November 13, 2014: C-c-c-c-c-cold!

I woke up this morning and it was snowing.

Snowing!!!

And the temperature has dropped about 20 degrees in a day.

It’s so cold that Akemi refuses to go out.  She has vowed to never leave our apartment until spring.

I feel terribly, for her and for the dogs, especially Lulu and her super-sensitive paws.  As much as it pains me to do so, I think we’re going to have to pick up doggy boots.  Yes, we’ve become THOSE people.

So, hey, we did that live stream Skype audition session the other day and, as expected, it went poorly.  As Trevor pointed out, for an application software that specializes in video chats, Skype video quality is surprisingly…um, what’s the word? Oh, yeah.  Shit.  And I feel “shit” is really too kind a description of the picture and audio quality we had to sit through – this despite upping to unlimited bandwidth. The video was so choppy I felt like  I was playing Mario Bros. on my Commodore 64.  If any of you have stock in Skype, I advise you to sell now.  We ended up switching to FaceTime and things went much more smoothly after that.  So, to break down the pros of each application:

Facetime: Better video and audio quality, easier to use.

Skype: Only one syllable and perhaps easier to pronounce.

Our trusty Story Editor/Script Coordinator/Annoying Noisy Lunch Chewer Trevor Finn alerted me to the following big news story:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/astronomers-discover-planet-identical-to-earth-wit,37437/

Amazing, no?

In other science-related news, I’m sure you’re all aware by now that the Philae probe scored a bullseye landing.  At some point, I suspect, they will trigger the charge that will disport the asteroid’s earth-bound trajectory, saving our planet from certain doom.