Here’s a pretty cool picture of a sunset:
What’s so cool about it? This particular sunset is being observed on Mars.
Sidebar Stuff
I’ve tweaked the sidebar just a little bit: first, I’ve begun rotating the “Notable Dispatches”, adding a couple of new ones and ditching a couple of older selections. Secondly, I’ve reconsidered my earlier rejection of a reader suggestion and created a section of the sidebar listing all of my selected “Move Over Britney!” women. (Two of those have separate picture links because of original link-rot.)
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Friday Burst of Weirdness
Obsessive-compulsive types who are mortified by the idea of having a bit of ash daubed onto one’s forehead on Ash Wednesday had probably best avoid visiting Galaxidi, Greece at the beginning of Lent.
“If you happen to be in Galaxidi on Clean Monday (beginning of Lent), you’ll get caught up in the revels of the masqueraders who throw flour at each other in festivities with heavy Dionysiac overtones.”
And yes, it is as messy as it sounds.
(By the way, Kevin Drum has announced the end of “Friday Cat Blogging”, thus leaving the “Friday Burst of Weirdness” here as Blogistan’s grandest Friday tradition. At least, for my fifty or so regular readers. Cheers!)
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IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Electron microscope image of a grain of Kosher salt.
After reading this MeFi post about salt, I got to thinking about how salt is the one major area of cooking in which I’ve never much listened to the experts. I still use table salt exclusively, despite the insistence by chefs that other varieties — sea salt or kosher salt, for example — are better both in terms of flavor but in terms of usability, depending on odd grain shapes that allow for better pinching of the salt and for better adhesion to the food. Ah well, maybe someday I’ll come around.
Anyhow, this image makes clear just how convoluted a surface a kosher salt grain has. I found it fascinating.
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Well done, Scotty!
There is one trick I’ve always employed in my various jobs, or at least tried to, that I’m not ashamed to report that I learned from Star Trek. It was well illustrated in the episode of The Next Generation when Scotty, the engineer from the Original Series, somehow gets preserved in time to the 24th century. He’s bugging Geordi LaForge, the current Enterprise engineer, and Geordi finally says something like, “Mr. Scott, I’m sorry, but I have to get this job done for Captain Picard. I told him it would take an hour.”
Scotty’s eyes light up: “How long would it really take?”
Georgi looks at him like he’s just sprouted a second head and replies, “About an hour.”
And Scotty’s look of joy turns to one of horror. “Oh, Laddie, you didn’t tell him how long it would really take, did you? How do you expect to maintain your reputation as a miracle worker by telling people how long it will take to do things?”
See, Scotty’s long-lived trick is to figure out how long a given task will take, and then multiply it by four. That way, when his superiors think they’ll be waiting two hours for results, along comes Scotty in thirty minutes with the goods.
That’s what I’ve been shamelessly doing at the store, and it’s working like a charm.
Manager: “So, I need all these lights changed to higher-wattage bulbs and the spotlights redirected. I’m guessing that should take….oh, how long?”
Me, shrugging: “An hour or so, maybe….I should be able to get it done after lunch.”
Manager: “Great!”
Cut to a short while later:
Manager: “So, you’re going to go to lunch and then do that stuff with those lights?”
Me, nonchalantly: “Oh, that. Yeah, they’re already done. I got some other stuff done, and that opened up some time, and you know how it is.”
And I saunter on, looking for my next crisis. All in a day’s work for us Supermarket Cleanup Guys.
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Thanks, Tom!
TBogg has linked my post from yesterday about The Passion of the Christ, thus steering a lot of traffic in this direction. Thanks to him!
But his last sentence (“Besides, if I want to go get a Butterfinger, I don’t want to be tripping over them as they writhe in the aisles”) has me thinking about what The Passion would be like in a movie theater. For example, I’m that kind of filmgoer who is totally incapable of not eating popcorn at the movies, no matter what the film is. I had popcorn during Schindler’s List, and I would probably have it during The Passion.
But now that I consider all this, I have to say that it’s probably a good thing that Gibson’s film isn’t being distributed by any major studio, since I can only imagine what the “Collector’s Beverage Cups” would look like.
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Here’s a meme worth spreading….
John Scalzi proposes that a new term be employed for that subset of “Christians” whose religious focus is on strict adherence to some of the rules of conduct described in the Book of Leviticus: Leviticans.
You know that feeling when you’re both jazzed by an idea and annoyed that you didn’t think of it yourself?
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Passions….
I have a strong feeling that I’ll be waiting for the DVD of The Passion of the Christ. Not that I’m not interested in the film, because I am, but I’m really not interested in taking it in as part of the religious spectacle the whole thing has become. I’ve just seen a news report about some guy who spent his entire savings, more than $42,000, buying up 6,000 tickets to the film. This is a kind of mindset that is so alien to me it might as well be coming from the natives of Rigel VII, and in any case, spiritual matters — to the extent that I think much of them at all these days — are really rather private to me. I really would rather not see this film in the company of people who, I suspect, are — at least in large part — the kinds of folks who aren’t comfortable being Christians unless you know that they’re Christians, and better ones than you. I just want to see the thing as a movie, and I doubt that’s going to be possible anywhere other than my living room once it shows up at BlockBuster. (I wonder how many copies each store will have to stock to make good on that “Guaranteed In Stock” policy of theirs.)
Anyway, Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, saying this:
“What Gibson has provided for me, for the first time in my life, is a visceral idea of what the Passion consisted of. That his film is superficial in terms of the surrounding message — that we get only a few passing references to the teachings of Jesus — is, I suppose, not the point. This is not a sermon or a homily, but a visualization of the central event in the Christian religion. Take it or leave it….[several grafs later]….It is a film about an idea. An idea that it is necessary to fully comprehend the Passion if Christianity is to make any sense. Gibson has communicated his idea with a singleminded urgency. Many will disagree. Some will agree, but be horrified by the graphic treatment. I myself am no longer religious in the sense that a long-ago altar boy thought he should be, but I can respond to the power of belief whether I agree or not, and when I find it in a film, I must respect it.”
And Jeff Simon, film critic for The Buffalo News, gives the movie one star, saying this:
“The Passion of the Christ is as sadistic a film as I have ever sat through. (It couldn’t possibly be less appropriate for children, by the way.) Even if you know and completely endorse Gibson’s point – that Christians and non-Christians must know how very much torture and horror Jesus endured in his final hours for their sakes – you might still think his Passion is a kind of cinematic atrocity: i.e. a movie grotesquely unable to credit its audience with any imagination or decency whatsoever. In fact, the movie is like an accusation of unworthiness flung at the audience in rage and contempt….[several grafs later]….We’re not talking here about one of Quentin Tarantino’s vaguely mad living cartoons here; we’re talking about a director who worships and loves his subject and wants every drop of that subject’s blood on the audience’s hands.”
I find it interesting that here we have two completely different reactions from critics who aren’t especially religious (at least, nothing in Simon’s writing has ever led me to believe that he is particularly religious) differ so wildly. There is lots of talk in the country about how this film will affect the faithful, but not quite so much about how it will be seen by those outside the tradition. Roger Ebert looks at The Passion and sees a powerful statement of personal faith; Jeff Simon looks at it and sees the cinematic equivalent of a hair shirt.
Interesting times, these.
(And in one of those wonderful postscripts that life seems to dole out so often these days, I just had that godawful TV show Access Hollywood playing in the background — because I was too lazy to get up and change channels after then 10:00 news — and bless my soul if they didn’t announce a feature later on the show about the animatronic crucified Jesus that was built by the film’s special effects crew, with one of the effects people pointing out “We even had a breathing apparatus in the chest!” while the lower half of the screen bears the superimposed logo, “Robo Jesus!” It’s nice to know that keeping our eye on the ball apparently isn’t always a necessity, isn’t it?)
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Congratulations, Mr. Bush.
I didn’t comment on this yesterday when the topic was all ablaze, but I’ll do so now: by calling for a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, President Bush has made clear the country he wants America to be, or at the very least, he has stood up to be counted with the people who want such a country.
While I haven’t posted much about it, I believe I’ve long made clear my deep skepticism about Bush’s conduct of the War on Terror. But right now, I’m not sure that’s even relevant, because the fact is this: Safe and secure or no, I do not want to live in George W. Bush’s America.
(But who the hell told Karl Rove that dividing his own party in an election year was a good idea?)
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A week and some change? You call THAT a stint of unemployment? HA!
Darth Swank has a new job, just eight days or so after leaving the last one. Well, let’s see him try that little stunt in the employment black hole of Western New York!
Oh, well, congrats to him. Maybe he’ll celebrate by watching some violent Asian movies and posting to his blog a little more! (And he’s already done that first one.)