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Oh No! Metal Legend Ronnie James Dio Of Rainbow Dies at Age 67



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I went to Yahoo.com to check my mail and that’s where I heard the bad news. Ronnie James Dio dead at 67.

Ronnie James Dio has been one of my major musical influences since I was a kid and when I heard the news it broke my heart.

No-one could sing  metal back when I was a kid like Ronnie James Dio.

My favorite work from Ronnie was when we was doing his solo career.

Everyone probably knows Dio for the metal hit “Rainbow In The Dark” which was a major chart topper back in the day. But Dio was a great singer and songwriter and a legendary rock star.

Ronnie was most known for his soaring vocals, poetic lyrics and mythic tales of a never-ending struggle between good and evil. During  the highlight of his career he was one of the ones who were breaking new ground and setting new trends in Heavy Metal.

It’s unfortunate that he had to die of stomach cancer.

Hats off to Ronnie James Dio.

And may he rest in peace.

Bill -

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The Suborbital Space Tourism Industry Is Here.



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Space tourism is the recent phenomenon of tourists paying for flights into space.

As of 2009, orbital space tourism opportunities are limited and expensive. A short while ago we only had the Russian Space Agency providing transport via their Russian Soyuz TMA-16 Spacecraft. But we’ve learned that an American based company called Virgin Galactic isn’t far behind with their SS1 and SS2 Spacecraft. And it looks like the pricetag on the Virgin Galactic flights is going to be FAR more reasonable than their Russian counterparts.

Guy Laliberte the Canadian acrobat and founder of Cirque du Soleil is set to become the seventh private space explorer when he lifts off Sept. 30 aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-16 Spacecraft.

Laliberte booked his trip with the Russian Federal Space Agency through the U.S. firm Space Adventures, which usually charges about $30 million for the excursions. Laliberte is set to visit the International Space Station for about 12 days.

The last space tourist to fly was Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian software executive who made his second paid trip to the space station in March, also through Space Adventures. Laliberte will be making the eighth space tourist flight.

It is said that Laliberte could be the last private citizen to travel to space for a while. If NASA retires its space shuttle fleet in 2010 as planned, the Russian vehicles will be the only way to transport people to the International Space Station. In that case, available Soyuz seats could become scarce for space tourists.

But we found out that since this statement was made there has been a new company rising out of the shadows that could possibly revolutionize the space tourist industry AND the way we explore space.

The company is called Virgin Galactic Tours.

Virgin Galactic’s sub-orbital space trips promise to be the most intense and wonderful experiences that passengers have ever had. Astronauts of the past 45 years have all returned to earth struggling to convey the enormity of what they have discovered and with their perceptions clearly changed. To be able to extend that privilege to people from all walks of life has been a long held ambition at Virgin. To date more than 200 tickets have already been sold!

Get this! The cost of the flights are only $200,000 as compared to Russia’s $30 million! And I’m sure the price will go down the more popular this gets as does with just about everything.

Here’s how it will work:

The Virgin Galactic SS2 (Space Ship 2) will be carried by a revolutionary mothership called WhiteKnightTwo. She will climb to a height of around 50,000 feet (approximate cruising altitude of Concorde) where SS2 will be released before firing her rockets and accelerating in a vertical climb reaching a speed of 3.3 mach. Shortly afterward SS2 will slow to allow you to enjoy zero g and continue to climb to a total altitude of 110km or 360,888 feet – that’s 10 kilometers or 33,000 feet into space! After enjoying some of the most spectacular views and sensations ever experienced by humankind, the wings of the spacecraft will feather to allow a safe re-entry at around 6 g’s. After re-entry the wings will re-configure to allow a gentle glide back to the spaceport. On your return to terra firma you will be given your Virgin Galactic astronaut wings! To visit Virgin Galactics Video Gallery to see first hand what awaits Virgin Galactic Astronauts…Click Here.

Virgin Galactic Flight Profile of SpaceShip Two

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Creating A New Riff On My Guitar



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Created a couple of good riffs on my ESP 7 string. I think I’m gonna write a song using them.

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Good News!



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Well it looks like Google Friend connect gadgets is what we’re going to go with for now. It’s not a full blown social networking site but I can live with it for now. Come check it out and mess around with google friend connect. I hope you like it.

Bill

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Bad News



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Apparently ning.com has decided to start phasing out free accounts so it looks like strangeandcool.ning.com will be no more. I was planning on upgrading the ning site until this. I don’t believe companies should behave in such a manner so I’ve decided to cancel the ning site.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

I’ll be searching for a substitute if I have to install a community web portal software on the server myself. :-)

I’ll let you guys know what’s up soon.

L8rz

Bill

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Ooops I got my links mixed up.



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Heh. It’s been awhile. :-)

Here are the links I got mixed up

10 Free Astronomy Podcasts

10 Places To Learn More About Astronomy

Enjoy.

Bill.

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10 Free Astronomy Podcasts On iTunes



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I guess it’s blog season for me again and I was just checking out some of my friends sites that I check regularly and I ran into a post from Bob Johnson my favorite astronomy blogger.

Bob ALWAYS has some cool stuff to post about. If it’s got anything to do with meteor showers, moon rovers, anything NASA, Lunar geology, upcoming astronomical events, black holes, star systems, or anything in space generally Bob is on it.

This time Bob shows us 10 places where you can download Podcasts on Astronomy for free.

This is great viewing for the whole family. It’s so much fun that your kids will love learning about telescopes and the rings of Saturn or check the Astronomy pic of the day at NASA’s official website.

There’s tons of stuff to be learned and I figure watching Astronomy Podcasts is a great place to start since it’s kid friendly, fun and doesn’t require much work :-)

Here’s a link to Bob’s post listing the 10 free Astronomy podcasts: http://blackholesandastrostuff.blogspot.com/2009/11/10-places-to-learn-more-about-astronomy.html

And when you’re finished watching you can let the kids check out this awesome Virtual Interactive Flash Tour Of Our Solar System. On second thought just send the kids to bed and check this out for yourself. Created by two high school students this cool interactive flash gadget let’s you explore the solar system and gather extensive data about it’s planets and features. I’ve been playing with this thing for about an hour now and I’ve only explored Jupiter and part of Saturn. This stuff is so interesting that as soon as I’m done writing this I’ll be back at it. :-)

I can’t wait any longer to get back to it so I’m goin…

See you guys later.

Bill

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An Important Update About Strangeandcool.net



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Hey guys, Bill here.

I’ve been putting it off and putting it off for quite some time now (I’m not sure how long really). But we’ve finally upgrade our wordpress install to the latest version. ‘Bout time huh? :-)

Here’s a little bit about what this site is all about.

Basically this is my personal blog with a mixed technology / fringe feel to it so you’ll see all kinds of stuff here including all my personal posts plus any tech news or paranormal / fringe news I run across while surfing. But only if I deem it worthy of posting. Or funny. :-)

I have been a big slacker lately and haven’t posted in a long long time but I recently obtained a job at a local music store named Sound Exchange Musical Instruments and I’m currently committed to editing and creating a blog with video’s and product reviews for the store’s website. I think this is starting to inspire me to update my own blogs more and to get up to date on some of the latest internet trends that I’ve been missing out on lately.

So you can expect more posts out of me in the near future. I’ve decided to conglomerate all my blogs and keep the posting limited to only a couple of different sites.  This means you may see links to some the guitar / recording gear and computer equipment that I use along with personal posts and news about UFO’s, aliens, new technology, music, songs I’ve created and probably a bunch of other stuff.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve decided not to limit this blog to just tech and UFO stuff. I’m just going to post everything here and see how that works out. It should make for an interesting little project and I hope you guys like it.

Okay gotta run for now but stay tuned because as soon as I’m done with this post I’m going to go searching for some cool content to post about. :-)

If you’re new please sign up for the feed here.

L8rZ

Bill

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More Websites



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Well I just can’t seem to find time to post here anymore due to the fact that I just keep getting website work. I do plan on posting more soon but for now it looks like I have to dedicate some time to maintaining these websites.

The latest site is for my work. (Oh yea I got a new job working at a local music store.)

Anyways if you wanna check it out it’s at http://www.soundexchange2.com

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Check Out What Bill’s Been Doing Lately



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Well sorry I haven;t posted in awhile but times are kinda tough so I’ve been getting a few local clients that like me to build blogs for them and create video’s for their blogs. I’ve been working on Skin Deep Tattoo And Cafe alot lately. You should go check it out at http://www.skindeeptattooandcafe.com

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