I started playing a free browser mmo called
OGame. It's your standard planets, resources, fleets of ships, attacking, defending, etc. Best of all it's free. If you want to sign up, we're playing in Universe 31. Within these universes there are Alliances that may be at war, may be available to trade goods, or to have the back of a friend who has 50 Deathstars headed their way. Our Alliance has decided to revamp it's name and look and here are some suggestions I have come up with. This may not be all of them because I have more in my head but time is always a factor. To my fellow Alliance members who are here to check them out, welcome!
1.
Space Banditos
The name "Space Banditos" is from an episode of Futurama where the crew is guarding a single atom of Jumbonium. When the atom is stolen Leela asks,
"Did you hear maracas?"
"No."
"Then it wasn't Space Banditos."
The image is from
Coelasquid. Typeface: Bleeding Cowboys
2.
Galactic Cattle Rustlers
The name for this one I came up with myself. I mean think about it, years in the future when the cow has become nearly extinct people will be willing to pay anything for a good burger. Cattle rustling sees a new upsurge as one alliance attempts to hold the universe's meat supply within it's grasp.
Then I found the image from
Bergam. Typeface: Nashville
3.
Initech
This is obviously from the classic Mike Judge movie "Office Space". This picture I composed myself. The Initech logo, and all that I could find, was rather low quality. Too low to have in the forefront without it being so glaringly pixelated. In order to fix that I decided to make it like a water marked legal pad given out to Initech employees. Michael Bolton has left Peter a note about getting the memo letting all employees know that cover sheets need to be on the new TPS Reports. Lumbergh, the Division VP, gently breaks the ice before having Peter work the weekend. Finally, Peter himself writes to himself the companies motivational slogan before changing it to what he feels is a more adequate question. The coffee stain ring shows how he has hidden it from his 8 bosses along with the CDEF virus that he and his friends would later inflict on the payroll department.
Typefaces: Bring Tha Noize, SF Burlington Script, Journal
4.
Monkey With A Gun
Steve wanted something funny and different. So I thought what about "monkeys with handguns". It's funny and dangerous on many levels, I mean who knows what would happen if monkeys everywhere were armed. Spider Monkeys brandishing weapons in each hand, foot, as well as tail. I don't know about you but any creature able to hold you up with 5 guns is worthy of fear and respect. As I thought about the name more it solidified into "Monkey With A Gun". I googled up an image and behold the cold blooded chimp assassin.
Typeface: You Are Loved
5.
Bored Ornithologists for the Ongoing Blue-foot Interplanetary Eradication Society
Yes, we are all a bit childish sometimes even me. Each Alliance is also given a "tag" which is just an abbreviation from you name. We would be known throughout the universe as the B.O.O.B.I.E.S whose sole purpose was to wipe the Blue-footed Booby out of existence. Little did we know that when space travel became widely accessible that the Blue-foot would sneak into cargo containers, weapons crates, etc. bound for the farthest reaches of the universe. Soon the Blue-foot was a menace, devouring the natural resources of once great planets. Our preferred method of destruction is to park a couple million miles away from a black hole open the bay doors and let them be sucked into a quantum singularity. Now that's a job well done.
Typeface: Victor
That's all I have at the moment. I may have more later when I have the time.
If you know Big Black you know one of his favorite phrases is: "Do work". I have been inspired by these words. Inspired by how no matter how wacky the work that needs to be done is, he still finds a way to make it happen. I want to do whatever it takes to get it done and do my best. Yea, it won't always be the greatest thing ever but I'm going to give it a shot. Next Wednesday is coming soon...
Rachelle makes fun of me because of the vocabulary I have picked up from working with High School students. One of the more prolific words that we use is "dope". Two war veterans kickin' back with the gramophone, listening to some dope tunes. Sounds nice. 
I liked this design's depiction of the interconnectedness of humanity and nature. It's such a simple concept and execution. It's one of those designs I see and say, "Why didn't I think of that?"
I don't know why I like this one so much, maybe it's the sneakers. Also, is it a coincidence that this was printed at the same time that The Mars Volta's new album "The Bedlam In Goliath" came out? I don't think so. Here they are at the Troubador... sadly I wasn't there.
Finally a shirt to help me fake it. Now if only I could actually grow a beard.
Poor King Kong. I never really understood why he was so enamored with the puny blonde woman. When you're that size you don't get a lot of options when it comes to the ladies. A gigantic French babe? He could do worse.
Justice.
This is probably my favorite of the new purchases. The design was submitted as part of a contest with the theme of "Midnight Movie". It's a mashup of the old school wolfman thrillers and the classic film "Casablanca" with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in their signature pose. It's beautiful.
Rachelle and I will be moving to San Diego at the end of May.
This one I made.
The one below I found on deviantART and couldn't pass it up. It's a bit on the anime side but still amazingly close to how I would picture Calvin and Hobbes in real life. The illustration is by '*spacecoyote'. Go to her deviantART page here!
Let me know what you think.
It was funny. I was working on a research paper for my Greek class today, so I spent a fair amount of time at the library. Actually, the nice thing about research nowadays is that I can do a good 75% of it from the comfort of my own home thanks to the fact that more articles and books are being placed online digitally. But there will always be those reference books that you can't bring yourself to buy because of the exorbitant price but are always really useful. TDNT is one of those books.
The sad truth is that over 4,000 children die everyday from preventable illnesses. In order to do our part to help in this crisis, our church partnered with African Bible College and in particular the ABC Community Clinic in Lilongwe, Malawi. This clinic sees 3,000 people every month, many of which are infected with the AIDS virus. The clinic wanted to build a pediatric ward to help with the growing number of children they were seeing but did not have the funds. We were told a few months before Christmas that it would cost $300k to build the new ward. Slightly disheartened by the sum that we wanted to raise by the end of the year, we moved forward anyway in an effort to prepare the congregation and push for what seemed impossible in the time we had. On Christmas day we took our Malawi offering, unsure what would happen as Bill asked for a miracle from the pulpit.
Part of the etymology of the word miracle is "to smile", which sounds funny at first but just makes sense when you think about it. That Christmas day we raised just over a half a million dollars, $568, 979.15 for you sticklers out there. Checks have been sent and construction has begun on a 40 bed pediatric ward as well as building a house for a new doctor that they are praying will join staff soon. Dr. Boersma runs the clinic in Malawi and you can visit his website or see a video about what they are doing here.
