Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Monday, September 19, 2005

Ferguson Center Harvest Moon

Full moon over Ferguson Center at Christopher Newport University
How about that full Harvest Moon the other night?

Here's a picture I made at the new Ferguson Center For The Performing Arts at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. -- Dalton Hammond

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Dealing With Mr. Peepers

When I was newly married -- several lifetimes ago it seems -- we lived on the second floor of a four-unit apartment building. The unit below us was rented to three or four college age young ladies, and the unit beside us was occupied by a young couple. On some evenings we could hear the guy beating his wife.

One night I heard a noise outside our bathroom window and when I looked out I saw some movement behind the bushes below us. When I stood up on the toilet and looked down through our blinds I could see the top of a guy's head. He was looking through the blinds into the girls' bathroom. A minute later I heard a toilet flush and I could see the guy creep around to the back of the building and disappear. I was pretty sure it was Mr. Bud Lite Wife Beater.

The next night I was ready. I had our bathroom window open, the blinds up, and the lights off. Pretty soon I heard the bathroom door close below me and I looked out. Sure enough he was there. He must have been waiting nearby for their light to come on.

I gave him a minute to get settled and then reached out the window and poured a whole pitcher of very old buttermilk in his direction. He scampered away quickly.

The next morning I went out and looked and found a trail of very gross buttermilk leading from the ground by the girls' window to around the back of the building.

I guess the guy had some explaining to do to his wife, but we never saw him out there again.

And that's the name of that tune.

-- Dalton Hammond

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Television Unified Field Theory

I have a theory which explains some things about television viewers. It is based on proven Quantum Theory, er, Mechanics, and is suitable for publishing in Nature Magazine, if anyone should care to try. Credit Dalton Hammond, please.

Everyone knows that the television cathode ray picture tube emits free electrons and also a few X-rays, and possibly even a gamma ray here and there. We also know that the higher-energy X- and gamma rays pass right through the glass envelope of the CRT into the viewer's room, and even into the viewer's body (read: brain). Of course the closer the viewer is to the set the more of the rays he/she will encounter. Obviously, over a long period of time the viewer will encounter more and more of the rays/particles/packets.

Now consider the particles that rain on us from the sun, supernovae, and even from the so-called Big Bang. One such particle (if you can call a nearly massless object a particle) is the neutrino. Every second of every day millions of neutrinos pass through the atmosphere, through our bodies, into the earth, and escape, undisturbed, back into space from somewhere near the Wall of China. About the only thing known to science that will get a neutrino's attention is a gamma ray, and sometimes neutrinos do collide with gamma rays, which is how they were detected in the first place, using a converted bong found in a Greenwich Village dumpster.

Now, what happens when the idle brain of a typical TV viewer watching Beavis and Butthead catches a stray gamma ray from his beloved 25-incher at the exact same time a neutrino from outer space decides to visit? I'll tell you what happens. As anybody knows, when a neutrino and a gamma ray collide, the result is a BLACK HOLE!

That's right, dear viewer, a Black Hole of sci-fi fame, from which not even light -- or even THOUGHT -- can escape. Right there in your brain.

And if that's not enough to worry about you could also consider the neutralino, but let's not get overly concerned about a particle that hasn't even been discovered yet.


You're welcome.
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