Country Song Titles

I was listening to the Austin Lounge Lizards on the way to work today, and wanting to maintain my country music buzz I dialed up some country on Launch. The titles of country songs are really something. A couple that I heard were "Men and Mascara Always Run" and " Screw You, We're From Texas." Of course, in the car this morning I was listening to songs like "You Can Eat Dog Food" and "We Always Fight When We Drink Gin."

Musique de Jedi

Picture139_29Jun06,
originally uploaded by Phil Shirley.

Today's "Musique de jeudi" organ recital at the church near my library was Star Wars music (this is a picture of Darth Tater on the organ console). It was fun to hear this music on the organ. The big pipes really put some rumble into Darth Vader's theme, and it was fun to hear how the organist chose stops for the different parts. I realized that I don't have a digital copy of the Star Wars music, so I have put the set into my Amazon cart. I've gotta learn what the different organ stops are by sound; I'm going to study the samples at http://www.die-orgelseite.de/pfeifenarten_e.htm.

The Right Trousers

You may remember the ads for the Dockers Mobile Pant a few years ago. My wonderful wife bought me two pairs of them, and they were great. The zippered pocket further down the leg was very convenient for gadgets (like a Palm or a second cell phone). The second zippered pocket inside each of the front pockets was nice, and was very handy when traveling in pickpockety areas of Italy. I still have the pants, but they don't fit anymore--the one bad thing about losing weight. Sadly, they don't make these anymore; they have something new, but they just seem to have a big non-subtle cargo pocket on the leg and no zippered pockets. Maybe some will show up on eBay someday. I'm holding onto mine, in case I gain weight or really baggy pants come into style.

Employee of the Month

Employee of the Month,
originally uploaded by Phil Shirley.

I'm employee of the month, so I get the special parking spot! (The blue sign says "Reserved for Library Employee of Month".) The library is actually behind you; what you see is the back of the neighboring gas station. If I ride my motorcycle to work this month then I'll post a picture of that, too.

Happy Father's Day

There are two words that I've never heard said by anyone but my dad: geedunk and cattywampus. Now through the magic of the Internet I can see that he wasn't just making them up (not that I ever doubted my dear old dad :-). Oh, and there's a math problem at the end in honor of Father's day.

The way my dad uses it, "geedunk" means sweets (and maybe other junk food), based on the name of a place where you can get this stuff. That's basically what they say on the Navy Historical Facts and Trivia page. The Naval Historical Center also has some info on the word. The term seems to have jumped ship and crossed over to other branches of the service, or at least to the army, where my dad learned it.

"Caddywampus" means caddycorner, or kittycorner, according to both my dad and SlangSite.com. Caddywampus is also the name of "one of today's formost instrumental rock bands" according to their own web site (I had never heard of them, but that doesn't mean anything). This word came into my mind recently because the What Kind of American English Do You Speak quiz at Blogthings falied to list it as an alternative to "catty corner."

One more thing for my dad: A math problem. I hate this particular one; I was a math major, and I took a class in probability, and it still doesn't make sense to me. It's the (in)famous Monty Hall Problem, made famous a number of years ago by Marilyn vos Savant in Parade magazine. Many people, including math professors, wrote in to tell her she was wrong, but all my Googling seems to say she was right (as does Charlie, the math genius on the TV show Numbers).

The common definition of the problem seems to be: There are three doors; behind one is a good prize (say, a car), and behind the other two are less desirable things (say, goats). You choose a door, hoping to get the car. Then the game show host, knowing what's behind each door, opens one of the doors that you didn't choose and reveals a goat. Now there are two doors left--your's and the other one. He asks if you want to change to the other door. What is the probability that the car is behind your door, and what is the probability that it's behind the other door?

Well, at first there were three doors, so you had a one in three chance of getting the car. Now there are two doors, so you have a fifty-fifty chance, right? What if I choose door number 1, but my friend in the audience secretly thinks "it's door number 3", and then the host opens door number 2; my act of choosing doesn't mean any more than my friend's silent act of choosing, does it?

So, it seems like it's fifty-fifty, but the experts say no. They say that whatever door you choose has a 1 in 3 chance even when there are only two doors left. There is an explanation of this on the Math Forum at Drexel School of Education, and a more mathy one on a web page of the Naval Academy. Another explanation if at the Wikipedia. That's the one that I think has the best explanation--but it's still definitely counterintuitive.

You Gotta Get a Gimmick

A singing, dancing librarian at Blendon Middle School in Westerville, Ohio inspires kids to read. Some might say that her approach is over the top, but it is a good thing to bring some personality to what you do. Read all about it in the Columbus Dispatch.

Emoticons I've learned recently

I don't know if these are emoticons or ASCII art or what, but here are two that I learned recently (from my dear wife):

heart (aka puffy heart): <3
cupcake: [|}

Live Music at Lunch

Today I attended my first "Musique de jeudi" recital. The organist at a church that's one block from where I work gives these recitals every Thursday at 12:15, for about a half hour. I love hearing live music, and it's very cool that I have an opportunity to do this during my work day.

The church is the First United Methodist Church, and the organist is Dean Wagner. The audience was maybe 20 or 30 people I guess. Wagner came down and talked to the audience about what we were going to hear, which was useful because I didn't know what a ciacona was before but then I was able to recognize the characteristic repeating bass pattern in both the ciaconas (ciacone?) he played.

Today was Pachelbel day. Coming up:
June 15, Dietrich Buxtehude
June 22, Leon Boellmann
June 29, Musique de Jedi (Star Wars)
July 6, Flor Peeters

Ex-Presidents Hot for Tivo (& Treo)

I know you've been wondering: What kind of cool electronic gear do our ex-presidents have? After extensive research (watching "The Daily Show" and reading Entertainment Weekly), I bring you this special report:

On "The Daily Show" a few weeks ago, John Stewart asked guest Jimmy Carter if he watched the show; President Carter replied that it was on pretty late, but he watched it on his TiVo.

One of the stupidest parts of Entertainment Weekly is a column called "Stupid Questions with..." (at least they're honest about it). I'm usually able to avoid it, but this time I was sucked in. Anyway, somehow Reba McEntire said that she was watching a baseball game on TV and saw her buddy George H.W. Bush and his wife sitting behind home plate. She got out her Treo and called him on his Treo, and saw him answer (the Treo is a kind of phone). She didn't say what model he had; if I had to guess, I would say it was a 700w, because Windows seems somehow more Republican than Palm OS.

Science Fiction Double Feature

Now reading: Year's Best SF 9. This is a collection of science fiction short stories that appeared in 2003. I'm enjoying being exposed to writers who I"ve never read before, like Octavia E. Butler (who died recently) and Cory Doctorow (who contributes to one of my favorite web sites, Boing Boing). It's good to break away from my usual habits, reading my favorite cyberpunk authors.

Now watching: Doctor Who episodes from last year on the SciFi Channel. I haven't watched Doctor Who for many, many years and I became interested in it again after reading the biography of Douglas Adams, who wrote for Doctor Who a little. Gotta get those old episodes.