You don't know your Roman History unless...

you do. But if you don't, then you should really get your tail and ears over to Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast and blog. I'm only about 12 hours into it (!) but I can say it's fascinating, well paced, and very informative. Mike does a great job of distilling the most thoroughly researched ancient people in history down to digestable 20-ish minute podcasts that really show both the events and the uniquely Roman mindset that made them great (and then, later, not so great).

Don't let the author's somewhat deadpan delivery turn you off... it's a devious feint so his sardonic wit can catch you even further off guard. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the podcast so far:

On divination about an impending naval battle with Carthage:

What made [the Romans] think they'd be victorious without the approval of
the sacred chickens is beyond me.

On the less-than-honest actions of a certain senator:

Boo, Claudius. Boooo. (Sounding bored now) Booooo-oooo-oooooooooooooo. Ooo.

On the conversation between Hannibal and Scippio Africanus in Syria some years after the 3rd Punic war:

Who's the best general now, suckah?

In the interest of full disclosure, The History of Rome may not keep you enthralled if you're already a keen student of Roman history - it does too good a job of hitting high points and keeping the facts breezy to allow for deep exploration. But for those of us whose knowledge of Rome doesn't challenge that of their stolen Gods, this is a great find.

They hate it when you blow their alpenhorns.

I was passing through the avenues a few days ago, and saw an inverted American flag on display at a home. In quick succession, the following thoughts tramped through my head like a company of upside down marines in an upside down parade commemorating upside down day...

1. Isn't a bit passe to fly an upside down flag now? I know it was trendy to revile Bush, but is hating Obama what the cool kids are doing already?


2. Wait, has Obama been in office long enough to even hate yet? That was quick. There are probably some embryos we can get pissed at, just to get ahead of the curve.


3. Wait, Does this person know that flying an inverted flag really means that the people inside are in dire distress, according to the US flag code, regardless of the common colloquialism?


4. Wait,

And that's when it hit me. None of these questions mattered. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered like the answer to this overriding, all-important, vital question... the question that hammers in my thoughts like the beating heart of a feral beast of ignorance, consuming all other glimmering thoughts before they can kindle into intelligent mental discourse:

How do the Swiss show their neighbors that they hate their government?!

Inverted? Reversed? Both? How do these politically ambivalent, money-sheltering, watch-making chocolatiers show their national displeasure?

Come to think of it, I don't even know how to make a Swiss national angry. Do you lampoon them in popular tween movies? Do you insinuate that their money is named after a font? Maybe you could make fun of the papal guards' uniforms? I think that's all been done before, and they seem terribly... Swiss about it.

Meh. Querulous thought-beast subdued. Time to focus on what matters.

Like Cooking Mama, but less...pointless and excruciating

I love it when people interact with technology in ways that make their lives better, not just good in a different way. It happens less often than many, especially those in the IT industry, might think. Ya know that commonly held and intrinsically flawed idea that increased speed means increased efficiency? Please. In a single statement that obliquely refers to my main point on this topic and is deliciously ironic, you don't have the time to read all I have to say about that.

No, today's story is Nintendo. They have a knack for shattering preconceived notions we have about certain devices we use. So it should be no surprise that they were the first ones to pull off an application that hasn't yet worked on smartphones and PDAs, despite numerous attempts. Who would have thought that swiping your kid's DS could be so yummy? And here is the front page to that blog. Great reading if you're an executive chef in training; agonizing torture if you're hungry.

And to be fair, the title for today's entry is true but a little misleading: while both pointless and excruciating, Cooking Mama is pretty fun!

"You got your etymology on my nautical history!"

All 569 pages of To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World by Arthur Herman are dense, interesting, insightful, and eminently readable (so far, at least). But page 162 in particular coughs up an excellent etymological insight. It turns out that while the term 'starboard', describing the right side of a ship, has been around for 700+ years, the convention of using 'port' to describe the right side is a comparable bouncing baby of less than 200.

Starboard is an evolution of steerboard. In the 1300's, the steering oar was mounted on the right-hand side of the ship. Simple enough.

The left-hand side was originally called the landboard side, as it was the side closest to land when in port (presumably to prevent damage to the steering oar...). By 1550 or so, landboard had given way to larboard, which rhymes nicely with starboard. Bewilderingly, illiterate British sailors have always been suckers for word-play, homophones, and rhythmic speech.

It wasn't until the mid-1800's or so that sailors collectively agreed that larboard is a silly word, and came back to their senses to use port to describe the port-side of a ship.

The origin of both words makes straightforward sense, but I think it's amazing that while one side of the ship has carried the same name for centuries, the other has taken quite a trip.

New Year's Resolution: Be more Like the Lions

Now stick with me here.

The Detroit Lions were terrible this season. They lost all 16 of their regular season games (the first NFL team to accomplish this dubious feat), and are currently at a 4-26 run over multiple seasons. They lost a few close games, were blown out several times, and never really gave any other team a run this year. Despite the legendary suction, however, they went out with as much honor and class as a team possibly could given their situation. Here's a short list of reasons why their season was better than it appears on paper:

They fired GM Matt Millen. A great player in his day, and by all accounts a genuinely good guy, Millen has the business acumen of a ditch-digger's assistant and the creativity of his shovel.

They have the top draft pick. If they take another WR, retract this entire post. They also traded away an overrated troublemaker for another 1st rounder.

They didn't blame anyone but themselves: Every week's post-game interviews could have been a hen fight. Almost without exception as to player or day, these guys took the burden of accountability on themselves. The press conferences were depressing, but not the bloodbath they could have been. The players didn't blame the scheme, the weather, the officiating, or the grim and unknowable Fates. Even when a certain quarterback ran backwards out of his own end-zone the rest of the squad gritted their teeth and shouldered their share of the blame for the loss.

They played hard every single week. They got beat, but only physically. I expected to see these guys quit on their coach, which is tantamount to quitting on yourself. For the most part, it didn't happen even though they had every reason in the world to just roll over and drift aimlessly across the finish line.

By and large, this team owned up to what they did(n't do) and carried it with whatever dignity they could muster. I don't see myself winning the Super Bowl or going 0-16 this year in my own life, but whatever happens, I hope I handle it with the dignity the Lions managed to show this season.

Or at the very least, I hope I don't underachieve and implode in a flaming ball of pure drama.

Valkyrie: Cruise Is Crazy, But (probably) Isn't a Nazi

My dad and I just returned from seeing Valkyrie, the story of a failed assassination attempt on Hitler by a conspiracy consisting primarily of Wehrmacht officers in 1944. I have to tell you, people have been coming out of the woodwork to tell me they hate Tom Cruise and this movie almost as much as they hate Nazis [insert intricate Scientology/Oprah's couch/Nazi joke here].

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I refuse to drag us all through the discussion of whether we hate Valkyrie because we hate Tom Cruise. In terms of Hollywood wingnut freaks, he's actually pretty benign.

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I won't go into the plot either, but here is what really happened. Short version: the movie is pretty accurate. That statement doesn't require a qualification, like "pretty accurate as far as Hollywood goes". It's just "pretty accurate".

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The biggest complaint I've heard is that the movie is boring and poorly paced. I hate to be a pedant, but let's refer to the paragraph and link above... this really happened. I'm not a turtleneck clad indie movie geek by any stretch, but if you were waiting for Vin Deisel to slide into the Nazi conference room on a burning motorcycle and stuff a plasma grenade down Hitler's leiderhosen while grunting an obscenity laced one-liner, y'all came to the wrong hoe-down.

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The second big complaint is that Cruise's acting is wooden and boring. Cruise was asked to play a veteran military officer in an army that did it's best to hearken back to the ideals of Teutonic knighthood. Traditional stoicism was also a big movement in the Wehrmacht, especially later in the war when the military realized they didn't have much of Germany to cling to other than the national honor they themselves were generating by fighting honorably. In this respect, I thought Cruise nailed it.

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The last and most absurd complaint I heard was about the accents. Some actors went authentic German, most others sported British accents, and Cruise and a few others spoke in American accents. Honestly. Why is it that when the cast are supposed to be speaking a different language, movie-goers expect, nay demand, to hear a British accent? Is it like that in London too? Do all their German soldiers sound like they're from Utah? If you want to pick lingual nits in movies, then only go to movies with subtitles or shut up. And shut up In English.

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Oh, and while we're on the language thing, Valkyrie did the second best audience language transition moment I've seen in a movie. Second best, mind you.

The Comparitive Genius of Football and Futbol

I was wearing my sad face all day after my beloved Steelers' field general did a full-blown skull plant on Sunday. The tender ministrations of two Browns' defenders left Big Ben with a moderate concussion right before the playoffs. I know, I know: They have a bye week coming up and lots of time for recuperation, but I like to get my brooding and mourning out of the way early, much like my wife buys Christmas presents.

An acquaintance of mine (is that an appropriately delicate way of differentiating between an imbecile I know and an imbecile I don't know?) told me that he didn't understand why American football players wear helmets - they're too ugly and stupid to warrant protecting anything above their necks. He then went on to extol the virtues of soccer, and even went to the trouble of educating me on the correct spelling, application, and etymology of the futbol. Really, it was quite a soul-stirring performance. I like soccer, but there are lines one doesn't cross with me... and football is all of them.

I would have been at a loss if it weren't for this great article I happened to recall, where a famous European footballer describes the intricate strategy inherent in his beloved "beautiful game":

Fussball ist wie Schach, nur ohne Würfel. (Football is like chess, only
without the dice.) -Lukas Podolski

Good news for the Steelers: Roethlisberger flashed a thumbs-up as they carted him off the field on Sunday. Good news for the Browns: Other fingers were used as the Browns carted their newly-fired head coach out of his office the next day.

New Home, Same Babble

Hello and welcome to the new home of the Babblestorm!

If you've followed the trail of mental detritus here from our old place, then congratulations for finding us. I thought sending you to summer camp, then moving and changing the locks would have been enough to shake you...

If you're here for the first time, then welcome. I hope you find something worth your time. If the link above doesn't take you to my old posts, then lucky you. It was just more of this crap. At some point I'll move the best of the old posts to the archive here - anything I don't move wasn't worth reading the first time.