Bones is a really cool show! I've just had the chance to catch up on some recent and past episodes from earlier seasons. If you haven't seen this show yet, you should give it a try if you like CSI drama mixed with some dark comedy.
Bones is inspired by the real life of forensic anthropologist and prolific author Kathy Reichs. In Bones, Temperance Brennan is an anthopologist who writes about her fictional character Kathy Reichs in her spare time. In reality, Kathy Reichs is a working anthropologist who writes about Temperance Brennan. Tricksy!
CSI fans and science geeks will love the weird toys in the Smithsonian lab and the forensic geek speak between the scientists. Bones isn't all about corpses, though. There is definitely some chemistry in the science lab between the main characters.
Of course, every episode, the Bones team has to solve a weird murder. I really enjoy how well the show is written (support the WGA!) and some of the dark, snappy one-liners between the characters make me laugh out loud.
All other popular FOX TV shows are available here. Select a TV show from the left menu. Then, on the show's web page, look for the graphic kiosk of episodes at the bottom to select one to view.
The VoD episodes are about 45 minutes long and only have a few 15-30 second commercial breaks sprinkled into them. The on-screen player is pretty good. It has controls like a DVD player for fast forward 2x and 4x.
A few times, I found that I had to nudge the player at the end of a segment when it indicated "stalled," so be aware that you can do that. The playback status also indicated "authorizing" before starting as well. If this is an IP-based authorization, I'd be grateful to have someone from outside the U.S. give this VoD site a try and comment here for the benefit of others. There are ways to go around IP-based authorization checks.
Citizens of the United States are unlikely to hear about the failed war on drugs and war for oil on U.S. corporate media giants like FOX, CNN, ABC, NBC, or CBS. I'm not even talking about the ever-increasing flow of heroin from Afghanistan or the occupation of Iraq.
This struggle is playing out in the tiny Republic of Ecuador, home of the Galapagos Islands where Charles Darwin's studies there helped develop his theory of the transmutation of species 170 years ago. People living outside of the U.S. do know about these international issues because their airwaves are not as dominated by stupidity and gossip.
Newly elected President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, has made some major changes in his country's relationship with the United States. Backed by Venezuelan financial aid money, Correa has told neocon Paul Wolfowitz's World Bank and their loans to go screw themselves, rejoined OPEC, and will soon kick the U.S. military out of Ecuador.
"Chevron is responsible for environmental and social destruction in the Amazon. And that's why they're on trial."
The lawsuit filed against Chevron seeks $12 billion in damages over the environmental nightmare of open oil sludge pits in the Amazon jungle that the indigenous Cofan people claim has poisoned and killed many. Palast's report, "Rumble in the Jungle: Big Oil and Little Indians," will air on Democracy Now! on Thursday, December 27th.
I stepped, somewhat inelegantly, into a dug-out log canoe to seek out the Cofan in their rainforest village to investigate their allegations. There I discovered stinking, leaking pits of old oil residue leaking into drinking water - and farmers whose skin is covered in pustules.
The Cofan's leader, Emergildo Criollo, claims that when Texaco Oil, now part of Chevron, came to the village in 1972, they told the natives rubbing crude on their arms would relieve aches and pains.
He blames the death of his three-year-old son on oil contamination. "He went swimming, then began vomiting blood," he said.
The U.S. military operating base in Ecuador is located inside an Ecuadorian Air Force base at the port city of Manta. The U.S. signed a 10-year lease in 1999 allowing air operations primarily in support of the counter-narcotics surveillance missions in neighboring Colombia. Ecuadorian President Correa has stated he will not sign a new lease when the current one expires in 2009.
Josh Rushing, investigative journalist from Al-Jazeera English, also tromped through the Amazon jungle this past September to file a report not only on the air base in Ecuador, but also about the U.S. counter-narcotics operations in Colombia. Rushing, a veteran of the U.S. Marines for 14 years, seemed to be more at home in the jungle than Greg Palast.
Rushing's report, "Shadow War," is in two parts below (23 minutes video total).
As you can see from the second part of Josh Rushing's "Shadow War" report, the situation in Colombia is no joke. I knew several people before the first Gulf War who had worked counter-narcotics gigs in Central and South America. Some of their stories of jungle combat were personal, tense and horrific.
The Colombian government has been struggling with an insurgent para-military opposition group called the FARC for many years. The FARC has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and are not recognized as legitimate "freedom fighters" because the FARC has a working relationship with Colombian cocaine cartels and uses many asymmetric terrorist tactics, even by Human Rights Watch's standards.
Now wait a minute! Don't go chipping a tooth from gnashing teeth while wailing about this image.
If you had received a Christmas card from Art Conrad, a Seattle real estate agent and amateur artist, the caption on it would have read "Santa died for your Mastercard."
Conrad erected the crucified Santa on his front lawn to make an artistic statement against the commercialization of Christmas.
Conrad says he's not trying to make a religious statement.
With several million additional property foreclosures forecast for the first half of 2008, I can only imagine that this credit issue is near and dear to Conrad's heart.
Christmas is one day out of the year. Take your annual take-home income and divide it by 365. Or, if you don't have a calculator handy (Start> All Programs> Accessories> Calculator), simply take two zeros off and divide that by 3 for a quick guesstimate.
Did you go into debt for Christmas? That's not exactly a gift for your family, now is it?
If your kid is whining for a video game system, put a classified ad for a paper route job in his stocking. I pulled a sledful of Detroit Free Press newspapers through the snow wearing my little goofy-looking snow suit during the holidays when I was a kid.
Give your child the gift of character building -- that gift will last a lifetime.
Do read the news article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Susan Gilmore... it's so frakkin' funny. His neighbors are like, "WTF dude?"
Real or Fake?
When it comes to Christmas trees, I'm for fake. If you need that tree in your living room for ... symbolism, I hope you have a fire extinguisher. My mother actually once owned a small 80-acre Christmas tree farm in Michigan.
Nonetheless, I have come to disfavor real Christmas trees in homes.
First, a huge number of trees are cut down and taken out of our ecosystem for a holiday. Christmas is the anti-Arbor Day on steroids.
Second, the last time I had a real tree in my house, I burned it after the holidays in my burn pit outside. It only took 15 seconds to create a huge 40-foot-tall blaze that burned the leaves and branches in a nearby tree.
I couldn't even imagine how quickly my house would burn down and kill me with that flammable power. Seriously, that scared the hell out of me. I vowed to never have a real Christmas tree anywhere near where I slept.
Well, I want to thank everyone who stopped by here to wish me Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings, and Happy New Year. I also want to thank my friend Dan who is always so generous with his time, and thank his wife who gave me a delicious bag of Ghirardelli chocolates. I'm not even done eating my most delicious fudge brownie cupcakes!
I hope everyone I haven't been able to visit and well wish will know that you're in my thoughts. I hope you have a great holiday time and a safe and happy coming new year.
I'm desperately trying to last out the next week until 2008 begins before I blog about anything dark or negative. That means I'm just storing bookmarks for future commentary about politics, world affairs, and news in general.
For example, I've basically written very little about the 2008 U.S. presidential campaigns because I thought I'd wait until the primary process got underway. Until then, talking about individual candidates is just inside baseball trivia, gossip and speculation. I'm more of an issue oriented person anyway. Another reason is that I don't want to harsh your happy holidaze buzz -- so, here is yet another of my attempts at fluffy bunny topic writing. I blame it on the cupcakes.
Popeye the sailor
As you know by now, I'm a big fan of JLC's Internet TV. If not, you haven't been paying attention. Anyway, this morning when I cranked up the application, I was prompted to update it. JLC has taken his program out of the beta stage and released v1.1 final. Hooray for him!
One of the many free video channels I like to check out, from time to time, is White Springs TV which streams classic and odd movies. Sometimes, WSTV puts short cartoons in between the movies in order to fill time so their broadcast schedule is a little more orderly and manageable.
WSTV is where I have seen 1930's cartoons like Popeye the Sailor. It's weird to think that my most beloved grandmother may have seen these cartoons for the first time before the turmoil of World War II, more than 70 years ago.
Spinach Serendipity
Unless you're a cinematography or animation wonk, most of you kids have no clue about the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor. That's okay. You do have the all-knowing wikipedia. If Popeye cartoons were a video game, spinach would be the power-ups.
In the spirit of Popeye, here's my bachelor chow recipe for Popeye's Ramen Casserole. I just made it up yesterday in my bio-chem lab, otherwise known as my kitchen. As a bachelor living in the future, my definition of chow has to be both inexpensive and fast to prepare. My continued survival to be able to write this entry is witness to the recipe's safety for human consumption [1].
Popeye's Ramen Casserole
Turn a burner on your stove to high heat. Fill a small quart/litre sized uncovered pot halfway with potable water. Toss a packet of ramen noodles in it.
Spray a very light coating of non-stick Pam into a microwave safe [2] dish. Toss a 1/4 to 1/2 of a medium-sized, medium-chopped onion into the dish. Nuke it for about 2-3 minutes.
Stir the ramen noodles.
Toss a handful of sliced mushrooms into the dish. Plop a teaspoon of oleo/butter on it. Sprinkle some Garlic and Onion powder on it. Nuke it for another 1-2 minutes.
Cover the ramen noodles with a pot lid and turn off the stove.
Open and drain a can of spinach. Toot toot! Dump it in the dish [3] and stir it up with the onion and mushrooms. Crack two eggs into the empty spinach can and scramble them. Pour the egg into the dish and stir it. Microwave for 4-5 minutes.
Drain your ramen noodles.
Stir your microwave dish and cook 1-3 minutes longer, if needed [4] Place four slices of American cheese on the dish. Sprinkle your ramen noodle flavor packet on the dish. Dump your drained noodles on top of that. Let stand for 1-3 minutes while the cheese melts. Stir and season with butter or spices to taste.
While describing a recipe seems complicated, this took me about 15 minutes to make. If it wasn't easy, I wouldn't have done it. If you can boil water and operate a microwave oven, you'll be surprised how freakishly simple it is to make this unusual yet tasty side dish that will feed 2-4 people at any meal. The ingredients only cost about a dollar.
Bio/Chem Ingredients
1 can of spinach 1 packet of ramen noodles 2 eggs 4 slices of American (processed) cheese Onion, Mushroom, Spices and Butter/Oleo to taste.
Lab Equipment
stove or hot plate microwave oven can opener QT/L size pot microwave safe dish sharp prep knife fork
Footnotes
[1]. I am not legally liable for your anxiety about your dark green poop, Mr. Bixby. [2]. I prefer ceramic to plastic for molecular denaturing of food with microwaves. [3]. After several minutes, ceramic may be too hot to touch. Use an oven mitten. [4]. Microwave oven power output differs by manufacturer. Practice makes perfect.
* That's not me. I just really like the image. There is no snow in Florida.
Happy Holidays! Saturday is the Winter Solstice, which for many cultures in the northern hemisphere marks the likely precursor celebration to our modern day Christmas (and other religious holidays). I'm not a linguistic anthropologist, but even I can see how the word "holiday" evolved over time.
After the longest cold night, there is hope that we can survive this winter. It's like Wednesday being called "hump day." Once we're past the midpoint, it's all easier from this day forward until the life-renewing Spring season (or weekend).
Some people get a bunch in their underwear about people who say "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas." I grew up in an area with a diverse population of people with different religions and customs. So, whatever your custom, I'm just trying to be pleasant.
I don't plan on making a habit out of being pleasant to you an enduring habit, so I suggest that you just enjoy it while it lasts. I blame my uncharacteristic cheerfulness on intoxicating cupcakes and carols.
