The most important thing you'll learn today

I'm about to tell you something that will change your life. Be prepared--this is earth-shaking. And sad... Get the kleenex. Ready? Deep breath. Here it is:

People born on February 29th will never have a golden birthday.

Okay, now that your life is altered, on to business: more trip reports! After visiting Keighley and Haworth I returned to London, where I was supposed to see a screening of the Peter Serafinowicz Show. Sadly, it was canceled. Instead, I saw Lord of the Rings, The Musical. It was pretty good... they had to cut many essential elements to make it fit within a 3-hour window. No Rohan whatsoever, no Faramir, no Helm's Deep, etc., etc. They did make a reference to Tom Bombadil. The hobbits were amusing.

Today you will learn why I typically travel alone. I suspect it has to do with some of the sites I like to see. The second day in London I visited a museum that... well... let's just say it had to do with my unique literary tastes. I happen to like dictionaries. I visited the former home of Samuel Johnson -- his primary residence while compiling the first modern English dictionary. I even bought an abridged version of the dictionary (c'mon, I already admitted that I like dictionaries. So stop laughing).

Example definitions from this 1755 dictionary:

heart-breaker: A cant name for a woman's curls, supposed to break the heart of all her lovers.

paraphernalia: Goods in the wife's disposal.

And if you have never been able to understand how the Interweb works, here is the definition of network: Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.

All clear now, right?

doppler effect... or not

Reading my blog? Wow, you must be bored. Or boring. That's great, we have something in common!

And I can bore you further. More about my trip to the UK and Ireland!! Lucky you!

After I left Alnmouth I went to a town called Keighley (pronounced "keith-lee"), where I caught an authentic steam train -- the Keighley-Worth Valley Railway. Here's a video I took of the train:



I left the train at a small town called Haworth, which is where the Bronte sisters lived. After wandering all over the place with my luggage I finally found their family home:


If you turn your head (or monitor), you can read about the Bronte Parsonage Museum:

These are what we call "flowers":

The church next to the museum:

Next time I need a doctor, I will definitely go for one at the "Kilmeny Surgery." Many? How many?

Prior Incantato

I suppose it's time to post some pictures from my trip! I flew into Heathrow, then immediately went to London, to King's Cross Station. And where does one travel from King's Cross Station? To Hogwarts, of course -- and that's exactly where I went! Well, I didn't find Platform 9 ¾, but the train from Platform 2 started me on the way to my destination of the day -- Alnwick Castle, a film site for the Harry Potter movies. After my visit to the castle (which is definitely worth a visit!) I went to Alnmouth for the night.

And for those of you who want to study at Hogwarts, check out the St. Cloud State University site...

Pictures...

A statue of Harry Hotspur:
A view of Alnwick Castle:

Another view of Alnwick Castle:

Nearby the castle:

A rainy morning in Alnmouth:

Boats generally require water:

Some of the many, many, many birds of Alnmouth:

Blocks on the beach:

Spiderwebs in the rain:

L33t Street

At some point I'll have time to go on and on about my recent vacation to the UK and Ireland. For now, here is an amuse-bouche for my travel writeup. And it is all about l33tness.

A camera + a bus near Newcastle Upon Tyne + some fabulous timing resulted in this priceless picture:


That's right, kids. The moral of today's story: B1337.

Study at Hogwarts!

Greetings from jolly ol' London! I'm currently on vacation. I'll post more when I return, but I just wanted to inform all of you about one interesting fact I learned. This will be especially useful for those of you trying to decide where to attend college. On Saturday I visited Alnwick Castle, where they filmed Harry Potter. You can actually attend school there--Minnesota's St. Cloud University offers a study abroad program there!

Obscure...

pulling tulips

Hooray for fall television! Shows I like are back in season, and I've found a few new shows to love. So far...

Old shows:

- Heroes is off to a strong start. New twists and turns... though there are still some slightly annoying plotlines. At least we haven't had to deal with the Las Vegas psycho woman plot yet.

- Top Chef is almost over. Only a few weeks 'til Project Runway!!

- Doctor Who is almost over as well. This latest season has been EXCELLENT! What a creative show. And a hot Doctor.

- Beauty and the Geek. The geek kicked off this week was cute... he didn't even need a makeover to help him out! It's a shame he's gone.

- House? Hmmm... it doesn't seem to be improving. I'm not terribly optimistic.

- The IT Crowd, Season 2. Over already.... Alas. It was entertaining, but not as funny as Season 1. Regardless, my newly ordered DVDs are on their way. Oh, in case you haven't heard the bad news, there's a chance this show might not be recreated for the US market. Sad, isn't it?

New shows:

- PUSHING DAISIES! What a bizarre, random, hilarious show! Ever since I saw the first commercial I've been looking forward to seeing it. It lived up to my expectations. It may even have exceeded my expectations... FAAAN-tastick!

- Kid Nation - Kid logic is great. That show is highly entertaining. It's all about kids living off the land exactly as people lived in the Old West. It's true -- they have to rely on outhouses, water pumps, and microwaves. It's seriously bare bones.

- Bionic Woman - You never know with remakes, but this one looks promising.

- Life, Moonlight, and Journeyman - BOOOORING. Sorry, writers and producers, but they're complete snoozers.

off with their heads!

On Saturday, Emily and I made our annual pilgrimage to Crownsville, Maryland for the Renaissance Festival. As usual, it was a great people watching opportunity. Apparently the Food Network was filming there all day. I saw some girl getting some guy's autograph, but who he was, forsooth, I knoweth not.

Here is my summary of the day in pictures... pictures of Emily, mostly. Behold:

Ye olde sword swallower:

Fair Maid Emily getteth her haire done:

Thine faire maide in a flattering pose:

Alas, poor Yorrick. I can't see thee:

Ye olde construction workers:

Emily falleth into love with ye olde blond guy while gettething henna applied to her foot:

Ye olde fancy henna application that turned out better than the henna we got in Marrakesh:

Ye olde vikings in an ancient mode of communication. And elephants, which we didn't ride (because of ye olde long line):

Ye olde sideways picture:

Henna update:

Ye olde hypnotist, leading ye olde crowde in their dramatic death scenes:

Ye olde high schooler a little bit too into this activity. Where'd his shirt go??

Ye olde Food Network person signing an autograph:

The joust:

It was very, very dusty, which looked kinda nice in the light of the setting sun:

One last henna picture:

A nearby haunted looking building. Initially we thought it was called the "Hung Young Building" (appropriate for a haunted hospital). Nay, it was just "Hugh Young." Actually, it's "Hvgh Yovng":

After the Renaissance Festival we went to Baltimore for an AMAZING Andrew Bird concert. But that's a story for another blog entry...

Rectification

I like my title today. It summarizes the point I intended to make, but it also gives me an excuse to mention an upcoming TV show that sounds FASCINATING. Definitions of "rectification" (thanks, Dictionary.com!:

1. the act of rectifying, or the fact of being rectified.
2. Astrology. the method by which the known times of major events in one's life are used to determine an unknown time of birth.

My meaning? #1. But #2 reminded me that there's this up and coming fall show called "America's Psychic Challenge." That sounds entertaining. Starts on 11 October. You can also apply to be in the sequel! Maybe I should apply. I'm a psychic. I bet I can figure out what you're thinking right now. You're thinking "no, you can't." Hmm... I wonder if anyone would be offended by the fact that I don't differentiate between "psychics" and "astrologers." Probably. Sorry.

But that's not my point. Back to #1. I would like to rectify an old mistake... that mistake is called Morocco. For YEARS I wanted to go to Morocco. A year and a half ago I went there, and all I wanted to do was leave. If you like Islamic art, go to Spain, not Morocco. Seriously. So I'm trying my luck with eBay (my first auction!), trying to sell a brass lamp I purchased in the city of Fez. I rubbed it, but no genie came out. So now it's ready to find a new family for it.

Feeling charitable? Want a genie-free Moroccan lamp? Here's the auction. Help a girl out.

fish and aliens

On the finale of Last Comic Standing, they counted down some of the top moments in Last Comic Standing standup. This quote of Kathleen Madigan stood out:

I don't believe in anything. Anything on A&E, Aliens, fine. I believe them. My brothers are so scientific. "Well, there's no proof." What if they're just smarter than us, and that's why we don't know they're here... Like fish don't know we're up here, but we're certainly snagging them whenever we feel like it. Every time you catch one, those other fish are swimming around going, "Hey, wait a minute... where did Bill go?" And you know when we throw Bill back, the other fish do NOT believe his story about where he was.

yer plans fer t'morrow

Hooray, and dinna spare the whip! T'morrow (19th o' September) is Talk like a Buccaneer Day, Yaaarrrr! I be informing ye o' a few useful links so ye can celebrate th' day in some appropriate manner, with a chest full a' booty. Walk the plank!

First, by Blackbeard's sword, th' official talk like a pirate day web site:

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html

What's yer buccaneer name?

http://www.piratequiz.com/

Next, I'll warrant ye, a game called Ninja Loves Pirate (let this day be a day o' truce betwixt th' pro-ninja hax0rs and th' pro-pirate hax0rs):

http://www.ninjalovespirate.com/

Ye wise professor gave an assignment t' his students t' code a program t' convert text t' buccaneer speak:

http://cs.carleton.edu/faculty/dmusican/csti07/pirate.html

And ye wise student sought help from th' online community:

cheating?? ye be th' judge

And, to be sure, th' site that helped me translate:

http://www.insanum.com/convert/

We'll keel-haul ye!

Be a sheep

You have to admit, technology makes it easier to be like everyone else. In the olden days, in remote neighborhoods, you had to go out of your way to figure out what everyone else was doing. I think in those days church was the place you'd go to see the latest trends. Now you can figure out what is popular just by going to the Interweb.

But what can you trust? Google, of course! Google is all knowing. At Defcon I learned about Google Trends, which is a site that shows you the most popular search terms. You can select specific terms to see a graph of their popularity. Graphs make everything scientific and credible... or, in this case, incredible.

I have learned about all sorts of exciting things thanks to Google Trends. For example, I learned of the death of poor Alex the Parrot, an African grey parrot. ALEX apparently is an acronym for "Avian Learning EXperiment." Alex was a genius bird, and probably was smarter than most of the people you know.

Today's hottest search term (so far, but it is early) is "hectometer." Why is that a popular search term??? I suppose people are just odd. Or some rogue botnet it popularizing the term...

Aren't kids cute?

This past weekend I visited my sister Melissa and her family in LA. My niece and nephew (Lauren and Robbie) are child prodigies... in sarcasm! It's great. Even my two and a half year old niece, Lauren, can dish it out. Impressive.

We were at the beach walking toward the water... I said something like, "Lauren, do you see the water?" But she didn't say, "Yes, over there," pointing to the ocean (like you'd expect a 2 1/2 year old to do). Instead, she put one hand on her hip, held the other out in an exaggerated questioning manner, then gestured back toward the sand and parking lot. "Where? Where?" she said, swinging around to point away from the ocean. "I don't see any water! What water?" Man, those moments you wish you had a video camera...

There's no doubt that she's part of our family! Our sarcasm bones develop early... :)

p.s. according to this article, kids aren't supposed to "get" sarcasm 'til they're at least 6, much less dish it out!

‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮҉Happiness is...

‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮҉ Happiness is a unicode character that automatically makes you type backwards. Just paste this cute little character (‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮҉ ) into a text box on your Web browser, and the magic can be yours!

Enjoy!

‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭

Who wants to be a pushover?

I think it's about time for a TV recap. The summer show season is ending, and the fall season is about to begin. I've noticed that a lot of the reality shows are starting to be compressed... shows that took dozens of weeks last year have shrunk to numbers of episodes you can count on only one, two, or three of your hands.

What have I been watching? Let's see...

- Who wants to be a superhero? This show scores high on the ridiculous factor... and yet I continue to watch it. Possible alternate titles include "who wants to get inside Stan Lee's head?" or "who wants to be a follower?" It's all about Stan Lee's inconsistent application of heroic logic. It doesn't matter how well you justify what you do, because if it doesn't match Stan Lee's predefined expectation, you're gone. Statements like "I'll take that into consideration" translate to "you're as good as out." Don't try to game the system, because his logic and yours probably won't match. For instance, the episode in which everyone nobly rescued the people but got yelled at for not rescuing a dog. Um, okay? Oh, and can you say PRODUCT PLACEMENT?? Sony, esurance, blah blah blah. ECW star "superhero training"??? Yech. "Wrestling, stunt fighting... it's REAL." Double yech. That's exactly what makes me annoyed with the SciFi channel. In a way, it's kind of like those model shows, where people get kicked off for things like getting hypothermia during a photo shoot in freezing cold water. "REAL models don't give up even if they're about to die." It's all about willingness to sacrifice your life for your art. See my old "fashion conspiracy" posting for more info on that.

- Movies featuring winners of Who wants to be a superhero? Those Saturday 9 pm movies also make me annoyed with the SciFi channel. Yeah, so I recorded Mega Snake, which was supposed to "feature" the winner of Who wants to be a superhero, season 1. Oh, my. Fast forward through cheese... fast forward through cheese... fast forward through cheese... I passed through the first quarter of the movie. Then the middle. Then the last... Around 7/8 of the way into the movie I saw Feedback... and his role as a public service announcement guy, telling kids about the dangers of electricity. In all, it lasted about 2 minutes. Maan, I can only imagine what Season 2's superheroes are thinking. "All that work, and THAT'S my main prize???"

- A model life. Reinforcing the stereotype that models aren't the brightest stars in the daytime sky. For example, there was the Brazilian girl who thought she might know photographer's grandmother, who lived in Brazil approx. 50 years before the model was born. "No, I don't know her." Or Michelle, when told she was going to London: "I've never been to London. I guess I'll like it. They do speak English, for most of the part, except for a few of the words." Niice. And the most model-like, Angelika, was let go for mouthing off. Yeah, she deserved it.

- The new Bravo show, Flipping Out. Very funny!! That guy is seriously messed up.

- On The Lot. Will won! Yaay! He was my favorite. Do you think the end part (him walking up to the gates of his new studio) was staged? I have a feeling it was filmed before the actual finale.

- The IT Crowd. They're already halfway through the all-too-short season!! Season 2 has been funny, but not AS funny as Season 1. I just haven't found as many quotes that I want to integrate into my everyday life... like "getting on like a big house on fire" or "you stole it? but that's stealing!!" Hmm... I wonder how the US version will turn out...

- Chuck. I saw the pilot episode on a recent United flight. My response? As Roy's shirt said during IT Crowd Season 2 Episode 3, "Meh." It reminded me a lot of Jake 2.0, except for the electronics superstore part. It just wasn't that funny... But I'll let you make your own call. I think the pilot is officially showing next Monday.

- Without prejudice. Interesting show, but it doesn't live up to its name. A group of five people decide to give $25,000 to one of another group of 5 people for pretty much whatever reason they select. Take the "without" out of the title and you get a lot of what is used in the decision-making process. It's not a bad show to have on as background noise, though...

- Doctor Who. I like this show more and more every season!! I didn't think they'd be able to find a good replacement for Rose, but I was wrong. The most recent two-part episode shown on SciFi, "Human Nature/The Family of Blood" was excellent!! And Baines (the actor also plays Will Scarlett on Robin Hood) made a fantastic psycho bloodthirsty alien. The DVD comes out in a couple months...

OK, I think that's enough TV discussion for one night!!

It's just not possible

Just a quick posting to explain that I do not believe in hummingbirds. That's right. You can't convince me that they're real. Birds simply don't look like that... or move like that, for that matter. It's not possible. I think they're really puppets, or a Hollywood conspiracy, or something. There has to be another explanation.

And yet I couldn't find the puppeteer when I took these hummingbird pictures yesterday. Maybe you can see the strings in the picture. They must be there, 'cuz there's no way hummingbirds can possibly exist.