PACIFIC OCEAN BREAKERS
DISTRIBUTED ONLY BY SMITH-WESTERN CO., INC., TACOMA-PORTLAND
Provenance: Purchased at a postcard dork trade show, April 2011.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The Wednesday Quiz says, "So where can a guy find some action?"
It's:
Answers come out Fridayish.
1. Who appears in Henry IV pt. 1, Henry IV pt. 2, and The Merry Wives of Windsor?
2. Who's this handsome dude?
3. What's the only Twentienth-Century war -- the two "World Wars" excluded -- fought between a European and a South American country?
4. What movie included this conversation between two minor characters?
6. Who, with her collaborations with Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington, garnered the nickname "The First Lady of Song"?
7. Shahada, Salat, Sawm, and Zakāt are four of them.
8. What's all this then?
9. He invented Yoknapatawpha County.
10. It's the company that build the Falcon, the Mustang, and the Thunderbird.
--
I apparently made no provision for a tie-breaker for this week's quiz. However, feel free to devise one of your own liking.
--
Put your answers in the comments, along with three pesetas postage. Submission by pigeon also acceptable.
The weekly game of knowledge, intuition, inductive reasoning, and willingness to risk public embarrassment in a friendly and moderately supportive environment!!
Answers come out Fridayish.
1. Who appears in Henry IV pt. 1, Henry IV pt. 2, and The Merry Wives of Windsor?
2. Who's this handsome dude?
3. What's the only Twentienth-Century war -- the two "World Wars" excluded -- fought between a European and a South American country?
4. What movie included this conversation between two minor characters?
Mr. Mohra: So, I'm tendin' bar there at Ecklund and Swedlin's last Tuesday, and this little guy's drinkin' and he says, "So where can a guy find some action? I'm goin' crazy out there at the lake." And I says, "What kinda action?" and he says, "Woman action, what do I look like?" And I says, "Well, what do I look like, I don't arrange that kinda thing," and he says, "But I'm goin' crazy out there at the lake," and I says, "Well, this ain't that kinda place."5. What's this architectural feature called?
Officer Olson: Uh-huh.
Mr. Mohra: So he angrily says, "Oh I get it, so you think I'm some kinda crazy jerk for askin'," only he doesn't use the word "jerk."
Officer Olson: I understand.
Mr. Mohra: And then he calls me a jerk, and says that the last guy who thought he was a jerk is dead now. So I don't say nothin' and he says, "What do ya think about that?" So I says, "Well, that don't sound like too good a deal for him, then."
Officer Olson: [chuckles] Ya got that right.
6. Who, with her collaborations with Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington, garnered the nickname "The First Lady of Song"?
7. Shahada, Salat, Sawm, and Zakāt are four of them.
8. What's all this then?
9. He invented Yoknapatawpha County.
10. It's the company that build the Falcon, the Mustang, and the Thunderbird.
--
I apparently made no provision for a tie-breaker for this week's quiz. However, feel free to devise one of your own liking.
--
Put your answers in the comments, along with three pesetas postage. Submission by pigeon also acceptable.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Element of the Month: Einsteinium!
June's Element of the Month:
Einsteinium!
Es
99
Atomic Mass: approximately (!) 252 amu
Melting Point: 860 °C
Boiling Point: Nobody knows. There's never been enough to fill a kettle.
Friends, we can no longer continue our tour of the elements without attending to an unseemly reality: some of the elements are totally fake. This is to say, they don't exist in the natural world. They wouldn't exist at all, in fact, except that uppity theoretical physicists thought very very hard about what they would be like if they DID exist and then devoted their careers to what is called "fundamental science," which is to say writing grants. These grants allowed the physicists and their slave armies of graduate students to devise very expensive and clever apparati that, once built, conjured these fake elements into reality. So whereas elements like "Hydrogen" (1) and "Oxygen" (8) and "Sodium" (11) are really and truly the building blocks of all matter as we experience it in the real world, elements like "Darmstadtium" (110), "Dubnium" (105), and "Roentgenium" (111) are far more important as ideas than for any actual presence in the universe. Trippy.
Einsteinium, which is of course named after the great musicologist Alfred Einstein (who, among his many other achievements, edited the Köchel catalogue of Mozart's works), sits at the cusp of reality and theoretical physics. It didn't exist -- or, certainly, didn't exist here in the Sol family of planets where the L&TM5K is produced -- until the middle of the 20th Century. But then, during the 1950s, several major countries felt it was a good idea to set off lots of powerful atomic bombs in order to demonstrate to other countries that they had lots of powerful atomic bombs, and since they were doing this anyway they figured they would allow their brainy theoretical physicists types to get in on the action. And so it was that brainy theoretical physicist types from the Pac-10 college football conference were able to sift through the fallout of the quaintly named "Ivy Mike" nuclear blast -- and when they did they were all like "OMG we've got a whole new element here! Two hundred atoms of it!" Except that they weren't actually allowed to text their friends, because the existence of a new fundamental form of matter would, in the spirit of universal brotherhood and progress, be treated as a military secret for the next three years.
The Centerfold!
Now, in these little write-ups I usually look into what an element looks like, how it's used in the human community, and so on, but in the case of Einsteinium why would I even bother? Production of the stuff worldwide is by all accounts just a fraction of a gram a year, too little for it to really look like anything, and its only use is to be studied by brainy theoretical physicist types (sometimes to be used as a stepping stone in the creation of even more fakey elements).
And don't be fooled: Einsteinium is a totally fakey element. The whole idea of an element, after all, is that it is one of the irreducable forms -- the "elements," if you will -- of matter. And Einsteinium ain't anything like irreducable. In its most stable form, it has a half-life of less than 500 days. This is to say, it has an inherent and relentless characteristic of shedding its subatomic particles and turning itself into moderately less fakey elements, such as Berkelium and Californium. So if you ever get your hands on some Einsteinium, remember that it's best fresh. Use it as quickly as you can, or at least as quickly as is compatible with getting treatment for radiation sickness.
Oh, by the way, Einsteinium was actually named after Albert Einstein the physicist, not Alfred Einstein the musicologist. That bit was just me having you on.
Einsteinium!
Es
99
Atomic Mass: approximately (!) 252 amu
Melting Point: 860 °C
Boiling Point: Nobody knows. There's never been enough to fill a kettle.
Friends, we can no longer continue our tour of the elements without attending to an unseemly reality: some of the elements are totally fake. This is to say, they don't exist in the natural world. They wouldn't exist at all, in fact, except that uppity theoretical physicists thought very very hard about what they would be like if they DID exist and then devoted their careers to what is called "fundamental science," which is to say writing grants. These grants allowed the physicists and their slave armies of graduate students to devise very expensive and clever apparati that, once built, conjured these fake elements into reality. So whereas elements like "Hydrogen" (1) and "Oxygen" (8) and "Sodium" (11) are really and truly the building blocks of all matter as we experience it in the real world, elements like "Darmstadtium" (110), "Dubnium" (105), and "Roentgenium" (111) are far more important as ideas than for any actual presence in the universe. Trippy.
Einsteinium, which is of course named after the great musicologist Alfred Einstein (who, among his many other achievements, edited the Köchel catalogue of Mozart's works), sits at the cusp of reality and theoretical physics. It didn't exist -- or, certainly, didn't exist here in the Sol family of planets where the L&TM5K is produced -- until the middle of the 20th Century. But then, during the 1950s, several major countries felt it was a good idea to set off lots of powerful atomic bombs in order to demonstrate to other countries that they had lots of powerful atomic bombs, and since they were doing this anyway they figured they would allow their brainy theoretical physicists types to get in on the action. And so it was that brainy theoretical physicist types from the Pac-10 college football conference were able to sift through the fallout of the quaintly named "Ivy Mike" nuclear blast -- and when they did they were all like "OMG we've got a whole new element here! Two hundred atoms of it!" Except that they weren't actually allowed to text their friends, because the existence of a new fundamental form of matter would, in the spirit of universal brotherhood and progress, be treated as a military secret for the next three years.
The Centerfold!
 |
| This image purports to show around 300 micrograms of Einsteinium. The blue light is caused by "the intense radiation produced by einsteinium, primarily in the form of alpha decay." Which is to say, what you can see of Einsteinium is its self-destruction into something other than Einsteinium. You call that "elemental"? 'Cause I don't. |
Now, in these little write-ups I usually look into what an element looks like, how it's used in the human community, and so on, but in the case of Einsteinium why would I even bother? Production of the stuff worldwide is by all accounts just a fraction of a gram a year, too little for it to really look like anything, and its only use is to be studied by brainy theoretical physicist types (sometimes to be used as a stepping stone in the creation of even more fakey elements).
And don't be fooled: Einsteinium is a totally fakey element. The whole idea of an element, after all, is that it is one of the irreducable forms -- the "elements," if you will -- of matter. And Einsteinium ain't anything like irreducable. In its most stable form, it has a half-life of less than 500 days. This is to say, it has an inherent and relentless characteristic of shedding its subatomic particles and turning itself into moderately less fakey elements, such as Berkelium and Californium. So if you ever get your hands on some Einsteinium, remember that it's best fresh. Use it as quickly as you can, or at least as quickly as is compatible with getting treatment for radiation sickness.
Oh, by the way, Einsteinium was actually named after Albert Einstein the physicist, not Alfred Einstein the musicologist. That bit was just me having you on.
The Postage
The British Protectorate of North Borneo is now the province of Sabah, the northeast portion of insular Malaysia. In northern Borneo.
...the North Borneo Company had a philatelic market in mind when designing these stamps. They are designed not only for postal purposes but also serve as collectibles, which of course increases the government's revenue further.
As a result, many North Borneo stamps are considered to be among the most beautiful stamps compared to other Commonwealth countries but remain relatively unpopular among collectors because of the mass production not matched by authentic postal requirements. - Marcel, North Borneo Stamps
Monday, June 13, 2011
Coffee Table Book Party: "Von der Revolution zur Perestroika"
...and as I mentioned a few days ago, the Coffee Table Book Party has recently lost some of its zip! To get things moving again, lassen uns "Von Der Revolution zur Perestroika" betrachten!
This is one of those art books that accompanies a touring exhibition, in this case a collection of Soviet art that was making the rounds in Germany in 1989, one of the last years that you could talk about Soviet art in the present tense.
Naturally, it includes a sampling of the social realist/propogandistic stuff that you would expect and that Soviet graphic artists, for better or worse, often did very well.
The Soviet artistic legacy is an interesting one. They pretty much screwed the Russian literary tradition, full stop. On the other hand, but mandating that composers keep music accessible, they fostered the only orchestral music from the middle third of the 20th Century (Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Kabalevsky) that anyone is still willing to listen to. Cinema was -- well, long story. In painting, things eventually got pretty weak, but the first decade of the Soviet Union saw some really cool developments in abstraction. Often these have a compelling "lo-fi" feel for the unfortunate reason that everybody was starving and artists were often using poor paints on whatever pieces of wood or cardboard they could scare up.
My favorite paintings of this period fall into a school that my staff Art Historians are telling me is called "Suprematism" -- complete geometric abstraction with, at least in its initial phases, deployment of vivid colors.
The book is in chronological order, and due to the culturally slowed-down vibe of the USSR the impression is a panoply of art from the 1910s to the 1920s. Here are some innovative pieces from 1974, fairly cool but perhaps a bit anachronistic by non-Soviet standards.
If you wanted a copy of this book, you could get it for -- holy cats! -- 45 bucks used at Amazon! I had no idea! Um... ...or, I add with an opportunistic gleam in my eye, I might let mine go for oh, say, 30 bucks! Plus shipping! Very good price!
This is one of those art books that accompanies a touring exhibition, in this case a collection of Soviet art that was making the rounds in Germany in 1989, one of the last years that you could talk about Soviet art in the present tense.
Naturally, it includes a sampling of the social realist/propogandistic stuff that you would expect and that Soviet graphic artists, for better or worse, often did very well.
The Soviet artistic legacy is an interesting one. They pretty much screwed the Russian literary tradition, full stop. On the other hand, but mandating that composers keep music accessible, they fostered the only orchestral music from the middle third of the 20th Century (Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Kabalevsky) that anyone is still willing to listen to. Cinema was -- well, long story. In painting, things eventually got pretty weak, but the first decade of the Soviet Union saw some really cool developments in abstraction. Often these have a compelling "lo-fi" feel for the unfortunate reason that everybody was starving and artists were often using poor paints on whatever pieces of wood or cardboard they could scare up.
My favorite paintings of this period fall into a school that my staff Art Historians are telling me is called "Suprematism" -- complete geometric abstraction with, at least in its initial phases, deployment of vivid colors.
The book is in chronological order, and due to the culturally slowed-down vibe of the USSR the impression is a panoply of art from the 1910s to the 1920s. Here are some innovative pieces from 1974, fairly cool but perhaps a bit anachronistic by non-Soviet standards.
If you wanted a copy of this book, you could get it for -- holy cats! -- 45 bucks used at Amazon! I had no idea! Um... ...or, I add with an opportunistic gleam in my eye, I might let mine go for oh, say, 30 bucks! Plus shipping! Very good price!
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Your Sunday Boring Postcard from Michael5000
RON-DE-VOO RESTAURANT
1130 So. State St., Ukiah, California
New cool and colorful. Special fried chicken in 8 min. Steaks, chops, Seafoods, coffee served in thermos decanter. Enjoy stereo music. Paintings by local artists. Open 6:00 A.M. to 10:00 P.M. Your hosts Bill and Lorene Youngblood. AAA approved. BOFA accepted.
Provenance: From the Grandma and Grandpa5000 Collection, Gift of Mom5000, April 2011.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
The Fourth Anniversary Postcard-Sending Binge plods along
It seems that there are still Many States Available in the The Fourth Anniversary Postcard-Sending Binge, a state of I choose to blame not on any lameness inherent in the project, nor to the so-called "stench of failure," but rather on the notoriously on-again-off-again interface between Blogger and the Facebooks. Whatever! The point is, there are still many states to which I need to send postcards!
If you are from one of the states listed below, I am expecting you to step up and take one for the Blog, hear? And if you happen to know someone resident in one of the more novel states -- one of the Dakotas, say, or Delaware -- they will probably want to hear about this opportunity to receive a postcard from stranger with a bee in his bonnet!
States with Postcards Still Available
If you are from one of the states listed below, I am expecting you to step up and take one for the Blog, hear? And if you happen to know someone resident in one of the more novel states -- one of the Dakotas, say, or Delaware -- they will probably want to hear about this opportunity to receive a postcard from stranger with a bee in his bonnet!
States with Postcards Still Available
Alaska
Arizona
Maine
Mississippi
Texas
Washington
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