Starship Asterisk*

neufer wrote:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1047417/Lifes-hoot-Shrek-baby-long-eared-owl-adopted-greyhound-called-Torque.html wrote: nothing will phase her.

owlice wrote:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1047417/Lifes-hoot-Shrek-baby-long-eared-owl-adopted-greyhound-called-Torque.html wrote: nothing will phase her.

phase?? Is this a British spelling for faze, or is there no editing in GB, either?

(The WashPost has a smarmy review of a book which features Shrek/Torque and other unlikely animal pairs.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weapons_in_Star_Trek#Phasers wrote:

<<PHASERS (PHASed Energy Rectifiers) are common directed-energy weapons first seen in the original Star Trek. Phasers make a beam of a fictional type of subatomic particles called "rapid NADIONS". The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual indicates that the superconducting crystals used in phasers are called fushigi no umi. Phasers come in a wide range of sizes, ranging from hand-held versions to starship-mounted ones. Personal phasers can be made small enough to fit in the user's palm and still be deadly. Larger and more powerful phaser rifles are commonly issued to security personnel. Phaser beams can be adjusted in both width and output. A typical hand phaser can merely stun a target or completely disintegrate it, and the beam can be adjusted to strike multiple targets at once or evenly destroy large portions of material. A starship's phasers can be used as an 'anti-missile' defense, using multi-aim to destroy incoming projectiles. They can be used as welding torches or cutting tools, and can create heat sources by firing at a large, solid object (like a rock). Phasers can be set to overload, whereby they build up a force-chamber explosion by continuously generating energy without releasing it; the resulting blast can destroy most natural objects within a 50 metre radius. This process is marked by a distinctive sound that increases in volume and frequency until it is deactivated or it detonates. Ship-mounted phasers have a similar range of functions on a larger scale: The phasers on the USS Enterprise could stun entire city blocks full of people and even destroy entire asteroids up to a given size.>>

Beyond wrote:That different state of being is called "Disintegration"

owlice wrote:

Beyond wrote:
That different state of being is called "Disintegration"

That's a long word for my doctor's diagnosis for nearly whatever I go in for.

He phrases [frays ] it a little differently: "You falling apart! You falling apart!"

geckzilla wrote:
Owlice's secret identity revealed.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,905664,00.html wrote:
AUSTRALIA: The Nymph of Nullarbor
TIME Magazine, Monday, Jan. 24, 1972

<<A naked nymph pulling a kangaroo's tail? Or was she really pulling a million Australian legs?

"She's out there, all right," said Hunter Ron Sells, insisting he had spotted a white girl running wild with a herd of kangaroos across the Nullarbor desert in southwestern Australia. "When she saw us, she watched us for a few minutes, and then she dashed off with the 'roos into the scrub."

Sells is not the only desert rat who claims to have observed this unusual bit of fauna. Rancher Graeme Campbell reports that the girl wears nothing but a sort of furry bikini. Bus Driver Bob Marshall swore that late one night he and his passengers spotted her wearing a brief skirt and a furry cloak. The passengers generously left some sandwiches and milk for her beside the road.

Word of the sightings spread across Australia, and in no time at all, the dusty hamlet of Eucla (pop. 8) was overrun by reporters and television crews in search of the desert nymph and her marsupial friends. Alas, they found not a single clue. Nor could anybody determine who the bikinied girl might be. An Adelaide man wondered if it could be his missing daughter, who had loved to hand-feed kangaroos near their former home. Steve Patupis, owner of Eucla's sole watering hole, the Amber Motel, suggested that "she" might be an itinerant Englishman who had disappeared from the motel last year, leaving his luggage behind.

To residents of Eucla, the affair was great fun. Not surprisingly, they kept reporting new traces of the mysterious nymph. Last week Patupis proposed to capitalize on Eucla's newfound notoriety by building a vast tourist complex, complete with gambling casino. After all, he reasoned, "we must not let this worldwide publicity go down the drain."

By that time, two enterprising cameramen had managed to produce some pictures of a girl running with the kangaroos—and actually pulling their tails. Desert-wise oldtimers in the sun-parched Nullarbor, however, were not convinced. "Any bird go flitting around in the scrub here with nothing on," snorted one bushman, "would bloody soon burn off what's bobbing, I can tip you." Added Sheep Farmer Harvey Gurney: "The water holes are all dried up. She'd be burned to a crisp.">>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullarbor_Nymph wrote:
<<The Nullarbor Nymph, referring to supposed sightings of a half naked woman living amongst kangaroos on the Nullarbor Plain. The first report on 26 December 1971 was by kangaroo shooters from Eucla in Western Australia, near the border with South Australia. They claimed to have seen a blond, white woman amongst some kangaroos, and backed their story with grainy amateur film showing a woman wearing kangaroo skins and holding a kangaroo by the tail. After further sightings were claimed, the story was reported around the world, and journalists descended upon the town of Eucla which had a population of 8 people at the time.

The incident was eventually revealed as a hoax, initiated as a publicity stunt. A 1993 thesis by Dora Dallwitz analyses the Nullarbor Nymph Hoax as a fantasy, opening it to the scrutiny of several psychoanalytic models. The Nullarbor Nymph functioned then, and continues to function today on an archetypal level. Various meanings and implications of this idea are explored with reference to their value to both men and women. Notions of Australian national character are examined in the dissertation and it is suggested that the relationship of the Nullarbor Nymph to the land is an important issue.>>

BMAONE23 wrote:
An interesting story from the BBC

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Act 4, Scene 5

• Lord, we know what we are, but know not
  what we may be. God be at your table!

owlice wrote:My head hurts...

owlice wrote:
My head hurts...

• • King Henry IV, Part i Act 5, Scene 4
  FALSTAFF: Disemvowelled If thou disemvowel me to-day,
  __ I'll give you leave to powder me and eat me too to-morrow.

Beyond wrote:

owlice wrote:My head hurts...

That's because you're supposed to raise the glass to make a toast....not fly into it and become toast Of course raising the glass tooo many times will also make your head hurt.

Beyond wrote:Some of the relatives in owlice's family tree

securedownload.jpg

Cousins, perhaps?