Walk the Plank!
Things to do today, on International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
- Watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Alternately, for equally fun swashbuckling action, watch The Princess Bride.
- Listen to “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” by The Decemberists. Do not listen to “Come Sail Away” by Styx.
- Tell bad pirate jokes. Example: Why couldn’t the young pirate get into the movie theater? Because all the movies were rated ARRRR.
- Play “The Secret of Monkey Island,” or help me make the movie.
- Watch Hook. Do not confuse it with Dustin Hoffman’s other cross-dressing movie, Tootsie.
- Talk like a pirate, of course. Matey.
Other suggestions (like watching Peter Pan or Finding Neverland) are welcome via comments.
The Last Five Years
A moment of silence in remembrance of what happened five years ago right at the moment this is posted. I remember walking into my Physics class and the projector was on, and I had no idea what was being shown on the screen. Naturally, nobody could imagine how much it would change our world. The Internets will be full of rhetoric today about heroism, war, tragedy, and so on. I’m opting to take the blogging day off. I recommend you look around my blogroll and see what some of the finer sites around have to say, if they choose to write something.
The Hunter Becomes the Hunted
After 44 years of fearless showmanship, Steve Irwin, the quirky Australian zookeeper known to the world as the Crocodile Hunter, met his untimely fate today while filming on location. Though he was best known for wrestling with crocs, it wasn’t the monstrous reptiles that did him in but a rather harmless sting ray whose stinger pierced his heart.
It always seemed more en vogue to imitate Irwin’s over-the-top Australian accent than his dogged determination to preserve wildlife. But beneath the cries of “Oy” were true attempts to protect nature, and that’s something that he should be remembered for. Instead of seeing ten more goofy, khaki-clad Animal Planet hosts take his place, let’s hope that we see some kind of fund for conservationism formed in his name.
Crikey.
Donald Duck, You’re Next
The entire basis for my elementary education was shaken today, when a bunch of men in white coats decided that Pluto is no longer a planet. Now, children everywhere will have to remember the planets by the mnemonic device “My Very Earnest Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles, but then took the pickles away 76 years later.” Largely because it has a funky orbit that intersects with Neptune (clearly the one interesting thing about what otherwise is a big rock), Pluto now is classified as a “dwarf planet,” as are Cerers (an asteroid, which I thought was classified as “asteroid”), and Xena the Warrior Planet. I’m sure Happy, Dopey, Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful, and Doc are happy to have them along.
The biggest problem with this decision? Fifty years from now, when these scientists’ children discover that Pluto once sustained life, we can’t say that there’s life on other planets, just that there was once a thriving society on some ice ball.