Random Observations (September 4, 2012)

1) It has been announced that the upcoming season of The Office will be the last. The Office is one of only three prime time shows that I watch on a regular basis; one of the other two, 30 Rock, will also be ending after this season.  This will be the ninth season of The Office, which is a pretty good run for a comedy series, so I can't complain too much on that front.  What does worry me is that the producers plan to "do justice to the existing characters in the most creative and explosive way" and "blow up things and take some chances", which makes me think that they will ruin the show.  

2) In reference to my last "Random Observations" post, I need to issue a retraction. Taylor Swift is not moving to a mansion in Hyannis Port, and I need to stay away from the celebrity gossip, so that I don't have to issue retractions. 

3) Also from my last "Random Observations" post, I would like to reiterate the part about the toothpaste, because I feel that it has been underappreciated.

4) Ten years ago, who would have thought that Britney Spears would be having a conversation (using something called "Twitter") with a robot probe exploring Mars? Or, more accurately, that Britney Spears would be having a conversation with someone from NASA pretending to be a robot probe exploring Mars? Or, perhaps, that someone from Britney Spears' management team pretending to be Britney Spears would be having a conversation with someone from NASA pretending to be a robot probe exploring Mars? At this point I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say.  

5) I need to find some new topics about which to make random observations, other than shallow pop-culture television and music news.

Death Comes for Bigfoot

A man in Montana was recently killed while attempting to hoax a bigfoot sighting.  He ran onto a highway while wearing a ghillie suit, and was hit by two cars.  (A ghillie suit is a form of camouflage used by hunters and snipers, with a texture that resembles shaggy fur, and a name that recalls an unfortunate Kristen Wiig character.)  

I have wondered for a while about a similar potential situation.  What would the legal fallout be if someone dressed in a bigfoot costume in a forest were to be shot?  Would the shooter be charged with murder or manslaughter, on the grounds that he should have known that bigfoot does not exist, which is the overwhelming consensus among zoologists?  Or would he be charged with some lesser offense, or not at all, because he legitimately believed himself to be killing a non-human creature, even if such a belief is not scientifically supported?  I don't know enough about criminal law to provide an answer, but someday someone may have to provide the answer in real life.

Random Observations (August 16, 2012)

It seems to take me days or weeks to write a traditional blog entry, so I am trying some smaller random observations.  

1) When I hear the new Taylor Swift single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the spoken word section reminds me of the Frank Zappa song "Valley Girl".  For what it's worth, though, Taylor Swift is moving to a mansion in Hyannis Port, and not to a really good part of Encino.  

2) On television commercials in which people brush their teeth, they never use toothpaste.  

3) This is not exactly current events, but I have been thinking that virtually every character on the show Happy Days had a name that ended in an "e" sound—Fonzie, Richie, Potsie, Joanie, and Chachi.  The only one of the younger generation of characters whose name ended with a consonant sound was Ralph Malph. (When I watched Happy Days as a very young child, I was not clear on phonetic concepts, and so I thought that Ralph Malph was Ralph Mouth.)

4) I recently learned that former Dire Straits keyboardist Alan Clark and former Dire Straits saxophonist Chris White have formed a band (along with the drummer from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and some other people) called the Straits to fulfill the demand for public performances of Dire Straits songs.  (Dire Straits, in case you didn't know, broke up twenty years ago.)  That is not too surprising.  What is surprising is that they are writing and recording an album of new material, presumably in the style of Eighties Dire Straits.  But what will it sound like without Mark Knopfler (who will be touring this fall with Bob Dylan)?

Muskox Musings

In old news, over a month ago I read that a Muskox (Ovibos moschatus) had been seen in the the forests of northern Alberta, five hundred kilometers south of where it would normally be found. (I first learned of the sighting on Cryptomundo, which is a good place if you want to keep up on what's happening with Bigfoot, which you probably don't.)

The appearance of a Muskox in the boreal forest is perplexing given that the Muskox is is currently found only in the tundra, and is considered to be ecologically limited to that particular habitat.  I speculate, though, that the Muskox's restriction to tundra habitats maybe be an artifact of thousands of years of hunting by humans.  The tundra may simply have been the only part  of the Muskox's natural range in which human population density was low enough that Muskoxen could avoid being completely wiped out.  Now that the Muskox enjoys legal protection from hunting, it may be expanding southward into suitable areas.  A good analog might be the Caribou (Rangifer tarandus), which inhabits both the tundra and the taiga, and in historic times was found as far south as Maine.

Iguanodon Thumbs

Over the past few days I've been reading a book about the famous Iguanodon site at Bernissart, Belgium.  (Well, okay, maybe the site is only famous among vertebrate paleontologists.) 

Iguanodon is a dinosaur perhaps best known for the spikes on its thumbs.  It is unknown if the spikes were used for defense against predators, in intra-specific combat, or in feeding. I've been thinking, though, that the thumb spikes would have been perfect for hitch-hiking. 

This theory could have been the basis for a Far Side cartoon, showing an Iguanodon standing next to a highway thumbing a ride, with the caption "The real reason Iguanodon had thumb spikes", along the same lines as the famous "The real reason dinosaurs became extinct" cartoon.  

Or, alternately, the cartoon could show a car pulling up to an Iguanodon on the side of the road, who angrily declares, "I'm not hitch-hiking, I'm an Iguanodon!", with the same sense of saurian outrage displayed in the "Well, of course I did it in cold blood,you idiot! ... I'm a reptile!" cartoon.  

(I was surprised to learn in researching this post that there is apparently no official online archive of Far Side cartoons.)

On a side note, from what I understand, hitch-hiking is still popular in Europe, but it has been virtually extinct in the United States for decades.  In the course of my entire life I can recall seeing only one or two hitch-hikers.  There is an odd sort of "mutual assured destruction" doctrine in people's minds—if you go hitch-hiking, the person who picks you up will murder you, and if you pick up a hitch-hiker, the hitch-hiker will murder you.  

Perhaps we would be less apprehensive about hitch-hiking if we had thumb spikes to defend ourselves.  

One for the Taphonomically Inclined

(Click the image for a larger version.)

About ten days ago I found this dead hawk.  I think that it is a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), but hawk identification is not one of my strong points. It was lying on a nearly vertical stream bank, about a foot above the waterline.  

It had been lying in this position long enough for several twigs to accumulate on it, without having been disturbed by scavengers.  The feathers were still in a configuration which was nearly perfectly life-like. At the same time, what appear to be the neck vertebrae were exposed, indicating that the hawk's soft tissues had been removed, presumably by the action of insect larvae.

The hawk reminds me somewhat of Archaeopteryx specimens with preserved feathers.  It is interesting to consider the length of time that the hawk's feathers and skeletal structure had remained undisturbed, and how this would affect the potential for long-term preservation, in the rare event that such a dead bird would eventually be covered by sediment.    

An Important Ridley Question

The movie Prometheus, from director Ridley Scott, will be opening Friday.  I don't think that I will see it, because I don't see a lot of movies, and in general I am really tired. But for years, every time that a Ridley Scott movie has come out, I have been plagued by a vexing question: If Ridley Scott were to fight the Ridley Sea Turtle, who would win?

I suppose that, since the turtle only weighs around 100 pounds, the director would win.  But, as in many things, the outcome of the battle would probably be determined by where it took place—on land, or in the water.