The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘Du Jour of the Week’

Well Done, Ham Industry

I’ve never been a fan of ham. Some foods that I disliked as a child I enjoy now, like broccoli, lettuce, salad, tomatoes, etc. But ham has always been on my no thanks list.

And YET, even knowing that I don’t enjoy it, I still see the names of ham products at the grocery store and can’t help but think, mmm, that sounds good.

  • Honey Baked Ham
    • Are you kidding me? That sounds amazing!
  • Black Forest Ham
    • Is Robin Hood himself delivering this ham to me?, because that’s what the title implies in my mind.
  • Mystical Ham Boat
    • I just made this up, but you’d buy it, wouldn’t you?
  • In French the word ham is ‘jambon’
    • Jambon! Jam on! It’s like Michael Jackson himself couldn’t help but randomly say ‘ham!’ while singing (perhaps he messed up the pronunciation).

I tip my hat to you, ham industry. I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.

And let’s not forget about this walking advertisement.

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If I Squint My Eyes Just Right, You Sure Are Pretty

Yes, friends, the International Space Station (ISS) will have two residents for a full year: American astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian Cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. Which is awesome and nuts (the typical mission is half this duration, a mere six months in OUTER SPAAAAAACE!!!).

Astronaut Scott Kelly, left, says he doesn’t want “to Russian to things with Korni.” (Russian Cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, right.) At least that’s the only thing I can think of that would lead to this posed shot.

There are seven main areas of focus during this year-long mission:

  • Functional
  • Behavioral Health
  • Visual Impairment
  • Metabolic
  • Physical Performance
  • Microbial
  • Human Factors

If you want to read more about this, you should! You can check out this article from nasa.gov or any number of articles that have been written about it.

What I’m interested in is the emotional impact, specifically:

  • How will relationships over such a long and very real absence change? Scott, with two children, and Mikhail with a wife and daughter … Plus undoubtedly extended friends and family. What will the relationships look like at the end of the mission as opposed to the start?
  • How complicated will the handshake sequence be at the end of the year? (e.g. Shake hands, bump fist, pour imaginary contents into imaginary test tubes, pretend to wait patiently for the results, read imaginary lengthy report, look shocked, pretend one of the guys is pregnant and the other guy is the father, go through incredibly long montage of classic pregnant man moments, pantomime birth, show that the child is … SCIENCE)
  • Will the feelings of isolation evolve into a mistrust of what could end up as a disembodied “voice in the sky” telling them their daily schedule? (The schedules for the astronauts are communicated to them from the ground, at Houston’s Johnson Space Center.)
  • Will they, to keep up physical performance, engage in wrestling? After all, it is a resistance-oriented form of work out and the resistance is supplied by another person (ideal for situations where there is no gravity). Also wrestling can become ideal as time ticks and human contact becomes … missed.

P.S. In addition to the study on the two people on board the ISS, there will be another study comparing Scott Kelly to his twin brother and fellow astronaut, Mark Kelly.

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More Bang for Their Buck

Have you heard about this? Some networks are slightly speeding up the speed of shows, a small enough amount that most people won’t notice, but enough to fit in a little bit more commercial time so they can generate more ad revenue?

Imagine if you could do this in conversations.

“Excuse me, I want to hear what you’re saying but I’ve got a lot to do today so … Just speak into this mic and I’ll listen to you later at a 10% faster speed.”

Or you can do this without being rude. If life is moving too fast, move to a small town in the south where the accents are slow and the pace of life is slower. If life is moving too slow, move to a city where to-the-point conversations are the norm (I’m looking at you, stereotypical New Yorkers).

Here’s an example someone made a while back of a 7.5% speed up of a Seinfeld episode on TBS, and a more recent 9% speed up of Seinfeld. Comedy with timing skewed? That’s especially wrong.

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