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Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome

Oddities and Awesome abound!

:: I’m not sure if this is weird or awesome:

Beard yeast might sound icky at first, but it’s really grown on one Oregon brewmaster.

Rogue Ales, a brewery and pub based in Newport, Ore., is developing an ale made out of yeast harvested from the beard of award-winning brewmaster John “More Hops” Maier.

The whole thing started as a joke. Brett Joyce, president of Rogue Ales, told KPTV on Sunday that the folks at Rogue Ales had been trying to harvest a new yeast strain from their hop yard for some time, but with little success.

Then the thought occurred to Joyce, “Why not look for a different place that might have some magic yeast in it?”

Brewery employees took nine follicles from Maier’s beard, which Maier says has not been shaved since 1978.

:: Albino whale shark. Wow.

More next week!

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Wow.


Filament Eruption Creates ‘Canyon of Fire’ on the Sun, originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.

That is all.

“A magnetic filament of solar material erupted on the sun in late September, breaking the quiet conditions in a spectacular fashion. The 200,000 mile long filament ripped through the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, leaving behind what looks like a canyon of fire. The glowing canyon traces the channel where magnetic fields held the filament aloft before the explosion.”

Click through for more.

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Something for Thursday

The bad news is that the BBC’s third season of Sherlock won’t air until January. Ugh! Meantime, here’s a bit of Sherlockian music!

Miklos Rozsa wrote a wonderful score for a film called The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Here is a suite from that score:


A nice contrast is this score by an underrated and underused composer named Bruce Broughton, for the film Young Sherlock Holmes. I always had a difficult time with this film, owing to its odd conversion of Holmes into an Indiana Jones-like adventurer and its somewhat downbeat ending. The music, though, is quite good.


And then there’s the BBC’s theme, which is incredibly earwormy:


By the way, my personal favorite portrayal of Sherlock Holmes came in an episode of Magnum PI, in which Patrick Macnee plays a friend of Higgins’s who has gone delusional to the point of believing himself to be Holmes. It’s a really good episode, called “Holmes is Where the Heart Is”. Worth checking out, if you have access to the show…I believe it’s on Netflix.

The game’s afoot, folks!

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A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

Do you listen to podcasts? If so, which ones, and why?

Yes, this is a thinly-veiled solicitation for suggestions. I already listen to a few, but I wouldn’t mind finding more. I listen to the podcasts on the Trending Buffalo site (some of my favorite local commentary comes from this site), The Human Bible (endlessly fascinating if a secular take on the Bible is your thing), and I’ve listened to Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Star Talk podcast (although that one has ads inside it, which kind of bugs me, especially when I’m listening in the car and can’t access my tablet to skip past the ads). Oh, and I listen to Night Vale, so I’m aware of that one.

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One word at a time, man. One word at a time.

Wow. An extended visit from Lady Momentum. And a KEY scene is done. Cupcake time! #AmWriting

The current book, GhostCop (not the actual title), really gave me some fits toward the end of last month and the beginning of this one. The story reached a point where I had no idea what was coming next, and what was coming next refused to reveal itself. So I had an uncomfortably large number of days where I didn’t write a single word.

But as you can tell by my tracking spreadsheet, I broke through quite nicely, finally figuring out the direction that most of the story elements need to go. My main problem now is that I really wanted to get this draft done in time for NaNoWriMo, but I’m not sure that’s in the cards right now. That being the case, I will likely keep writing this one until it’s done, even if that leads into NaNoWriMo, at which point I will casually segue into Lighthouse Boy (not the actual title).

Sometimes this writing thing is hard. Maybe it would be easier if I bothered outlining or plotting things in advance in some way, but the notion of doing that really bugs me, for some reason. I’m just not wired to stick to an outline.

I am wired, however, to keep writing until the day I drop. Excelsior! Onward and upward! Zap! Pow!!

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Sentential Links!!!

It’s time for…LINKAGE!!!

:: You probably judge me, condemn me from your ivory tower, safe from addictive substance. But you are only an accident, a painful illness, an injury away from being in my shoes. I did not choose this, I really had no choice.

:: Sometimes I forget that writing is a living, breathing thing; that the story (or the poem, etc.) not only transforms you and feeds you, but is transformed and fed because of you. Erin Bow in her interview with the Quill & Quire last month said that she thinks she writes what she will ultimately end up needing. And I wonder if there’s truth in that for every writer.

:: Lots of people put up big, ugly walls and we get that they’re cries for help so everyone rallies and tries to tear it down, but if you put up a wall and pant something pretty on it, nobody is going to ask what’s behind that wall and that’s the true danger of charisma. (That’s actually the whole post.)

:: Curse your memory. Curse the timing of lightning. Curse the notepad, which always parts ways with the pen you were certain you put it next to. Curse writing. Who invented it, anyway? It’s their fault you’re even in this mess.

:: Bottom line, none of us are the same. Thank God. Life would be so boring. That’s why it’s important for you to never give up on your piece of art until you’ve gone as deep as you can go. That’s where the story lies and where you will find your true voice.

:: I am so many pieces of these songs. They are moments in my life. They somehow fill these aching holes – the holes that I am learning will never truly be filled – well, they temporarily plug them with their verses, and choruses. Their bridges bridge the gap between broken and whole. For a few moments, I can feel free.

:: Lou Scheimer, the man who founded Filmation Studios, died a few days ago at the age of 84. Mark Evanier has a very nice post about him. I just had to mark it here and say a little thank you for contributing to a childhood that relished in fantasy and the imagination, and delighted at such things as lion men, monkey sidekicks, and ghostbusting gorillas.

:: Uncle Merlin called in from the Cape this morning to report he’s having woodpecker trouble. Judging by his description, a female downy has punched a hole in the eave of his house. He wanted to know how to drive her away.

More next week!!!

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Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome

Oddities and Awesome abound!

:: If it seems like virtually every 30-40-something woman you know is named “Jennifer”, well, here’s why. This also shows that in about ten to fifteen years, the world will be run by Emily’s, Emma’s, and Sophia’s.

(And please tell me that the recent surge of Isabella’s is not because of Twilight. I’d hate to think that such an awful book is going to live so long in American consciousness.)

:: In many places, you get a ticket if you leave your car parked for too long. Apparently not so in a town in China, where if you leave your car parked too long, something else happens.

All for this week. More next. Maybe. Who knows. Hmmmmm….

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The kind of weird thought that keeps me from achieving success

Regarding this clip from The Karate Kid:


I think it would be funny if this clip just went on and on and on, with the Evil Sensei just listing all these things that do not exist in his dojo.

FEAR does not EXIST in this DOJO, does it?

NO SENSEI!!!

PAIN does not EXIST in this DOJO, does it?

NO SENSEI!!!

DEFEAT does not EXIST in this DOJO, does it?”

NO SENSEI!!!

GHOSTS do not EXIST in this DOJO, do they?

NO SENSEI!!!

RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON does not EXIST in this DOJO, does he?

NO SENSEI!!!

A LARGE PIZZA WITH EXTRA CHEESE AND ACHOVIES does not EXIST in this DOJO, does it?

NO SENSEI!!!

ETHEL MERMAN does not EXIST in this DOJO, does she?

NO SENSEI!!!

In other news….

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The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer

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