New vlog.

Post coming up later today......................... ZooZoo: an Imago production.

Vlogs, new houses, microscopes, and more!

Hello all who own computers! Jackson here, it's been too long.
So I decided to do pretty much an overall update in our digital journey!
Well, a new year has come and it's name is 2012! Dosen't that sound completely sci-fi? Even to someone like me who was born in the early 21st century.
How are you guys? Had a good Christmas or Hanukkah?
I'm starting a new thing on this blog: a Vlog! It's a video blog that I'll do probably every other time I post.  Here's the first one:

Cool huh?

So we are in the new house, still in Lafayette. 

We pretty much have it all set up as you can see in the vlog. 

See you next time!

-Jackson

Buzz: A sawfish story.

Last week I went with some friends to the Audubon aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans.  It was probably the coolest aquarium I've ever seen! At the end of the aquarium, you got to see in the shark tank, (through glass) there were all kinds of sharks and other big fish, but one stood out, or stood in for me. It was the biggest shark in the tank, you could only see a shadow of it, but it had 3 fins.
I looked to the signage telling us what kinds of fish were in there, and there was a featured sign that had a drawing of the big shark on it.  It pretty much said that the big shark's name was Buzz, and it's a Smalltooth Sawfish. It had been in captivity in the Ripley's aquarium since the 1960s. It is 80 years old, but that is not even elderly by Smalltooth Sawfish standards.

Smalltooth Sawfishes are critically going extinct, and Buzz is one of 10 in captivity, there is not much more in the wild. His story is so fascinating!
To think of the stories that one fish could tell...

One of Buzz's distinct features is his long snout, with pointy "teeth" sticking out the sides.

The "teeth" are not used for eating, if you look closely at the picture above, you can see his mouth. The teeth are simply spikes used for intimidation and fighting.

I googled Buzz for you so you can find out more about him: Buzz Google search.

Here is a video of Buzz:
Buzz the sawfish.

Your friend,
Jackson

The life and times of Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès is a very famous old movie director. He was the first to understand that movies can tell a story, he was born to a family of shoemakers and promptly rejected the family business and bought a theatre to become a magician, then in 1895, he witnessed something more worthwhile to him: Moving pictures. Méliès offered to buy the Lumière brothers camera, when they refused, he made his own using spare gears and springs. 

Many say that Le voyage dans la Lune ( A trip to the moon) was his first masterpiece. (Which you can see here)

He made over 500 movies in his glass studio.

After world war I, peoples tastes changed, his camera was still, and rivals swooped there cameras on tracks for multiple shots, people wanted to see action, not drama. He went bankrupt, and sold his movies to a chemical company that burned them down to make, ironically, shoe heels.  He made a living working in a toy shop in a Paris train station. 

But he made a small comeback, at the time of his death, (1930s) he was at work on a new movie, The ghosts of the metro.  Today is his birthday.

Happy birthday Georges Méliès. 

Your friend,

Jackson

Here are some more of his movies:
The Astronomers Dream,
The vanishing lady,
The Melomaniac,
The haunted castle.

Occupy USA.

Hello again, today we talk about the uprisings that are going on across the nation. Occupy Wall Street is the biggest one next to occupy Oakland. They want equality and change in the nation between the rich and the poor. A person who works minimum wage makes 16,000$ per year.  A CEO of a fancy high end company makes 16,000$ per HOUR!  Some of the protest's aren't peaceful anymore.

A man being arrested during a OWS protest.

                                      Two more men being arrested.
                               

Camping out for two months now.

OWS protest.

Please go to their website and if you can, donate to support their cause here.
We're gonna occupy Lafayette today.   We are the 99%, embrace it.

-Jackson

Ghost Chili: The hottest pepper n the world

Rase your hand if you've ever eaten habanero. Now imagine something 100 times hotter than that. You've got ghost chili. The hottest pepper in the world.
It looks kinda like a jalapeno pepper, except 500 times hotter.
Here is a ghost pepper:

                                                    Looks aren't everything.
Where it grows in India, it's called "Bhut Jolokia" chili.
Here are the statistics of a Bhut Jolokia:

If you like your life. DO NOT EAT THIS!

Seriously, people have had to be taken to the hospital for this.

-Jackson

Veterans Day!

Every day should be veterans day.

It is a day when we appreciate the lives of our soldiers dying to protect our country!  Many of us have lost family members in the wars. And this day is not about our country. It's about the people who died protecting it. The casualties of World War II was 60 million! Yes, six zero million! That's a lot of veterans.

Too many veterans.  Think back if someone you know, or a known ancestor is part of these people who gave their lives to a better future for us. 

And possibly even more important, think of the many, many families who lost their members in the wars, how they must feel.

Just think about it.

Your friend Jackson