You have the right to remain fluffy...

p.s. Where's my Chile post?!

If swashbuckling gentlemen thieves had to deal with sports news

from the Onion (these guys are hilarious!).You may remember the Onion from past posts.

Bad Boy Fencing Star Implicated In Yet Another Daring Jewel Heist

p.s. This reminded me of the Scarlet Pimpernel. I got the 1934 movie for Christmas one year and loved the black and white goodness! It's public domain now so is available for free (legal) viewing or downloading here.
p.p.s. Thinking of the Scarlet Pimpernel reminded me of Daffy Duck as the Scarlet Pumpernickel. One of my faves!

Salsa Dog

I continue to wait for little cp's Missing the Chile: Epilogue post. Beware for I will be merciless in my postings until my demands are met!

p.s A sighting of the great FSM's visage in Chile, truly it is a blessed country.

Misheard lyrics #3

Manfred Mann's "Blinded by the Light" (cause we talked about it yesterday). Weee!

What you actually heard:

[Chorus]
Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
another runner in the night
[repeat 2x more]

Madman drummers bummers,
Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older,
I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasin', sneezin' and wheezin,
the calliope crashed to the ground
The calliope crashed to the ground
But she was...

[Chorus - repeat 4x]

Some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I go what it takes
She said "I'll turn you on sonny to something strong,
play the song with the funky break"
And go-cart Mozart was checkin' out the weather chart to see if it was safe outside
And little Early-Pearly came by in his curly-wurly and asked me if I needed a ride
Asked me if I needed a ride
But she was...

[Chorus]

Blinded by the light
She got down but she never got tired
She's gonna make it through the night
She's gonna make it through the night
But mama, that's where the fun is
But mama, that's where the fun is
Mama always told me not to look into the eye's of the sun
But mama, that's where the fun is
Some brimstone baritone anticyclone rolling stone preacher from the east
Says, "Dethrone the dictaphone, hit it in it's funny bone,
that's where they expect it least"
And some new-mown chaperone was standin' in the corner,
watching the young girls dance
And some fresh-sown moonstone was messin' with his frozen zone, reminding him of romance
The calliope crashed to the ground
But she was...

[Chorus - repeat 9x]

Blinded by the light

Madman drummers bummers, Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older,
I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasin', sneezin' and wheezin,
the calliope crashed to the ground
Now Scott with a slingshot finially found a tender spot and throws his lover in the sand
And some bloodshot forget-me-not said daddy's within earshot save the buckshot, turn up the band
Some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I go what it takes
She said "I'll turn you on sonny to something strong"

Misheard lyrics #2

The Clash's "Rock the Casbah" has always baffled me. In all honesty, I only learned the real lyrics just now.

What they actually said:

Now the king told the boogie men
You have to let that raga drop
The oil down the desert way
Has been shakin' to the top
The sheik he drove his Cadillac
He went a' cruisin' down the ville
The muezzin was a' standing
On the radiator grille

CHORUS
Sharif don't like it
Rockin the casbah
Rock the casbah
Sharif don't like it
Rockin the Casbah
Rock the Casbah

By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
But the Bedouin they brought out
The electric kettle drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the sherif
Had cleared the square
They began to wail

CHORUS

Now over at the temple
Oh! They really pack 'em in
The in crowd say it's cool
To dig this chanting thing
But as the wind changed direction
The temple band took five
The crowd caught a wiff
Of that crazy Casbah jive

CHORUS

The king called up his jet fighters
He said you better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the Casbah way

As soon as Sharif was
Chauffeured outta there
The jet pilots tuned to
The cockpit radio blare

As soon as Sharif was
Outta their hair
The jet pilots wailed

Chorus

Sharif don't like it
Rock the casbah
(He thinks it's not kosher)
Rock the casbah
Sharif don't like it
Rock the Casbah
(Fundamentally he can't take it.)
Rock the Casbah
Sharif don't like it
Rock the Casbah
(You know he really hates it.)
Rock the Casbah

CP sez "increase your wordiness":
Casbah - specifically the citadel of Algiers and the traditional quarter clustered around it. More generally, a kasbah is the walled citadel of many North African cities and towns.
Muezzin - a chosen person at a mosque who leads the call (adhan) to Friday service and the five daily prayers (salat) from one of the mosque's minarets.
Sharif - a traditional Arab tribal title given to those who serve as the protector of the tribe and all tribal assets. Can also refer specifically to a descendant of the prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima.
Bedouin - desert dwelling predominantly Arab ethnic group (previously nomadic but presently mostly settled).
sheikh - Arabic honorific term commonly applied to an elder of a tribe
rāga - refers to melodic modes used in Indian classical music

Misheard Lyrics

Spurred by a recent discussion of the incongruous nature of misheard lyrics, I had to share this video highlighting the hilarious reality of singing along with the often incomprehensible Eddie Vedder. I especially like the "I said I don't want a whale in a box or a bag". Fantastic.

FYI here are the real lyrics to Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter" (curiously, I can't really tell which lyrics make more sense):

Unsealed
On a porch a letter sat
Then you said I wanna leave it again

Once I saw him
On a beach of weathered sand
And on the sand I wanna leave it again

On a weekend wanna wish it all way
And they called and I said and I want what
I said and I call out again

And the reason oughta leave her calm I know
I said I know what I wear that a box or the bag

Oh yeah can you see them?
Out on the porch
Ah, but they don't wave
I see them
Round the front way, yeah
And I know and I know
I don't wanna stay

Make me cry

I see
I don't know there's something else
I wanna drum it all away
And I said
I said I don't know where there's a box or the bag

Oh yeah can you see them?
Out on the porch
Ah, but they don't wave
I see them
Round the front way, yeah
And I know and I know
I don't wanna stay
I don't wanna stay
I don't wanna stay

p.s. You may remember Pearl Jam from this post.

Animal Mummies

National Geographic has recently published an interactive article about Egyptian animal mummies. Interactive articles...they teach you while you learn! Hurray! Also, it has a lot of interesting tidbits like how the Egyptian Museum of Cairo's artifact ID numbers all begin with the letters CG. Did you know that hundreds of thousands on mummified cats were hauled from a mass grave near the village of Istabl Antar since their discovery in 1888. They were used as fertilizer in England. Much like the innumerable quantities of bison bones from mass kills here...but I digress. Besides that's all behind us now and current research is using these amazing specimens as windows into daily life in ancient Egypt, employing zooarchaeology (of course), experimental archaeology, and advanced imaging techniques to examine what species were present, their uses, and how the mummies were created (among other things). Cool beans!

The Egyptologist and zooarchaeologist featured in the National Geographic article is Dr. Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University at Cairo. In the following video from this article at Heritage Key, she explains some of her work.

Super fun Halloween bonus references (oooo scary!):
-Herodotus explains mummification
-The Apis bull and associated cult explained at the Virtual Egyptian Museum (see image to the right)

The Shock House 2009 (plus Zombie musings)

Scary fun for everyone. The Shock House is in Regina this year (it was in Melville the last 3 years). It was 8000 square feet of zombie fueled good times.

To go along with this theme, I will also share some zombie-related tidbits I've been saving up.



You know, I recently read "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (which is funny and also inspired me to finish reading Pride and Prejudice so I could compare and contrast).










As a taste, here is the first line comparison:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession
of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

vs.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

And so it goes. Anyway I enjoyed it for sure.

It also reminded me of how I promised LP I'd do a post on the Zombie Survival Guide (which he gave me for Christmas last year). Thanks to this book I size up houses I see for potential survivability in a zombie attack. I'm ruined forever now (but I love it). For example, when picking a house to hole up in during a zombie outbreak, remember to find one with a second floor that cannot be accessed from the ground, then you destroy the stairs and voila! Safe zone (but be sure to fill up the upstairs bathtub with water and stash as many tools and provisions upstairs as you can get your mitts on beforehand). For practice, here's a link to a fun flash zombie survival game.

Lastly, here is a link to Jonathan Coulton's song "Re: Your Brains". He did a project where he wrote a song every week for a year. This song is my favorite (careful it gets in your head...much like a zombie... hahaha! Weee.), but he has many other awesome ones. It was featured in How to Succeed in Evil "Cheap Labor" Part 2 (there is also part 1 and 3). How to Suceed in Evil is a podcast/comic book about Edwin Windsor, evil efficiency consultant.

Go Riders Go! (#2)

You may remember the Riders from past posts in which I watched the Scotiabank West Semifinal game between the Stampeders and the Roughriders (and then they went on to win the 95th Grey Cup in Toronto). Well, after some 5 years in Saskatchewan I finally went to see a Rider game at Mosaic Stadium. Although I had seen them previously playing against the Stamps in Calgary back in the day (like 2003 or '04 or somethin'). Anywho, what a sweet game! Pure awesome sauce I tells ya! As this article tells it, the Riders beat the BC Lions 33 to 30 with a thrilling overtime interception that snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Woohoo! It was super close up until the end there and when the Lions got their last touchdown some people got up to leave but there was still over 2 minutes left! Come on! And then the Riders tied it up and there was a sweet overtime that we were all standing for the entirety of. Good times. See the CFL game recap here.

p.s. Also, KW made me an awesome green and white scarf to wear, which I promptly spilled hot chocolate on, but it was OK because it came out with dish soap. Huzzah!

Früli and Pneumatic Transit

Sweet, sweet Früli (link, link, link). The best pseudo-beer ever. Tasted at Beer Brothers whilst on a mini-pub crawl with the peeps to celebrate my first week in Regina (Update: they now have this on tap!). This was the first stop, then to O'Hanlon's pub for crazy grape-flavoured vodka. Then to the Freehouse, where we had weird ginger beer based drinks and some sweet potato fries and heard a good Canadian band called Pneumatic Transit (accidental concert series entry). And finally to Crave, a martini bar, for fruity martinis. We sat on the patio under a heat lamp. Then we got sleepy and had to drag ourselves home. What a super-fun night! Thanks guys!

Fun things to learn and know:
Pneumatic tubes are systems in which cylindrical containers are propelled through a network of tubes by compressed air or by vacuum such as those used in large plants and office buildings. A pneumatic transit system functions in this way to transport cars full of people. The creation of such a public transit system has been attempted repeatedly but always abandoned as economically unfeasible.