ABC's of ME
Okay, here's how you play: For each letter you write something that you have seen, read, heard or experienced in your life... the key is to be as unique or different as possible.
A - Antarctica
A huge, ice cube of a continent straddling the South Pole populated mainly by penguins, seals and researchers. Anthropologists have located remains of Emperor penguins that were as tall as 1.5 meters! They've also located dinosaur fossils there. This was the scene of the H.P. Lovecraft novel "At the Mountains of Madness". Researchers who have spent a season on the icy landmass often say that the endless plains of snow and huge mountains of ice have made a lifelong impression on them.
B - Brass Monkey
We've all heard the saying "It's cold enough to freeze the balls off of a brass monkey", but very few of us have truly understood what that meant. Back in the day, when warships had cannons that fired cannonballs instead of ballistic shells, it was necessary to keep a good supply of cannonballs next to the cannon. The monkey was a metal plate with sixteen indentations in it upon which to stack cannonballs in a pyramid-shaped pile (it would keep the lower level of cannonballs in place). Because the iron cannonballs would quickly rust to the plate if it were made out of iron, the plate was made out of brass instead. But, brass contracts much more and much quicker in cold temperatures than iron does; so much so that when the temperatures got cold enough, these indentations would shrink to the point that the balls would roll right off the plate. Hence, the term "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey."
C - Courchevel
A collection of towns in the French Alps where I spent three weeks of my summer in 1986. My first encounter with a topless public swimming pool, many encounters with "discotheques", and also where I met my first head-over-heels love, Sophie. I was part of a foreign exchange group, and since Courchevel was a resort town, many of the hotels hosted dinners welcoming us. At one such dinner, I noticed her: Beautiful French girl with flaming red hair tied back in a pony tail. I couldn't take my eyes off of her throughout dinner. Afterward, everyone moved down to the discotheque in the basement (what self-respecting French hotel didn't have one of those?), and danced for the next two hours. I finally got up the courage to ask her to dance at the very end. I tried to make light conversation, but the music was so loud and my French was so awful that she motioned for me to follow her and her brother up to the hotel lobby. She didn't speak English, but her brother did. We spoke through him as an interpreter for the next two hours, and met up several times over the following days. She was my first kiss & make out. This was also my first experience with French driving, mountainside outhouses that straddled a stream, and some really disgusting French food.
D - Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO)
Some known perils associated with this compound are: Death or injury due to accidental inhalation, severe tissue damage after prolonged exposure to solid DMHO, gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns, DMHO is also found in precancerous tumors. It is widely used as an industrial solvent and as a coolant in nuclear power plants, and is also an ingredient in many chemical and biological weapons. What you may not know is that there are traces of DHMO in baby food and children's cough syrup, as well as "all-natural" fruit drinks... and oven cleaner! There are even traces of DHMO found on the produce at your local grocery store. Dihydrogen monoxide is better known by its abbreviation "H20".
E - El Camino
Spanish for "The Way" or "The Road"; also an infamous car/truck hybrid manufactured by Chevrolet between 1959 and 1987. Wildly popular with the cowboy and redneck crowd, the El Camino has made it into numerous TV shows, movies and country songs. What is NOT widely known is that the Ford Ranchero was the original car/truck hybrid, designed by Aussie Lew Bandt, arriving on the automotive market a full two years before the El Camino.
F - Fist Full of Yen
A short movie within the movie "Kentucky Fried Movie", which (to a teenager) was a hilarious (albeit raunchy) movie... I haven't seen it since I was... uh, 19? Fist Full of Yen was a parody of Bruce Lee's "Enter The Dragon" movie, where the phrase "Worse than Detroit?!!" became famous. I love the part where the bad guys (ninjas?) open the barricaded doors of their secret lair after someone knocks on them, and seeing a tiny toy robot standing there. They start laughing at it until the robot says "Eat lead, suckers" and guns all of them down with machine gun that pops out of its chest.
G - Galaxy Class Cruiser
I was most impressed on a date when, during the movie Star Trek: Generations, my date commented "Wow, they destroyed a Galaxy Class cruiser!" Short, cute... and a sci-fi nerd? Sweet... I'm still geeking out over that one...
H - Hellas Crater (Mars)
It's bad enough that we lose a planet (Pluto) from our solar system because a bunch of idiots decide that it just wasn't big enough. But what's worse is when we lose a planet in an attempt to make another bigger. Case in point: Astra, the former fifth planet in the solar system, positioned between Mars and Jupiter. Astrophysicists are postulating that for reasons most likely connected to gravitational fields, Astra fractured into a handful of large, and a few thousand smaller fragments, many of them barreling into Mars, creating the Hellas Crater (approximately 1000km in diameter, and is 9 km deep) and the countless pock-marks all over the southern Martian hemisphere. The resulting effect is a bulge on the other side of mars (directly opposite the crater) know as the Tharsis Bulge, which is home to a labyrinth of deep canyons and some gnarly volcanoes.
I - IKEA
The Mecca of home furnishing stores. Wait, can I use "Mecca" like that? I can't remember what's PC anymore.... Huge, freaking store... full of some of the coolest things ever. After 90 minutes, we hadn't even made it halfway through the store yet! And the in-store restaurant? Nice. Meatballs. I heard of a guy in NYC that lived in an IKEA store for a week while his apartment was being remodeled. I don't know if IKEA knew he was there or not.
J - Jock Strap
Heh. There's a funny story behind this... When I was growing up in southern California, I played little-league baseball. I also confused a "cup" with a jockstrap, so one day I went down the line of teammates, asking if they were wearing their jockstrap. When they said "yes", they were met by a swift punch to the groin. It didn't take too many kids writhing on the ground before the coach quickly corrected my understanding of athletic supporters. I remember warming the bench a lot that day.
K - Klingon
Star Trek's proof that even snarling, bloodthirsty, spiny-foreheaded, purple-blooded neanderthals can master space travel and warp technology. Today's "Trekkies" have evolved from taping on Vulcan ears for the ST conventions to conversing in Klingon instead. Yes. Speaking in a completely made-up language (complete with its own dictionary). Move over, Esperanto!
L - Life in a Jar
A research project and a stage play about the life of Irena Sendler, A Polish government worker who helped save 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto by providing them with false documents and sheltering them in individual and group children's homes outside the ghetto. She hid lists of the children's names in jars, in order to keep track of their original and new identities. She buried these jars under a tree in her yard until after the war. When she attempted to reunite the children with their parents, she found that most of the parents had been killed in the Treblinka extermination camp. Irena was once quoted as saying "Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory" This amazing woman was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, but was edged out by some blow-hard named Al Gore.
M - Messner (Rheinhold)
Rheinhold Messner, an Italian mountain climber who has scaled every mountain peak over 8000 meters. In 1980, Messner became the first person to make a solo ascent on Mt. Everest. He ascended the mountain from the Tibetan side, using no bottled oxygen. He chronicles this feat in his book "The Crystal Horizon", which is a very good and recommended read. I wonder if the lack of oxygen to the brain is what made the book so deep and reflective. He lost his younger brother Gunther in an avalanche while climbing Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas in 1970. He has also crossed Antarctica on skis, and in 2004 crossed 2000 kilometers of the Gobi Desert.
N - Nostromo
The space ship from the first "Alien" movie... the one where the baby alien popped out of the guy's chest? 1st movie... creepy, 2nd was wicked awesome, third... freakin' weird, but fourth was just farkin' ridiculous. Honestly, resurrect Sigourney Weaver from the dead using a DNA sample, just to fight a few dozen spiny, ugly, acid-drooling beasts? Pullin at straws, man... smells like desperation to me.
O - Ossuary
A crypt for bones. Famous ones are found in Germany, Rome and the Czech Republic. Bodies are first interred in a coffin and left there for several years until the remains are purely skeletal (no innards or skin left). Then, they are dug up, the bones are separated into different types (skulls in one pile, leg and arm bones in another... ribs, scapulas, pelvises, vertebrae in their own respective piles, and all are moved to special locations within the crypt just for that specific type of bone. The ossuary in Czech Republic has even decorated the place up with furniture, chandeliers, etc. made out of human bones. Assuming there will be a general resurrection upon the return of Jesus Christ, that would be a really fun place to be... watching bones zinging back and forth, assembling themselves into bodies.
P - Post-Mortem
a.k.a. "Autopsy". Staying with the "death" theme here... My first lab in anatomy class consisted of a post mortem, and I brought my lunch. I had no problem watching it, and was quite fascinated by everything they did. The part that disturbed me a bit was that the body (attractive young woman - suicide) still had the IV hookups on it from the hospital. It got me thinking that just a few hours previous, this was a living, breathing woman, and was somebody's mother, somebody's daughter, quite possibly somebody's sister... friend... lover... When she woke up that day, did she have any idea that she would be dissected to pieces in front of an anatomy class?
Q - Q.E.D.
Quod Erat Demonstratum - "That which was to be demonstrated." You might be familiar with this term if you're well versed in mathematics or speak proper Britannic English. Someone who says this has usually proven their point in an argument or debate.
R - Rome
Said to have been founded by twin brothers Remus and Romulus, who later died, and were turned into stars, and one of them is home to the Romulan Empire. I think. Hailed as the birthplace of western civilization, Rome was the largest city in the world (with over one million inhabitants) until London overtook it in Victorian times. Google Earth has introduced a project called "Ancient Rome Rises" which is a collection of computer generated 3D buildings, so that we third millenia folk could catch a glimpse Caesar's turf.
S - SAAB
We had one of these when I was a teenager. A bit odd-looking, unassuming to be sure... but totally kicks ass. Svenska-Aeroplot AB, having had a lot of experience building fighter planes in World War II, set their hand at building automobiles. Built like a tank, but fast as a rocket. We could drive up Parley's Canyon in Salt Lake at about 95mph... in 5th gear! Not bad for a four-cylinder car, eh? One of the dumber things I ever did was set the cruise control at about 45mph on the Deer Valley Beltway, climbed through the sunroof and steered the car with my feet as I sat on the roof... until a police car rounded the curve coming the other way.
T - Taliesin
The name of Frank Lloyd Wright's home near Spring Green, Wisconsin. He named it "Taliesin" which means "shining brow" or "radiant brow". He positioned the house on the "brow" of a hill that had been his favorite since childhood. He moved into this house with his 2nd wife Mamah Borthwick and her two children just after Christmas in 1911. In August of 1914, while Frank was away on a large project, a servant set fire to the living quarters of Taliesin and murdered seven people with an axe as the fire burned. Among the dead were Mamah and her two children. The living quarters were rebuilt and Christened "Taliesen II", only to burn down again in 1925 from a short in the telephone line. Frank Lloyd Wright rebuilt the living quarters again, calling them - you guessed it - Taliesen IIa.
U - Uinta Mountains
The only major mountain range in the United States to run east-west instead of north-south. Located in northeastern Utah, these craggly rocky mountains will often, sadly, claim the lives of lost hikers and the occasional boy scout. According to Native American legend, the Duchesne River Basin (which lies at the foot of the Uintas on the south side) is the "mother land" of the Aztec Indians. It's also a beautiful place to camp, where the skies are lit by billions of stars at night.
V - Vyolet
A rather amazing friend in Australia who has made a career of beating the odds and cheating death many times over. Scientists estimate that the only species to survive a thermonuclear war would be cockroaches. I would wager that Vyolet would still be around as well, stomping the little buggers into the ground.
W - Weasel
"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines" One of my favorite sayings. I also like the depiction of weasels as office workers in Dilbert. But I think that Weasels would make a far better symbol for one of the two major American political parties... and Snakes could symbolize the other one.
X - Xanadu
The summer capitol of Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty in China. Also a cheesy movie from 1980 starring Olivia Newton-John. I won't admit to owning the soundtrack to said movie on cassette tape. Nor would I admit to having it on MP3. Xanadu is also currently making a comeback on the Broadway scene... which I guess is Broadway's way of vomiting up a bad meal, just so it can be tasted again. The idea of a hot, immortal chick descending from Mt. Olympus to be my lovahgirl totally appealed to me as a 12-yr old. The reality of it is: If you piss her off, you have Zeus to deal with. Not cool.
Y - Yellowstone
Originally named "Colter's Hell" We visit every year, usually seeing Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs (my favorite part of the park). We'll also swim in the Firehole River, which is warmed by geothermal springs. Yellowstone is proof that 400 people will pull over to the side of the road and clog up traffic for an hour just to see an antelope chewing its cud. Which probably spawned the saying "If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?"
Z - Zarathustra
Also known as "Zoroaster", an ancient Persian prophet and poet. Zoroastrianism started in the 6th century BCE, and is still practiced today. They had fire temples (where a "holy flame" was kept continually burning), and also put their dead on raised platforms so that birds could eat them. Gross. The musical composition "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss is also widely recognized as the opening music to the film "2001: A Space Odyssey."
A - Antarctica
A huge, ice cube of a continent straddling the South Pole populated mainly by penguins, seals and researchers. Anthropologists have located remains of Emperor penguins that were as tall as 1.5 meters! They've also located dinosaur fossils there. This was the scene of the H.P. Lovecraft novel "At the Mountains of Madness". Researchers who have spent a season on the icy landmass often say that the endless plains of snow and huge mountains of ice have made a lifelong impression on them.
B - Brass Monkey
We've all heard the saying "It's cold enough to freeze the balls off of a brass monkey", but very few of us have truly understood what that meant. Back in the day, when warships had cannons that fired cannonballs instead of ballistic shells, it was necessary to keep a good supply of cannonballs next to the cannon. The monkey was a metal plate with sixteen indentations in it upon which to stack cannonballs in a pyramid-shaped pile (it would keep the lower level of cannonballs in place). Because the iron cannonballs would quickly rust to the plate if it were made out of iron, the plate was made out of brass instead. But, brass contracts much more and much quicker in cold temperatures than iron does; so much so that when the temperatures got cold enough, these indentations would shrink to the point that the balls would roll right off the plate. Hence, the term "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey."
C - Courchevel
A collection of towns in the French Alps where I spent three weeks of my summer in 1986. My first encounter with a topless public swimming pool, many encounters with "discotheques", and also where I met my first head-over-heels love, Sophie. I was part of a foreign exchange group, and since Courchevel was a resort town, many of the hotels hosted dinners welcoming us. At one such dinner, I noticed her: Beautiful French girl with flaming red hair tied back in a pony tail. I couldn't take my eyes off of her throughout dinner. Afterward, everyone moved down to the discotheque in the basement (what self-respecting French hotel didn't have one of those?), and danced for the next two hours. I finally got up the courage to ask her to dance at the very end. I tried to make light conversation, but the music was so loud and my French was so awful that she motioned for me to follow her and her brother up to the hotel lobby. She didn't speak English, but her brother did. We spoke through him as an interpreter for the next two hours, and met up several times over the following days. She was my first kiss & make out. This was also my first experience with French driving, mountainside outhouses that straddled a stream, and some really disgusting French food.
D - Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO)
Some known perils associated with this compound are: Death or injury due to accidental inhalation, severe tissue damage after prolonged exposure to solid DMHO, gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns, DMHO is also found in precancerous tumors. It is widely used as an industrial solvent and as a coolant in nuclear power plants, and is also an ingredient in many chemical and biological weapons. What you may not know is that there are traces of DHMO in baby food and children's cough syrup, as well as "all-natural" fruit drinks... and oven cleaner! There are even traces of DHMO found on the produce at your local grocery store. Dihydrogen monoxide is better known by its abbreviation "H20".
E - El Camino
Spanish for "The Way" or "The Road"; also an infamous car/truck hybrid manufactured by Chevrolet between 1959 and 1987. Wildly popular with the cowboy and redneck crowd, the El Camino has made it into numerous TV shows, movies and country songs. What is NOT widely known is that the Ford Ranchero was the original car/truck hybrid, designed by Aussie Lew Bandt, arriving on the automotive market a full two years before the El Camino.
F - Fist Full of Yen
A short movie within the movie "Kentucky Fried Movie", which (to a teenager) was a hilarious (albeit raunchy) movie... I haven't seen it since I was... uh, 19? Fist Full of Yen was a parody of Bruce Lee's "Enter The Dragon" movie, where the phrase "Worse than Detroit?!!" became famous. I love the part where the bad guys (ninjas?) open the barricaded doors of their secret lair after someone knocks on them, and seeing a tiny toy robot standing there. They start laughing at it until the robot says "Eat lead, suckers" and guns all of them down with machine gun that pops out of its chest.
G - Galaxy Class Cruiser
I was most impressed on a date when, during the movie Star Trek: Generations, my date commented "Wow, they destroyed a Galaxy Class cruiser!" Short, cute... and a sci-fi nerd? Sweet... I'm still geeking out over that one...
H - Hellas Crater (Mars)
It's bad enough that we lose a planet (Pluto) from our solar system because a bunch of idiots decide that it just wasn't big enough. But what's worse is when we lose a planet in an attempt to make another bigger. Case in point: Astra, the former fifth planet in the solar system, positioned between Mars and Jupiter. Astrophysicists are postulating that for reasons most likely connected to gravitational fields, Astra fractured into a handful of large, and a few thousand smaller fragments, many of them barreling into Mars, creating the Hellas Crater (approximately 1000km in diameter, and is 9 km deep) and the countless pock-marks all over the southern Martian hemisphere. The resulting effect is a bulge on the other side of mars (directly opposite the crater) know as the Tharsis Bulge, which is home to a labyrinth of deep canyons and some gnarly volcanoes.
I - IKEA
The Mecca of home furnishing stores. Wait, can I use "Mecca" like that? I can't remember what's PC anymore.... Huge, freaking store... full of some of the coolest things ever. After 90 minutes, we hadn't even made it halfway through the store yet! And the in-store restaurant? Nice. Meatballs. I heard of a guy in NYC that lived in an IKEA store for a week while his apartment was being remodeled. I don't know if IKEA knew he was there or not.
J - Jock Strap
Heh. There's a funny story behind this... When I was growing up in southern California, I played little-league baseball. I also confused a "cup" with a jockstrap, so one day I went down the line of teammates, asking if they were wearing their jockstrap. When they said "yes", they were met by a swift punch to the groin. It didn't take too many kids writhing on the ground before the coach quickly corrected my understanding of athletic supporters. I remember warming the bench a lot that day.
K - Klingon
Star Trek's proof that even snarling, bloodthirsty, spiny-foreheaded, purple-blooded neanderthals can master space travel and warp technology. Today's "Trekkies" have evolved from taping on Vulcan ears for the ST conventions to conversing in Klingon instead. Yes. Speaking in a completely made-up language (complete with its own dictionary). Move over, Esperanto!
L - Life in a Jar
A research project and a stage play about the life of Irena Sendler, A Polish government worker who helped save 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto by providing them with false documents and sheltering them in individual and group children's homes outside the ghetto. She hid lists of the children's names in jars, in order to keep track of their original and new identities. She buried these jars under a tree in her yard until after the war. When she attempted to reunite the children with their parents, she found that most of the parents had been killed in the Treblinka extermination camp. Irena was once quoted as saying "Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory" This amazing woman was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, but was edged out by some blow-hard named Al Gore.
M - Messner (Rheinhold)
Rheinhold Messner, an Italian mountain climber who has scaled every mountain peak over 8000 meters. In 1980, Messner became the first person to make a solo ascent on Mt. Everest. He ascended the mountain from the Tibetan side, using no bottled oxygen. He chronicles this feat in his book "The Crystal Horizon", which is a very good and recommended read. I wonder if the lack of oxygen to the brain is what made the book so deep and reflective. He lost his younger brother Gunther in an avalanche while climbing Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas in 1970. He has also crossed Antarctica on skis, and in 2004 crossed 2000 kilometers of the Gobi Desert.
N - Nostromo
The space ship from the first "Alien" movie... the one where the baby alien popped out of the guy's chest? 1st movie... creepy, 2nd was wicked awesome, third... freakin' weird, but fourth was just farkin' ridiculous. Honestly, resurrect Sigourney Weaver from the dead using a DNA sample, just to fight a few dozen spiny, ugly, acid-drooling beasts? Pullin at straws, man... smells like desperation to me.
O - Ossuary
A crypt for bones. Famous ones are found in Germany, Rome and the Czech Republic. Bodies are first interred in a coffin and left there for several years until the remains are purely skeletal (no innards or skin left). Then, they are dug up, the bones are separated into different types (skulls in one pile, leg and arm bones in another... ribs, scapulas, pelvises, vertebrae in their own respective piles, and all are moved to special locations within the crypt just for that specific type of bone. The ossuary in Czech Republic has even decorated the place up with furniture, chandeliers, etc. made out of human bones. Assuming there will be a general resurrection upon the return of Jesus Christ, that would be a really fun place to be... watching bones zinging back and forth, assembling themselves into bodies.
P - Post-Mortem
a.k.a. "Autopsy". Staying with the "death" theme here... My first lab in anatomy class consisted of a post mortem, and I brought my lunch. I had no problem watching it, and was quite fascinated by everything they did. The part that disturbed me a bit was that the body (attractive young woman - suicide) still had the IV hookups on it from the hospital. It got me thinking that just a few hours previous, this was a living, breathing woman, and was somebody's mother, somebody's daughter, quite possibly somebody's sister... friend... lover... When she woke up that day, did she have any idea that she would be dissected to pieces in front of an anatomy class?
Q - Q.E.D.
Quod Erat Demonstratum - "That which was to be demonstrated." You might be familiar with this term if you're well versed in mathematics or speak proper Britannic English. Someone who says this has usually proven their point in an argument or debate.
R - Rome
Said to have been founded by twin brothers Remus and Romulus, who later died, and were turned into stars, and one of them is home to the Romulan Empire. I think. Hailed as the birthplace of western civilization, Rome was the largest city in the world (with over one million inhabitants) until London overtook it in Victorian times. Google Earth has introduced a project called "Ancient Rome Rises" which is a collection of computer generated 3D buildings, so that we third millenia folk could catch a glimpse Caesar's turf.
S - SAAB
We had one of these when I was a teenager. A bit odd-looking, unassuming to be sure... but totally kicks ass. Svenska-Aeroplot AB, having had a lot of experience building fighter planes in World War II, set their hand at building automobiles. Built like a tank, but fast as a rocket. We could drive up Parley's Canyon in Salt Lake at about 95mph... in 5th gear! Not bad for a four-cylinder car, eh? One of the dumber things I ever did was set the cruise control at about 45mph on the Deer Valley Beltway, climbed through the sunroof and steered the car with my feet as I sat on the roof... until a police car rounded the curve coming the other way.
T - Taliesin
The name of Frank Lloyd Wright's home near Spring Green, Wisconsin. He named it "Taliesin" which means "shining brow" or "radiant brow". He positioned the house on the "brow" of a hill that had been his favorite since childhood. He moved into this house with his 2nd wife Mamah Borthwick and her two children just after Christmas in 1911. In August of 1914, while Frank was away on a large project, a servant set fire to the living quarters of Taliesin and murdered seven people with an axe as the fire burned. Among the dead were Mamah and her two children. The living quarters were rebuilt and Christened "Taliesen II", only to burn down again in 1925 from a short in the telephone line. Frank Lloyd Wright rebuilt the living quarters again, calling them - you guessed it - Taliesen IIa.
U - Uinta Mountains
The only major mountain range in the United States to run east-west instead of north-south. Located in northeastern Utah, these craggly rocky mountains will often, sadly, claim the lives of lost hikers and the occasional boy scout. According to Native American legend, the Duchesne River Basin (which lies at the foot of the Uintas on the south side) is the "mother land" of the Aztec Indians. It's also a beautiful place to camp, where the skies are lit by billions of stars at night.
V - Vyolet
A rather amazing friend in Australia who has made a career of beating the odds and cheating death many times over. Scientists estimate that the only species to survive a thermonuclear war would be cockroaches. I would wager that Vyolet would still be around as well, stomping the little buggers into the ground.
W - Weasel
"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines" One of my favorite sayings. I also like the depiction of weasels as office workers in Dilbert. But I think that Weasels would make a far better symbol for one of the two major American political parties... and Snakes could symbolize the other one.
X - Xanadu
The summer capitol of Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty in China. Also a cheesy movie from 1980 starring Olivia Newton-John. I won't admit to owning the soundtrack to said movie on cassette tape. Nor would I admit to having it on MP3. Xanadu is also currently making a comeback on the Broadway scene... which I guess is Broadway's way of vomiting up a bad meal, just so it can be tasted again. The idea of a hot, immortal chick descending from Mt. Olympus to be my lovahgirl totally appealed to me as a 12-yr old. The reality of it is: If you piss her off, you have Zeus to deal with. Not cool.
Y - Yellowstone
Originally named "Colter's Hell" We visit every year, usually seeing Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs (my favorite part of the park). We'll also swim in the Firehole River, which is warmed by geothermal springs. Yellowstone is proof that 400 people will pull over to the side of the road and clog up traffic for an hour just to see an antelope chewing its cud. Which probably spawned the saying "If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?"
Z - Zarathustra
Also known as "Zoroaster", an ancient Persian prophet and poet. Zoroastrianism started in the 6th century BCE, and is still practiced today. They had fire temples (where a "holy flame" was kept continually burning), and also put their dead on raised platforms so that birds could eat them. Gross. The musical composition "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss is also widely recognized as the opening music to the film "2001: A Space Odyssey."
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