Kapt Kaos

Archive for May, 2008

A plane was taking off from Kennedy Airport. After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 293, nonstop from New York to Los Angeles . The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have a smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax… OH, MY GOD!” Silence followed, and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant accidentally spilled a cup of hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my pants!”

A passenger in Coach yelled, “That’s nothing. You should see the back of mine!

“If you purchased the green 20 oz bag of Innova dog biscuits–
the large size biscuits–for your pupsters, please check the
expiration date for a December 08 expiration date. This is
the batch in question.

Someone in the neighborhood who just recently purchased some
biscuits at Bark ‘n Purr in Austin,Texas found pieces of metal
& rocks in these biscuits when breaking them in half for their
dogs. The package was returned to the store & when they & the
store staff looked through some of the other biscuits in the
same package, they found more non-food items in the biscuits.
Bark ‘n Purr management contacted the manufacturers immediately &
the product has been pulled off the shelf & sent to the manufacturer.

[It was confirmed by] the manager at Bark ‘n Purr
this morning [Fri, 16 May 2008]

If you have a package in this batch–the batch that expires in
December 08–you can return it to them. As of this morning they
have heard nothing from the manufacturer.

I did ask the store manager if it is likely that this batch of
biscuits would have been distributed only in central Texas.
She said it would likely have gone out all over the country.”

I have been know to say that rap/hip-hop isn’t music. That is a taste thing and not a technical analysis on my part. However, Pandora’s blog has a great post on just this very question.

This idea that rap somehow “isn’t music,” is pretty prevalent, so let’s check it out. Setting aside the minefields of class and culture and race and just keeping it to the music.

Pop songs, folk songs, art songs, and even instrumental music are almost always built around a melody. In most rap, that focal role of the melody is replaced by the voice of the rapper, and by the words. Now it turns out that the vocal cadences of rapping do in fact have a whole music of their own (as do our own speaking voices), and it’s a music that is quite subtle and absolutely bursting with the kinds of deep human information that animate the strongest art.

Read the full post…

Technorati Tags: Pandora, rap, music

As a want to be sea captain I always find old shipwreck stories fun. Here is a really fascinating one that was found while stripping the ocean floor looking for diamonds. The wreck is estimated to be 500 years old.

From the Discovery News web site

The ship was laden with tons of copper ingots, elephant tusks, gold coins — and cannons to fend off pirates.

Da Beers had cleared and drained a stretch of seabed, building an earthen wall to keep the water out so geologists could work. One of the geologists saw a few ingots, but had no idea what they were. Then the team found what looked like cannon barrels.

The geologists stopped the brutal earth-moving work of searching for diamonds and sent photos.

In later years, sailors with sophisticated navigational tools avoided [this section of the African coast]. The only tools found on the wreck were [ Mariner's ] astrolabes, which can be used to determine only how far north or south you have sailed.

Read the full story….

Technorati Tags: Shipwreck, Treasure, bounty

From an article at Discovery News

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, a 48-year-old biochemist who grew up on a farm in Iowa, returned to the United States this week after serving six months as the commander of the International Space Station.

Everyone had told me to kind of expect a car crash at the end. That was a pretty accurate description.

So, after reading this article it turns out that Peggy Whitson and crew didn’t make it to the expected landing spot. Instead landed in a field 300 miles short of the landing site in Kazakhstan.

I was out lying on the ground, and I noticed these guys. They just didn’t have anything, just very poor people who live out on the steppes. You could tell by the way they were dressed. It was like “humm … these aren’t rescue guys, these aren’t SAR (Search and Rescue).”

They had the Kazak dialect, but one of them spoke enough Russian and he was talking to Yuri and asking him “Where did this boat come from?” and Yuri was like “What boat?” It took a while for Yuri to describe to them that this was a spacecraft and they kept responding with “nola” which means “OK, whatever,” and then they would ask another question. They just couldn’t comprehend, couldn’t believe what they were being involved in.

There were eight people there when we first arrived and two more truckloads of people showed up before the rescue guys did.

Read the full article…

Ok, one more quote from Peggy Whitson, never would have thought of this as a problem of space flight.

I feel pretty good. One of the common things you hear from long-duration fliers is that it hurts to sit down for a while because you’re not used to sitting anymore. I still feel that. Last time it lasted about three weeks.

‘Hello, is this the Sheriff’s Office?’

‘Yes. What can I do for you?’

‘I’m calling to report ’bout my neighbor Virgil Smith….He’s hidin’ marijuana inside his firewood! Don’t quite know how he gets it inside them logs, but he’s hidin’ it there.’

‘Thank you very much for the call, sir.’

The next day, the Sheriff’s Deputies descend on Virgil’s house. They search the shed where the firewood is kept. Using axes, they bust open every piece of wood, but find no marijuana. They sneer at Virgil and leave. Shortly, the phone rings at Virgil’s house.

‘Hey Virgil! This here’s Floyd…Did the Sheriff come?’

‘Yeah!’

‘Did they chop your firewood?’

‘Yep!’

‘Happy Birthday, buddy!’

(Rednecks know how to git-’er-dun).

Went to One World Theater last night to see A Day In His Life. Wow, what a show!

From the shows web site

Spend an evening with Rock icon ‘John Lennon’ (as portrayed by world-famous actor/musician Tim Piper), as he transports you to the very beginning of John’s life and remarkable journey that influenced the music and culture of generations. Share the inside story of the man, the music, and the legend, who as founder of the Beatles, created a ‘Revolution’ that shook the world.

It really was like being transported back in time. You could forget that John Lennon was dead and that you were listening to the man himself. It really was one of the best shows I have seen in a very long time.

The show opened with Revolution. Then Tim as John talked about his early life before the Beatles. Then played Julia which was his mothers name. The show then moved into his early material just as the Beatles were getting there start. The show progressed through the history of the Beatles with commentary between each song. The commentary was presented in the first person. It was like you were really listening to John tell you about his life.

The show finished up with John talking about his life after the Beatles and playing the songs from that segment of his life.

It was just an amazing evening. Wish I could see the show again.