I was working in the yard a while back and found this action figure buried under the flowers. I thought he was from Star Wars but after some intense googling I couldn’t find anything resembling him.
A shiny new dime to anyone who might be able to help me: who is this guy, and what is he from?!
Someone’s got a crush on my favorite candidate…
So apparently I missed a decade-old controversy about Disney stealing ideas from other stories and claiming them as their own: The Lion King is accused of being stolen from a Japanese series about Kimbo the White Lion.
I could cite all of the scenes similarities or even delve into the plot similarities, but I think the visual evidence is interesting enough:
So if you can’t tell I’m catching up on posting news that has happened over the past week and a half. Last weekend Shannon and I attended a “driveway party”, which is basically a gathering of parents from the neighborhood who drink and relax after all the kids have gone to bed.
Two of our neighbors had these “minimotos“, which can go about 30 mph. That doesn’t sound very fast, but believe me - when you are just inches away from the ground these suckers can give you quite a thrill. Shannon and I had a blast driving them around our block.
I’ve got to admit they will be very tempting to buy once all of our children are older than 12… they’re under $200, and dad can ride them too!
I’m working on a special website that will launch within a couple weeks - I’ll post here when it does - but between work and coding I found myself searching through some boxes in the basement. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did find this gigantic class portrait of my graduating class. Just thought I would share:
I remember the camera they used to take this photograph: it operated by slowly scanning over the group, so if you moved too quickly the result would be a blur. Don’t we all look just thrilled?
The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project is a web site that is over a decade old (which is saying a lot, given the fickle nature of web sites). I recall originally seeing this site sometime during the late 90’s, most likely during my final high school years. It still makes me chuckle.
The site details experiments on the delectable Twinkie by two graduate undergraduate students who have a flair for experimentation. Tests include solubility, radiation, rapid oxidation, and the turing test (my personal favorite).
My wife is currently in Rome, which is known for (among other things) having the very foundation of the Catholic church: the Vatican. Naturally, as fate would have it, I will be heading to Las Vegas (a.k.a. Sin City) this weekend for a bachelor party.
Two things I know:
- God has a sense of humor.
- God may not play dice, but I will!
I ended up going to Comedy Comedy on Saturday night. It was a last minute decision to go - I had planned on spending the evening on the couch watching a WTTW special on Fidel Castro. But around 8:00pm it occurred to me that I would not be content eating frozen pizza alone on the couch (my wife is out of town).
I’m boring, but not THAT boring.
So I got up off my butt and went to watch some live stand-up comedy at Walter Payton’s roundhouse (for those of you keeping track this was my second time there). I enjoyed all of the comedians. In particular the opening act, a local guy named Jim Flannigan, had some very funny observations.
After the comedy came a band and I stuck around to listen. They were a cover band called CoverGurl (picture in blog entry), whose claim to fame is that their lead singer was on Rockstar:INXS. They put on a very good rock show. It probably didn’t hurt that their lead singer was a babe - and that the next best thing to do was sit at home alone and watch a Fidel Castro special.
After the band stopped I went into the next room (the “Cognac Bar”) and watched an incredible magician perform some “close” magic. His name is Jonathan Kamm and his tricks literally made my jaw drop. It was mostly slight-of-hand magic and I watched him for a good hour or two. Even though I saw the same tricks a couple times I still couldn’t figure out how he did it! If you are in the greater Chicagoland area and looking for a great entertainer I strongly recommend Jonathan Kamm.
Have you ever had a phrase appear in your head and thought to yourself: “I wonder if I was the first person to conjure that up?” Well, here are two sayings that came to my mind today:
- Money and respect have one thing in common: they both must be earned.
- The moment you think that you are better than someone, you’re wrong.
I’m not naive enough to believe I was the first to think or speak such sayings (not by a long shot). I most likely heard them from someone at some point in my life. But, after googling quotes of famous people and not seeing similar quotes, I think I will now make the claim that they are “my” quotes.
Now all I need to do is get famous. Or infamous. In the meantime, any greeting card companies out there want to give me some royalties?
My bamboo plant is slowly recovering from a botched experiment I performed. This morning I noticed that it has begun to sprout a new stalk out of (what I thought was) a dead limb for the first time in months.
This small bamboo has been with us for several years and until about 6 months ago it wasn’t really growing well. We had always kept it in standing water so I decided that since bamboo is a plant it might do better in soil. I reasoned further that, since it had so far been capable of surviving in standing water, the best environment might be half soil/half water. I also thought it might appreciate a bit more sunlight.
Boy, was I wrong with that last assumption.
After just two days in direct sunlight the plant looked bleached and damaged. A week into my “direct sun” experiment and the plant looked like it was on it’s last legs. I transplanted it into some moist soil in an indoor pot hoping the nutrients in the soil might help the plant regain lost strength.
Today the plant is in a 95% water and 5% soil mixture; so far this mixture appears to help the plant not only survive but also repair itself and grow a little bit. I am proud to say that my little bamboo plant is finally on the road to recovery.
