Strange as it might seem, the MuseBlog administrators do know a few things, and sometimes they’ll even tell you about them.
Continued from No. 7.
Patience, Please
This site is under reconstruction and will look strange for a while. We regret the inconvenience.
First post!
Do any of you guys like the Mistmantle Chronicles book series? it’s one of my favorite series of all time.
I haven’t read them, I’m afraid.
I’ve heard of it, but never read it…
Have you seen “Up”, and if not, what is your favorite animated Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks (that whole category) movie?
Up has to be the best animated movie ever made. I think it deserved the Best Picture Oscar this year, but the Academy was just unwilling to depart from tradition.
As for DreamWorks, I have only liked 3 of their movies, and they all came out within the last 3 years. I don’t get why everyone liked Shrek so much, and please don’t give me any incredulous replies for sharing my opinion on it. That being said, I think that KFP, MVA, and HTTYD are the only half-decent movies that they have churned out. Although, KFP and HTTYD were definitely more than decent.
I must agree, I didn’t like Shrek that much either.
I really liked Wall-e. It’s so sweet. *is a sucker for anthropomorphizing things*
Hah, I’m in the middle of a year-long argument with Princess_Magnolia over whether Wall-E is actually cute, or if the people who designed him are good at using biology to mess with people’s minds and make him seem cute.
Is there a difference between being cute and seeming cute? They seem the same to me! I must be missing something….
You see, things that are cute and nice are really cute. Things that just look cute, such as
s seem cute. Cuteness is more than how you look, it’s really how you act as well.
Ah, but what about things that are utterly cute in both appearance and behavior but are not nice at all?
Agh! It burns, it burns.
Um, what do KFP, MVA and HTTYD stand for?
Not sure about the first two but HTTYD is How to Train Your Dragon. (a movie that came out recently)
HTTYD: How to train your Dragon
KFP: Kung-Fu Panda
I had to do a little research on MVA, but came up with
MVA: Monsters Versus Aliens
3.1- i know!!
3.1.1- wallie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Up is really cool.
My favorite animated movie has got to be Ratatouille (I think that’s how you spell it…). Great plot, characters, and animation.
That was my favorite movie of all time when it came out. Then, of course, came WALL•E and Up. I really would like to say that Toy Story 3 will follow in its predecessors’ footsteps, but the trailer makese doubtful. I mean, Pixar is known for good, inoffensive humor, so where did “nice ascot” come from?
I loved Up. It was cute, funny, serious, sad, had a nice, creative, plot and had really great animation all at the same time. And it really worked. In fact, it’s probably one of the only animated movies that I’ve cried in, and quite frankly, I really don’t cry that much when I’m watching movies.
As for my favorite animated movies, Up, would be pretty high on the list. I also LOVE Toy Story though.
I liked “Up,” but I don’t think it deserved the Best Picture. Animated Feature yes, but not Best Picture. Though, I really liked “The Secret of Kells,” and I saw it just a few hours before the Oscars, so I was really cheering for that one.
But my favorite Disney/Pixar movie is “The Incredibles.”
Disney: Lion King, Mulan
Pixar: Finding Nemo, WALL-E
Dreamworks: Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron
One of my absolute favorite animated movies is Spirited Away by Studio Ghibl.
Speaking of favorites…..my ABSOLUTE favorite book series is the Farsala Trilogy by Hilari Bell. Has anyone else read it? I haven’t actually met anyone who had before I made them read it.
I have not, but I shall add that to my list.
So, how exactly do you say GAPA? I know logically it’s gee-ay-pee-ay, but in my head for some reason I always say it gaap-pee-ay, and it also seems as if you could say it gaa-puh or gah-puh. And which syllable would the stress be on? (I know it’s nearly always written down, but what if I want to write a poem about y’all and need meter and rhythm info?)
I say it ga-puh. With the first A pronounced as in the word “gap”.
I say it like Luna does.
Ditto.
Same here.
GAP – euh.
Ga-puh. A lot of the time though I read acronyms weird, like “UAW”
as “yoo-ay-aw” and “FAQ” as “fee-ay-queue.”
I say all of the letters: Gee-Ay-Pee-Ay. Although for some reason when I say it aloud, I usually forget the first A. Odd. But mostly I just refer to them as the Adminstrators.
GAPAs, what are your favorite ice cream flavors?
Bubblegum.
I know.
Who is your favourite superhero/heroine(s)? Any reason?
(I am sure everyone already knows of my relationship with Batman by now
)
PAUL I KNOW YOU’RE THERE I DEMAND AN ANSWER
Very well. I think it would have to be either Worzel Gummidge or Rab C. Nesbitt. In both cases, their philosophical complexities outshine any of the better known characters.
GAPAs, who is your favorite muse?
I am not a GAPA but I feel like answering this anyway. Sorry for the unsolicited opinion.
Aeiou and Urania are my favorites. Aeiou because she’s just so pretty and peaceful and Urania because she’s very smart. And a know-it-all.
BTW, I pronounce it Ayyyeeeyou.
GAPAs are not supposed to have preferences for individual muses. But Kokopelli thinks sideways. I like that.
(5) We didn’t invent the term GAPA (Ebeth did), but I’ve always pronounced it to rhyme with “Zappa.”
(6) Ice cream: I like a lot of flavors, but I keep coming back to mint chocolate chip. The grainy small-chip kind made by Baskin-Robbins. Bigger chips are all right, but the smaller chips are more interesting. It’s good in milkshakes, too.
(7) Favorite superhero: As I’ve revealed elsewhere on the blog, I read “classic Marvel” comics as a kid. My favorites were the X-Men, especially Cyclops. He seemed much more serious and responsible than the others, and he worried a lot about losing control of his power and hurting people. A tortured soul — I liked that. And when he wasn’t in costume, he wore those cool dark glasses. Cyclops FTW.
My sister had a crush on the Silver Surfer.
(8) I couldn’t possibly choose among Muses, but I suppose I have a special relationship with Feather. He’s like my total opposite — a pure Hufflepuff. I admire his gardening ability. I’ve never had much luck growing plants of any sort. As the Muse with whom I have the least in common, he’s the one whose inspiration I need most. Does that make sense?
Your sister is awesome! Ahem. I agree with your opinion of Cyclops, he is very much my favorite aside from Professor Xavier. And Jean Grey.
I know this isn’t the thread, but….Your avatar. The TARDIS and a Dalek, and, let’s just say your avatar= ♥
Thanks, Luna. I love my avatar too, and it has Twisted in it. *pays PoPo fine*
GAPA — Same pronunciation as Robert’s, though I originally rhymed it with Napa, not Zappa.
Ice cream — mint chocolate chip is probably my favorite, too, but I prefer the larger chocolate chunks. The little chips feel gritty and stick in my teeth. I also like pomegranate chip, pistachio, green tea, red bean, soft serve, and just about anything with caramel, chocolate, and nuts (especially pecans). Sherbets, sorbets, ices, and dreamsicles, and any kind of frozen fruit juice bars are especially satisfying in hot weather.
I love milkshakes and malteds, provided they’re made fresh with actual ice cream.
I tend not to like ice creams that have a bunch of stuff in them, other than the aforementioned items.
Muses — Now that I’ve drawn them so often, I feel too close to them to choose. The one I’m drawing at any given moment is probably my favorite. Unless en is giving me trouble….
9- “A tortured soul — I liked that.”
How do I link to a specific comment on the blog?
It’s slightly complicated and probably depends on your browser. If I mouseover the “reply” button (i.e., rest my pointer/cursor on it without clicking), at the bottom of the screen I see something like
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=6518&replytocom=326522#respondTo link to that comment, I would write
<
a href="https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=6518#comment-326522">Got it?
Hm, thanks. I think that may have worked on the old computer I used to use, but on this computer, unfortunately, the silver bottom to safari is missing. I guess it’s a newer version or something. Oh, well.
View–>Show status bar.
Oh. Wow. Thanks.
That’s what cromwell’s for. And if you want to know about the conflict between Essex and Royalist armies in the first campaign of the English Civil War, around 1643.
Robert- Ha, your answer to my question about ice cream was worded in the same way in which you worded it two or three years ago. I was just curious to see if your answers had changed.
Just call me Cleverbot.
You must be referring to this 2007 comment, though I actually started talking about mint chocolate chip ice cream much earlier in the blog’s history.
What’s the most awesome “blow something up” moment you’ve ever experienced?
Watching the Death Star blow up is still the greatest explosion of all time.
I’m not sure which version was used in the film, but there were two shots made; one with a ring and one without. The uniform spherical explosion is physically correct, but not as visually wowing.
Yes it is as visually wowing! It is just sooo cool!
The ring was EPIC! The studio didn’t want the ring but George stepped in and set them straight! KA-BOOM! “explodes with ring”
*ahem* The original had the uniform spherical explosion; the ring was added in a 1997 “remaster”.
Avatar. The whole theater shook, I swear. I nearly had a heart attack
How about comment linking on the new Firefox? I clicked show status bar, but none appeared…and here I was thinking I knew a thing or two about computers.
(13, 14) – Oh. I thought I-Man meant really blowing something up, but I wasn’t sure whether he meant on purpose or by accident. Now I’m not sure what he meant at all.
About the May Day Ball, I read the previous thread, but I am still a bit confused about the dress part…what am I supposed to do?
You may send the GAPAs a photo of the dress you want to “wear” and they will post it on the ball thread. It may be a picture from the internet or something you drew yourself. It is not required, a lot of people usually end up describing their dress in great detail.
Just a quick question, YANSWAT: did you read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? It sounds like your name if from that.
I don’t want to speak for en (her? if not, sorry), but unless I misremember the name does come from HG2G.
Yes, she did read it. (I remember she was reading it in French class)
Cool! Good book, no? So many hilarious jokes haha.
I am amazed that I haven’t figured this out until now. The GAPAs names link to the homepage of MB. I just figured that out. Now, the question is, why? (I’m guessing to make it easier for some random MBer to get to the homepage… but I dunno…)
they used to link to the muse fan page, until that was taken offline in the great hacking incident.
It proves they’re GAPAS.
Does sneezing really kill brain cells?
What are your favorite sides in the English Civil War and in the Pellopenesian War?
13.1- Seconded. The Death Star explosion is still awesome after over 30 years. The saucers from Independence Day are a very distant second. Actually, then it’s not even so much the explosions as the worldwide celebration shots afterwards that I liked.
GAPAs- What is your favorite fantasy book? I am in need of reading material and am looking for suggestions. I heart fantasy.
kavi: Which books I’d recommend depends on how old you are. Some of my favorite books now would have bored me when I was 13.
Currently I am about to graduate from 8th grade, but I am an avid reader and read rather high level books (for my age I think anyway). I do like other genres, but fantasy is my absolute favorite. I especially like though-provoking books with no real black and white regarding sides, but more of a mixtures of greys if you know what I mean.
I agree with you about the black and white regarding sides. I recommend the series “Joust” (Yes, I know I’m not a GAPA). It’s good, though near the end there is more “black and white” evil.
Wicked is good too, but I read it in 7th grade (I’m in 8th grade) and it disturbed me. Very much. However, there is no black and white good and evil in it. It’s about the Wicked Witch Of The West.
Thanks! I will check if my library has it right now.
is the author Mercedes Lackey? (Sorry for double posting; I don’t know how to edit a post)
The author is Mercedes Lackey. You can’t edit a post.
kavi314- There’s a special thread for discussing books and reading where this would be more on topic. As you’ve certainly noticed, we have a lot of threads here so we try to keep conversations on topic.
You can’t edit your own posts, but you can press the “preview” button just below the comment box to see what your post will look like and make any last-minute corrections. If you have any more questions, you can ask away at the Welcome Neophytes (neophytes= newbies) thread made especially for that purpose.
Thanks! I’m new here so I appreciate the direction to a new thread.
Nothing has been moderated for an hour. Are you guys just gone or is it a problem with my computer?
The GAPAs are, contrary to popular belief, mostly human (albeit amazing ones). They also have lives outside of the computer and Real Jobs and stuff to do, and even occasionally need sleep.
*gasp* The GAPAs are human?!?!?!
Rumors, merely rumors.
Perhaps a better way to put it is that they must, at times, behave in ways that humans would, for appearance’s sake. Wouldn’t want them taken away so they can’t moderate now, would we.
Oh, she’s good.
Uh, that is…my sentiments exactly.
You people are stupid.
.
It’s obvious they’re Time Lords.
Where’s there TARDIS?
One of my friends wrote an amazing Doctor Who/ Magic School Bus crossover. Ms. Frizzle is a Time Lord.
I also think that the tree house from Magic Treehouse series is a TARDIS, that it’s Time Lord forgot.
Yeah, the Magic Tree House is definetely a Tardis.
Ms. Frizzle+Time Lord=me laughing hysterically. I like that concept.
It’s called “Old Friends”. You can probably find it.
Our TARDIS is MuseBlog, of course.
It certainly is a lot bigger inside than it appears from the outside.
No, we’re not human. We’re sentient holograms. Jade’s just winding you up.
ehehehehe
Ok, question: (this is partly because starr told me to bring it up by the way). Whenever my posts are moderated, I don’t see the post with “your musing is being moderated” at the top the way, according to starr, hers are. It’s not a problem, but I’m just curious as to why I don’t see that. Instead the page just appears up at the top again and I don’t see my post at all until it’s moderated.
(25) Em&Em:
I have no idea. Are you using the same browser?
If I may speak for Em&Em, yes, she uses the same browser. We all use Firefox. I noticed this when I was watching her post the other day and was curious, because I still see a preview of my post with “your musing is awaiting moderation” on the top, but she doesn’t, even if she’s posted right after me. Tis quite confusing.
Something I’ve noticed is that if you make a post. change the email, and then make another post, if all posts are still unmoderated, you can only see the post you’ve made under the current email. Is it possible that has something to do with it?
What’s your email again, GAPAs? I had a photo I wanted to send to you…
For photos and blog artwork, the best address is thegapas @ gmail.com. But gapa @ musefanpage.com (and many variants thereof) also works.
GAPAs
Just generally
what are you guys up to? what is new and exciting in GAPAland? Do you all have the same jobs and everything? i feel like i haven’t heard anything from robert or rebecca or roseanne in ages (PB&J of course is doing WILD AND CRAZY things, who even knows. i think last i talked to him he was doing computery things). and where do you all live again? i know robert’s in DC and rebecca is..somewhere not in DC? like other side of the country, right? i don’t even know any more
Well, I just this minute returned from a gallery reception where I saw a show by my first art teacher. I took a drawing class from her my sophomore year of college and was inspired to change my major for the fifth (and final) time. I’m in North Carolina at present, though I used to live in the DC area.
that is exciting! i didn’t know you’d changed your major five times
what did you change it from?
i haven’t felt an urge to change mine yet, just been flip-flopping about what concentration to pick :-/ but i don’t need to know for a while
My majors…let’s see. I started out as a candidate for a Bachelor of Music degree in voice, then switched second semester to a Bachelor of Arts — but that turned out to be even more overwhelming because in spite of what it said on paper, you didn’t really drop any of the music requirements AND had to add regular academics.
Realizing my skin was pale enough without spending my entire life chained up in the basement of the Fine Arts Center, I said farewell to the music major at the end of freshman year (though I continued to take voice and somehow kept my practice room).
Since the college pressured everyone into declaring majors before the year ended, I filled out “English” on the form just for the sake of writing something. At the beginning sophomore year, I rebelled against the coercion and officially changed my major to “undecided.”
Somewhere along the way I took a course in nutrition and liked it enough to declare for a Bachelor of Science in, um, Home Economics (the idea of Rebecca with a home economics degree generated considerable mirth in certain quarters; i.e., anyone who had ever seen my housekeeping).
For some mysterious reason, the H.E. department required a 1/2-credit course in drawing. Then Leigh’s class inspired me to be brave enough to sign up for a painting course. To my utter surprise I not only loved painting, I actually had some talent for it, so by the end of my junior year, I changed to studio art.
Ironically, this choice returned me to the belly of the Fine Arts Center, but with the crucial difference that the art side of the building had windows.
Ms. Frizzle is totally a Time Lady. And maybe Morgan le Fay in Magic Tree House is, too, but she just doesn’t like traveling, so she lets Jack and Annie use her TARDIS instead. (Or maybe it’s her old one, and she lets them have it while she uses a newer one to collect books from thoughout space and time.)
Another Time Lady would have to be Mary Poppins. I’m not sure what her TARDIS is, though. Perhaps her carpet bag?
Also, Willy Wonka is a Time Lord.
Or her umbrella.
Cyrano de Bergerac is a Time Lord too. He says that he has multiple hearts, talks about meeting with “le Docteur” (capital d), and in the scene I’m reading now, is talkinga bout traveling through space. Not sure what his TARDIS is.
29.1- I think hers can cloak itself better than The Doctor’s. When we saw it in the movie, it was that chalk drawing, on another day, it might have looked like something completely different.
And yes, I agree about Wonka.
Forgetting all real-life info about him and just looking at what’s shown in Cosmos, I have my suspicions about Carl Sagan, too…
when cells split, what happens to the atoms – does the number of atoms remain constant, or do new atoms come from somewhere and join in, or ??
This is just a guess from an 8th grader.
When cells split, they decrease in size (fewer atoms). Then, they grow and mature (gain atoms) until they’re at max, and the split again.
All right…Somewhat more serious question here than all this talk of Time Lords.
Oh Great and Powerful Administrators, if I wanted a Paleo account, could I get one now, because I started posting way way way back when in 2006, or should l I wait until six months from last December, when I restarted posting?
(What do you mean this isn’t as serious as determining who’s a Time Lord? This is vital. Vital.)
FantasyFan: Certainly. Just sign up for an account (it doesn’t look as if you have one yet), and we’ll take care of the rest.
Good to see you, Vendaval. You are quite welcome to continue using your nom de blog. I’m interpreting your message as a note to us rather than a comment to be posted to the blog. If that is incorrect, let us know.
That’s fine, thanks!
How does asbestos cause cancer? I know that asbestos fibers scar up the lungs but how does scarring cause cancer, which to my knowledge is caused by genetic material getting damaged and telling a cell to continually grow and divide?
A quick trawl of the literature suggests that the mecahnism isn’t fully understood. But I notice that trapped asbestos fibres are known to cause changes to DNA. If I were doing medical research, that’s the area I’d start looking at.
I want to post a satirical newspaper article I wrote in school. (Not mean satire, just sort of a parody/re-imagining.) What would be the best thread to put that in?
The random thread is as good a place as I can think of.
GAPAs, i keep forgetting vital information about you all! this will not do! refresh my memory – where do you all live (roughly) and which of you are married?
I live in Northern Virginia, across the river from Washington, D.C. (where I work). Rebecca lives in North Carolina. Rosanne lives in the San Francisco Bay area. The elusive Paul lives in Swinford, England, but not always in this century. We prefer to be boringly vague about our personal lives.
maybe that is why they are so mysteriously fascinating :-/ oh well, PB&J at least is mostly non-vague
Thank you, Ebeth.
This one’s for Lady B:
Do they have channels in whatever graphics program you use? And if so, could you explain them? Because, essentially, there’ the one thing (aside from actual scripting) that I need to know to proclaim myself a GIMP wizard.
Lady B, please answer this question!
I will, Enceladus. I couldn’t take the time yesterday. But today is official Catch Up on MuseBlog Day, so I’ll get there sometime before the fireworks begin.
Thanks. Sorry if I seemed rude or impatient.
This might make better sense with some screen captures so bear with me just a little bit longer while I put something together.
Enc, I gave your question about channels its own thread. Hope my answer makes sense and provides what your looking for. If not, please let me know, so I can make the explanation better.
GAPA’s, what is most played on your iPod? (Or, if you don’t know, anything similar to what song you listen to the most.)
What is an “iPod”?
starr: I don’t have an iPod, and I don’t listen to music much on the job or while commuting — so I suppose I’m going through a low-music phase of my life at the moment. Over the years, probably the single song that I’ve listened to the most is “Wild West End” by Dire Straits. Whenever I’m sick or just need cheering up, it always gives me a lift.
music is a Good Thing! you should listen to more!
^my advice for everybody ever
dire straits is win though. i think they were the first band i sort of discovered on my own. i found a CD in the basement (my dad’s, of course, but i don’t remember him telling me about them) and completely fell in love with it. so i count them as my Childhood Music, along with the who, the beatles, and (of course) raffi (oh raffi). and styx a bit but not as much
and that was a long post for a thread that is -not about me.- i think i’m missing the music thread
After I’ve heard a song a few times, I can usually play it back to myself in my head without electronic help. Can’t everybody do that?
yes, but then unless i’m concentrating i get stuck on one song over and over. plus i like shuffling, it’s exciting. and it’s hard to do in your head, because you automatically pick a new song because something has reminded you of it, like the previous song. so it’s not really randomized.
I can. But it’s quite annoying when you can only remember part of a song and have to “play” it over and over again in case you remember the rest.
Right now I’m listening to “Hadestown” by Anaïs Mitchell. It’s a sort of opera or song cycle based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Has anyone heard of her?
There are comet vintages; are there vintage comets?
(this is a silly question)
They’re all a good age. Most of them probably qualify as veteran.
Rebecca, how often do you work on non-digital art, if at all?
Lately I’ve been concentrating on graphics, leaving me very little time for traditional media, since the day job also demands a certain chunk of my time. A few years ago I was getting up early and painting 3 or 4 hours each morning before work, a time that was amazingly productive and satisfying.
Now that I’m getting a handle on graphics, I’m excited about exploring more ways of combining digital and traditional media. Maybe I can balance my brain in the process.
By the way, the “Monet” image depended heavily on painting skills. I was trying out new features in Photoshop CS5 that allow considerably more expressive brushwork, especially with a digital pen. (Although other programs, such as Corel Painter and ArtRage, have had wonderful painting range for years, this is a major leap forward for Photoshop — and there are many advantages to being able to work within PS without having to jump around. Adobe also added some striking artistic features to Illustrator that I’m eager to try out.)
What does one actually USE an armillary sphere for, besides decoration?
Hey GAPAs, how did the
emoticon come to be known as Mr. Joe?
Mr. Joe, Grasshopper, is yet another of Ebeth’s many contributions to MuseBlog culture.
Bahaha ohhh man. I remember those. Mr Joe is the WORS–
What am I saying. Mr Joe rocks. He is the best.
Erin asked this at the Museum of Natural History yesterday, and the neuroscientist we asked said she didn’t know-
If it’s so dark at hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean that most of the animals are completely white, why do they still have eyes? Why didn’t they evolve away like with cave fish?
KaiYves:
I’d like to answer Erin’s question in the Q&A column. Could you tell me her age and the initial of her surname, please?
Oh man, she’s gonna love this… I just called to ask if she’ll allow you to, I’ll let you know what she says.
She says yes, she’s Erin M., and she’s 15.
Random question I just thought up of for Mr. Coontz- (why did that auto correct to “clings”?)
Where did you learn so much about chess? You seem to be very good at it, and you give great advice.
I have a question for you, o illustrious GAPA(s)!
Okay so, I’ve heard from several sources that people sleep better when it’s cooler temperatures. To an extent of course, not like, freezing. But versus it being warm in the room. It’s true for me and my friends at least.
I’m also aware that the brain performs better/faster at cooler temperatures (I am pretty sure Muse confirmed this in an article about yawning parakeets I think).
Do these two connect at all? Do people sleep better because their brain is processing stuff better/maybe going through sleep cycles faster, making them feel more rested? I was just wondering if there’s anything to it besides correlation and it was too complicated a question for google to really get.
Hm. I sleep better when it’s warmer. Heat makes me tired; cold makes me energetic and active. I think the brain functioning bit applies to me, but the heat bit doesn’t.
Paul, have you played Skyrim yet? I seem to recall you were a big fan of the last Elder Scrolls game.
Unless this is something my fevered imagination has fabricated and disguised as a memory. That’s been known to happen.
If he’s a fan I will compose a ballad in his honor and play it in taverns with my lute. That would be incredibly mega-awesome-epic.
I’m almost positive Paul loved Oblivion. He’s not on as often as Robert and Rebecca, though, so I don’t know when this will get answered.
Alas, I haven’t yet experienced Skyrim. So many people are currently bribing me to make Elizabethan instruments and other weird stuff that I’ve had to ignore the existence af another Elder Scrolls experience. I’ve promised myself that I’ll get an Xbox at some point. Either that or a new computer. I’d need one of these to run Skyrim. But I need to achieve a few Worthy Resolutions first. Like turning the garden from a Wildlife Conservation Area back into a garden. And spending more time on Museblog.
What’s wrong with a Wildlife Conservation Area? I’d take that over a garden any day, although it’s unfortunately illegal in my area. (It’s ridiculous, of course; I think it may be a deciding factor in where I choose to live when I’m older).
“Wildlife Conservation Area” may conceivably have been a euphemism.
I think what he means is that it’s totally wild and it looks like it was never touched by humans at all, which is ideal for a conservation area but can look rather frightening on your front lawn.
That about sums it up.
GAPAs – I’m currently using my school email address for posting on MB and such, but I won’t be able to use that after June, so I’m thinking of just changing it now to my personal email address. Is there a way to do that while keeping my gravatar and stats etc.? Thank you!
For the gravatar, just go to the gravatar website and add your new email and choose the same picture. For the stats, I’m interpreting it as the “Who’s Posted How Much” page? If so, just keep using the same name. I’ve changed emails a few times.
For the gravatar, I think you just have to go to the gravatar website and change your profile. As for MuseBlog statistics, I think your name is all that matters — though I could be wrong.
I think it worked. Thank you, Robert and Piggy!
Robert, do you happen to know whether there are any Muse subscriptions in Iceland? I was thinking that, even though we decided that our base for world domination is located there, we don’t have any Icelandic MBers. We need to get a foothold there if we want to get our plan underway.
Robert, how do you feel watching scenes in movies or video games in which landmarks in DC are destroyed, given that you live there?
Speaking as one who used to live there, my reactions depend a lot on the movie – the landmark involved, the camera’s point of view, the plot points, &c. I’m most apt to get the eerie feelings for the lesser known landmarks or places where I’ve spent a lot of time.
But frankly, the eeriest feelings come from errors: a metro escalator that exits to the wrong locale, neighborhoods that don’t match up at all with the real ones, stuff like that. Back when public phone booths in the DC area began to charge 20 cents instead of 10, it would always bump me out of the suspension of disbelief when a TV/film character would ask for “a dime” to make a call. (I get a similar feeling when someone starts a phone number with “5-5-5.”)
The game Fallout 3 is a good example. I am actually fascinated by destruction and erosion and aging – I find myself imagining the world in a postapocalyptic state as I walk around – so games like that are a perfect fit for me. Fallout 3 takes place in D.C. and the surrounding area, and the game developers live basically next door and so made it look very…real.
It’s haunting and yet fascinating, which I love. I suspect I’d have the same feeling if it took place in my hometown, only a little bit more haunted.
For the most part, I enjoy living in a place that is unique and is well known enough so that its major landmarks make instantly recognizable settings or symbols.
What I don’t like is when the destruction of my hometown is used for cheap entertainment. In the movie Independence Day, for example, there’s a scene in which an alien spaceship blows up the White House. When theater audiences saw that scene in 1996, many of them cheered. That struck me as a weird and inappropriate response. Maybe 9/11 changed things and people would react differently nowadays, but I doubt it. Still, I’ve seen Washington destroyed so many times now that I’m getting used to it.
(Castle’s eerie feeling evoked by post-apocalyptic Washington is fine, though. That’s an appropriate use of the location.)
That’s horrible. I saw Independence Day recently, and perhaps it was my state of mind at the time, but I felt sort of like it was actually happening to me, and throughout the movie I tried to imagine the sort of things I would be doing then, and what I would be feeling. I’d hope that if aliens invaded we could put all our political grudges behind us.
Also, I understand why movies always have landmarks destroyed first, but logically it doesn’t make much sense. I mean, sure, perhaps you want to attack the tallest thing first– that would make… some sense…– but still.
(As illustrated in the movie “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” (which is nothing lke the book), when the giant food is attacking and the anchor reports that the food is making a habit of attacking famous landmarks first and the rest of the world next. I’m… not sure why I’ve seen that movie so many times, nor why I remember such an obscure part. I mean, the last time I saw it was a long time ago…)
Thank you. I’m writing a fan-fic about the Marvel Comics storyline Fear Itself, in which the bad guys attack the National Mall, and I want to have one character be a Smithsonian docent. Since, based on my experiences in DC this summer, the red-shirted “Explainers” are local high-school students, I want to know how she would react to seeing this in real life after seeing so many similar scenes in movies.
Washingtonians are aware that real people want to blow us up. Movies and video games don’t really bother us.
Smithsonian, why would you dress your employees in red shirts? That only makes it more likely for them to die by alien invasion!
Not all of them wear red shirts, just the student docents.
It’s not just the red shirt. I think they have to be part of a landing party to be terminated by aliens.
Robert, in your Skype profile picture…is that a banjo?
Yes. Like several other denizens of the blog, I have been known to consort with folk instruments.
Hmm. I like it.
Since I know that several of you have worked in journalism, how long after someone dies is it normal to stop referring to them as “the late” in print? I ask because a friend if mine on another site used that terminology to refer to someone who has been dead for 26 years, and it seemed a little odd.
Question: I emailed a Muserology entry to muse@musemagkids.com (the email listed in the magazine). I did not get a response email. Can I assume that my entry was received or is there something else I should do? Both the email and Muserology use my blog name.
Elizabeth Preston will probably see this message and answer you.
Thank you very much.
Hey, this thread is fun. I’ve enjoyed looking back a couple of years to see what we were talking about then.
Okay, I’ve heard both of these from adults I trust, and I know it may be personal/regional to some degree, but from all four of your experiences, which of these statements is closer to the truth:
– Dinosaurs were not a common/stock/”classic” area of interest for children until the release of Jurassic Park.
– Dinosaurs have been a common/stock/”classic” area of interest for children at least since the Dinosaur Renaissance of the 1960s if not before.
Number two, for sure. Kids were crazy about dinosaurs long before “Jurassic Park” came out. No doubt Michael Crichton was one of them.
Very early in the 1960s, I had plastic dino-toys and loved the dinosaur paintings by Charles R. Knight in others in books like The World We Live In. When I asked my father whether Tyrannosaurus could beat up Allosaurus or vice-versa, he explained the difference between the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods. (It was handy having a father who knew things like that, even if he didn’t answer my question.)
I personally can’t remember a time when dinosaurs weren’t a subject of fascination for children, whether they were big in the public eye or not. A highlight of the New York World’s Fair 1964-65 was a dinosaur exhibit featuring vending machines that would make molded plastic dinos before your very eyes. Mine was a stegosaurus. The exhibit was sponsored by Sinclair Oil, whose dinosaur logo was a roadside fixture in many regions of my childhood travels. According to the Wikipedia article on Sinclair, the company also sponsored a very popular exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair in the 1930s, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find accompanying dino excitement among children of the time. I’m pretty sure dinosaurs made appearances in early animations, too, though I can’t recall specifics at the moment. In any case, “Jurassic Park” was a latecomer.
In fact, one of the earliest animated cartoons was “Gertie the Dinosaur” — made in 1914!
Even in the latecomer division, the theatrical release of “The Land Before Time” predated the novel of “Jurassic Park” by several years.
A small island off the coast of Japan is being formed by a volcanic eruption at the moment, prompting me to look up similar events and realize that such islands actually form more often than one would expect (Wikipedia lists 15 or having formed since 1900), but they’re usually quickly eroded away after the eruption stops and end up underwater again.
Now, in the event than an island were to form at a hotspot or mid-ocean ridge that was in international waters, could the first person to find it legally claim it as their own and a new country a-la Sealand? I realize that even in the best case scenario, it might be like something like Surtsey that’s only about a square kilometer and may only stay above water for another hundred years, and it would probably be one of the more typical tiny islands that erodes back underwater in weeks to years, so it wouldn’t be permanent, but could a person legally do this?
I’m not a GAPA, but I’m halfway through a 101 course on International Relations and read the Times on weekends, so I feel confident (if not qualified) enough to answer.
There’s a fantastic article, “A Game of Shark and Minnow,” about the Spratly Islands, and several Filipinos stationed on a derelict ship to keep an eye on things. They’re hardly islands, but the Spratlys are claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, Vietnam, and China. Whomever controls the islands extends their borders, and so controls the sea, and most importantly, the oil beneath the sea floor. Also notable are the Senkaku Islands, disputed between Japan and China, for similar reasons. There is fierce debate as to whether one of them is actually an island and capable of sovereignty, or just a rock. An individual could show up and claim whatever they want, but they’re not going to actually have any real power. Sealand, for example, is just unimportant too be bothered over. If it were stationed on a major international shipping route and atop billions of dollars worth of oil, things would be different. An important part of being a country is being recognized as such by other countries. Similarly, as far as I can tell, international law is countries agreeing on things in their own best interests. Perhaps an astute individual could play politics to be recognized as sovereign?
Reminds me of Tintin and the Shooting Star!
Right, so if the Kokonspiracy wants our own island, it must not only be on a ridge or hotspot in international waters, but also not near anything anybody else wants?
Or you could just buy one.
Can we please???? That would be the best thing ever.
I’m not sure that’s something we could afford even collectively.
Well, you’d have to get obscenely rich first, of course. A minor inconvenience.
I read all of these replies in the recent comments and just knew that it was about a Kokonspiracy island.
Can’t we just find such a place that isn’t part of a larger country, obtain citizenship and then start a revolution? (Viva la Kokonspiracy, etc)
It would be really cool.
(…‘Cause I don’t know what it is that I can see:
This place is like the Internet, but it’s all in 3-D!…)
We could buy an island off the coast of Costa Rica and then populate it with genetically-engineered… Wait, no, that didn’t work out very well at all.
So here’s the plan, everybody: Go out, become a world-famous in the career of your choice, and make tons of money. Meet back here in ten years with your share. Easy as pie.
I asked my parents this and their answers were mixed– when you can first remember going to the airport as children, was it all jet airliners like today or were there still some propeller-driven ones?
(My dad said there were both, my mom only remembered jets.)
There were plenty of propeller-driven planes around when I was a kid. We lived near the airport (then known as Lindbergh Field) in San Diego, so I saw a lot of them. I also remember hearing the jet-engine tests from Rohr and General Dynamics, where the fathers of some of my schoolmates worked.
The first plane I flew on was propeller-driven. I was very small, and we were visiting relatives back east. The carrier was Eastern Airlines, and I was petrified because an Eastern Airlines crash had recently been all over the news on TV. But I had a window seat just ahead of the wing and was so fascinated by the propellers that I soon lost my fear. Meanwhile, my father helped by explaining that scientists had figured out how air worked and that it was actually very reliable at keeping airplanes up. He gave me a simplified explanation of the Bernoulli principle, which I didn’t understand but which reassured me. I trusted my father, and scientists.
That crash wouldn’t have been Flight 401, would it?
No, not the famous one. It must have been Flight 375, in 1960. I remember grownups talking about “those poor people in the water,” which could have been Winthrop Bay. The only other crash that would have made that kind of impression on me was Flight 304 in 1964 (the awful one that went into Lake Pontchartrain), but I don’t think it was as late as that. I was very young.
The plane I flew on was probably a Lockheed Electra. I remember that it was a turboprop, because I was disappointed that we weren’t going to fly on a jet, and my mother told me that our “jet-prop” engines were “like jets” and almost as good.
Anyway, in the early 1960s commercial jets were still new and exciting and hadn’t yet replaced propeller-driven planes for cross-country flights.
For what it’s worth, I was buying airline tickets last week and one of my options had me taking a propeller plane from Denver to Phoenix.
Oh, airlines certainly still use propeller planes, I just was curious about when jets became predominant.
What is the inverse of “get off of my lawn”– you know, something a young person would shout at an old person? Get off of my playground? Get out of my arcade?
The inverse of “get off my lawn” is
.
I’m not sure how to tell “rolling eyes emoticon”, though.
*yell.
Is this for a scene you’re writing? Grumpy young people don’t generally yell at old people, in my experience. I suppose I can imagine skateboarders on a sidewalk yelling something like “Get outta the way, grandpa!” But I’ve never seen it happen, and it certainly isn’t common enough to be a cliché. I think they’re more likely to mutter to themselves and roll their eyes.
No, no, just as a joke for general conversation, since I end up talking to a lot of people who are older than me.
In that case, I think “Get out of the way, grandpa/grandma!” would work admirably (not that I’d ever encourage disrespect for your elders, of course).
If a prospective time traveler were to create replicas of banknotes with long-since-retired designs in order to spend in the past, would they still be guilty of counterfeiting in the present?
Time travel, if it ever becomes possible, will be a nightmare for judges and a gold mine for lawyers and expert witnesses.