Thursday Quote Du Jour: Getting the facts

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

-Mark Twain

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_funny.html#DVvEbRYbu2vOYWDA.99

Okay, okay.  I have a fondness for that pseudoscience alien encounter crap.  Not like I believe for a second that aliens abduct and experiment on people.  But, the possibility that other “sentient” beings exist somewhere in the universe is worth pondering.  I just don’t believe for a second that they have been here.  Or if they have that they would have any interest in experimenting on people.  In my mind, if a race of beings was able to figure out how to achieve faster than light speed travel, what on Earth could possibly be curious to them about human biology.  Seems if you can crack the physics of time and space and travel hundreds of light years across the galaxy, there isn’t much left to be discovered in the primitive race of man.  They’d either destroy us like we destroy an anthill or they’d just totally ignore us.  In a way that’s one and the same.

Still I find these TV shows curiously fascinating.

Seriously though, what I enjoy most about all these “Ancient Aliens” theories is laughing at their bunk.  I find it tremendously fun to laugh at how they are built on the premise that we have no other good explanation for things so, lets assume that ancient human beings were too stupid to have any significant scientific knowledge or sophisticated imaginations and that must mean some alien intelligence was afoot here on Earth to build cities of granite, wage nuclear wars, oh, and, but first kill off all the dinosaurs except a few which they repopulated because they posed no threat to the race of humans they were engineering and nurturing.  WTF?

I watched this show about ancient aliens and dinosaurs last night.  It was like they couldn’t decide.  Did ancient aliens destroy all the dinosaurs so the aliens could then raise up the human race “safely?”  Or did they only kill off some, and that up until rather recently there were still small populations of dinosaurs living with humans as is “evidenced” by “dinosaur like” images engraved in stones and buildings in central America and Asia?

Because you know, we were wrong about the extinction of the coelacanth.  Somehow, we managed to miss the existence of a roughly human sized fish in a huge ocean.  Surely we could be wrong about the extinction of land animals like dinosaurs the size of a building.

Still it makes for a good yarn.

 

Guess it’s going to be a Howie day

Arrgh!

Earworm.

So, to make a simple tale convoluted, when I bought my “smart” TV, it came with some streaming links to things like Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu.  Stuff I recognized.  But it also came with a link to iHeartRadio.

Well in my enthusiasm for my new TV I tried out the iHeartRadio and found the Coffee Shop Radio station.  I liked it.  I found out that I can listen from my little netbook that I take to school every day, too.  So, I’ll put it on low volume while I’m at work measuring seeds; it’s great soft background noise while I’m doing mindless work and it won’t offend anyone else in the lab who happens to not have their own headphones on (I tried headphones, but I do have to move around a lot and so the cord kept getting in the way).

As it would happen, it plays the song, Collide, by Howie Day, quite often.  I find it very catchy, and I rather like it so it’s no hardship.  But, eventually I decided I had to know what Howie was actually saying as the first verse and the chorus was about all I could decipher.  Now I can’t get the tune out of my head.

One might say, my lab was quiet, you know.  It’s made a first impression and I find I’m scared to know it’s always on my mind.  Although not all the song words rhyme.  Out of the doubt that filled my mind, I some how find, Howie Day and I collide.

Collide

-Song by Howie Day

The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You’re barely waking
And I’m tangled up in you
Yeah

But I’m open, you’re closed
Where I follow, you’ll go
I worry I won’t see your face
Light up again

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind
I somehow find, you and I collide

I’m quiet, you know
You make a first impression
I’ve found I’m scared to know
I’m always on your mind

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the stars refuse to shine
Out of the back you fall in time
I somehow find, you and I collide

Don’t stop here

I’ve lost my place

I’m close behind

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills your mind
You finally find, you and I collide

Don’t know the song I’m talking about?  Check out Howie on YouTube.

Happy Birthday Frankie

Or perhaps we should say happy re-animation day.

You’re 197?  Wow.  You don’t look a day over dead!

Well, I don’t know if this is true, but Holidays for Today claims it’s true.  And, it’s just weird enough for a random Wednesday post.  Apparently March 11, 1818 is credited as being the date Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein was written.  You know, I bought a copy once many years ago but found it so dull I never got very far into it.  Perhaps I should try again.  Anything sounds like a worthwhile endeavor compared to studying.

What’s more, it seems to me I remember watching a black and white Frankenstein movie when I was a kid.  Mostly I remember it being sad for some reason.  Sad, but also boring.  And I remember watching the Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder Young Frankenstein more recently.  And when I say more recently I mean that as in I last watched it about 25 years ago.  That version I found sad too, but in the sense that someone actually wasted film on it.  I can’t say I found it any more riveting than the classic flick or the book.  I had some friends who adored the flick, but all I can remember is the Teri Garr roll-in-the-hay bit, “Would you like to have a roll in ze hay?  It’s fun!  Roll, roll, roll in ze hay!”

Sorry folks.  That’s all I’ve got today.  Microbiology midterm at three pm today.  Need I say more?

Buy yourself a Smart TV? Drink tea, oh tea.

I must come clean.  Part of the reason I haven’t been blogging much over the winter holiday break is well, I got a new toy.  I splurged and bought myself a new TV for my room in town.  I must say I think I got a pretty good deal on it, so I don’t feel terribly guilty about spending money I don’t really have to spare.  Besides, it’s a Smart TV.

When I told Leif he said, “You know that They can use Smart TVs to spy on you.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “But it’s really cool, so I’ll take my chances.”

If you are like me and you never heard of Smart TVs before I purchased mine, allow me to clue you in.  So, my Smart TV has WiFi and built in streaming programming.  So, all I had to do was plug the power cord into the outlet and Bam!  instant access to my Netflix.  So to test it out I watched a little of this:

Yup.  That’s the Netflix Crackling Fire program.  You can play it with or without music.  On your Smart TV, without hooking up to your laptop or purchasing a separate streaming device.  Cool.

But that’s not all.  You can get Hulu (Leif and I watched the entire season 3 of Miranda on, what I like to call, my new Smart TV last Tuesday after dinner, such fun), Crackle and Amazon on your Smart TV, too, as well as news channels, weather and radio.  If I had a Facebook or Twitter account I could access that through my Smart TV.  You can even surf YouTube.  And we did, to watch this video for Yorkshire Tea.

And, there’s many other streaming type apps you can download if the ones that come standard aren’t enough for you.  So all in all I’m pretty pleased with my spying Smart TV.  I don’t know what They’ll find worth spying on through my Smart TV, unless They get a thrill out of my play lists which include such controversial programming as Star Trek: the Next Generation, Family Ties, and the occasional chick flick romance.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to pry myself away from my fabulous Smart TV and out of my fleecy long johns and into my work clothes.  I’ve got to give tours today.

Tilly told me it was so

There is a season 3 of Miranda!

photo from Hulu

Such fun!  After a long dreadfully dull day of studying physics, I sat down to dinner and some Hulu, and there it was, big as Queen Kong, season 3 of Miranda.

I laughed til I cried and my sides hurt.

Now if only I could say the same about tomorrow’s physics final….

Of all places to find hope for the future

Generally the GenPop offspring don’t seem very promising.  However, there are some moments when hope swells and I weep with admiration.  The new season of Master Chef Junior is now available on Hulu.  If you have never seen Master Chef Junior season one, I highly recommend tuning in.  It stars 8-13 year olds who cook like Michelin star chefs.  And, unlike in the adult version of the show where it’s cut throat, name calling, and back stabbing episode after episode, these tots really seem to care about the success of the other contestants, displaying integrity, manners, and a lot more grace than their adult counterparts.  When one little girl’s chicken came out raw, the whole cast went to comfort and support her; bringing the judging to a halt under the proud and impressed gazes of the three judges.  It was breath takingly sweet.  When I think about the spud, who is the same age as the contestants, and can barely cut her pork chop, much less make duck pate with bruleed pears, I’m totally blown away.

So if you want some feel good TV, check out Master Chef Junior and see what the younger generation can bring to the table.  Dedication, creativity, sound character, and some damn tasty looking dishes.  Whether the directors have scripted it or not, you still can’t fake kids with that much talent and dedication for food.

*image from Hulu

Forever Friday

I found a new guilty pleasure on Hulu.  This fall a new TV show came out called Forever.  It’s about a guy who doesn’t die.  Well, he can be killed, but he always comes back to life.  So he works as coroner/medical examiner to try and figure out how/why he is the way he is, and along the way he solves murder crimes.  I missed the beginning of the season, so I am about 4 episodes behind.

My reward for getting all my homework done is to watch an hour of TV while I eat my dinner.  Tonight, being Friday, I just might throw responsibility to the wind, live wild and watch two episodes. Crazy, crazy times.

Oh, and eat cake too.  I am going to try making a crock pot cake, as I have no oven unless I want to go upstairs and use the real kitchen.  Which I don’t– it is always full of dirty dishes, stacks of guy stuff, and it stinks.  So, crock pot cake, here we come!

Happy Friday to you all!