Future Poltergeist

In what has become something of a tradition for us we went down to Austin today for Memorial Day. You may remember our trip last year where we raced down there but were late for the parade. We really, really didn't want that to happen again so the FP Gal and I woke up very early to get us on the road. She woke up DF and I woke up Relia. I don't know that this has ever happened to us before. We ate and dressed and packed and were on the road by 630a. We made good progress and even had time for a bathroom break. It was 828a when we pulled into the parking lot for the parade, a full two minutes before its listed beginning. Except that the schedule was wrong and it started about 850a. Oh well, better early than late! We used the extra time to meet up with family. Pop-pop, of course, Uncle David and Aunt Donna, Andrea and shortly thereafter Uncle Jerry. Not a big crowd watched the parade but our family was well represented there. In fact, we almost outnumbered the parade...

In the car this morning: FP Gal: Relia, do you know what day tomorrow is? Relia: Monday? Me: Monday. Gotta get down on Monday. Relia: (singing quietly) Gotta get down on Friday . . . I'd say this qualifies as a parenting fail but neither of us can figure out where she learned the 'Friday' song from. Not even sure where she would have heard it at all. I guess culture really does invade everywhere.

I mentioned this site a couple of months back but I want to do so again. They are doing a countdown of the best 200 songs that reached #1 since 1955. Which is a pretty sizeable endeavor when you think of it. I might question their judgment as the numbers get lower but not yet. Each song comes with a set of facts like this for their #150 song 'Chapel of Love': Stats: #1 for 3 Weeks in 1964 (June) Replaced: Love Me Do - The Beatles Replaced by: A World Without Love - Peter & Gordon Sample Headline from its Reign: Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison. #2 Hits It Prevented from Reaching #1: None Top 200 #1 Hits 1955-2000 Rank: #167 The last great girl group song to reach number one. Since it cleaved two Lennon & McCartney hits, it was clear there was a change in the air 1964, but this song was too good to pass up. I was playing the #1 hits at a retreat for the small church I was in about ten years ago. This was a congregation that was trying to inco...

After a few minutes of quiet in the car this morning. Relia: What if a real live moose actually got hurt. Me: What do you mean? Relia: Well . . . what if one caught fire? Me: Um, how do you think that would happen? Relia: There could be a fire at the zoo. And then the moose could catch fire! Me: Sweetheart, they work very hard to at the zoo to make sure there are no fires. Relia: Good. (A few minutes later . . . ) Me: Do you think that dolphins would be ok if there was a fire? Relia: Yes! Dolphins can swim very fast if there's fire! The things that you learn from your kids!

A set of them found here . Note the full path of the tornado seen in picture 3. Also note the cars piled up in picture 10. Just a wildly devastating storm. Update: Related, this is a first person video taken during the tornado. It's almost exclusively audio and it's scarier than any movie. Another update: This photo is simply amazing.

Interesting user poll from Tor.com, asking what was the best science fiction or fantasy movie of the last decade. The results : The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - 172 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - 151 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - 147 Serenity - 107 Inception - 92 WALL-E - 88 Pan’s Labyrinth - 80 The Dark Knight - 78 Spirited Away - 67 District 9 – 67 Moon – 66 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – 60 I'm not surprised that the LOTR trilogy dominated. It really was a monument in epic fantasy movie making. So much so that it overshadowed other efforts to repeat it's success. I can't understand how 'Two Towers' could possibly get the least votes of the three since it was clearly the best of them. The rest of the list has some very good movies on it. The only quibble I have is with 'District 9', which I thought was overrated. It's nice that 'Eternal Suns...

Interesting post from Megan McArdle about the future of print books: There's a famous old joke about two people walking through the woods when they spot a bear. The first hiker drops down and prepares to play dead. The second one opens his pack and takes out a pair of running shoes. "What are you doing?" asks the first hiker. "You can't outrun a bear." "I don't have to," responds the second hiker. "I just have to outrun you." New technologies are like that. They don't actually have to be faster, or better, than any conceivable product. They just have to be better in key ways than the competition. She talks about how industries reach tipping points as technology progresses. If the printing industry loses too much ground to ebooks then printing firms lose out on their economy of scale and costs go up. If ebooks become the norm then there will be less infrastructure in place to deliver paper ones. She also mentions th...

We have had some thundery, stormy weather here today. Enjoyable all, save for the part where I was driving Pagoda when the wipers stopped. That wasn't fun at all. Tonight we've had some of that low rumbling in the distance stuff. We also had that last week and (what fun!) it was accompanied by a tornado warning. The FP Gal came upstairs and got me from work so that I could join her and the kids in the basement. This meant that DF was awoken and it completely screwed up Relia's bedtime. Good times all. So there we were huddled in the basement wishing for a radio and all I could think of was the London Blitz. I was reading Connie Willis's books 'Blackout' and 'All Clear', a story of time traveling historians who go back to London in 1940 and have to deal with the Luftwaffe and nightly bombings. Think about that situation for a moment. Every night they would hurry off to shelters. Each time they would hope that their spot wasn't hit. Every mor...

This morning we watched a bit of the 'robot movie' (i.e. Star Wars) at Relia's request. We haven't watched it for some time so she had some questions. Relia: And who are those guys? Me: They're called Jawas. Relia: (pause) Did your mom teach you that? Me: Uh, no, I don't think she did. Last night at dinner she told us that she hates Star Wars because everyone at preschool goes on and on about it. The FP Gal told her that her parents enjoy it and then I told her that it had robots in it. She decided that she might give it a try. If my math is correct I was just about the age she is now when Star Wars first came out. I have dim memories of seeing it at a drive in though I also remember watching the next screen over which either had 'Jaws' or 'Smokey and the Bandit'. (Wikipedia tells me that it must have been Smokey because Jaws came out in '75. Unless, well, did drive in movie theaters show two year old movies back in the 70's?) Anyw...

We live in amazing times to see things like this.

Holy cats, there is a lot of time to be wasted here . . .

This book was the 1979 Hugo winner. This book is really about futuristic engineering, specifically an engineer who is building an elevator that will reach all the way up to orbit. On the way it takes some lovely detours and asks some interesting questions. It's a bit on the dry side but I'd recommend it. We open in the past, in a thinly fictionalized version of Sri Lanka , the island that Clarke lived on for the last 50 some years of his life. The story is about a king who lives on a mountain and a monastery on the next mountain over. They have an uneasy relationship at best. Fast forward hundreds of years and the kingdom is long gone but the monastery remains. Which is a problem for our protagonist, Dr Vannevar Morgan, a renowned engineer . He has decided to build a space elevator and the best spot on the globe is occupied by a monastery . He tries various ways of arguing with them and the solution is, well, interesting if not the least bit convincing. There follows the d...

You've recently changed the design on your Macaroni and Cheese boxes. One unfortunate element of this change is that it is much harder to tell at a glance which of your many yummy varieties is in the package. This needlessly puts my wife's spiral Mac & Cheese at risk when I'm simply trying to make the traditional kind for the kids. Please correct this in your next design update, which is hopefully soon. Regards! A very loyal customer.

Last night was the Survivor finale and I thought I'd jot down some notes. I don't normally review Survivor simply because I usually can't watch it until more than a full day after it airs but this time I'll make an exception. Survivors ready? It had to be Rob. No one else deserved a vote. He was easily the dominant player. Not even close. Probst said that it may have been the most perfect game a player has ever played and that could be true. Having said that, this was a very dull season. Once the tribes merged it was easy to see how the rest of the game would play out. Sometimes that tricks us into thinking that we'll see a different narrative. Not this time. One of the reasons this season was sub-par is that there was an incredible amount of dead weight. Each tribe started with two girls who did almost nothing but ride coat-tails. One of them, Natalie, even made the finals. The four of them added nothing. Try harder, Survivor casting crew. During the r...

In the car the other day after preschool: Me: What did you learn about today? Relia: We learned about what stuff is in our heads. Me: Like what? Relia: There is a pink gum in there. But you can't eat it. Your head doesn't open the right way. [Note: I think she is talking about the gums around the teeth but I could be wrong.] Me: Oh. Relia: Also, our brains are in there. Me: And what do they do? Relia: They send sig-inals to your hands and feet and tell them what to do. Me: Yep. Relia: And they get sig-inals from your eyes and ears too. Me: Very good. Relia: And that's what is in your head!