Other Random Things

[tahnan]

I recall the other random things I was going to say last night.

There's an insane mockingbird on the bike path. (Didn't Raymond Smullyan have a logic puzzle about insane mockingbirds? Anyway.) Is it typical behavior (a) to jump from one bird to another, non-stop, and (b) to do so at midnight?

I was watching (judging amy) yesterday and suddenly said, "Wait, Marcus Giamatti? Is he...?" and sure enough, he's the brother of Paul Giamatti. There's a pretty strong physical resemblance (and I think some similarity in his character's mannerisms), so I felt kind of silly for never seeing before. This matters not at all to anything, and yet, it struck me. (Interestingly, they were in a two-actor play together. And, weird--their father was the president of Yale and the commissioner of Major League Baseball. What an odd career to have.)

Was there something else? I'm sure more random things will strike me as the day goes on.

Comments

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

Is it typical behavior (a) to jump from one bird to another, non-stop, and (b) to do so at midnight?

The jumping from one bird to another is fairly typical. As for the doing it at midnight, it's certainly not that unusual. Especially it the bird gets double-takes from people by doing it. Tormenting and confusing humans seems to be a fairly common mockingbird hobby. I'm just glad the mockingbirds in the park haven't been exposed to enough cell phone rings to start imitating them...

[cnoocy]

I get the impression that MLB commisioner is a job you can get after being notably successful at anything else. I think politicians' names get put forward for it on occasion.

[bendix.livejournal.com]

ah, Bart! Even so many years after his death, the Yale community seems to love him. By all accounts he was a great guy, and I think the only reason he stepped down from the presidency was to take the commissionership, because the one thing he loved more than Yale was baseball. :-)

[zanthrin.livejournal.com]

I also had to comment on the mockingbird -- yes, that sounds pretty typical. We have one who lives in the tree near the front of our house, and he usually starts at about 10:00pm to 11:00pm, and continue well into the wee hours of the morning, cycling from bird to bird every 5-10 seconds like a car alarm from hell.

Kim looked him up a year or so ago, and found something that said unpaired males, who look for a mate, typically sing all night long, showing off all the songs in his list -- the more the better! We were thinking (since Kim has 3 CDs worth of 1,600 bird songs) that we should try to teach him some extras ... thus getting him happily mated, and perhaps ending his singing!

[leighjen.livejournal.com]

I think that is a BRILLIANT idea! I have been giggling all day about it and Tahnan has been doing his mockingbird looking for a mate imitation:

"You like Orioles? I can do that! Starling? No problem! Cell phones? You want cell phones? I got a ton of those. Want to hear them? I am learning cat! I can almost do cat! Isn't that hot?"