Meteor Shower Tonight!

Every year Earth passes through trails left from Halley's comet which causes an extraordinary meteor shower.  Its occurring tonight through tomorrow early tomorrow morning. 
The best time to watch the shower is around 1:00am to early dawn tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.
"Flakes of comet dust hitting the atmosphere should give us dozens of meteors per hour," said Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.
Peak activity, when Earth wades into the densest part of the debris, is expected around 6 a.m. ET (3 a.m. PT).
Meteors could appear anywhere in the sky, though traced back they will appear to emanate from the constellation Orion.
Prior to 2006 and going back many years, the Orionids have produced a reliable 15 to 20 meteors per hour at the peak, for skywatchers with dark skies. 
As a bonus, this time of year you can expect an additional five to 10 sporadic meteors per hour – those not related to the shower.
I'm excited!  I know I will be out there tonight!

UFO...cloud?

  This bizarre halo cloud photo was taken from a cell phone in Moscow just a few days ago.  It's gotta be the weirdest cloud I have ever seen.  Some people are calling it a UFO, but its obviously a cloud.  It's just really strange and it makes you wonder what would cause a cloud to look like that?
An official spokesperson for Moscow's weather department said, "Several fronts have been passing through Moscow recently, there was an intrusion of the Arctic air too, the sun was shining from the west — this is how the effect was produced."
Still, that seems like a decent explanation, but can it be the only explanation?
Kind of reminds me of the Goatse Cloud.  Hahaha.

Goatse

Anyway, overall I think the whole thing is just... interesting.  It's a crazy looking cloud, and thats all I can say about that.  ;)
Also, here the video clip that goes along with the first picture of the cloud.

Wow. Never Even Made It To The Balloon

Ok.  So the boy is ok.  CNN just released that the boy was found.  He did release the balloon however he never made it inside the balloon.  He was scared, he did in fact climb into a box, but it was a box that he hid in inside the attic.  I can't stop laughing.  I'm glad he ok, I am.  But this is too darn funny! 
Poor kid.  I know his parents will be pissed.  Oh well. 
Atleast there was a happy ending.  That's what everyone really wants anyway, right?

Looks Like He Got... Carried Away...

Earlier today out in Colorado a 6 year old boy decided to get inside a box attached to a weather balloon made by his parents.  Obviously his parents had no idea this was taking place.  The balloon took off and was in air for over 2 hours and traveled over 50 miles.  All news stations followed the balloon the entire time worried to death for this little boy.  Well, the balloon finally landed and the boy was no where to be found. After watching some of the video more closely they discovered that they found something drop off of the balloon and one point.  Was it the boy?  Probably.  Investigators are currently searching the area where they believe the boy could have landed. 

Is it awful that I find this kind of humorous?  Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for his parents and his family, and I surely would never wish harm on any child, but I can't help but giggle at this.  Here we are, watching this balloon for a couple of hours, can't even do anything about it... then it lands... so much anticipation, and the boy isn't even there! 

What makes it worse is the fact that the 6 year olds brothers were on their roof video taping it and talking about it.  (Atleast that is what their neighbor reported) 

Just because I think its funny, I do hope the boy is ok.  I really do.

If you missed it, check out this video.


Also, my boyfriend found this comic.  I found this funny.  Again, I'm sorry that I find this hilarious.  I have a sick sense of humor I guess.
NCIS Miami: The Boy In The Balloon

I will post another update for if and when they find the boy.
-Erica

Windows 7

Windows 7 is coming out on the 22nd.
If your a geek (like me) you are probably very excited about this! 
All the things that are terrible about Vista are supposed to fixed in 7.  If you have Vista, this is something you really might want to upgrade to.
Windows 7 introduces real advances in organizing your programs and files, arranging your taskbar and desktop, and quickly viewing and launching the page or document you want, when you want it. It also has cool built-in touch-screen features.
 In Windows 7, the familiar taskbar has been reinvented and made taller. Instead of mainly being a place where icons of open windows temporarily appear, it now is a place where you can permanently "pin" the icons of frequently used programs anywhere along its length, and in any arrangement you choose. This is a concept borrowed from Apple's similar feature, the Dock. But Windows 7 takes the concept further.
For each running program, hovering over its taskbar icon pops up a small preview screen showing a mini-view of that program. This preview idea was in Vista. But, in Windows 7, it has been expanded in several ways. Now, every open window in that program is included separately in the preview. If you mouse over a window in the preview screen, it appears at full size on your desktop and all other windows on the desktop become transparent -- part of a feature called Aero Peek. Click on the window and it comes up, ready for use. You can even close windows from these previews, or play media in them.
A feature called Snap allows you to expand windows to full-screen size by just dragging them to the top of the screen, or to half-screen size by dragging them to the left or right edges of the screen. Another called Shake allows you to make all other windows but the one you're working on disappear by simply grabbing its title bar with the mouse and shaking it several times.
n Windows Explorer, the left-hand column now includes a feature called Libraries. Each library -- Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos -- consolidates all files of those types regardless of which folder, or even which hard disk, they live in.
In the name of security, Vista put up nagging warnings about a wide variety of tasks, driving people crazy. In Windows 7, you can now set this system so it nags you only when things are happening that you consider really worth the nag. Also, Microsoft has consolidated most of the alerts from the lower-right system tray into one icon, and they seemed less frequent.
Windows 7 is also supposed to be much faster, and ultimately way more reliable.  Its more user friendly, and I recommend everyone to get the upgrade!

Twitter Cost Him His Job

Hollywood waiter is claiming an encounter with "Hung" star Jane Adams cost him his job at a popular eatery.
Jon-Barrett Ingels, 31, claims Adams, who plays Tanya on the HBO series, visited celeb hot spot Barney Greengrass (the cafe on the fifth floor of Barneys New York in Beverly Hills) in July and "skipped out on a $13.44 check," he posted on his Twitter page earlier this summer.
He said that she claimed she left her wallet in her car when he brought her the check, he allowed her to go get it, and she straight up bounced.  Later that afternoon, however, her agent did call to pay the bill but did not leave a tip.  That's where it all started.   
He vented about it on his twitter page (which is not set to private) and his employment ended up seeing it.  They fired him for it.  They don't want there restaurant to be looked bad on among celebrities, especially because they get celebrities in there on a pretty frequent basis.  Ingels claims had his management asked him to simply delete the account or set it to private he would have been glad to do so, but they didn't give him the chance. 
Oh well, there is the stupid thing to get fired over for today!  Haha.

Homeless Doll.

Make sure you watch this video first before you read what I write, otherwise it won't make sense.

I actually think that its a pretty cool concept especially because it IS an American Girl doll.  One thing about that brand of dolls is that they all have a "back story" and are supposed to come from all walks of life.  I think its a good tool for young girls to see that they aren't alone with their day to day struggles, and give you hope to over come it.  Some of the things they talk about in her back story are things that happen to tons of people on a day to day basis.  However, I think it is ridiculous to charge $95 for one doll.  I don't think its ridiculous because of the homeless back story, I think paying $95 for any type of doll would be ridiculous.  I also don't think that the company should have to donate proceeds to any type of charity.  That should be done at their own discretion.  Do they have to donate to charities for every other type of doll they sell too?  That wouldn't make sense.  I don't think it should be a big controversy like it is, especially when Mattel has been charging outrages prices for the American Girl dolls all this time.
People like controversy, and they will always try to make controversy out of everything.  Yay, America.
I think the dolls story is a good thing, and I hope they make more realistic ones like it in the future.

~Erica

Thank You, Lewis Black.

Agreed.  America really does have a problem getting too involved in the lives of people that they consider to be of a celebrity status.  Yeah, its interesting at times, but really... let it be.  It does not affect you personally, and it has nothing to do with you, so leave it alone.

Message In A Bottle

 This has got to be the saddest thing I have read all day.  For the last 6 years or so this lady put a message in a bottle on her birthday and send it out by the lighthouse that she worked at on Thatcher Island (NY) and always hoped that somebody would find it and get in contact with her.
Someone did finally find her bottle which had traveled 3,200 miles since 2003.  It was found by a couple in France.  They were so excited about finding it, they sent her a postcard to the address she had left in the bottle, but the letter got sent back to them as undeliverable.  They called the lighthouse place to ask about her, but they told them that she had passed away.  She was 61 years old.  Her boyfriend said that she had always hoped that someone would find one of her bottles, and it was so that she didn't live to see that wish.
This just got me.  So sad, but so cool at the same time.
~Erica

Read the whole article HERE