Rest In Peace, Dave Niehaus

I've been a Mariners fan literally as long as I can remember, and for that entire time, Dave Niehaus was the voice of my team. He will be missed. May the ryebread and mustard be plentiful in heaven.

And, from now on, forget "Safeco Field". The stadium of the M's will forever more be know as "The Niehaus".

So say we all.

Linkdump

Lots of links, mostly old and maybe a new one...

Photos of 1890's Camping Trip.

The 10 Coolest Keychains.

LEGO Icons.

Prediction that comes true, as a Mariner's fan, I loved this.

Sleep is required for memory. Is that why I keep forgetting stuff?

Superboy and Oz? Um, I don't think I got that quite right...

More on why I won't shop at Wal-Mart. Even to get a Wal-Mart exclusive Aquaman/Black Manta set. Sorry. I'll pass.

Talk Radio is dangerous.

LOLCat Theology.

For the in-laws: Frowning Pug, Cupcake Pug, and Sad Pug.

Thursday Links

Bizarro Sports Illustrated. Despite the M's horrid record, I'm cool with any season in which the Yankees suck.

Is this video of a Tokyo Hotel an advertisement, or a warning?

She's 6-foot-1, and plays basketball extremely well. And now she's been kicked out of a boys' league because she puts the boys to shame.

Yikes: remote bricking is possible (making a computer useless remotely by overwriting the BIOS).

Our paper money is unfair to the blind. I honestly never thought about that before, and I'm ashamed I missed such an obvious problem.

A Lost Parrot gives his name and home address to a vet.

Fuel cells are getting closer to being something useful and world-changing.

What, you mean that restaurants lie about calorie content in their food? And use dubious definitions of "serving size"? Who would've guessed? This is why eating out is a rare treat for me now.

Slate looks at lab-grown meat. I still think getting to the point where hamburgers in massive fast food chains are made with lab-grown stuff will make a huge positive difference in food safety and quality and no noticable different in taste.

A supernova is caught in the act of being born. Cool.

A very cool Back to the Future shirt design.

Congrats to my first TV crush, who plans to marry in California soon.

If you have a few bucks and want to fight breast cancer, please donate to support us in the Race for the Cure: Laura Gjovaag, Eric Gjovaag, or Lisa Dunham (my suggested donation is $5 to each of us, if you have $15 to spare, or $5 to one of us (flip a 3-sided coin) if you're poor like me).

Pugs for the in-laws. And a bonus pug.

Linkdump

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #154: Jim Shooter, Million Dollar Contract, and Steve Ditko.

Cats on a Treadmill.

David Petersen draws the Wizard of Oz.

Ben Stein is a moron. He'd better lose his glasses, since they are the product of science, and thus (according to him) little better than Nazi tech.

Why I support equal rights, particularly for marriage. Remember, bigots refused to recognize mixed ethnic marriages once. The world moves on, people grow up.

I wanna make Dutch Babies! But I'm frightened to try.

If a scientist felt that killing a lab grown coat was morally wrong-ish, will people ever embrace lab grown meat?

Top Ten Interview Mistakes.

Kaja Foglio finds the best stuff at Fred Meyer.

Futurama: Good News, Everyone!

The mystery of the Missing (ex)Mariner.

Seattle Links

The Seattle Times looks at Betty MacDonald, a local writer that I adore. She would have been 100 on March 26th. They've put up excerpts from her books, and a couple of letter from fans. As you might recall, I reread all of Betty MacDonald's autobiographical books a few years ago and made a little bibliography of her works.

Sticking with Seattle... Vintage Seattle lets us know how to survive the atom bomb in Seattle.

The most respected Seattle Mariner, Edgar Martinez, denies the charges of drug use in the clubhouse.

The Seattle Times also tells about a Boot Camp to fight Chronic Pain. I do wonder if this would help me. The point is probably moot, as I haven't got insurance nor money to pay for it.

And, not Seattle-related, but for the in-laws: Easter Puggy.

Links

I could see taking down the site if it listed personal details, but GoDaddy shut down the police rating site that only listed names and badge numbers.

TSA confused by a new computer.

2008 M's Commericals.

Stumpy Friends! from friend-of-the-blog Karin!

Bees are having even more problems. From the Sacramento Bee. Heh.

Magna Carta seems like it would make a good superhero name.

A dramatic video of an airplane nearly crashing.

The ringed moon of Saturn.

More tomorrow.

Friday Night Linkdump

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #142: Kevin Maguire, Judd Winick, and the Adversary of Fables original identity.

The Blue Eyes logic puzzle. Can you figure it out? I sure don't get it. Here's a more gory version of the puzzle, and a wikipedia article about it. And the ever exciting MetaFilter Thread about it.

How to count cards in blackjack. I don't think I'd be able to master it. I would lose count way too easy.

Very short YouTube link, it's nicely cute.

This image requires a bit of explanation. The top part is from the US version of the Indiana Jones movie trailer. The bottom image is almost the same frame from the Norwegian version of the Indiana Jones movie trailer. Notice some differences?

Amazing what they can do with CGI these days. Even censor guns out of a trailer.

The Kingdome, home of the Seattle Mariners.

Cheaters never prosper, but will this lawsuit go anywhere?

Vampire Cats are getting Nervous.

I Can Has Marriage Proposal?

Random Thoughts

More New Frontier stories. I'm there.

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #133. Indiana Jones, Jessica Drew, and Power Rangers.

Leezle Pon, the greatest ever Green Lantern.

D'oh!

Heh: I want this. Just to be annoying.

Spike Jones.

More on Texas science being doomed.

The Baseball scandal: 12 Former Mariners Named in the Mitchell Report. Not the ones I expected, either. The one I most expected wasn't in the report, which doesn't mean he didn't do drugs, just that he hasn't been caught yet. The Times also compiled a full list of players mentioned in the report. I knew the drug abuse was happening, and it's one big reason baseball has become more meaningless to me over the last few years. I'm still bitterly disappointed in every one of these guys, and sick over what we might learn about other players in the future.

The Forth Lunkdimp

This year's Seattle Mariners Ads. None of them stand out as excellent, but "Serious Heat" and "Double Play Twins" are probably the best by a nose, in my opinion.

Men stare at crotches, women do not. Very odd study results.

My Two Yen Worth on Gachapin and the Killers.

No more blogs in ten years, says science fiction writer and professional pundit Bruce Sterling. True, I don't know if I'll keep this up, or if new bloggers will keep it up... but mostly extinct in ten years sounds overly pessimistic to me.

More copper thieves.

Slate asks about food coloring and why chefs are hesitant to use it.

Traffic Go-Rounds. Tape and plastic sculptures that adorn a traffic circle.

More on Shatner from Wil Wheaton.

I want.

Scott Adams wants to cause controversy again. His entry did remind me of my Geology Professor in college. He was a student of geology just before Plate Tectonics became accepted theory, and told his class how he and fellow students had collected data to support the old theory as part of their coursework... and basically made it all up because the data didn't support the theory and they were undergrads, so they couldn't argue the point. Then Plate Tectonics came along and changed everything, and suddenly the data did make sense. He pointed out that science is constantly evolving and changing, and "rewriting the science books" doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Makes me wonder how many facts I learned in school are now known to be not true?

Good, um, Morning

Missed SpongeBob yesterday after getting called in to work a 14-hour day, and missed it this morning because I couldn't wake up in time. Ah well. My boss was nice enough to tell me last night that I should sleep in today as long as I needed, and come to work when I felt like it... ah, bliss...

Here's another brainteaser, this one is a classic, so you all probably know the answer already. Arrange four "8"s using any mathematical symbols into an equation that equals 100. No tricks with this one, it's pretty straightforward, I think.

This is the fourth morning in a row (since I started counting) that I haven't eaten any hamster eggs for breakfast.

The Seattle Mariners have announced who the new manager is going to be, and it's *surprise!* someone I've never heard of. Since I follow only one team, I don't know a lot about most baseball people outside of the Mariner's organization. A quick peruse of the front page of The Seattle Times tells me that he is a former catcher and bench coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks. This guy has his work cut out for him, as Lou Pinella was well-loved in Seattle.

Of course, it doesn't help that the poor guy is being referred to as Melvin in news articles, and all I can think of is the cover to Mad #1 whenever I read that. "It's Melvin!" *sigh*

I found the editorial cartoon in today's Seattle Times to be very interesting:

The whole "war on terror" thing has just taken a turn for the worse, apparently. I'm just tired of it, and this cartoon pretty much captures that whole feeling.

Politics in Seattle just got interesting, according to this article in the Seattle Times. A secret note, apparent threats from the Mayor's office... tsk tsk. Somebody has been bad.

My current hometown football team has been making waves for once. After reading this article in the Times, I was just flabbergasted at their previous record. 22-68 for the ten years prior to the current coach's run, and 24-6 with the current coach. Not bad, coach!

That news made me go look up my old high school's football results for this year. 5-5, ouch.

And to end on a happy note, Paris is apparently has its share of people with a sense of humor. The Seattle Times reports that fake plaques have appeared in several spots in Paris, that commemorate various non-events. One says, "On April 17, 1967 — nothing happened here." I gotta put some of those up in Seattle.

Geo and Graphic

My Mom called this afternoon and mentioned that she was trying to get rid of some old World Book Encyclopedia updates. They aren't terribly useful, but she doesn't want them to end up in a landfill. She was hoping I knew of a school that might want stuff to cut up for projects or something. Between my hubby and I, we can find someone to take them, I think.

But she also mentioned some National Geographic books she had, and I told her right off to save any of the ones about Mysterious Maya, or Amazing Aztecs, or Incredible Inca. Those ones I want in my library.

I suffer from depression, and apparently have for most of my life. I denied it throughout college, when treatment was getting effective and acceptance was becoming more commonplace. Only recently have I begun to take "happy pills" as I call them, and only recently have I realized just how depressed I was, because I now know what it feels like to feel good, or even just ok, most of the time.

What does this have to do with National Geographic books? Well, as a kid suffering from moderate depression, I often hid in books. And from about the time I started to read in first grade, through about six grade, I was archeology mad. I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was going to be an archeologist! I was going to explore ancient ruins and interpret how people lived in the past. I was going to read ancient writings and explore the minds of cultures gone from the earth.

When I got depressed and I was at home, I'd simply pull down one of those great books from my Mom's huge books of shelves and just bury myself in other times. I avoided the ones about "common" places... it was the Maya, the Aztecs, and the Inca that kept me from myself.

Sometime around seventh grade I learned the reality of archeology wasn't what I thought it was. I also slowly and painfully learned that I don't travel well, and I can't seem to learn other languages. Put all together, a future in archeology seemed really unlikely. At some point, that dream faded away, although my interest never has.

So, if my Mom is willing to part with them, I really want those books.

Hey, I still have a subscription to National Geographic, but to be honest, I wouldn't mind if they only sent me ones that have information about new discoveries in archeology. October's issue was of interest because of information about tombs on the Nile, but November didn't have nearly as much to draw me in...

Iron Chef!

The title of yesterday's triumphant success note about the Chicken List is also a reference to Iron Chef, in case you didn't realize it. Tonight on Iron Chef I'm delighted to see a very familiar face as a guest commentator. I knew that Seattle Mariner's closer Kazu Sasaki had appeared on Iron Chef, tonight I finally get to see that episode!