I love LEGOs. And I love pipe organs. So I absolutely loved this custom LEGO church.

Check out all 35 photos documenting the project here. I've left you a sample of the organ in the extended entry.

(Via The Corner).
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I wonder if Rob the Llamabutcher is in any of these pictures?

Do these people look like they're having fun?

(Via BoingBoing).

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For this week's poll, there's no real unifying theme, just a small selection from the many lovely ladies who appeared in the original Star Trek.

I know there are many, many worthy candidates, so if you don't see your favorite, name her in the comments. But please review earlier polls and the Winners' Gallery before criticizing me for the presence or absence of some candidate or another. The fields of Star Trek are fertile, and we will eventually take the many poll finalists and pit them against one another in a "Sweet 16"-style tournament. Without further ado:

From A Private Little War, the sexy but deceitful healer Nona (portrayed by Nancy Kovack):

From The Omega Glory, the Yang warrior Sirah (portrayed by Irene Kelly):

And from The Paradise Syndrome, Captain Kirk's only wife, Miramanee (played by Sabrina Scharf):

(All pre-cropped images courtesy of AllYourTrekAreBelongTo.us)

Results (Posted 19 April 2005):

Nona 21 of 71 votes for 30%
Sirah 38 of 71 votes for 53% -- WINNER
Miramanee 12 of 71 votes for 17%

Posted by: JohnL at 11:23 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Comcast is performing some upgrades in the neighborhood, so my connection to the Internet has been very intermittent. When it is there, it's very sluggish. The upshot is that I have to delay updating the SF Babes Poll until later this week.

Since tomorrow (April 13) is my birthday (number 37, thank you), I probably won't get to the poll until Thursday.

I won't run a birthday blog-a-thon, but if you feel like clicking on my Google ads tomorrow or ordering something for yourself from Amazon after following one of the Amazon ads in the sidebar, please feel free to do so. I would be curious to see what kind of difference that makes in my cents-a-day earnings.

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Since I was getting ready to leave town last Friday, I missed that the 34th Carnival of the Recipes had been posted at Aussie Wife. I believe this marks the first time one of our friends from down under has hosted the Carnival.

I like the looks of the "Fire Butter" for Uncle Jack's Fire Steak. I also think I'll have to try Laughing Wolf's Roasted (well, Smoked) Lamb.

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This past weekend, I took my eldest son, C., to Houston with 25 other Boy Scouts and 6 or 7 other adult chaperones. We went to participate in a Boy Scout Camp-in at SpaceCenter Houston. The program is designed to meet the essential elements of the Space Exploration Merit Badge.

In order to make the most out of the 10-hour round-trip drive, we left Plano early and visited the USS Texas and San Jacinto Monument.

(More in the extended entry).
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In case you haven't gotten enough, this page has a great collection of tasty photos from the 2003 Chicago Air and Water Show. My favorites are the B-1 buzzing an apartment building and the "heritage" photo of the P-51 with the A-10. Good stuff.

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Via a post that referenced my earlier cheesecake entry on the German Arado Ar 232 "Millipede," I present the Antonov An-225:

Note the many wheels along the rear bottom of the plane, much like the Arado Ar 232:

To get an idea of just how big this plane is, take a look at how small the Russian Buran shuttle is in comparison:

The Buran is about the same size as the US Shuttle orbiter, which takes up quite a bit more space on the back of a Boeing 747.

(All images courtesy of Lockett Photography Card Catalog).

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Sorry for the dearth of material recently. I'll have some good stuff soon. Of course, I'll have some new Aircraft Cheesecake posted later tonight.

This weekend, I went to Houston with my eldest son, C. (age 10), to visit the Battleship Texas, San Jacinto Monument, and SpaceCenter Houston. We did a camp-in at the SpaceCenter for Boy Scouts. I'll have a photoblog or two up early in the week.

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I fired up iTunes tonight to listen to the latest installment of Lileks' Diner, and left it running while blogging that novella I just put up about shopping centers. As usual, it is set on shuffle, and here are the ten songs that have come up:

1. Aerosmith - Rare live version of Sweet Emotion
2. New Christy Minstrels - A Travelin' Man
3. Ronald Reagan - Operation Coffee Cup (I didn't listen to more than the first few minutes before scanning to the next)
4. Pat Boone - Metallica's Enter the Sandman
5. Red Army Choir - Moscow Nights (a beautiful folk song)
6. Van Halen - The Cradle Will Rock
7. Bad Company - Feel Like Makin' Love
8. Mel Carter - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me
9. Neil Diamond - Cracklin' Rosie
10. Fear Factory/Gary Numan - Cars Remix

Weird. I wonder how my coworkers (or you) would judge me by my iTunes playlist? (Via GeekPress).

Posted by: JohnL at 12:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I wonder if Virginia Postrel has seen this article in Slate yet (not sure how long the link will be viable).

From the opening sentence, Andrew Blum's article drips with condecension and scorn on commercially-motivated style (all emphases mine):

Like insecure teenagers, malls keep changing their style.

Once you get past his sarcasm, you actually learn that malls are updating their style, adding open-air plazas, sidewalks and street-side parking, and re-dubbing themselves "lifestyle centers." (I've been to one of those centers a few times here in Plano, called Legacy Town Center (or The Shops at Legacy). A near-perfect model of New Urbanist design if there can be one). A good thing, especially for a lefty writer at Slate, no? Well, actually, no:

[W]hile these new malls may appear to be public space, they're not public at all—at least if you want to do anything but shop. They represent a bait-and-switch routine on the part of developers, one that exchanges the public realm for the commercial one.

Got that? The commercial realm is exclusive of the public. It doesn't matter whether the style conforms to all the objectives of the (largely leftist) New Urbanism, it's all just a bait-and-switch routine because the developers want you to spend money in their shops.

Hmmm. I'm confused -- are developers just supposed to create these little New Urban oases without any thought of commerce? Does Blum's tone mean that he thinks the big sprawling suburban mall is better than this kind of development? Hold that thought -- next he goes on a walking tour of a few lifestyle centers and manages to get in a very subtle dig at Starbucks:

Parking my rented Chevy in front of a big-box emporium called Barbeques Galore, I walked through the arched portals that decorate the marketplace entrance. Inside, there were restaurants and stores lining a winding and narrow outdoor pedestrian street that opened up onto a series of little plazas. Padded wicker chairs were strewn about in a studied, casual way, and a huge fieldstone fireplace had benches built into it for those cool desert nights. This was a delightful place for a Frappuccino....

[At another lifestyle center], it immediately felt like a real, bustling neighborhood. The sidewalks were shaded from the sun by flowered trellises, and the streets narrowed at the corners to give pedestrians an implied right of way. An urban plaza with a good café and a band shell provided a central gathering place.

Blum seems uncomfortable with the success of this kind of development, but fortunately he recognizes and acknowledges the irony of commercial developers implementing New Urbanism:

This is civic life in America, circa 2005, and it's spreading....

[Old-fashioned indoor malls] turn their backs to their surroundings and concentrate activity in and on themselves. By contrast, lifestyle centers gesture toward their environments....

More incredibly, lifestyle centers do all the things that urban planners have promoted for years as ways of counteracting sprawl: squeeze more into less space, combine a mix of activities, and employ a fine-grained street grid to create a public realm—a "sidewalk ballet," in Jane Jacobs' alluring phrase. The irony is almost too perfect: Malls are now being designed to resemble the downtown commercial districts they replaced. What sweet vindication for urban sophisticates!

But now we get to the core of his concern, the fact that these developments are privately-owned, "carefully insulated from the messiness of public life," in his words. Blum has issues with the lifestyle centers' codes of conduct:

The list of forbidden activities includes "non-commercial expressive activity"—not to mention "excessive staring" and "taking photos, video or audio recording of any store, product, employee, customer or officer." "Photos of shopping party with shopping center décor, as a backdrop," however, are permitted.

Finally, his thesis, buried at the end:

There's something a bit unhealthy about faux public places designed to attract rich people and make them feel comfortable. (At least the traditional mall didn't try to hide the fact that it was a shopping center.) The lifestyle center is a bizarre outgrowth of the suburban mentality: People want public space, even if making that space private is the only way to get it.

There's so much wrong with that, I just don't know where to start.

Would it be healthy instead to create faux public places to attract poor people and make them comfortable? Or is it OK to create "authentic" public places to attract rich people? Are New Urbanist developments only to be allowed in the central business district of an existing city? Would it be OK if the money to develop these lifestyle centers was public money rather than private?

Well, go read it yourself. Some people are just impossible to please.

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Today is my one year anniversary here at the mu.nu domain.

First, a big "thank you" to Pixy Misa for putting together this crazy collection of diverse bloggers.

Second, a question for my users: over the past year, this site has grown more graphics-intensive. If you are on dialup, is this site slow to load? Please let me know in the comments or by email what kind of delays you might be experiencing. If the pages load quickly enough, I won't hide too many things in the extended entries. But if there are noticeable load delays, I will try to make the main page smaller and thus quicker to load.

Thanks, as always, to those of you who regularly stop by to visit. If you are a new visitor (as a result of the Carnival of Recipes and various -lanches that came with it or otherwise), please check back through my archives to get a feel for the place and come back to visit again soon.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:16 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Virginia Postrel points to a fascinating site that mines old patents for examples of striking industrial design. They have a "what's new" blog, too, which I have added to the "Between Planets" section of the blogroll.

I also found a mother lode of incredible early aircraft designs via the site.

Some examples in the extended entry:
more...

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This week's poll continues to highlight some of the lesser-known SF actresses who have starred in more obscure SF series -- in this case, Farscape.

Claudia Black portrays Aeryn Sun, a tough former soldier of the Peacekeeper corps:

Tammy McIntosh plays the part of Joolushko Tunai Fenta Hovalis (or, more simply, "Jool"), an intelligent but fiery scientist:

Raelee Hill's character is Sikozu Svala Shanti Sugaysi Shanu, a member of the Kalish species who can walk on walls and ceilings:

Finally, Gigi Edgley portrays Chiana, a sarcastic survivor:

Results (Posted 13 April 2005):

Claudia Black (as Aeryn Sun) 34 of 86 votes for 40% (WINNER)
Tammy McIntosh (as Jool) 4 of 86 votes for 5%
Raelee Hill (as Sikozu) 26 of 86 votes for 30%
Gigi Edgley (as Chiana) 22 of 86 votes for 25%

Posted by: JohnL at 09:34 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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1 I guess blue women arn't your cup of tea - PA'U ZOTOH ZHAAN (played by Virginia Hey).

Posted by: owlish at April 05, 2005 10:20 PM (sBj9U)

2 Nah, Twi'leks (in the Star Wars universe) look fine to me, so the blue has nothing to do with it. Just rank ignorance of the show on my part -- I went with the four names offered up by the commenter a couple of weeks ago. Aside: I'm gonna wait a day or two to see if anyone else volunteers for an interview before posting questions for you.

Posted by: JohnL at April 05, 2005 10:26 PM (gplif)

3 Yikes! Strike that. I just went and googled the character. I would have excluded her from the poll had I known to even consider her. Not a "babe" under even a very liberal and broad-minded definition.

Posted by: JohnL at April 05, 2005 10:28 PM (gplif)

4 Heh. So, do we have an exact definition of a babe, yet?

Posted by: owlish at April 06, 2005 12:41 AM (sBj9U)

5 Having met the actress, I've got to concurr with JohnL. As a recovering ex-Scaper, I'll add this thought: mmmm, leather. >

Posted by: Lysander at April 06, 2005 12:59 PM (ShW/G)

6 more obscure SF series -- in this case, Farscape. Heathen! Infidel! You know, of course, that Farscape has had a larger national audience than Andromeda, has had an audience close to Buffy's final few years, and has a larger international audience than SG-1?

Posted by: scottm at April 06, 2005 01:53 PM (7vGc/)

7 Scottm: Heh heh heh. Actually, I didn't know. I'm a strange sort of technophile who hasn't had cable (or satellite) TV for 10 years now, so to me these series are obscure. I'll catch up on the DVDs someday.

Posted by: JohnL at April 06, 2005 05:55 PM (gplif)

8 Except Andromeda has shown on regular TV. I think.

Posted by: owlish at April 06, 2005 11:36 PM (sBj9U)

9 You may be right, Owlish. Some obscure UHF broadcast channel in the middle of Saturday afternoon when I'm out doing yardwork or coaching soccer teams. With reruns at 2:00 AM. Someday, I'll check the DVDs out or finally break down and get cable and a TiVO to hoover up all the shows I've ever missed.

Posted by: JohnL at April 07, 2005 12:39 AM (gplif)

10 LOL Scottm, you sound like a Scaper! Though, I'm surprised that John didn't use some of the publicity photos of Ms. Black as Aeryn - leather and all >

Posted by: Lysander at April 07, 2005 08:59 AM (ShW/G)

11 Lysander, those kind of pics usually make it into the Gallery (compare the Gallery pics to the poll pics). There's a method to my madness: I try to keep the polls mostly even, with good pics of all contestants, but none obviously better than the others. Once there's a winner, though, I usually look for a really, really good pic to post in the Gallery. (Compare the Lexa Doig pic from the last poll with her Gallery shot, for example).

Posted by: JohnL at April 07, 2005 09:11 AM (Hs4rn)

12 LOL. Good point.

Posted by: Lysander at April 07, 2005 03:45 PM (ShW/G)

13 Lord, this one is *hard* to call. They're all real babes!

Posted by: Ranten.N.Raven at April 08, 2005 08:18 PM (fghYh)

14 A little late on posting this but I'll take Chiana any day! Just imagine the things she's done to D'Argo! Aeryn was cool too...until she got too skinny.

Posted by: Princess Cat at April 13, 2005 03:23 PM (K10IP)

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When I saw that Random Pensees was promulgating an interview meme, I knew I had to volunteer (even though he had already received the requisite five volunteers). Random is one of the more erudite and interesting bloggers I read. You should read him daily, as I do.

So, to see his questions for me and my answers, look in the Extended Entry. And since this is something of a meme, please leave me a comment saying "interview me." The first five of you requesting that will be my next interviewees. I will then ask you five questions. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some.) And they'll ask five friends, and so on, and so on...
more...

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Via Gravity Lens, a great article in The Grauniad about the dinosaurs that everyone loves (or at least loved) to hate: prog rockers.

I used to be very heavily into Emerson Lake & Palmer, Yes (in all its sundry incarnations), Genesis (especially the obscure early stuff), the Moody Blues, and early King Crimson. I credit prog (especially and almost exclusively Emerson Lake and Palmer) with stimulating in me a deep appreciation for both classical and jazz music. I first learned of Bartok, Ginastera, Copland, and Janacek from Keith Emerson's arrangements of their pieces.

If you like progressive rock or want to sample some, there is a cool web radio station named Aural Moon. You can pick up a stream at their site, and they are listed under the Radio section of iTunes, too.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I know I've been posting a lot of these recently, but I've been noting several new incoming pings from blogs I'm not familiar with.

The subject of this post is David Veksler, author of the blog Truth, Justice, and the American Way. He's been blogging about a year and a half longer than I, so I'm surprised I haven't crossed paths with him online before. I can forgive that he's an Aggie (heck, some of my best friends are Aggies). He's definitely a Texan -- though born in Ukraine, his attitudes are all Texan. He believes in freedom and the power of the market. He self-identifies as an Objectivist, so I hope he won't mind if I put him in the libertarian/classical liberal section of my blogroll (i.e., The Moon is a Harsh Mistress).

Thanks for the kind words about my blog, David!

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Email received from my wife Friday afternoon, reproduced in its entirety here (names abbreviated to protect the innocent):

Subject: Star Wars

D. [8 y.o. son] spent 30 minutes in his room with E. [5 y.o. daughter], teaching her about Star Wars with his ships and your action figures. Now they are watching Return of the Jedi, D.'s choice since E. would like the Teddy Bears.

S.

I know I've done my job well to pass the SF torch to another generation.

Posted by: JohnL at 06:18 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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OK, this guy is new to me, even though he has been blogging for almost a year. I discovered his blog thanks to his link to the recent Carnival of Recipes held here.

He has quite an array of interests, including Retrocomputing. Plus, anyone who unironically praises the late-1970s Buck Rogers gets brownie points in my book.

Go check out his blog. I've parked him "Between Planets" on my blogroll for now.

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The F-18 Hornet is simply one of the most beautiful airplanes currently flying:

(Images found here and here).

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