Mary Anning (1799 – 1847)

A song about pioneering paleontologist Mary Anning: how awesome is that? Pandora does it again.

Mary Anning (1799 – 1847)
Artichoke

do you know Mary Anning? born on a southern shore
her father Richard was a cabinetmaker
and Richard died too early and left the Annings poor
but lucky Mary Anning found an icthyosaur

by circa 1820 she ran a fossil store
she put the bones together for the collectors
and science was the province of men of noble birth
but I’d take Mary Anning over those stuffed white shirts
ancient life that sleeps as fossil

she was walking the cliffs on her own by the sea
she was wondering if there were shapes underneath
there were men with their cash but that’s not what it took
she could read every line on the ground like a book
she assembled the bones of the past in cement
and she sold them in town for a couple of pence
and she showed all the men how the bones could connect
though at first some would scoff they would grow to respect

(repeat first verse)
how did you get in here? show me what you found dear
hello isn’t that queer do you have any more?

Snow dusting

We awoke to a world blanketed with an inch of wet snow. The expected 2-4″ did not materialize, though fortunately the 10″ didn’t, either. I waited an hour later than my usual departure to give time for the idiots on the road to find their respective ditches, then I drove into work with no issues at all.

Tomorrow might be a good work-from-home day as the day should begin with temperatures well below freezing.

Paul Harvey

As a kid I traveled with my family on many road trips to Florida, listening to squabbling siblings and the crackling of whatever AM radio stations we could pick up in the family car. Inevitably, a familiar voice would crackle through the radio: that of Paul Harvey. I was sad today to hear Harvey died yesterday. He was 90.

I didn’t always agree with his politics, but Paul Harvey always had something interesting to say. He was a blogger decades before blogs.

Good day, Paul.

Cookie and Coco update

Here’s a Washington Post Express article giving more details on the Cookie and Coco story.

I’m glad the dogs have a new home but it really puzzles me how the animal activists could be so mean to her. Read this comment from the article link above:

Thank you for finding out the real story. However, I would hate for this woman to get any financial gain from giving up her dogs when millions of dogs lose their lives in shelters every day.

I mean, WTF? This woman tries to find a home for her beloved dogs, happens to gain a lot of attention for it completely by accident, and now she becomes the target of hate? She’s the reason thousands of dogs are euthanized every day? Wait just a doggone minute!

What these activists should be doing is learning from her. There are 10,000 people who responded to the dog ad: that’s 10,000 potential homes for needy dogs. Instead of dissing her, these activists should be asking her for that contact information so other dogs can find homes. Spreading hate is no way to win people to your cause.

I love critters, too, but some of these animal activists should learn how to become social with humans first.

Careerbuilder vs. Craigslist

I was thinking this morning that I’ve gotten more spam from Careerbuilder than I ever have from Craigslist. That’s for the whole time I’ve been using Craigslist. Craigslist also has more interesting jobs. Seems I’ve gotten better response from those jobs than the ones I applied to on Careerbuilder.

I’m thinking it might be time to pull my resume Careerbuilder and stick with Craigslist.

Myth success

After finally mucking with it enough I managed to get MythTV behaving. I found my antenna lead was loose, which may have caused random static in the picture. I also moved the antenna a few degrees away from the direction it was pointing. The combination of the two may have been enough, though I’d like to find out which one made the difference.

I also reinstalled the Myth database the other night, deciding to wipe it clean and start over. I don’t think this could’ve made a huge difference but it was a good exercise anyway. I had to do something with it because when I consolidated my Maestro server with my MythTV server the name of my Myth box changed. When this happens, Myth gets Very Unhappy, requiring some manual database trickery to get it going again. I think my trickery may have left me with an unstable database, thus the need for a reinstall.

Now to add in all the shows I had once set to record.

S-N

What does it say about me that I’ve got this stupid song stuck in my head?

S-N (YouTube)
Tom Lehrer

Like a rooster loves a hen
Like a lion loves his den
Like Barbie loves Ken
I love to do things that begin with “S-N”

(For example…)

I love to sneeze…(AH-CHOO!)
Pardon me, please…(AH-CHOO!)
I like to sniffle; it really feels nice
One handkerchief’ll just never suffice
But, brother, watch out for the breeze…
When I sneeze! (AH-CHOO! AH-CHOO! AH-CHOO!)
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Summer buzz

I’ve been considering the wet winter we’ve had and the prospect of the warmer weather bringing swarms of mosquitoes. This made me think of buying a mosquito trap such as the propane-based ones, which attract mosquitoes by producing carbon dioxide. As the world has enough CO2 being produced, I wonder if there isn’t a way to create a mosquito trap that doesn’t create more CO2.

It turns out we have a ready source of CO2, courtesy of our gas hot water heater. If I could somehow make use of the CO2 that’s produced by our water heater so that it traps mosquitoes, that would be the best solution. I wonder what it would take?