Godzilla Lecture at Nerd Nite (and the 789 YouTube Gathering)

Godzilla: History, Biology and Behavior of Hyper-Evolved Theropod Kaiju

I will be presenting a 10-minute lecture on Godzilla, The King of Monsters, at Nerd Nite on Friday July 10th at Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO, Brooklyn. The other two presentations for the evening will be lectures on "Korean Pop Music" and "The Harp."

The price is $7. Tickets available in advance or at the door.

Nerd Nite is an informal gathering at which nerds get together for nerdery of all sorts (well, mostly presentations and drinking). Nerds and non-nerds alike gather to meet, drink and learn something new.

The July 10th lectures will also be preceded by Gay Speed Dating - tickets for that are limited, but include price of admission for the lectures!

PLEASE NOTE: This is an art space and BAR. You most probably have to be over 21 to attend; please call to confirm.

For more information and advanced tickets, go to http://nyc.nerdnite.com/

Falling Apart

Through injury, aging and good, ol' fashioned slacking my body has been falling apart these past several years, and this process has only accelerated this year.

A few weeks ago I dislocated a rib, a combination of sifting rocks out of 10+ tons of soil in my new backyard and one really lousy yoga class (note to self: remember never to try anything involving the word "fusion," be it food, yoga or otherwise). Then, just as I was getting back into exercising groove, I bruised the bones in my left foot playing soccer this past Sunday. Ironically, it was the first time I'd played soccer since injuring my RIGHT foot last summer during an air guitar competition (yes... I know...). So another four weeks out of action, this time hobbling around with a cane.

It's all a bit disheartening. Still, I do have hope that I'll be able to get back on track with my physical fitness. So that I can return to doing the things I love to do, as well as start working on the creative projects that I've started (they involve a certain level of physical and martial prowess that I'm currently not at).

And in body-unrelated news, the logic board just failed in my Macbook Pro. It's now in the giant glass Apple cube on 5th Avenue. Just to let you know what kind of week I'm having.

Movies Too Expensive?

Movies are now as much as $12.50 here in NYC, more if you want to see an IMax print. So I've saved you the time and expense of having to see the latest Hollywood Blockbuster films by compiling them here in short summary versions, all under a minute long.

Enjoy!

Minor Remembrance of Things Past

Not terribly traumatic, but it's somewhat odd to stumble across the personal ad of an ex, featuring a picture you took of her, at a birthday party you threw for her.

If I didn't know it was her, it was the sort of ad I would normally have responded to, which is not too surprising; after all, she's pretty much the same person I met and fell for in the first place. The only difference is the knowledge of the crazy that follows.

Oh Dr. Manhattan, you're such an idiot.

A Small, Colorful Payoff

Last fall's labors have bourn fruit. Or rather, flower.

The first of my tulips have bloomed!

I'm ridiculous for being this excited, but I've never really grown anything successfully from seed/bulb before.

Next stop, vegetables... I hope!

Tulips on the verge of being

Backyard Archeology: Bromo Seltzer Bottle circa 1900

As I was extracting rock the size of soccer balls from my backyard yesterday, I heard a small clink as the shovel sunk into the dirt. Like a caveman, I chose to keep poking at it with the steel shovel for another minute rather than just reach down and see what it was.

Fortunately, my lack of sense was thwarted by turn of the century craftmanship, and a little luck. When I finally got my hands a little dirty, I was rewarded with a little backyard archeological find: a cobolt blue Bromo-Seltzer bottle, manufactured by the Emerson Drug Company of Baltimore, MD.

I vaguely remembered "Bromo" as a reference from old cartoons and movies, but was rather surprised when I later Googled the bottle to find numerous entries about it. What I thought was going to be a sparse search resulted in a wealth of information. It even had it's own Wikipedia page!

It's not a particularly rare or valuable bottle, but still cool as hell. I'm glad I didn't break it with my bumbling.

Below is an extract from a page about medicinal bottling:

The small cobalt blue bottle pictured to the left contained one of the most popular medicines sold in the 20th century - Bromo-Seltzer - which continues to be popular today as a headache and stomach medicine. This is a typical early 20th century Bromo bottle and is embossed horizontally with BROMO-SELTZER / EMERSON / DRUG CO. / BALTIMORE, MD. The product came in many different sizes of similar shaped bottles which were mouth-blown in the earlier years (1890s to about 1911), machine-made in identically shaped cork stoppered bottles beginning about 1911, and most likely completely machine-made by about 1915. Between 1911 and 1915 it appears that the bottles were both mouth-blown and machine-made. The cork as a closure began to disappear by 1920 with total disappearance by 1928 when the bottles were sealed by a metal seal or cap; the finish for the metal seal looked about the same as the cork bead finish. The bottles switched to external screw thread finishes in 1954 and went to plastic bottles in 1986 (Easton 1965; Fike 1987). Click mid-20th century Bromo to see an later (1950s) example with a lug type external screw thread finish which is embossed with the brand name on the heel.

Bromo-Seltzer was first trademarked in 1889 by Isaac E. Emerson. The distinctive blue bottles were first mouth-blown beginning in the 1890s up until 1907 by the Cumberland Glass Company (Bridgeton, NJ; the likely producer of the pictured bottle), though one author notes that they were also made by Hazel-Atlas (Toulouse 1971; Fike 1987). From 1907 on the bottles were produced by the Maryland Glass Corporation (Baltimore, MD), which was essentially created to produce these bottles for (and owned by) the Emerson Drug Company. Mouth-blown and likely machine-made examples with the makers mark "M" on the base date from 1907 to about 1915 which was also when Owens Automatic Bottle Machines were installed to work alongside the semi-automatic machines first installed in about 1911. Bottles with an "M" in a circle on the base date from 1916 and after. In 1956, the Emerson Drug Company was absorbed by Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical Co. which is now part of Pfizer, Inc. (Toulouse 1971; Fike 1987). The pictured example was mouth-blown in a cup base mold and has mold air venting marks; it likely dates from about 1895 to 1907 since it there is no "M" marking on the base. Click on Bromo-Seltzer base to view the base of this bottle which only has a numerical mold number.

Unfriending Exes or "What am I, 12?"

Ah, the wonders of the Internet.

My natural tendency towards self-flagellation, plus a tragically cat-like curiosity, has often led me to lightly cyber-stalk my former paramours through the technological marvels that are Googling and social networking sites. It's never been anything over the top: I haven't signed up for a Lexis-Nexus account, hacked emails or anything ridiculous like that. Just looking in from time to time. I suspect many folks do it in this day and age.

And it hasn't always been an unproductive process - it's enabled me to re-establish friendships with certain people, find closure with some and mourn the loss of a few who tragically passed on. But for the most part, it's pretty much a fruitless and somewhat psychologically harmful exercise.

So today when I found myself inundated with updates from a recent ex on Facebook, with pictures of her frolicking all over town with her new beau, I finally resolved to delete her from my friends list. Who needs to see all that stuff?

Still, to be honest, it took quite a bit of effort. The jealous side of me raised quite a fuss, as it tends to enjoy living in/clinging to the past. Eventually, however, I clicked the little X beside her name, thus eliminating that particular temptation towards future self-inflicted angst. Difficult, but ultimately, probably necessary.

That done, let me just say how incredibly annoying it is to get any sort of carthasis whatsoever from an action on a social networking site. I feel like I'm 12.