Tiny Nations and New Countries

 I learned something very different yesterday. Apparently, there's a small little nation off the coast of the United Kingdom called, The Principality of Sealand. This is a sovereign country that is literally the size of a football field. It's built on two large concrete girders that tower out of the ocean.

A brief history of this country. During WWII, the British government built multiple sea bases in international waters for defense against Germany. After WWII was all said and done, the government should have torn these defense structures down.

Wellllllll, they didn't. In 1966, a man by the name of Roy Bates took over one of these and claimed it as his own. Thus was born a new nation. This new country is now recognized as a sovereign nation. Of course, a few guys with assault rifles could easily take over such a small nation... 

I discovered this tiny nation while I was watching a video telling how anyone can create their own country. The main rule of making your own country is by having land to declare it on. Unfortunately, all known land in the world is under control by one or more nations. The only exception is Antarctica, which is technically controlled by many nations. You have two options to claim land for a country, other than the Antarctica option. 

Your first option is to obtain through conquest! This option is very unrealistic... Especially if you're the only one settling your new nation. Imagine that... You row up to the coast of a country in a little dinghy announcing, "I march onto your great land to destroy and conquer! Feel the wrath of my pocket knife!" 

The second more realistic way to settle a new nation is by making one. If you take a few dump-trucks of dirt into the middle of the ocean and plop em' down, congratulations, you have a country! Land is only one of the many requirements it takes to make a country, but it's the only one I'll talk about today. 

If I had my own country, it would be a small tropical island by the name Epicville. It would be a democratic organization where everyone is given a free banana. Yeah, that just happened.  

Hello There

     I had a very interesting week. Unfortunately, I can't tell you about it because I would prefer to remain anonymous on the internet. But I will tell you this, I went on a trip. This trip was taken at a significant place. It was full of significant things and people. I took many significant pictures, and I was significantly impressed. You could view this trip as somewhat of a vacation. It was nice.

I bought something that was very neat. It was a bullet keychain. Not just the bullet, but the entire round. Powder drained of course. It cost me a pretty penny too. Upon buying it, a manly thought came about in my head: In a combat situation, if my gun was out of ammo, could I use that round in the gun? Of course, I know the answer to this. Which is in fact, no.

But my common sense didn't douse the flame of manly thoughtetude that had entered my head. Just imagine, you're in the middle of a warzone, and you run out of ammo. Your enemy looms over you. You can practically feel his breath on your face. You pull out your bullet keychain that your great-grand-pappy gave you when you turned twelve. You load the round and a burst of thunder utters forth. The enemy falls like a mighty oak. You stand, victorious.

Yeah, that's the kind of situation that enters a guy's head after buying a simple keychain.

Summer Posting

     I realized that I have not yet explained to you guys (my loyal fans), what my plan for summer posting is. When I started this blog, it was a break of sorts from the pressures of my life. This would primarily include school. Now that summer has started, that takes care of this problem, so you would assume that I would stop posting altogether during the summer. This isn't the case.

If you've followed this blog at all, then you know I'm a writer of sorts. I write anything: essays, short stories, and of course, blog posts. As a writer, there's no secret writing technique that will make your stuff better. Well actually, there is. It's called practice. And this blog gives me practice writing. I'm not the most eloquent writer, so I need all the help I can get.

So, to cut to the chase, I will not stop posting during the summer, but you will see a significant drop in the number of posts. Perhaps maybe one or two posts per week. It may come as a shock to you, but yes, I do have a social life. I'm not a nerd who lives on the computer... I prefer the term geek. ;)

I've already filled your brains with that load of boring stuff about schedules and posts, now it's time to get on with some random funny junk. Can you imagine how terrible it would be to be a T-Rex in modern society? Think of all the things you can't do. You can't type, reach the toilet paper, do push-ups, or give someone a high five. It would just be awful. Maybe we should engineer a drinking fountain for T-Rex's. We've all seen the "short person" drinking fountains that are only a few inches shorter than the "tall person" ones, so why can't we make one for T-Rex's? I'm sure they'd appreciate it very much.

Redneck Paintball Gun

     A week or so ago I was holding a ketchup packet. I squished the container in between my fingers feeling the liquid/solid course through the weak plastic. That's when it hit me. If you were to squeeze a ketchup packet hard enough, it would burst, splattering its contents everywhere. What if you could direct this squirting power onto a would-be attacker?

Thus, the idea for the Redneck Paintball Gun came to be. I was surprised that such a contraption has not yet been made (according to google that is). The other day I was drafting designs for said device, thinking of ways to convert energy into the squishibility of the ketchup packet.

Basically, you have to put a slit in the front of the packet, then hold it in place on the device. Then, a rubber-band/ spring powered wedge would slam down on the rear of the packet, causing an "explosion". The tricky part is directing the projectile liquid.

Paintball guns compact the paint into a ball, so worrying about it spraying everywhere upon launching is not an issue. However, when you go redneck style, you have to worry about that. Making a barrel is unrealistic because the ketchup would stick to the sides. My brain hurts now. Uhhhhhhhg.

Hawaii

I was thinking the other day, "Why is Hawaii so far away from the mainland?" It's a state isn't it? Doesn't that also give it the right to be part of mainland America. Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a multi-step process that can assure Hawaii being part of the the mainland. Below is a list I compiled of the tools and resources that are needed.

-A giant laser
-Twelve 17-ton rocket engines
-A pizza
-A bunch of giant rocks

The first thing we have to do is take the laser, and slice all the islands free from their geographical bonds underground. This will allow them to be moved freely. Next, we strap the rocket engines on the islands, and point them towards the US. We continue to fire up the engines, and then gradually push Hawaii to its true place in America.

Mid-way through the trip, we stop and eat a pizza. The big boulders are to block up all the active volcanoes. We wouldn't want those exploding on us as we attempt to move an island/s.

I sincerely hope you didn't think I was being serious for this whole post. This is just one of the many random thoughts that dances around in my melon. Now, we just need to figure out what to do with Alaska.... ;)

Late Posting and Mentos

It's very late right now. But I figured I'd write a blog post anyway. Perhaps the best time to write a blog post is late at night because your mind is captive to the terrors of little sleep. In all honesty, I'm a night-owl. I can stay up late and not have the lack of sleep gnaw at me. It's a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I can function regularly at late hours, curse because I require more sleep in the mornings...

Among the various youtube videos I watched tonight, one of them was a coke and mentos experiment. First, the guy did the simple trick: mentos + coke = boom. Yes, it worked. He then put many mentos into his mouth, then continued to pour the diet coke in: mentos in mouth + coke = slightly gross boom. The final experiment was slightly more offsetting. He decided it would be smart to drink half a two-liter of diet coke, then chase it with *many* mentos. It was gross.

If you've followed this blog even for a short time, you know it can be pretty random. So without further a due, here's a very random paragraph I've whipped up.

Jake Scissor-dude clutched his power penny until his knuckles turned white. He peered menacingly at the many battery ninjas that stood around him. He breathed in the ashy air and crouched into a defensive stance. The first ninja lunged at him. He lithely dodged the battery and pulled out his penny. He sliced a few more and tossed the dead carcasses into the air. His trusty steed, Benjamin the unicorn, continued to sweep him off his feet and glide off into the sunset. "Jake, you want to go get some pickles?" Benjamin inquired. "Anytime is a good time for pickle consumption!" Replied Jake cheerily. The horse hybrid stopped at the nearest ghetto to find a black-market pickle stand. They consumed their pickles with relish *badummm tssss*. All was good in the kingdom of milk duds. The End.  

Test Post

This is a test post to see what a bigger font looks like on the blog. Move along, move along. Nothing to see here. 

Oh? So you're still reading? You didn't move along like I told you to? Well stop reading right...now.

I like you, you little rebel. You're still reading despite my many attempts to make you not do so. You're the reason why the government is in shambles! We get troublemakers like you trying to beat the system and continue reading!!! 

But for real now, this is just a test post. Nothing interesting here.

Bee Hunting

As of late, I've taken up a rather strange hobby. Bee hunting. More specifically, carpenter bee hunting. Using an arsenal of weaponry, consisting of air-soft guns and plastic baseball bats (no really, those are the only weapons in said arsenal), I plink them out of the sky. It's quite enjoyable, no really, it is.

Now, I know what you're thinking right now, "Oh my gosh! This guy is sick and twisted! Only a monster would slaughter innocent insects!" Of course, you wouldn't think this if you fully grasped what a carpenter bee is. They're those big fat bees that annoy the snot out of you. They're those bees that burrow holes in various wooden structure, ranging from tree houses to swing sets. My killing of these vile creatures is perfectly justifiable.

For years I was deathly afraid of these bees. They're huge and intimidating. Even from many feet away you can hear the tell-tale humming. In my back-yard I have a standalone tree house referred to as "The Cabin". The carpenter bees have made this structure their home for many, many years now. Simply taking out the trash, or mowing the grass became a hostile mission.

That's when I went to a friends house, and he introduced me to the practical sport of hunting them. Just recently this year I took it upon myself to try it out. It proved to be very satisfying. On a cork-board I have a piece of paper with dates and tally marks telling how many "kills" we've gotten.

I say "we" because it's not a one man job. My brother is my trusty sidekick, we take turns firing upon the monsters and swinging at them with the bats. We've even adopted the name (wait for it...) the B-team *badumm tsss*.

About a week ago we had our initial hunting and killed about 9 of the insects, and throughout the week we've zinged a few here and there. But nothing compares to how many we killed last Sunday. A grand total of 12. Of course, we had an extra hunter. My brother-in-law was in town and helped with our offensive maneuver. I'm convinced we've broken the bee's morale, I haven't seen many since Sunday....

Anywho, I hope you enjoyed this rant. Stay tuned and expect more bee updates throughout the summer.  

Steampunk City

     I know it's Friday, and Friday is supposed to be comic day. I didn't have time to draw up a comic, instead I was working on this. I hope you like it. It's inspired by an idea for a story that's been runnin' around in my noggin.

Busy, busy, busy

    I (again) apologize that I haven't posted in a while. My life lately has been a torrent of mental and physical exhaustion. To quote perhaps one of the most important people in history:

"You know what you gotta do when life has got you down? Just keep swimming!" -Dory

On that note, I heard a while back that a new "Finding Nemo" will be created. I also heard that it's going to be about Dory. I don't know about you ladies and gentlemen, but I would pay large sums of money to go see that movie. If you know me in real life, then you know that I'm a huge movie buff. If you don't know me, now you know I'm a movie buff.

Perhaps one of my favorite movies is either Captain America 2, or Inception. Both are very good movies, and I highly suggest watching them. Inception proved to be a very thought provoking film that makes you think about it over and over again. Of course it has its quirks, but every movie does.

If you pay even remote attention to this blog, then you also know that I like to write stories. I think of something I would like to read, and if it isn't already in existence, I make it so. If you've read some of the short stories I've posted on here, then it's pretty apparent that I'm no master author.

I aspire to have the same writing style as Tolkien in The Hobbit. He seems to have a very casual tone, despite the growing sense of danger. He even seems like he's simply having a conversation with the reader. That is how I want to write.