Day: December 3, 2007

Cross posted from an email from Carolyn Porco

Start quote

December 3, 2007

Dear Friends,

To celebrate the holiday season and mark the close of another year
exploring Saturn, CICLOPS is running a contest for the most popular
image taken by our cameras since Cassini’s arrival in the Saturn system
nearly 4 years ago.

Please go to …

       http://ciclops.org

… and vote for your favorite color and `black and white’ images, and
your favorite movie clip, too.  The field has been narrowed from the
thousands of image products that CICLOPS has released thus far to a
handful that have been pre-selected by the members of the CICLOPS Alliance.

The voting ends at midnight on December 30th, Mountain Standard Time.
The results will be posted on December 31.  And three lucky people among
the entrants will win a printed poster of the winning color image or an
image of their choice.

And let’s tell the whole world what Cassini has accomplished!  Invite
anybody and everybody you know to visit our site and cast a vote.  This
contest is for everyone to enjoy.

So, good luck to all of you, and let the voting begin now!

Carolyn Porco
Cassini Imaging Team Leader
Director/CICLOPS
Space Science Institute
Boulder, CO

End quote. 

 

Vote early, vote often kids!

Xmas Antidotes

Funny cards.

The economics of Xmas giving.

Xmas hate – ten reasons to not like it.  Yes, the list is familiar, but there’s a sophomoric venom to it which I quite enjoy.

My ten favourite things about Christmas.

  1. Carols.  Singing them.  I don’t give a shit if I never HEAR another canned Christmas carol, but singing them is a different story.
  2. A string of dark blue incandescent lights along the roof line of a bungalow.
  3. Cooking up the turkey and having everybody go “ah!” when it comes to the table.
  4. Sitting around the homestead looking at old pictures with the family.
  5. Watching the Alastair Sims version of “A Christmas Carol”….  and turning on the TV just at the right time to catch the “Sisters” duet from White Christmas without having to watch the whole movie.
  6. Knowing that I will never again get exactly what I want for Christmas and being fine with that, because the gift part of Christmas really is for little people.
  7. Not having to beat the kids over the head anymore to write thankyou cards.
  8. Making biscotti all through the month of December and treating people at work.
  9. Listening to my father roar with laughter at the weather forecasts elsewhere in Canada.
  10. I always get cool books from Jeff.

Odessa Havana

Just cleared the door from an amazing Afro-Cuban-Klesmer concert…. I just wish ta hell Peggy had been there, because in half a century on this planet I have NEVER heard the like of that bassist.  He mopped the floor with every other bassist I have ever ever seen. Awe inspiring and marvellous.

Then in the car on the way home I worked up a tune

One time I was beautiful

There’s not much left to see

But the inside’s still as much fun

As it ever used to be

I’m not asking you to love me

I’m not asking you to lie

But you sure could make me happy

With one kiss before I die

I don’t think that I’m a cougar

I don’t spend much time in bars

I do not hail from Venus

We’re on Earth – you’re not from Mars

I’ve read some books, written some tunes

I’ve been around the block

But you sure are easy on the eyes

C’mon, let’s take a walk

I’m not asking you to love me

I’m not asking you to lie

But you sure could make me happy

With one kiss before I die…

And that’s why I like driving…… I get to work up tunes.

Many thanks to Katie K for the concert; I am very happy.  And I actually had fun clearing a foot of snow off the car.  When I got back, somebody had run the bobcat over the mess of snow and I had a real parking space…