The Desert Mermaid

Oh, man, y'all, Majora's Mask 3D comes out tomorrow.

If you don't hear from me for days, you'll know why.

Yesterday the good thing was that, while I do not care to watch the Super Bowl myself, it always makes me think of my buddy Josh, who used it as an excuse to make some fabulous cheese dip. So I told him that and we had a nice conversation--first one in a while. The Super Bowl brings people together!

Tonight's good thing: it's dumb and petty, but as I'm making another batch of soda it occurs to me that when Mom'n'Dad leave, I can get rid of the coffee pot on the counter. That thing's always in the way. Hooray!

I think I have a new favorite soda extract! This spruce beer is great!

Bah, I missed yesterday. Well, yesterday's good thing: while my previous cherry-almond soda turned out flatter than a cheap pizza, that meant I got to make another batch! Which is pretty fun!

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Today's good thing: so I did three Space Place live dome shows in a row and it was a lot of fun, because a live show is basically a 40-minute standup comedy routine about OMG SPACE,* so yes, I totally love my job.

But! The best part today were the questions. There were some good ones. (Also the usual smart-alecky "How big is Uranus hurr hurr," except the kid pronounced it "YURR-ah-nuss" like we do to make it less dumb-sounding, which ruined the joke.) Questions like:

-What if astronauts cry in space? (Actually the answer is kind of nuts: the surface tension holds the tears to your eyes, so unless you can wipe them away you're effectively blinded by your own dang tears--a serious hazard in a spacesuit where you can't wipe them away.)
-What's Jupiter made of? If it's made of the same stuff as the sun, why isn't it a star?
-What would happen if the Andromeda and Milky Way black holes collide?
-Where would you be if you went into a black hole? (This one was fun because I got to tell them about spaghettification.)
-What if light doesn't fall into a black hole but just orbits it? (I answered this one badly, I'm afraid. Gotta brush up on photon spheres.)

So yeah, the kids were into it. I love it when the crowd is energetic but interested. And they seemed to like mine; I got a lot of compliments afterward, too.


*With visual aids! I can embiggen the Andromeda galaxy in the night sky and be like "LOOK OUT! It's going to crash into us!" and all the kids go "Woooooo" and then I can say, "No, seriously, IT'S GOING TO CRASH INTO US. Just ... it's gonna take a while."

Playing through Starfox 64 3D (I love that title) again. I swear this game makes me SO HAPPY. You could just play the audio track of those darn kibitzing wingmen for me forever and it would probably kill any stress in my life.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: more than a little of my sense of science fiction comes from this damn game. If you haven't played it, I highly recommend it. If you don't believe me, check out the trailer:



Poor Slippy. My brother liked the idea of him as the guy who wasn't innately talented but worked damn hard to get there. But that was the SNES version. The N64 version ... yeah, I can see where Honest Trailer Guy is coming from.

Got a bunch of chainmaille supplies! I'm gonna sit and do some weaving for a bit before I go to sleep. I'll show 'em off when I'm done!

That I can work from home on days when it's snowy and there aren't too many presentations to do. I love the flexibility of my job.

Still doing the soda thing! Tonight I tried making a cherry almond cream soda. I don't know how the soda itself will taste, but the pre-fizzy stuff was pretty dang good. And it smells like Jergen's lotion, so that's nice.

I can also make a hell of a mulled apple cider ginger ale at this point. I'm always a bit torn about whether I should actually sodify it or if I should just leave it as a nice warm drink, but the fizz is so much fun.

And I think I briefly mentioned it, but just north of the Space Place is Soda Valhalla, which sells soda, candy, and gag gifts. I haven't bothered with the stupid novelty sodas,* but they have plenty of varieties of fine and tasty ones. Sioux City makes a nice Prickly Pear soda, and them Juggalos are on to SOMETHING at least with Faygo because Faygo Rock & Rye is damn good. I've had more fun trying out their various flavors these last few months. In a few cases I've even tried to duplicate them, though the results are mixed.**

Anyway. Hoping this cherry one turns out well. If not, well, at least I have fun making these things.


*One flight of Jones's novelty Thanksgiving sodas in college was entirely enough--we had to cover up the Brussels sprouts bottle because the SMELL was nauseating.

**Har.

Chased a guy down in the parking garage today to tell him his brake lights were out. Good deed!

Happy Earth Closest To The Sun Day, y'all! I love teaching kids about this. They get to feel all smart when they tell everyone about how we're actually closest to the sun in (Northern Hemisphere) winter!