Science experiments for stay-at-home types

Science! It's not just for scientists any more. Whether you're a preschool teacher fulfilling the academic portion of a toddler's day, or a bored hipster who can't get a hold of your dealer, at-home science experiments are entertainment and brain candy in one. Double your fun while adding powerful new wrinkles to your cranial lobes. Here's how:

Make a lava lamp with regular kitchen ingredients. This experiment has mesmerized my son to the point where he can't sit at the dining-room table without activating his homemade lava lamps. It's made our family gatherings a little more groovy. Science Bob and his super low-key assistant will show you how.


Perhaps you would like to try something even more explosive. Like this "elephant's toothpaste" foam experiment.


But you're asking yourself, how can I do this incredible experiment at home? Science Bob will teach you.


Steve Spangler, Internet Science King, and his screaming balloons.


Life is better with a bouncy egg.


It glows too.


Don't forget my favorite: Non-Newtonian fluid on a speaker cone.


Surely you've added Mentos to your Diet Coke by now?

A fountain of chocolate

I have family in Connecticut who are without power and running water due to Hurricane Irene's fury. They will be living in a hotel for the near future and the first week of school will be cancelled until further notice. But otherwise they and their homes are doing OK. Not everyone they know can say the same.

When confronted with huge natural phenomena, what can we do but run for our lives? We California natives know this for a fact. Of course, it's equally hard to run through flood water and shaking earth. These events awaken fears and abilities we don't realize we have. And we're forced to admit that sometimes we're simply lucky to survive.

The Weather Channel can show all the satellite feeds they want. Even they with their 24-hour coverage don't know the hurricane's true path or outcome. Those Weather-Channel journalists must be very tired from standing in the driving wind for the past three days. To them, and to everyone without power, all I have to give you is this brief glimpse of a chocolate fountain from Bristol Farms' Grocery at the Westfield Mall food court in San Francisco. It's not very inspiring, but when your power comes back, you'll know chocolate fountains throughout the region will be turned on again and dipping will once more commence.

Denis Leary Reviews His Mostly Shitty Films

Look, I'm sorry this site has become so video-heavy of late. I know it's slow to load. I know sometimes videos go missing in action. I know it's kind of lazy of me to just keep embedding stuff here for your to peruse. What is this? Facebook?

I know.

But this is really fucking funny. Trust me. I wish everyone in Hollywood would do this, honestly and succinctly, the Denis Leary way.

Denis Leary Remembers Denis Leary Movies - watch more funny videos

Denis Leary Remembers Denis Leary Movies Part II - watch more funny videos

p.s. I worked for a company who worked on "Operation Dumbo Drop." They have to include it in their filmography and it's a damn shame.

Are you high on crack?

No? Are you SURE? Click "play" to find out.



Hehehe. The first taste is always free...

Going Commercial with David Bowie

I just finished reading Paul Trynka's Starman: David Bowie - The Definitive Biography and now my mind is chock-full of all things Bowie. Realizing that his career has almost spanned my entire lifetime, it's fitting that he subsists in my unconscious.

BOWIE - innovator, actor, emulator, iconoclast, and commercial entity. For while he is probably one of the most artistic of pop stars, his beautiful face and voice have accumulated millions in cash transactions. Straddling the artistic/commercial line for 40 years now. Hail!

Diamond Dogs ad - At once earnest and absurd, like the 70s.




Young Americans ad - Bowie swings. Fans will just have to understand.




Lodger ad - Is that a jumpsuit? Only he can pull that off.




Pepsi ad with Tina Turner - If you missed 80s pop culture, this pretty much sums it up.




"Changes Bowie" ad - Look at all the Bowies. There were more to come.




Bowie sells XM Radio but even he couldn't save it.




Through the Bowie ages for Vittel - One of the pleasant aspects of the man is his ability to poke fun at himself. He's such a charmer, in an other-worldly, reptilian way.




Bonus! "Boys Keep Swinging" blows 1979 minds sky high.

Space-Age Fashion from the Near-Distant Past

I'm still not sure we're cool enough for any of this.









Thanks, cosmocorps2000

Conan The Barbarian Trailer Day

Happy Conan The Barbarian Trailer Day! As you all know, Conan has been remade into a 3D extravaganza. There will be (in no special order):

• Darkly ominous CG matte-painted backgrounds


• Lots of "Ssch-Liiiing!" sword sound-effects


• Explosions (explosions?)


• Unspeakable evil


• A large tentacled creature


• Line readings through gritted teeth


• Screaming, horse-back riding


• Long, grimy hair, in need of conditioner


• Seething rage


• A spooky witch lady with raisin-colored lipstick


• Pounding orchestrated migraine-triggering soundtrack

Highlights:


Of course, for some, there can be only ONE Conan.

How to make popcorn (plus Alexander Skarsgård)

In my never-ending quest for Internet dominance, or at least Internet presence, I've decided the time has come to delve into the wide world of food blogging. But seeing how the most complicated thing I made recently was vegetable soup, I thought I'd start at the bottom rung and cover a subject EVERYONE can benefit from. I'm talking about popcorn.

Do you consider microwave popcorn your popcorn of choice? Well, sir or madame, I feel sorry for you. Because microwave popcorn, with all its artificial flavors and popping agents, is truly crap in bag. Do you still have one of those hot-air poppers in the basement? Just toss it into the landfill. Those are excellent machines for making Styrofoam-flavored packing peanuts, but not tasty whole-grain snacks. Jiffy Pop? Fun when you're ten years old but completely unnecessary!

You need to learn how to make some decent popcorn, son. And if there's one thing I know how to do, it's that. So gather 'round, wannabe chefs. Even if you can't boil water, you can still be the talk of your next anarchist book collective, who sneered at you last time you pulled out a box of corporate-funded Cheez-Its. Even your judgemental mother-in-law will be impressed when you start shaking a pot of corn over the stove on family movie night. And because celebrities always get the most hits when it comes to Internet search, "True Blood" star, Alexander Skarsgård will be making a very special appearance! [Please do not arrest me, Google search-engine police]

Here's what you'll need: a sauce pan with a lid, popcorn, cooking oil that can handle high heat (such as canola), sea salt and nutritional yeast (or whatever toppings you crave).


You're going to coat the bottom of the pan with the oil. Just pour some in there but don't make a big puddle. You want to cover the bottom of the pan, then float three kernels of popcorn in the oil. Turn your stove burner to medium-high, cover the pot and stand there, watching like a hawk for a few minutes.


When your test kernels pop--the oil is at optimum popping temperature. Yeah! Pour some popcorn into the pot, again just covering the bottom. Anything other than a single layer of kernels will blow the top right off of the popper (as Orville Redenbacher used to say). Not a bad thing, but it could get messy and then your houseguests will point and laugh at you.


Cover your pot and begin shaking the pot back and forth or in little circles, or up and down. You'll know when the rhythm is right. Everyone's got their own style so find your own.


Action shot of me shaking the pan a bit. Sometimes I just let it sit there on the burner and then give it a little "jounce" once in a while. If the burner is REALLY hot, I actually hold the pan over it without touching hardly at all, just shaking away like a popcorn maraca. It's an exciting snack food!


When the popcorn is barely popping anymore, it's time to take the pot off the heat, open her up, and pour everything into an attractive serving dish. Sprinkle some sea salt or celery salt or curry powder or whatever moves you on top. I always use nutritional yeast because it's buttery without the buttery grease or calories. I got this idea from the now defunct Red Vic Movie House in San Francisco--perhaps the greatest movie-theater collective in the Western Hemisphere. They always supplied patrons with a shaker of nutritional yeast and their popcorn was the best. People who have eaten my popcorn always ask: What's your secret? Well, now you know. Time to pig out.


And as promised, Alexander Skarsgård.

Soundtrack Frenzy

OK, maybe it's not a frenzy per se, but I've always appreciated a good movie soundtrack album. And often, when I'm stumped as to what to purchase in my good ol' fashioned record store (scarce and getting scarcer), I head over to the soundtrack section and see what's going on over there.

What's going on in the world of soundtrack selection? I've compiled a small list of favorites. Some of these I have yet to purchase. They're "on the list"!

The Big Lebowski is a cult favorite and with good reason. It's a genuinely weird movie about slackers and bowling with a great cast headed by Jeff Bridges. If you possess a Type "A" personality, you might find Lebowski a little too laid back, but clearly, the big lummox is not just a happy person. He's content. Of course the Coen brothers mess him up as much as possible (their trademark), but he is basically and unusually content with himself and his simple existence.

Kenny Rogers & the First Edition delve into psychedelia with "Just Dropped In." While this scene is not as elaborate as Busby Berkeley would have staged it, it's quite satisfying for a bowling musical number. Plus you get Bob Dylan, Captain Beefheart, Elvis Costello, Nina Simone, Townes Zandt and Yma Sumac, to name just a few of the fine artists on this, one of my favorite soundtracks.








Mad Men was so sexist in its first season that it was actually gloriously surreal in making its feminist points. The early workings of Peggy Olsen's bright and struggling future as a talented copywriter is brilliantly and visually set to David Carbonara's "Lipstick" on the Mad Men: Vol. 1 soundtrack. Plus gems like Ella Fitzgerald doing "Manhattan" and Robert Maxwell's Shangri-La.



(actual Robert Maxwell tune, ignore the image)




The room full of dying circuits that electronic composers Louis and Bebe Barron built and recorded for the Forbidden Planet soundtrack might not be to everyone's taste, but it's still one of the best soundtracks ever. The Barrons were up to the challenge of creating not just Krell music, but also all the blips and bleeps and Id monster howls from another world.








O Brother Where Art Thou? - This is one I still have to get. The Coen Brothers' ode to American roots music. And George Clooney is fi-ii-ine.



John Hartford, "Indian War Whoop"

Images for Ultimate Search-Engine Optimization

Search-Engine Optimization (SEO) is what the Internet is ALL about. Ever wonder why your favorite pop-culture blog has so many posts on Lindsay Lohan, even though they're repetitive and depressing (potential jail-time, drunk and disorderly, back in rehab, looking pretty crack-y)? Well, it's because every time someone types in "Lindsay Lohan" into a search engine's "find" box, every pop-culture blog is hoping to be number one on that list. Or at least in the top ten. Otherwise: horrors! Web readers will NEVER find that blog. And then it's on to Justin Bieber.

There's enough idiots out there searching for Lindsay Lohan, to make every site make sure that she's well represented on a daily basis. Clogging up the pop-culture pipeline with her current uselessness is just one of many job descriptions Ms. Lohan can put on her resume.

But what about THIS blog? Captive Wild Woman is not immune to the problematic nature of search popularity. We at CWW headquarters have noted a distinct trend while studying our Web stats and analytic pie charts: images are fueling this blog's search popularity more than writing. And obscure films and satirical content are just not attracting the masses like they used to. If they ever did. So with that in mind, here's a grab-bag of jpg images for ultimate SEO.

Have at it, searchers. I think I can supply you what you're looking for from my extensive, years-in-the-making collection of ultimate graphic content.

Fluffernutter Sandwich - look no further. It's right here.


Fuck This Guy - I really think this is a useful jpg image. Not just useful but beautiful. It's beautiful, man.


Rat Playing Saxophone - Why do you own a dog or a cat? Can they do this? I think not, at least not with any shred of dignity.


Van Halen - they're rocking out with the cocks out. Or as close as they legally can to that. File this in your important archives for future reference because today's rockers are wimps who refuse to wear Spandex.


Puppy - Look at this puppy! All puppyin' out and goddammit, it's a puppy. You need this puppy image in your life. You know you do.


Forget the puppy. Here's 80s pop genius Prince. If you look at only one Prince image today, make it this one.


Forget Prince. Look at Roxy Music. They are so much cooler than anyone on the planet before or since. That's value-added.


Sad Keanu with Bunnies - This will be generating millions of hits. I hope the Blogger servers can handle it!


Can never get enough Gary Busey.


Sorry, but I gotta slip this one in, "Dawson Crying." It's just a formality due to its ongoing popularity as an image. Carry on.


Lindsay Lohan and Paula Abdul - you're welcome.

Belugas for Yougas

What is it about Beluga Whales? Ghostly, smiling, bulbous yet supple. The staple of any decent tourist-draw aquarium. Check out this Beluga from the Mystic Aquarium, enjoying a soft rendition of mariachi music from Mariachi Connecticut (that's right, Mariachi Connecticut--stranger things have happened.)



We visit the Mystic Aquarium most every year. I'm going to find this Beluga and introduce myself because I like mariachi music too.


This Beluga is catching bubbles in his mouth. Awwww. He must be bored shitless in that tank.




Hear the Belugas sing! This is another aural universe, for sure.

Rock Out Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks is 63. Here she is totally owning Edge of Seventeen like it's 1981 all over again.



It's 1981 all over again!



Thanks, ONTD

Songs of upbeat cheerfulness

Whoa, it's been quite a July around here. I mean, when Kaiser Hospital starts to feel like a second home, something ain't right, y'know? But things will hopefully lock back into their healthy dimensions and we'll be one of those families who have fun in the sun again. With the barbecues and the baseball outings and plenty of porch sittin' while swatting the 'squitos away.

Carl Carlton - She's a Bad Mam Jama (She's Built, She's Stacked). How can you not be happy while listening to this song? "I get so excited viewing her anatomy." My significant other has just announced that this song is turning him on. And there you have it.


The Kinks - Till The End of the Day. Not the happiest of bands as far as personal interaction, but this is a joyful song. I always imagine a guy walking down the street, who can't wait to get home to his best girl. He can't even believe that not only has he found her, but that she actually likes him too. It's win-win.


Verlaines - Death & The Maiden. My significant other claims this is a happy song. I'm not so sure. But it is difficult to listen to the chorus and not get all happy, even if you have no idea what's going on there. And I don't, all these years later. It just sounds really upbeat and New Zealandish so that's reason enough to celebrate.


Tom Tom Club - Genius of Love. Perhaps the happiest pop song of all time. Name one that's happier. You can't, can you? Well, nice try. Even the title is genius.

Unfortunate movie sequels of days gone past

"Grease 2" starring Michelle Pfeiffer before she got all super-famous. Despite this elaborate bowling number, I never saw this film.




"Staying Alive," the sequel to "Saturday Night Fever," was directed by Sylvester Stallone. Even though it's all about making it on Broadway while wearing a headband, I never saw this film.




"Jaws 3-D" had the shark ultimately crash through the giant aquarium glass of one of those Southern Californian marine-parks. In 3-D! I saw this on a date in the theater when it came out. It was gravely disappointing. Both the film and the date.




"Troll 2" has gazillions of views on YouTube. But I haven't seen it.




Warwick Davis. Ice T. "Leprechaun in the Hood." Haven't seen it.




"Scream Blacula Scream," the sequel to "Blacula." I probably saw this as a child because pre-cable television used to show movies like this all the time. *sigh* The 70s--you really had to be there.

Songs with Dancing in the Moonlight in them

It's nighttime! And nighttime is the right time to dance in the moonlight. Especially on a hot summer's night. Even if it's foggy and blustery (like it is here, right now).

I miss Thin Lizzy. They're beginning to sound pretty timeless to me after all these years.




You can never have enough King Harvest in your life. Jackson made me keep this on the car radio the other day while we were driving home. He said it reminded him of "Toy Story 3." Could he mean Randy Newman? I think he did. I love the drums in this. I never would have thought to drum this way on such a "light pop hit." Kudos, King Harvest drummer.




It is a marvelous night for a Moondance, don't you agree?




Origin of the Moonwalk...?

Hallucinatory Prompts

After a weekend chock full of medical enlightenment, I'm trying to return to regularly scheduled life here. Unfortunately, I caught some kind of stomach virus and now I'm at the computer very reluctantly. I find that The Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and ancient "Mary Tyler Moore" shows do nicely when I'm under the weather. Computer work: not so much.

Not that this is work! Here are some photos I took one dusky eve of our nearby canal/creek, which had been invaded by some kind of sudsing agent. Don't worry--it's not toxic waste. The canal is completely controlled by our water-board overlords that regulate its every ounce of existence. This particular day, it happened to be spewing out of pipe and making all these swirly designs. The next day: just an ordinary wildlife-reserve creek again--full of tadpoles, crawdads, heron, turtles and an elusive otter. I finally saw him, swimming and eating algae-like growth in the nearby pond, like a mammalized weed eradicator. Otters are cool! And shy.

What do YOU see in the sudsy creek swirls below? If you're extra arty, ambitious and bored, feel free to click on these and print them out and draw or paint right over them. Creatures, real and imaginary, might appear to you. Turn the page around and study it from every angle. Amy Winehouse? You never know! My online art teacher, Carla Sondheim, makes this a regular part of her classes, using sidewalk cracks as the basis of the drawing exercise.






Purchasable hallucinations of a different kind:

Terrible Cereal of the 70s

I'm on a 70s kick. My family is still addicted to cereal, but we try to tone it down a bit. When I was a kid, not only did cereals contain measuring cups full of added sugar, but they proudly proclaimed that fact right on the box. Super Sugar Crisp, anyone? Sorry, you'll now have to settle for Super Golden Crisp.

Currently, cereal promises to lower cholesterol, prevent heart attacks and be part of a healthy lifestyle that includes diet and exercise. No wonder I miss the 70s. At least we didn't sugar-coat it. It already came that way.

Look at these Freakies Cereal characters. They're the color of mold, covered in boils and all have antisocial personality traits. Yet we ate boxes of the stuff just to get their plastic images for a complete set. The cereal was like sweet chunks of sawdust. I didn't care. I had the complete set. Thanks, Mom.




When you envision breakfast, do you think of monsters, vampires and ghosts? The 70s have you covered. All of these cereals contained neon-colored, ultra-flavored marshmallows. Franken Berry tasted like throat lozenges. Count Chocola tasted like mud, and Boo Berry tasted like cough medicine. The commercials kept us coming back for more. Advertising: it really works.




My dentist was smart. He created a wall display full of cereal boxes with the purported amounts of sugar within them. Most had four to eight tablespoons. I believe King Vitaman had something along the lines of fifteen tablespoons of sugar per box. I was impressed enough by this anti-propaganda to say "no" to King Vitaman from that day forth. And do you see King Vitaman on the shelves today? Way to go, Dr. Gardiner, DDS, of Concord, California.




Quisp was an appealing lunatic character with a built-in propeller hat and seriously crazy eyes. But let's face it, his cereal was crap. Best part was its flying-saucer shape, which allowed you to suck out all the sugary flavor on the tip of your tongue as it disintegrated quickly to corn dust on the roof of your mouth. Cut way down on mouth sores that way.




Bonus: Super Sugar Crisp was actually a pretty decent cereal--ultra-sweetened wheat puffs will always work for me. And Sugar Bear was the coolest--every kid thought so. Plus over the years you could collect cut-out cardboard records from the backs of the boxes that actually played. I got some Archies tunes that way. Anyway, Super Golden Crisp doesn't have the same streetwise tone, does it?




Let's listen to cereal-box recorded music, shall we?

Sleeping on the job

So much going on--couldn't write much of anything here today. And by going on, I unfortunately don't mean county fairs and beach-comber holidays. Nor do I refer to work deadlines (although that figures in for my better half lately), nor any kind of career-oriented deadline. Simply health issues, but hopefully that will be addressed soon and our regularly scheduled summer frivolity can continue. Or begin. Or be considered at least.

Here's a great big head from the Ruth Bancroft Garden sculpture show that I managed to attend briefly today. Isn't this peaceful? Almost a wee bit too new-age, but the fact that it's surrounded by succulents and cactus and drought-resistant spiny plants that poked me as I took photos, makes it more rugged in my estimation.

Happy July 4

We headed over to the A's ballpark today (can't remember which corporation is sponsoring it this year), and were pleased to discover it was free visor/flag day, as this fan so aptly demonstrates.



Between innings, a roving reporter interviewed U.S. armed-forces families who were attending the game. Then they broadcast videos on the jumbo-tron from Kabul, Afghanistan, of Bay Area service people, sending greetings to their families. It was really moving and sad.

Despite its popularity in many countries, I still think of baseball as the quintessential American sport, and to see men and women serving in Afghanistan wistfully and cheerfully send us affectionate greetings at the game (a lukewarm pitching-fest between Oakland and Seattle) was almost more than I could bear. Best wishes to all service people and their families.

Weird Cars of the 70s

Hello. Today we're exploring the weird world of 1970s cars. Why? Because--they were so entertaining. Well into the mid-80s, these cars were still surviving on California's temperate-climate roads. But now they're only viewable in the windmills of our minds--unless a neighbor happens to have one of these in the driveway (usually not driven much). Then it's a flashback to a strange, inventive time, where experimental, affordable vehicles were treated as viable transportation.

The AMC Pacer was wide. How wide? This wide:




This supposedly made it more stable, comfortable and cool. Unfortunately no one thought it was cool, except for my Aunt Maris, who had the wagon with the wood insets. It made a wide impression when she came to visit.



We would call this her "flying saucer" car. Because it looked almost as wide as long. This bummed her out, but we actually liked her Pacer. It is cool to try something new, even if it's extra wide. AutoMoments has an intriguing and thorough history of the Pacer here.


AMC again. This time it's the Gremlin. The Gremlin was infamous for looking like a piece of garbage on wheels. But it had a distinct little gremlin mascot logo, and as kids--we liked that. The car your kids want is probably not the car you should get. But they were cheap--real cheap. Don't see these much anymore (because they have all since disintegrated). They were once a fixture on California roads for many years, especially in lime green for some reason.


The Ford Pinto makes this TWO shitty cars in one commercial.


The Volkswagen Thing. You could change it up: take the top off, the doors and windows off, fold the windshield down. It seemed like more of Matchbox toy than an actual road-worthy vehicle. Still popular in Mexico and among collectors in Europe and the U.S.




For reasons known only to him, my dad once bought a turquoise Volkswagen Dasher station wagon. Although marketed as an affordable "family car," the back seat had metal springs that my brother and I could feel poking into our backs through the vinyl seats--like sitting against an old junkyard mattress. It had a permanent rattle too, resembling the sound of an open case of beer with the cans rolling around at all times.

My dad eventually gifted this car to me when I moved to San Francisco and having dealt with the corrupt Muni bus system at all hours of the day and night for two years straight, even the Dasher was an improvement. That permanent rattle was my entry into the wonderful world of car ownership. Eventually it couldn't pass a smog test, so I couldn't legally register it. I sold it to my friend Bill, who told me he had always wanted to buy a car for $100 even. That Dasher made his consumer dream come true.

This will give you an idea of the best-forgotten legacy of the VW Dasher. Tagline: "Volkswagen Does It Again." Yes, they certainly have.




Here's a manual wagon with the AM/FM stereo option in the much sought-after "crusty-egg yolk" color scheme. Apparently someone forgot it was in their garage because it only has 22,000 miles on it.




I'm going to get an angry comment for this, but the 70s-era Chevy El Camino car-truck is still completely weird-looking to me. Why make a truck with the body of a car? Just admit you're driving a truck, confused car-consumer. There's a solid-brown one of these in a driveway near my kid's school and every morning when I pass by, I think: that's one weird utility-vehicle concept. Anyway, I kind of like these too because the resemble a child's model-car experiment gone awry--except they're REAL.



Update: Took the kid to see "Cars 2" today. Imagine our surprise to find a lime-green Pacer, a tangerine Gremlin and a much-maligned Hugo all have prominent roles in the Pixar sequel. John Lassiter remembers the 70s well.