So lately I have been on another one of my Drow kicks. I do love Drow. I’ve been reading Lisa Smedman’s Lady Penitent series which, I am almost finished with. Once I finish up Ascendency of the Last (the final book in the series) I’ll put up a review. In the mean time, the Lady Penitent me to create a create a few more drow-inspired designs:

This one is in tribute to Eilistraee, also known as the Dark Maiden, the good Drow Goddess of the Moon, the Sword, and the Hunt.

This one is for all of you Spider-Kissers out there. In Dark Elvish characters, the runes above read Vin’ult Lloth! L’ Orbb Valsharess! which translates into English as Hail Lloth! The Spider Queen!.

Likewise this message is also written in Drowish runes. It reads Streea ulu l’Shinduago Xellased! or Death to the Surface Dwellers! which of course is a common sentiment among the Dark Elves. I understand you need to be a real D&D geek to get, never mind wear or design these, but hey, if the shirt fits wear it.

If you like these, you can check out the rest of my Fantasy designs including quite a few other Dark Elf designs.

1421 the Year China Discovered America
by Gavin Menzies

This was an absolutely fascinating book which I read this summer. Gavin Menzies, a former British submarine captain, presents his case for the Chinese discovery of America 7 decades before the Europeans did. In fact, Menzies discusses how the Chinese knowledge of these lands migrated into the hands of the Europeans beginning the great age of European exploration. In fact the Chinese treasure fleets discovered, North America, South America, Africa, and Antarctica. Apparently the only place they managed to miss was Europe. Unfortunately, all of the official records of these voyages were destroyed after the fleets returned. This was the time when China went into it’s great period of isolationism and so the ruling Mandarins destroyed all of the records, charts, etc. of areas outside of China to discourage interaction with other lands and peoples. Which is why people especially those in the western world know so little about them. As a result much of Menzies evidence is circumstantial but taken as a whole would be very hard to discount. Menzies combines his knowledge of prevailing winds and currents along with the sailing quality of the Chinese ships of the period to show how the Chinese could have made this voyage. He combines this with cultural and archaeological evidence from the native societies the Chinese encountered. Menzies does an excellent job of composing a time line for the Chinese Treasure Fleet’s movements and discoveries. In the end, Menzies presents a very believable case for the Chinese exploration which takes away very little from the European explorations and in fact does a lot to explain how those came to take place.

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A while back CNN added this feature to their website which allowed you to order T-Shirts sporting the headline of the story you were reading. This particular one cracked me up.

Way to go CNN!

If your a science fiction geek your going to love this story. Apparently a couple of geniuses at Baylor University have actually figured out how a faster than light Warp Drive would actually work. Their theory is based on solid physics (that’s kind of an oxymoron isn’t it?). By which I mean that it bends the laws of physics without actually breaking them including Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Apparently it involves compressing space in front of the ship while expanding the space behind the ship causing the ship to travel faster than light without its mass actually moving. Don’t ask me to explain it, because I can’t. I just think the idea is really cool. If your interested their is a good article on it at Discovery News.

The authors freely admit that currently no one has any idea how to compress or expand space and that it may take thousands of years to figure out how to do this. But, theoretically it is possible. You know what Yogi Berra says, “In theory, theory is the same as practice, but in practice, its not.”

I’m still working on transitioning from Medium to Hard on Guitar Hero III. Last night, I was too lazy to continue working on Hard so I pulled out Guitar Hero II. I was inspired to create this design after using Casey Lynch and playing (you guessed it), Cherry Pie by Warrant. I think she would look pretty awesome in a cutoff version of this shirt.

This blog is about any number of things. It is the bog [sic] of my mind. I’ll talk about books I’m reading, movies I’ve seen, baseball games I’ve watched, poker games I’ve played in, wines I’ve tasted, whiners that I’ve listened too, and a whole lot more.