Either too much red, or not enough.

Warning: The following contains a...unique picture of Sean Connery. Be prepared to avert your eyes

It's been a while since I've done one of my thrice-weekly Cetera posts, so here we go:

Cowboys, Indians or cowboy Indians?

No, not that kind of Indian. I heard a blurb on NPR today about a new occupation in New Delhi: Cattle Wranglers. Apparently the city administrators are getting fed up with the Brahmas clogging up the thoroughfare, so they have started hiring brave young men to round them up, put them in carts, and take them to farms in the countryside. These cowboys have to deal with a) bulls with Really Big Horns (at one point one got mad and injured 20 people), and b) people who worship the bulls.

The head wrangler they interviewed said that they had removed about 100,000 bulls from the New Delhi area, which leaves about 20,000 to go. (The article above sites lower numbers. It is probably more correct, but I like the idea of hundreds of thousands of bulls wandering around the capital of India. Probably I just heard wrong.)

Talk about a load of bull.

Indian Cowboys: 2 sneezes

My eyes!!!

A co-worker and I were discussing this and that and, of course, Sean Connery came up. I wanted to find a picture of him in all his finery from the movie Sword of the Valiant, but when I did a google image search I couldn't find a good one. I did, however, find this gem.

Beeteedubya, if you happen to find a good picture of The Green Knight and his Holey armor, send me a link.

Sean Connery having the chutzpa to wear that outfit: 3 sneezes
Sean Connery actually wearing that outfit: 1 sneeze
Me actually seeing a picture of Sean Connery wearing that outfit: Blue Nostrils

Rhett & Link

And finally - and because no Cetera post is complete without at least one video - here's a vid of Rhett & Link giving you a message your friend just couldn't deliver

I also heartily recommend the Fireworks song and the Cornhole Song.

Rhett & Link: 3 sneezes!

A measurement mnemonic, an interesting picture, and the next big thing from the land of Haiku

Let's see, there's four quarts in a gallon, and two pints in a quart...

From a conversation tonight:
Wife: Two tablespoons would be an eighth of a cup, right?
Me: Um...I dunno. I know there are three teaspoons in a tablespoon.
Wife: Hmm...Oh yeah! Because a tablespoon is an eighth of half a cup!
Me: ...uh...so...an eigth of a half a cup is easier to remember than a sixteenth of a cup?
Wife: Yes.
Me: Why is that?
Wife: Because butter comes in half-cup sticks, and the sticks are divided on the wrapper into 8 sections, each of which is a tablespoon.
Me: ...You know, that actually makes sense.

For all you globetrotters out there

Someone generated this by charting flightpath information:

(found on drawn.ca. Check it out.)

Pecha Kucha

Pecha Kucha is the PowerPoint version of Haiku. Basically you have 20 slides, and you get 20 seconds for each slide. Another example of the Japanese packing as much as possible into every package. (My wife says that modern poetry consists of saying everything you want to in the least possible words. Who know you could mix PowerPoint and poetry so.)

Another Composer, a change that never should have happened, and some MetaCetera

Why John Williams really is the man

After watching the above YouTube video incessantly for the last week, Wife and I decided we just had to see Star Wars again, so we picked it up from the ILs and watched the first one (Episode iv, of course) last night. You have to admit: Star Wars wouldn't be what it is today with out the musical genius of John Williams. Imagine watching Luke be the mopey, angsty farmboy that he is, without the swelling strings of John Williams. Imaging those big, yellow words scrolling across the screen without the brass. Even Harrison Ford would have a hard time saving that movie.
- John Williams: 3 sneezes

Han shot first - Or "Why George Lucas isn't quite the man"

That's all. I mean, really, Lucas? Greedo pulls a blaster out, and totally misses Han from 3 feet away? REALLY?!?
- The 'new' version of the original Star Wars movies: 3 cheezes

It was on purpose. Sort of.

After deciding on the term 'Cetera' for these little updates, I decided unanimously to refer to an individual point of cetera as a ceterum. I wasn't sure if indeed the Latin word 'cetera' was plural, and if so whether it was male or female, but a brief stop by the vault of all knowledge on the InterWeb, I was confirmed in my belief and affirmed in my brilliance.

Why Dennis McCarthy deserves to go down in history (and two more)

Dennis McCarthy

I know that James T. Kirk is engrained in many memories for the whole "Space...the...finalfrontier.these...arethevoyages..." etc. And I know that Jean Luc Piard one-upped him with the 'remix' version that came out on The Next Generation. But Star Trek didn't quite make it musically until the orchestral stylings of Mr. McCarthy and his Main Theme hit the screen on Star Trek: Deep Space 9.
-- Star Trek: Deep Space 9 - "Main Theme": 3 Sneezes

Tea and Sugar

I am rediscovering that yes, really, I do like tea with sugar in it. This is not to say that I am coming to realize that I still don't like tea without sugar, because I still do enjoy a nice cup of rooibos or lemon ginger Au Naturale (as it were). But lately I have been drinking a lot of Chai (today it was Twinings' Indian Spiced Chai Tea) with milk/cream/half-n-half and sugar, and I just finished a cup of some-brand-or-other Cardamon Cinnamon with a spoonful of sugar, and I have to say: "Yum!"
-- Cardamon Cinnamon with sugar: 2 Sneezes

We have a name!

I have decided that my 'official' name for the triple shot is going to be 'Cetera'. You can tell it's official because I have tagged this post under the 'Cetera' category. Go ahead and look. Down below. Lower. Lower. A little higher. Right there. See?