Just a Sci-Fi Kid Like Me

Yeah, so you know how I'm meant to be constructive? Pfft. It is Sunday morning and I have my caffeine at Village Cafe and Scott is grading (or something...he has his Three-Ring Binder of Doom anyhow) and we ran into Mary and Roy. (Friend Mary, who is virtuous, moved to a different table so she CAN work.) Anyhow. Here's the Sunday roundup (blame Roy for finding things I need to share):

Stephen Hawking warns of contact with alien races:

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said.

Prof Hawking thinks that, rather than actively trying to communicate with extra-terrestrials, humans should do everything possible to avoid contact.

He explained: "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

Roy also furthered my iPad obsession with this vid:



I also found these two pieces at the Times:

First, an article on how Jon Stewart is the enemy of Fox News (and, y'know, my hero):

Combining the earnestness of a journalism professor and the sarcasm of a satirist, Mr. Stewart routinely charges that Fox’s news anchors and commentators distort Mr. Obama’s policies and advance a conservative agenda. He reminds some viewers of the left-wing group Media Matters but much funnier.

“Stewart does a great job of using comedy to expose the tragedy that is Fox News, and he also underscores the seriousness of it,” said Eric Burns, the president of Media Matters.

Also, check out this slideshow of a weekend in Kyoto.

Scott and I are roughly planning trying to go back for the Cherry Blossom Festival next year, which would be awesome. Here's hoping!

Sigh. I think I have two problems. One is my obsession with the iPad, the other is I've almost finished my cup and I have nothing to show for it but this post:



Help me, Obi-wan, I need a kick!

Yesterday we took it comparatively easy, and slept in for us (by which I mean, 8am. Between time zones and a lack of daylight savings time, we keep getting up at around 5:30am...). We went to another shrine and a nearby flea market. Scott bought a pretty scroll painting we'll get framed back home, and I found a beautiful white embroidered kimono for $10 which still leaves me gobsmacked--and also wishing I'd combed through that bin for more, cos $10 trinkets for everyone would be positively cheap! Then we took a Shinkansen back to Nagoya, which is thankfully western: private showers! Yes!! And gods love 'em, they leave you a large pitcher of ice water. (Japan does Florida shame on humidity and numbers of cicadas.)

Today was Scott's first day at the Nagoya conference, so I accompanied him to the University to kill time as nothing opens until like 10am around here. On my own, I went to the Orchid Gardens, which is pretty funny as it's designed "with the image of a make believe European diplomat (Mr. Agonya Orchid) in mind." Yes, this is from the brochure. So it's basically a fake European house (which is actually pretty nice--you could sit and read books on flowers in the study, or chat or nap on the couches in the living room) with an atrium and a large garden and lots and lots of pretty flowers. Also amusing was their seasonal decorations, which were this summer...pirates! Yes, paper mache pirates and soldiers and cannons climbing over the tops of a greenhouse. Yes I will post pictures later. They had a nice little French restaurant where I had a nice lunch (how often can you get French lunches for $8? And in Japan?!) and then went trinket shopping at one of the big department stores, Matzusakaya, nearby.

And let me tell you, these people know how to SHOP. This one store was three nine floor buildings of, um, everything. They even had a mini-museum, art gallery, and KIMONO store. I went to the latter for kicks, innocently thinking for some reason if it was a mall type place they sell kimonos that are y'know, normal store priced. HA! I walk in, the cheapest thing I see is around $1000. Now I hate going into expensive stores, I guess cos I'm afraid I'll get kicked out for not being up to scratch, but I figure, "Hey, how many times will I ever get to go to a real kimono shop?" So I look around and try not to turn green at these thousands and thousands of dollars worth of pretty things. Interestingly I only saw older women shopping there--the madams (or whatever they're called) of the geisha houses do the shopping maybe? Who knows. Then I scurried back to the normal stores to buy pretty paper and trinkets for the kids of the family.

Tomorrow night we're off to Kobe for the next conference. Stay tuned...

We're currently in Lake Jackson, Texas staying with Scott's cousins. Yesterday we went to the Johnson Space Center and got to see the Astronaut Training Center and an IMAX on constructing the International Space Station (predicted completion date: 2006. Heh heh heh.), amongst other things. It was fun. I also got to flashback to being ten when I got ahold of some of the freeze-dried Astronaut Ice Cream that I thought was so cool when I was a kid...and let's be honest, I still think it's pretty dang cool. Sure there's nothing icy or creamy about it (it's kinda crunchy actually) but it's still fun.

Today Scott and his cousin Chris got haircuts, so neither of them look like scruffy nerfherders. We also got some last minute items from Walmart like some Power Bars and travel shampoo and the like. And a copy of Hot Fuzz because it's hilarious and we're weak.

We'll be getting up at about 3am tomorrow to catch our 7:40am flight. We have a four hour flight to San Francisco and then an eleven hour flight to Nagoya. I LOATHE flying so I'm trying not to think about it, particularly considering our return flights will be like fifteen hours and then two hours. Oy. A typhoon is also predicted to hit the southernmost islands of Japan today (or tomorrow--or both, I'm kind of unclear on how they're timing these things, and yes I am totally a Weather Channel junkie) so it'll be rainy on Friday when we get there, but by then we'll be zombies anyway. I just hope it won't affect our flights too much. Because, um, oh boy.

Anyhow, wish us luck. I expect I'll check back in whenever we get wireless.

~~

RIP Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni.