What the...?!

~Here's more bizarre TV from the Land of the Rising Sun. In this video clip, a magician demonstrates magic tricks to a chimpanzee, who is utterly baffled by the seeming impossibility of the tricks:



^ Go ahead, laugh at the video. But remember: hundreds of years from now, when the monkeys have taken over, the chimp in this video will be regarded as the first great prophet, and stories of the miracles he witnessed from the "gods" of old -- the Vanishing Liquid, the Levitating Glass, the Disappearing Cup, and more -- will be handed down from generation to generation. In short, it will be the start of monkey religion.

"SheilaandJohn" now official

~Last weekend, I carpooled to Maryland for the wedding of two of my friends from college, John and Sheila. I'd met John even before school actually started, on an orientation camping trip where we shared a tent. We met Sheila later, when she was on the same floor of our residence hall and in the same living-learning program. They quickly became an item, and as I ended up living with or across from John for the next three years, I saw a lot of them.

[reminder: you can always click on the pictures for a larger view]

^ The bride and her three brothers, at her house before the wedding. There was a professional photographer there taking pictures; I was off to the side. I was a groomsman at the wedding, so I had a tuxedo just like the brothers (we nicknamed the tuxedos "bloody penguin suits").

^ The bride. Did you know that the tradition of the bride wearing a white wedding dress began in the late 1800's after Queen Victoria was married in a white dress? In fact, most modern wedding traditions -- diamond rings, "here comes the bride" music, honeymoon etc. -- are far more recent than most people believe them to be, and originate not from religion, but from industry marketing. Before the late 1800s, women wore whatever color they wanted (even black), and ceremonies tended to be quite simple. Also, cameras hadn't been invented, so there was no standing around for (seemingly) hours with a fixed smile on your face.

^ One of the buildings attached to the church where the wedding was held, St. Mary's Catholic Church in Rockville, Maryland. Incidentally, the grave of F. Scott Fitzgerald is in the cemetery just to the left of this building. Great Gatsby!

^ Some flowers outside of the church.

^ An "official" picture taken just after the wedding. The flower girl in the front was clearly sick of posing for pictures by this point.

^ Although it came out a bit blurry, this is my favorite picture from among those I took; it was taken just after the previous picture. I like the adoring expressions on the faces of the bride and groom, the relaxed postures of the bridegrooms, and the "zoned" look of the poor flower girl. To me, this picture illustrates the difference between posed and impromptu imagery; in my opinion, the "honest" expressions it captures are far more memorable than the stiff formality that pervades the vast majority of wedding pictures.

What's important in photography, in my opinion, is not simply creating an image to remember something, but rather creating an emotional connection to the image. A good picture doesn't just make you remember what something looked like, it makes you remember how you felt at the time.

^ I nicknamed this strange canopy "the pancake". I later asked the priest what it was supposed to be, and learned that it's supposed to look like a similar structure at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. What that pancake represents, I have no clue.

^ After the wedding ceremony and interminable picture-taking, it was time to head off to the reception. The idea was that the bride and groom would ride off in a limousine, and the wedding party (of which I was a part), would follow them in a larger, truck-sized limo. Unfortunately, the latter never showed up, and it was starting to rain. The "solution" was to pile everyone -- bride, groom, bridesmaids, groomsman, best man, and maid of honor -- into the smaller limo.

Yes, the girl on the left is sitting on the floor.

^ One of the groomsman came up with a strategy for coping with the cramped conditions. Most of us quickly followed his example.

The reception was a lot of fun. Conveniently, it was in the hotel where I was staying (along with many other wedding guests), so I didn't have to worry about driving anywhere after imbibing some potent potables. Of course, there was also music, and although I only dance once a year (last year was in Prague), when I do, I really cut loose!

That's it for my pictures. In the near future, there will probably be an online gallery of (much higher-quality) pictures posted elsewhere by the photography company, so I'll put a link up for that when it appears.

LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites

~Check out this amazing picture of the Apollo 14 landing site, taken by the Moon-orbiting Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched last month by NASA:


Here's a close-up of the above image, with sites labeled:


I think it's amazing that the footpath is still there; but of course, with no atmosphere, there is very little to cause such disturbances to fade, save for long-term micrometeorite bombardment and the occasional moonquake.

The scientific instruments aboard LRO are still undergoing calibration; these images, and others of different Apollo landing sites, were taken in part to test the cameras. Once fully operational, its mission is to "...[find] safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology." You can learn more about the LRO and its mission at this NASA site.

By the way, "Moonquake" would be a great name for a rock band.

Flaunting Danger

~Here's another one of jandrew's Star Trek edits. It made me laugh so hard I got hiccups and probably woke up my neighbors. For the full effect, make sure you turn your sound up:



^ Remember, Captain: practice makes perfect.

Arlington: The Rap

~After moving to dangerous, crime-infested, run-down 'hood of...Arlington, Virginia, this guy decided to make a rap about life there:



You better step back punk,
that's your final warning!
You gonna punch me?
Nah, son, the doors are closing!

And having lived outside of Washington D.C., I completely understand about not wanting to take the Green Line...

Vacation!

~I recently returned from a week-long vacation at the beach with my parents and some family friends. We stayed at a beach house in Duck, a town on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Here are some pictures that I took while there:

^ A fine day...to relax!

^ Speaking of relaxation, Dad seems to be enjoying his new iPod...

^ A research pier operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and home of the infamous Tripod.

^ Sangria on the deck.

^ This wedding took place on the beach near where I was sitting. I can only hope that the groomsmen's attire for an upcoming wedding I will attend will be so comfortable.

^ The happy couple.

^ After the wedding, professional photographers took a large number of humorous pictures.

^ The evening sky was beautiful over the sound, between the Outer Banks and the mainland.

^ A panoramic image of the sunset beyond the boardwalk shopping area; click on the image for a better view. It came out a bit crooked, but the colors are impressive.

The Truth About Pac-Man

~Everyone's played (or at least heard of) the arcade game Pac-Man, where a lovable pie-shaped hero devours tiny circles and is chased by four ghosts named Inky, Pinky, Blinky, and Cylde. But have you ever considered the motivations behind the characters? Why, exactly, is Pac-Man eating "Power Pills" and being pursued by ghosts?

What do you mean you've never thought about it?? From this blog, here's the REAL story, hidden for decades, that Pac-Man was based on:

"In 1976, Cosmonaut Nikolai Peckmann was sent alone to an orbiting space station for what would be called Mission Six- to study the radiation levels and strange circumstances that killed all four crewmen of the last research mission. By the third day, Peckmann's broken transmissions were coming back to ground control filled with increasing paranoia and delusion. He claimed that the spirits of the dead cosmonauts were coming to claim him, and that he had to keep moving to evade them.

He shouted that if he could capture consume these spirits himself while he still had strength, he could move to the next level of consciousness...Truly the rantings of an insane man. Indeed, video recovered later would show Peckmann running around the confined but maze-like station, downing emergency sedatives like a madman....pausing in a corner momentarily, only to throw back vitamin pills and give chase to his invisible demons. He had exhausted the entire cargo of vitamins, pills, and fresh fruit well ahead of schedule.

There was no way another crew could be assembled to rescue him before he starved. After one rather violently garbled transmission, the static cleared and the last live image on record is that of Peckmann's empty, wilted spacesuit on the cabin floor. It was determined that another mission to recover any remains or gather any more research would be a waste of the people's money, and the station was allowed to drift out of orbit and into space- a failure never to be mentioned again. It was ordered and assumed that all video and paper evidence had been destroyed...then, at the dawn of the eighties, a fledgling arcade game company called NAMCO would stumble across the transcripts of these events, and the rest -as they say- is history."

(Ok, so that's all BS. But it's amusing BS. Therefore, by the Rule of Cool, it's now the official PacMan back-story.)