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Throughout all my years of studying science, and more specifically physics, I have seen some pretty cool science demos. In Mr. Kennedy’s class, I saw Group I elements ignite when exposed to water. In Mr. Keenan’s class, I saw a cinder block broken over someone laying down on a bed of nails. In Dr. Spalding’s class, I viewed really tiny objects using an AFM and an SEM. In all those years, however, I had never come across the Rubens Tube, until today. Here are a couple of YouTube videos to demonstrate the tube:

And to show it in action with a flute:

I think a Rubens’ tube is going on a list of projects that I want to do when I find free time

I came across this funny music video when watching Webnation, yet another a video podcast covering tech. Check it out. That’s pretty much how I imagine it is like trying to chat up a girl online these days.

HIMYM is one of the best comedies of the past three years. I have posted about the show’s greatness on at least a couple of occaisions, but this last episode has definitely sealed it as my favorite series of any genre of the past three years. I had all but forgotten about slapcountdown.com, which was a countdown to the third of five slaps Marshall is guaranteed to give Barney thanks to a slap bet (the link now forwards to the HIMYM YouTube page). If you’ve seen the last episode, the countdown ended in a spectacular slap on Slapsgiving.

The end of the episode featured Marshall’s song "You Just Got Slapped." Here is the music video for the song, which is just about as funny as the song itself:

The one thing I did notice about the music video is the lack of Barney’s wailing accompaniment. You’ll have to watch the episode to know what I mean.

This post may or may not contain spoilers, and it is a follow up to my previous post titled Chuck’s new girl. You should probably read it only after watching this week’s episode of Chuck (now available online for a limited time).

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The other day, Chris wanted to play some video games. We played a little bit of Super Mario Bros. on the Wii, and then I struggled to connect to the Wii Shopping Channel to get other games. Later that night, I finally did get on the Shopping Channel, and I downloaded SimCity, Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, Metroid and Excitebike. The Wii Virtual Console is great for reliving memories of 8-bit games past. The retro love doesn’t stop there. Cal State’s marching band performed a halftime show celebrating classic video games. You can watch a video of the performance at Gizmodo.

U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman ordered the Illinois State Board of Education to not enforce the recently amended Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act that I posted about earlier. Township High School District 214 is the only district under a preliminary injunction prohibiting it from implementing the mandatory moment of silence at the start of the school day. From the article:

So for the moment some 860 Illinois districts can essentially do as they wish under the current law, lawyers in the case said.

"District 214 is the only school district in the state that has clear instructions," an attorney for the district, Brian McCarthy said. As for the rest of the districts in the state, "who knows what they’ll be doing tomorrow morning."

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in District 211. As I have stated earlier, I am not a fan of the recent amendment for multiple reasons. Besides the ambiguity of the act itself, there are better things to spend time and money implementing than a moment of silence that takes away from the already limited class time.

I just got a chance to see Monday’s episode of Chuck, and the show is really developing. Just when I thought that the show couldn’t get much more entertaining, Rachel Bilson gets tossed into the mix as Lou, a sandwich shop owner who came to Chuck to get her phone fixed. It appears as though Bilson’s Lou could be a mid-season replacement for C.S. Lee’s Harry Tang (I love that name), the overly bossy Buy More assistant manager.

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