Item The First: The Norwegian word for “skydiving” is “fallskjermhopperen“? The story is great enough all by itself, wonderful video, one in a trillion chance and all of that, but I’m really loving that word. It’s like a Muppets episode with the Swedish chef (I know, I know, Norwegian is not Swedish) on steroids. Now if I just knew how to pronounce it.
Item The Second: Yeah, nothing to worry about here. And I’m really not. (Much.) On the other hand, being a big fan of Mira Grant’s Newsflesh Trilogy, the backstory of which starts with everyone ignoring and downplaying the news about a new plague, there’s always this teeny-weeny little bit of nagging doubt stuck away in the corner of your brain, sort of like a burr from a weed buried deep in the fur of a shaggy dog. Nah! Ignore me. The CDC wouldn’t lie to us. (Wait, isn’t that…) Couldn’t be. Don’t worry. It’s nothing. Really. Move along.
Item The Third: There was a brief moment of panic (well, at least concern) when I realized that starting tonight, “Cosmos” and “Game Of Thrones” are on at the same time. We’ll be watching “Cosmos”, in part because it’s just on the once (plus being available on demand) where GoT is on about eighty times (plus being available on demand) before next week’s episode. Also, The Long-Suffering Wife and I didn’t quite get done watching Season Three of GoT on disc before the start of Season Four tonight. Almost, not quite. There’s something that happens in the next-to-last episode of Season Three that I’m really not looking forward to watching… (Ssssh, she hasn’t read the books yet.)
Item The Fourth: I’ve ranted the praises of Amanda Palmer here before, and I’ll do it again, but today I’ll highly recommend to everyone her new blog post. If you think that Twitter is just a toy used by teens and tweens to broadcast details of what they had for breakfast, read how she sees it enabling artists to interact and contact their audiences.
Item The Fifth: There are two total lunar eclipses this year, both very well suited to be visible from almost all of North America, a very rare occurrence. The second one is on the night of October 8th to 9th — you’ve got plenty of time to plan. The first one however, is on the night of April 15th to 16th, just nine days from now. You may safely assume that we’ll be talking about this in the upcoming week, with some information on how to watch and how to photograph it (should that be your wont). But you can start checking the weather and thinking about a good place to see it from now.
Item The Sixth: Another blog that I’ve discovered and been reading for a while is Jim Wright’s Stonekettle Station. The man truly has a way with words, and he’s got the background to back up what he’s talking about. Highly recommended.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 