Ish Kabbible

Enrico Pallazo is not only an opera singer, a baseball umpire, and a stalwart defender of law and order (which includes the heroic act of preventing Reggie Jackson from killing the Queen of England), but is also the primary element in the "Reverse Turing Test."

If you suspect that a human is masquerading as a robot, you can show them this clip. Any human being would begin laughing, thus revealing the fraud.

That one was easy, but the other parts of our matching game may have been a bit more challenging. Here are the correct alignments:

Enrico Pallazzo	Saves the Queen
Chiwetel Ejiofor	Hunts browncoats
Shablagoo	Enables victory over Cthulhu
Ish Kabibble	Plays the cornet

I have no idea how you pronounce Chiwetel Ejiofor, and I certainly wouldn't give that name to a child. But someone did...and the kid grew up to be an engaging actor. He's the relentless Alliance agent who hunts River Tam and her Browncoat protectors in "Serenity."

River Tam is played by Summer Glau, who went on to play a Terminator robot (who was not probably not amused by Enrico Pallazo) in "The Sarah Connor Chronicles." Yet while it's obvious that we all need to be vigilant regarding killer cyborgs from the future, the real reason I included Mr. Ejiofor is so that I could remind you that "Serenity" is one of those movies that everyone should see. If you have Netflix, you should watch the entire "Firefly" TV series first, since "Serenity" is kind of the sequel to the show. It's all great stuff.



Shablagoo is the magic word that unleashes the awesome powers of youthful superhero MintBerry Crunch...who is humanity's only hope to stop the devastation wreaked by Cthulhu, dark lord of the underworld. Supported by South Park's homegrown hero group known as Coon and Friends, Mintberry Crunch intervenes to stop Cthulhu's evil rampage after the vile creature was released from bondage by a BP drilling mishap.

Hmmm. In reading the previous paragraph and looking at the picture above, I realize that MBC's epic journey into battle may sound a little...well, silly. But trust me, if you enjoy superhero tales at all (Spiderman, Iron Man, Thor, etc.), you'll get your money's worth from watching the Coon and Friends episodes.

I played the cornet for a while when I was a kid. I can't remember exactly when I graduated to the trumpet, but I suspect that the asymmetry in my running form originated in being unbalanced from carrying that heavy trumpet case to school and back every day. Probably knocked my hip bones all out of whack.

Judging from this picture, Ish Kabbible might have suffered similar ailments. He was a member of Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge, a musical humor big band. Kabbible (aka Merwyn Bogue) was involved in many of the funny sketches that Kyser performed between songs.

Many people in my generation credit Peter Frampton for introducing the idea of "singing instruments", but Kyser did it several decades earlier. And I suppose the Mills Brothers got the whole idea rolling in the first place. Good stuff (you really should click on those links.)

That's all for today. It's going to be a busy week for me, so I may not get much posted. But I'll try to share some photos from the weekend's swim meet, and a few other observations about interesting things going on in the world. Until then, remain vigilant -- you never know when you might have to deal with Cthulhu, Terminators...or Reggie Jackson. Have a great day!