PBS’s NOVA began a new series yesterday. Secrets of Lost Empires shows historians trying to reproduce ancient engineering marvels using the same ancient methods. The first episode detailed the medieval trebuchet, a catapult/slingshot that was the first weapon to threaten stone castle walls. The websites are up to the usual high PBS standards and provide plenty of background material and links to other sites of interest. In the SCA, a medieval recreationist/research society I belong to, there is some interest in recreating siege engines of all types. The annual Estrella War (to be held in two weeks in Southern Arizona) hosts a siege engine contest. The entries have gotten more impressive and authentic in recent years, but I haven’t yet found any photos. I miss Estrella.

Listen to all those glorious TV theme songs from days gone by at TV Cream Themes. This site made one of my co-workers very, very happy when he got to listen to the theme from Fall Guy. Whatever makes you happy, Brad…

As Kurt Vonnegut recovers from his near-fatal house fire, you can browse through the most comprehensive Vonnegut site in the cosmos, courtesy of Duke University. Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Kurt!

I haven’t mentioned my Who Wants to be a Millionaire efforts lately. I’m still trying, and every night get tripped up by the final question. I thought I had a chance last night, but couldn’t put four historical monarchs in order based on the timespan they ruled. Amanda McKay, also from Athens, will be on the show tonight.

I’ve found a wonderful 100 year old farmhouse for rent outside Athens (reference my ecopoet entry of Jan 24, below). It’s not a sure-thing yet, but I’m going to try to make it so. More details to follow.

I watched a fantastic hockey game last night: The Phoenix Coyotes at home versus the Detroit Red Wings. Except for fighting, this game had everything. Excitement throughout, excellent goaltending, fast and furious scoring, and a loss by the Red Wings. That last is pretty important, as the Saint Louis Blues are neck and neck with Detroit for tops in their division and the conference but are now missing two of their most important players to injuries.

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James Lileks has done it again. The master of mixing witty commentary and captions with old photos now gives us The Dorcus Line of Menswear. What he did with technicolor dining in The Gallery of Regrettable Food and with opulent motels in The Gobbler: The Grooviest Motel in Wisconsin, he’s now done with menswear. The Dorcus Line: another great exhibit at The Institute of Official Cheer.

Watched the Super Bowl yesterday. It may be the first one I’ve ever watched in its entirety. I’ve never really cared much for pro football, and when I left the St. Louis area for college, the area was still anti-football after running the Cardinals out of town on a rail. Still, I did have some sense of rooting for “the hometown team”, and both teams put on a great show. Of course, the real reason I watched was for the commercials. There was so much hype over the “dot com” ads, but what struck me was how alienating most of the ads were. Football is traditionally a blue collar sport. Both teams were from small working class towns. It may be safe to say that the majority of the television audience was middle class and lower. So why were so many ads about trading stocks and big business transactions? Even with online stock trading, what percentage of the US population actually actively plays the stock market? I don’t mean giving money to a 401(k), but really trading on an individual level. Of course, when the commercials weren’t for eTrade or the like, they were for Budweiser so maybe that evened things out.

Small world. Two sites I linked to some time ago, Linux got me kicked out of Wal*Mart and the Game Boy Camera project, are just two pieces of a much larger set of pages maintained by fellow NMT physics student Paul Houle. Paul and I weren’t all that close in school, despite being in nearly every physics class together. I do like what I’ve seen of his sites, though.