Quite Interesting

There's an absolutely splendid program I've ta'en to watching recently, QI. This is a British quiz show featuring celebrities which talks about facts that are QI --- quite interesting. Following in the genre of Myth Busters, this show is all about debunking popular myths. For example, the man we call Thomas a Beckett, the archbishop murdered by Henry II, was never "a Beckett" or "a anything"; he was plain Thomas Beckett. The "a" is an error that has somehow persisted through the centuries. Also, Noah did NOT take 2 of EVERY animal on his Ark. According to the Bible, God commanded him to take 2 of every non-clean animal (ex.: pig) but 7 of every clean animal (ex.: sheep). Even so, the program is not without error. In 1 episode they said that the Earth has 5 moons, these being very small objects that seems to orbit the Earth. Actually, these objects orbit the Sun but their paths cross the Earth's orbital plane and from our perspective, they do seem to orbit us although in unusual shapes. The "most famous" of these is Cruithne (CROOY-nee). I've found a few others and I'm going to write them, but on the whole, the show is quite interesting.

Keeping with the theme, I found a news story about a pay dispute between a Rabbi and the congregation in Sydney. It involves the amalgamation of one synagogue with another and how much the good Rabbi should be paid if he is made redundant. Depending on how it's done, the payout can be up to $1 000 000! The Rabbi himself is paid $80 000 per year. As I was reading this story I thought to myself, "Christ, I'm in the wrong line of work."

Inward Bound took off last night with several teams heading into the wild only to return to civilization again. This is an orienteering exercise where teams from several residences are shuttled blindfolded to various points and then told to make their way back to an appointed place. Some the teams are placed up to 50 km away and yesternight there was a magnificent storm. I only hope the teams brought rain gear. We'll see who finishes first.

I've also ta'en to picking the winners of AFL matches. Before any of you get in a tizzy, I'm not gambling. I was supposed to play the "Dark Prince" in the ACT AFL umpires' office pool and essentially people would bet against, or with, my picks for the winners. That fell through but I tried it for Round 1 anyway and out of 8 matches, I picked 6 winners. I'll do this for fun all year just to see how good I am. With 5 games played so far in Round 2, I've picked 3 winners, but that is also the exact same situation I was in last round at this point.

One of my favourite traditions has been the eating of ribs on the 1st Friday of every month. After the monthly Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (Ottawa Centre) meetings at the Canada Museum of Science and Technology, the group went to Kelsey's for some after-meeting discussions. At these, I would always have a rack of ribs. A short while ago I discovered Belucci's, a restaurant in Dickson, that serves great ribs, so I go there now the first Friday of every month, to honour my personal tradition.

Finally, I leave you with a frightening experience some classmates of mine had at their home. 4 of the JDs share a house in the, shall we say, less refined suburb of Charnwood in Canberra's northwest. This house adjoins a garage on the other side of which is the smaller home of their landlord. A few days ago, the landlord's house was firebombed; a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the window. Luckily it was put out before any major damage or injury resulted. My classmates have been released from their lease (understandably) and are now looking for alternate accommodation, though they are still living there in the interim. I'm already thinking of who I should get to play them when I write the 4th Underbelly series.

That's all for this week. Did you get my Rabbi joke?