Happy Birthday, William Shatner

On this day in 1931, Shat first happened. In Quebec, not Iowa. Since then, he's become famous for a Grammy-award-winning album, "T. J. Hooker", "Twilight Zone", and a certain TV series. To the right, you can see him as he looks now. Below, you can see Shatner as TV makeup artists in 1967 guessed that he might look now.

Lost an hour

Today is Daylight Savings Time. Well, it was last night. How many of you forgot to set your clocks last night? I did. My schedule was all out of whack this morning. And I think this is one of those "church attendance is 3/4 of what it is normally on Sunday morning" Sundays.

I wasn't the only one. Below is a picture of the downtown clock tower. The time is really 11:45 AM. You wouldn't know it from the clocks on the tower would you?

To the right is a family vacation photo of Big Ben in London, from 1992. With so many people looking at that clock, I suppose they always keep it right, even with daylight savings time. Oh wait. England is too smart to even have daylight savings time.

So, how did to do with daylight savings time? Did you set your clocks the night before, or did you somehow forget and turn out surprised in the morning like I did?

What better musical illustration for this post than Pink Floyd's Time, from "Dark Side of the Moon"., below. There was a recent news story about Pink Floyd sueing EMI over releasing single tracks from its concept albums. Well, all this will do I'm sure is encourage piracy of Floyd single tracks, and people to enjoy them on Youtube like I do.

The Hurt Locker

Has anyone seen "The Hurt Locker" movie? It's in town for a few days and I was wondering if we should see it. I was talking to someone who served in Iraq last week, and he has seen it and strongly recommends it.

All-Black Penguin

"Hello. I'm Johnny Cash..."

I heard on the Ron Jolly Radio Program this morning that they have found a rare all-black King Penguin, a "one in a zillion" mutation. He said that the penguin was more like Johnny Cash than any other penguin in the world, due to its ebony attire. One blog or website called him "Darth Wader". Click here for one article on the big black bird.

I've never seen anything like this, but I do recall visiting Belle Isle in Detroit one winter, and being surprised that it was swarming with all-white deer. I was surprised to find wild deer all over and island in Detroit, and I've seen many many deer, but not white ones. To the left is a 100 year old postcard of Bell Isle. I have many postcards of Detroit and Belle Isle from the old days. Click on it to see it in larger detail. There are no deer in the postcard. I have yet to see a postcard of Belle Isle deer.

Stow-on-the-Wold

I'm slowly going through my parents' huge photo albums from their trips to Europe, including several trips to England. One thing I found was this "J. Arthur Dixon Ltd" postcard of "Stow-on-the-Wold". I'd never heard of this place before. To me, it sounds like it might be more of a name for a disease or recipe than of a town (I brace for the indignation from people who love this place or live in it and will find this blog post).
It's located in the middle of England. I used to be more of an Anglophile than I am now, and England is not the highest on the list of places I want to see someday. I suppose the first place in England I remember wanting to see was not technically in England, but in Wales. Wales was featured in the childrens' book "Time and Mr. Bass", part of the Mushroom Planet book series. I might have read about the British isles before this, but that is one I remember.

Has anyone read those Mushroom Planet books, or heard of this town?

Brother, can you spare a Zachary?

I bought a paper today and was surprised to find a different looking shiny coin in the change. I looked at it, and it was a Zachary Taylor Dollar.

I'd never heard of it before. And Zachary Taylor? The guy who tops the list of Presidents nobody has heard of? I suppose it's easier than naming a coin after Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan. Name a coin after Taylor, and everyone in the country will say "Who?" as opposed to half the country jumping for joy while the other half seethes with outrage.

Maybe this one will work. I've seen the other attempts over the years. Remember the Susan B. Anthony quarter... erm dollar? It did look too much like a quarter. Or the Sacagawea giant penny. Well, it was a dollar, and it quickly tarnished into a giant penny. And the US mint decided to promote the hell out of it and never bother to release it to the public until months later, when the hype had worn off, and it was too late for acceptance. I grumped about these coins before.

Who knows. The Zach might work. Has anyone else seen these?

March... In like a lamb

It was sunny today (which is not usual), and a little warmer than usual. So, I guess March was in like a lamb. How did the month start where you are?