Randomosity

PUPDATE: As I reported yesterday, the doggies were on a downer post vet and immunizations. Today, they've bounced back to their annoying selves, I'm 'happy' to report. Have I ever mentioned Laika thinks she's a cat? And, oh my, look at all those nose smudges on the window. :/

STILL IN THE SIXTIES:  We continue plugging along in our History of Rock (Part 1) Coursera class. Today's lectures were about U.S. bands working to make their marks post British Invasion. 

Here's what Annabelle wore to college today.

Folk music was still super big stateside, and we listened to lots of electrified/progressive folk today. For instance, we watched The Turtles singing "So Happy Together" (on The Smothers Brothers' show, no less!) and the Lovin' Spoonful rocking the autoharp live singing "Do You Believe in Magic?" The kids both recognized the song "Good Lovin'" by the Rascals. 

A medley by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons singing "Sherry" "Big Girls Don't Cry" "I've Got you Under My Skin" and "Bye Bye Baby" gave the kids a taste of East Coast falsetto, and we watched a groovy Johnny Rivers (introduced by Judy Garland!) singing "Secret Agent Man"

Our professor also touched on Sonny & Cher. I have long known that Sonny Bono was a shrewd music businessman, but I hadn't known that he had worked extensively with Phil Spector. We checked out "The Beat Goes On" in the form of a wonderfully bizarre video with the duo in big fur coats singing in what looks like a cave with a cow eating hay. http://youtu.be/bS3O5zg290k

Speaking of music videos, I also showed the kid the latest OK Go music video. I'm not a huge (or even mild) fan of their music, but their videos are alwways truly amazing and their new one for "The Writing's On the Wall " was no exception. While watching it, CJ said, "This is messing with my mind." Check it out! 

http://youtu.be/m86ae_e_ptU

RETURNED: Today we returned the last of our most recent stack to the Seattle Public Library. The books were "Just Jake" and "Thea Stilton - Revenge of the Lizard Club." 

The kids described "Just Jake" as being in the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" vein. It is written by Jake Marcionette, who was 12 years old when he auhtored it a couple of years ago.

This afternoon, the kids checked out the book's Web site, which has over 80 games. You get to play the games after earning coins by taking quizzes about the book's chapters. 

MAD WORLD: CJ was thrilled to receive a MAD magazine in the mail today. He sat on the couch and laughed a good part of the day away while reading it. He found a parody of the song "Happy" especially hysterical.

ASTEROID HUNTERS: If you're a regular reader, you may recall a few weeks back we went to a presentation at the Museum of Flight with former astronaut Dr. Ed Lu. He's now with the B612 Foundation, an organization working to incercept potentially Earth-bound asteroids before they can wreck havoc on our home planet. 

Lu's entire (about one hour) MoF presentation can now be seen here: 
https://b612foundation.org/events/ed-lus-presentation-at-the-museum-of-flight/


SCREEN PLAY: So, at the game on Sunday, there was a family in front of us. For nine innings the mom's cell phone never left her steely grip. Most of the time was spent on Facebook, there was some texting and about once an inning, there was a 'selfie,' which was then texted or Facebooked. 

Meanwhile son, (in headphones the whole time), played Minecraft on a tablet for nine innings. 

Baseball, the American pastime.