ZeFrank talks Scrabble

I come from a Scrabblephilic family. However, it wasn't played as intensely until I left home. I shudder to think what would happen to me should I play with Mother and The Man now. Ouch.

Enjoy ZeFrank,

Bp

Mars Rover reaches Crater Sweet Spot

Double entendres for the win.

Oh, and here's the article.


Enjoy your sensual universe,

Bp

Watching, and keeping files on, what we read

Anyone who is watching civil liberties offenses in the U.S. knows the government is concerned, and watching, what people read. What I found telling in This Wired News Article was not that they are using reading material to profile people (big deal -- a bit of salt in the wound is all), but they're keeping the files -- for years (read: ad infinitum). THAT is a big deal -- developing portfolios using various sources of information, from airport security checkpoints to border crossings. That's a BIG OL' #4 in Naomi's Steps to create a fascist state.

Enjoy your anonymity,

Bp

NYC Bike Messenger Race -- Seriously Scary

Posting this for The Wife. She gets all nostalgic and starts telling war stories from when she messengered in Seattle when she sees stuff like this. The video is seriously scary, worth a watch.

Enjoy your working appendages,

Bp

AIDS activist fingered by spooks

What were the 10 steps again? Because I'm pretty dam sure this type of behavior fits into one of them [actually two of them, #4 and #5].

Enjoy your civil liberties,

Bp

Dog heritage DNA test

Cool video I found on Discovery News -- you can find out the breed mix of your mutt. Were I a dog person, I would be all over this for my pet.

[whups, the player won't fit right in my blog -- oh well it will get moved down as I post more]

Enjoy your canine detective work,

Bp

One Question for the Candidates that will make or break my vote

I've been considering Naomi Wolf's article in the back of my head all day, and I realized that there is a simple way to sort out the presidential candidates. One question that will tell you where they stand regarding the path of the American Experiment -- Will you or will you not close Guantanamo bay if elected. Boom, straightforward, simple and telling.

When they waffle and get rhetorical and complicated, you know you have a loser. A simple "yes, I will make sure to close Guantanamo and correct the laws that allowed it to be created" will suffice please.

I have a bad feeling only Kucinich will answer yes unequivocally.

If a candidate is pro Guantanamo, you know they are also pro degredation of civil rights, pro concentration of executive power, anti Geneva Convention, pro torture, and anti Habeas Corpus. You will know instantly whether they are on the team of ending democracy and civil liberties in America or willing to stand up to said team.

Now the scary part -- to find out where they all stand.

Enjoy your new research project,

Bp

ps/edit/addendum: Well, with some very quick searching I'm finding that Guantanamo seems to divide the Democrats from the Republicans. I'm pleasantly surprised that the Democratic candidates are unified in their promise to close the facility. Very surprised. I'm not surprised that the Republican candidates I've checked are both either for beefing the facility and tactics up, or are equivocating about it.

See comments for some links to evidence.

Head size and intelligence, possibly a link

In this Discovery news article, a connection between head size and intelligence is posited. This could bode well for me (I wear between a 7 3/4 and 8 hat size, depending on manufacturer). There is also, however, a possible connection between big heads and dementia (which many would say also applies to me).

Enjoy your momentary flights of triumph,

Bp

This should only take a minute.

Amnesty International has started a website to go after Guantanamo Bay directly. It is starting as a petition campaign and will proceed from there. If you read the Wolf article below, you understand what this place really means. This is a quick one-minute action you can take to stand on the right side of things.

I'll mellow the pace of political talk on the blog soon, but right now this stuff is really in my face and I feel impelled to respond, even in small ways.

Enjoy the small things, especially the ones that work,

Bp

Polar bear meets sled dog... what would you expect?

Here is a great story with pictures about a polar bear showing up for a photo shoot a man was going to do with his Husky sled dogs. A total trip.

Thanks Micah.

Enjoy your unexpected natural events,

Bp

Naomi Wolf again -- 10 steps to erode democracy and create totalitarianism

This article is an essay that summarizes 10 basic steps governments take to end freedom and begin totalitarianism. Naomi Wolf's book The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot goes into these ideas in more detail, with examples of how the current U.S. government is walking down this path.

Her name keeps coming up, and I'll probably need to get this read despite being in school.

Thanks to Shocho, from whom I gratuitously lifted this article.

Enjoy your freedoms, and your plans to preserve them,

Bp

Tigers, the ultimate fur sharks

This footage was taken in Kaziranga National Park, where a tigress was attempting to be darted by rangers after having killed some local cows.

[Technical note: if the embedded video is not loading, just double click on it and it will open the Youtube screen and play just fine]

Enjoy your natural wonders,

Bp

Old Geezer returns to campus

Morning of the changing-of-the-gears. I'm eating home-smoked salmon in scrambled eggs for breakfast, and contemplating the next year of my life. Being married to The Wife is going smashingly, and most nights as I fall asleep I feel about like This. Just real content.

School, however, can bring up slightly more difficult feelings. Like, "a full year from now you'll have your BACHELORS DEGREE... whoooopteeedooo, might as well be finishing high school in your 40's." Kind little thoughts like that. And "you'll be almost 40 by the time you start your next career, and you will be taking a pay drop -- what were you thinking again?" But as per my training, I just let those thoughts slide on by, and concentrate on the moment.

The moment now consists of an almost finished plate of breakfast and my PSU schedule. Early one this term, and 5 days a week. Knowing that the study group likes to study til 1-2 a.m. -- this presents some logistical problems. I will be interested to see how the whole thing resolves.

The Wife just came in and said "ooh, it's the first day of schoool. I feel like I should pin a note to your chest 'if lost, return to ____' and send you out with a bag lunch!" Har har.

Ok, time for the next step -- clothing and packing up the backpack.

Here we go.

Enjoy your little life transitions,

Bp

Alpacas guarding chickens

Interesting though it is, the idea of using Alpacas to guard laying hens that this article talks about, is just cute beyond reason.

Got to love the BBC.

Enjoy your foreign farming news,

Bp

Who me, stressed?

Just because I'm up at 4 am, watching romantic comedies and cancer kid/teen dramadies doesn't mean I'm stressed, right? It's just... breaking in the new watch instantly feature on netflix.

I mean, anyone who knows me knows that I just go for those types of movies. Light human dramadies, witty yet vacuous. Quick but insubstantial. Yeah, it's the movies that are just so gripping they are keeping me up late.

I'm like totally fine.

...

A day full of work between me and my next term of school. I mean, why worry?

...

Eastern Promises Movie Trailer

T. Went to go see this last night, and really enjoyed it. It takes a real movie to catch T.'s attention. Of course, naked burly men help too, which this movie has. His recommendation weighs heavily in this house, we're looking forward to it.

Enjoy cinematic knife fights,

Bp

I totally freaking called it -- a quick morning gloat

So the family uses Netflix to watch TeeVee. We only watch second-run series on DVD -- that way we can get suggestions from friends, and watch em whenever we want. Upon the suggestion of multiple friends and most recently Uncle Terry, we gave Carnivale a shot last night.

I've found that I can't watch normal network TeeVee shows anymore. The timing and laugh tracks and assumptions made about the audience just don't work for me. It's been too long since I watched broadcast television regularly (almost 20 years) -- I've lost the chip. But HBO series are another matter entirely. They are just stretched out movies or something. Much higher quality. Six Feet Under was the first that showed us what TeeVee could be nowadays. The first season was a huge hit in this house.

But I digress, back to the gloating. We were watching Carnivale last night, and a pretty older lady (HBO is great for casting beautiful older actresses as well) was haunting my memory banks. Finally I realized who it was and blurted out, "she's that lady from The Swamp Thing!" T. and The Wife were incredulous, they made some comment about me being such a freak and laughed.

Turns out I am a freak, because I was RIGHT. It's Adrienne Barbeau, a heart-throb of mine early in my life. Probably very early actually, because there was a family friend who looked just like her.

Another quick digression: A popular story with the parents is that when the Adrienne Barbeau look-alike was visiting us and I was still a toddler, I unceremoniously grabbed her boobies -- one in each hand. Her response was "Ohhh, how cute, he likes older women." At which point she promised to return for my 16th birthday. Even though she hadn't been around for many moons at that point, she did show up for my 16th birthday -- I was thrilled and mortified simultaneously.

Enjoy your media savvy and childhood crushes,

Bp

"Hobbit" bones debated

I cringe when I see decent scientific discoveries presented in the media with buzzwords that cheapen the relevance of the event. In this BBC article, an interesting Hominid fossil discovery in Indonesa is referred to as a "Hobbit." Geez.

The subject matter of the article is informative, despite the use of a ludicrous buzzword, you might want to give it a read.

Enjoy your spun world,

Bp

ZeFrank: What's up with the Deciduous trees yo?

Early day today, so here's some dancing bologna while I go about in search of bloggable material.

ps: I ate way too much smoked whitefish yesterday -- so good, but so rich.

Enjoy the change of seasons,

Bp

Smoked fish for breakfast

After staying up wayyy too late, I realized that when you leave the skin on the fish, the "drying" time (no smoke, low heat) goes up 10-fold from the recipies. So, I hit the sack and pulled the fish out this morning. I used a Highly Traditional Smoker. I used 3 "loads" of alder chips for smoke, 18 hours "lite" brine, and 8 hours under heat. The small fish at least are pretty dam good. There is, of course, room for improvement.

Like a newb I brined em a bit too long (but not much), and used too much smoke. Next time, I'll add some garlic and a bit more molasses to the brine, brine them about 8 less hours, and only use 2 "loads" of chips for smoke. For a first attempt I'm quite pleased though. The fish have a great carmel color on the outside, and look just like the vacume-packed smoked whitefish you can buy in the deli counter at our local New York Style deli.

It was a great breakfast, time to bag em up.

Enjoy your random projects,

Bp