A Fun Post-Halloween Activity

Halloween is eleven days behind us.  Yet, while walking around yesterday, I saw that many people still had their porch pumpkins.  Perhaps Halloween has become such an important holiday that we want to extend the Halloween spirit into the first weeks of November, in the same way in which we wish to extend the spirit of Christmas through the end of December.  

Thus, I am providing step-by-step instructions for a fun activity by which one can keep a little bit of that special Halloween magic alive.

1. Assemble a group of a dozen or more of your friends.

2. Provide each member of the group with a dark, hooded robe which will fully obscure his identity.

3. Provide each member of the group with a battery-powered lantern, ideally one with a design reminiscent of archaic candle- or oil-based lanterns.  (Bonus points are awarded if you refer to your lanterns as “lanthorns”.)  

4. Shortly before midnight, congregate in an uninhabited area such as a cemetery or woodland.  Don your robes and activate your lanterns.

5. Emerge from the uninhabited area and walk silently in single file down the sidewalk, holding your lanterns in front of you.  

6. Select a house which is clearly occupied, but whose occupants no one in your group knows.

7. If possible, fully surround the house, or, if prevented from doing so by fences or other obstacles, form a semi-circle in the front yard.  

8. Begin chanting in deep and ominous tones, preferably in Latin.  

9. When the homeowner emerges to question or challenge your group, do not acknowledge him in any way except by increasing the volume of your chanting and the menace of your intonation . . . 

Okay, on second thought maybe it’s better to put Halloween behind us and start looking ahead to Thanksgiving.

Political Questions

I don't blog about politics.  I think about politics a lot.  I read about politics.  But, the older that I get, the more I think that there is no point in discussing politics with anyone else, because most people aren't open to reconsidering their political positions, and the only thing that I would accomplish would be to get other people mad at me, or maybe to get me mad at other people.  Yet I worry that people will think that I'm shallow because I don't blog about politics, as political interest is seen as the mark of intellect, especially here in the Washington area, where people eat, drink, and smoke politics.  

Today, though, I am making an exception; I have decided that, in honor of the 2016 presidential contest (which has been going on for maybe three years now, and will probably continue until at least 2019), I will share some of the deeper questions that I am contemplating regarding today's political landscape:

  *Did Carly Fiorina sing "Call Me Maybe"?

  *Am I correct in my impression that Bernie Sanders is Doc Brown from Back to the Future, and in order for his policies to work we would all have to drive at exactly 88.8 miles per hour?

  *What is the difference between Rand Paul and Paul Ryan?  Is there some simple mnemonic that I could use remember that difference?

  *Never mind Hillary Clinton's e-mail problems . . . how was Bill Clinton able to avoid being caught up in the Ashley Madison hack?

Trevor the Hobgoblin

As I noted in my last post, it is the Halloween season.  The Halloween season always makes me feel that something cool should happen, and of course it never does, and every year it prompts me to blog. (You can click on the Halloween tag at the bottom of this post to find my old Halloween entries.  Indeed, I should probably click on the Halloween tag to see what I've written in past years.)  

Among other things, Halloween make me wish for something scary—not Ebola-scary, but scary in a fun, fantastical way. Things like that don't happen in our limited world, but I like to think that, in a world of limitless possibilities, a hobgoblin named Trevor could show up at my door.  

It would go something like this:

Trevor: Hi, my name is Trevor, and I'll be your hobgoblin for the evening.

Me: Huh? What does that mean?

Trevor: Basically, I am a hobgoblin, and later on tonight I'll  be haunting you.  

Me: Really? So how is this going to work?

Trevor: I think that we'll be going with the standard package.  You'll enter the cemetery late at night in an attempt to uncover an ancient secret, then at some point I will surprise you and chase you out of the cemetery and across the darkened landscape, until you evade me by crossing a stream, taking advantage of the well-known fact that supernatural beings can't cross running water.  And it will all be over in time for you to be home safe in bed by midnight.

Me: Could we maybe have me home safe by 11:35?  I'd like to catch Kimmel's monologue.  

Trevor: Yes, we could arrange that, but you should keep in mind that Kimmel normally shows a rerun on Friday nights. 

Me: Yeah, that's true, but he said on his show Wednesday night that he'll be doing a new episode for Halloween.  

Trevor:  Well, okay then, that's good to know.

Me: So is that all there is to it?

Trevor: We could do the expanded package, which contains an ironic twist in which, as you try to make your escape from me by the crossing the stream, you're attacked by a swamp monster in a nearby mire.  That would require more time and effort, though, and I'll need eight hours advanced notice in order to schedule the swamp monster.  

Me: Okay, let's just stick with the regular package.

Trevor: Very well then, I look forward to seeing you tonight.

Me: Before you go, I have a question—if you can't cross running water, how were you able to get here today? Didn't you have to go over some streams?

Trevor: We have our ways, sir.  

And then Trevor would be on his way to prepare for the night's events.  And even though I would have thought about it, I wouldn't have asked him what the difference is between a goblin and a hobgoblin, because maybe that would be a sensitive subject which he wouldn't want to discuss.

I, Carlius

I don't watch the Nickelodeon network, because I am not a kid, nor do I have kids.  And in general I have a hard time even keeping straight which shows have been on Nickelodeon, and which have been on the Disney channel (although, from what I can tell, child actors from Nickelodeon are less likely to develop serious drug problems than their peers from Disney).  

But unknown elements of the popular culture will sometimes float up into my view. An indeterminate amount of time ago, I saw a reference somewhere to the Nickelodeon show iCarly.  I was bored, and decided to research the show on Wikipedia.  I read about the premise (a comedy, that ran from 2007 to 2012, about teenagers who produce a popular webcast), and the characters, and the various seasons, and even the cross-over episode with the show Victorious, starring, among others, Ariana Grande, who sounds like something that one would order at Starbucks.

And then I had an even better idea for a cross-over episode—iCarly meets I, Claudius. 

I, Claudius (which I discussed earlier) is a classic BBC historical drama from the Seventies, dealing with ancient Rome and the ambitions, schemes, and outright madness of those who ruled it, or sought to. 

And when wholesome teen internet celebrities meet depraved, insane Roman emperors, you get fun for the whole family!  Well, maybe not for the whole family . . .  I, Claudius does contain material that is unsuitable for children.  Indeed, I, Claudius contains material that is unsuitable for adults.

Still, I can't help thinking that an iCarly and I, Claudius cross-over would be a landmark television event just as powerful and crazy as Emperor Caligula himself.  And maybe if we're lucky Patrick Stewart would reprise his role as Sejanus.  Of course, on the downside, there is the reasonable chance that some of the iCarly characters would end up decapitated and/or crucified.

The pitch meeting with a Nickelodeon executive would run something like this:

Me: Okay, I have a great idea.  All that you need to do is to put iCarly back into production, then make an extended cross-over episode utilizing the characters from the BBC show I, Claudius.

Nickelodeon Executive: Hey what what??

Me: It's a can't-miss concept.  Take one of your popular comedies, and combine it with a 1976 TV show based on a 1934 book about the early days of the Roman Empire.  It's what today's tweens are clamoring for.  

Nickelodeon Executive: I don't see that working out on a lot of different levels.

Me:  It would be ground-breaking television.  It would win all kinds of awards.  It would get raves from both twelve-year-olds and classical scholars. Of course, on the downside, there is the reasonable chance that some of the iCarly characters would end up decapitated and/or crucified.

Nickelodeon Executive: Did you just say "and/or" in casual conversation?

Me: Yes.

Nickelodeon Executive:  I just don't think that it would fit with our demographic.

Me: You've got to do it.  The kids will love it!  It'll be awesome!  It won't just be awesome.  It'll be . . . it'll be . . . supercalifragilistic!!

[long, awkward silence]

Me: What?

Nickelodeon Executive: That's Disney.

Me: Oh . . . um . . . sorry.

Nickelodeon Executive: Get out.

Questions

It's hard to believe that it's been two months since my millipede entry.  I have a huge number of topics about which I want to blog, but not much time or energy to actually do the blogging.  I do feel that I should put up at least one post every month, though.  Since life is full of questions, I thought that I would make my sole June post about important current questions.  (Unfortunately, I couldn't post this on the last day of June due to technical difficulties, and now it is almost July, and I thought that I should finally make myself post this.)  

1. What are bitcoins? Should I know?

2. Am I expected to make a statement on the current Paula Deen controversy? 

3. What did we learn on the show tonight, Craig? (Okay, this is more of a question for Craig Ferguson from his cat.)

4. Do I look like the kind of person who would have a cigarette?  Last month I was in Virginia Beach, and I was walking down the street at night, and these three teenaged boys ride by on bicycles, and the the first one says, "You got a cigarette?", and I think, "Is this the prelude to a crime?", and say "No".  Then the second teenaged boy rides by, and then the third, and the the third says, "You got a cigarette?"  I look like the kind of person who would have a calculator.  But I don't think that I look like the kind of person who'd have a cigarette. 

5. Do I look like the kind of person who would have bitcoins?

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.  

Halloween Is Going

Halloween has come and gone, and the evil pumpkin-headed dude did not show up. He could appear next year, though. Or perhaps evil rat-men will emerge from the sewers. There is always hope.

Sunday afternoon I was in the Old Town section of Alexandria, Virginia. There were a few people wearing the evening's costumes early. And I also saw some people, mostly women, dressed in such a way that made me ask myself, "Is that a costume, or just a questionable fashion choice?"

With men it is usually clear cut as to whether clothing is a costume. I did see one guy, however, who led me to wonder, "Is that a costume, or just a questionable beard choice?"

Another seasonal milestone that will soon pass is Election Day. And that means a (temporary) end to political advertising. This year there have been so many political advertisements that we almost ran out of commercial space for things like Skittles. Just about every television ad for the last month has consisted of angry people glaring into the camera and delineating why a particular candidate is a bastard. (Bonus points were awarded if one of the glaring angry people wore a hard hat, because that made him the Authentic Voice of the Working Class.)

We are supposed to love political advertising, because it's America, and freedom, and democracy. But I hate it.

Halloween Is Still Coming

I am going to write about Halloween again for no good reason. If I have the energy to write something, then I might as well write something about something.

Halloween comes at a good time of year. Dead leaves lie in the street to rustle eerily in the breeze as we walk by. The sky at sunset looks spookier than it does in other months. (Or do I just think that it looks spookier because I am seeing it through the lens of the Halloween season?) Yet Halloween lacks any real monsters, because they do not exist. And I have to wonder, if Halloween monsters were real, how would they affect your Halloween?

If, on Halloween night, you were to walk outside and see a dude with a flaming pumpkin for a head standing there, would it make your Halloween better or worse?

Or, what would you do if you saw a mummy, with a kopesh, and other historically accurate ancient Egyptian accouterments, and he started to chase you, and you ran, and as you ran you could hear the creaking of his ancient joints behind you, coming closer and closer, as he relentlessly pursued a quest to enact vengeance on the world for disturbing his eternal rest?

Or, for some true and crazy fear, how would you react to a horrid chimerical beast with the body of a bull and five heads, each head belonging to a different panelist from The View?

What I'm really trying to say is that I don't know what I'm trying to say. But I do think that Halloween might be better if its characteristic supernatural monsters were real. Candy sales would plummet because trick-or-treaters would stay inside for fear of being ripped apart by fleshing-eating goblins. But when we would hear the werewolves howling around our kitchen doors in tribute to the late Warren Zevon, it would be worth it.

Halloween Is Coming

Halloween is fast approaching, and I have marked the occasion by using AppleWorks to draw a crude jack-o'-lantern. The mouth didn't work out right, but Appleworks wouldn't let me "undo" it. As a result, I can't tell if he is happy, worried, or nauseous.

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year. When I used to blog at Wandering Army I wrote several posts about Halloween. Maybe one day when I put those posts back online somewhere I can link to them.

Much as I enjoy Halloween in theory, it doesn't have any real impact on my life, other than as an occasion to sit around and think scary thoughts. I have not been invited to a Halloween party since 2001. And I can't say that I'm surprised. I am not the sort of person that one would want at a party, because I am naturally morose.

If I ever were to take part in Halloween festivities, I would have to get a costume, which would be problematic. Judging by the commercially available costumes that I've seen, it would be hard to find something that would be both scary and an expression of my personality—something along the lines of an evil rhynchocephalian with extremely high SAT scores.

(I will note here that many paleontologists and zoologists prefer to use the name Sphenodontia in place of Rhynchocephalia, because at one point Rhynchocephalia accumulated some fossil taxa that didn't actually belong there. I, however, support the use of Rhynchocephalia in the sense that it originally intended, as a classifier for the tuatara ((Sphenodon)), and thus also for the tuatara's legitimate fossil relatives. Also I will admit to being biased in favor of Rhynchocephalia because it sounds cool. Sphenodontia sounds cool as well, but the same basic word is in use elsewhere, in the genus name Sphenodon and the family name Sphenodontidae.)

And finally, if I can provide any real insight here, which is unlikely, it would be an idea as to one reason why Halloween is as hugely popular as it is. Halloween is not like other holidays. On Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day, and almost any other holiday, we are constantly being urged to suspend our unthinking enjoyment to contemplate the "real meaning" of the day. And we probably should contemplate the real meaning of those days. But Halloween has no real meaning. It's pure fun.

Modern Music Can Be Confusing

There is a lot of serious and artfully crafted material that I want to put on this blog, but I am too tired to do so, so I will make do with more pop culture foolishness.

While looking at the iTunes top 100, I noticed that the only difference between Ke$ha . . .

. . . and Adam Lambert . . .

. . . is about 45 degrees of rotation.

They both have the same facial shape, the same facial expression, and the same loose lock of hair flying off over the left eye.

And they are both people whom I hope are in no earlier than the fourteenth of their fifteen minutes of fame.

Well, okay, maybe there are a few differences. For instance, Adam Lambert appears to be wearing more eye make-up.

Today I listened to Dire Straits Makin' Movies, the first two songs of Bruce Springsteen Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., and the Cars Door to Door.

Rock on.

Dessert and the Formation of Deserts (Loosely Speaking)

I have been thinking that most of the basic concepts of geology can be explained in terms of cake:

If you take a crumb from the cake and look at it under a microscope, that's petrology.

If you investigate the icing, that's surficial geology.

If you examine the layers of the cake, that's stratigraphy.

If you slice the cake, that's tectonics.

If you put the cake on a plate and slide it around, that's plate tectonics.

I suppose that I could extend the analogy further by saying that if you study the dead animals that you find in the cake, that's paleontology, but no one wants to find dead animals in a cake.

Saturday Night Live-Blogging Considered

Sometimes I think that I should live-blog something. Live-blogging is the process of watching an event, usually on television, and posting commentary on a blog in real time as the event unfolds. Live-blogging is often used by political bloggers for things like Presidential debates.

One candidate for live-blogging would be Saturday Night Live, a new episode of which airs in a few minutes. Of course, live-blogging Saturday Night Live in its current state would probably consist of writing That wasn't very good over and over. Also, I like to eat during the show, and then sometimes play my keyboard when I am done eating, and too much multi-tasking can ruin a man.

Tonight the show is hosted by Tina Fey, with musical guest Justin Bieber. (I cannot resist linking to the Justin Bieber official site, but please understand that I am only linking ironically.) If I were writing for the show, I would suggest a cold open in which a middle-aged man visits his doctor, complaining of high temperature, sore throat, heart palpitations, etc. The doctor would diagnosis the patient with severe Bieber Fever, and ask the patient if he had been listening to the music of and watching the videos of Justin Bieber. The patient would say that he hadn't, but that he had been bitten by a tick.

"That'll do it too," the doctor would say. Then he would get out a medical book to look up how to treat his patient. At that moment, the other cast members would burst into the room, wearing surgical scrubs, and busting out their best hip-hop dance moves, all the while jubilantly singing, "There is no reliever for the Bieber fever!!"

As the musical number builds to a fevered pitch, one of the cast members, probably Andy Samberg, would point at these same words written in giant letters on a poster, using a telescoping metal pointer. Then the music and dancing would end, and the patient would collapse lifeless on the examination table.

"He is dead," the doctor would say, "and live from New York, it's Saturday Night!"

Realistically, I predict , of course, a Tina Fey Sarah Palin sketch . . . and maybe something along the lines of Leave It To Bieber.

At the Rock Bar

Mid-Ocean Ridge Basalt is a big deal for hard rock geologists. (When I write hard rock geologists, I am not referring to geologists fond of loud, distorted electric guitar tones. Rather, I am using a somewhat archaic term that differentiates igneous and metamorphic petrologists from those who study softer, sedimentary rocks.)

Mid-Ocean Ridge Basalt is a rock that forms at the mid-ocean ridge when magma from the mantle leaks to surface and cools—the innards of the world spilling forth, the Earth's rocky blood bleeding out and scabbing over.

I like to think that somewhere in the world, maybe in Boston, there is a bar. But it's not just any bar. It's a bar where all the patrons are different types of rock. And when Mid-Ocean Ridge Basalt walks in, they all yell, "MORB!"

An Attempt At Understanding Sports

The top news story on Friday was the press conference of Tiger Woods, who is no longer burning bright in the forests of the night. (At this point I could discuss the disparate levels of media coverage given to the marital indiscretions of Tiger Woods, who is an irrelevant sports figure, versus those of John Edwards, a politician who tried to become leader of the Free World, but that topic is too serious for this blog.) I am not a sports fan, so I don't normally think about someone like Tiger Woods, except when he somehow makes it into the regular news. I don't know much about professional athletes; I can sometimes form some confused ideas as a result.

As a case in point, for a long time, whenever I heard the name Gilbert Arenas, I thought that it referred to the venue in which the Wizards play.

And, moving to the college level of basketball, I often have trouble remembering that Greivis Vasquez wasn't a character in Episode III.

The Blizzards of 2010

The Washington area has experienced two abnormally large snow storms in the past week. The official Reagan National Airport totals were 18 inches for the first storm, and 10 inches for the second. Measurements at my locale yielded a few inches more for the first, and significantly less for the second.

Like many other people, I kept track of the snow by watching Channel 4 news, featuring superstar weatherman Bob Ryan. His work will be recognized in a ceremony at the White House later this month in which he will be promoted to Blizzard Wizard—the highest rank bestowable on a civilian meteorologist in the United States.

Another distinctive feature of Channel 4 snow coverage is the Pat Collins man-on-the-street report. Narration for a typical Pat Collins segment runs something like this:

"Public transit is shut down. Cars are stranded in the middle of the street. People are throwing snowballs everywhere. It's anarchy in the UK. But I'm not in the UK. Jim, Doreen . . . [ominously] I'm in Bethesda."