Recently in Trivia Category

Maybe you thought I messed up and got the wrong day, but not really. It’s Navy Day — and 234 years ago, the US Navy was first established (as the Continental Navy). So for my Dad, and all of the other sailors and officers who have served in the US Navy, I offer you this little video of the Navy Ceremonial Guard Silent Drill Team winning an international tattoo competition a few years ago. They competed against units from all over NATO and took first prize.

Pretty impressive stuff. Definitely puts the MOB to shame.

This is one that was shared with me online, from the Science Friday show on NPR. Their website has video demonstrations of different experiments. In this segment, part of their Science Fair Projects for the Recession, they show how to shatter glass with your voice.

Have a great weekend. And good luck if you want to try this yourself.

Oh, BTW — that picture of Daniel with the chef’s hat on in yesterday’s post is an adult hat. Yes, he has a big head. Will has a big head, Daddy has a big head, but Daniel takes the cake. He already fits Will’s 5- to 8-year-old bike helmet (that Will just graduated from).

To keep today’s posting a little more light-hearted, we’ll hit you up with some trivia about various Sesame Street and muppet characters.

And once you learn the little tidbit about Elmo in the previous link, you should really listen to this blurb with the puppeteer (Kevin Clash) responsible for Elmo from Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. As they note in the intro, he’s probably the most successful and widely known African-American performer on TV, but you’ve never actually seen him. And he’s really impressive switching from his normal voice to his Elmo voice in a split second. Just give it a listen.

Maybe I shouldn’t be tempting Nature like this. After all, I had yesterday’s blog post about a rabid fox, and we wound up with a wren flying around inside our house last night. (I was eventually able to get it back outside, but it was an interesting hunt for it. It hid for a while — where, we’re not sure.)

But this is too funny to ignore. The British in Basra, Iraq gave what may be the best line all-time in a military press conference:

“We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.”

That is an actual quote. (It sure feels like a Monty Python-type quote.) I’m guessing that maybe the US military is falling behind in this key technology area. Apparently, all we have are rabid foxes.

More seriously, do you think you’re having problems relating to the local populace if they think you’re releasing man-eating badgers on them? Although maybe it would be kind of cool if the British did have a troop of man-eating badgers. They could be put at risk before sending the troops in.

I do have to admit the quote is over a year old. I caught it by listening recently to an old podcast (July 15, 2007) of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. It’s a great show on NPR and perfect for listening to at a later time on a podcast. They really find some amusing stories and get some great guests on there. It never fails to amuse me.

A part of me has passed on. I must say I’m pleasantly surprised by the finale for Opus. (If you haven’t seen the final panel, where he winds up — well, you can see it here.) Where Opus winds up really hit me, because it’s a book I often read multiple times each night to the twins. And it seems so peaceful and right. No, he doesn’t get the hot island babes, but there’s something everlasting about that final page (even in the original)

And this sure looks like it for Opus. Nice of Berkeley Breathed to share him with us all these years. (Yes, I had the collection books, and the t-shirts, and the Opus dolls in the 80s.) And we finally get to see Steve Dallas without the sunglasses today, too, and he looks like a kind and sentimental soul, too. Perhaps a bit of Berkeley showing in that look?

Berkeley Breathed shares his thoughts in this interview that I saw in syndication here in the Richmond paper today. Thank you for Opus. He’ll remain a piece of my heart, that subversive little penguin.

Some light viewing for your weekend. What do you get when you mix a chimpanzee with a Segway scooter on a Japanese game show? Well, besides the fact that we cannot understand a word said or written, you get this:

Pretty impressive.

I don’t have enough time to pull together the pictures and videos from today’s main activity — getting cold outside in the wind and damp air. Oh wait, that wasn’t the original purpose. Today was Will’s school’s annual Fall Festival. We had a good time (the full brood went), but it was not great weather — overcast, windy (from the north), and damp (the rain ended overnight).

We enjoyed it. Will’s favorite stuff was the moon bounce, but he painted a pumpkin. We even tried out Sean and Daniel in the moon bounce (when only a couple of other 2- and 3-year olds were in it), and Sean (normally Mr. No-Fear) wanted nothing to do with it and immediately crawled out. Daniel, however, was content to crawl to the side, near a corner, and just sit there as the other kids caused a little movement in the bounce so that he’d go up and down.

And do you remember my note yesterday about the local Boy Scout council and how they were recruiting for the Cub Scouts. Well, the school pack had a table at the festival, and I stopped by to find out more about the pack. They start them in first grade now, believe it or not. I got a promotional DVD from the pack (which includes a groovy music video, which I was able to find at this Pack website), and we’ll sit down with Will to see if he’s interested. I had no idea yesterday’s idea would lead to this today, but those are the coincidences of life.

I was also going through one of my backups of the old, dead computer and found my old bookmarks. One of the bookmarks was for a full catalog of the Real Men of Genius radio commercials. Many of them are brilliant. Hopefully, they can give you a few laughs when you get around to them.

More on the dead hard drive later…

Today is a non-family news day. I just have a few links I want to dump out there for people to consider/ponder.

For those of us who have been in Scouting before, you’re probably aware that Scouting is becoming less popular as an extracurricular activity. I was a Cub Scout (and ultimately an Eagle Scout)), and my (and Kellie’s) hope is that Will wants to do Cub Scouting) starting next year. The local council has recently launched a new recruiting campaign tied to less refined characteristics of young boys. In some ways, it’s at odds with how you think of Scouts (A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful…), but at the same time, isn’t this what growing up as a boy should be about?

In no way, shape or form do I expect to ever step up to this weight class — of food eating. Ponder it for a minute. I think this is more calories than Michael Phelps eats in a day.

Lastly, are you still on the fence on who to vote for in the upcoming US presidential election? Or just curious about how well you match up with the positions of the various candidates? Well Glassbooth attempts to help you quantify the level of similarity between what you think is most important (and what you believe, on a simplistic 5-point rating level) and what all 5 major candidates’ positions are. Don’t use this as your only source of decison-making, but it will be thought-provoking if you see a candidate you never thought was right for you might be more right than you think.

I’ll post my results on the 5 candidates closer to election time. Anyone willing to post their results in the comments is always welcome.

You know, I should think before I post. (Or not post late at night.) The big news with Sean and Daniel is that they are learning their colors. It’s still hard to tell if they’re just guessing right or actually recognize them most of the time. I’d say they are right about 75% of the time, whether they’re being shown an object for the first time or if they are seeing the object again. (That’s why I’m not sure it’s memorization, as they’ll see the same object again but will sometimes say a different color.) Still, it’s kind of cool to see them trying to process colors. And they do usually understand if we ask them, “What color is this?”

Now, for something completely different (to waste time over the weekend) — a World War I flying ace game, where you shoot things down and drop bombs. It’s actually kind of cool, and reminds me of a game like it I used to play a long time ago. But I cannot remember what that game was called. (Maybe someone else remembers.) This is definitely a souped up version.

(I should have enough time tomorrow to get the State Fair pictures and video finished.)

Sorry, I had to borrow that line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This is not a picture of bunny stew, but rather of the rental car I borrowed from Enterprise today. (They pick you up!) The minivan was in the shop today for some extended warranty work, and I was put in a VW Rabbit for the day. (Extended warranty paid for it, thank goodness.)

And I must say — not half bad. My 6’6” frame fit in just fine, with plenty of head room (a couple of inches easy overhead) and leg room, and still enough room in the back for a couple of decent sized kids (maybe not long-legged teenagers, but you get the idea). Sight lines were good, pickup was zippy in the higher RPMs, and I’m sure it gets good gas mileage. Still not sure how much trunk room there really is, but it does feel like a bit of nostalgic flashback to see one of these. And I even got to drive one now.

Oh, and by the way — two more weeks of summer left here (before Labor Day, at least). Enjoy it while you can.