Geologists rejoice — rocks are in the news again! The longest known calcite formation was discovered in 2001 near Fort Stanton, NM and the news has just been released to the press. This time I can’t say, “Yeah, I already knew that.”

The calcite stream is pure white (hence referred to as the Snowy River) and was formed underground in a pre-existing channel cut into soft sedimentary rock. In the place of a karst stream, explorers found shiny calcium carbonate. No stalactites, large geode-like crystals or diagenesis, just a pure field of milk-white calcite, meandering its way through a lengthy cave system.

I’m glad scientists revere this formation and have taken the pains to preserve its integrity.

So as not to contaminate the formation, scientists who go into the passage change shoes and in some cases, clothes when moving from the clay edges to the Snowy River formation … The round trip to the south end requires 16 changes of shoes.

Calcite is the crystalline form of calcium carbonate, the mineral that contains your daily dose of calcium. You may also know it as a rock in the metamorphosed and more ubiquitous form of marble. The beauty of calcite is that it exhibits birefringence, i.e. possesses two refractive indices. If you were to stick a straw in liquid calcite (no such thing, but humor me), you would see two refractions of the straw beneath the liquid line. The picture below demonstrates this mineralogical quality of calcite.

Exit nerd.

Hello, dear rock. Do you care that I visited you this weekend and gazed on you with as much love as a geologist can have for a boulder? You may consider yourself an agglomeration of chemicals that operates on a time scale within which I am but a wink of one of your mineral eyes. To me and my, perchance, 80 years on this planet that we both call home, you are a god among rocks, a peerless petrus, simply magnificent beyond any fleeting names we can conjure up for you. Stay there for me. Make me – this momentary earthly occurrence – happy for what is less than 30 seconds in your whole day.

As some of you know, I have just finished reading and bellyaching about The DaVinci Code. If you are not aware of my feelings on this novel, you will here. For you curious cats, the book gets 2.5 out of 5 Maitri stars – this intermediate judgment has naught to do with fencesitting and instead relies on the appreciable, even if couched in the disparaging, amount of perspective and history the book has to offer.

Film versions of books are understandably tricky, and their cast choices even more so. Tom Hanks to portray Robert Langdon and Audrey Tautou for Sophie Neveu was predictable. Hollywood has few young professorial adventurers and even a dye job and facelift cannot reclaim Harrison Ford from his caducity; as for the Frenchwoman, Vanessa Paradis doesn’t fit the pretty yet simple pointy-head mold at all, does she? Please don’t get me rolling on Jean Reno as Inspector Fache – besotted with Reno since the more dignified Le Grand Bleu and The Professional, I find it unsettling.

Not Just Unsettling, But Wrong: My arrival at the last few chapters of the novel solidified my inner casting agent’s decision to have Christopher Lee play the part of Leigh Teabing (I really wanted Leo “Rumpole of the Bailey” McKern, but he seems to be dead). Imagine my surprise when this morning’s entertainment news announced none other than my most favorite Shakespearean actor and bringer-to-life of Tolkien’s trilogy, Sir Ian McKellen, in the role of Sir Leigh. Conjure up a mental image of the world’s richest and creamiest butter being spread into a wafer-thin layer on a Saltine, and you may get an inkling of my thoughts on Sir Ian accepting this borderline role.

No one could have played Gandalf but Sir Ian. Some other red-nosed codger could have taken on The DV Code role. England has plenty of them. Come on, did we really like Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Final Countdown or whatever that was?

Yeah yeah, Paul Bettany as the albino and Alfred Molina for the Spanish bishop. They are but diminutive snags in the larger tapestry of disappointment surrounding casting ethics. *sigh* As long as Ron Howard doesn’t present an end with imported Ewoks singing alongside poorly-composited spirits of the Knights Templar and everyone who swallowed bullets through the story, I shouldn’t ask for much more from my $7.50, right?

Mitch Hedberg Is Dead

It appears Hedberg went in true comedic-great style a la Chris Farley and John Belushi. Maybe he’s what’s haunting my kitchen.

Sometimes I fall asleep at night with my clothes on. I’m going to have all my clothes made out of blankets.