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Geeksix.com: Battlestar Choclactica

Quite a piece of chocolate art.  The molds used to make this show an impressive amount of detail.

CNN.com: Daughter downloads 10-billionth app, mom hangs up on Apple

The lucky customer, who gets $10,000 worth of virtual cash for the download, responded to the news by hanging up the phone on Apple when the company called to congratulate her.

“I thought it was a prank call,” Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent, UK, told Apple fan site Cult of Mac. “I said, ‘Thank you very much, I’m not interested’ and I hung up.”

Luckily for her, Apple did call back later on.  I don’t think I would have believed it if Apple had called me, especially if they called me at work.  These days with all the sales calls, scams, and junk calls, I’m barely listening to them and thinking about how I can get off the call as quickly as I can.

I started taking piano lessons when I was in the 2nd grade and for the next 7 years it was classical pieces learned for my lessons and bad pop/rock arrangements for fun.  Since then, however, the piano has taken a backseat to the violin which I actively play in a community orchestra.

But, with the upcoming release of the Battlestar Galactica Piano Book, I know now that there was a purpose to all those childhood years at the piano.

Bear McCreary’s music has always been one of the highlights of the Battlestar Galactica television series.  The music is full of exotic instruments, full orchestrations, and large rhythmic sections.  Not, something that would be easily arranged for the piano, but since Bear is doing the arrangement himself, it should be interesting to see how it is.

From Bear’s blog:  

Very few soundtrack piano books were arranged by the original composer, but I wanted to ensure the ideal translation from orchestral score to solo piano, so I personally arranged each selection.  I’m too much of a perfectionist to let anybody else do this!

Here’s the song list:
Allegro
Apocalypse
Battlestar Muzaktica
Battlestar Operatica (soprano and piano)
Battlestar Sonatica
Dreilide Thrace Sonata No. 1
Elegy
Kara Remembers (1 piano, 4 hands)
Passacaglia
Pegasus
Prelude to War
A Promise to Return
Resurrection Hub
Roslin and Adama
The Shape of Things to Come
Something Dark Is Coming
Violence and Variations
Wander My Friends
Worthy of Survival
BONUS ARRANGEMENTS:
Roslin and Adama (Simplified Version)
Wander My Friends (Simplified Version)

Pre-order the Battlestar Galactica Piano Book at Amazon

Here’s a picture of Bear McCreary and I from 2009 at his concert at the House of Blues during Comic-Con.

Cincinnati.com: Portman gives shout out to Hyde Park grandma

NYTimes.com: Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China

Although solar energy still accounts for only a tiny fraction of American power production, declining prices and concerns about global warming give solar power a prominent place in United States plans for a clean energy future — even if critics say the federal government is still not doing enough to foster its adoption

Beyond the issues of trade and jobs, solar power experts see broader implications. They say that after many years of relying on unstable governments in the Middle East for oil, the United States now looks likely to rely on China to tap energy from the sun.

Unless the government starts mandating a percentage of U.S. content in U.S. solar panel installations, all the new renewable energy manufacturing jobs will end up moving to China. 

I wonder who comes up with these flavors of Pringles?

Bangkok grilled chicken wing, blueberry & hazelnut, seaweed.

Grilled shrimp, Lemon & sesame

Soft-shell crab

Now THIS is a warning label! Not surprisingly, Thailand’s campaign against smoking has been effective.

We’ve been on the move since Bangkok, touring the coast of Thailand all the way down to Penang, Malaysia. Internet has been pretty spotty at the places we’ve stayed. It’s easy enough to catch a WIFI network here and there for checking email, but not enough for a longer blog entry.

We’re spending New Year’s Day in Hua Hin, a beach city relatively close to Bangkok. This is a popular beach destination for those in Bangkok- the King of Thailand has a beach house here.

We watched New Year’s Eve celebrations from the 9th floor balcony of a condo that we’re staying at. Floating lanterns filled the sky flying out towards the ocean. A floating lantern is like an upside down paper bag with an oil candle at the bottom. The heat from the candle causes the lantern to rise like a hot air balloon.

The red streaks in this photo are the lanterns in the sky. Photos can’t really capture the beauty of the river of red dots moving through the sky.

Over the city fireworks lit the sky bringing in the New Year.

I shot the fireworks photos with my Canon T2i pressed onto the balcony with an exposure time of 8 seconds. I think they turned out pretty well!

If there’s one thing you’ll get used to seeing Thailand, it’s Buddhist temples. Thailand is over 90% Buddhist and temples can be found everywhere.

Besides the Grand Place, my first two days were primarily spent visiting some of the more notable temples.

Wat Pho

Wat Pho is known for one of the largest reclining Buddha statues in Thailand. The statue runs the entire length of the temple and is covered with gold leaf.

The bottom of the feet of the Buddha is made of mother of pearl.

Wat Arun

Wat Arun “Temple of the Dawn”. We saw this temple as we were sailing down the river in Bangkok. it is an enormous temple with steps that you can climb almost to the top. The steps get progressively steeper as you go up. The steepness isn’t a problem on the way up but is kind of frightening as you try to descend.

One of the interesting things about this temple is that it is covered with recycled china and other bits of ceramic.