Sunday was the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking the colour barrier in Major League Baseball. In his honour, I present a collection of photos from those days, courtesy of my file trading friend, Miss Fipi Lele.
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
Andre Fenton dressed up for his “Millennipalooza” bash, which took place ar Zamek Roztez, Czech Republic, on December 31, 1999.
Before he was Dr. Andre Fenton, noted neurobiologist, he was just Andre, my friend from high school and valedictorian of our graduating class. I took the photo above while attending “Millennipalooza”, a New Year’s Eve party he hosted on December 31, 1999. He somehow managed to get his hands on Zamek Roztez, a.k.a. Roztez Chateau, a stately manor located about an hour’s drive outside Prague. It was one helluva New Year’s Eve gathering, with about 60 or so of us each pitching in for a vacation that featured a 24-hour buffet, a bar that made mojitos on demand, a New Year’s Eve ball with dinner, dancing and fireworks at midnight. Andre has always been a master at throwing a party.
(I should post photos from “Millennipalooza”. It was a great party.)
He’s also a noted neuroscience guy, and as a recent article in Nature states, he’s figured out how to wipe out a single, specific memory from lab rats.
Here’s an interesting side-effect of the story appearing in Nature: despite the fact that the technique has been tested only on rats (who can’t be interviewed to determine if the procedure has some subtle side effects), he’s said that a number of people have tried to get him to erase memories of certain (presumably painful) events in their lives.
Via Consumerist, here’s a Saturday Night Live skit that a lot of people really need to watch:
Snl_dontbuystuff
Uploaded by shosterman
Image courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
I had no idea that another movie version of Get Smart was in the works, with Steve Carell playing Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99.
The casting gives me hope that it’ll be at least a half-decent movie. Someone observed that had this movie been made five years ago, they probably would’ve cast Jim Carrey as Maxwell Smart, and it would’ve stunk to high heaven.
I’ve always been a “simple phone” guy: every mobile phone I’ve ever owned has had no bells or whistles. Even my latest phone — bought about two years ago — is the bottom-of-the-line Samsung that was available at the time. No photo or video capability, no MP3 player, not even polyphonic ringtones!
I’ve become curious about how you folks with the fancy mobile phones live, so when the call went out for bloggers who wanted to try out the Motorola KRZR (pronounced “Crazer”) phone for free, I answered on a lark. The phone arrived about an hour ago, and I present a couple of pictures of the unboxing below.
Not content to send the phone in a regular box, the KRZR came in this secret-agent-worthy aluminum mini-briefcase:
Bond. James Bond.
And here’s what I saw when I first cracked it open. I half-expected “Q” from the James Bond movies to start lecturing me about the phone’s features (“Pay attention, double-0-accordion…”). I hope it comes with a grappling hook or a flamethrower!
I’m feeling major techno-lust just looking at this thing.
My gentlemen’s agreement lets me keep the phone and doesn’t even require me to blog about it. However, the unboxing experience was just too cool for me not to post any pictures.
More reports later, once I get this baby charged up and activated!
