Mike Browne’s Blog

Poor old dog. She needs a bit of help to move a little quicker so it’s Photoshop to the rescue.

She’s bounced back from her episode quite well. Now all she has is a slight head tilt and walks like she’s either been on a boat for a few days or been imbibing a bit too much brew. She has a bit of trouble getting up onto furniture and the kitchen floor freaks her out a bit, but stairs are becoming much less of an issue, with help of course.

I love our dog. She’s a nice old gal. We’re glad she’s such a fighter.

Wanna know pretty much everything about your birthday? If you’re as self-centered as I am you do.

Thank goodness for the birthday calculator. Here’s what it said about my birthday:

5 August 1969

Your date of conception was on or about 12 November 1968 which was a Tuesday.

You were born on a Tuesday
under the astrological sign Leo.
Your Life path number is 11.

Life Path Compatibility:

You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 2, 4, 8, 11 & 22.

You should get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 3 & 6.
You may or may not get along well with those with the Life Path number 9.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 1, 5 & 7.

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2440438.5.
The golden number for 1969 is 13.
The epact number for 1969 is 11.
The year 1969 was not a leap year.

Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 2/17/1969 and ending 2/5/1970.
You were born in the Chinese year of the Rooster.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Salmon; your plant is Raspberry.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Paopy, the second month of the season of Poret (Emergence – Fertile soil).

Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 21 Av 5729.
Or if you were born after sundown then the date is 22 Av 5729.

The Mayan Calendar long count date of your birthday is 12.17.15.17.14 which is
12 baktun 17 katun 15 tun 17 uinal 14 kin

The Hijra (Islamic Calendar) date of your birth is Tuesday, 21 Jumadiyu’l-Avval 1389 (1389-5-21).

The date of Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 6 April 1969.
The date of Orthodox Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 13 April 1969.
The date of Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) on your birth year was Wednesday 19 February 1969.
The date of Whitsun (Pentecost Sunday) in the year of your birth was Sunday 25 May 1969.
The date of Whisuntide in the year of your birth was Sunday 1 June 1969.
The date of Rosh Hashanah in the year of your birth was Saturday, 13 September 1969.
The date of Passover in the year of your birth was Thursday, 3 April 1969.
The date of Mardi Gras on your birth year was Tuesday 18 February 1969.

As of 1/28/2007 2:53:37 AM EST
You are 37 years old.
You are 449 months old.
You are 1,956 weeks old.
You are 13,690 days old.
You are 328,562 hours old.
You are 19,713,773 minutes old.
You are 1,182,826,417 seconds old.

Celebrities who share your birthday:

Kajol (1975)
Adam Yauch (1964)
Patrick Ewing (1962)
Maureen McCormick (1956)
Loni Anderson (1946)
Neil Armstrong (1930)
John Huston (1906)

Top songs of 1969

Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In by Fifth Dimension
In the Year 2525 by Zager & Evans
Get Back by Beatles (with Billy Preston)
Sugar, Sugar by Archies
Honky Tonk Women by Rolling Stones
Everyday People by Sly & the Family Stone
Dizzy by Tommy Roe
Wedding Bell Blues by Fifth Dimension
I Can’t Get Next to You by Temptations
Crimson & Clover by Tommy James & the Shondells

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 5.35812133072407 years old. (You’re still chasing cats!)

There are 189 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 38 candles.

Those 38 candles produce 38 BTUs,
or 9,576 calories of heat (that’s only 9.5760 food Calories!) .
You can boil 4.34 US ounces of water with that many candles.

In 1969 there were approximately 3.7 million births in the US.
In 1969 the US population was approximately 179,323,175 people, 50.6 persons per square mile.
In 1969 in the US there were approximately 1,800,000 marriages (9.3%) and 479,000 divorces (2.5%)
In 1969 in the US there were approximately 1,712,000 deaths (9.5 per 1000)
In the US a new person is born approximately every 8 seconds.
In the US one person dies approximately every 12 seconds.

In 1969 the population of Australia was approximately 12,407,217.
In 1969 there were approximately 250,175 births in Australia.
In 1969 in Australia there were approximately 112,470 marriages and 10,930 divorces.
In 1969 in Australia there were approximately 106,496 deaths.

Your birthstone is Peridot

The Mystical properties of Peridot:

Peridot is used to help dreams become a reality.

Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)

Sardonyx, Diamond, Jade

Your birth tree is

Poplar, the Uncertainty

Looks very decorative, no self-confident behaviour, only courageous if necessary, needs goodwill and pleasant surroundings, very choosy, often lonely, great animosity, artistic nature, good organiser, tends to philosophy, reliable in any situation, takes partnership serious.

There are 331 days till Christmas 2007!
There are 344 days till Orthodox Christmas!

The moon’s phase on the day you were
born was waning gibbous.

After a difficult day a struggling actor returns to his neighborhood and is shocked to find a cadre of police and fire trucks surrounding the smoldering remains of his house.

Explaining who he was he asks “What happened?”

“Well,” one of the officer’s says, “It seems that your agent came by your house earlier today and while he was here he attacked your wife, assaulted your children, beat your dog and burned your house to the ground.”

The actor is struck speechless, his jaw hanging open in disbelief… “My agent came to my house?”

Thanks to Gregrrr, 1st A.D. extraordinaire for this little film industry giggle. I needed that.

Now back to some humour:

That’s what you get when a bunch of bored 12 year olds in 1978 have nothing but time on their hands, cardboard, shitty costumes, a love of the film Jaws, a Super8 camera and tons of imagination. The music and effects were very recently added and no doubt it has been recut as well, but overall a great online video experience. Well done!

I’m a sucker for the shark movie so anything Jaws related immediately gets my thumbs up. It is one of my all time favourite films. It was the very first DVD I ever bought and we’ve watched it again and again. I think we’ll watch it again this weekend.

Speaking of funny Jaws parodies, do you remember the 1975 novelty song Mr Jaws by Dickie Goodman? Whether you do or not, here it is:

You can buy it and more novelty songs like it here.

Okay, now that we’ve seen something nerdy and sort of dumb lets tak a trip to the other end of the spectrum. While surfing I was introduced to an amazing video via Pistol Wimp. Check it out:

In a rare public appearance, photographer Gregory Colbert shares an astounding film from his exhibit, Ashes and Snow, and announces his new initiative, the Animal Copyright Foundation, which aims to collect royalties from companies using images of nature in their ad campaigns. For more than a decade, Gregory Colbert has traveled the world and collaborated with 40+ species to create “Ashes and Snow,” a ground-breaking exhibition of more than 100 photographs and three films, housed in the Nomadic Museum. Colbert’s extraordinary sepia-toned images reveal a rarely seen poetic beauty in man’s relationship to the animal kingdom. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. at TED Talks Duration: 18:42)

More on Gregory Colbert and the Animal Copyright Foundation on Ethan Zuckerman’s blog.

Hopefully there will be a way we can see the rest of this exhibit. Perhaps somehow Carol and I will find enough cash to travel to Tokyo to see the entire exhibit. It’s not looking that way right now, but you never know.

We’ve hit a new low. This is absolutely the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen. Although I’d like to learn how to play the Theremin.

From Canucks.com:

SHINING IN DALLAS
Roberto Luongo pitched a shutout in the NHL All-Star skills competition in Dallas Tuesday. He stopped all six skaters he faced in regulation, including Alexander Ovetchkin, to take the overall goaltenders competition.

More NHL All-Star Coverage

I’m looking forward to the game. A buddy is coming over to hang out and watch. I might record it and post some video of my personal highlights later tonight.

Oy the flashbacks. So trippy. I still love The Beatles. Carol bought me the 5.1 surround DVD version of the Love Album for Xmas. It sounds amazing.

Not only have I been blogging like mad here I’ve been writing at my other site, zombiefreak.com as well. After a redesign and some decisions on what exactly I want to do with that site it has been resurrected, re-animated if you will, as zombies are wont to be. It’s new incarnation is explained best by the blurb at the top of the about page. It is as follows:

zombiefreak.com

All zombies all the time. If you love the horror genre, specifically zombies, as much as we do this is the place for you. Everything zombie related will be found in these pages. Our aim is for this site to become one of the top resources on the web for all things zombie.

That seems pretty focused to me. Those kind of sites have been the most successful for me (much unlike this blog which is just random weirdness). The old lunch site is a good example of a simple yet successful idea. I’m trying to post a little something zombie related every day. Anyway, bookmark zombiefreak.com and visit often. If you don’t a zombie will come to your house and eat your brain.