Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Shatner's World
I must say, William Shatner certainly put on a show. Over the span of two hours (which didn't feel at all like two hours) he regaled the audience with stories of his life (and make no mistake—this is his show, all about things Shatner), how he started in theater (and why … he does … those … dramatic pauses in … his speech!) moved into film and television, his dealing with death (his father, a beloved horse, his third wife) and of course, his “singing” career. He did “sing” “Real,” but did not “sing” “Space Oddity,” “Major Tom (Coming Home)” or most regrettably—perhaps mercifully depending upon your view, “Rocket Man.”
Other than not “singing” some of his more notorious “songs” it was fun. And you never got the idea he's 84. Eighty-four! And surprisingly, the auditorium wasn't even all that full. I mean, Shatner! How can you not like him? Unless you're George Takei that is.
Saturday, February 06, 2016
An amusing spam email that certainly wins the “Nice Attempt To Bypass Spam Filtering Programs” Award
- From
- henry thomas <henrythomas44@hotmail.com>
- To
- undisclosed recipients: ;
- Subject
- Hello, I'm Henry Thomas 22 years old boy,I humbly write to solicit for your partnership and assistance in transferring and investing of my inherited fund which is USD$8.3.M US Dollars from my late father who died during the crisis in my country.Please I need your urgent assistant, contact for more information on how you are going to receive the total fund for an inverstment in your country and also assist me to join you to continue my education as well,I wait your reply. Mr Henry Thomas
- Date
- Sat, 6 Feb 2016 20:19:32 +0900 (JST)
That's it. That's the entire email message. Either “henry thomas” confused the subject line entry field for the email entry field, or this is a novel attempt to avoid content filtering of email for spam analysis.
I'm almost tempted to reply to him in the subject line to see if he does likewise, and thus, we carry out an entire email conversation via empty emails and overly long and verbose subject lines.
Penn & Teller
Bunny and I went to see Penn & Teller live at the Kravis Center for Performing Arts.
We both had a good time watching them from the nosebleed section,
despite having already seen most of their act on television and YouTube
(the only new thing we saw was Penn juggling fire batons (pretty easy according to Penn) and broken wine bottles
(which is hard,
given they're different weights and,
well,
wrist-slittingly sharp)).
We also saw them deal with victims volunteers who,
shall we say,
weren't quite up to speed
(“No, keep your arm up … no, up! Hold it here! No … here!”).
The one trick I was hoping to see was their famous bullet catch, but alas, they did not do that trick. They did, however, allow one person in the audience to have their smart phone video record disappearing and reappearing in a dead fish. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the resulting video, so we still have no idea how that trick was done.
Oh wait …
Monday, February 08, 2016
Kung Fu Panda 3
I really love “Kung Fu Panda” and “Kung Fu Panda 2” and I'm happy to report that “Kung Fu Panda 3” is just as good, just as funny, and just a gorgeous as the other two.
Really, it's worth seeing just for the artwork (in fact, it was the artwork in “Kung Fu Panda 2” that drew Bunny into the series to begin with). Just wonderful.
While the story isn't anything we already haven't seen in the previous movies (evil Kung Fu master threatening to take over the land and only Po the Panda can stop him, only he doesn't believe he can) it's really the characters that make these movies. And don't forget—pandas.
Lots and lots of pandas.
Being pandas.
Oh so cute.
Did I mention the pandas?
Thursday, February 18, 2016
“… a subtle fruity and sweet, highly aromatic cup … ”
When drinking hot tea, I tend to prefer loose leaf tea. It's a thing, I guess. So I was rather surprised to find loose leaf tea on the menu at the restaurant tonight.
![[Organic Darjeeling Estate. We're in Boca, dahling. Of course it's organic!]](/2016/02/18/loose-leaf-tea.jpg "Organic Darjeeling Estate. We're in Boca, dahling. Of course it's organic!")
Good tea. And it was cheaper than Bunny's lemonade (go figure!).
Writing Chinese umopapisdn
Back in my university days, I took a class in Chinese calligraphy (because … well … just because). While I only learned how to write about a dozen different logograms I did learn that there is a definite “drawing” order in writing them (generally, left to right, top to bottom), and because of that, the individual strokes will have a certain “look” to them.
So while Bunny and I were at an Asian-themed restaurant tonight, I noticed some Chinese logograms on the wall.
![[Even umopapisdn (it helps if you turn your head upsidedown), this is way better than it used to be. At one point, they had random lines on the walls that some clueless “artist” thought looked like Chinese writing. I found that way more annoying than this.]](/2016/02/18/umopapisdn.jpg "Even umopapisdn (it helps if you turn your head upsidedown), this is way better than it used to be. At one point, they had random lines on the walls that some clueless “artist” thought looked like Chinese writing. I found that way more annoying than this.")
They were upsidedown.
Seriously.
Once I saw those, I could not ignore them.
Sigh.
Notes on an overheard conversation while eating at an Asian-themed restaurant
“That looks like some form of chili pepper.”
“Yup. I decided against putting them in my soup.”
“Hmm … let me try one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ooh … that has a bite.”
“How hot?”
“It's got a definite bite to it. My lips are tingling.”
“That's pretty hot then.”
“Oh … my libs! I can't feel my libs! They're numb!”
“I'm definitely glad I didn't put them in the soup.”
“Ahhhhh! My libs! I can'b feeb my libs!”
Monday, February 29, 2016
This is not the leap day you are looking for
I was all set to write about how today wasn't Leap Day, but rather it was the 24th of this month when I realized, I already wrote about this obscure piece of arcane calendar lore over a decade ago!
So, here's to the Leap Day that isn't a Leap Day!
