Summer TV news

My flatmate and I have started watching the MTV reality show "From G's to Gents", where 14 G's (gangstas) compete to most refine themselves, thus becoming a gentleman and $100,000. It's a pretty incredible show. Right now the contestants are each working to prove that he is a real G, and that he needs the money to improve his life.

I wish the show focused more on the challenges. Last week's episode taught the G's how to dress like gentlemen, and tested what they have learned in a fashion show. Their choices were critiqued, but they weren't given an opportunity to improve upon their knowledge. This week's was better: the ten remaining contestants learned to play cricket and to play like gentlemen. They were penalized for etiquette infractions.


I just remembered today that this weekend starts the NFL playoffs! It's Week 0: Redskins vs. Colts, Hall of Fame game.
I'm excited, folks, it's been a long year-and-a-half without live (American) football.

More about Farmers Markets

I see this Scotland blog is rapidly developing into a Farmers' Markets blog. Hmm.

This weekend I went home and went to the Farmers' Market my parents like to go to. It was a bit smaller than the Cville one, but it took up the entire parking lot it was set in so I doubt they could put in any more stalls. This time we correctly identified zucchini, as well as peaches, eggplant, and blueberries. Mmm. A lot of deliciousness was made throughout the day, including a peach and blueberry pie, grilled zucchini, an eggplant cassarole, and blueberry-peach-blackberry-OJ smoothies. The blackberries were wild, picked from unowned bushes around the corner from our house.

Also at the NOVA F.M.:
A miniature-donut machine!

One guy stirred up donut batter, which went into one side of an automatic machine that pushed the little rings through about eight different sections to fry. Last they were pulled up by a conveyor belt and deposited into a plastic bowl, where the second guy scooped into small bags. It was amazing! I wish I could do that thing justice.
For just $2 we got more mini-donuts than we could handle, and were able to decorate with our choice of toppings---powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, rainbow sprinkles, chocolate sauce, maybe something else. I had cinnamon sugar on mine. Mm.

This link was just sent to me...

...and so now I'm sending it to all of you.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog

I was skeptical at first, but I love it.
Also the appearances of:
-Wolowitz from 'The Big Bang Theory'
-Nathan Fillion from 'Firefly'
-I'm pretty sure I recognize the main guy too, but I'm not sure where from.

Anyway, yes, go, go, look!

I think I had something of interest to write about last week, but I've been having some computer issues and was therefore unable to update with whatever it was. Hmm.

On the plus side, 'laptop troubles' has been a good reason to do a lot of work on the Year Abroad scrapbook I decided to do. I am really not very far in, but it's been a lot of fun. More importantly, I suppose, it's a good way to reflect on my time away and to remember the things I saw and did. It's strange how organizing words and photos can refresh memories and even reorganize them: I feel like the thinking I've done for scrapbook pages has helped to wrap-up the experience. Which is great.



This weekend I drove out to a small town halfway between here and Staunton, to go bowling. It was a tiny little town with many churches and many more ice cream shops. Who would have thought?

Saturday Morning Farmers' Market

Cville has a Farmer's Market in the Downtown Mall every Saturday morning in season. Despite living here for three years or so, I never went, probably because I didn't like veggies until six months ago. I finally went yesterday, and I really liked it.

Most of the produce stalls were about the same, but besides the vegetable farmers, there were quite a few people selling baked goods, homemade chipotle jellies, or jewelry & crafts. Some local coffee companies were there as well, so most people had a cup of Shenandoah Joe or Mudhouse in their hands as they browsed.
There was also a Barack Obama booth, to sign up for volunteering?, or to receive a free button/bumper sticker with a donation. I didn't expect that from a Farmer's Market, but it is Charlottesville, so I wasn't too surprised.

I was really tempted by some of the cut flowers I saw, I don't know how one goes about growing flowers to sell at weekend markets but they were beautiful!

Anyway. I bought a curried ginger scone on a whim from this nice old man and had it for breakfast this morning. It was delicious, though I added apricot jam to keep it from becoming overpowering. I'll bet his 'sweet' scones are better than the 'savory', maybe if I go again I'll try it.

Sad to say, I think I bought a cucumber when I actually wanted a zucchini. It was labeled corretly, too, I'm just not very good with produce.

oops.

For those of you playing along at home, I never made it to Monticello for tickets this morning. Though the local morning news did show me a few shots of people standing in the queue. I just plum forgot until then.

Oh well, I guess I can find other ways to entertain myself on the Fourth!

Monticello Madness!

Every year on July 4th, Monticello (home of our esteemed TJ) has an Independence Day celebration and Naturalization Ceremony. I've always heard it's a nice ceremony and well worth it, but have never gone.

I just found out this morning that President Bush will be this year's featured speaker, replacing filmmaker Ken Burns. I'm kind of tempted to go, although there are only 1,000 tickets available and I'd have to drive out to Monticello early tomorrow morning to get a chance at any. The tickets are free, but the crowds might be a hassle. Hmm. Decisions!

West Virginian MacGyver

This entry has little to nothing to do with Scotland, except perhaps the name MacGyver.

Saturday night found my parents, my brother, and myself in a small house in rural WV with no power, no candles, and only one battery-powered light, a smallish lantern. (It turns out I had a small flashlight in my car, but I didn't find it until much later.) The electricity went out just after dinner, giving us enough time until dark to figure out another light source.

After some brainstorming, we created our own oil lamp in an empty pickle jar. A strip of an old towel provided the wick, which protruded from the metal lid. The jar we filled with an inch or two of lighter fluid. A sheet of tin foil blocked drafts and reflected some of the light back onto our card game. It was brilliant! The only thing that needed adjustment was the length of the wick, ut turns out that it doesn't take much to provide a long-burning flame.

I wanted to make a candle with the plethora of crayons in the cabin, but we didn't even try that one.

Scots in DC

Last weekend I met up with my next-door neighbor from Edinburgh (who is American) and two Scots, who were all visiting DC. It was really nice to see them all, but also amusing to see the flip side of my situation in Edinburgh.

Though the week before was some 10 degrees warmer and much more humid, none of them cared for the DC weather at all. I thought it was pleasant, mid-80's and fairly dry considering the season. Boston and Scotland are both much cooler, though I feel Boston can't be much less humid.

Food. We spent a lot of time finding and eating American food. the BBQ pork sandwiches we had downtown were delicious, as was the Mexican we had for dinner. Apparently they've never had Mexican before! (Although after my experience with the Mexican place is Keswick, I can't blame them...) So I got to explain items like guacamole, enchiladas, and why refried beans look the way they do.
Also: these Scots love IHOP. Amazing!

They were pleasantly surprised to find that I could understand what they were saying without any problem. Most people they talked to in America could hardly understand a word, but it sounded perfectly natural to me, a clean---not cluttered---accent.

One of the Scots disappeared in the afternoon to watch the 'football' (soccer) on TV. Priorities.

Back to the Land of Science.

If anyone is out there who misses my updates on physics, fear not. The glory of science is back.

On YouTube:
A two-part animation explaining how to imagine the tenth dimension. Pretty good, I thought, perhaps not wholly accurate, since scientists now seem to think we need to use eleven dimensions. Well, we'll see, after String Theory and all.
Part One
Part Two

If you don't like YouTube, you can view these videos at the author's website: TenthDimension.Com


I found two popular physics/science blogs, linked to the right of the screen. ArXiv covers a wide range of science, Physics&Physicists is mostly physics, both discuss current happenings in the World of Science.

By the way, today's P&P links to an article about a new novel. Particle Physics Thriller!. COOL!

Enjoy.