Showing posts with label Saratoga Springs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saratoga Springs. Show all posts

Thursday, March 4, 2010

So today I learned that in 1969 they turned off Niagara Falls. I KNOW, right???

Jenny: I already ran out of work to do, like an hour ago.
me: You can read about how they turned off Niagara Falls
me: or King Ludwig II of Bavaria
Jenny: yeah, how did they do that?
Jenny: they turned him off, too??
me: well they had this giant red dial
me: and Superman didn't get there in time to stop them
Jenny: man! I hate it when that happens
me: and they dissolved Kryptonite in the water
me: so he couldn't go manually refill the waterfall with his Superlungs
me: or supermanually, as the case may be
Jenny: hahahahahahaha
Jenny: that's a great adverb
Jenny: how did we get the falls back?
me: well that's a helluva lot of water to divert, and all that water power actually creates enough electricity to provide 1% of the nation's daily electricity use (true story)
me: Which is of course why Lex Luthor was interested in the first place, not just because it would make a good headline in the Daily Planet
me: but when you take THAT much electricity, and put it with THAT much water
me: you're gonna eventually be like "oh come on, it can't really hurt that much"
me: and try to go for a swim.
me: That's how Lex lost his hair.
me: Fully electrifying the water (cuz when the person fell in it went zap) made the kryptonite particles disperse to a safe level
me: and Superman was able to dive in, rescue Lex, and then shift the dial back to its correct setting.
Jenny: ....wow, Liz. Wow.
Jenny: that is both a brilliant plot for a tv show and a staggeringly misleading portrayal of how electricity works

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Today I learned a fun fact about my own body. I played through Beethoven's 7th symphony tonight for the first time in almost a decade. I haven't played with an orchestra in two years and haven't practiced in, um, mumblemumble years, so even the easy parts were a disaster. But the harder bits? Right there in my fingers. MUSCLE MEMORY IS SO WEIRD.

Also, I am super impressed with 15-year-old Liz.