DeMille's Lost City

As someone who uses the internet frequently, I'm always picking up on random pieces of information, which works out as great fodder for irl conversations or wayward blog posts. Some of these facts or stories that I pick up are amazing, humorous, or bizarre. Sometimes it's all of the above.

In 1983, an amateur filmmaker, following a cryptic clue left in an old book, found an ancient city, complete with sphinxes and a 20-ton statue of the Pharaoh, buried beneath the sand dunes of not Egypt, but Southern California. I'm not making any of this up. The man who made the discovery was Peter Brosnan, the book was the autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, and the ancient city was the complete set to his silent classic, The Ten Commandments.

The Ghost Ship Mary Celeste

While wasting my time on the internet a while back, I stumbled upon a very strange story; that of the Ghost Ship Mary Celeste. I don't know too much about maritime lore, but this story is apparently very famous, because it's both very bizarre and seems to have no real explanation. Modern day researchers have been able to come up with an answer to what happened to the Mary Celeste, but even their most plausible explanations don't make this story any more normal.

The Shot Heard 'Round the World

I'm almost certain that every one of you has heard of the 'Shot Heard 'Round the World', as long as you've taken an American History class. Not the shot that kickstarted The Great War, but the shot that marked the beginning of the American Revolution.

I wont give you all the dates of all the significant events before the American Revolution, but the actual fighting for the war didn't start until April, 1775 (a full year before the Declaration of Independence was finalized). Before then, the Colonists on the American continent were just protesting the fact that they were being treated as second-class English citizens. As hostility grew between the Colonists and the British officers sent to calm them down, both sides started preparing for war.

Statue in Concord

What's Up With...? (July Edition)

...The Pepsi Challenge Not Working?

If you've ever watched TV, you're probably aware of the blind taste tests that Pepsi started back in the 70s, called the Pepsi Challenge. Essentially, they'd set up a table somewhere and have random people taste a cup of Pepsi and a cup of Coca-Cola, without labels, to see which one they preferred. Most people agreed that Pepsi tasted better, and the blind test was considered a success for Pepsi.

Except that Coca-Cola's sales didn't go down - Coca-Cola sales had been and continued to be higher than Pepsi's. Pepsi marketers were baffled; they'd scientifically proven that Pepsi was better, but people were still buying Coca-Cola. When actual scientists repeated the Pepsi Challenge, they got the same results, so they decided to see what happened when people knew what they were drinking. The same people who, on a blind test, said they preferred Pepsi, on a labeled test said Coca-Cola was better.

Captain America: The Star Spangled Avenger

Friday, as I sat hunched over the laptop watching Twin Peaks (more on that later this week), mom poked her head into my room and stated that she wanted to go see a movie on Saturday. She does this every now and then - it's a healthy reaction to having months off work (she teaches at an elementary school) and spending most of her time at home with few other people around.

We don't watch movies that are rated R, or movies that just look stupid, so our options this summer are severely limited. After a quick brainstorm, we decided to go see Captain America, which I have to admit was bordering on the 'looks stupid' side of my chart (I'm not a fan of superhero stories, really). However, of all the movies out right now it's the one I was most interested in, so Saturday afternoon we drove out to see Captain America.

Wilde and Unruly

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have the beginnings of what would be a list of dead people who I really admire. It's not really a fully-formed list - in fact, I can only accurately think of two names from it, the first being Albert Einstein, who I don't have to say anything about, and the other being Oscar Wilde.

I get the impression that many people today don't actually know who Oscar Wilde is, which is really unfortunate. In my opinion, he's one of the best and one of the funniest English writers of all time. In all fairness, however, he only ever wrote one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. When he was alive, he was most famous for his children's fairy tales, published in two collections titles The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates, but nowadays I'd wager most people recognize his name from the numerous plays he wrote, including Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Your Sunday Best

People used to wear hats all the time, and up until about fifty years ago, it was practically a requirement for a proper woman to wear a hat when she went somewhere nice, especially to church. Since then, hats have sort of fallen out of fashion, and many people don't know what the hat-wearing etiquette is. In an effort to re-popularize hats, my mom and I have taken to wearing hats in our church meetings (actually, we're really just wearing them for the fun of it).

This started about two months ago, right after the Royal Wedding. I'm not British, but the wedding was kind of a big deal in the world, so we sat down to watch a recording of the 5-hour news event (we fast-forwarded through 3 of those hours). I had fun watching all the hats, which one of the news anchors said was a mandatory accessory for all the women going into the chapel for the wedding.

Don't worry - I will not wear a hat like this. Ever.

Sometime the next day, a friend of ours on Facebook asked, rhetorically, why women didn't wear hats to church anymore, since they're so fun. My mom saw that and thought, 'well, why don't we?' That Sunday, she dug out one of the few hats that we owned and donned it while we went to our church meetings. She wanted to get something started, so that eventually it would be normal for the women to be wearing fashionable hats in church (significantly more modest and less ridiculous than the hats we saw at the Royal Wedding, of course).

Super 8

  Friday evening, my mom and I went out to see the new Spielberg/Abrams movie Super 8. I first saw the poster for Super 8 about a year ago (I think) coming out of one of our local theaters. All I really noticed about the poster was that it was strange, and had both J. J. Abrams' and Steven Spielberg's names, and I was hooked.

Anyone under 30-years old (myself included) might not immediately understand the title reference; my mom had to explain to me that Super 8mm cameras were what she used to make home movies with when she was young. That makes the title of the movie seem a bit more cheery or homey than the poster or trailer would suggest, but after seeing the movie, I completely understand why Abrams choose that as his title.

What's up with...?

...the Diving Bell Spider?
The tiny Diving Bell Spider lives underwater. Seriously. They build bubble-shaped webs that are condensed enough to trap oxygen but malleable enough for them to be able to poke in or out and grab water insects to feed off of. I'm not making this up; here's the Wikipedia article, an article from Discovery News, LiveScience, and the New York Times.

And a picture!

Not only that, but their webs work the same way fish gills do - the oxygen from the surrounding water leeches into the web-bubble while the carbon dioxide leeches out into the water. Over time the spiders have to rise to the surface to restock their air supply, but they're able to live completely in the water.

Discovering that this spider exists was the single-most disturbing news I'd had in a good long while. Spiders are bad enough as it is; their long legs are creepy, and while I don't mind looking at them (preferable in a container), I can't help imagining them crawling over me, sucking my blood dry. Imagining that happen unbeknownst to me while I'm peacefully swimming around at the beach, thinking all is right? I know, logically, that this spider is tiny and would be hiding from me, but I can't help thinking nature has some cruel, evil trick in mind with these things.

...James Tate and the Prom ordeal?

E3 - Nintendo's Presentation

Tuesday, June 7th, Nintendo (corp.)  gave their presentation to those attending E3. Last year their presentation was extremely cool, so when I logged onto the Nintendo website and loaded the video of the presentation, I was expecting great things. I was not disappointed.

The Nintendo Presentation screen

The screen they used for the presentation was interestingly asymmetrical, and they started off with a small orchestra (~20 instruments) playing a medley of music from the Legend of Zelda series while clips from the games played behind them. On February 21st, 1986, the first Legend of Zelda game was released in Japan, and this year Nintendo is celebrating the 25th anniversary of one of their best-selling series. I was pleasantly surprised with Nintendo for starting their presentation off with a huge tribute to Zelda, especially since in February it appeared like they weren't doing anything.

World War Z

I think it's very appropriate that, while I was reading World War Z by Max Brooks, the Centers for Disease Control released their How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse report. If you have little to no interest in zombies, and are already tuning out because of the topic for today's blog, I highly suggest you keep reading, because World War Z is not your average zombie invasion story.

Weekdays

The MacCallum Theater is hosting a musical this weekend called Anything Goes, preformed by the students at the local college. My brother is working as their stage manager, so we decided to go on tonight; we'd originally been planning to go yesterday, opening night, but my dad wouldn't have been able to make it. Since Thursday was unexpectedly open, my mom decided that she and I would go see Thor (I'll probably write a review for that later). I realized that morning, as we were making plans, that seeing Thor was extremely appropriate, seeing at is was, after all, the day of the week named after that particular god of thunder

The Norse god that particular comic book hero is based on.

My oldest brother, when I was younger and he still living with us, would always call Wednesday "Woden's Day" and Thursday "Thor's Day," explaining that those days were originally called that. I always thought that sounded silly, but as I got older I got in the habit of saying "Woden's Day" and "Thor's Day" to myself as well.

Golden Week

In Japan, around this time of year, four major national holidays fall within a seven-day period of time known as Golden Week. The entire week, if my research is correct, became in itself a holiday and break time.

I have to confess - whenever I type "Golden" I accidentally add an extra 'e' and inadvertently spell out "Goldeen," the pokemon.

Weekends permitting (Which they kind of aren't, this year), Golden week starts on April 29th with Showa day. April 29th was originally Emperor Showa's birthday, from December 25th, 1926, to his death in 1989. After his death, the holiday was changed to 'Greenery Day', a Japanese Earth Day, in honor of the previous emperor's love of nature. I'm not too familiar with Japanese politics, so I'm not sure how he was viewed as a person, though I know he was emperor during the second world war, and that he met with many foreign leaders, including the Queen and President Gerald Ford.

Greenery Day was then moved to May 4th sometime around 2005-2007 (I guess the law was passed in 2005, but didn't take affect until 2007). April 29th became Showa Day, a day of remembrance.

May 3rd has been Constitution Memorial Day since the Japanese Constitution was established in 1947. I'm not sure why it's "Constitution Memorial" and not just "Constitution" day (the 'memorial' makes it sounds like they're remembering an old constitution'), but perhaps that's just a nuance of the Japanese language.

Children's Day is celebrated by hanging Carp-shaped wind socks for each child.

 May 5th is Boys Day, or in recent years Children's Day. It's a very old holiday, going back to around 600 A.D., and traditionally meant to celebrate the family's boys and bless them with strength and courage and what-not. Girls Day, more often know as the Doll Festival, was celebrated March 3rd, on the other hand. In recent years, Boys Day has grown to include Girls as well, and is now a family Children's holiday.

Because the Japanese are smart and wise, any day that falls between two holidays is also declared a holiday. May 4th, in that case, right between Constitution Memorial Day and Children's Day, was also a vacation day. With the emperor's birthday just earlier in the week, the ingenious Japanese Board of People who Decide Things decided to make the whole week a celebration. Now May 4th is a real holiday, Greenery day, and there are four official holidays for Golden Week.

Golden Week, from what I understand, has always been a bit celebration, so I hope the Japanese people are still able to celebrate this year, even with the recent tragedies. Our hearts are with you!

Fuzzy Beginnings

Under our very noses, for centuries unnoticed by human-kind, a war has been brewing between two horrific groups of people. Of course, I'm referring to the epic battle between Werewolves (Lycanthropes) and Vampires.

Something like this, right?

Most pieces of modern fiction that depict this war ask the audience to chose one side or another, either by present one as the 'heroes' and the other as the antagonist, or by giving a player the option to choose a side (as in games). After much research and deliberation, I decided of the two groups, I much more of a werewolf fan than a vampire fan, for reasons I'll explain below, but first I must address one important question; why is there even a war to begin with?

Twenty Something

This may seem a bit inconsequential to some of you, but I assure you this is a problem that desperately needs to be fixed. As you might be able to guess, I'm referring to blatant use of the term "two-thousand..." when stating the date - as in, 'two-thousand ten, two-thousand eleven, two-thousand twelve.' While it's true that, in this new century, the full number that represents the year isn't ten syllables long (Unlike one-thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine), we should still be mindful of the number of unnecessary syllables.

I was born in the early 90s, and like everyone born before the year 2000, I got used to shortening the year-date into two numbers - Nineteen and Ninety-five, or ninety-six or whatever (Of course, we never actually said the 'and' part). I remember thinking it was a bit strange, until I tried saying the year as one number - One thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-seven is WAY too much to say in one go. (However, in my French classes we were always taught to say the whole number, as if the French actually take the time to pronounce all that whenever they're giving the date. Still not sure if this is true.)

That's why the next decade was a bit strange, because there is no way to shorten two-thousand or two-thousand one (Unless you want to say 'twenty-zero' and 'twenty-oh-one', but that just sounds ridiculous). It didn't take extremely long to get used to however, and I think everyone will agree that we got pretty used to saying 'two-thousand nine' by the time it rolled around.

However, there's a serious problem with saying 'two-thousand ten'. If we get used to saying 'two-thousand ten', then we'll be saying 'two-thousand thirteen', and eventually 'two-thousand twenty' and 'two-thousand fifty-six' and so on. IT'LL NEVER END. Whatever we start with, we'll have to keep up, to keep face. Our kids, hearing us say 'two-thousand thirty', will say 'two-thousand sixty-four' to their kids, who'll say 'two-thousand ninety-three' to their kids, and a hundred years from now everyone will be saying 'two-thousand one-hundred eleven' like the FRENCH.

You may think this is ridiculous, that having experienced the twentieth century we'd never start saying the whole date out like that, but that's just the point - we wouldn't be! Who among us is going to be living for another hundred years? It'll be our kids, and our kids' kids, who, having heard our pronunciation their whole lives, wont think to revert back to the lesser-syllable version.

And I assure you, the lesser-syllable version is far superior. I love the English language, in part because it's open, always changing and shifting to make it easier for the speakers to communicate. That's why our non-living nouns don't have genders, it's why most people don't pronounce the 'h' in 'wh' words (even though the 'hw' pronunciation is technically more correct) and why we pronounce 'Colonel' as 'Kernul (Try saying 'Col-oh-nel' in a sentence a lot, and you'll see why the pronunciation changed over time. I'm personally against this one, however - I'll pronounce it the way it's spelled, thank you very much).

That's why we invented 'ten twenty' when 'a thousand and twenty' got to be too hard to say. We haven't had a reason to challenge the shorter pronunciation, which cuts down anywhere from 1-5 syllables from our speech, until now. 'Two-thousand ten' isn't far off from 'Twenty-ten', but it's enough to cut a syllable, and if you can cut anything out, and still keep the same meaning, then you're a winner.

Please, if you're one of those grammar nazies who insists on pronouncing everyone they was they did in during the Renaissance, do not procreate. Our language is evolving, changing, because people are still speaking it. That's how languages work. The responsibility of a fluent English speaker is to communicate as effectively as possible, and if that means cutting out sounds or syllables, creating portmanteaus, or adopting words from other languages, by all means (Just try not to slur your words - the point is to increase communication, not baby-babble).

This year is 'Twenty Eleven', and in a year it'll be 'Twenty Twelve', and the sooner we figure that out, the sooner we can focus on some more important problems facing us today.