed that the resurrection of Christ was the whole reason for Easter, and that bunny rabbits with eggs incompatible with mammalian rabbit anatomy have nothing to do with Easter, and neither does the marketing of massive amounts of candy. The rabbit was gathering an army together formed of peeps, the yellow marshmallow candy birds. The rabbit, now in custody, claimed he was using peeps instead of other rabbits because all he could get rabbits to do was get together to make more rabbits. The rabbit leader had been in a medical testing facility but had escaped, but with the loss of his reproductive abilities, so instead of raising a family, he started raising a family.

Several peep terrorist were killed in the assault of the compound. The special forces did their best to take over without casualty, but the resistance was unrelenting until the special forces brought in a specially fitted microwave array weapon that was considerably effective against the peeps, who surrendered soon after it was used just a few times. Special forces soldiers gained no losses, but several were covered in a yellowy sticky substance.

In a public hearing, the rabbit leader said that "You may have destroyed my peeps at the compound, but I have sleeper agents all across America in supermarkets everywhere!" When interrogators attempted to question the captured peep terrorists, they found to their dismay that they seemed to be equipped with a hidden suicide drug for when their cells were entered, they were found to be stale.

Despite all the many things to do in Los Angeles, of my first time through LA, I hardly even saw a building.

I was going down to Mexico with my church on a missions trip. We had stopped at a church on the way down and didn't have much real food, just them little round almost sandwiches, and soda, and maybe I had some watter. Then some of the guys went out to get some Red Bulls, because they were new and fangled at the time, and they wanted to try some. I was really low on sleep. Later, when we started driving, very early in the morning, I was in the far back seat of the Ford Expedition. I had wanted to try some of the Red Bull, so I did. The stuff tasted like perfume. That is not why I wont ever drink it again.

So, after sipping some, deciding it was disgusting, bordering on abhorrent, I decided to try my hand at sleeping. Some time later, several minutes, half hour, I don't remember, I made an exclamation to the driver. "Jay, pull over, I'm going to be sick!" Well, he pulled over, but not before I had emptied the contents of my stomach into my cupped hands. I sat there with the reeking bile while the two people besides me tried to wake Issac, who was in the seat that had to move out of the way for me to get out. The pungent liquid was dripping through my fingers.

The chance is likely that you have never tried to wake Issac. If by chance you have, you'll know that it was not easy. He is the kinda guy that, when you finally get awake, he's not really awake, but more in that ultra groggy state where the only thing that matters is asking what is going on then falling back asleep. Somehow they convinced him to get out of the car and I did the best I could to not spill the pool of putridness from my hands in the car and made my way out, where I released more of my insides onto the gravel on the side of the road.

I don't remember much after that, just people giving me water, which I threw up, some sick stomach medicine, which I threw up, and then having nothing, which I threw up. When we got to LAX to wait for the rest of the group (who flew in from the East) where I managed to fall into a good sleep against a concrete pillar. When I awoke, I was ok, and did not get sick all the way to Mexico, while there, or back.

Then, on the way back, we went to a steak house. I bet the steak was really good, but I really don't remember because it was so small! I never had steak much, maybe even never before that point. We had permission to order whatever we wanted, so I found what that had shrimp with it, and was over $30! I was expecting a giant plate. I got two tiny pieces of meat with a shrimp on top of each. I think the shrimp was bigger that the beef. I wasn't happy. Neither was Mike, whose girlfriend was eating a lobster, which was, he was sure, a giant bug. It was making him sick while I finished off my meat, which I was trying to eat as slowly as possible to make it last. I didn't get sick though.

Then we went to Six Flags. I had never been on a roller coaster. Now I have been on many! I am a fan, mostly because they don't make me barf.

I'm sure this whole story makes you want to have an experience exactly like mine! Well, without all the upsets and upchucking. You can go to Trusted Tours & Attractions for some family vacation ideas, like going to the San Diego zoo. While at the site, you can ever sign up for a newsletter and a chance to win an Apple iPod!(Offer ends Monday, March 31st, 2008) But take it from me, don't eat little then drink Red Bull and try to sleep, if you have never ridden a roller coaster, start on a slow one and end the day on the Goliath. Don't miss the Superman, and certainly not the Batman, just waiting in line for that one is fun, and most of all, don't throw up.

According to the one persons surveyed by The Space Turtle, the smell of banana chips is actually quite horrible. Not the taste mind, you, just the smell. Indeed, the man surveyed said he had been ranting about it for quite some time and had, in fact, texted a friend about the matter recently, but due to a mistake, he texted his home phone and a robotic voice read the message aloud to him.

The impact of this in depth study upon society has yet to be determined, but widespread panic and government conspiracies to cover up the information discovered are almost certain to happen. It has even been suggested that they only smell horrible due to action taken by the Illuminati to quash the amount of people who eat banana chips. This speculation leads us to wonder what the reasoning behind this would be? Do banana chips have a special trait or effect that so far human kind has not discovered publicly?

When you type in the web address for this site, do you ever what happens after you press 'enter' and the site loads? This is how it happens:

First, a tiny electronic postman goes from your browser, taking the site name with him on a little pad. He takes an express train to a place that holds the nameservers. The nameservers are tall, monolithic black rectangular rocks that were carved from ancient stones that lived in oceans and streams and were connected to everything, for everything in the world is connected to water, from the oceans to rivers and lakes, to the moisture in the air and the clouds that float across the sky. Even in the deserts are connected by cacti and underground waterways. These stones are told the name of the website by the tiny postman and they reach out across the world and think and connect and think and find, then they tell the postman where the website is located.

The postman writes down the location and follows a map that is always carried with him. He takes many paths to get to his destination on many vehicles such as running, cars, shopping carts down hills, lightbikes, and sometimes even riding the backs of webspiders. His destination, in the case of this site, is the Bluehost servers. I really prefer the Bluehost servers, for they are blue, my favorite color. The postman enters the servers, find the proper address, and goes inside. He then gets an envelope from a box that contains envelopes for just this occasion. He takes the envelope and stuffs it in his bag and takes the envelope back to your browser and slips it into a slot. Then the browser opens the envelope, and gathers the information from inside, then loads the page.

If you would like to make a site and have little tiny electronic postmen visit it and takes it to people all around the world, send a little postman to the Web Hosting Bluebook and he will deliver to you a site that has reviews and links to various web hosting services. You can use the opinions there as well as my own (if you are looking for a server that is blue, at least) to decide where you would like to place your site for the little postmen to visit. There is also a forum on the site that contains other opinions that you can review. Your postmen may be hasty, but don't be too hasty yourself in choosing a webserver.