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JoshCast #35 - New Slang (Bluegrass Style!)

I like bluegrass...especially when bluegrass virtuousos cover music from a totally different corner of the universe. I love The Shins...especially the two masterpieces found on the Garden State soundtrack.

Put them together, and what'd'ya get? Pure awesomeness. See if you agree with me, and take a listen to Iron Horse's rendition of "New Slang":



(Original by The Shins: click here)

Pandora

One of the most accurate Venn diagrams I've ever seen.


Source: xkcd

Chile Powder

Guess I've been paying less than adequate attention to world affairs of late. Two examples: while I was vaguely aware of Sudan's ongoing unrest over the last several years (decades?), I'm unfamiliar with most of the circumstances surrounding the formation of Earth's newest nation, South Sudan. Nevertheless, it seems like a joyful occasion that international observers are proud to witness, as peace appears to be dawning in one of the most troubled pockets of the world.

Second, I had no clue that a chain of volcanoes in Chile erupted last month. Thankfully, although the explosion has caused thousands to leave their homes, it sounds as if no one's been hurt, and it's yielded subject matter for some of the most incredible photography I've ever seen:




More: click here

JoshCast #34 - Hard Sun

I like to think that my musical tastes are relatively expansive, but I've found in the last decade that I inevitably circle back to the same three musicians: Dave Matthews Band, Ryan Adams (not to be confused with Bryan Adams), and grunge legends Pearl Jam.

I still remember many, many years ago, when I was but a wee sophomore in high school, I bought Ten, their '91 release that skyrocketed them to never-ending fame. A number of weeks later, my mom confronted me, worried that my purchase was a sign that I was perhaps turning, um, rambunctious. I guess they did have that sort of reputation, but I allayed her fears when I showed her they weren't just a bunch of hardcore, screaming hairbangers -- although, yes, they do that pretty damn well, too. (I also had a Rage Against The Machine album which she should've been more worried about, but luckily, that was glossed over.) In fact, they're musical talents are so very well-rounded: from the wildly popular "Alive" to the little-known gem "Cropduster" to the far more subdued and heartfelt "Gone".


Leadman Eddie Vedder's involvement in the 2007 movie Into The Wild is just the latest of his impressive efforts, exemplified by the following song, "Hard Sun", which remarkably fits the expansive wilderness setting of the majority of the movie. Hope you like it as much as I do:

Lighting It Up

As you might've surmised from my lack of posts after my cliffhanger that concluded my last storm chasing series......nothing really happened. Figured I'd save you the anticlimax. Probably the most interesting thing that happened was a late-night stop at an Applebee's (of course) in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Luckily, we had some profoundly hilarious karaoke to accompany us as we scarfed down our Fiesta Lime Chicken for the third time in a week.

But before I bring this year's storm chasing saga to an end, here's a little plug for our team, ExtremeVorticity.com. (We figured as long we threw the word "Extreme" in there, we'd be all set.) As a squall line moved through the DFW area this past Monday night, the fellas got some unreal lightning photos. First, courtesy of Russ Contreras:


And second, from our frontman Scott MacArthur:


Cheers, guys! I'd say y'all have cruised right on past me as far as photographic talent goes.

Down And (Not) Out

I'm still in utter disbelief about my Mavs' playoff run. Overcame a demoralizing 22-point blown lead against Portland. Swept Kobe the hated Lakers right off the Staples Center and AAC floor. Dirk's legendary performances against Oklahoma City. And now this in Game 2 of the Finals against the uber-arrogant Miami Heat??

Twice during this postseason, I've turned the game off, assuming that a 15-point lead in the middle of the fourth quarter was too much for Dallas to overcome. Both times they stormed back to win. Crazy. All I can say now is that I sure hope that the euphoria I felt after observing the following in Game 2 of the Finals is exceeded by a series win...and a championship.

Bust

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’m constantly amazed at what a crap shoot storm chasing actually is. The virtual guarantee of tornadic activity in western Oklahoma/Kansas yesterday was quickly and decisively dashed by a wave of rain passing through the area the night before. Morale obviously took a sharp downhill turn. When an event doesn’t pan out during a week’s chase (like South Dakota earlier in the week), it’s nice to have the safety net of knowing a bigger and better event is yet to come.

Alas, we now do not have that luxury.

Tuesday was a travel day: we escaped the black hole of flatness and boredom that is Nebraska for greener, modestly hillier pastures in Kansas. Not only that, but I got to drive our tank on a mini-chase near Wichita, in which we experienced a nice little gust front and shelf cloud. Our truck may not be as hardcore as Reed’s Dominator or Sean Casey’s TIV, but it holds its own through a hailstorm (Hypothetically, anyway. We haven’t really experienced any hail to give its hail rack a trial run).

We chill at an Applebee’s in Wichita that night, speculating about Wednesday. We’re so confident that we discuss not whether we’ll see a tornado, but rather the number and size of the twisters we will catch. Quelling the Christmas Eve-like excitement we’re feeling, we nod off and get a good night’s sleep, ready for the promise of Wednesday’s chase.

Then we wake up to a harsh reality.

Overnight, a large swath of rain and thunderstorms crept up from Texas through Oklahoma. Seems fairly innocuous, but the problems are twofold: all the rain cooled the surrounding areas considerably, and the storms also began cutting off all of the southerly winds from the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, our target area has now become much cooler and slightly drier, limiting the atmospheric instability needed for severe weather.

It’s not a total loss at this point, because a potent upper-level trough has moved into the area. At least we have that going for us, but if we don’t have enough instability, it’s just not going to have the firepower. Like trying to shoot an assault rifle using grains of sand.

Scott commented later that all us chasers had this reality in the back of our minds, but you always have hope. Often times, unlikely chase days yield a lone, monster supercell. Lots of other chasers apparently had hope, too, because we ran into them everywhere in Pratt, Kansas (it’s about 11:30am when we arrive there). We drove right past Sean Casey’s TIV, and then parked across the street again from Reed’s Dominator.

One storm chaser married couple (Aww!) in an old Chevy Blazer from Illinois stopped to chat with us for a bit. Reed’s rivals have described his Dominator as a “big red shoe”, but I like the Illinois guy’s description better, when he bellowed under his Ron Swanson-like moustache, “Look at that thang! It’s like a PT Cruiser on some kind of messed-up steroid.”

2:34pm – We leave Pratt behind in favor of Greensburg, Kansas, and we get clocked by a giant tumbleweed. Our steel-nerved driver, Jon, remains unfazed.

2:46pm – Greensburg, Kansas, is quite the inspirational town.


Having been virtually destroyed four years ago by a mile-wide EF-5 tornado, the rebuilding process is well underway, and the reconstructive efforts have a special emphasis placed on green technology. Streamlined architecture, wind power, and the like. It’s shocking to drive through and see the shaved trees and stripped foundations. The gas station folks give us the stinkeye, as we detect a little animosity directed towards the storm chasing community. Understandable.

The wood sculpture below in particular symbolizes the town’s resiliency. It’s a guy with a cowboy hat riding a tornado: a beacon of pride and an homage to the movie Dr. Strangelove:


3:46pm – We’re starting to see towers go up in the distance, but many chasers have begun heading west. Later, we find that they’re after a new target: a warm front near the Kansas/Nebraska border. And oh, by the way, tornadoes are also happening in Nebraska and Iowa. Nonetheless, we remain skeptically confident that our dryline scenario will shape up here in the next few hours. Trying to get zen on our side, we occasionally chant the mantra, “Patience, young grasshopper.”

After some indecision, we finally choose to drift west, as a cell seems to be starting to grow.

5:13pm – We’ve been following the cell north towards Ness City, and it actually looks kinda nice. A skinny base develops just to our west:


But it quickly dies. That atmospheric instability problem is coming back to haunt us. As a last gasp, we choose to fly northward towards the warm front. There’s certainly WAY more action up that way.

7:36pm – Right around now, we stop for gas in Moxie, Kansas, and the reality begins to set in that this is not going to happen. The warm front is outrunning us, and nothing is really looking that promising anyway. This chase is a bust. Our spirits crushed, we depart east.

8:59pm – We see a sign for a Dairy Queen and decide to stop there for a hearty burger or chicken fried steak sandwich or something besides gas station sunflower seeds and Bugles. When we arrive, we find out all they serve is ice cream and hot dogs. And oh, by the way, Caryn STILL hasn't tracked down her luggage. NOTHING is going our way. Eventually, we chill at a Pizza Hut in Hays and watch the OKC Thunder beat down the Memphis Grizzlies. (Winner plays my Mavs, so you know why I’m watching.)

11:49pm – Arrive in Salina, KS. Forecast looks slightly promising in southeast Oklahoma. Everyone else is too depressed from Wednesday’s epic letdown to chase Thursday, but we Extreme Vorticity team members are hearty folk.

We’re gonna find something.

Stay tuned.

Symmetry

Remember how I said in my last post that Sunday’s drive was the Exhibit A symbolizing the exhaustion and unpredictability of the storm chaser’s life?

Monday -- which turned out to be an incredibly eventful day -- was Exhibit B. Allow me to explain, in convenient timeline format!

7:12am: We depart our motel in Sterling, CO, after five hours’ sleep. Destination? Rapid City, South Dakota, to pick up two-fifths of our chasing crew. And of course, the whole reason we diverted Caryn and Barb to South Dakota instead of our DFW home -- the potential for an outbreak in South Dakota -- lies in the back of our minds. The Storm Prediction Center, though, downgraded the day just a little bit, showing a much smaller chance of tornadoes (below). We remain optimistic: they’re right a lot, but they’re wrong a lot, too. And we didn’t just drive 1000 miles for nothing.


8:01am: We cross into Nebraska. I’m reminded of the episode of South Park when the kids cross the Colorado/Nebraska state line, and a sign that says, “You’re In Nebraska. We’re sorry.” greets them. It’s like the Sahara, but with dead grass:


8:47am: We cruise through a tiny town called Gurley, Nebraska. Funny on its own, but even more hilarious when we see a water tower touting their high school mascot, the Warriors. Yes. That’s right. The Gurley Warriors.

10:57am: Getting closer to the Rapid City airport, and we find out that Caryn’s arrival is in serious jeopardy. Her first flight delayed, it’s unlikely that she’ll make her connecting flight in Chicago O’Hare. Bummer.

11:28am: By a stroke of luck, her connecting flight is delayed, too. She runs from terminal to terminal through O’Hare, arriving at her plane with about 17 seconds to spare. She’s now due to arrive only a half-hour late, and Barb is set to land on time. To quote Caryn, “Groovy!”

12:41pm: With a little time to kill, we decide to pay a visit to Mount Rushmore, only a little ways off of our Rapid City-bound route. Winding through the neighboring Custer State Park, and spot a herd of lazy buffalo:


Followed by a stone carving of some familiar faces, framed by a one-lane tunnel carved out of a giant boulder:


Nice.

2:20pm: We pick up Caryn and Barb at Rapid City. The crew is here! The bad news: Caryn’s baggage is not. Uh oh. We’ll deal with that later; it’s looking like action is going to start brewing near Pierre, South Dakota. Onward.

5:23pm: All that anticipation, all for naught. We hang out at a gas station near Belvidere, SD, spending a substantial amount of time throwing a football on a gravel parking lot, waiting for something -- anything -- to happen. We run into some fellow chasers, and we agree that the day is probably toast. Not a cloud in the sky. Almost all the necessary ingredients are there, but there’s just not enough heat where we are to spark anything.

Bummer. All that effort to get to drive a thousand miles and divert planes and lost luggage...for nothing?? We need beer.

But first, we hear that the tour company we used last year, along with Storm Chasers star Reed Timmer, etc., are in a neighboring town, also feeling sorry for themselves. We decide to drop say hey.

6:34pm: Now in a little town called Murdo, we run into Reed’s crew and spot our buddy Dave Holder leading the tour group again this year. Cruising in a new van (they needed it), they haven’t seen a whole lot this week. Like us, they’re getting ready for the impending outbreak predicted for Wednesday. Among other amenities, their van boasts an over-the-top paint job. And guess who’s silhouette is on the back of their van?


Yep, that studly shadow, the guy on the right, is me.

After chatting with the crew for a while, we head south, planning another long drive to Salina, Kansas.

8:26pm: One Bud Light and barbecue hoagie later, we check the weather, and are shocked to see three tornado warned cells have spawned near Rapid City. You know, where we were only 6 hours before. Rather than wait for the storm that might be there tomorrow, we decide to fly 2 hours west and catch the storm that exists today.

Around now, times began to get hazy, so I’ll abandon the timeline format from here...

We stop about 20 miles from the storm -- near the Nebraska/South Dakota border -- and get out of our Expedition for some amazing lightning shots. Seriously, there was a lightning strike about 5 times per second, certainly rivaling the most amazing display of nature I’ve ever seen. Example, though this doesn’t begin to do it justice:

[pic unavailable]

Unsatisfied, we cruise closer, perhaps 5 miles south of the storm, and see this amazing storm structure. That plume you see illuminated by lightning is called an “updraft tower”, which feeds moisture into the storm. If a tornado were to exist, it would be at the base of that plume:


Finally, still not quite satisfied, we rendezvous with the circulation (it’s still tornado-warned at this time), and get within a half-mile of the wall cloud/funnel cloud. This is just unreal:


It’s amazing: yesterday was starting to look just like the day before (15 hours’ driving), but ended up almost exactly reproducing our first chase day last year: disappointment, followed by the realization that something was going to happen while sitting in a restaurant, followed by a chase into the night of a low-level circulation illuminated by lightning. The symmetry was uncanny.

Thankfully, Tuesday will be a day of semi-rest, driving back southward through Nebraska and preparing for the outbreak on Wednesday. Here’s what SPC shows for tomorrow’s event:


That 45%? Kind of rare. Not high-risk rare probably, but still very promising. A prominent quote in a foreign movie I saw recently describes the anticipation felt by storm chasers everywhere: “Create excitement!”

Moving Targets

Before we get started, here’s a plug for a new website one of our guys put together, ExtremeVorticity.com! Watch our storm chasing posse on our live video stream as we hunt down a tornader. You should watch, not only for your own good, but also because in a roundabout way, we’ll somehow get paid for it.

--


Storm chasing is nothing if not (1) ridiculously unpredictable and (2) absolutely exhausting. My experience today is your Exhibit A.

As of 1am last night, when I was falling asleep, our plans were all set: a small outbreak was due in western Oklahoma nudging down into northwest Texas, according to the Storm Prediction Center. Two of our chase crew (Barb the film editor from NoCal and Caryn the social worker from Milwaukee) had Monday plane tickets to DFW at the ready, and our remaining crew of three was to have ourselves a practice round.

We planned everything perfectly. Until we realized that we didn’t.

I awoke this morning at around 7, and perhaps the third thing I did was check the forecast for the day. All of a sudden, nothing (or very little) predicted for OK/TX, but a decent setup lasting a handful of days, hours upon hours away in South Dakota and Nebraska. For instance, Monday’s setup:


But what did all this mean for us? Stranded in Texas, we couldn’t leave our two lady chasers behind who were due to arrive Monday. And after we were scheduled to pick them up at around 1, it would take an entire day to get to our South Dakota target area, and we’d miss just about everything until Wednesday’s southern plains outbreak.

But dammit, we weren’t going to let our poor luck ruin our week. After all, most of us were forced to take five days’ vacation for this. Our bright idea: let’s just jet (and by jet, I mean drive forever and ever and ever) up to South Dakota today (and if necessary, overnight), and Caryn and Barb can change their flights to Rapid City instead of DFW. All we had to do was sacrifice our practice chase in Oklahoma (where nothing too crazy is happening anyway) and then drive a mere 15.5 hours to Rapid City by 1pm tomorrow.

Piece o’ cake.

So now we’re driving through some grassfire smoke near Childress, TX, which by the way, is one of the very most exciting parts of the state of Texas:


The good news? I constantly check my iPhone as my Mavs decisively sweep the hated LA Lakers by 36 points, perhaps the most enjoyable part of which was perennial benchwarmer Brian Cardinal hitting the record-breaking shot for most 3’s by a team in the NBA playoffs. (Thanks to my dad for reporting this very important fact to me.) Give me a little bit of the credit though, because I wore my Beat LA t-shirt today. Anyway, that certainly will make the next 13 hours easier to take.

And a wedge tornado tomorrow wouldn’t hurt either.

It's Happening...Again

Because my first storm chasing experience just wasn't enough.

If you happened to read about last year's tornado chase in Oklahoma -- you know, the one where I almost died if not for keen observations by our accompanying meteorologist and a stroke of luck -- you know that my thirst for adventure was not quenched by a mere 6 days of chasing in the heart of Tornado Alley. It had the opposite effect, in fact. Much like a drop of liquid to a water-deprived wanderer stranded in the middle of the desert only makes his thirst sharper, I HAD to have more experiences like that.

My fellow tourers from last year, for a number of reasons, decided to forego the tour company Extreme Tornado Tours: it costs too many Benjamins, the company was offering only ten-day tours this year and filled up anyway, and we thought with a little training, we could do just as well. (Famous last words.)

My buddy Scott, also in the Dallas area and on the tour last year, accompanied me to a handful of SkyWarn training sessions (geek alert!). Not only that, but he was so into this storm chasing thing that he decided to buy an old Expedition and have it fitted to survive three-inch hail. Rhino lining. Bullet proof glass. And of course, a slickly engineered hail rack that deploys over the windshield. It took lots of elbow grease and knowhow (so I'm told, I actually didn't participate in implementing these enhancements), but it's all ready to go.

We even went on a test run about three weeks ago, when a potent storm system barreled through the DFW region in the middle of the night. It was too late to get close to any tornadoes, and only a couple touched down that night anyway, but we did get a chance for camera practice, capturing some awesome lightning shots. Example:


I need not tell you about the terrible outbreak just last week in the southeast, when two high-risk days in a row occurred. For perspective, it's fairly unusual for the Storm Prediction Center to issue two high-risk days IN A WHOLE YEAR, but this was no ordinary outbreak. After that grim situation, we have a renewed sense to not get too close to these things. Nevertheless, we're all still eager to feel the power of Mother Nature's most intense fury from close range.

So our itinerary: a "practice chase" tomorrow in western Oklahoma-ish. A return Monday to DFW to pick up two of our fellow chasers -- one a social worker from Milwaukee and another a film editor from NoCal (did I mention we're a motley crew?) -- and a trek northward to Kansas/Nebraska, or as far as the highway will take us in 8ish hours. Wednesday is looking like the big day right now, as the Storm Prediction Center will show you:


We (or at least I) are little more than storm chasing novices at this point, on the lower end of the amateur scale. But the only way to move up that scale is to get out in the mix. Scott has had a decent amount of success in recent weeks on his chases, so we're definitely optimistic about our chances. Hey, if we're lucky, we might get another Bowdle, South Dakota-like storm. Whatdya think?



Cheers. MUCH more later...I'll catch you up after some long hours on the road.

Moon Shots

How come I didn't think of this?







At least I'll have an opportunity of my own this Saturday. Not only is it a full moon, it's the closest the moon will be to Earth since I was but a wee one, almost 20 years ago.

JoshCast #33 - Run Chicken Run

I'm tired, so I think I'll just let The Felice Brothers carry the creative load today. I think "Run Chicken Run" came with one of my Paste magazines years ago, but it only recently was randomly chosen by my iTunes library. As I was shaving, if I recall correctly. Not that any of that is relevant.

It starts with an accordion, and well, only gets better after that, with a free-wheelin', slightly crazy spirit that you would expect from a song titled as it is. Enjoy.

JoshCast #32 - Incinerate

They may have been celebrating their quarter-century anniversary when Sonic Youth released Rather Ripped in 2006, and they certainly had an iconic body of work prior to that album. Nevertheless, "Incinerate" -- a single from that album -- was my first exposure to the noise punk specialists.

After purchasing 86's EVOL the other day, I've come to find out their usual style is markedly different from this. But this I love. Lead guitar is low-key but just enough to subtly wow me.



"You doused my soul with gasoline / You flicked a match into my brain."

Whoa. Emo.

Nothing Left For Me To Tell You

"The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore. The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. The beauty of art and music is that it can last forever if people want it to. Thank you for sharing this experience. Your involvement will never be lost on us and we are truly grateful."

And so, on Groundhog Day 2011, Jack and Meg White dissolved one of the most influential and popular bands of the last decade.

Although there were rumblings of a new album, the break-up wasn't a huge surprise. In recent years, now-uberstar and all-around badass Jack White had become involved in other projects like The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, soaring to new heights of popularity. (As my brother quipped, "Jack was really holding Meg back.")

And while tragic (especially the fact that I never saw them live), there's a bit of satisfaction in knowing that The White Stripes didn't wear out their welcome by sticking around too long, denying their decline, cranking out mediocre album after mediocre album. There's something to be said about a graceful exit that enhances the reputation of a legend.

If you know me, then you know that my love for The White Stripes will always run deep. It's amazing that they were able to accomplish so much with such elementary, uncomplicated, almost crude songwriting. Drummer Meg White picked up a pair of drumsticks for the first time only months before The White Stripes came into being, having received no formal training, instead learning as she went. Many songs (Icky Thump's closer "Effect & Cause" comes to mind) manage to fill 3 minutes of time using only 3 chords -- and it actually sounded good. If you ever see the rock-umentary It Might Get Loud, you'll see that the song that most influenced Jack White ("Son House") consists of a single man crooning the blues while clapping a rhythm. No instrumentation. Just emotion.

With great anticipation, I look forward to the day when I totally embarrass my future children by driving them to school with "Hotel Yorba" cranked all the way up and the windows rolled all the way down. But because that's at least a decade away, this will have to do:



(Oh, by the way, if you want a little more energy with that, check out the live version.)

A Case Study in Music and Memory

"There are things you can't avoid; You have to face them, when you're not prepared to face them."
-- "Fight Test", by The Flaming Lips

I hear over and over that, of the five senses, smell is most closely linked to memory. I'm sure this is generally true, and there's no doubt I experience this phenomenon often. (For instance, oddly, the scent of a spring dawn always elicits images of Hudson Elementary School from my days as a 2nd grader. I don't know why, but it does.)

You may have noticed I have a strong affinity for music, and I think this influences the fact that sound -- and music, in particular -- randomly forges permanent bonds to certain memories. Some good, some neutral, some not-so-great. An interesting psychological phenomenon, for sure.

Whenever I hear "Glide" by Stone Temple Pilots, I'm immediately transported to nights during fall 2002, when I would drive home from my job as a Tony Roma's busboy at one in the morning in my '89 Jeep Comanche, windows cracked.

Whenever I hear "Merry Christmas From the Family" by Robert Earl Keen, I'm brought to a December concert back in '06, when I was sipping Coronas and hanging with old high school friends at a roadhouse in Tyler, Texas.

Whenever I hear "What Is Love" by Haddaway...

OK, so I'm kidding on that last one, but you get my point.

I don't really love the above songs, but they nevertheless became permanently associated with my past experiences. This is the way it's always worked for me, but recently, the stars aligned in an odd way.

In the last handful of years, my musical tastes have broadened considerably to encompass indie rock (Whatever "indie" is. Tangent: "Is Indie Dead?", a very interesting article by Paste magazine). The Flaming Lips is considered by some to pioneer this genre. A little less than a year ago, I decided I needed to see what all the fuss was about, and I bought their highly acclaimed '02 release, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Then I saw them live.

I was impressed. Very impressed. Yoshimi remained stuck in my car's CD player for several days straight. But interestingly, over time, the album became associated with an experience I didn't like to dwell on. It wasn't a BAD experience per se (the opposite, actually), but it was something from which I needed to move forward. Listening to that album, however, would inevitably conjure images from that period of my life to rush back into my head.

So I avoided it. To hell with my love of the musical qualities of Yoshimi; I just needed to ignore it for a while, letting that memory play out its course and exit my mind, stage left. But months went by, and I remained shy to glance at the CD cover art, much less play it.

Then one day I decided I needed to change things. It may have made sense at the time to avoid the album, but so many months removed, it started to feel silly to go to such lengths. So I put it in my work computer and listened from track 1 to 11, start to finish.

And you know, it was an oddly gratifying experience. The first track spoke directly to me (see the start of the entry), understanding that I felt like I wasn't mentally prepared to clear this psychological hurdle, but reassuring me that I actually was. Afterwards, I got to thinking: Why did I think this would be difficult? And how much did avoiding the album reinforce my overcautiousness?

I'll probably never shake the mental association I have with The Flaming Lips, just like I never will dissociate "Glide" from Tony Roma's. But at least now, as my emotional attachment with it diminishes, I can appreciate Yoshimi for what it is.

A damn good CD.

My, How Times Have(n't) Changed

Credit: Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

Don't Make No Sense

I have the blood of both an English teacher and a former algebra teacher coursing through my veins. A blessing in many ways, but as such, I have a strong tendency to dissect the English language with an overwhelmingly logical mind, often to the annoyance of people within a 10-foot radius. (And you.)

But bear with me, because I've found something that will make your head explode.

Commonly, the "in-" or "un-" prefix negates the meaning of a word. For instance, "flexible" vs "inflexible", or "tie" vs "untie". This is the case the vast majority of the time...but not always, for no good reason at all, such as with "flammable" vs "inflammable", which essentially mean the exact same thing. (Look it up.)

My co-workers and I ran across another interesting example the other day.

Consider "valuable", which describes something that has tangible value. A Babe Ruth rookie card has value. Now consider "invaluable", which frequently is used as a more intense version of "valuable". Friendship, for one, is invaluable. Literally, if an object is invaluable, then it has no value; not because it isn't precious, but because the object is so valuable that its value cannot be quantified...if that makes sense. "Invaluable", therefore, has a very positive connotation.

Now consider "worth". The aforementioned Babe Ruth rookie card has lots of worth, in the same way that it has lots of value. But friendship is so precious that its worth cannot be measured. So would you describe friendship as "worthless"? Even though this is exactly the same line of reasoning we followed from "valuable" to "invaluable", the word "worthless" has a strong negative connotation. Friendship isn't worthless, but that lousy novelty t-shirt you got from your distant relative for Christmas might be.

How is this possible? "Value" and "worth" are synonyms. But negating them as shown above, getting "invaluable" and "worthless", are antonyms.

No doubt this is because the words evolved in different ways through the years. Sort of like "terrific" came to mean something very positive, even though it springs from same root as the word "terror", which ain't so positive.

Just another way the English language don't make no sense.

Will It Blend?

Trying to sell a blender? Forget those boring, pointless, 3am infomercials. Just upload YouTube videos of your state-of-the-art Blendo 3000 -- or whatever you call it -- blending anything and everything, from Bic lighters to golf clubs to light bulbs!

That's what Blendtec did...achieving hitherto unreached heights of randomness and hilarity. Check out Tom Dickson -- who isn't the greatest of actors, but apparently makes a living doing this while the rest of us are stuck behind desks -- as he blends a dozen glow sticks into an eerily fluorescent smoothie:



I think I like the background music best, if not the profound conclusion, "Yes! It blends!" See: Will It Blend? for more. It's actually staggering how many of these videos there are.

JoshCast #31 - Furr

Kudos to my brother for turning me on to Blitzen Trapper, an indie rock group hailing from Portland, Oregon. The title track from their 2008 release, Furr, in particular continually invites me to hit that rewind button, just so I can hear it one more time.

It's a whimsical tune about some wandering soul that, enamored by the wild, assimilates with a pack of wolves, only to be drawn back to reality six years later after meeting a pearl-skinned girl. ...Um, I think. It's probably open to all sorts of interpretation if you study its lyrics, but at any rate, it's a fun listen.

Pretty cool papercraft animation accompanies it on the music video. Check it out: