Geo Gigs in States not Starting with "Penna"

A couple of cool road trips coming up.

Here's a chance to for us to chat.

And why not?


Chicago Skeptics Meetup
Thursday, November 19th
Burton Place
1447 N. Wells St., Chicago
7:30 pm

Post Performance Meetup
Friday, November 20th
Matisse Tavern & Grill
674 W Diversey Ave
Chicago, IL 60614
773-528-6670
....................................

Boston Skeptics in the Pub
Monday, November 23rd
Tommy Doyle's, Harvard Square
96 Winthrop St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
7:00 – 10:00 pm

FACEBOOK event page

See you there...

Geologic 3.0 Musikfest

Upcoming Cool Stuff

Gigs, gigs, and more gigs…


Some cool Philadelphia Funk Authority Gigs-

Thursday, Apr 30th
The Red Lion
151 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 212-260-9797 10 pm
info HERE

Friday May 22nd
Sellersville Theater
24 W. Temple Ave., Sellersville, PA (tickets $15)
215-257-5808 8 pm
info HERE

Friday, May 15th
Kildare's Manayunk
4417 Main Street, Manayunk, PA 19406
215-482-7242 10 pm
info HERE

PFA info HERE

GEO’s BALTICON SHOWS:

The Maryland Regional Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention
Memorial Day Weekend
May 22-25, 2009
At Marriott's Hunt Valley Inn, Baltimore, MD
BALTICON

ALL GEO's EVENTS ARE on SATURDAY MAY 23rd

Live Reading-
12:00 Noon
Pimlico

Live Aliens You Will Meet-
3:00 PM
Chesepeake Room

Concert-
7:00 PM
Hrab Stage

Live Podcast-
9:00 PM
Chesepeake Room

more info HERE

AND OF COURSE...

TAM7 The Amaz!ng Meeting
Southpoint Hotel and Casino
Las Vegas Nevada
July 9-12, 2009

Friday, July 10, 9:00 - 10:30 p.m.

Double Feature! "The Nigerian Spam Scam Scam" & George Hrab

When actor Dean Cameron got the email we've all seen -- "Please help me, I am the beneficiary of $30 million!" -- he didn't delete it like the rest of us would. Instead, he responded in kind, taking the spammers for a ride that lasted well over a year. He turned this misadventure into a hilarious one-man show that has received accolades from the Los Angeles Times to Penn Jillette.

Also, musician, skeptic, and podcaster George Hrab will entertain the crowd with his outstanding mix of humor, tunes, and critical thinking. This is a must-see presentation.

Saturday, July 11, 7:30 - 10:00 p.m.

The JREF Talent Show

Are you talented? We're skeptical, so you'll have to prove it. We're throwing a good old-fashioned talent show, to see how well skeptics can do whatever it is they do. Sing, juggle, prestidigitate, tell jokes: show us what you've got. To apply, send a brief email outlining your talent to Alison Smith: alison@randi.org (please cc A B Kovacs as well: abkovacs@randi.org). Applications will be accepted until May 1, and finalists notified before June 1.

Only 10 applicants will be chosen, so make sure you practice! The Top 3 winners will receive prizes, and the others will receive the undying devotion of their fellow JREFers, or, more likely, simply be made fun of.

Added bonus: George Hrab is MCing!

Served Cold

For relative context, go listen to to Episode 42 of the Geologic Podcast...

* * * * * *

One of my spies sent in the following e-mail, and let me just say that my cockles are warm.

Here it is, in it's entirety.

(Nice of her to attatch an e-mail marked "Confidential", no?)

From: Nancy Clark
To: ALL
Subject: Last Day

And on that note (no pun intended), this Friday will be my last day at Moravian College. It has been a pleasure working with various members of the college constituency during my 14 years here.

Nancy Clark

From: Thomforde, Christopher
To: College and Comenius Center
Subject: Important Message from President Thomforde - Responding to the Financial Crisis
Importance: High
Sensitivity: Confidential

Men and Women of Moravian:

I want to provide you with an update on Moravian's efforts to respond to the financial crisis.

The Finance Committee of the College Board met on Monday, February 9, 2009 to review the recommendations presented by the Senior Staff for the 2009-2010 budget. I shared these recommendations with you during my colloquium address in late January.

On Monday, February 9, 2009, the Finance Committee approved these recommendations after careful consideration and discussion.

Today we have acted upon those recommendations which have to do with personnel actions.

Specifically, we have eliminated six current positions and reduced 4 positions from 12 month to 10 month contracts. All personnel affected by these actions were notified today.

While these types of personnel actions are always difficult, they were made as part of our efforts to reduce our operating budget by $2 million in fiscal year 2009-10 and reducing positions was necessary as a part of this process.

I thank everyone who participated in this difficult process for your assistance.

Christopher M. Thomforde

President

Just for complete %100 immersion...

Here is the video for FAR (365 Days of Astronomy Theme).

This is what one person can do with a camera, iMovie, a pair of Rollerblades, and a bunch of silly hats.

Enjoy-

FAR theme for the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast

"Far" is the theme song that the Maestro wrote for the fabulous 365 Days of Astronomy podcast. He performed this at the International Year of Astronomy opening ceremonies during the AAS conference, Long Beach, California, 2009.

Download the mp3 here.

It's not just far. It's far out.
Enjoy!

astronomically yours,
Ms. Information for the Geologic Universe

......................................

lyrics

You ponder the universe and a look comes 'cross your face
You try to fathom distances of all the stuff in space
But you can't wrap the bacon of your mind around the fig
Of all the terms required to describe how big is big

So let me get specific, and use words scientific
Go whip out your thesaurus, for this exacting chorus

This stuff is far, [it's really far] this stuff is far far far away
We're talkin' far, [like über far] you can't get there by car in a day
It's super duper crazy far but not just pulsars quasars and stars
I mean it's far, far, far, if there's some doubt listen to us shout [THIS STUFF IS FAR]

I sense all the explosions going off inside your brain
As your mind gets blown by what I just did explain
Sorry if my words might drive you all insane
But that's what happens when precision is your middle name

So with an exacting factor, like some sextant or protractor
Using details quite semantic, I'll show how huge is this gigantic

CHORUS

...far too big to explain in any concise ways,
it might just have to take 365 days

I hope that I have offered up some technical assistance
And haven't caused your ticker too much ventrical resistance
But you have got to listen and trust my insistence
That I am very accurately describing the distance

CHORUS

©2009 Geologic Records

Why I Do What I Dubi Do

Every now and then I wonder if the all of the silliness that I try to accomplish on a weekly basis has ANY effect on anything. And then I get an e-mail like this. Too cool. The subject line of this particular letter was:

Ubi dubium, ibi Monty Python! Or... How Mr. Hrab is Changing the World

I have to say that caught my attention.

Check it out-


Dear George,

My name is Jean-Frédéric and I write to you today to, first and foremost, tell you how you have changed my life immensely. Poems, lyrics and prose, do not hold enough power; can not encompass the magnitude of my gratitude towards you for having shown me the way to a wider world, with your skepticism and determined atheism shinning bright like beacons, both as bold as a candle in the dark.

Decreasing the speed of Superlatives from warp factor nine to one, I'd like to tell you a bit of my life story, so that it may make my point of how strong your impact was on my life, a vivid one. It all started 4.5 billion years ago...ok maybe that's taking it a bit too far back. In all seriousness (or at least I'll try), it all started when I was 8 and found myself hunting down any books I could find on ghosts, UFO's, Big Foot and all Occult subjects you could think of. This fascination kept with me and kept on growing, as I started to ask people around me if they ever had a strange phenomenon happened to them or seen anything out of this world. By the age of 13 I knew, in detail, about the Project Blue Book, the Socorro affair, how to catch ghosts on "high tech" equipment, and so on and so forth, I had even sunk in the underworld of conspiracy and trans-dimensional theories.

At 15, now surrounded by friends that were heavily into spiritualism, Wicca and anything paranormal under the sun (or the moon), I decided to start writing down and take audio recording of them recounting their encounters with the supernatural, which I dubbed: "The Chaos Chronicles." After a dew interviews, I started to go out with them on their spirit hunts, where they "saw" invisible creatures like mind-vampires, purple and winged demon temptresses with Machiavellian schemes to take the city from other spirit beings. As I sat with them in the car (or drove most of the time), I tried seeing these things, I caught myself saying things like "I think I see a spirit gargoyle over that way or a spectral shift following us" and at first they dismissed my claims saying that those were "nothings" or misdirection created by the "Others", making me feel out of the loop. Eventually, with time, any glimpse, shift or imagination–fed creation that I pointed out, they saw and sadly I started seeing them as well.

For years I continued to, every few months, questioned them and gather information, but as I did this investigating work, I started to realize the holes in some of their explanations and the derision that they had for anyone who didn't "get it" including me, at some points or other, when I asked probing questions…

I got married to my lovely wife Jennifer and a few months later became a father to my wonderful Madeleine. My friends came by to congratulate us and (unbeknownst to me) they put seals of protections around my daughter's room. This was told to me on a later date, when I inquired why I had not heard from them in a while regarding paranormal happenings and was also told that I was being kept less informed because I now had a family and they did not want me or them become pray to the spirit armies…From that point on I continued my interest in ghosts and the paranormal but let the "Spirit War" alone and forgotten.

Finally, a year ago this march, I was listening to Steve Mirsky on the SciAm podcast, since I have always been interested in Scientific American at a very young age because my mom had them around the house being a Microbiologist by trade and having those kind of interests. In any case, Mr. Mirsky was mentioning a group that he had podcasted with not too long ago, The Skeptic Guide to the Universe, and that they were a great fun bunch and that we should go check them out. Now my first thought was, "great— skeptics— those guys who can't see through the web of lies the government spins and are close-minded about everything.” Still I figured it could be a laugh to hear what they had to say and I should see what lies on the other side of my point of view.

That, dear Sir, is when I downloaded ALL their podcasts and started from the very beginning and tore through them all in three months, so that by mid may I was up to date. A little while later in the year I heard you in one of their podcasts talk about all the many things you were doing in your podcast. This made me rush to my computer, download every single one of your shows, and devour every second of it, like a God-Hungry Kronos.

Thanks to you and many others, I am now a skeptic to the core. You see, I have a Bachelor's degree in History with a minor in Ancient Studies, I have been a Senior Credit Analyst for over 10 years ( I'm 29 right now) but, in part because the inspiration you've brought me, I am going back to school, studying for a certificate in Communication studies and then a Master's degree in either Public Relations (so that I may help spread a rational, skeptical way of thinking in schools, the media and our government) or in Scientific Journalism. I’d like to help push towards a more unbiased, truthful view of new scientific discoveries and debunking of Crap Based Medicine and all its pseudoscientific brothers & sisters.

In any case, one thing I really need to get across here is that the SGU, Randi, Penn Jillette and many more may have laid the ground work for my skepticism, but you my friend, I can proudly say, are on equal footing with the Great Carl Sagan for opening my eyes to the hypocrisy of religion, and for making me see the way to Atheism. Since then, I have been a “closet atheist” for many months now (in large part due to the fact that my wife sees the universe a bit different that I do…) but I have found the courage to label myself for who I am: A Skeptic Atheist.

In conclusion, thank you again George for what you have brought in my life. I must say that your music is amazing; your lyrics are transcendent, seriously hilarious and hilariously serious all at once.

With my greatest regards to you,

Sincerely,

Jean-Frédéric Samson
Vaudreuil, Qc, Canada


You can see Monsieur Samson's blog HERE.

Thank you sir. Thank you.