Realm of the Wombat

I decided that I need more humor on the ol’ Realm of the Wombat. I mean, I’m now the #1 hit in google for the search realm of the wombat (without quotes at least). Ok here goes.

So Odie and I were driving into SF a couple weeks ago, and we’re turning onto Mission from 9th, and I look across the street and I see a local convenience store. I see the name, channel the bumbling cartoon superhero in me and yell, “Go Go Corner Market!”

Did anyone pick up on the Inspector Gadget reference? I would say that you had to be there, but Odie didn’t think it was funny. In fact, he found it more funny that I thought it was funny. The name of the store is “Go Go Corner Market.” I think that screams Inspector Gadget. That’s what passes for humor in my head these days.

Yet another solid pickup from last Sunday, five total. I pretty much stopped traffic to get the driver side shot. I just noticed that the roof is white, which means that the owner painted it blue for the sea backdrop. I assumed that the vehicle was originally blue. This could actually be a work in progress with all of that empty space, although the simplicity is pretty cool.

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Melissa spotted this Volvo on the way home from church the other day. You’ve got your standard hippie-type art on the hood, a fan favorite.

Beaudry and I were speculating on how many Berkeley cars are out there. It seems like there are more than I expected. This is number 42, I have a couple in the queue, and there are still some that I’ve seen but wasn’t able to capture on film. Also, it seems that any time I drive around for a little while in Berkeley, I see multiple new specimen. Could there be more than 100 in the East Bay? Odie says that there are even more in SF. Wow.

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It’s a Value Van. The value just oozes out of it, don’t you agree?

The Art and Soul Festival takes place in Oakland over Labor Day weekend and features many types of music, poetry, and visual art. I couldn’t find this van on their website though.

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This minivan is one of my favorite Berkeley cars thus far. Features include the handprints and simple symbols all over the exterior, a solar panel on the roof, and a miniature forest on the dashboard. It’s definitely a solid addition to the collection.

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I debated for a while whether this was a true Berkeley car. The paint job looks custom, and those checkerboards certainly aren’t factory standards, but it really doesn’t have much of a theme. It’s for sale if anyone wants to take a crack at improving its rating.

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After the first listening I wasn’t too thrilled with this album, but it’s been growing on me over the last week. “Beverly Hills” is one of those songs that I like at the moment, but I’m afraid that between the radio and it’s placement as the first track I’m going to hear it so many times I’ll be sick of it. “Perfect Situation” opens with a Green Album-esque intro and morphs into an outstanding track. “We Are All on Drugs” rocks as well.

The reviews have been mixed on Make Believe. This is a general problem when artists set the bar for themselves at the spectacular level. Then when their next piece is merely pretty damn good, people complain. There’s only going to be one Blue Album, and there’s only going to be one Pinkerton.

Now here’s some vintage Berkeley. This guy stands on his table at the entrance to Sproul Plaza and yells “Happy, happy, happy!” at students all day. He used to do this every day, and he had some other sayings like “Not one penny!” or “People are dying because of the war!” Then he disappeared some time in 2002 and now only shows up sporadically, so it’s sort of a treat when we see him. One time he was in front of me in line at Albertson’s with his signs and everything. I guess even protesters have to stock their kitchens.

We were at the College of Chemistry commencement last night, and one of the student speakers used the word “sagacity.” It was clearly a suggestion from the Microsoft Word thesaurus. Anyway, I thought I should look it up, although Odie knew the definition.

noun
The quality of being discerning, sound in judgment, and farsighted; wisdom.

The brilliance that is the internet reaches new heights with ihatedimes.com. This guy wants you to send him all of your dimes so he can continue his battle to rid the world of dimes. You can even donate them by paypal. Why don’t I think of things like this?

Jim Dandy and I were discussing carbon dating, and we wondered how the C-14 is produced. I made a hypothesis, and Jim Dandy tested it using google. It turns out my idea was incorrect. For the real answer, see How Carbon-14 Dating Works at howstuffworks.com.

The overall goal of the Pulitzer Prize winning Guns, Germs, and Steel is an ambitious one, essentially to provide a history of the human species that accounts for the present state of nations. Why were Europeans able to conquer Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians, instead of vice versa? To a large extent, the book is a reaction to the idea of biological superiority and inferiority of different peoples. The result is a thorough summary and analysis of the major relevant factors on each inhabited continent. Here’s the history of homo sapiens in 200 words:

Humans evolve in Africa and spread, as hunter/gatherers, to all inhabitable pieces of land. Large mammals on Africa and Eurasia evolve to coexist with humans, while elsewhere the appearance of humans coincides with eradication of large mammals. Food production arises in a few select areas of the world. Eurasia (especially the Fertile Crescent) receives a disproportionate number of domesticatable plants and animals, which spread rapidly across the east-west (especially west) oriented landmass. Societies based on food production are capable of sustaining non-food producing people members and allow for dense populations requiring formalized governments and increasing the probability for inventions (e.g. ships, guns). These larger populations spread into hunter/gatherer lands where natives assimilate or are replaced. Food producing people also evolve immunity to diseases carried by their animals, which are then passed to susceptible cultures on first interactions (e.g. Europeans in the Americas/Australia). Europe’s fragmented nature leads to competition which drives technological advance and race to colonization, while China’s unity leaves decisions to promote these developments in the hands of a small few who choose isolation and technological stagnation.

The conclusion is that, in a general sense, the course of history was set in 8000 BCE simply by geography and environment, one that seems plausible to me. While I tired of the analysis of the merits of plant and animal species for food production, the book is a remarkably quick read for a scientific discourse.