LOST Complete Collection!

Hey, guess who got the LOST Complete Collection! (Thanks, Lynn!) Besides having every episode in high def and lots of bonuses, the packaging is really cool, with some surprises, mysteries, and even an answer!

Your Five Favorite Bands

OK, guys, I have a proposition. First an explanation: One of the radio stations here is asking listeners to send in their favorite 5 songs of all time. I think that would be really hard. So I’m going to start off slow. I want you to list your five favorite bands/singers/artists. No more than five! One question: Should we include solo artists and the groups they sang in together, or separately? Like is John Lennon a separate artist from the Beatles, or should all his work be considered together? What about Paul Simon with and without Art Garfunkel? To me, John Lennon is a different artist that The Beatles, but Paul Simon’s work should all be considered together. What do you think? I leave it up to you.
In future postings I will ask for favorite Beatles songs, then other artists, then perhaps favorite classical and/or jazz and/or show tunes and/or hymns/carols, then eventually, favorite five songs of all time. So be pondering….

Hawaii Five-O

My second TV review. I decided to watch the pilot of Hawaii Five-O. Anybody care to guess why? Anyway, here’s my review. The story was non-existent: crime solved in two clues, bad guy found with little effort except a gun battle and car chase, bad guy dispatched in a fist fight and another gun fight. The rest of the story centered on McGarrett ridiculously being named to head a secret above-the-law paramilitary police unit, then equally ridiculously assembling his team. The banter between McGarrett and Danno was cute. The characters are cardboard (see previous post), except Danno, who is actually sympathetic. He’s a New Jersey cop who follows his ex-wife to Hawaii when she moves there with their daughter. The build-up to - and delivery of - McGarrett’s famous “Book him, Danno” was painful. At the end, the team is relaxing with some beers, and trying to come up with a name for their new team. It’ll probably be a hit.

The Event

It was advertised that The Event was a fix for LOSTies undergoing withdrawal. So, of course I gave it a try. Sadly, predictably, it wasn’t even close. In a supposed tip of the hat to LOST, the story was set up in fits and starts. After the initial scene, they backed up and told the precursor story starting some minutes earlier. Then they did it again, backing up several days, then again, months. The pacing was frenetic, the story wildly confusing, until the end, when it made semi-sense. Of course, there were huge mysterious holes, to be filled in coming weeks, presumably. It was sort of irritating, but the worst part was the lack of character development. The beauty of the LOST pilot was the ingenious way it presented a few of the mysteries of the island in short intense scenes, almost as side events. They introduced the characters in such a way that we loved them or hated them but we cared about them, while hinting at their interesting back stories. Unfortunately, The Event did exactly the opposite, using cardboard characters to introduce a full-blown apocalyptic mystery in a choppy narrative style. I predict this will last about as long as Flashforward did.
I’ll probably tune in next week anyway.

Enquirer note, and two pics

The above is from the Enquirer-Democrat. I know you can't read it, so I'll quote the last paragraph: Ryan's Pub baseball team was champion of the CISL Eastern Division of the Central Illinois Sports League. Team members were Jon Reid, Dan Armstrong, Jared Benjamin, Greg Burcham, Josh Reece, Josh Manning, Jason Bertinetti, Tim Lambeth, Josh Mahkovzt, Brad Suhling, and Brad Shade.

Here are a couple pics I took after the last game of that tournament. Dan got a bit beat up in that game.

Back-yard Nature

Whilst mowing Gramma and Gramps's back yard, I noticed this tree trunk



So what, you ask? Scroll down...




















Still don't see it? Scroll down further.....

The Poo Rock

Recently a student brought me "rock" one of her coworkers asked me to identify. She called it the Poo Rock. See why?







So far I've determined it's not really a rock at all, but a piece of metal. It conducts electricity. It's density is close to that of selenium, but it's probably not selenium, but rather an alloy of some sort. My next step is to determine it's specific heat, and try to find an alloy that matches its density and specific heat.