McGee and Me! (Blame YouTube)
As many of you know, I went to a Christian elementary school. We had an hour set aside for “religion” study every day, went to church every Friday morning, and had Bible-themed Christmas plays every December and Bible-themed spring plays every April or so.
Every once and awhile, we’d have an event (a BBQ, a “party”, a something-or-other) that required us to be at school during non-regular hours. To entertain us (i.e., to keep us all in the same room), our teacher or principal would opt to play a TV show or movie on our little TV-on-a-roller-cart. Being a Christian school, we never got to watch anything but—you guessed it—Christian-themed shows! The most popular one for us was Veggies Tales, but I was never really into them at the time. The one that I enjoyed (though “enjoyed” is a relative term) was called McGee and Me!
(Source)
It’s basically about this kid, Nick, who has a drawing of his come to life and together the two of them get into all sorts of “you can get out of this by being a good Christian” mishaps. Actually, they were mishaps you could get out of by just being a good person, but they made sure to add “God” and “Jesus” in there because you can’t be a good person without those two guys in your life, right?
Example: the episode “Beauty in the Least” is about Nick’s Romanian pen pal coming to visit unexpectedly during Thanksgiving. Romanian Pen Pal is, according to Nick, super annoying and plan-ruining when he’s not in pen-pal-letter form, so Nick is a jerk to him and the poor dude gets upset (understandably). But through the guidance of God and the “love thy neighbor as thyself” idea, Nick realizes that he’s been a jerk and does his best to make it up to Romanian Pen Pal and his father. So like I said, it’s basically a “be a good person, dammit” show with a Christian bend. I always enjoyed it, though. It was better than Veggie Tales.
Here, have a link to the first part of this episode on YouTube, in case you were a ‘90s Christian kid and you want to nostalgia yourself to death just like I did tonight. That’s the whole reason for this post, haha.
You’re welcome.
This Week’s Science Blog is Cheesy
Always a good topic, huh?
In the Scientific American article linked above, author Steve Mirsky talks about how a decades-old Swiss genetic experiment on flies is related to a more current set of experiments regarding what causes the formation and development of the eyes (or holes) in Emmental (or Swiss) cheese.
In the fly experiment, geneticists managed to get a fly to grow a ton of eyes all over its body by isolating and manipulating a few of the fly’s genes. More recently, 13 researchers at three different Swiss research facilities have figured out the link between the genetic fiddling needed to create the extra fly eyes and the genetic fiddling needed to regulate the size and quantity of holes in Swiss cheese.
The study, published as “Mechanism and Control of the Eye Formation in Cheese,” was published in the International Dairy Journal and contains a discussion on why eye/hole regulation is important.
“The size of the eyes of first-quality cheese should be between the size of a cherry … and a walnut,” says the journal article. However, different cheese-lovers prefer different sizes (and quantities) of eyes. “Italian consumers prefer Emmental cheese with walnut-sized eyes, whereas commercial manufacturers of sliced cheeses ask for cheese with smaller eyes and higher eye numbers.”
In making cheese, bacteria is key. A product of the bacteria is carbon dioxide, which forces the holes to expand to any given size, but until this study, it was unknown what made the holes themselves begin to form in the first place. Turns out, the process is analogous to the process of how a raindrop forms around a particle (a “cloud condensation nuclei”) in the vapor-saturated air. For the cheese, a little particle can act as an eye nucleus, around which the round hole begins to form.
In the study, the researchers chose hay dust as their particles of choice and found, through varying the amount of dust the young Swiss cheese was exposed to, that they could actually control the number and size of the eyes.
So they can basically do cloud seeding, but with cheese. Cheese seeding? Cheeding?
Anyway. Pretty cool!
Book Review: The Caine Mutiny (Wouk)
Alright readers, sit your butts down because today we’re reviewing Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny. Spoilers (maybe?) ahead!
Have I read this before: Many times! This is my favorite book, y’all.
Review: Dude. Dude. I love this book. I love Captain Queeg. I’m pretty sure he’s my favorite literary character, apart from maaaaaaaaybe Jay Gatsby. I like the other characters in this book too, especially Maryk. While the plot may take a bit to start up (i.e., the first several chapters are a bit slow), I think the rather gradual introduction of the characters and the situation and Willie himself really help to amplify Queeg’s apparent craziness up to during the eventual mutiny. It also helped to show, once the trial for Maryk was underway, how the men who were against Queeg very quickly felt the ridiculousness of their claims of Queeg’s insanity were once they were all out of danger. The timing and tenseness of the book were really well done, in other words.
AND QUEEG. QUEEG IS GREAT.
Favorite part: The whole thing. But specifically:
- Willie not knowing any of the terminology/slang when he first got on the Caine.
“‘Sir, it was my fault,’ spoke up the boatswain’s mate. He began an alibi which sounded to Willie like this: ‘The port bandersnatch got fouled in the starboard rath when we tried to galumph the cutting cable so as not to trip the snozzle again. I had to unshackle the doppleganger and bend on two snarks instead so we could launch in a hurry.’” - Queeg obsessing about all the wrong things at all the wrong times.
- The way the crew, once they were sick of Queeg, decided to basically make it look like they were responding to his requests/demands when in reality they were being ignored everywhere the captain wasn’t.
“The crew with its vast cunning had already charted most of the habits and pathways of the captain. He was moving now in a curious little circle of compliance that followed him like a spotlight, extending to the range of his eyes and ears; beyond that, the Caine remained the old Caine.” - THE STRAWBERRIES
- The speech/rant Greenwald gives Keefer and Maryk near the end. It gives the lawyer (Greenwald) a lot of depth in very few pages. I like it.
Rating: 10/10
I AM ROOMBA HERE ME ROAR
I’m to the point with my walking where any walk shorter than 8 or 9 miles feels like absolutely nothing and, if that’s all the distance I go in a day, it feels like I’m slacking off and not walking enough.
Which is a pretty stupid thing to think, since before we moved to the new place I was walking about 7 miles a day (four times a week at least) going to/from campus. Now I’m going 10+ about four days a week, plus at least 5 or so the remaining 3 days of the week. So I’m obviously not walking less, but it really feels like I am. It’s like this:
- 15+ miles: Good walk!
- 12 – 15 miles: Decent walk!
- 9 – 12: Yeah, sure, okay.
- 8 – 9: At least you moved a little. Sort of.
- < 7: GO DIE IN A CORNER YOU LAZY CRAP
I’m sure my mind will return to realistically looking at mileage once next semester starts up and I’m actually busy (especially with thesis stuff), but right now, this is how it is.
At least I’m putting good mileage on these shoes!
COMPY
I got a new computer. BEHOLD!
His official name is BIG COMPY THE REDUX 2015 EDITION XXL MEGA BIG AWESOME-TRON, but I just call him Big Compy for short.
This is actually the first time I’ve ever bought a desktop computer for myself. Old Big Compy was my mom’s from like 2008 or so; it somehow survived about 8 moves around the continent before crapping out on me, forcing me to get the new guy.
But this is also the second computer I’ve bought this year, which is a little stressful (recall I had to replace my laptop back in February).
Actually, this whole year has been about most of my stuff finally breaking/falling apart/becoming unusable. Hopefully my iPod will make it to the end!
WOO!
Hiking Time!
Monday is a holiday up here in Alberta, so yesterday Nate and I drove down to his parents’ place in Crowsnest Pass and today went with them to Waterton Lakes National Park for some hiking! It was hot, but fun. 11-ish miles. Have some pics!
Eigenblogger 