1/3 of the world's sharks facing extinction.

And Wave of Marine Species Extinctions Feared and bees and frogs and more.

Just finished the 6th and final disk. What a good show. I am sad they didn't get picked up for a second season. I understand why -- because people like me weren't watching the show 10 years ago when it was on -- but still, some very nice television.

Next up on the netflix queue: Undeclared.

Still reading LJ, even if I'm not posting much.

Kiddo is keeping us busy. He's sleeping right now, and yolen is doing laundry at the laundromat while I watch over him. When she gets back, I'm going to put together a mac-n-cheese to bake tomorrow.

We took him to my folks last weekend so he could meet several relatives, mostly great-aunts and uncles, as well as extended cousins. He slept through a bunch of it, and we've been slowly trying to get him back on a sleeping at night schedule again.

Just finished In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, the second of S.M. Stirling's "Lords of Creation" books (the first is The Sky People). Both books were fun, retro-SF pulp, with a bit of alternate-history semi-hard SF twist. The basic idea is that 200 million years back, someone (presumably aliens), terraformed Venus and Mars, and transplanted Earth life to them. More recently, about 200,000 years ago, they transplanted hominids. The end result? Venus has swamps, dinosaurs, and cavemen. Mars has a 40,000 year old world civilization (based on bio-tech and genetic engineering) that peaked 20,000 years ago. I'll recommend them for those of you who like this sort of thing.

This weekend was spent taking care of Mister Baby, taking naps, and watch season 3 of the Venture Bros. Hope you are all doing well.

Ganked from yendi

Henson's 11. Good editing mixing Muppets to fit the trailer.

( Spoof trailer for ''Henson's 11'' inside )

While home taking care of Mister Baby, there are times holding the baby on the couch that I would turn on the TV and using the shiny new DTV converter box, surf between the various PBS & independent channels we get (Thirteen, NJN, and WNYE -- sadly, no WLIW with the current antenna). As such, I caught a local-artists music video program on WNYE, and that introduced me to "Daylight" by Matt and Kim. Looking around the blog-world, I see I am a few months behind the curve on picking up on them, but I figured I'd help spread the word to you other late-comers.

This song is 100% infectious power-pop; those of you who don't like that kind of thing, feel free to skip.

( Youtube music video inside )
In other news, it feels weird having short hair. Hmm, maybe I should change my icon...

For my wargaming friends, Hex Empire is a simple "Empire"-like game. Advice: you probably want to play as Red, because Red goes first. If the map isn't favorable for red, hit "random map" to get a new one.

First, the answers.

Question 1: Name a Superhero who has *not* appeared in a major motion picture.
The winner here was AquaMan! Green Lantern was a close 2nd. (Are you listening, Hollywood?)

 #  Answer
--- -------------------
 8  Aquaman
 7  Green Lantern
 4  Wonder Woman
 2  Black Lightning
 2  Blue Beetle
 2  Green Arrow
1 each: Bluntman, Hothead Paisan, Mighty Mouse, Power Girl, Preacher, Raven, 
The Badger, The Flash, The Tick

 #  Answer
--- -------------------
10  Catwoman
10  The Penguin
 7  The Riddler
 2  Two-Face
1 each: Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, Sandman, Scarecrow

 #  Answer
--- -------------------
22  Dark Horse
 5  Image
1 each: AC, Angry Viking, Archie Comics, Charlton, Fantagraphics, Midnight Comics

 #  Answer
--- -------------------
 8  Spider-Man Theme Song
 6  (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman, by The Kinks
 5  (I am) Superman, R.E.M.
 3  Superman (It's not easy), 5 for Fighting
 2  Superman [no other explanation, so I was unable to place it as one of the above three songs.]
 2  Flash, by Queen
 2  Kryptonite, by 3 Doors Down
1 each: Aquaman's Lament, Believe it or Not (Greatest American Hero), Don't Mess Around With Jim, 
Pocket Full of Kryptonite, Hero by Chad Kroeger, "Na na na na na na Batman"

 #  Answer
--- -------------------
13  V for Vendetta
 8  The League of Extrordinary Gentlemen
 4  300
 3  From Hell
 3  Who is Alan Moore/never heard of him/drawing a blank
 1  Constantine

 #  Answer
--- -------------------
 4  Dr. Manhattan
 4  Dr. Strange
 3  Aquaman
 2  Hellboy
 2  Cannot think of one
 2  Iron Man
 2  The Tick
1 each: Buckaroo Banzai, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Danger Mouse, Fings, Green Lantern, Hancock, Hothead Paisan, 
Mermaid Man, Prince Namor (the Sub-Mariner), She-Hulk, The Elongated Man, Thor, Wolverine

I'll be close the poll sometime tonight, so can tally up results tomorrow.

Jasper Morello and the Lost Airship, from The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello.

To compete in this round of Group Think.

After that, I'm closing the poll and tallying up votes.

Last night, I saw Watchmen (which I enjoyed), and I've been thinking a bit about Superheroes. So I decided it was time for a Superhero themed round of Group Think. [You may remember it, Group Think was very popular last time, back in 2007.]

Explaining the rules again:

It is a game-in-a-poll. The rules are basically like Family Feud, though you are both survey taker and question answerer.

Basically, you answer the questions. When all is said and done, next Friday (the 20th), I'll tally up the answers. You get one point for every answer that matches yours (including your own). Blank answers are worth zero points. Since there are six questions, the minimum score for answering all the questions will be 6, and the max will be 6xNumber of poll takers -- but in order for that to happen, everyone would have to answer everything the same.

Most all the poll questions exclude one or more popular answers -- an "isn't". You'll see what I mean in a moment.

Last time I did a bunch more questions and a number of rounds, but that made scoring a pain. This time, I'm just going to do one short round, but if this is as popular as last time, I may do another a few months down the line.

Here we go:
Poll #1364929 Superheroes Group Think
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None

Name a Superhero who has *not* appeared in a major motion picture:

Name a Batman villian who isn't the Joker:

Name a comic book company that is neither Marvel nor DC:

Name a song about a Super Hero that is not "Iron Man":

Name a movie based on an Alan Moore story that isn't Watchmen:

Bonus question: Name a Superhero who does not have a secret identity:

trish_punch was the first one to post the right answer to my math puzzle. paulisdead also posted the correct solution. catwithbell and ishldgetoutmore get partial credit.

Comments on the entry have been unscreened.

Thanks to all.

You have 5 bags each containing 20 marbles. The marbles are supposed to be 10 grams each, but you suspect that some of the bags are filled with cheaper 9 gram marbles. (Note, all marbles in a single bag are the same weight.) You have a scale, but it is one of those pay-scales that you have to pay a nickel to use, and you only have one nickel. How can you pick out which bag(s) contain cheaper marbles with only one use of the scale?

Comments screened to avoid giving away the answer! Clues available if people request.

Edit: if you care, you can consider the bags effectively massless.

For those of you in the NY area, PBS channel 13 is showing a charming little film called "Sita Sings the Blues" tomorrow night (Saturday, 10:45PM). If that's too late night for you, it's also available on line at Thirteen.org or also at The Internet Archive.

It's a cartoon retelling of the Ramayana, set to 1920s/30s Blues/Jazz, sung by Annette Hanshaw. For those of you with kids, I'd rate it PG, mostly for dialog of the three shadow-puppet narrators, who while *very* funny, occasionally talk about adult topics. There is some violence, but it's all cartoon-y. The story is also intertwined with an autobiographical break-up story.

If you like cartoons, 1920s Jazz&Blues, and/or are interested in Indian mythology, I will recommend it.

I picked up two of the better reviewed DTV converter units; a Zenith DTT901, and a Channel Master 7000. I figured I had two coupons, why not?

Physically, the Zenith is the nicer looking of the two. I think the remote is also a bit simpler.
The Channel Master has an S-Video connector, which would be nice if I could find my S-Video cable.

The Channel Master picked up one more station than the Zenith (Channel 58, NJN); however its reception of that station, as well as 50 and 63, were marginal. The Zenith didn't find 58, but its reception of 50 was better, as was 63 -- but as 63 was mostly Korean programming, that's largely moot.

The Channel Master has a longer program guide, up to 12 hours, whereas the Zenith only shows what's on and what's next. On the other hand, the Zenith lets you flip through the various channels' on/next while remaining on the current channel, whereas the CM forces a channel change when you want to look at another channel's guide.

Of the "extra" stations we get via digital broadcast, at least three were Spanish language (LATV, V-Me, and something else on 63 in between the Korean stations). Two were kids' programming (PBS Kids and Qubo). Two were weather channels (NBC & ABC). Annoyingly, Rupert Murdock has standard def Fox as a subchannel of My9, and SD My9 as a subchannel of Fox.

I think we're likely to go with the Zenith for our TV, as it seems to get a bit better reception on the marginal channels.

So: yay, a day off from work!
Boo: I just had to shovel the sidewalk.
Also boo: my dentist appointment for 2pm is still on.
Yay: the TV convert boxes I ordered from Amazon are waiting at my PO Box. New toys!

I have a bunch of things I've been hold on to, so I figured I'd do a link-dump post.

( Cut for those of you who aren't into Airships/Zeppelins/Steampunk stuff )

My FiL, nephew, and I spent today painting. yolen wanted kiddo's room repainted before he/she gets here.

It's a nice desert tan color now. Still need to touch up the top in one corner, but it has to wait for the windowsill to dry so I can reach it.

Back in October, I noticed that I had a spot on my cheek that felt tender, probably due to the tooth underneath.

As I hadn't been to the dentist in about 3 years, I decided to make an appointment. The tenderness went away, and I was hopeful, but a few weeks later when the dentist checked things out, she said there was some infection up behind my tooth, and that she'd send me to a fellow to get the root canal in that tooth re-done.

So in November, I went to the other fellow. He took the crown off the tooth, and worked at removing the post. The problem is this tooth had an extra-long post in it. He wanted to try at his facility in Paramus, so I trekked up there a week later, and had him go at it again. He worked at it for an hour, and said it was a no-go. The post was just too stubborn, so he could not re-do the root canal. This left two options: cutting through the bone of the gum and going in to clear the infection, or pulling the tooth. Cutting in through the gum wasn't really a good option, because in order to do that, they'd have to cut the other root, too to get through. I would be left with a tooth with no top and no roots.

So I made an appointment with a third Dr, this time an oral surgeon, to check out the tooth. My appointment was for the Wednesday December 17th, but on my way there, I got a call that the Dr. was running later from the hospital, and they needed to reschedule.

Which is how I wound up going to the Dr today, December 31st, last calendar day of the year, to get my tooth checked out. He agreed it should go, and after numbing me up, popped it out in what felt like all of five minutes. After that, he sewed me up, and sent me off to the pharmacy to get some antibiotics, motrin, and if I need it, percocet. So I'm going to be staying home tonight for New Years, eating soft foods and watching movies. Next week, I get to go back for him to check on it, and in 6-10 weeks, once it is healed, decide what next (implant or bridge).

Since waking up Monday morning, I've had an idea rattling around inside my head for as SF story. The concept: instantaneous (FTL) teleportation has been invented. However, it only works for women. Any human male who goes through the teleporter dies. One exception: pregnant women, up to six months or so, can safely teleport, even while carrying a male fetus.

Mars gets colonized via teleporter. (There might be a handful of men, who got there via rocket, and helped set up that end of the teleporter.) The logistics are overwhelming: it costs $500M to send a man via rocket, and $500 to send a woman via teleporter. There is a big controversy over the first boy to be born on Mars, since he will have to live out his life there.

Meanwhile it has been discovered that not only can teleporters "inertial compensators" be used to dampen momentum, they can be used to amplify it as well. Like *big time* amplification, limited only by the amount of power you can apply. Construction begins on a lunar orbit teleport pad.

After that, space-based teleport pads are used to launch very fast (.9c) probes. The probes also carry teleport pads, so after 5 years when the first probe passes Alpha Centauri, it can kick out another teleport pad, one that will be moving slow enough to orbit Alpha Centauri.

Female astronauts assemble remote space stations orbiting other stars, and eventually land teleporters on extra-solar planets. Space based teleportation platforms are used to send even more probes out, and slowly a network of extra-solar FTL teleportation links are set up. Men, meanwhile, remain earthbound (well, plus some on Mars.) Teleportation also starts replacing air travel on Earth. Women think nothing of jaunting off to New York, Australia, or even Mars for the day. Air travel becomes almost exclusively male. The shipping industry disappears. At any given moment, over one million women are away from Earth, either in space, on Mars, or eventually on other planets.

That is all of what has rattled out of my head at the moment. I'm not 100% sure where it is all going. Too bad I am not a better writer, because I think there could be some worthwhile themes to be explored in this.