Thu 1 May 2008
Thursday Thirteen #17: Things I Learned Last Month
(1) F-bombs away: If and when you get stuck in some company’s voice mail jail, using profanity may not only be good for blowing off steam, it may also actually get a human on the line. Just the same, Miss Manners begs of you, please don’t.
(2) In New York City, someone has been taking discarded plastic bags and turning them into street art. A creation is tied to the ventilation grate above a subway line, and when a train passes, the air inflates the bag-creation and brings it to life in the shape of an animal.
(3) For the past month, we’ve sponsored Black Jordan at Best Friends, but yesterday, they emailed me the good news that Black Jordan has been adopted. As a result, we are now sponsoring a special little cat who goes by the name of Scooter:
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| Black Jordan | Scooter |
(4) How to write a song, and other mysteries: “We … proceed to vent and hash out our thoughts and feelings, our anger and frustrations, our longings and hopes and try to gently coax them into the shape of a song. And that song must have the three H’s in it…”
(5) Desktop video processing programs have allowed people around the world to release their inner Coppola. While the manual can help a person learn the technical side of putting together a little video for YouTube, the only filmmaking training most of these amateurs have had consists of what they remember from watching something else. That includes me — I try something I saw or heard somewhere, and if it feels like it works, it stays in.
When choosing music for the soundtrack, I know it’d be easy to rip something from a CD, but to stay on the safe side, I look for royalty-free music first. The music on this video, which shows our own little Nicky and his sisters, was composed and recorded by Kevin MacLeod, and posted at his website, Incompetech.com.
A newer site called SoundSnap seems promising for soundtracks as well.
(6) People who remember the Nixon administration will probably nod their heads at this phrase: “Mike Wallace interviewing Henry Kissinger.” Then comes the curveball: Mike Wallace interviewing Henry Kissinger during the Eisenhower Administration — in July 1958.
(7) I try not to be a fanatic about anachronisms and other movie continuity errors, but I notice things that stick out. A person could spend a lot of time learning what others have noticed and subsequently posted at Nitpickers and Continuity Corner.
(8) Here’s a light, green, and meatless recipe for spring rolls, courtesy of Diva Kitty’s Mom. I wonder whether she’s ever tried to crochet a cat hat for Diva Kitty Sophia?
(9) Rumble strips on the edge of the Pennsylvania Turnpike or other U.S. highways are called SNAPs, short for Sonic Nap Alert Pattern.
(10) In professional wrestling terminology, a good guy is a “Face”, short for babyface, and the term for a bad guy is the charmingly old-fashioned “Heel”.
(11) The federal Do Not Call Registry is proof that government can do good things for its citizens. Sign up, and telemarketers can’t call you without breaking the law. When the list began, there was a requirement to re-sign up every 5 years, but you don’t even have to do that anymore. It’s once and done for your home landline, and it’s also illegal to make junk calls to cell phones using automatic dialers.
(12) Kelly’s tummy problems have been much improved since we started feeding him only Stinky Goodness. We gave him a little dry food a couple of times since, but he had the same trouble keeping it down as before. One blogger must be nodding knowingly, because she has already learned six reasons not to feed dry cat food, one of which is euphemistically listed as “gastro-intestinal disorders.”
(13) And finally, speaking of food, a pavilion that was sponsored by the gas industry at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair was called “Festival of Gas.”
Now, I’m not the first nor likely to be the last to learn that there was a restaurant in that pavilion. Yes, you could eat at a place by the name of “Festival of Gas.”
Despite the name, the Festival was considered a good place to eat. No information on whether beans were on the menu…
