Dawno Recommends Some Blogs - Photography

If you love photography, I would like to recommend following Nikon Sniper's blog. I think his pictures are simply lovely and cover a wide variety of themes.

Another blog of beautiful photography is The Smitten Image - lots of pictures of the beauties of nature up in Canada and the occasional Jack Russell Terrier named Benny. I've been watching the seasons change up there through her photo essay posts.

On Live Journal user pecunium (Terry Karney) posts about his photography, he also has a website with an image gallery.

Since most of my photography consists of pictures of my jewelry and the occasional family photo, I've only otherwise got a few flower pictures I'm particularly proud of:

Tiny bloom on a flower growing out of a stone wall in Ireland

Flowers at a lovely nursery I visited when I met with a friend in North Carolina:

A blooming barrel cactus at the same nursery (which was more like a private botanical garden with flowers planted all over and walkways and little streams flowing through it.

Closeup of a teal colored flower (I was amazed that there was a teal colored flower anywhere so I had to take a picture - I'm very glad I did) on a plant at the UCLA botanical gardens (this one was right in front of the chain link fence between the gardens and the street, so it must be very hardy.

I used the pictures of the cactus and the teal flower to make calendars on Cafe Press in 2007 & 2008. Didn't make one for this year, though.

Do you have a blog to recommend for beautiful photography?

Mom Song

You've probably seen some version of this (or maybe even this one) but I saw it for the first time today. Must say I grinned through the whole thing.

Random Thing #5

I'm married to a pool player. He hasn't played a lot in the last few months, but he loves the game and was active with a league for a while. Once they made it to regionals (in Bakersfield of all places) but, unfortunately, no further.

I think the mathematical aspects of the game appeal to him, he's very adept at all that math stuff. Me, I liked geometry but was miserable at algebra and got no further than the basic stuff in both. I had to take algebra 1 twice. I got one of the lowest scores in the college math placement - I remember my counselor saying that. I wonder why she felt it was necessary, I already knew I was going to have to take something remedial to get my general ed credits in math. Fortunately there was a great class that covered the requirement created especially for non-math students. We even got to go to the Huntington Library on a field trip.

Anyway, here's an amazing little clip (first seen at Suburban Guerrilla)of a pool playing prodigy.

Billions and Billions...

About an hour ago I read on Whatever that Carl Sagan's brilliant Cosmos is now available to view on Hulu. So if I seem to have disappeared, it's because I'm watching. I don't think I saw much (if any) of it live when it was running and I'm thrilled to have this opportunity. If you want to watch, here's ep. 1 - then go to Hulu to see the rest.

The Big BSG Finale's Unanswered Question...Debated by Spike and Angel

Forwarding on from Organized Chaos, who linked to this io9 post Spike and Angel Debate the BSG Finale



In other news I finally got my new beading work table set up, I'm exhausted but really happy it's done. Posted about it over on my beading blog if you're curious.

BSG Finale & Random Thing #4

Watched the BSG finale last night with DH. Other than finding the heavy handed moralizing annoying, the 'tribute' to the old show's theme song sappy, too many flashbacks (just had to go 2 hrs for a "proper" finale, so let's film some flashback filler), and a mild case of wtf with Starbuck, I enjoyed it.

Now here's the question I bet you're all been wondering about: what season passes are on Dawno's TiVo? Even if you're not, I'm posting them. It's Random Thing #4 (at this rate I'll get to #50 some time in 2014)

ETA: 30 Rock
Bones
BSG
Castle
CSI (only the original one though)
ETA: Chuck (thanks for the reminder, Alby)
Dollhouse
Eureka
Heroes
House
Lie to Me
Lost
Mad Men
Monk
My Name is Earl
NCIS
NUMB3RS
Psyche
Reaper
Trust Me

Things I watch online because they're not TiVo'd for one or another reason

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Damages
Raising the Bar
Smallville

Lots of speculative or science oriented shows with some police-type procedurals thrown in and a couple lawyer dramas. Did I ever mention that until I realized I'd never "get" the math, I wanted to be a scientist? I didn't care what type, but from about 3rd grade I wanted to do something that entailed lab coats and beakers or better yet, a space suit. Then in college I thought about law. Although I didn't end up in either, at least I work in tech now. I may not design or program the stuff, but I do get to see lots of cool tech in action every day and use a lot of it, too.

Money is Flying Out of the Windows of the Pickup in Front of You - What Would You Do?

My daughter called me a bit after 5pm tonight. "Mom, I can't believe people! I mean, they were putting themselves and others in such danger! They were even running out on to the freeway!" She was headed home on the northbound 805 in San Diego. Suddenly she noticed cars stopped on the median and the breakdown lane (possibly in the freeway too, but I can't remember exactly). It took her a moment to figure it out - they were crouching and sitting and stooping. Then she saw some paper fly by - they were stopping to pick up as much money as they could as it fluttered down the freeway.

Yep. The details aren't all in yet, but apparently just a little ways ahead of her there was a pickup being chased by the police with money being flung out the windows. The police recovered $18k. The news story said "It was unknown how much money was collected by passers-by or how much money may have been thrown out in the first place."

I'm proud of my daughter for driving straight home and avoiding the freeway later on her way to her evening class.

Extreme Sheep LED Art - Another Brave Astro(bat)naut

I watch a Live Journal group, Discworld, and a member, mama_hogswatch posted this today (it's fitting for the Discworld group because she references Granny Aching and the Aching clan are shepherds) - it's rather amazing, not too long, do watch the whole thing.



Wow. The sheepdogs are the truly amazing part of the story - that they can take the commands and control the sheep to produce these amazing movement patterns.

And my DH just sent me the link to this clip (via Gizmodo)



Enterprise fans will recognize the theme song...

Lastly, I won't go into details, but I'm very happy right now with BofA's credit card customer service. Several things were frustrating me and now I've finally gotten to the bottom of it and they're fixing it all up. *whew*

Noted Scientist Agrees With Me - Excel Sucks

See, Chad Orzel, noted scientist guy, professor and owner of a very cute dog who understands physics, and who (Chad that is, not the...well, sometimes his dog does, too) blogs at Uncertain Principles for Science Blogs.com, agrees with me about Excel!

Miscellaneous other thoughts and random stuff:

Did you notice my Star Trek movie countdown widget in the sidebar? Well, I'm more impatient than before for that to reach 0:00:00 - saw the new trailer this weekend while waiting for Watchmen (which I really enjoyed) to start. Some of the same scenes as past trailers, but a few new bits. Too bad they don't have an embeddable clip on the official site. You can go to Apple.com and watch it - click on Trailer3.

Watched the new mini-series Kings on the web the other evening, as I hadn't heard about it in time to either have it TiVo'd or watch live. Think "Dallas" or "Falcon Crest" but with alternate reality New York-type metropolis as a setting, monarchy instead of republic as the form of government, but everything else seems rather 21st Century US-ian, down to the cars and clothes. I'll give it another episode or two to prove itself - the CGI and other photography is pretty well done, pacing was ok, plot - just read I and II Kings in the Bible for spoilers, I guess...

Lastly, I watched Colbert Report again to hear the interview of David Grann. While Colbert interrupted and took off on tangents so David was barely able to give a coherent account of his book, I did hear enough to decide I wanted to read it. Now. Not wait for it to arrive via Amazon or even drive to the store, NOW. So I went to the publisher's page, Random House, and saw there was an eBook option. Not just Kindle or Sony, but other distributors and one of them was Mobipocket, which I have. Mission accomplished!

Am a few chapters in, and really, really enjoying it (click the link above on David Grann to see some great stuff about the book on his website or scroll down to see the Colbert interview) - it's not only the story of the original explorer Fawcett, but a modern exploration that tried to follow in Fawcett's footsteps and possibly find out what happened to him, but also the story of the author's exploration of the explorers...all interwoven and skillfully written. If you want to get the book through Amazon, (this is the only paperback edition available) please use the link below and I'll get a few pennies for it. Also available for the Kindle.





Here's the Colbert interview:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

David Grann

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Mark Sanford
NASA Name Contest

He Gets it!! Graveyard Book - Gaiman Interview on Colbert Report

I don't watch the Colbert Report much - used to, just fell out of the habit - but I was always astounded with how many of the interviewees on his show didn't seem to be clear the show's concept (same goes for people being interviewed by Daily Show correspondents)...that being, "it's satire you dolt - why are you looking [puzzled, insulted, upset, stunned like a wack-a-mole]?"

Neil Gaiman was interviewed the other day. Now, here's someone who clearly gets it, and because he does, it's a great interview:



If you want to read the book, it'd be cool if you'd click here and Dawno gets a few pennies for her recommendation:




And continuing on a satire kick - Onion Radio News Alerts You May Have Missed
Part 1


Part 2