Top Ten Stories for 2012

From the Sea Coast Echo.

Wait, no, even better than a heroin Martini.

Another NPR show, this one on rye whiskey.  As much as I like a good gin and tonic or Martini (conventional, legal, non-laudunum-laced, thankyouverymutch), rye is more my style.

A Heroin Martini...?

Heroin Martinis, among other things, discussed in an interview with Richard Barnett, author of The Book of Gin over at NPR.

Even without going through the whole interview, the mini-article makes an interesting read.

The Sickness in Sci-Fi

Over at Giant Freakin Robot.  It comes down to two over-used tropes:
(1) time travel.
(2) doomsday.
And don't forget the lazy, unimaginative writing.  Go read the rest for yourself, it's short.

Late, as usual.

Hey, I've still got 47 minutes.

High West Double Rye Whiskey

Yes.

Read more about it here.  Trust me, it really is that good.

Merry Christmas, Y'all.

And here's some year-end tab clearing:
The History of Rome podcast series.  About 150 hours' worth, worth every minute.  You'll need to dig around to get to the start.
Ugly Pirate's facebook page.
A clinical look at libertarians.
The other Zingarelli artist.  No known direct relation.
A horrifying potential preview for the coming year.
Americans are not stupid.  Well, at least not all of us.  Yet.
Finally, here's a little music to round things out: a collection of Field Hollers.

Skydiving Cats & Falling Cats

There was a ruckus last month over a Swedish insurance ad showing cats skydiving.  Evidently, as this CNN story points out, some people thought it was real.  *sigh*

Actually, it seems that real cats without parachutes would do just fine being tossed out of airplanes at random!  (Not that I am advocating doing this for a second, mind you.)  Read about it here (article in Natural History), here (BBC shortie), and of course at Wikipedia.  Why?  Cats, being relatively small fluffy things, have a fairly low terminal velocity, about half that of humans.  Throw in their natural shock absorber legs, and on the whole they do surprisingly well in falls from high places.  Strangely, they seem to do better when falling from heights over five stories.  The reason for this seeming contradiction is that they need the extra height – and hence time – to rotate themselves and get their legs under them.

Still, don't try this one at home kids.

Smarter in 17 Easy Pieces

Over at the NYT: 17 things from the Economist's "The World in 2013" issue.

Hmph, so that's where the Evil League of Evil's L'Enfant Terrible gets her advance information.

What's on the radio?

Type your zip into Radio Locator and find all the stations in your listening area.  If that's not enough and you're into high-gain antennas, you can about triple the number of stations found by clicking the "Include Fringe Stations" radio button at the bottom of the listing.  (In this case, "fringe" refers to reception area, not content.  Too bad the latter isn't an option as well.)

Bonus: with a little more clicky, you can get oddly shaped station coverage maps, like this one:

What to clicky?  Clicky on the little yellow boxed 'i' next to the station, then click on the coverage map link(s).  There may be two, one for day, one for night.

Remember, the listings and coverage area maps only account for line-of-sight for FM and groundwave for AM.  Oddball tropospheric ducting can give greatly extended FM ranges occasionally and unpredictably, while night time skywave can more reliably extend AM ranges.

Good hunting.  You may find something interesting.  And if not interesting, perhaps at least unusual.

Gravel Grinder

More here.
Maybe oneofthesedays.

Batmobile's up for sale.

Details here.  Yes, it's the honest-to-Adam-West original.

Ah well, my outlandish car quota's already filled for this year.  At least, somewhere down under all the custom sheet metal an bondo, the Batmobile's really a Ford.

Good News: More Low Power FM Stations

Article over at Engadget.  Looks like the FCC is re-opening the window to allow more of these little jewels, and man do our nearly homogeneous airwaves need them.  More info over at the Prometheus Radio Project web site.

These stations work pretty well, judging from our local WQRZ-LP. Lots of local artists make it on there, plenty of community news, and, of course, up close and personal hurricane news.

Return to DeSoto

Say it with the reverb cranked up: Return to DeSoto..o..o..o.  Yeah, well, between business and health it-shews and all, I haven't been riding on the home trails since... March?  Has it really been that long?  Yeah, guess so.  Anyway, I made it out there today and here are the pics.

Obligatory bike-leaning-against-tree picture.  Of course the bike had to lean against the tree, hell that tree could've fallen down if left to its own devices!

The Golden Road (or something like that).

Gnarly old roots in the bottom of a little branch of Tuxachanie Creek.  Frankly, it was a lot darker, deeper, and mysterious looking in person.  So pedal yourself out there and see it with your own eyes.

Along the power line cut.  Kind of stark, with the sharp edge of the woods, browned-off grass, big fall clouds, and the power lines themselves.

And that was about it.  No shocking sights, no bone-crunching falls, no unique bicycling moments.  Just a good day in the woods, after far too many days out of the woods.

Why...?

Why not?

Ah, the miracle of soft plastic and velcro.  Always wanted to be a Bike Viking.