Meteor Shower Injures Hundreds
Chelyabinsk, Russia
February 15, 2013
A meteor
shower tore through the atmosphere and injured hundreds in
Chelyabinsk, Russia (950 miles east of Moscow).
Was it caused by a groupie of Asteroid
2012 DA14 (143' long, 143,000 tons) passing within
17,200
miles of Earth? Probably.
The pictures make it look like it hit Smallville, Kansas.
Hmmm...
Look for a spaceship and watch out for green-glowing Kryptonite
meteor rocks.
Music Associations: Remy Zero -
Save Me & Five For Fighting - Superman
Heart ♥
Health
February 15, 2013
As a tie to Valentines, one Internet site posted its Worst Foods for
your Heart. To save you the trouble of sitting through their silly
slideshow, here's their list:
1.
processed meats
2. red meat
3. pizza
4. alfredo
sauce
5.
trans-fats
6. fried
food
7. soda
8. fast
food
It's not very scientific, is it? It is almost a big whopper of a list
of the places the author (Sarah
Klein) doesn't want to go for Valentine's Day, which much of
the Internet was abbreviating yesterday as VD. As in -- Hey,
what's going on with your VD?!?
Sarah probably didn't want to be taken to Burger Donalds for some fast,
trans-fat fried cheesy processed meats and a soda.
Water is better.
Music Associations: Eddie Money
- Give Me Some Water & Talking Heads - Take Me To The River
(and drop me in the water)
Valentine
February 14, 2013
Valentine's Day is a nice idea on paper, folded in half with Hallmark
or something written on the back. The problem with Valentine's Day is
the expectation. It lacks originality and individuality. It's like
someone asking you, “Do you love me?” And you say
“Yes.” Well, you haven't actually said,
“I love
you,” and you certainly haven't put it in your own words.
It's cheapened sentimentality. It's cliché.
The
rose is red, the violet's blue,
The
honey's sweet, and so are you.
Thou
are my love and I am thine;
I
drew thee to my Valentine:
The
lot was cast and then I drew,
And
Fortune said it shou'd be you.*
Love should be from the heart.
Music Association: The Beatles -
Real Love
* Book Association:
Gammer Gurton's Garland by Joseph Ritson, 1784
Cliffhanger
February 13, 2013
Hang on a second.
Late last month (January 23rd), I was talking about the Myth of Dressing in Layers,
and I mentioned the problems some Mount Everest (Qomolongma or
Sagarmatha) climbers had with frigid temperatures and their
preparedness.
I listed five
problems with the dress in layers mentality as air, moisture,
circulation, vision, and mobility.
Part of it is, if you can't see where you are, what's the point?
"Step
quickly. You have two minutes to look and take your picture. One
picture per customer, let's go. Come on, there's a whole line of people
waiting behind you. No, you don't need to look behind you to see them.
You'll see them on your way down. Try not to kick rocks. That's bad
Everest manners."
In 2012, 550
people summited
Mount
Everest; 250 of them in the 48 hours of May 25th and
26th. May is the peak climbing month.
Last night I watched Frontline's
Cliffhanger about Eric Cantor's plan to
use the Federal budget as a leverage tool and the subsequent battles
between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner on the edge of
the fiscal cliff. It was enlightening.
Next Episode:
What
are my plans for tomorrow?
Were the Romans really romantic?
Are you on the edge of your seat?
Stay
tuned.
Music Associations: Aerosmith - Living On The Edge
& Frankie Valli - Let's Hang On
Movie Association: Vacation -
Clark Griswold nods three times at the Grand Canyon and is ready to go.
Matchmaker
February 12, 2013
You all can stop with the e-mails telling me I shouldn't be a
matchmaker.
Dr. Stan said (I'm paraphrasing) that people often require professional
(psychiatric) help to sort through the issues that prevent healthy,
romantic relationships. I get that. I agree that people may need
professional assistance; I disagree that it has to be from a doctor.
That's why I talked about the old fashioned matchmaker.
The way I see it, the really good, close, romantic relationships are
few and far between... practically uncharted territory.
Either there is no romantic relationship or the relationship borders on
a train-wreck or a traffic pileup.
She
got back together with her Ex through Facebook but he hadn't fully
broken up with his girlfriend, who at the time was still stalking that
electrical engineer who had the humongous afro due to the electrical
accident that may have been caused by her...
Great relationships are few and far between. People (like me*)
in great relationships are the exceptions, the weird ones.
Everyone else are the normal people, who need a gentle shove into romance.
Music Association: Styx - Snow
Blind
* So you see, it is
possible.
Beware of Charm
February
11, 2013
The modern equivalent of the Supremes' song, You Can't Hurry Love,
would be You Can't
Google Love. Many people spend their lives searching but
not finding love. Googling it does not reveal it.
It would probably be easier to find new
pyramids along the Nile, than to find love.
It would probably be easier to invent a robot
that shovels your sidewalk, than to find love.
I wrote a whole book about finding
love and learning to live
happily ever after. I disguised it as a book about
self-driving cars.
What I'd like to give people in search of love is a handy little list
of how and where to meet people and what to do with love once it is
properly identified, licensed, and tagged. The problem is that such a
list would be bull- nonsense.
It would be nonsense because even a thorough list (or web dating
service) cannot compensate for shyness.
An old fashioned matchmaker, the type of person who would actually push
two people together, could overcome shyness. Or... T-shirts!
T-shirts that announce the shyness of the wearer could help.
But
back on the matchmaker idea, I could be a matchmaker. And my first somewhat
grumpy advice for people would be to beware of the charm. No, I would
say beware of talkers and beware of charmers and if you find a charming
talker, run -- run as fast as you can.
There is nothing wrong with people with charm; you yourself are
charming, I have no doubt.
Charmers and talkers in the matchmaking world are experienced people
looking for another go around in their spin cycle. Sometimes (often?)
they still haven't finished previous relationships. The hope for
charmers is that they drop their charm and get real. I've seen it happen; it's
like magic.
They become matchable. The hope for incessant talkers is that they mix
talking with listening and thinking; they become true
conversationalists.
I am a huge fan of Love.
I tolerate valentines day. The distinction is
that valentines day (purposefully lower case) can be hurtful to people.
It is hurtful to some because it gives them the misunderstanding that
romance comes once a year -- and only once a year. It is
hurtful
to others who do not have a loving relationship. And it can be hurtful
to still others who have lost their love.
That's not a holiday of love; that's love taking a holiday. Charming.
Music Associations: Supremes -
Can't Hurry Love, Fiddler on the Roof - Matchmaker, & Kiss -
Calling Dr. Love
News Association: Pope
Benedict XVI
announced he would resign on Feb. 28th. He plans to visit Disney World
in March while he's still young enough to enjoy it. He also expressed
an interest in reading more blogs, a novel, and maybe finally meeting
that
special someone... a Mrs.Joe Ratzinger.
Fuzzy Friday
February 8, 2013
Music Association: REO - Roll
With The Changes
Wikipedia Gets Smart
February 7, 2013
I don't claim to know anything about television of the 1960s or any
other time, but having read Wikipedia I know enough.
Television of the 1960s had two knobs: Vertical Control and Horizontal
Chaos.
Chaos was always trying to take television from Control.
Control was run by the Chief. Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, was his top
agent.
Err... would you believe Smart was almost the top agent?
Would you believe Smart was as much trouble as Horizontal Chaos?
Control revolutionized portable communication with the shoe phone,
wallet phone, and tie phone. They revolutionized security with the
room-sized, clear plexiglas Cone
of
Silence. The Cone of Silence was activated with a mute button, which
caused them to be unable to hear a word they were saying. While in the
Cone of Silence, the Chief and Maxwell Smart would often have
to
use hand signals to communicate.
In the following picture (courtesy of Wikipedia), the Chief and Smart
have trouble communicating in the Cone of Silence.
Music Association: Janet Jackson
- Control
In The News
February 6, 2013
► The Solomon
Islands in the Pacific Ocean (west of New Guinea) were hit by
an earthquake and a tsunami.
► United
States Post Office will end Saturday junk mail and letter
delivery in August 2013... unless they're
packaged.
► Canada
eliminates the penny. Purchases will be rounded to the nearest nickel.
► The mentally ill smoke
30% of all cigarettes, according to a report by the CDC and
the SAMHSA.
► Hasbro's Monopoly
announces the elimination of the iron token to be replaced with a cat.
► A new (48th Mersenne) prime
number has been discovered that has 17 million digits. It is 2
57,885,161-1.
Music Associations: Box Tops -
The Letter & Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman
Macro Wonders
February 5, 2013
The Photography of Vyacheslav
Mishchenko
Music Association: Small World
Diana Ross - Reflections
Minneapolis-Saint
Paul weather: The calendar says February, but the air says March. Blue
skies above. White snow below.
Guns and Skeet
February 4, 2013
I like film noir, and I have all of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes
books. The combination of the two is Tracer Bullet.
Tracer Bullet was
Calvin's film noir
persona. Tracer appeared three times during the Calvin and Hobbes
series. The first time was very brief, when Hobbes cut Calvin's hair
too close, so Calvin wore a fedora to the dinner table. The second time
was “The Case of the Broken Lamp.”
Tracer's third appearance was during a
pop quiz at school, “The Math Story Problem.”
Tracer Bullet fits magnificently into Calvin's imaginary world -- his
dream world where his stuffed tiger Hobbes is a real (and really hungry)
tiger. It is a dream world (best
viewed in book format). It's not real like you or me.
Tracer Bullet is from a simpler time (1985-1995), a time when
large-scale gun violence was restricted to battlefields and post
offices.
Today President Obama is speaking in Minneapolis about gun violence.
He's not talking about taking away everyone's guns or doing away with
the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The President is advocating
steps Minneapolis has already taken to reduce
gun violence.
To help show the President's acceptance of guns, the White House
released a photo last week of the President skeet shooting in August
2012. My concern with President Obama's skeet shooting photo is not
about the angle of the gun or the President's grip. It's about what
happened afterward -- the meal.
After a tough day of skeet shooting, there's nothing like fresh skeet.
Here's a Skeet Recipe.
And speaking of executive branch marksmanship, Harry
Whittington
is the man former Vice President Dick Cheney shot in the face in 2006
on a hunting trip. According to a story in the Atlantic,
he's still not happy about it.
Music Association: Bob Marley -
I Shot The Sheriff
Super Bowl Power Outage
February 3, 2013
What a weird Super Bowl.
During the third quarter at 13:22 (regulation
play) or 7:40pm CST the power went out in half of the Superdome in New
Orleans. The power drop occurred soon after the 109 yard (changed
to 108) kick return by Jacoby Jones of the
Baltimore Ravens (Ravens 28
- 49ers 6).
The game started back up after about 33 minutes.
What knocked out half the power halfway through the game -- a
connection to the ads for Star
Trek Into Darkness?
Music Association: Reba McEntire
- The Night The Lights Went Out In N'Orleans
Marketing The Super Bowl
February 1, 2013
A boy goes to prom on his own... in dad's Audi. Driving the car gives
him the confidence to park in the principal's parking spot and kiss the
prom queen. This is one of the ads awaiting Super Bowl XLVII viewers
(47
for non-Romans).
Super Bowl XLVII will have everything that can be hyped.
Beyoncé
The inaugural lipsyncing story was hype for the Super Bowl. At its
heart, it was a non-story except that Beyoncé will be the
Super Bowl
halftime show, singing live. Of course, you will have to tune in to be
sure.
[Beyoncé did a
fantastic halftime show.]
Competitive Brothers
John Harbaugh coaches the Baltimore Ravens. His brother
Jim
Harbaugh coaches the San Francisco 49ers. Will they text angry messages
to each other during the game? You will have to tune in to find out.
Plus, Jim's son
Jay works for his uncle John and the Ravens. Wow, family
tensions.
Expensive Ads
The competition between brands dwarfs the
game. Axe cologne
introduces Axe Apollo by having a woman rescued by a firefighter or a
lifeguard only to leave him for an astronaut (in spacesuit). A singing
fish swims around a new Becks beer. A Budweiser Clydesdale
grows
up while Stevie Nicks sings Landslide.
Coca-Cola presents a desert chase for refreshment. Pepsi Next throws a
party while the parents are out. Taco Bell shows what the elderly do
late at night. Fiat 500L has a slew of ads about having more
possibilities. Other car companies (Hyundai, Mercedes, Toyota, VW)
offer other possibilities. And movie trailers will play for: Iron Man
3, The Lone Ranger, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Star Trek Into
Darkness.
[The Go Daddy
kiss and Oreos
library commercials in the first half of the game were good.
The second half Dodge
And God Made A Farmer
commercial was great.]
The Game
Will the game live up to the hype? Doubtful. The Vikings
aren't playing.
“All Day” Adrian Peterson making football seem as
easy as walking down the street.
[Congratulations
to 2013 AP Most Valuable Player Adrian Peterson.]
Music Association: Fleetwood Mac
- Landslide
