- Last month I wrote about
how impressed I was by the January 2
“supermoon”.
On the 31st was the much‐ballyhooed Super
Blue Blood Moon.
It sucked.
The “blue” part is just an accident of the calendar.
The “super” part means that it was bigger and brighter than
usual, but the “blood” part means that it was passing through
the shadow of the earth, which completely canceled out the supermoon
effect and made it an dim smudge in the sky.
- After going “meh” at the Super Blue Blood Moon, I got
on a plane.
This time instead of flying into BWI like usual I flew into DCA.
Thumbs down!
Yes, it’s right on the metro system so that’s a plus, but
the wifi was out of order, the rental car monitors were out of order,
the elevator buttons were out of order, the tiles were full of
potholes… I had always been irked that DCA had been renamed to
honor Ronald Reagan, but now it seems wholly appropriate.
Shitty airport, shitty president.
- One trend I saw during my trip that I am thankful hasn’t made
it out here (yet?) is that more than half the people backed into parking
spaces.
Apparently this is also common in Japan.
I don’t get it.
Like, no matter how you enter a parking space, you’re going to be
driving forward one way and backward the other way.
Driving forward gives you more visibility and control.
So doesn’t it make a lot more sense to go headfirst into the
confined space, which requires that control, and then back out into an
open area, where you have a lot more leeway?
Who wants to spend a lot of time and effort awkwardly backing into a
confined space, in order to have more control when heading out into an
open area where that control is a lot less crucial?
- I had to sleep overnight at SFO because the trains had stopped running
by the time my plane landed.
It was actually fine!
I found
a flat piece of furniture
with a little bit of cushioning in a dim area with no disturbances, so it
wasn’t as miserable an experience as I had been expecting.
- I’ve been seeing “locust bean gum” in ingredient
listings forever, and I remember that carob was common as a cheap
chocolate substitute when I was a kid, but it was only this month that
I learned that locust beans come from inside carob pods.
- It was also just this month that I learned that in
1996 the NC‑17
rating was redefined from “no one under 17
admitted” to “no one 17 or under
admitted”.
If only the MPAA had made that decision in 1990,
it could have just called the rating “NC” or (as
Siskel & Ebert wanted) “A” rather than
adopting the cumbersome “NC‑17”
label and then redefining it in a stupid way just to avoid having to apply
for a new trademark.
But the MPAA added the number in order to explicitly specify that
17‐year‐olds were allowed
into these movies, the same way that they had been allowed into
X‑rated movies and the way they continue to be allowed into
R‑rated movies without a parent or guardian.
(That too was a change: when MPAA ratings were first adopted, the
minimum age to be allowed into an X‑rated movie, or to be
allowed unaccompanied into an R, was 16.)
- I saw that “Irvine” was trending on Twitter, and I
thought, uh‑oh, what’s going on down there?
I clicked on the link, and discovered that there had been a
high‐speed chase through Irvine, culminating in the guy
sprinting away from a police dog who charged him from behind at
like twenty times his speed and tackled him.
It was a hell of a thing—I hadn’t realized
dogs could run that fast.
The tweeters were similarly impressed:
- That dog tore him up!
- Police dog does his job well.
- Great takedown by the dog.
- that amazingly badass police dog
- That dog nailed him!
- That dog gave him some work!!
- Seriously that dog should be in the Olympics
- That dog made my day
- POLICE DOG JUST GOT HIM SOME
Anyone who wants to organize these into the D&D alignment system, please be my guest. I would surmise that “Police dog does his job well.” is Lawful Good, but otherwise I would just be guessing.
- That dog tore him up!
- This month’s Australian dessert was a vanilla slice—and it came out looking pretty good, if I do say so myself!:
