An Alligator Ate Your Order

This is what one man was told when he called Amazon wondering why his package hadn’t arrived by the projected delivery date. The rep on the phone said it may have been eaten by another animal, but was sure that it was eaten en route and would therefore never be delivered. This was news to the shipping company which tracked the package to a delivery truck that was on its way to deliver the package. Read the full account here.

TBQ Update

There are now 18 days until District Finals at Northwest University. Study hard and keep up the good work.

Waiting For The Rest of the Story

The government has a new definition for WMD. This now includes "improvised explosive devices with explosive formed projectiles." If this is indeed the case, those who claim there aren’t, nor ever were, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are full of crap. Afghanistan also has a bunch there too.

This topic came up because a group of guys out east are charged with terrorist plots of trying to kill police officers. If this story is indeed true, these guys need to be locked up, but since the police kept changing their story when sending in a full strike team to arrest these guys, I have no reason to believe their story. A neighbor said, "Helicopters and planes in the air, and guns drawn everywhere. At first, they said it was meth, then guns, then bombs." All three are different, I don’t see how they could be confused with each other, and if the officers on the scene honestly did not know why they were there, they probably should not have been there.

If the official story given is indeed true, these guys are scum who need to be locked up. Read the full story here on the Chicago CBS site.

Weird Weather

So far today we've had rain, lightning and thunder, hail, and strong winds. The temperatures are quite a bit cooler than normal, the day is wetter than usual, and the global warming nuts still believe that we're going to roast to death.

Unofficial League IV Scores

Devon - 170 - Championship
Phillip - 75 - Challenger
Iva - 30 - Challenger
Melissa - 15 - Championship
Stuart - 10 - Championship
Liana - 5 - Challenger
Elizabeth - 0 - Challenger

I'll make any updates or corrections needed when I actually get the official results.

Earth Hour?

Did anyone celebrate earth hour this year? Yeah, me neither.

Congrats to the TBQ Teams

Good job today everyone. Your hard work is paying off. We have some work to do for the District meet on the 17th, but it is mostly review for all of you. I should have scores posted here soon.

Gov. Gregoire Threatens a 20% Cut

On Wednesday, Gregoire threatened the state congress that if they could not come up with a plan to raise enough taxes to cover the projected $2.8 billion budget shortfall, she would start cutting state programs by 20%. Read the full story here on the KOMO site. If you read most of the comments on the article, most people seem to like the 20% cut idea. I consider that 20% cut a step in the right direction, which should be follows very quickly with another 20% cut. Unfortunately, she is only threatening to cut pet projects in order to scare the congressmen, there is little chance of actually adopting any form of fiscal responsibility on her part.

TBQ Update

Just a reminder to all TBQ people, Chapter 12 & 13 for Thursday. Also, League IV is THIS Saturday in Redmond.

HealthDeathcare

The people screaming that we need Obamacare will get their wish...in four years. Thankfully there is still a chance that the Supreme Court will read part of this bill and then deem it unconstitutional.

School Supplies

It seems that the Department of Education is stocking up. This time it's not computers, or textbooks, or even pencils and paper. This month the Educational Department is stocking up on short-barrel Remington 870 Police shotguns. According to FBO.gov, an order was placed for twenty-seven 12-gauge variants of the shotgun. They bought these particular guns because they "are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts."
In an age where school officials have virtually no ability to discipline students, short barrel shotguns seem like a bit excessive. Maybe the department is planning a hostile takeover of a number of private schools in order to increase the average test scores of failing school districts.

Google Maps

What happens when a deer crosses the road in front of the Google Maps vehicle?

Click the image to find out. But yes, the deer did survive the encounter. Search for Google Street View Finds to find many more interesting things seen by the Google cams.

TBQ Update

Just a reminder to all TBQ people, Chapter 11 for Thursday. Also, 11 days until League 4.

Facebook Funnies I

Pastor Jeremy has to be one of the most random people I know. He's also one of the most annoyingly extroverted people, which makes a great combination. I don't see him very often but he posts on Facebook almost hourly. Here's one of his more memorable posts in recent weeks:

Click the image to read the comments that followed. I will be keeping an eye on his wall for more fun things to share with the world.

Great Rube Goldberg Machine

At roughly 3 minutes 20 seconds long, this is a great machine to watch. The band literally spent months setting up and testing the machine in order to get it to run in time with the music. They did set the machine up so that they could do a cut in the camera shot if necessary to splice two takes together, but it wasn't necessary.


Here's the YouTube link, and yes, they even have 1080P available. I found this video originally linked from the Death Pill blog.

Thursday Practice + Sunday

Thanks to Stewart and Phillip for showing up today. To those that didn't, you probably had a good excuse. I'll see most of you on Sunday for our morning That The World May Know videos, and some review of material.

Idaho Wants Your Business

Unlike Washington and Oregon, the government of Idaho wants businesses to locate in their state. Governor Otter wrote a letter to the businesses of Washington, inviting them to relocate in Idaho to avoid the oppressive tax increases currently in the planning stages. Here’s a quote from his letter:

Businesses small and large are the backbone of Idaho’s economy. They employ our citizens, who in turn can provide for their families. Businesses and individuals also pay reasonable taxes that enable State and local governments to provide such essential services as public schools and public safety. And make no mistake: Any business that doesn’t pass along its operating costs to consumers – including their tax bills – doesn’t stay in business for long.

If the losers in Olympia would realize this, our state would become a much better place to work and do business. In the mean time, we can only hope for some change in November, or find a good real estate agent in another state, like Idaho. Read the whole letter from Governor Otter Here.

The Hard Disk Crusher

The Hard Disk Crusher is a nifty item I saw in an ad and thought I'd share. The idea is to physically destroy the drive, rather than just trying to erase the data it contains. I don't think it's 100% guaranteed to destroy your data as a team was able to recover data off of the hard drives that burned up in the reentry of the Colombia space shuttle disaster. However, this should be a great tool for opening those impossibly hard nuts.

TBQ Update

Just a reminder to all TBQ people, Chapter 10 for Thursday. Also, 18 days until League 4.

Hurt Locker?

I really have no idea how someone chooses one movie over another when voting for awards. There should be some set of rigid criteria that determines many of such awards. That being said, I have no memory of ever hearing of or seeing anything about "Hurt Locker". I don't go to very many movies, so I don't see very many trailers on the big screen, nor to I watch live TV on a regular basis. But I'd at least think that if a movie was so amazing that it needed to be granted the designation of "Best Movie of 2009" that I would have at least heard of it before today.

Gotta Love Facebook

It may be especially true for Facebook, but it’s also very true for the internet at a whole. Anything you post online can probably be seen by anyone with internet access, anywhere in the world.


When posting things about someone on Facebook, make sure that they are not your friend, or they will be able to see it as well. Even if the person was not your friend, one of your friends may show them so keeping secrets is nearly impossible on the interwebs. This is another item from Oddee, although I will not post the direct link due to other content advertised on that particular page.

Failed Warnings

I know that warnings have become necessary in our lawsuit-happy culture, but they still go overboard when trying to warn people about potential dangers.

Click image for larger

I’m pretty sure that Parker here is not old enough to drive and so it really should not matter how much this canine fellow drinks. Click here for oddee.com where I found this image. Be warned that not everything on the linked site is guaranteed to be family friendly.

Renewed Commitment to Updates!

Starting this week I will be having content posted here regularly. What does regularly mean? In this case it means a minimum of one new posting per week, most likely on a Monday, although not always the case. There is actually content in the queue so I am working with a cushion to ensure that I can make this renewed commitment to regular posting.

You may also have noticed that the tbq.net site does not exist at the moment and actually has not for a few months. So for the time being the URL is forwarding to this page, so for that reason there will also be [more] TBQ related content posted here, so stay tuned.