Garnoopy

Woot! Woot! Congradulations Dac!

Very sweet of you, and besides, who could live without a cat for any period of time? She's a very pretty kitty. I have a cat who randomly runs around my house. It's quite interesting. I'll be sitting at my computer and the cat will go streaking by at high speed chasing absolutely nothing.

Those are some wild eyes on your cat A9. Are you sure this is a cat and not an animal here to discover that the answer to the universe is 42? Why cats are better than dogs Cats purr. Dogs drool. Cats use a litter box. Dogs use your leg. In 1996, over 10,000 US deaths were attributed to a dog owner's choking on saliva during morning wakeup licks. Cats always land on their feet. Dogs just won't let you throw them. Cats will wait until you've read your morning paper before tearing it to shreds. Cats look cute sleeping on the TV. Dogs just crash right in front of the screen. Fewer cat owners suffer from 'Flappy Tail' lacerations than dog owners. No one has ever had to "Beware of the Cat". Cats have better things to do than stick their nose in your crotch. Why do you think they call it, "Dog Breath?"

Lets be nice here. GromVik is a GM here on STSF and a respected one at that. All GM's have lives and things to do, and so do all players. I don't know know what has occured to stop the updates of the Feature Pages and neither do you. I'm sure there is an explanation though. It's a reasonable question though, so lets ask it, as is our right: GromVik, why have there been no updates to the STSF Feature Pages? And lets give GromVik a chance to respond before we start making assumptions or remarks that could be hurtful.

There you go Hd.

Lieutenant Garnoopy Operations Officer USS Arcadia, NCC-1742-E Personal Log Stardate 50410.03 “Romulans, Klingons, Libido Oh My!” There are many things in this galaxy that are unexplainable. Some come in the form of microscopic beings. Others are large bodies that no one can quite identify, and no, I’m not referring to that one relative who you always contemplate how they can manage to eat half the buffet while still being able to talk at a level normally suited to a rock concert. Every so often I run into another unexplainable phenomenon. Today I’ve managed to find Klingons. Now, Klingons are not an unexplainable item, although sometimes we think so, they are very much apart of our quadrant as any other race. However, these Klingons are a bit unusual, as you may have noticed. Unless of course you just happened to be in a coma these past few days. So, my life is never without a dull moment and here it appears to be going again. Where it shall end, I’m not quite sure. Most likely with my body being ejected in a torpedo casket at some point in the far future, but that’s not important right now. What is important is that I appear to once again have managed to find myself in the position of having a, shall we say, unusual person being attracted to me. Once upon a time, no, wait; we won’t start this that way. It’s cheesy. Used. Old. It all began, ok, wait, I know it’s cheesy, deal with it. It all began when Romulans captured me. Now, I know what your thinking, this is the same old romance story everyone tells. Starfleet Officer gets captured by Romulans. Starfleet Officer is held captive. Starfleet Officer gets injured, nearly dies. Meanwhile, while Starfleet Officer is unconscious Romulan Officer falls in love with the Starfleet Officer. In the meantime Starfleet Officer’s Captain and Romulan Officers Commanding Officer hold negotiations. In the end Starfleet Officer gets taken back to ship and Romulan Officer’s heart is broken. Since that is what you were thinking I won’t dull you with the minor details, it’s exactly what happened to me: standard romance novel. How my life manages to conform to this I cannot explain. It’s another unexplainable phenomenon. Now that my life has moved it appears as though I now have Klingon officer, who wears pink wife-beaters, kissing me on the bridge of the Arcadia! What ever shall I do? Kiss back? As previously stated Klingons in themselves are very explainable, these Klingons though are not. We have traveled to an alternate universe in which Klingons appear no longer to be the honorable warrior race that I knew them for, but instead appear to be fashionable, stylish, and hold a rather powerful libido. Who could have guessed it? This libido of theirs appears to be a rather strong driving force in their race here in this universe. It’s rather interesting to behold. The Bch of the Klingon ship, otherwise known as the Captain in Federation terms, was beamed right here to the bridge wearing a leather bikini which was covered in jello. Meanwhile the pink wife-beater Klingon was driven to flirt with many persons onboard while walking the hallways. We may never behold the answer to how this libido developed. Right now the priority is to find the people we’re looking for and then get home. Naturally we can’t just hop on the interstellar highway and hop off at our universe but hopefully science will think of something. As they say, “Romulans, Klingons, Libido oh my!”

Thank you Blurox, that was the year I was looking for. I had heard the 1986 from the last time the volcano had any activity, just got the numbers confused. I remember visiting the volcano site a few years back, they have a great observitory up there that I was very impressed with. It was amazing to see the damage the previous eruption had caused and still was visable. You see pictures, but nothing ever compares with the real item. I even think I have a few postcards I purchased way back when... wonder where they are.

I believe it was 1986 that it previously erupted? Someone should check that number, I'm not positive on it. I just think that's what I heard on the radio this morning. The previous eruption was one of the few volcano eruptions in which METARs and TAFs (weather tools) actually got to use the term VA, which for aviation and weather folk stands for volcanic ash. When you see something like that on one of the documents you can often be confused for a few moments, given that VA doesn't occur on a daily basis, like rain does. :P

Here in Illinois we don't often get earthquakes. Of course, that leads into my story... One night I had entertained some guests and one of which who lived many hours away stayed the night. Well, the next morning she told me that the entire house had started shaking around 1:30 in the morning. I of course didn't believe her, saying that it was probabaly the wind or something. Little did we both know that an Earthquake, measuring I think a 5.0 had hit northern Illinois. It wasn't untill later when we heard about it on the news that we knew what had happened. I, of course, was yelled at for not believing her about the entire house shaking. How was I supposed to know? :P

Lieutenant Garnoopy Operations Officer USS Arcadia, NCC-1742-E Personal Log Stardate 50409.24 “One Consistency” I gently put my fingers to my lips absent mindedly as I sat in the middle of the bridge. My mind wandered back to the kiss and I realized I was thinking about how the Klingon, GaR nooPy, could kiss. “Not bad” I thought to myself. I shook my head, attempting to clear such thoughts from it and get back to the work at hand. I mean, here we were, trapped in an alternate universe where style was more important to Klingons than war, their ship was pink, and I’m thinking about a kiss! These things aren’t supposed to happen onboard Federation starships. My hands absentmindedly tapped the panel next to me as I filed yet another status report. It was amazing how as time advanced the amount of paperwork increased. It was as if the Federation wanted to have so many files and documents that all forms of storage devices would be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of them. …upon encountering the unknown vessel sensors identified it as a Vorcha class starship. The ship shown some unusual features, including being the color pink. The HoD of the ship… I sighed at the report, Starfleet would probably contact Captain Moose and inquire as to the last time I had a psychological examination. What I wouldn’t give for a chocolate bar right now. On top of being trapped in an alternate universe there was the issue of Lieutenant Nemesis. The animal found wandering the hallways is reported to have been possible cloned, have had genetic enhancements and possible DNA resequencing, all of which were banned by the Federation. The final report from Doctor Westler was still being waited for while he preformed further tests. I took a deep breath and looked at the view screen for a moment, letting my mind clear itself. Then, I turned and went back to the paperwork that needed to be filed. There were more important things going on than the unusual Klingons. I had one solid thing to rely on though, at least the paperwork was consistent.

iStJ: Inspector You share a basic personality configuration with Spock and Miles O'Brien. I like O'Brien, not bad. People like you are generally logical, honest and upfront. You get impatient with phonies and people who are disorganized, though you keep your reactions to yourself, as you're usually cautious and quiet, though not timid. Definitely. Others find you reliable and will count on your being there in times of need. You make a loyal and responsible friend, though only when others remember that you're conservative in nature. This is true. You're literal, realistic, and practical. You're a hard worker who does very well in highly detailed situations, as you're careful and precise. That's me! You are also somewhat resistant to change and comfortable with routine. When change occurs, you'll be the last one to fit it into your routine, but you'll become an expert in time. You work much better to adapt to change when you see practical benefits. Definitely. Your primary goal in life is to be of service and do your job well. Your best rewards are to be listened to and to be acknowledged for your hard work. I can agree with that. Good careers for your type are operations officer, chief information officer, database administrator, police detective, and science officer. And we question why I'm such a great Ops officer?

Woot! Woot! Happy Bday! May you have lots of chocolate!

I remember once in some TV episode or movie someone debating who would win if you pitted Kirk's Enterprise against the Death Star. I think they agreed the Death Star would win. I wonder where that was from... When I first read your post I thought you were creating a game in which you could have Star Trek batteling Star Wars, ah, the hybrid's never to be.

Television? Who has time for television when there are things to do, places to go, and people to see!

I've played many of the Star Trek games, including Elite Force, Armada II, and Starfleet Command. My favorite of those being Elite Force due to my love of Voyager. However I've never been overly fond of any of them. The problem doesn't enly in that the games were badly designed, on the contrary, the graphics and design of Elite Force were amazing (for the time). It was amazing to get to walk the ship, literally. The problem enlies with that I'm not overly fond of computer games in general. Computer games are, well, predictable. Some are less than others, but in the end you can figure out the tricks to win the game, or to be succesful. Once you figure that out the game looses its appeal. I've always managed to figure out the tricks to games so they rapidly become boring, therefor, I no longer purchase computer games. Instead I prefer multiplayer games with real people, which explains why after two years I have not become bored with simming. Simming is a game in which you cannot predict what the other players are going to do. There are no "tricks" to figure out about them, they are real people and real people make decisions that are not derived from 0's and 1's. Any new game that is created with Star Trek will be interesting but unless the multiplayer part of it is creative and allows people to move freely, well, it won't hold my interest. As once stated in Star Trek, a lot of frosting and no meat will become quite uninteresting after a while. They may be able to sugar the game with characters, real voices, amazing graphics, but if the quality of the game is as bad as some of their previous productions then I'm going to just skip desert.

I'm with you Hd, haven't seen an episode of Enterprise since the first season. Saw about, oh, 8 episodes way back when, haven't seen one since.

Edvard Munch's "The Scream" would be worth perhaps $70 million if auctioned legitimately. Scream’ joins cache of priceless stolen art Pieces usually stolen in hopes of collecting sizable ransoms The Associated Press Updated: 2:34 p.m. ET Aug. 26, 2004PARIS Edvard Munch’s stolen “The Scream,” spirited away by bandits who stormed a Norwegian museum, joins more than 150,000 works of art that specialists say may never be found. Then again, they add, it may turn up overnight. When a version of Munch’s famous painting was stolen in Oslo during the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, it reappeared in three months. The culprits tried to collect a $1 million ransom from the government but ended up in handcuffs. “These thieves are usually very naive, and they seldom think through their robberies,” Karl-Heinz Kind, Interpol’s special officer for art theft, told The Associated Press. “It’s rather easy for them to make the first step, overcoming security people and stealing the item,” he said. “But finding someone willing and able to buy it is a long, difficult process.” Most likely, he said, the thieves would be in contact with museum authorities in hopes of negotiating a ransom. “The Scream” would be worth perhaps $70 million if auctioned legitimately. The thieves also took Munch’s “Madonna.” They were painted in 1893 and 1894 as part of the artist’s “Frieze of Life.” A high-profile piece such as “The Scream” is hardly likely to be sold unless a private collector buys it to be hidden, as in the film “The Thomas Crown Affair.” 'Too tempted to show it off' Kind dismisses that as unlikely fiction. “It is contrary to human psychology,” he said. “People would be too tempted to show it off.” But Bryan Roberts, a gallery owner in Columbus, Ohio, who keeps track of missing art, cited past cases of rich art fanatics who were content to keep rare works under wraps. “Absolutely, people hide things for themselves,” he said. “Especially pre-Columbian art. Some of these pieces disappear from the face of the earth, found only when someone dies, if then.” Huge amounts of stolen art simply vanish. According to a recently published estimate by London writer Edward Dolnick, “The Museum of the Missing” would include 551 Picassos, 43 Van Goghs, 174 Rembrandts and 209 Renoirs. Interpol’s running data base lists 20,000 missing works of art, half of them paintings, but the Art Loss Register in Britain tallies about 150,000. And Italian authorities list many more. Roberts said he expects “The Scream” to resurface soon. “But,” he added in a telephone interview, “you always have to worry about these things. You can never know what might happen.” In 2002, for instance, the mother of a French art thief destroyed art worth more than $1.4 billion, including canvases by Antoine Watteau and Peter Bruegel. After her son, Stephane, was arrested for stealing an antique bugle from a Swiss museum, police said, Mireille Breitwieser cut hidden paintings into tiny pieces and dumped artifacts into a canal. Jonathan Sazonoff, a privately funded art sleuth in Chicago, agrees with Kind at Interpol that well-known paintings are stolen mostly for ransom even though few manage to collect. “There are a lot of stupid criminals in the world,” he said by phone. “There is no Mr. Big or Dr. No, just a lot of people who think they can make an easy killing.” Even against these amateurs, he said, “international police efforts are ridiculously inadequate.” Little resources to investigate Although Interpol issues bulletins of thefts, it does no investigation. Often it is not told when art is recovered so that it might be removed from the running data base. Sazonoff said that in the United States, he knows of only one Federal Bureau of Investigation art specialist and another at the Los Angeles Police Department. James Beck, a Columbia University expert who runs Artwatch, a voluntary organization to protect paintings, agrees that priceless paintings are often at high risk. Sometimes canvases are snatched on guided tours of old castles and homes, with unarmed guards watching in helpless frustration. “A lot of these guys are crazies who work alone, and they just do it for the notoriety,” Beck told AP. “But since at least two took ’The Scream,’ this was likely a theft for ransom.” In some cases, ransoms are paid and paintings are returned, he said. That encourages more theft. Beck said he was not surprised at the lax security in Oslo. “Most of these museums are run on small budgets, and they just can’t afford it,” he said. “Even the Uffizi (in Florence) has to close down rooms for lack of funds to protect the paintings.” In some cases, paintings are believed to be stolen to order. While crowds in Oxford, England, celebrated the millennium change on Dec. 31, 1999, thieves spirited away Paul Cezanne’s Auvers-sur-Oise, worth $5 million. It has yet to be found. Insurance only rarely comes into the picture, Kind said. Private collectors might be covered, but adequate protection can be extremely expensive. “Very often paintings are not insured at all,” Kind said. “Look at all that is displayed and stored at the Louvre. It would be impossible to pay the premiums. All they can do is keep watch.”

Time magazine reported the events as such: On Aug. 22, at 11:10 a.am., about an hour after hte museum opened, two men wearing hooded sweatshirts, gloves and ski masks burst through a side entrance. One of them waved a pistol, terrifying visitors, then pointed it at the head of an unarmed female guard and barked in Norwegian, "Lie down!" Meanwhile an accomplice dashed through the ground-floor galleries until he came upon Munch's Madonna from 1893-94 . . . In a frenzy, the thief yanked the frame downward to snap the wires that held it . . . "It looked like he was crazy. He was banging it against the wall. Then he got it off the wall, and he was banging it on the floor" . . . next went after The Scream, which he ripped in the same brutal way from the partition - not even a solid wall - it was hung on.

Munch painted 4 versions of the "The Scream". The first one was stolen 10 years ago and this one is one of the remaining 3. I'm not sure which one exactly.

Doctor Garnoopy Qel IKC-Qob Lakota Personal Log Stardate 50409.03 “Greatest Little Crew Of Em All” ~ Set to the tune of "Bilbo Baggins" In the middle of the galaxy, In the quadrant of Delta, Flew a brave little ship which we all admire. With its dark green hull, Crazy little crew, They blew up a ship And managed to get lost. Klingon, Klingon ship, That’s all that was left. Klingon, Klingon ship, Strongest of the ships that we knew. Now Klingons are violent folks ya know, High in honor and they fight with pride. They don’t like to mix with others ya know, They just like to fight and eat their food. But one day the Klingons were forced to join, With the Federation from the Lakota. In order to fight their way back home, To travel across the quadrant and find their home. Vorcha, Vorcha ship, That’s all that was left. Klingon, Feddy crew, Greatest little crew of em all Well they fought with mammoths, Battled the planets, They wrestled with time, Children were born. They were chased by Qel’s, Trapped by aliens, Escaped from their enemies entrapping cells ohhh. Klingon, Feddy crew, Greatest little crew of em all. Now they’re back at home with high praise, That amazing crew whom we all admire. Just sitt'n on their butts eating away, Drinking their wine by the barrel. Vorcha, Vorcha ship, That’s all that was left. Klingon, Feddy crew, Greatest little crew of em all. Vorcha, Vorcha ship, That’s all that was left. Klingon, Feddy crew, Greatest little crew of em all.

Ahh, yes, the name "Garnoopy". There is a story about how the name came about but, well, like the true nature of Kennedy's assisnation, some things are ment to be kept a secret. However, I can tell you that the name origionally was not going to be a "family". I was unable to ever think of a suitable first name for my origional charater, Manticore Garnoopy, so I ended up just using it as a family name. Most people who are friends of the character call me "Garn", using that as almost a first name. It's not official though.

So that's what we've been eating...? ::heads to the bathroom::

Lieutenant Commander Garnoopy Chief Engineering Officer USS Manticore, NCC-5852 Personal Log Stardate 50408.28 “I abhor you. I adore you.” We heard you coming and you came. We saw you coming and you came. We knew you were coming and you did. We saw your ship and it was there. We heard it connect with us and it was connected. We knew what was coming and it came. So we ran out our door yelling “Fight, fight, fight!” No matter the cost we would battle. Lives may be lost but we would not let you in. We would not allow you to roam our ship and hurt our people. But instead of staying away you walked right in. Just like everyone seems to do. You moved through our hallways multiplying into eight. No longer were you a whole but many wholes. Are you of one mind or are you of eight separate minds now? Where are you from? Your curved features make me wonder if you are not far from the ancestors of the sea. Your eyes are as deep as a novel and seem to contain no less information than one. Now you control our ship and we abhor you. Yet you allow us to live so we adore you. One among our ranks fell yet you brought him back. Did you cause him to fall and now are simply showing your power over us by bringing him back or did you save him from something his body brought upon him? Soon we will sit across a table where rounds will be exchanged. Yet once the smoke clears we both know that we both will continue to stand. What do you want? Why have you taken control of our ship? You claim to be offering us something, are you here to make good for your crimes? I abhor you. Let me tell you know what we will tell you sitting across the table; we don’t want what you are trying to give us. We don’t want to be served and we don’t want to be waited on. Nothing you can offer is as good as our home. You can never be a trusted friend that we can rely on so you are no good. What can we say though? You control our lives right now and we are alive. I adore you. Do you expect us to simply stick our hands in our pockets, bow our heads, and go on an adventure with you? Us pretending that this is real and what we like best? Do you think we’ll believe what you have to say? You can do many things to keep us from being happy but you aren’t going to keep us from living. Our minds aren’t swayed easily when abducted so you better hurry before we have time to think. Soon we will find a way to separate ourselves from you. It’s only a matter of time. What can I say? I abhor you. But thanks or no thanks to you we live. We’ll have that opportunity to sit across the table and not be swayed by your request. We’ll have the opportunity to fight you when the time comes. We only have those opportunities because we are still alive. For that I adore you. We heard you coming and you came. We saw you coming and you came. We saw you there and you were there. Soon we will see you leave and you will be gone.

Spots. Male or female?

One Crystal Pepsi coming up! Now, I've love a picture of, lesse, of something in nature you think is beautiful.