A few assorted notes:
OBAFGKM
In college, I took an Astronomy 101 course where we learned about a stellar classification system that ranks stars by their temperature using the letters O, B, A, F, G, K, M. O-type stars are the hottest and M-type the coolest. To remember the right order, we learned the mnemonic "Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me".
That's not the most appropriate phrase, however. During a presentation at a recent local astronomy group meeting, an astronomy professor said he has his students come up with new mnemonics. The best one they've come up with so far is "Oil Butter And Fat Gonna Kill Me".
Canned Tomatoes
Buying tomato products in a can has to be one of the most bewildering experiences in the grocery store. Are you looking for:
- diced? petite diced? organic? sauce? paste? whole? crushed? fire roasted? peeled? puree? san marzano style? sun dried? no salt added? with basil/garlic/olive oil? stewed? Italian style? with ghost peppers? with green chilies? with onions? with lime/cilantro? mild? hot?
And many of the options above are repeated for different brands. Do you want:
- Store brand? Hunt's? Rotel? Red Gold? Cento? DeLallo? Contadina? Dei Fratelli?
And then you get to pick a can size. Do you need:
- 6 oz? 8 oz? 12 oz? 15 oz? 18 oz? 29 oz?
The mind wobbles.
Titanic Exhibit
The Volo Car Museum is not too far away from us. It's primarily a car museum, but over the years they've added extra exhibits, like a dinosaur park, military equipment, boats/trains, and a Titanic exhibit.
A few weeks ago, the Titanic exhibit flooded on April 15, the 114th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking.
"The flooding is not a publicity stunt. I wish I was that brilliant," says the museum's marketing director. The Chicago Tribune ran a story about it here.
The museum claims other spooky events have occurred on the site, like "sightings of apparitions, security camera footage capturing items flying off shelves, as well as experiences from staff members and visitors." Last year the museum even offered paranormal tours of "strange occurrences that have made this site legendary."
Classified Cinema
A movie theater near us has a "Classified Cinema" series where each Monday night you can watch a new movie before it's released, but you don't know beforehand what it will be. Tickets are only $6. They'll tell you the movie's rating, its genre, and an approximate runtime.
Today they offered a special Sunday afternoon edition of Classified Cinema. The movie was described as family-friendly, rated PG, the genre was mystery, and the runtime was 1 hour 50 minutes. After a bit of online research, the only upcoming movie that fit those criteria was The Sheep Detectives. I saw a trailer for it a few weeks ago and thought it looked good, so we crossed our fingers, bought tickets online, and went to see it.
And we were right! It was The Sheep Detectives, and it turned out to be a fun and charming movie. Recommended, especially if you like mysteries. Or sheep.