Random Stuff
esiegel | May 23, 2010"When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
We definitely need a good song for this weekend, and the one I want to share with you is P.G. by Harvey Andrews. It turns out that this is an incredibly difficult song to find, but I heard it on internet radio (which I love, by the way) and did my best to record it and repost it here. (So that's why the sound quality is so poor.) But it's a…
esiegel | May 16, 2010
You see that there is no war within you. You're on your own side, and you are your own strength. -Terri Guillemets
Many of you don't know this, but over the last couple of months, my wife and I have been taking night classes in partner acrobatics! Why? Just because it sounded like a fun, athletic and adventurous thing to do.
(And to make up the fun to you of not having a song last week, here's an amazing two-for-one, with The David Grisman Quintet's Flatbush Waltz / Opus 57, from a live performance during the summer of 2001.)
Flatbush Waltz / Opus 57
Although I don't think we'll ever…
esiegel | May 8, 2010
"I walked on your face!" -Buzz Aldrin, to the Moon
Do you watch my favorite show on television, 30 Rock? If you saw this last week's episode, you know that Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon got to meet Buzz Aldrin, who... randomly yells at the Moon.
(I'm sure this video will get taken down soon, so enjoy it while it lasts.)
Buzz is well-known for his sense of humor, good nature, and eloquence, in addition to his opinions on NASA and space exploration. But it's wonderful to see two of my favorite things in this world team up to make me laugh so hard!
Have a great weekend!
esiegel | April 18, 2010Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations...If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won't exist because you'll have already shut it out ... You can hear other people's wisdom, but you've got to re-evaluate the world for yourself.
-Mae Jemison, first African-American woman astronaut
It's always difficult to break down barriers, but those who've been brave enough to try and who've finally broken through deserve to be remembered! One of the barriers that America put into place was that of women being astronauts. Despite the USSR's Valentina Tereshkova's becoming the…
esiegel | April 11, 2010
"I created this project for fun. Initially, I had no business goals with it. I created this project recently. I was and still am a teenager myself, that is why I had a certain feeling of what other teenagers would want to see on the Internet. I myself enjoyed talking to friends with Skype using a microphone and webcam. But we got tired of talking to each other eventually. So I decided to create a little site for me and my friends where we could connect randomly with other people."
-Andrey Ternovskiy, 17-year-old founder of Chat Roulette
(You can read the entire NY Times report/interview here…
esiegel | April 3, 2010
"But with dogs, we do have 'bad dog.' Bad dog exists. 'Bad dog! Bad dog! Stole a biscuit, bad dog!' The dog is saying, 'Who are you to judge me? You human beings who've had genocide, war against people of different creeds, colors, religions, and I stole a biscuit?! Is that a crime? People of the world!'
'Well, if you put it that way, I think you've got a point. Have another biscuit, sorry.'" -Eddie Izzard
Eddie Izzard is a funny, funny man. If you haven't seen his stand-up act (especially Circle, IMO), you are missing out. Someone set one of his funniest bits -- the Death Star Canteen --…
esiegel | March 27, 2010
The humor of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere. Pieces of meat passed high over our heads while others were falling at our feet. The dunes were rapidly evacuated as spectators escaped both the falling debris and the overwhelming smell. -Paul Linnman, News Reporter
This past week was my spring break, and my family and I went down to the Oregon coast. And while we were down there, we learned a little bit of local history. Namely, forty years ago, a huge, deceased whale washed up on one of the beaches, and nobody quite…
esiegel | March 21, 2010Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon. -Oscar Wilde
Yesterday was the spring equinox for the Northern Hemisphere, and my city was lucky enough to have a glorious day, clear skies, warm weather, and I spent most of the day outside. I had the type of day that Dan Tyminski pines for in this song, Some Early Morning.
But yesterday -- the equinox -- was special for another reason that you don't often hear about…
esiegel | March 14, 2010So here we have pi squared, which an engineer would call "10." -Frank King
It's Pi Day today in the United States: March 14th, or as we write it, 3/14. (Don't know how you do it in Europe, where there is no 31st of April.) So, let's start things off with a song for the day: Cab Calloway's "Everybody Eats When They Come To My House."
Of course, pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, and trying to measure it as accurately as possible has been a challenge that humans have taken on for thousands of years.
(Even Google gets in on the Pi Day action.) Most people know…
esiegel | March 7, 2010Find something that you're really interested in doing in your life. Pursue it, set goals and commit yourself to excellence. Do the best you can. -Chris Evert
The Olympics have recently ended, and there were a trio of athletes who left me awestruck at their level of mastery of their sport as compared to the rest of their field. Every one of Shaun White's halfpipe runs simply outclassed the other competitors, as did Lindsay Vonn's downhill run (did you see how steady she kept her skis as compared to everyone else?), and -- perhaps in particular -- I believe that Yu-Na Kim's short and long…
esiegel | February 26, 2010Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.
-Anatole France
Those of you who own pets probably know that there's nothing to grab your animal's attention like rewarding them with food. A Japanese game show has taken this to a whole new level, and somehow, I can't look away.
I love the part where the first dog is just drooling and drooling with dozens of treats on its head. Enjoy your weekend!
esiegel | February 21, 2010When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.
-Albert Einstein
I woke up this morning with the Sun in my face, which marks the first time all year that that's happened.
(The irony, that I'm now listening to the Grateful Dead's "Looks Like Rain.")
And after a few seconds had passed (you know, it takes me a few seconds to realize that I'm not still in my dream, trying to navigate through some bizarre hotel corridor), I realized I couldn't read the numbers on my old LED alarm clock.…
esiegel | February 14, 2010It says 'I Choo-choo-choose You,' and there's a picture of a train! -Ralph Wiggum
Ahh, Valentine's Day. What do you think of when you think of it? Do you think of a sweet sentiment about someone dear to you? (Song credit: If I Could by Storyhill.)
Do you maybe think of the vast commercialization of some very minor historical event?
While that's the part of Valentine's Day that I like the least, I'll be celebrating it anyway, and I think it's a good idea. Why?
It's pretty much the middle of winter across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and a good chunk of Asia. The days are short, the weather is…
esiegel | February 7, 2010Here in the United States, it's Super Bowl Sunday, and the Colts play the Saints for the championship of our National Football League. We listen to music that pumps us up,
we eat lots of food (it's the second highest day for food consumption behind Thanksgiving),
and -- of course -- we watch the big game. And I'm here to see what our Starts With A Bang readership thinks -- both nationally and internationally -- about who's going to win. Then I'm going to give you my pick. (Feel free to leave your own opinions in the comments!)
Colts and Saints: two teams that looked like…
esiegel | January 29, 2010Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider! -George Carlin
Over at The Onion, I found this article about science on television, and I laughed too hard to not reproduce it here. (Link to original.)
Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further
SILVER SPRING, MD--Frustrated by continued demands from viewers for more awesome and extreme programming, Science Channel president Clark Bunting told reporters Tuesday that his cable network was "completely incapable" of watering down science any further than it already had.
"Look, we've…
esiegel | January 24, 2010There are plenty of examples in the music world where a cover of a song is strikingly different from the original and still interesting. Take the song You Spin Me Round, which cracked the top 5 all over Europe and North America when Dead or Alive released it. (Click for video.) 15 years later, Dope released a cover of the song in a completely different style, with an incredibly different feel. Take a listen:
It's a pretty good cover. It's interesting to listen to, it's decidedly different from the original, and it's still instantly recognizable. But by time I get to the end of the…
esiegel | January 17, 2010Yes, these three ingredients mixed together amused me more than anything else that happened this week. Don't know what I'm talking about?
American Idol -- kicking off Season 9 -- gave us Pants on the Ground, a song written and performed by a 62 year old man who's sick and tired of seeing these young punks with their pants hanging down where no pants were designed to hang.
Neil Young is one of the all-time great singer/songwriters, as he's taken on everyone from Nixon to Herbert Walker Bush, and has written some of my favorite songs.
But it's the forgotten late-night talk show host, Jimmy…
esiegel | January 8, 2010Darn it! I'm sick and tired of being a scarecrow! Charles Atlas says he can give me a real body. All right! I'll gamble a stamp and get his free book!
-Countless Magazine and Comic Book Ads
Last weekend, Abbie over at ERV proclaimed herself the fittest person on Scienceblogs, and one of my readers thought I might have something to say about that. I sure do; I'm going to tell you what -- as a complete and total amateur -- fitness means to me.
Fitness, for me, is about meeting your goals for your body and your life. What does that mean for you? Do you want to be able to run a marathon (or a…
esiegel | January 2, 2010Things slow down when it snows everywhere. They did when I lived in New York, Chicago, and Madison, WI, and for good reason. There are a few basic rules about driving in snow that everybody adheres to, including being knowledgeable about what your vehicle can and cannot handle. It's a pain, but it could be a lot worse. When people make mistakes, scenes like this are the worst you're likely to find.
For the past couple of winters, I've lived in Portland, OR. The climate is generally warmer, and so snow is rare. We get snow maybe once a year. As a result, I was completely unprepared for the…
esiegel | December 27, 2009I discerned huge Orion, driving wild beasts together over the field of asphodel, the very ones that he once had killed on lonely mountains, he grasped in his hands a mace of bronze, never to be broken.
-Odysseus, in the Underworld, The Odyssey
With a reputation as the greatest hunter ever and as one of the largest, tallest men ever, it's no wonder that Orion lives on in both song,
and in our imaginations in the sky as well.
Orion is one of the most easily identifiable constellations in the sky; it was the second one I ever learned how to find, right after the Big Dipper. The three stars on…