Fascinating bit on Germanic Tyr from Wikipedia

According to the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, at one stage the gods decided to shackle the Fenris wolf (Fenrir), but the beast broke every chain they put upon him. Eventually they had the dwarves make them a magical ribbon called Gleipnir. It appeared to be only a silken ribbon but was made of six wondrous ingredients: the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, bear's sinews (meaning nerves, sensibility), fish's breath and bird's spittle. The creation of Gleipnir is said to be the reason why none of the above exist. Fenrir sensed the gods' deceit and refused to be bound with it unless one of them put his hand in the wolf's mouth.

Tyr, known for his great wisdom and courage, agreed, and the other gods bound the wolf. After Fenrir had been bound by the gods, he struggled to try and break the rope. When the gods saw that Fenrir was bound they all rejoiced, except Tyr, who had his right hand bitten off by the wolf. Fenrir will remain bound until the day of Ragnarök. As a result of this deed, Tyr is called the "Leavings of the Wolf"; which is to be understood as a poetic kenning for glory.

On rapture

If you think you can predict the end of the world, what would you accomplish by doing so?

Hoping to get into the afterlife with an 'I told you so'?

If you're spending a hundred million dollars advertising when the end of the world is going to be, you're obviously trying to get some kind of action out of the audience.  I haven't seen any kind of exhortation towards accepting God or Jesus in the Camping advertisements, so they must not give a damn about that.  Camping has been interviewed now saying "he could not give financial advice to those who spent their life savings in the belief the end was nigh."

Chalking this down to the hubris and desire for attention of an old man.

Microthought - Game of Thrones, Tyrion

In Norse mythology Tyr is the god of single combat, victory and heroic glory.  Taken into account when naming Tyrion?  Somewhat ironically, I mean.

Aside - Tyrion is, hands down, the best character in the tv series.  Not that I didn't love him in the book, but.. Nailed.

Mississippi flooding near Memphis - May 2011

I had a chance to film some footage of how the flooding of the Mississippi river looked down near Memphis right when it was about to crest.  Not that I was standing around with a camera.  No, I attached my camera to the rental car to get some footage of just how long it took to cross the Mississippi's new width.

I'll start off with some before and after satellite pics.  I can't claim to have taken these..

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=50549

Then we have the north view off Interstate 40 going from Memphis over to Arkansas:



And the south view off Interstate 40 on the drive from Arkansas to Memphis:



I'll be honest and say that Memphis proper wasn't really affected by the flooding.  Memphis is a city on the bluffs.  It's the people that bought into the developments down into the river and on shallow islands that got hit more.  Over on the Arkansas side, though.. As you can see from the satellite pictures, the land was just swallowed up..

I don't have any footage, because it wasn't very interesting to look at, from down in Mississippi state.  I drove down there hoping to find a better vantage.  Driving through all these farmed areas with smaller and smaller roads, all of the promising looking roads were closed.  So, imagine some dramatic footage of road closed signs.  Sorry, I wasn't going to go exploring forbidden areas with a rental Jetta..

Good morning, world.

OK, so I've got a few things I'm working on.  Nothing all that exciting, but I think they'll be neat.

• Video reviews of Tiger LCD games - I've unearthed a goodly pile of them.  Will be reviewing prior to selling to make room.
• Board game instructional movies - I spend so much time teaching people how to play different games, might as well put together a video.  Yeah, there's a million of these out there, but.. Don't really care.
• Documenting what is actually worthwhile in Indy.  Will be trying to track down restaurants that aren't parts of chains.  Up first?  The very worthy King David Dogs.
• OK, I guess that wasn't very many, but it's what I'm actively working on.