Full Battle Rattle
In theaters: June 19, 2008. In California?s Mojave Desert, the US Army has built a ?virtual Iraq? - a billion dollar urban warfare simulation - and populated it with hundreds of Iraqi   more...role-players. FULL BATTLE RATTLE, a feature documentary, follows an Army Battalion through the simulation, as they attempt to quell an insurgency and prevent Medina Wasl, a mock Iraqi village, from slipping into civil war. Comic, surreal and poignant, the film provides a revelatory look at the soul of the American war machine, and, in the battle for Medina Wasl, finds a potent allegory of America?s military missteps and the cultural and religious differences that confound their efforts in Iraq.  less

Cute kitten playing with a toy!

http://learnmagictricks.org

From Blottopia 8, Friday night this time.

Head banging loony

The theme to Rattle Battle from Donkey Kong Country 2

This is a blues guitar song that I wrote called "Rattle Snake Blues". I play it on my Fender Stratocaster with a slide and I use open "D" tuning ( D A D F# A D ), enjoy!!

Professional Reptile Rattle Snake Catcher Stick, for the big snake or small snakes. Comes in 5 lengths 24", 40", 50", 52" & 60". They are very effective and easy to use.   more...As you can see the sexy girl catches a snake with a snake stick.  less

http://www.shopping-in-beijing.com/beijingshops/blessing-tally-710.html Beijing Travel: This video focuses on a Drum Tower area shop in Beijing that offers a large array of daily items with pretty new-year   more...pictures.  less

http://www.shopping-in-beijing.com/beijingshops/blessing-tally-710.html Beijing Shopping: This video focuses on a Drum Tower area shop in Beijing that offers a large array of daily items with pretty new-year   more...pictures.  less

Cover of U2's Van Dieman's land from Rattle and Hum. Nothin fancy. (:

Rattled by Juliet Aucreman

The other day, my husband and I drove to the beach for a walk. We fed the parking meter and then walked out onto the sand. But it was high tide, so we couldn’t go more than   more...a few minutes in either direction. We had to turn back. I was disappointed because I’d wanted a long walk. And I resented putting a lot of change into the parking meter.

My husband Corky suggested we make good on our parking investment by exploring the open bluff over the beach. It sounded like a good idea, but I worried about our footwear. I wore sporty sandals, but Corky only wore flip-flops.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

Corky is usually safety-conscious – he recently made me upgrade to a safer car - so I thought, “Fine! I’ll stop worrying.” But I let him take the lead.

We followed a little footpath that led us uphill, back and forth, switchback style. Suddenly, Corky lunged to the side and then bolted ten feet up the trail. I heard rattling and dashed back several paces. Something dark was coiled up in the path.

Corky yelled down at me, “That’s the biggest rattlesnake I’ve seen! That thing’s at least six feet long!”

I looked up the hill, trying to see how I could get past the snake. Tall thistles and cactus, as high as my shoulders, guarded both sides of the trail. I scanned the hill, looking for a break in the brambles, but saw nothing. The snake continued rattling – it sounded like someone shaking a piggy-bank. Corky found a five-foot stick, came down the slope, and tried to move the rattlesnake off the trail. It wouldn’t budge.

“Why don’t you come up here and join me?” said Corky, not joking.

“I’m not THAT lonely,” I said.

He kept prodding the snake.

The rattling persisted; the snake stayed put.

Keeping his stick wedged between the snake and himself, Corky came back by leaping through the four-foot thistle thicket.

“Can we go home now?” I said.

“We’ve only just started,” he said. “Let’s walk around some more.”

“But your flip-flops! And the snake!” I said.

“Ah, that’s not going to happen again,” he said.

This from the man who insisted I needed a safer car.

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t that big a deal,” he said. “I wouldn’t have died – I’d have just lost a leg or something.”

“But you’re already missing a hand,” I said. (Corky was born without a left hand.) “If you lose a leg, you’ll just have two limbs left.”

“No, three,” he said, laughing.

We started walking again. Then I saw a snake twisting through the air over the trail. I screamed; Corky laughed. The “snake” was only a old bent pipe. We walked a little further. Something rustled in the bushes. I screamed; Corky laughed. It was a little bird. Now I LONGED for home. After all, I’d just battled three snakes. We passed through a chain-link fence, and my shirt got caught. I screamed; Corky laughed.

Walking back toward the car, we passed a bus stop where a ragged-looking man was sitting.

“How’s it going?” I said.

“Just trying to hold together,” he said.

“Me too,” I said. Corky laughed.

I smiled, and rattled my keys.

Corky screamed.

Revenge is sweet.  less

Hah!

Rattlesnake Research in Arizona by the Arizona Game and Fish Department

Ducks and chickens encounter a wild western diamondback rattlesnake. Close ups of the rattling, rescue and release in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.

Wild frisky young rattler filmed in a kit fox burrow in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Is it a diamondback or a mojave? There was a whole lot of rattlin' goin on...

This painting is created in under 45 seconds!