Pool Party

Last weekend, it was extremely hot in Seattle. It seemed like a good idea to plan a pool party--my mom's condo has a pool--so some friends and I invited ourselves over this Saturday to swim in it and later have a Bar-B-Q.

Unfortunately for us, the weather changed. Now that Saturday is here, it's only dimly sunny with highs in the low 70s and a chance of rain. On the bright side, we'll probably have the whole pool to ourselves!

The IT Crowd

My new favorite TV show is a sitcom called The IT Crowd. It is currently a popular show in England--still airing--but you can buy the recently aired seasons here in the US in a DVD boxed set.

It's about two nerdy IT guys who work in the crummy basement of an otherwise posh office building that houses a company run by a crazy CEO. Because he's kind of crazy and random, he assigns newly-hired Jen to manage the IT guys, even though she knows nothing about computers.

The description on the back of the boxed set calls Jen a "go-getter" but I think that's inaccurate. While she desperately craves the outward appearance of success, she has little actual drive. She's more the type of person who sits around and complains and hopes that success will magically happen to her. In other words, she's very relateable. She doesn't manage the guys so much as she pretends to manage them when someone important walks in the door. For their part, they tolerate her with a mixture of affection and exasperation. They don't respect her very much, but they do like her.

It's a show about people who aren't really making it and who don't really have what it takes. Maurice Moss is the most lovable nerd to appear on television since Ed Grimley. Roy is less socially maladjusted than Moss, but being slightly cooler tends to mean that he just finds that many more ways to humiliate himself.

I wanted to post a scene from the show here, but of course the embedding was disabled on YouTube. Damn those computer nerds!

60 Seconds

When the remake of this movie first came out, I kept accidentally calling it Gone In 60 Minutes...which would have been a much slower movie about much less impressive car thieves. Actually, that movie would probably have been more entertaining.

Anyway, I wanted to recommend the job interviewing book that I found most helpful when I was preparing for my job interviews (before I got my current job). It's called 60 Seconds and You're Hired! and it's by Robin Ryan. She includes a long list of potential questions that you might be asked, with suggestions about how to answer, and one thing that really helped me was reading through all the questions and thinking about what my answer would be. Once I knew that I had an answer for anything I might be asked, I felt a lot more confident about going into the interview (although I was still terrified).

Jesus, Britney.

Oh, Britney, Britney. Sadly, this is still an improvement for her, compared to her lowest fashion moments.

I consider Britney to possess exceptional natural beauty, because even though she has no idea how to groom or dress herself, she looks beautiful most of the time anyway. But she really pushes it!

Hyperactive Delivery Guy

A fun part of my day today was when one of my co-workers remembered this skit from MAD TV. I used to watch MAD TV when it was on, but apparently not consistently enough, because I didn't remember this character. We gathered around her computer and watched the entire skit which is pretty long.

What I like about this skit--in addition to the funny character--is the nostalgia factor. Remember those innocent days of yesteryear, when recording a "clever" answering machine message was considered something of an art?

Blue Holes

From USA Today:

Only a few miles inland from the Bahamas' sparkling coral reefs, the islands' limestone boasts dozens of submerged caves, "blue holes," some of them hidden in what look like island swimming holes linked to the ocean.

But swimming holes they are not. The inland caves on five islands sport freshwater caps covering heavier saltwater layers, sometimes filled with clouds of poisonous hydrogen sulfide released by salt-eating microbes, acting to preserve whatever falls within. Others contain whirlpools powered by the tides.

"Cave diving is really about knowing your limits," Broad says. "But it provides one of the most amazing experiences in life, and the scientific opportunities are tremendous."

Says cave diver and geologist Patricia Beddows of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., who was not part of the expedition: "Each one of these cave diving expeditions, without fail, provides an enormous amount of information. Cave diving is an extraordinarily powerful tool to allow us to get into the heart of karst (cave) systems worldwide."

In submerged caves such as Stargate on Andros island in the Bahamas, the expedition team reports:

• Specialized "chemosynthetic" bacteria that live without oxygen and feast on chemical reactions possible only in the caves.

• Stalactite curtains, or "speleothems," that contain a record of past sea level and climate conditions locked in their structures.

• Fossils of Lucayan tribe members who lived on the islands until the 1500s.

"We've brought scientists from many disciplines together so our results inform each other's work," Broad says. "The initial exploration is just a proof of concept. We still have lots of work ahead."

Coastal regions of the Caribbean, such as Florida, Cuba and the Yucatán, and other regions worldwide contain limestone permeated with caves, Beddows notes, leading to such blue holes. In addition to their scientific value, they often serve as freshwater resources for increasing numbers of people in those regions, which makes investigation of them essential for public health.

Sea level about 20,000 years ago, during the height of an Ice Age, was hundreds of feet lower in the Bahamas. The transition has left its mark on the speleothems and geology of the caves, Broad says, making each one a laboratory for measuring the effects of past changes in climate.

Alongside the danger, the blue holes of the Bahamas have offered little allure for divers who in some cases could instead walk to beaches with access to some of the world's most beautiful coral reefs.

"Why dive into a muddy-looking hole when you can head for the beach?" Broad says. "But (the holes) are really fascinating places once you start looking."

Gimmicks

I've been enjoying The Rockford Files a lot lately, and it got me to thinking about all the different 70s detective shows that I like, with all their various gimmicks. Here is my non-comprehensive list.

Barnaby Jones. He solves crime...and he's old!

Ironside. He solves crime...from a wheelchair!

Cannon. He solves crime...and he's fat!

Kojak. He's bald...and enjoys lollipops!

Mannix. He's a modern man...who hates computers. He prefers to rely instead on good old-fashioned footwork and sheer manliness.

Columbo. He looks like a bum, but he's really a lieutenant! Also, he drives a shitty car.

The Rockford Files. He has an answering machine.

Policewoman. Lady cop!

The Rookies. New cops.

The Mod Squad. Hippie cops.

Dragnet. Square cops. Make that extremely square cops.

Hawaii 5-0. Location, location, location.

The Streets of San Francisco. See Hawaii 5-0.

........................Am I forgetting anyone?