Hello Philosophy, Rest Well Astronomy.

Today’s birthday is brought to you by the phrase “Confucius say”.

That’s right kids, today is Confucius’s 2563^rd birthday. I think. I have issues with working out time due to the fact that unlike normal maths there is a no need for 0… anyway… give or take a year.

While we may all know the silly phrase we don’t all know what Confucius actually did. Well, at least those of us who didn’t take a philosophy course at Uni…

Moving on.

Confucius had a lot to do with Ethics (and yes, it deserves the capital E). As a philosopher, he was more than capable of coming up profound ideas that have changed the course of human existence, but as humans, we are all capable of that kind of thought. What Confucius was able to do, was communicate those ideas as a teacher, politician and author/editor of many of the texts that made it into the public consciousness.

Today is also the anniversary of the day the world said a fond farewell to Astronomer Edwin Hubble (and if you don’t recognize his last name… shame). Hubble is the guy we really have to thank for the dreams we have about just how big the universe really is. At the time Edwin Hubble began his work at Mount Wilson, it was thought that the Universe consisted only of The Milky Way (or Home, as we like to call it). From 1922-1923, Hubble made some observations, and these observations were scrutinized and poked and prodded until it was conclusive… there is more than one house on our street. Edwin Hubble found other galaxies. 

Hubble also discovered a few things to do with the now pretty much accepted belief that the Universe is in a constant state of expansion. The big one is cosmological red-shift. The massively dumbed-down version of red-shift is that it happens when something is moving away from you really, really fast (Doppler effect) but in the case of cosmological red-shift, the change in the wave-length of the light does not occur because of relative velocities of the object and the observer, instead the photons (light) are expanded and stretched by the expansion of The Universe. Yeah?

Hubble figured this out because he found a rough correlation between the amount of red-shift he saw and the distance of the galaxy he was observing. He found that the greater the distance, the greater the red-shift.

We lost Edwin Hubble at the age of 63 to cerebral thrombosis, and although he was pretty young to go; he did a hell of a lot for us, our thinking and how we view ourselves, the world and the Universe.

A little something to brighten the week...

I thought that today I would share with you a poem harking back from our childhoods. I had completely forgotten its existence but I was thankfully reminded of it by one of my choir conductors who had the wisdom to read it to us on our recent rehearsal weekend. Such great joy did it bring forth amongst us that I think I must share it with you all.

Noise, by Pooh
A.A. Milne

Oh, the butterflies are flying,

Now the winter days are dying.

And the primroses are trying

To be seen. 

 

And the turtle-doves are cooing,

And the woods are up and doing,

For the violets are blue-ing

In the green. 

 

Oh, the honey-bees are gumming

On their little wings, and humming

That the summer, which is coming

Will be fun. 

 

And the cows are almost cooing,

And the turtle doves are mooing,

Which is why a Pooh is poohing

In the sun. 

 

For the spring is really springing;

You can see a skylark singing,

And the blue-bells, which are ringing,

Can be heard. 

 

And the cuckoo isn’t cooing,

But he’s cucking and he’s ooing,

And a Pooh is simply poohing

Like a bird.

 

From, The House At Pooh Corner.

The Norse God of Vengeance, Music and Muppets

You know, one of the things I am loving the most right now is my trusty iPod Classic. I had been without one for some months due to my old one breaking, being sent away for repair, lost and then not retrieved. Luckily the place I bought it from are pretty awesome about honouring extended warranties and gave me a full refund, with which I promptly bought another. I managed to get four fault free years out of the last one, so I figure, it’s probably worth it and I hate the idea of having both an iPhone and an iPod touch. That’s just stupid.

Being without Montague (that’s what I named him) made me realize that I have WAY too much music. Having to actually decide what I was going to want to listen to before actually wanting to listen to it so I could put it on my phone was a tedious business and I lost sight of a lot of the more archaic and strange pieces of my collection that I would only occasionally have the urge to listen to. (As I am writing this-longhand because I am on camp- I am watching Mulan and thinking “why the heck do the Huns have yellow eyes?”) Things like the CD of Bagpipe music, five CDs worth of classical piano and a bunch of really strange yet fantastic cello music, not forgetting the dulcet tones of Foster and Allen.

The first few days after I got Víðarr (that’s what I named him- Norse god of vengeance- don’t ask me why, I get taken by whims sometimes), I had him on shuffle EVERYTHING. T’was grand. I happily listened to crap I hate, bagpipes, cellos, Hanson and Weird Al Yankovic, stuff I used to adore but haven’t listened to in several years. It was fantastic.

Now I am on a mission to listen to every single song that is contained within Víðarr’s fantastic little hard-drive of awesome. Thus far I have managed to listen to about seven albums… out of several hundred and i occurs to me that some of the albums are really very long. There are some that I have already skipped simply because the were wrong for the moment. For example, The Presets are really not appropriate “Bedtime-need-my-brain-to-be-calm” music and I have found that most soundtracks are a pretty poor choice of driving music.

Another brilliant thing about having my iPod back is the sudden accessibility I have to all of my Disney movies (hence the watching Mulan). It’s great. Mostly because they are all almost exactly 90 minutes long which is the perfect movie before bed watching length (or “its 3am and I cant sleep thanks to the Anaconda/Kraken/ Man-Eating Possum living in my ceiling). I also have Jonathan Creek. I love that show, so, so very much. So much so that Danse Macabre became my favourite piece if music for an age, and its thanks to Leverage (also on the iPod) that I found Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade (another truly beautiful piece of music).

(Oh! I’ve reached the sad bit of Mulan. Sadness. Not as sadness inducing as Bambi, but sadness inducing nonetheless.)

I am beginning to wonder how long it is going to take me to give up on this whole “listen to every song you own” thing. Noting that I have already skipped around three albums (I cant actually remember how many).

I am also noting that whenever I write the word “skipped” I always draw the ‘k’ before the ‘s’, also my stamina for handwriting is sadly lacking. My whole arm hurts.

Anyway, back from that lovely tangent, I am going to get to the B’s and wonder how the hell I ever thought this crusade was a good idea. I give myself two more weeks before I fold. Fold like a really terrible (but not unintelligent) poker player.

The others are playing a game of Cheat behind me. They are using two decks. There are alot of them. Things are getting complicated. Its quite entertaining listening to them through the filter of Disney dialogue.

Anyway. After getting lost several times while writing this and failing to keep writing due to the fact that this is the first extended piece of handwriting I have done since first year Uni (some four years ago now) and I am now so weak and feeble and shamefully unpracticed at long-handing it (and I never devised my own version of shorthand); I am going to conclude this small chapter and finish watching my movie… and probably start watching The Muppet Show… I love The Muppets, not so much the new movie, the voices were all wrong (I’m sorry guys, but I watch The Muppet show to much and if you ain’t Frank Oz I can tell)…

Whatever.

Ipods are good. Mine is named Víðarr.

Update: I got to the B's and thought "The Is AWESOME!" because the first album I have that starts with the letter B is Barney Stinson's "Get Psyched" Mix.

AAAAAaRRRRrrrr!!!!

I hope you all know what day it is, I really do. Arrrrr.

It’s….

International Talk Like A Pirate Day!!!

Probably one of my favourite days of the year… you know what, not probably, it IS one of my favourite days of the year.

International Talk Like A Pirate Day has one of the most fantastic origins in human history. During a racquetball game one of the co-creators endured sudden pain and reacted with “AAAarrrrrr” and that was the birth of the idea that would become a really silly thing celebrated worldwide.

We really have three fellas to thank for the wonderment that has been the 19^th of September for the past 10 years. First off there are the two fantastic racquet ballers who first thought an entire day devoted to the word “AAArrrr” would be a good idea, Cap’n Slappy and Ol’Chumbucket (and you know what, I’m just going to use those names, because they are just too good for words) and then there is the journalist who also thought it was a fantastic idea and started promoting the day – Dave Barry (see, sometimes journalists do something useful!). Thanks to these three, we have an entire day devoted to the fun of talking like a pirate, regardless of crap your accent is.

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/press/Images/Pirateguys_portrait_2005.jpg

The world needs more silly things like Talk Like A Pirate Day, because all the other international days are really preachy about morality and saving the planet and stuff. Talk Like A Pirate Day is a day when the whole world can wear an awesome hat, put on their favourite boots and swagger like Johnny Depp. We can use words like “landlubber” and “kraken” and just be cool about it. We can talk in silly voices and use archaic language and pretend we understand each other. We can throw insults like never before and just accept that it’s all in good fun.

So have a fantastic Talk Like A Pirate Day, and say a prayer for Robert Newton, the Patron Saint of Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Facebook Talk Like A Pirate Link.

Official Cap'n Slappy Twitter Link.

Happy Enterprise Day!

On this day in 1976, the world met the newly completed Enterprise; the first Space Shuttle Orbiter to be produced by NASA.

According to the "everyone" in the phrase "everyone knows", Enterprise was originally going to be named Constitution, because its unveiling was on Constitution Day and that would be fitting. However, apparently a bunch of Trekkies (thank goodness) wrote to President Ford asking that the name of the craft be changed to Enterprise, to honor Startrek. He did it. He totally had NASA change the name to Enterprise. The president was a nerd.



Enterprise was never capable of space-flight despite its name and what most of us think shuttles do. It was designed to test the shuttle design in terms of flight, approach and landing. Five orbiters following the Enterprise actually made it into space but only three of them are still around. The Challenger, first launched in 1983, disintegrated after takeoff on its 10th mission. The Columbia was destroyed on re-entry on its 28th mission in 2003.

The Discovery was the longest serving of all the space shuttles, first taking to the skies in 1984 and flying 39 missions before being retired in 2011. Discovery now lives at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The Atlantis and Endeavour shuttles are also on permanent display, Atlantis at The Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex and Endeavour at The California Science Centre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shuttle_profiles.jpg

The Lady is no Tramp...

What can be said about Lady Gaga? All manner of things probably, but today I have nothing but praise for the woman.

I work in the cosmetics and fragrance department of a shop and yesterday my manager got really, really excited. He got so excited because the new Lady Gaga 'Fame" stock came in. For weeks now, people have been ringing us up asking when we are getting it. Officially, it shouldn't be being sold until the 17th here in Australia because Lady Gaga wanted it to be a worldwide launch all happening on the same day, but thanks to Macy's that plan has been thrown out the window by most retailers, so you are able to buy it now.

So why am I so full of praise for a celebrity perfume when I usually try and steer people away from buying things that have been put together by the famous? Because this isn't your average perfume.

Reason Number One:

The fluid is black. That's right, black and opaque. It is so cool. It clears when it oxidizes, so there is no fear of having the look of being attacked by a giant squid, but the point is, its black.

Reason Number Two:

http://www.luxuryitems.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/lady-gaga-perfume-black-fluid.jpg

It looks damn classy. The outer packaging is classy, the inner packaging is classy and for Lady Gaga, the whole advertising campaign has been classy (in a very weird Gaga kind of way... basically not hideous... which is what I think of most perfume ads...hideous). This isn't the normal bright pink and purple with diamante and glitter routine. This is something I wouldn't cringe at seeing on my bathroom counter. But where is the Gaga? you might well ask. The answer is "have a look at the claw". It just screams Gaga, but in a nice way, not a meat dress way.


Reason Number Three:

The scent. Once again she has gone in the opposite direction from most female (or prepubescent boy) celebs who create a fragrance. Instead of making something that is so strong you can smell it three miles away or something that smells like lollies, she has gone for something that Chanel on Bulgari would put "noir" in the name of (which is appropriate given the aesthetics). It actually reminds me a lot of some of the more classic Chanel fragrances (No.5 comes to mind) while having the heaviness of the Illamasqua 'Freak'.

This is not a little girl's fragrance. It is Mature, Sophisticated and worn well anyone can pull it off. Much like Illamasqua's 'Freak', it is undeniably a feminine scent, but can be quite masculine. Depending on your own body chemistry, different notes will become more intense. On me the Belladonna really shone through, while on one of the fragrance boys it became very musky.

                “Tears of belladonna, crushed tiger orchid heart with a black veil of incense, dust, apricot and saffron mixture of essential oils and drops of honey.”

The initial scent actually reminds me a lot of the dry shampoo I use... weird. The other thing is that unlike most celebrity fragrances it didn't make me feel weird. Most of Britney's and Beyonce's make me sneeze, Wonderstruck makes me nauseous and Beiber just gives me a headache (we wont even get into Davidoff). I was well and truly exposed to Fame for a few hours yesterday and I didn't fell any kind of sick, so there's a win.

The trick to wearing any fragrance is to test, test, test. When you go into a perfumery, spray some on and then walk away for at least two hours. This will give you a really good idea of how the perfume will wear on you, not the spray card. I have very acidic skin, so most perfumes will last a max of two hours on me before they burn off, the exceptions are Flora and Freak which seem to last most of the  day.

Monday.

Monday's are usually crap and today was no exception. Happily, it did have a rather marvelous moment of beauty.

A ship, a sub and a big blue wet thing.

We all know that this year was the 100th anniversary of that fateful night the titanic hit an iceberg and fell to the floor of the Atlantic. What you may not know is that today is the anniversary of the day anyone saw the likes of her after that night.

On September 1, 1985 a submarine by the name of the Argo sent back video footage from the ocean floor. For the first time in 73 years, human eyes saw the Titanic.

Robert Ballard and his team had been looking for the Titanic for some time before they managed to find her. The difficulty was twofold. a) she wasn't where everyone thought she should be and b) she rests over 3km below the surface.

Nothing much for happened with the exploration of the Titanic for a year, but the point is, after 73 years of not being sure, 73 years of conjecture and conflicting witness accounts, we were all able to start piecing together what happened on July 14, 1912.