Saved from an old Video 8 tape…
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Author Archives: Merlin Silk
What makes Cool Cool?
Flemming introduced me to the violin-playing of Vanessa Mae.
Give me a break – the violin must be the most conservative and boring instrument of them all and I get stuck on Youtube watching all kinds of videos about her music?
This is how violin playing is supposed to look…
and not like this…
And then play music like this…
I mean – this IS cool violin playing! Made me think about what makes cool cool?
I told my son, who is now at the age where he thinks that accessorizing with cool things will make him cool, a story from the days when I still tried to find that which would make me be cool…
It were the days of our first cars at the end of high school. I personally certainly had the un-coolest car your could get, but it was all I could afford. In our class we had one guy who was just the coolest, Mike. He had, at that tender age, traveled the world on a shoe-string budget. He was so cool, that he did not even give in to female attempts to reel him him. How cool was that – something I dreamed of – he just shrugged off!
Once, a few of us planed to go on a social visit to our favorite teacher. Only few of us had cars, my car was too small for all of us, so Mike offered to drive us and got the car from his dad and thus was our designated driver.
You might have to learn a bit about car culture in Germany at that time to grasp the gravity of the following.
For example, you could not drive an automatic – you would be considered a grandpa – but those cars were too expensive anyways so that was never an issue amongst us. At the top of the un-cool list, right after the automatic, was a station wagon with the shift-stick at the steering wheel and a single bench in the front.
And that was exactly the car Mike drove up in to pick us all up that evening to go, visit Hartwig! But believe it or not – that car did not make Mike un-cool, instead his coolness rubbed off on the car and it became totally acceptable to drive a Taunus or Ford station-wagon.
Applying that lesson to myself took many years, so I don’t necessarily expect my son to understand when I told him this story, but for me this example of the violin of Vanessa Mae re-enforced the lesson for me.
She just did not let the un-coolness of the violin rub off on her, instead she made the violin cool.
So, now, how can I apply that right now?
The Money Bag Month
Calendar for July 2011 (United States)
This year, July has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This happens once every 823 years, which means we will most likely not see this again during our life time. It is called the money bag. According to the email that conveyed this information to me I will have to forward this to my friends and money will arrive within 4 days. This is supposed to be based on Chinese Feng Shui. The one who does not forward…..will be without money.
Obviously I could not take this risk – so – there you go…
A bottle of Wine for the Husband
Sally was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road.
As the trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman if she would like a ride.
With a silent nod of thanks, the woman got into the car.
Resuming the journey, Sally tried in vain to make a bit of small talk with the Navajo woman. The old woman just sat silently, looking intently at everything she saw, studying every little detail, until she noticed a brown bag on the seat next to Sally.
‘What in bag?’ asked the old woman.
Sally looked down at the brown bag and said, ‘It’s a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband.’
The Navajo woman was silent for another moment or two. Then speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder, she said:
‘Good trade….’
Shooting the Router DI-784
When I got my new computer it had 802.11a built in – you know the one using frequencies in the 5 GHz band. As my old router was dieing I decided double the amount of money and get a dual band D-Link router DI-784.
What a lemon!
I had three and all three did not work. D-Link Support did not even bother to wipe the settings in the last router they sent me. Guess they hoped that the router that was sent back by somebody else might work for me – not true.
Obviously I was not very happy about it because it cost my time. They offered me to send me a single band router instead, but would not refund me the price difference (remember, double the price) so I decided to get a Netgear router and take out my anger on that poor router.
I intended to do this quickly to make it a PR nightmare for D-Link, but life events were frequent, and it was forgotten.
Until now, when I converted all my mini DV tapes to computer files because I am not sure how long there will still be devices to play those tapes.
So, there you have it – shooting the router.
40 Years in Space
Originally Written November 2007:
I ran into a collection of imagery of space from the 50s and 60s of the 20th century. Isn’t that amazing how that sound, speaking of the 20th century as so long ago?
One of the images I seemed to remember was of an outpost on the moon created by Frank Tinsley.
But then there was an image of a very early Perry Rhodan novella – and THAT was fascinating. I had not quite started to read science fiction when this novella first came out, but some six years later I certainly read this novella when it came out in the second or third edition – so I knew…
… “Venus in Danger” – novella #20!
For many years after coming to the wild west I had my family in Germany collect Perry Rhodans for me and then send them to me in batch, but this had stopped now about 20 years ago.
So I have to admit, I am not quite up-to-date any more.
A few month ago I had realized that and found out that I could actually subscribe to an electronic version of the newest issued and get them in my email in-box. I had not subscribed at that time as I did not think I would have enough time to read them, but at least I got myself a little fix in form of a free issue that was offered – novella #2300!
Can you believe this – 2300 – at 52 weekly booklets that is about 46 years.
Harbingers of Chaos
So – what has changed in the last forty to fifty years?
Certainly the cover design feels more modern, but I am sure that the next half century will eradicate that difference. Then there is the price – the old one about 20 cents (at the exchange rate at that time) and the new one weighting in at about $2.50 – with the inflation rate I guess the price has remained stable.
Then there is one noticeable difference. The subtitle of the series in 1962 was “The Great Space Series” but today it’s simply “The Greatest Science Fiction Series.”
OK, now to work – gotta finally read my free novella “Vorboten des Chaos” – and maybe, just maybe, it’s so good that I will indeed subscribe.
Update 2011: I actually never managed to read the free sample and only stumbled across this blog post because in a server crash I had lost many of the images used in this blog and I just noticed there was another blog post without its pictures. So, I set out to find them again and, in the process, ran into some new info…
- We are now in the last quarter of the cycle 2500…2599, the second cycle nearly done after I checked last – about right at 52 novellas per year;
- There is now an encyclopedia of Perry Rhodan;
- A bigger part of the series is now available electronically and if bought in bulk (50 or 100 novellas at a time) it’s rather inexpensive at Eu 1.25
I would not want to read Perry’s on the computer – maybe that was one of the reasons I never finished my free sample, but now that the Kindle is only $140, one hundred Perry’s plus the Kindle is about the same price as buying all the physical novellas.
hmmm…
Monty Python’s Chanting Monks
Again, I had to find the chanting monks from Monty Python’s Holy Grail today because I had forgotten the words of that chant.
So, I finally – once and for all – I get it recorded here on my own blog, so that I might find it quick in case of an emergency. Putting more attention and intention on those words, I might actually be able to burn them into my brain as to not forget them any more.
Without further ado…
Pie Jesu Domine – Dona Eis Requiem.
and in case you want to know what that means in English and to save you the time to crack open your Latin books to translate it yourself – it means…
Kind Lord Jesus – Grant Them Rest.
In case you would like to hear the chant I can be of service as well…
And as we are already talking about The Holy Grail, here are the instructions for the use of the Holy Hand Grenade…
First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin,
then shalt thou count to three,
no more, no less.
Three shalt be the number thou shalt count,
and the number of the counting shalt be three.
Four shalt thou not count,
neither count thou two,
excepting that thou then proceed to three.
Five is right out.
Once the number three,
being the third number, be reached,
then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch
towards thou foe,
who being naughty in my sight,
shall snuff it.
Amen!
Teach every child about food
Just yesterday I ran into an old blog post on this site looking at Michelangelo’s David after a Big Mac Diet. What was most surprising to me was that there were comments that promoted ideas like “I had fast food as a kid and I’m OK!”
Less than a day later a TED talk by Jamie Oliver comes across my desk (email-inbox) addressing the same subject and actually showing how easy it can be to get David into his world known shape again.
There is only one thing where I believe Mr. Oliver goes wrong – and that is that we need the help of any government to handle the situation. While they were in charge the situation deteriorated so badly, how can be assume that they might be of any assistance to fix it? If you and I just do it right and be an example and don’t spread such misinformation as “I ate it and it did not hurt me” then the problem goes out with a whimper.
And if not then the situation also handles itself – in that the generation of low inner strength will die off – leaving the race with only the stronger elements. Guess I’m a bit pragmatic but I believe the wisdom of nature will find the right way to handle this – no need for misplaced emotional involvement.
Macrobiotics and Extreme Burgers
Today my attention was directed towards the ‘premier’ cooking channel on YouTube, called EpicMealTime. I just had to share this here with a little 10,000 calories example…
But I could not just let it stand there by itself and would like to offer as an alternative the following way to cook…
I personally have experienced miracles with the second way and I could imagine – but am not willing to experiment – that the first way of cooking will also do miracles to you and your body. The real macrobiotic (as per George Ohsawa, who brought the philosophy of macrobiotic into the west), and not the many abominations we encounter in in hip and cool circles, explains that macrobiotic is not a diet, instead just the body of knowledge on how which food effects and influences us.
Applying this knowledge we can say that the burger in example 1 is the perfect food if we want to break the circle of life and strengthen us through physical pain and suffering.
Watch The Guild – I really mean it!
Warning – if you are busy with your life and have plenty to do, please don’t read this. You would just waste some of your time, and you would not understand the comedy anyways.
….
Still here? You have been warned!
[Codex, the main character, talking to her therapist while also logged into an online game…]
“So, so – you are firing me? You’re my therapist! Is that even medically legal? How is that legal?”
“I’m sorry, you don’t seem to be willing to work on your addiction.”
“I’ve been establishing the parameters as we have talked about.”
[zooming into post-it note “online limit: 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours“]
“You can’t grow if you are still immersed in an imaginary social environment.”
“It’s not imaginary, I told you -” [gaming action getting more intense…] “- I play with real people!”
“Have you met them, face to face?”
“I hear them, that’s good enough for blind people….”
[dramatic developments in the online game…]
“Dr. Hammand, you are killing me – literally – can I call you back later?”
That’s how it all starts. I can’t really relate because I have to say that I am not really leaning towards addictions (I think) – but what’s really scary is that I showed this to my son as a deterrent – and he thinks it’s funny.
OK, I actually agree…
There are now four seasons at The Guild.