|+| Suddenly it occurs to me that the Twilight craze has gotten to the point that it will affect my Flickr tagging. D: Here's to people searching for "sparkly vampire" and coming up with "container ship" . . .

|+| Speaking of Flickr, tagging drives me batty. There isn't any good advice on how to do it well. The whole group spamming thing can get dumb also . . . though I'm disappointed there are no real costuming photo pools. (Fat white booty? Dogs on roofs? Yes.) Tempting to start one but probably no one would join. :|

|+| Your useless information for the day: apparently when referring to a certain amphibian, it used to be "an ewt" . . . not "a newt".

|+| Been watching random "educational" TV on Natgeo. (Most of it is too busy being melodramatic to have much content.) Accidentally gave out correct information about on a show on Unknown Man E regarding where he was found and why, several minutes before it was in the voice over. Reminded me I used to know stuff, largely because I used to learn stuff. Apparently may still have some brain cells intact . . . :<

|+| spiders in space. Also, bored octopus takes up bad habits: like juggling.

|+| Depressed penguins need Suntory beer; amusing Russian animation, minimal or no dialogue: "Rain Down From Above"; it sucks to be a cat in Russia; jungle love (character design SO CUTE); wayward fishermen (and a hamster).

Too bad that all the doctors were out today due to Yom Kippur (sic?), since I have had an exciting turn - I may have gotten Lyme disease. :P I have a lovely (though small) bullseye rash on my knee, and the symptoms match quite well. Probably not but has to be checked anyway.

For some reason I decided to try and understand who won Nobel prizes and why, so I read about subatomic physics tonight. My problem with physics tends to be that as soon as it starts to involve mathematic equations, I stop understanding it. Admittedly I can't say that one course on quantum physics and some idle reading gave me anything more than a profoundly fragile grasp on the ideas. :P It does, however, involve some really cool diagrams. I think that if I could wrap my head around it well enough, things like catastrophe theory would be incredibly useful concepts in general . . .

I think that someone told me a zip file I sent them was corrupted, but now I can't remember who it would have been, or if I *dreamed it*. Maybe I should not have given up being an astronomer; I might be well suited to sitting around on my own thinking about strange things and being totally out of touch. :<

Put up photos from the Schmidt Museum of Coca-Cola memorabilia, where we stopped on the way between Louisville, KY and Bowling Green where my cousin's wedding was. Had a 10¢ Cherry Coke and got taken back to the private room to see the 1893 marble soda fountain. I wanted to go to other places but I didn't have the energy. :( I had to leave my cousin's wedding early (well it wasn't that EARLY). Admittedly I've been to most of the caves in the Mammoth area but I did want to go to Dinosaur World . . . did wind up going to Flea Land (KY's largest indoor flea market!). It was mostly newer stuff, an actual flea market + fried foods (like the Troll Market in Hellboy II but with rural Kentuckians instead). Cultural experience ahoy . . .

Also put up videos on YouTube for the first time. o_O Needed an easy place to put the two Japan videos since my father wanted to send them to the family - also put up three short clips from the Dragon*Con parade. I got lucky with the Halo solider and the kids, too bad I can't zoom while filming.

So iMovie can't import .mpg video files; I try and convert in QuickTime Pro. Can't figure out why I have no audio no matter what format I use. Turns out, QT can play fine, but it can't extract the audio from MPEG-1 for export - can't handle any MUXed audio. That's STUPID. Luckily, there is a freeware program that CAN do this called Squared5. Posting this in case it comes up for anyone else. :P

( thoughts on the American Life on Mars )
Whether you watch the American one or not . . . seriously, do yourself a favor, and watch the BBC Life on Mars. I watch a lot of TV because I think it's fun or entertaining; but this show was really exceptional work no matter how you evaluate it.

I originally would have posted this to doodledawdle but I decided I spent too much time on it for it to qualify as a doodle.

( giant robots need therapy too )

( really cool stop-motion PV )

I guess it's not relevant to anyone else, but I'm going to visit my brother in NYC in April. It just so happens that I have tickets to a concert there that weekend. What a coincidence . . .

And yes, just in case anyone was wondering - Katsucon is out. Nowhere to stay. I've sworn off solo hotel rooms for both financial and psychological reasons. Sorry.