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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Thunderation!

Recently my sister posted about how she and I would read cereal boxes during breakfast (as children), comparing the nutrition information of one cereal with another, and if her cereal's vitamin B (or whatever) was higher, she would win. Think vitamin contest. Anyway, it sounds pretty silly to me now, being much older AND wiser (or at least one of those two). However, in the interest of reciprocity, I will mention something else weird and...well, just plain weird, that happened when we were but young.
I was at my parents' house today for various reasons, helping Dad cut trees down among them. He went outside to mow and I went inside to look at the computer - seems Mom was having computer problems. Anyway, I quickly fixed it, somehow, and I went to watch some TV while waiting for Dad to finish mowing so we could cut trees. I happened upon an old video tape marked "Red River, NM - B.J. DO NOT TAPE OVER". (I used to use any old tape I could find to record things, whether they were simply old HGTV episodes or priceless memories). So I popped in the tape and to my surprise, I saw several interesting things.
1) A clip of a deer, grazing in the valley, then running off. Pretty cool.
2) A clip of Dad, Robin and myself with Dad holding all the fish we had caught that day. Again, nothing too out of the ordinary.
3) A puppet show called Puppets On Broadway (LIVE!). Yeah, this is the one that made me laugh. It seems Robin and Erin and Heidi got the idea to put on a puppet show. I somehow got sucked into filming it and doing the music (yes, we had music!). You see, my family was vacationing in Red River with the Hombergers (Phil, Debbie, Erin, and Heidi - they have an adopted son now, but he wasn't there then), sharing a really cool old cabin with them. Anyway, the girls put on the show, featuring such hits as Thunderation, From A Distance, something by Wilson Phillips, and other hits (I use the term loosely).

I guess it isn't that bad - just funny. Not nearly as strange as the Jolly Rancher wars Robin and I used to have, or the Care Bear/Transformer wars. Gee, we had alot of wars as kids.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Hastily Replanned Trip

For the faithful (and few) readers of this blog, you were probably aware that I was going to Tennessee this weekend to find the grave of Johnny Cash with Colby. For various reasons which I won't go into here (ha ha), that trip was canceled. BUT! The good news is that an even better trip happened! And it was totally random, which is the best kind.
Posers (by homer4k)
With these peeps (Jessica, Dee and Dale) I drove through Arkansas and caught spectacular views of the mountains. Of course, with these people, the trip itself was more interesting, ha ha. I can't say too much about certain events - the entire Dequeen, AR comedyfest comes to mind - but you can be sure the trip was a blast. (Flaming Train!!) And of course, all the pics are available for viewing on flickr.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Another Link

Here is a link to the Wikipedia article on Number Form Synesthesia - forgot to mention it in the previous post.

Synesthesia

Synesthesia (from the Wikipedia article) is condition where the brain "mixes up" information streams from two (or more!) senses ( a simplified definition). It only affects a small percentage of the population (around 4%). Most commonly, synesthetes connect graphemes (letters and numbers) with colors. The letter 'A' might be red, while the letter 'Q' might be purple. Others might connect music and color - they will literally feel different colors depending on the kind of music.
A more rare type is called number form synesthesia. People who exhibit this form may, for example, have detailed maps associated with things like numbers, time, or anything linear. These 'maps' may even occupy a definite geographical location (from the brain's point of view). N.F.S may result from "cross-activation" between regions of the parietal lobe that are involved in numerical cognition and spatial cognition.
The reason I am going on about this is simply, I believe I have Number Form Synesthesia (!). As long as I can recall, whenever I think of numbers, I can see a definite visual map, like a number line, with each number in a definite physical location, always the same. The mental map will rotate and track along the twisting number line to keep whatever number I am thinking of centered. For example, the number line starts at 0 (negative numbers are represented, but they are more of a shooting line off to the left, going on forever) and sweeps around through 180 in front of me up through the number 10. If I start to think of higher numbers, the line rotates as the angle increases, so 11-20 are in essence behind me, but are rotated into view when I think of them. When the numbers reach beyond 20, things get ever weirder - the number line begins to spiral away in ever increasing circles, with little wiggles at each decade number (30, 40, 50, 60, etc). 100 is a special number - the line no longer spirals but extends to the right, still with wiggles at the 10s and (if I am thinking of higher numbers) at the 100s. Does this sound bizarre yet? Cuz it gets weirder.
I also see time as a map - the hours of the day are (surprise) a clock face! Not that weird, I guess, and I suspect alot of people may use this image as well. After all, we all see clocks every day. But beyond hours - the days of the week have their own mental map for me. Imagine a smiley face, very broad smile, with the eyes just above and VERY close to the smile. Monday begins the smile on the left, followed by Tuesday (a little further down and to the right), and then Wednesday, which is at the trough (deepest part) of the smile. Thursday and Friday complete the curve of the smile. Saturday and Sunday are completely disconnected from the smile days - they rest above the curve (they are the eyes of the smiley face - I'm not seeing a smiley face, that's just the best description I can think of).
The months even have their own map - each with its own definite location relative to the others. Even the years themselves are arranged in a weird linear map. To me, the 1990's have a almost physical location (well, not really physical in the real sense, but the mental map is very real to me).
I've never really thought about it much - its not something I ever mentioned, simply because it is so basic I never thought about it (like walking or breathing - it just happens, unless something goes REALLY wrong). I was perusing Wikipedia, something I do when I'm bored, and came across the synesthesia article. I almost jumped out of my chair when I read the number form section - I kept thinking "THAT'S ME!! THAT'S ME!!!! " Not that it makes a big difference - synesthesia isn't a terminal condition, nor is it a disease at all. I just think it is wonderful to discover something about myself which has been part of me for 30 odd years, but not something I ever really thought about before. I AM A SYNESTHETE (well, from reading the article, I am very very sure I am, but that's not a professional diagnosis). I would really like to be able to hear color in music though - that would be awesome.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Missing Dad's Birthday...Again

Last year, I went to Arizona in March. I missed my Dad's birthday (3-14, which is Pi day for you geeks out there, or more precisely it's Pi Day officially at 1:59 AM on March 14). Although we did celebrate later, after I returned, by going to Fish Tales (his fave restaurant) I haven't heard the end of it, about missing the actual day.
Well, it's Round Two. I'm going to be gone the weekend he and Mom wanted to go out for his birthday (the weekend right after 3/14) but I will once again be gone, not to Arizona, but rather to Tennessee, to visit Johnny Cash's gravesite (among other things). I was out at Mom and Dad's earlier today, and even though we decided to do the BD thing this upcoming weekend instead, I still got an earful about missing his actual bd TWO YEARS IN A ROW. This will be one of those things that is still brought up 20 years from now, I'm sure, like how I once giggled at Dad about the way he ate corn on the cob. That was YEARS ago, and yet I still hear it every once in awhile. Oh well, it's one of the things that makes Dad so cool.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Name A Country That Starts With "U"

I came across this video whilst surfing the web. Please watch before reading the rest of this post - it's rather long, but worth it. I laughed at first - making fun of our American tendencies toward self-centeredness as a nation - our collective attitude that we're #1, and the rest of the world is rather unimportant. Yeah, I'm generalizing, but you know what I mean.
As I kept watching the clip, my laughter turned to a sick, sick feeling. At first, I thought this was like an SNL sketch, but I came to realize it was more of a Candid Camera, featuring actual Americans answering the simplest of questions about world events with the dumbest of answers. It is funny, in a horrible, demeaning way - how did we get to this point?

Reporter: Name a country that starts with a 'U'.
American: Uhhhh....
Reporter: How about the United States of America?
American: Yeah!

The worst part was the last part of the clip - an entire segment of Texans being interviewed. Oooh, that was fun.

I realize that this video does not feature a representative sample of Americans - they just took the stupid ones and edited the smarter people out. Still - these were SIMPLE QUESTIONS!!!

Reporter: Who is Tony Blair?
American: A skater?

Reporter: Who is Fidel Castro?
Stupid American: A singer??

Reporter: What religion is Israel?
Stupid American: Uhh, Israeli?

And so on, ad infinitum (or nauseum) For the sake of Pete, Ol' Roy has more sense than these American Idiots (also a Greenday album) - at least Roy knows the difference (kinda) between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Surely we aren't a country full of idiots! Well, I know there are alot of them out when I am driving, but that's a different story...

Friday, March 02, 2007

Bright and Yellow!


Bright and Yellow!
Originally uploaded by homer4k.
I took this today - it looked pretty cool in the LCD preview screen of my camera, and after a little photoshopping it kinda wowed me for some reason - until I just noticed that the horizon (bottom left) is way way way unlevel - a total photo newb mistake. Oh well, I'll just pretend I did it for artistic reasons...

The Return of Roy

It's been awhile, but Ol' Roy is back!!! This time, his pointless diatribe is directed at the Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Read on:

To the Editor:

Iraq is a religious war. Sunnis and Shites are both Muslims, but each believes their group should choose the leaders. They have believed this, and have been fighting since Muhammad died in the year 632.

Most of the Iraq's are Shites, but a majority of Muslims in the world are Sunni.

So we have the Sunni's and Shites in with a few Kurd's, Catholics, Jews, Methodist, Baptist, and Agnostics. Most of them think God is on their side and all others are going to Hell. An exception is the Agnostics who are not sure if anyone is going anywhere.

Roy Bunch

Paris


So there you have it. My favorite part is his definition of an agnostic: not sure that anyone is going anywhere. By the way, I wasn't aware that Kurds were a religious group - I thought they were an ethnicity! Boy was I wrong on that one. I only have one question, Roy: What the heck is your letter about?? For the answer to that, I guess we'll have to wait for his next letter.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Mmmm, Lasagna

I have been on a low-carb diet for the past month or so, and along with a daily dose of walking (at least 30 mins a day) the pounds are coming off. However, one of the pitfalls of the low carb diet is that pasta is anathema to it - a huge no-no. And I love italian food, hence my problem.
So I applied a little culinary creativity and designed a new recipe tonight - Cabbage Lasagna! (Don't say 'eww' just yet). Basically, I just replaced the lasagna noodles with cabbage leaves - it gives the lasagna its layered structure, yet without any of the high carb levels of pasta. Makes it healthier, too!! I reduced the amount of liquid I put in to compensate for the fact that the noodles wouldn't be there to soak it up. Other than that, I just made normal lasagna (sausage, spinach, mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, ricotta cheese, shrooms, and about 3 tablespoons of minced garlic - man, I love garlic!!). The only thing I would change would be to cut up the cabbage leaves further - or just buy a bag of shredded cabbage. I tore rather large portions of cabbage leaves - I thought they would be more tender and easily cut up after cooking. Anyway, it was delicious, and I allowed myself to indulge my italian tooth (instead of sweet tooth) a tad tonight as a reward for doing so well this past month. And I am quite full, too!