It's wasn't his nose, it wasn't his nose, it wasn't his nose at all!!!!!

Ah-TCHOO!

Speaking of Osiris, does anybody remember Caleb Carr's Osiris Ascending?

I'm so glad to have caught up with the quote -before- asking... Clearly I need to get a fix...

Welcome home, though!

A suspiciously brownish-looking olive oil with a peaty smell, perhaps.

Welcome home!

Besides, since the standard was specified, the more industrial oil extraction processes have "improved", and some can be used while still metting the test standard for "extra virgin" oil.

And then you get the usual "bottled in italy", and Spanish companies with Italian names, and all the general shabbiness of industrial cheap food.

Fortunately, in Italy at least, you can still get olive oil produced on one farm, the olives crushed locally, where the labelling still means something.

The last time I was at my local farmers' market, I bought ostrich meat. It's local, no bending of the rules.

Google tells me some, but I think I need some kind of pointer on where to start with this stuff.

* "Here in the New Age, there's a Seeker born every minute!"

One Quarter Mile.

Google loves me! This I know,
For the web search tells me so;
Twitter feeds to It belong,
They are weak but It is strong.
Yes, Google loves me! (x3)
The web search tells me so.

Google loves me! He who died,
Needs my help to money hide;
419 will make me rich,
Don't complain, Ghod hates a snitch.
Yes, Google loves me! (x3)
The web search tells me so.

Google loves me! loves me still,
When I'm very weak and ill;
Magic blue pills do the trick,
Yay for risus sardonic!
Yes, Google loves me! (x3)
The web search tells me so.

Google loves me! It will stay,
Google's cache will show the way;
It's prepared a rank for me,
Number One!!! for a small fee.
Yes, Google loves me! (x3)
The web search tells me so.

I get the feeling this is the USian equivalent of The Goon Show ("not a sausage!"; "a quantity I specialise in"; "I can't think of a 'thinks'") I wonder if we have a Fluorospherical (Fluorspheric?) equivalent of Bill Bryson?

I may have to give up and go read W*p*dia. <grumble, 'sno fun>

[OT: All sorts of strange little things are popping up in obituaries or memories of Tom Braden.]

Only five whats. Not too bright.

One Eighth Mile

They're alive and well and performing, btw; here's their website.

I get the feeling this is the USian equivalent of The Goon Show

A reasonable first-order approximation. They did a lot of "sight gags", like the Goon Show, though Fire Sign Theater was much more into political and drug humor.

Also, the cover art of the albums was usually very good. I especially like the Robert Grossman cover for Don't Touch That Dwarf

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

I read somewhere that it was supposed to be about a man's midlife crisis. Still, I wonder if David Byrne and/or Brian Eno were science-fiction fans. You see, one of the episodes of the Twilight Zone, titled The Parallel, was about an astronaut who goes up in orbit around the Earth and, upon landing, finds that things are not as they should be. His military rank isn't the one he remembers. No one has ever heard of President Kennedy. The astronaut's house now has a picket fence. His wife recognizes him, but, when she kisses him, she recoils as if something were 'off' about him. After concluding that he landed in a parallel Earth, he makes it back home. His words when he rejoins with his wife?

"This is my beautiful wife."

One thirty-second mile.

"But it's really great sh*t!"

But we still use "He's no fun, he fell right over" quite a bit around here.

(I just had a vision of George Bailey/Jimmy Stewart traveling among alternate worlds and encountering other versions of himself, prompting him to ask, "Who am us, anyway?")

http://www.westcoastroads.com/california/images005/i-005_nb_exit_159_02.jpg

While I'm at it, here's the Google street view of the intersection of Pico and Alverado. Not responsible. Park and lock it.

The opening act was for the comedy duo was an obscure reggae band from Jamaica called Bob Marley and the Wailers.

one-sixty-fourth of a mile.

OK? Are we now done with the asymptotic approach to the Antelope Freeway?

And I'll never forget the night I first saw this on "Night Flight." (Now available on DVD!)

I never understood why the signs to Antelope Freeway weren't coming faster and faster. Oh well. It's a great album, though. Even if it's been years since I recited it. My favorites these days seem to be the Holmes and Shakespeare jobs, but I've been thinking of ripping "Everything You Know Is Wrong" some time soon.

J-Men Forever on DVD? Oh, I am so there.

They took bits out of various old movies, including a lot of Republic serials, and redubbed them with new storylines, a la What's Up, Tiger Lily?. The results were a bit hit-and-miss, but the couple best ones were hysterical, such as 'Heaven is Hell!' in which Californian health-food nuts take over Heaven and force everyone to eat health food until the angels finally revolt.

Osiris!
Odysseus, my friend! What has happened to your nose?
I have just returned from Rome.
Ah! What news of my father?
(fades out)

I also saw a fairly funny Commando Cody redub, possibly also on Night Flight, that sounded like it could have been Proctor & Bergman, but had no credits. ("Don't forget to steal his hat.")

KFML used to have a weekly show with an improv group from Boulder called High Street, who would make up a new sound track for a movie on one of the Denver stations. They finally had to stop, most likely because they also made up new sound tracks for the ads. There's such a thing as going too far, especially in the 70s.

One one hundred twenty eighth mile.

(Xopher @49 & 50: That's the last distance given on the record.)

Oh,TOO bad -- you didn't beat the Reaper...

Some of the stuff there represents basic scientific knowledge, but a good deal of it is stuff that just wasn't practical until it was enabled by multiple other technologies, and in some cases social changes.

F'rex, it's one thing to build a single electric motor or generator as a demonstration -- large-scale production is a little trickier, especially if ironworking is handwork from a guilded profession... and working copper is likely a different guild ("whitesmithing"). Radio needs all of the above plus better precision, expert glasswork (eventually), and probably other stuff I can't think of offhand.

Even a glider needs pretty strong materials (q.v. Leonardo da Vinci), and powered flight needs lightweight IC motors.... (Even today, battery weight is a major restriction for any electric vehicle, let alone an aircraft!)

Similarly, atomic power is useless until you can (1) build large generators, and (2) refine metals that are not only radioactive, but toxic, fragile, and insanely flammable. (Not to mention the reputation you'll get when all your workers die horribly.)

A formula like C20H26O2 doesn't even come close to defining a single compound, the speed of light is useless until you get into space, and talking about germ theory before its time is a likely route to the heretic's pyre....

Heck, if you go back far enough, the wheel is only useful if you've got plains or paved roads, and suitable draft-beasts!

Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers and I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus are each composed of two tracks, one for each side of the original LP, which are priced at Amazon's standard $0.99/track. If you can access the Amazon MP3 store and can afford $3.96, that's a fine introduction.

One night in a frenzy he assembled it, connected it to speakers, turned it on, and heard "this is Radio Free OZ" - at which point his jaw dropped as he tried to contemplate exactly what kind of receiver he had built.

(the connection here is that he just happened to tune into Firesign Theater's weekly radio program. He claims to still have tapes he made of those programs - I should bug him to digitize them)