The Big List #5

• Global Warming Is...A Good Thing?

Seems unlikely - presuming that this global warming mumbo-jumbo is really really real, yo - but if it is real and it's possible that it might not all be hellfire and brimstone, you just know that that could only be the case in - wait for it - Iceland. Turns out that about two-thirds of the electricity generated in Iceland comes from renewable resources, including hydroelectric plants that benefit from more water in the rivers, which is due to melting glaciers, which are themselves due in part to man-made global warming. E: The Environmental Magazine has an article on the topic, too.

• Old Friends Growing Older

It appears as though the Grand Canyon, which was already millions of years old to begin with, just might be getting even older than that. A recent study puts the age of the canyon at 16 to 17 million years - and a new report in the May issue of the bulletin of the Geological Society of America suggests that the canyon, or perhaps the Artist That Would Become The Canyon, may go back as far as 55 million years, or nearly to the time of the dinosaurs.

• Pushing Forward Back

From MSNBC’s Cosmic Log blog, some commentary on a collection of essays that predict what the world will be like in the year 2058. Hopefully someone will have seen their way to disbanding the NBA by then. It can also be hoped that desperate politicians will no longer be pandering to stupid voters by pretending that suspending the gas tax is a good idea. It's sad that Hillary Clinton is going to win Indiana by double digits because of her gas tax propaganda and Jeremiah Wright - proof positive that the Hoosier brain drain is complete.

• John Barnes For State Representative

This is the new web site for John Barnes, candidate for State Representative in District 89, which I live in (barely). Mr. Barnes was one of my history teachers in high school, and I enjoyed his self-deprecating and occasionally funny approach to trying to teach U.S. History to high school juniors during first period. He nearly defeated an entrenched Republican two years ago and will hopefully have much better luck this time around.

And finally...

• Last but not least is an item without a link. It's a little story...an anecdote, if you will. I'm going to talk a little shop, for just a few moments. I've mentioned before, from time to time, how much more enjoyable it is working for Landmark than it was working for Another Major Competitor - but it's not all quality movies and having Famke Janssen make an appearance at your film festival. Even with an almost exclusively adult crowd, you still sometimes have to ask theatre-hoppers to leave. (I drifted into second person there for a second. Odd.) Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to do this very task - but the theatre-hopper was not a kid, and has not been a kid for a long, long time. It wasn't his first time theatre-hopping, either - this was just the first time I caught him and got to ask him to leave. His thing is to buy a ticket for a show, camp out after his show in one of the chairs in the area past the ticket taker, and then just stroll back into the show he saw the first time and watch it again. Now...we have to strive to be polite and respectful to all of our guests, of course - but if I could have said anything I wanted to him when he failed to produce a ticket stub upon request and admitted to having watched the show once already, I would have given him a very specific amount of time to vacate the theatre. How long? Two minutes...twoooo-aaaaahhhhhhh!

(I know...that little anecdote will mean nothing to most of you - but some of you will recognize the last sentence and will make the connection. And for that small handful of you - are you freaking kidding me?)

Bonus item:

• Ha Ha, Charade You Are

Last Sunday at the Coachella music festival in California, the giant inflatable pig from the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals floated away - a pig on the wing! - during the Roger Waters portion of the show. It was later found in pieces in the yards of a couple of houses a few miles from where the festival took place.