Well the computer problems seem to have ironed themselves out once again, and I learned something very important. Spyware is all over the place on the internet (Well Duh) so If I surf anywhere, I will be using Spybot Search & Destroy whenever I‘m on, there’s no harm in that I guess. People are going to use tools for their blogs, such as stat counters and such no matter what, and of course that doesn’t necessarily make their intentions malicious, I will just have to watch my step, because not everyone has the same intentions. Its all good. As for Blogger ? Well, I already have more blogs on Blogstream than I can keep up with, so if there is anything good or bad that I need to say, I will say it here. I don’t plan on spending a lot of time sitting in front of the computer anyway, its promises to be a beautiful summer, and some time away from this will make it all that more enjoyable when I do decide to blog. I’m not leaving Blogstream, and I will stop by to answer any comments if anybody leaves one, but I don’t plan on being around here much. that’s the plan anyway, whether or not it works out that way is another matter. I may do another post here and there when the mood strikes me, but right now I have a work week to finish. So I guess I’ll see you whenever.

~enjoy your summer!!~

~Scratch~

I have been having computer problems again. More to the point them damn stat counters have been showing up on my anti spyware program. This morning I tried to run Spybot search and destroy but it wouldn’t open. I tried like three times. So I reinstalled it, and whatever was keeping it from opening didn’t stop it the second time. So I ran it and there were over fifty entries from stat counters and just a few others. The important thing is My computer is running normal again and I’d like to keep it that way, so I shut down the two blogger blogs for awhile, and I probably won’t be around much on the stream until I can figure out a way to tell exactly where this crap is coming from, I think I know how to tell, but it will take some time to retrace my footsteps and I will have to run Spybot after I visit each page to tell for sure where I picked this garbage up again. Well I have to get things ready for work tomorrow so I will hopefully see everyone around the stream very soon. Later my friends hope everyone has a great week.

~Laters~

Scratch.

XXX

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It came to me on a rather dark night, when the moon lay high in the sky shrouded by the smoke and haze of distant burning fires. The air hot and sticky, held me in its heated grip, and as I opened the window and drew a hot breath through it, a cry I heard in the distance. Faintly at first, and then it grew in its sound, cutting through the hot night air with the metallic precision of a surgeons blade. I stepped through to the stoop of the Tombs door with great caution as I peered around the side of the building and down into the dark recesses of the side stairwell. Closer the dreaded shriek came wailing as I realized that it lived beneath my very feet. Slowly I crept down the darkened stairwell wondering in my mind what tortured soul could concoct such a tremendous, tormented wail. I stepped ever so cautiously through stone and briar, until my steps had all but ended beneath the stairwell, where another hideous wailing came bellowing through the darkness.
I stepped slightly back armed with nothing but my fists, now my own voice beckoning angrily back through the darkness.
“Who is there?”
When out from under my very own stairwell came a beast of the like which I had never before seen. It was short and stout with long matted hair and snaggled teeth, and large furrowed brows.
Crying, it came like a scared child.
“Why.. You’re a Troll!”
He shook his head.
“Yes.. I am Thedus.”
“Well Thedus.” I continued. “ My name is Scratch, and I didn’t know that I had a Troll living under my side stairwell.”
“Forgive me Mr. Scratch sir.” Thedus said. “But I have only been here but for two nights.”
“Where did you come from?” I enquired.
“Well Mr. Scratch , I used to live under a bridge near the park, but land developers bought the property and tore out the bridge and have begun construction over there.”
“Construction of what?”
“High rise condo’s.”
“Ahhh.. Forced to relocate eh?” I asked.
He nodded to the affirmative.
“Yes.. I Couldn’t find another bridge so I had to take what I could get.”



We both slowly climbed to the top of the stairs, to where I could fetch a better look at this Troll.
“So you just happened under my side stairwell?”
He once again nodded.
“So.. Thedus is it?”
“Yes sir.”
“So.. Thedus why were you crying?”
“Well it happened a couple of hours ago.”
“Tell me.”
“There were two young children coming down the stairs, you know we trolls love to scare children, so I waited until the time was right. And when they crept closer, I jumped out and snarled at them!! RAAAAAWWRR!”
“So what happened?”
“They weren’t scared. In fact one of them even kicked me in the shin. I told them that I was a troll and that they should be afraid, because trolls eat children.”
“They didn’t believe you?”
He shook his head.
“But that isn’t the worst part.”
“It gets worse does it?”
He nodded.
“I think that one of them put a curse on me.”
“A curse huh? So are you sure it was a curse?”
“Well it sounded really bad Mr. Scratch. They said that they didn’t know what a troll was. So.. They..”
The fear slowly began to rise in his voice.
“They said that they were going to go back upstairs and they were going to..”
“What Thedus? What were they going to do to you?”
“They were going upstairs to.. GOOGLE ME!!”
I tried to alleviate his fears by explaining to him what a googling was. we sat down at my computer and I scrolled over a sea of Google images on the world wide web while my little friend the troll watched in complete amazement.
“So being Googled isn’t a curse?”
“Nope. it’s the twenty first century Thedus. Everybody google’s. it’s the information age, you can find out anything about anything in a matter of seconds. Children nowadays grow up faster and are less likely to believe in the lore of fairy tales. They can find out about anything on the web.”



Thedus the troll scratched his chin thoughtfully, all of the while contemplating this new phenomenon of the modern age.
“So children aren’t afraid of Trolls anymore?”
I shook my head sadly.
“Nope. Children aren’t afraid of anything anymore. They grow up a lot faster than they used to, they see things on a daily basis that makes fairy tales seem tame.”
Now Thedus looked concerned.
“There are things here that are worse than us trolls?”
“Oh yes.” I told him.
“Do tell Mr. Scratch.”
“Real Monsters.”
“Uglier than me?”
I nodded.
“Wow Mr. Scratch. that’s hard to believe. So.. What kind of Monsters are they? Are they like ogres or something?”
“Not exactly.”
“like a minotaur then?”
“Worse than a minotaur.” I told him. “In fact Thedus, they are the scariest monsters imaginable.”
“Wow. Scarier than a minotaur. What do these monsters look like Mr. Scratch?”
“They look just like people Thedus. Just like harmless regular people.”
He shuddered.
“Yes Sir.. People ARE pretty Scary Mr. Scratch.”
I made coffee and we sat into the wee hours of the morning Googling this and Googling that, and thus began the modern education of the stairwell troll Thedus. He sat and watched image after image roll by his eager eyes, until hours later I found myself looking over his shoulder while his stubby little digits nimbly glided across my keyboard.
“Still Googling Huh?” I asked him.
He sat back in the chair.
“Wow. You really can find anything on the internet can’t you??” he giggled enthusiastically.
I gave him a concerned look.
“Just be careful Thedus.” I warned. “ Do you remember the real monsters that I spoke of?”
“Yes But you can tell me Scratch, I can take it.”
“No Thedus. There are some things that should not be seen.”
“Please? Now I have to see it!”
I reached over across his shoulder and typed into the search bar and click on the go tab. Soon an image began to take shape. When he saw it, the troll Thedus repelled himself backwards in the desk chair falling to the floor and he inevitably ended up cowering in the corner of the room in sheer terror.
“For the love of God Man!! What in the hell do you call that??”
I leaned forward looking down at him.
“Paris Hilton.”



~Fin~

I was going through the archives here at the tomb and I came across a post that seems needs a bit of updating. It was about things that make your skin crawl by just looking at them yes ugly, nasty ass looking little creepy crawlers. Well, I found a couple of new ones, and a couple that I may have forgot to mention. So here back for an encore, I give you some of the things that give me the Bugga Boo’s.

Creepy Crawly #1- Centipedes.



YUUUUUUUCK!! Have you ever seen such a slimy looking little bugger? Its supposed to have one set of legs for each body segment. I don’t know what the hell they are and I don’t WANT to know.

Creepy Crawly#2- Scorpions.



I know, I know, But Scratch, That’s your birth sign! Yeah but have you ever seen one up close?? Geeeeeeez, that’s a face only a mother could love!

Creepy Crawly#3- Cicada’s



Ok, I never actually seen one until I took a gander at PolarB’s page. A quick look was all I could take. I seeeeee yoooou!

Creepy Crawly#4- Aye-Aye’s



Another one that I never have actually seen but creepy crawly none the less. From what I've read, They can be found in Madagascar, yeah? well lets hope that don't migrate. Talk about being butt ugly! Very high on the Creep-o-meter! Ok that’s all I can take gotta get ready for work now see ya’s!

Updated!! This just in.. really High on the Creepy Meter. (For Heather.)

Creepy Crawly #5-- Paris Hilton.



Yeah Yeah, I know. I was supposed to add a picture of her dog. but when you compare the picture of her and the dog side by side, well the dog is actually Kinda cute.

I don’t seem to have a great deal of memories stored away from my very early childhood, But one that I do recall was when I was a little boy in Michigan, oh the memory is a little vague, but I do remember something about being picked up and whisked away by my mother and taken to the basement. Really big rocks were falling from the sky, and it seems to me that there was a really loud roar. I don’t know exactly how old I was, but I was most certainly old enough to remember the very first tornado that I was in. I don’t remember actually seeing the funnel cloud as it formed in the sky and then descended to the ground to devour everything in its path. The loud roar. that’s what I remember most. Terrifying loud roar. Yes little kid terrifying. The second memory is a little more vivid, I was a bit older perhaps 8 or 9. And we were traveling back to Michigan from California, and we all saw the actual funnel cloud in the distance. The thing that I suppose never leaves you from any age after being in a tornado is the over whelming feeling of violence of the experience.



The golf ball sized hail, the ominous dark sky, the rain, the thunderstorms and of course the tornado itself. They strike without prejudice, without logic, without malice. They will destroy one home and leave the one right next to it unscathed, and fully intact. They are one of the single most destructive forces on the face of our planet and experiencing first hand one of these freaks of nature can change your life in a fraction of a second. I haven’t been in many, actually only one, but even still the vague memory being what it still is, one was most definitely enough. Seeing the actual funnel cloud from a distance and the way it just seemed to chew up everything in its path was a bit scary to witness for a kid, but these are memories that will more than likely never leave me. That being said I decided to do a little research on the subject so I went looking this morning for some information on tornado’s and I ended up on the National Severe Storms Laboratory web site and this is what I found.



What is a tornado?
A tornado is a narrow, violently rotating column of air that extends from the base of a thunderstorm to the ground. Because wind is invisible, you can't always see a tornado. A visible sign of the tornado, a condensation funnel made up of water droplets, sometimes forms and may or may not touch the ground during the tornado lifecycle. Dust and debris in the rotating column also make a tornado visible and confirm its presence.

What is known?
Tornadoes are the most violent of all atmospheric storms.
There are two types of tornadoes: those that come from a supercell thunderstorm, and those that do not.Tornadoes that form from a supercell thunderstorm are the most common, and often the most dangerous. A supercell is a long-lived (greater than 1 hour) and highly organized storm feeding off an updraft (a rising current of air) that is tilted and rotating. This rotating updraft - as large as 10 miles in diameter and up to 50,000 feet tall - can be present as much as 20 to 60 minutes before a tornado forms. Scientists call this rotation a mesocyclone when it is detected by Doppler radar. The tornado is a very small extension of this larger rotation. Most large and violent tornadoes come from supercells.



Non-supercell tornadoes are circulations that form without a rotating updraft. One non-supercell tornado is the gustnado, a whirl of dust or debris at or near the ground with no condensation funnel, which forms along the gust front of a storm. Another non-supercell tornado is a landspout. A landspout is a tornado with a narrow, rope-like condensation funnel that forms when the thunderstorm cloud is still growing and there is no rotating updraft - the spinning motion originates near the ground. Waterspouts are similar to landspouts, except they occur over water. Damage from these types of tornadoes tends to be F2 or less.


How do tornadoes form?
Scientists have learned a lot about tornadogenesis from theoretical studies, field projects and physical models – but tornadogenesis – the way tornadoes form – has vexed researchers for decades.
SUPERCELL TORNADOGENESIS
A rotating updraft is a key to the development of a supercell, and eventually a tornado. There are many ideas about how this rotation begins. One way a column of air can begin to rotate is from wind shear – when winds at two different levels above the ground blow at different speeds or in different directions.
An example of wind shear that can eventually create a tornado is when winds at ground level, often slowed down by friction with the earth's surface, come from the southwest at 5 mph. But higher up, at 5000 feet above the same location, the winds are blowing from the southeast at 25 mph! An invisible "tube" of air begins to rotate horizontally. Rising air within the thunderstorm tilts the rotating air from horizontal to vertical – now the area of rotation extends through much of the storm. Once the updraft is rotating and being fed by warm, moist air flowing in at ground level, a tornado can form. There are many ideas about this too.

We still have many questions. Scientists know from field studies that perhaps as few as 20 percent of all supercell thunderstorms actually produce tornadoes. Why does one supercell thunderstorm produce a tornado and another nearby storm does not? What are some of the causes of winds moving at different speeds or directions that create the rotation? What are other circulation sources for tornadoes? What is the role of downdrafts (a sinking current of air) and the distribution of temperature and moisture (both horizontally and vertically) in tornadogenesis? Scientists hope to learn more about the processes that create wind shear and rotation, tilt it vertically, and concentrate the rotation into a tornado when they participate in a large field experiment in 2007. And, since not all tornadoes come from supercells, what about tornadogenesis in non-supercell thunderstorms?

NON-SUPERCELL TORNADOGENESIS
A non-supercell tornado does not form from organized storm-scale rotation. These tornadoes form from a vertically spinning parcel of air already occurring near the ground, about 1-10 km in diameter, that is caused by wind shear from a warm, cold, or sea breeze front, or a dryline. When an updraft moves over the spinning, and stretches it, a tornado can form. Eastern Colorado experiences non-supercell tornadoes when cool air rushes down off the Rocky Mountains and collides with the hot dry air of the plains. Since these types of tornadoes happen mostly over scarcely populated land, scientists are not sure how strong they are, but they tend to be small. Waterspouts and gustnadoes are formed in this way too.

~Source: National Severe Storms Laboratory.~