Tag Archives: pop culture

Britain's favorite scientists!

Now this is news: I was watching hurricane coverage and just saw this in the crawl at CNN: Muppets Dr Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker defeated Dr Strangelove, Dana Scully of “X Files” fame and Star Trek’s Mr Spock to be voted Britain’s favorite screen scientists on Monday.

That’s when Husband threatened to make me turn off the TV.

So I turned to the Internet to learn more. The poll was sponsored by the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Cult TV site at BBC.com.

I liked this bit from the Reuters story:

“They are accessible, humorous and occasionally blow each other up,” said Roland Jackson, of the British Association for the Advancement of Science

sky king

Husband is reading Jeffrey Steingarten’s It Must Have Been Something I Ate.

Steingarten has a labrador retriever named Sky King. When I learned this, I told Husband that I’ve always wanted a German Shepherd just so I could name him (or her) Sky King.

After more discussion, after a prolonged period of confused silence, Husband explained to me that the original Sky King was a cowboy who flew an airplane. He was not a dog.

Lassie: dog.
Rin Tin Tin: dog.
Sky King: cowboy.

I have no idea why I thought Sky King was a dog. Really, when you think about it, the name makes no sense whatsoever for a dog, since dogs don’t actually fly.

Not without assistance, anyway.

Husband gently suggested that maybe it was common to mix up the concepts of, say, Rin Tin Tin and Sky King. It was a nice try, but I doubt very much that anyone else had trouble distinguishing a cowboy action hero who flew a plane with…a dog.

I’d blame the drugs I’m on, but to be honest I’ve thought Sky King was a dog my entire life – or at least as far back as I can remember, so that excuse holds no water.

Speaking of drugs, I’m rather nauseated today so I’m going back to bed. Reviews of the many, many delightful documentaries I’ve been watching when I feel up to it.

In the meantime, um, keep watching the skies?

i suspect i'm the only 30something with no kids who spent the afternoon sitting on her kitchen floor constructing giant paper mache cicadas…

…but I could be wrong.

I need to build the prototypes and then I’ll do the step-by-step with documentation thing, because I know you’re all just dying to build your own giant cicadas.

Poor Husband. He probably feels like he lives with Doctor Frankenstein. Deceased cicadas all over the living room in specimen cups. Sketches of the little buggers from every angle. A crazy woman wandering the house riffing on the 6 Million Dollar Man narration while wielding bug parts at him…And yet, it’s not really any stranger than what passes for normal here.

Last night we had a hell of a hailstorm, although the tornados (thankfully) missed us. We were transfixed by the mental disintigration of Doug Hill (WJLA) and Topper Shutt (WUSA) as they sought to inform the viewing area of the nasty weather. Shutt must have been fielding angry viewer calls (this was during prime time) as he babbled apologies about the inconvenience and muttered things about how “this is why the FCC gives us a license.” Hill, being a veteran at this sort of thing, went straight for the zen reporting approach, informing us, “It is where it is, at the moment.”

We finally broke away from the weather reporting and started watching The Greatest ’70s Cop Shows (Charlie’s Angels / Starsky and Hutch / S.W.A.T. / Police Woman / The Rookies), a DVD of pilot episodes from the aforementioned shows. Lots of really tight man-perms on S.W.A.T.

Gotta return to my project now. Probably a good idea to clean up a bit before Husband sees his kitchen…