Random Thoughts 6/18/07

• I heard that Pepsi has introduced cucumber soda in Japan. After catching a few episodes of the game shows MXC (Takeshi's Castle) and Ninja Warrior (Sasuke), it somehow makes sense. Japanese culture is just… different.
  
• Here's a friend from our church, Justin, who made his way on to the Royals' blog. He and his friends made t-shirts celebrating the team's new draft pick, Mike Moustakas. The shirts have a moose and a taco (get it? moose-tacos? Moustakas?). Way to go Justin!
  
• Kansas City's Arena League team, the Brigade, are 10-5 with one game left and the playoffs locked-in. They're actually one of the better teams in the league.
• A lot of the horror stories people tell about owning beagles is simply not true – Sophie is a dream. Not that we're sleeping much, she naps off and on all day and then is up half the night. It's like having another infant, sans diapers.
• The Air Force and Army have agreed on a new joint cargo aircraft, a small cargo plane that can land on very short runways. The winning design is the updated C-27J Spartan, sometimes called the "Baby-Herc" because it looks like a shrunken C-130 Hercules. It actually uses systems from the most recent C-130 version and should reduce the need to fly a C-17 or C-130 with only one cargo pallet on board and get that pallet much closer to the troops who need it.