Mark your calendar: The 2008 Perseid meteor shower peaks on August 12th and NASA says it should be a good show.
Serious meteor hunters should begin their watch early on Monday evening, August 11th, around 9 p.m. CST (when Perseus first rises in the northeast). This is the time to look for Perseid Earthgrazers - meteors that approach from the horizon and skim the atmosphere overhead.
For maximum effect, get away from city lights!
"Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature."
~ Tom Robbins
Stomp Rockets, Catapults and Kalaidescopes by Curt Gabrielson contains more than 30 fun science projects that you can build for less than $1 each. Projects include building a working model of the human hand’s muscles, bones, and tendons using drinking straws, tape, and string; using a pair of two-liter bottles and a length of rubber tubing to learn how a toilet flushes; and discovering how musical instruments make sounds by fashioning a harmonica, saxophone, drum, flute, or oboe. All devices are designed to use recycled or nearly free materials and common tools.
Read an excerpt here.
The Liquid Image Underwater Digital Camera Mask has a built-in digital camera that lets you take photos or video underwater. See video of the camera in action here.
GOOD magazine is looking for a few great hometowns to visit, and they are looking for videos created by folks who live there about what to see and do. "We're asking you to serve as the tourist bureau for your neighborhood," the editors write in the July/August issue. "Tell us about your favorite local spot, or better yet, take us on a video tour of it."
Deadline for entries is Aug. 11. Videos must be less than two minutes long and smaller than 100 mb. Entries will be posted on the magazine's Web site and the "most illuminating tour guide" will win two domestic plane tickets to anywhere JetBlue flies, the magazine promises.
For more information, visit www.goodmagazine.com/section/projects.
1 8 oz. pkg cream cheese, softened
3 plum tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp Italian dressing
2 tbsp shredded Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp finely chopped basil
Spread cream cheese onto bottom of 9-inch pie plate.
Mix tomatoes with dressing; spoon over cream cheese. Sprinkle with the cheese and basil.
Serve with crackers or fresh vegetables. Makes 1 3/4 cups or 14 servings of 2 tbsp each.
[ via Philadelphia cream cheese package ]
St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans recently had its first archaelogical dig - and an interesting array of artifacts were unearthed (including a silver crucifix and traces of previously unknown buildings dating back to 1718). Shannon Lee Dawdy, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, is the lead archaelogist of the project.
Dawdy and eight students spent a month excavating St. Anthony's Garden, a fenced area behind the cathedral. After Hurricane Katrina, the cathedral received a Getty Foundation grant to restore the garden and dig into its history. Other finds have included clay pipes, children's marbles, and remains of china dolls. The most significant find is the foundation of a hut where a mixture of French artifacts from the early 1700s and fragments of Native American pottery were found.
NOLA.com has a video available online from the dig.
1/2 oz vodka
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz rum
1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz tequila
1 oz sweet and sour mix
1/2 oz Blue Curacao liqueur
4 - 6 oz Sprite® soda
Shake ingredients (except Sprite) together in a cocktail shaker half-filled with ice cubes. Add Sprite and stir. Strain into a hurricane glass over ice, and serve.
I have a friend, William Boren, who is participating in Dates for Leukemia. He's got a great personality - but I'm including a photo just so you can see that he's quite handsome too. (Because that's just the kind of girl I am. In fact, if you want more pictures, here's a bunch I took.)
He has several packages up for bid that night and there are brief descriptions of them below.
The Party Barge package will be great fun - even if you don't need a date. Pool resources with friends or co-workers and bid together! It will be a great time for a good cause.
Please send this link to all of your friends and mark your calendars for Thursday, July 24. Dates for Leukemia will be held from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. at the Capital Club in Jackson. Tickets are $35 in advance or $45 at the door. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact Jamie Woods at (601) 954-1717 or Tammy Bouchillon at (601) 573-4181.
Date 1: Party Barge
You and 46 of your best friends will be cruising on the Friendship Barge 2 across the Ross Barnett reservoir. It will be a 4 hour cruise with a live DJ, Ricky Romines, mixing the music along with catering by Buffalo Wild Wings and Soulshine Pizza. There will be three kegs of ice cold beer provided by Southern Beverage Company. Security will be provided for your safety by David Stewart. No one will have to drive home intoxicated because Deluxe Cab Company and Shuckers shuttle service will be providing rides for couples up to a 25 mile radius. The door prizes will consist of $900 of value, including a spa package from the Imperial Palace in Biloxi (a one-night stay at a Jacuzzi suite, dinner for two at Fusion Asian Restaurant, a $100 voucher for the spa, and breakfast the next morning). Other door prizes include a one-month membership to Snap Fitness along with a session with a personal trainer and a one year’s supply of pizza from Little Caesar’s.
The first package is valued at $3,500.
Date 2: Casual Spa Date
You will start your morning with a fresh fruit bouquet from Edible Arrangements to be delivered at your convenience. Then you will be off to enjoy a massage, pedicure, and manicure at Be Knot Free in Ridgeland. After you are done with this, Sarah Matthews has donated a $120 gift certificate towards any services that you would like. Then you and a friend can use a $25 gift certificate for a healthy, light lunch at Beagle Bagel. Then rest up to get ready for your date - you will head to Lakeshore Pointe Clubhouse for a one hour couple’s massage with two of Jackson’s most seasoned massage therapists. Next, you will have wine on the deck overlooking the Ross Barnet Reservoir as Chef Eric Bach, owner of The Strawberry Café in Madison, prepares to entertain and enlighten you both with a four-course cooking class. The a la carte menu is guaranteed to be fresh and delicious and is compliments of The Strawberry Café and Paula’s Seafood. After dinner you are invited to go on a night cruise across the reservoir. Then when it is time to say good night, the Night Riders will take you and your car home safely.
This package also includes one personal class for you and four of your best friends at the Pilates studio in Old Canton Mart, a $60 gift certificate donated by Virginia Martella at Girl Friends Salon in Highland Village, a $40 gift certificate from Best of Health at Highland Village, and a $35 gift certificate from T&E Quality Mobile Car Wash and Pressure Washing by Tony Hickman.
The second package is valued at $2,000.
The Jackson Zoo is gearing up for coolest event of the year! The 14th annual Ice Cream Safari will be held Saturday, July 19, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. There will be 14 flavors of Schwan's Ice Cream available for visitors to try - rain or shine!
Local television, radio and print media celebrities will be scooping up the ice cream flavors and all visitors are asked to vote for their favorite flavor as well as their favorite celebrity scooper. Ice Cream Safari passes, allowing visitor samplings, may be purchased for $1 per person in addition to regular zoo admission. Friends of the Zoo receive free admission but will need to purchase an Ice Cream Safari pass.
[ via Noise to Signal and Read Write Web ]
"I do not like poems that resemble hay
compressed into a geometrically perfect cube.
I like it when the hay, unkempt, uncombed, with dry berries mixed in it,
thrown together gaily and freely, bounces along atop some truck—
and more, if there are some lovely and healthy lasses atop the hay—
and better yet if the branches catch at the hay,
and some of it tumbles to the road."
~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko
"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something."
~ Henry David Thoreau(Happy Birthday, Henry!) ;)
Click on the comic for the full image. For more great Shoe comics, click here.
Yesterday morning, I was at 1,995 Twitter followers, and I made a shameless plea to get to 2,000 by the end of the day. Shameless pleas obviously work - 'cause I had 2,002 followers this morning!
I'm sure if you read this blog regularly that you've noticed I am blogging less, but I am on Twitter most every day (excepting some weekends - I am making a conscious effort to live some offline too these days).
I've made lots of friends on Twitter - and I even drove three hours to New Orleans last month to meet some of them in person.
And we had a blast! See all of the pictures from the trip here.
Artwork created by individuals who participate in Mississippi State Hospital’s (MSH) Community Services art workshops will be on display at ARTichoke art gallery in Jackson from July 17 until July 30. A reception will be held at ARTichoke, located at 1012 E. Fortification Street, on Thursday, June 24, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
MSH Art Instructor Anthony DiFatta said the exhibit demonstrates to the public what his students are capable of doing.
For more information about the exhibit or the reception, call DiFatta at 601-351-8000, ext. 4696.
Registration is now underway at Bruster’s Real Ice Cream in Brandon for individuals who would like to participate in an Ice Cream Eating Contest. The contest will be held Saturday, July 19, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Bruster’s, located at 120 Orleans Way in Brandon, next to The Home Depot. The contest is in recognition of National Ice Cream Month, which is the month of July.
The contest will feature child, youth and adult competitions, and prizes will be awarded to the winners in each category. In addition, there will be raffles, a space jump, face painting, and other fun activities for children. There is a small entry fee, however each contestant will receive a $5 gift card from Bruster’s.
Bruster’s owner Kevin Smith will donate part of the proceeds received throughout the day to Friends of Mississippi State Hospital (MSH) Inc., a nonprofit charitable organization established to help enrich the lives of MSH patients, nursing home residents and individuals served in the community. The Friends organization dedicates 100 percent of its funds to support a variety of programs and activities such as a patient fishing rodeo, watermelon cutting, professional fireworks display, educational field trips and employee recognition programs.
The Rankin County Chamber of Commerce is assisting with the promotion and conducting of the project. For more information, call Bruster’s Real Ice Cream at (601) 824-3000.
Jazz clarinetist Michael White lost his home and his personal jazz archive when the levees broke in New Orleans after Katrina. He turned to his art for healing after being awarded a one-month residency at A Studio in the Woods and the result is a new CD, Blue Crescent.
Blue Crescent was released on June 10 and features all original compositions except for the standards "St. Louis Blues" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken." Click here to hear selected tracks from the CD.
Last week, Pearl River Resort signed a deal to add a Ground Zero Blues Club to the Choctaw resort. The club is slated to open in October of 2009, according to resort officials, with construction beginning this month. The location will be the third one - the original club opened in Clarksdale in 2001 and there is also one in Memphis next to the Westin Hotel.
The club has been named within the "Top 100 Bars and Nightclubs in America" by Nightclub & Bar Magazine for three years in a row.
Plans are to make the Ground Zero Blues Club the centerpiece of the Golden Moon Hotel and Casino, including a performance space to host nationally recognized and regional blues acts. The club will bring its famous food with it, like fried catfish and the Highway 61 Burger.
Spore, the latest from The Sims creator Will Wright, isn't due out until Sept. 7, but Electronic Arts recently released Spore Creature Creator, a snippet of the game. A free trial version is at www.spore.com or you can buy the full version for $9.99. The full game will cost $50.
When a creature is uploaded to the Sporepedia, it's automatically added to the game. So the mini-release will lead to millions of creatures ready for pollinating when the full version is released.
Mississippi College School of Law is accepting one or two students this fall interested in working part-time toward a law degree. Law school traditionally has been a full-time program in the state. The American Bar Association has traditionally required that first-year law students not work and then limited work to 20 hours a week for second and third-year students.
The first semester will be a kind of pilot program, with a review in the spring to see if it will continue or accept more students. It is not an option at any other law school in the state.
[ via Laraye Brown, The Clarion-Ledger ]
We made these during the 4th of July festivities. They are easy and delicious!
Jalapeno Peppers
Cream Cheese
Bacon
Cut large jalapeno peppers in half and get seeds out. Fill with cream cheese and wrap with a piece of bacon. (We put it on the grill with other stuff but you can also bake at 350 degrees until the bacon is done.)
The Rider
By Naomi Shihab Nye
From Fuel
A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn't catch up to him,
the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.
What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.
A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.
Shawn, you're R2-D2
You're spunky, resourceful, and just a little deviant. It should come as no surprise that your Star Wars type is Artoo-Deetoo. Just like the diminutive droid who bailed out Luke and the gang more than a few times, you have tons of tools and tricks at your disposal. When in a bind, you are usually the first one who thinks of the solution (even if your zeal for adventure got you into trouble in the first place).
You are a loyal friend who people can confide in. They know that you'll guard their secrets as if they were the plans to the Death Star itself. What some might call stubborn, you call driven. No amount of obstacles will get between you and your goal.
The 60th annual Mississippi Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo opens today at Point Cadet in Biloxi. After 59 years in Gulfport, the event has moved to Biloxi.
Fishing officially began at 12:01 a.m. this morning with the scales set to open at noon. The scales will be open from noon to 8 p.m. daily through Saturday and from noon to 4 p.m. for Sunday's conclusion.
There is no entry fee for fishing, but there is a $5 fee for admission to the event, which is good for all four days. Anyone entering a fish in competition also gets free admission for the full event.
Daily and overall competition will be held in 22 salt water and six fresh water divisions.
Wordle makes a tag cloud out of any site with an RSS feed, and there are many different color-schemes and designs to try on. You can make a cloud of your Twitter posts or del.icio.us tags. Here's the Everything and Nothing Wordle.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
What you loved and what you strove for,
What you dreamed and what you lived through,
Do you know if it was joy or suffering?
G sharp and A flat, E flat or D sharp,
Are they distinguishable to the ear?
~ Herman Hesse
The Duffel is the latest addition to built's OverBuilt line. Made with the same “Strong-Rib” abrasion resistant fabric, fleece lining, and ultra thick Neoprene core - but bigger. The Duffel is made to take anything from textbooks to beach books. And their funky new custom hardware attaches a shoulder strap through a unique loop sewn right into the bag itself - and in combination with the elastic nature of neoprene it makes the whole bag act as a suspension system between you and your load.
No, it's not a cool new tropical drink.
It's been 75 years since Henry Phillips invented his famous screw head. Now the company is reinventing itself and has introduced a floating version of its famous screwdriver.
The hardened stainless steel shaft will resist rust, and the new Anti cam-out ribs on the bit help keep it in the screw head. Don't leave port without it!
The Southern Food and Beverage Museum, located in New Orleans, is in need of cookbook donations. They lost more than half of their collection to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. They are looking for new and used cookbooks that have something to do with Southern food, cooking and culture.
If you have some in your collection you are willing to part with, you can send your (fully tax-deductible) donations to:
Southern Food & Beverage Museum
Attn. Liz Williams
1 Poydras Street, #169
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
School's out and cooking's in. So check out this week's Carnival of the Recipes: Kids-in-the-Summer-Kitchen Edition for some summer fun with the kids.
Be sure and link to the Carnival on your blog to show your support for our volunteers. We depend on our wonderful volunteers to sift through all the recipes each week (pun intended), so if you have not volunteered before it's probably your turn! If you have volunteered before and you enjoyed it, feel free to volunteer again too. (It's a great way to introduce new readers to your blog and share your love of cooking at the same time.)
The Carnival will be hosted next week by New Hampshire State of Mind. Send in your favorite recipe by 12 p.m. CST on Saturday. If you're interested in hosting a future carnival send an e-mail with the word host in the subject line.
Visit our Carnival of the Recipes page on Blog Carnival to review all past Carnival of the Recipes. Mark your calendars! Here are some dates/themes for future editions:
July 5 - http://lisascookbook.blogspot.com/
July 12 - http://gottalittlespacetofill.blogspot.com (Greatest Hits Edition)
When is a paper plate not a paper plate? When it's Pier 1's Blue Melamine Paper Plate! Created to look just like its way less durable counterpart, these melamine plates are not just great for eating outdoors - they're dishwasher safe too! Available in Dinner and Salad Plate.
Program 800.FREE.411 into your cell phone. This no-cost directory service works like 411 - after you hear a 10-second ad you'll get the usual "What city and state?" free of charge!
[ via Kristin Appenbrink, Real Simple magazine, July 2008 ]
Two years ago, Gnarls Barkley did a great rendition of the Violent Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone." The Violent Femmes returned the favor recently - and redid Barkley's "Crazy." It's available on iTunes today - or listen on MySpace here.
(I've always thought Violent Femmes is one of the coolest band names EVER, by the way.)
The dead zone, an area of oxygen-depleted water off the Louisiana coast that lacks marine life, could reach its largest size since 1985 - roughly that of Massachusetts - this summer. The growth could push it into Mississippi's coastal waters.
Dead zones also cause red tides, which could kill lots of fish and hurt tourism on the Coast, which attracts about 1 million people a year.
For the full story from The Clarion-Ledger, click here.
