Whistling, in some cases because the lyrics are so lame

 Leisure, Popular Culture  1 Response »
Nov 182007
 

I’m a whistler. I’ll whistle a tune two or three times a week, whilst performing a menial task or somesuch. I like what I like. I’ve generally got four or five songs I’ll choose from, and I don’t turn them over often at all. For example, “Pennsylvania Polka,” as heard in Groundhog Day, has been in my rotation for at least ten years.

Whistling’s one thing, and singing is quite another. Thing is, there are some eminently catchy tunes out there that have lyrics, and you probably don’t know it.

If you ever whistle or hum the theme from Bonanza and enjoy it, don’t click here. It’s got words. They’re really bad. You have been warned.

The theme from the original Star Trek has words, too. The song was originally written as an instrumental, and Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics for it as a cash grab.

The one that has depressed me the most is “Music Box Dancer.” Man, what a great melody. How can a dedicated music box song have lyrics? Alas, Ray Conniff decided it needed some.

 Posted by at 8:58 pm

What’s it take to blow your mind?

 Current Events  1 Response »
Nov 162007
 

Here’s a question I’ve been enjoyably chewing on for the past couple of days:  What do you think will (plausibly) be discovered or invented in your lifetime that will amaze you the most?

My runner-up is something that’s imminent.  The digital storage problem is almost solved.  We are approaching a point at which the digital storage of practically infinite amounts of information will be trivially inexpensive.  (No moving parts, either.)

This pudgy writer-type who remembers worshiping at the altar of the 256K Apple /// with a 5MB hard drive finds that rather incredible.

Far and away, my winner is that I think we’ll discover extraterrestrial microorganisms in my lifetime, perhaps on Titan or Europa.  As much exploration as we’re doing, and at the granular levels at which we’re doing it, it feels inevitable.  That will be almost as exciting as discovering intelligent life, because if the microorganisms are out there, the higher organisms almost certainly are (somewhere).

What’s yours?  What will we discover or invent in your lifetime that will make you think/say “this changes everything”?

 Posted by at 8:22 pm

Aaron White Rice

 Family  1 Response »
Nov 162007
 

Aaron’s preschool had its Thanksgiving program and luncheon today.

His brother’s a ham.  He, so far, is not.  He walked in, stood where he was supposed to, and so forth, and he didn’t melt all the way down until well after it was over.  But this photograph of the procession into the sanctuary shows him at his happiest during the ordeal.

In any case, we certainly have enjoyed the Indian name he selected for himself.

He voted down the idea of hanging around for lunch, so we’re about to have Sonic, thanks to Mom stopping off for it on the way home.  That’s Thanksgivingy, don’t you think?

 Posted by at 11:38 am

Save the Jack!

 Annoyances, Consumption, Current Events, Politics, Popular Culture  No Responses »
Nov 152007
 

About seven years ago, a seven-story building containing 20,000 barrels of Wild Turkey bourbon caught fire at the distillery near Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.

As you might imagine, a fire at a whiskey barrelhouse is one hell of a problem. Witnesses reported a sound like a muted gunfire report each time a new barrel was breached. Aided by water from the fire hoses, a steady stream of burning bourbon flowed into the adjacent river (and I’ve searched YouTube for that hoping to show it to you; alas, in vain). Keep in mind that this was full barrel strength, so it was probably in the neighborhood of 120 proof.

A whiskey calamity of another sort is developing now. “They” have seized 2,400 bottles of Jack Daniel’s in a liquor license dispute. The cache includes a sealed bottle from 1914 valued at $10,000, as well as internal distillery-only miniatures containing samples of virgin whiskey that never spent any time in a barrel, presumably for some sort of diagnostic purpose.

And guess what “they”—the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission—are probably going to do with it? Pour it out. Yup, that’s what the law says has to happen. Yay, law.

Here’s the thing. No one wants to drink a lot of this stuff anyway. Liquor lasts a really long time, but it’s still rather unlikely that a 93-year-old bottle of whiskey contains anything you’d want to taste, whether it’s been opened or not. And the distillery miniatures of virgin whiskey would certainly be kept as is. These are not drinks, but collectibles. So, whatever the legal fate of the arrested parties, why destroy the whiskey?

I think we need a bunch more laws, don’t you?

 Posted by at 9:49 pm
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