i was youtubing songs to remind Jack of The Punch Brothers, and the brief commercial that queued up before the song featured, rather astonishingly, David Bowie playing the harpiscord while serenading/attending what appears to be a Venetian Masquerade. i was, again, astonished, and had to track down the ad: please watch this. Further backtracking indicates that it made Adweek's Ad Of The Day last week, and it's by a director better known for music videos. Hmm. Anyway, i think it would be epic to arrive somewhere by hot air balloon, despite the commentary that they're difficult to actually steer.
Came across this 'Ultimate Guide to Biking and cycling' today. There's actually quite a bit of information there.
This picture of a cow photography shoot on the university's website today. Unlike pictured Brown Swiss, my family's Brahman cattle are so darn curious that they will track you down and be in your picture, just to see what you're doing. (This can be terrifying when they're across the pasture and they decide, as a herd, that they need to be in your immediate vicinity. The result is an entire herd basically stampeding at you. Eesh.)
Highly interestingly; i knew there was once a ski jump on campus, built on what is now John Muir knoll. However, i saw a picture today taken from the top of the jump, looking down it. Terrifying. The accompanying article reports the original one was built in the 1910s by Norwegian students over the Christmas break. i gchatted the article to Bryan, who responded that ski jumps ARE terrifying, as he'd seen one in Oslo. Holey Smokes. And the he went on to look up the k-spot, or critical point of the hill, and determined that the record for that ski jump is over the hill size, meaning that people attempting to break the record might also break their legs. That lead us to looking up the world record jumps, and finally on to ski flying. Ladies and gentlemen, we have finally found a sport which i will probably refuse to attempt: sky flying (also, only two wipe-outs in that video. Personally, i think that's remarkable. Also, the music loops. You've been warned. )
Another thing i saw recently was the movie Warm Bodies. i realized, halfway through with the help of a balcony scene, that it's a version of Romeo and Juliet, set in a post-apocalyptic zombie situation, and it turns out, i'm not crazy (at least about the reference). However, it's cute and certainly has moments of cleverness. Also, Jack, it put me in mind of Josh Ritter's The Curse; can you share that with Leslie? Earlier that evening, Leslie was very kindly preparing dinner and asked Jack to get something out of the cabinet, which sounded like poison (turned out, it was hoison sauce. not it), and we joked about Leslie only serving poison to her favorite guests. i referenced Better Than Ezra's lovely/creepy song Porcelain as precedent for wanting to destroy a favorite thing so no one else can have it, so here's a link to that song, too.
