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I just tried this "Which Star Trek Character Are You?" quiz. The results are disappointing.
Your results:
You are An Expendable Character (Redshirt)
Since your accomplishments are seldom noticed,
and you are rarely thought of, you are expendable.
That doesn't mean your job isn't important but if you
were in Star Trek you would be killed off in the first
episode you appeared in.
The June '07 issue of Wired magazine includes a piece on page 60 about the fact that bovine belching (Ok, I said farting up there, but that was only to get your attention. Did it work?) contributes a significant quantity of methane to the atmosphere, and that this methane contributes to global warming - it is, in fact, "20 times worse for the atmosphere than CO2, yet it also dissipates faster." According to the article, researchers propose the following 5 solutions to this problem:
1. Introduce intestinal bacteria from kangaroos to the bovine digestive system. Apparently, "large kangaroos eat like cows but produce less methane," and some Australians believe that their internal flora might have something to do with it.
This idea is wonderful. Everyone knows that it's easy to change one factor in a complex biological system without having any effect whatsoever on the rest of the system! Idiots. Evolution doesn't result in the best possible design, but it does a pretty good job at coordinating multiple variables into workable systems. I'm willing to go on record as saying that no human has ever (and likely will never) design a functional system as complicated as a cow.
2. Capture the gas in a pouch that fits over the beast's mouth. Inside the bag, where microbes consume the methane and in the process produce biomass that can be used as an energy source.
Feasible, and quite sensible. Easily the least idiotic proposal on this page, and provides an additional benefit. And surely no more constraining than strapping the beasts into a 15 square foot stall for a few months before making them delicious.
3. Toss some feed additives (including "chlorinated hydrocarbons") into the mix to reduce methane production. Oops! "They're expensive and can cause cancer."
I think I hear something ... is it the angry mob, screaming about food safety? I'd also like to reiterate the point about complex biological systems.
4. Use an antibiotic (the article refers to vaccination, which isn't really the proper term for this proposal) to "eliminate the methane-producing bacteria inside a cow's gut." Looks like some folks in Australia and New Zealand are working on this "burp vaccine."
Once again, complex biological systems are apparently easy to manipulate, and all negative consequences are minor and easily resolved. I'm no expert on bovine digestion, but I'm going to hazard a guess that those bacteria are doing more than just producing methane, and that the cattle in question would be pretty unhappy about this so-called "solution."
5. Tax the humans! New Zealand tried, and failed, to create a methane tax (farmers protested - who'd'a thunk it!?). A Canadian alternative lets ranchers "qualify for carbon credits," which, if I understand it correctly, means they don't have to change anything if they pay money to the government.
Really? Does this really solve the problem? Does it even address the problem?
One thing I noticed: Nobody suggested that maybe fewer cows is (are? ;-)) part of the solution. Maybe a diet rich in whole grains and Cheerios can help reduce cholesterol. Then again, cows are delicious. Not as delicious as pigs, but quite tasty nonetheless.
A post to another blog's post? Are you even trying?
Yeah, I noticed that too. What's going on here? Why can't you just pick a layout and leave it alone? You're confusing the readers!
These are all valid questions. The short answer is, I'm constantly dissatisfied with things as they are. I would tell you that the layout's going to stabilize, but that might be a lie, and I don't want to maybe lie to you, right?
I'll spare you a recounting of the stream-of-consciousness that brought about this and the previous change, and I'll leave you with this thought: If you know me, you're not surprised by these fluctuations. If you don't know me, well, that's your problem.
PS: If you have strong feelings about a particular layout, let me know, but be specific (in addition to "it sucks!" or "it's teh awsom!!11", tell me why).
Have you heard of the Ben & Jerry's flavor Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream? It's vanilla ice cream with chocolate covered bits of waffle cone, & a caramel swirl.
Guess what I just saw advertised on the telly? Yes, that's right: Dairy Queen's Blizzard of the month, Caramel Waffle Crisp.
I feel like my brain is full of sludge. My focus is all brokus, my mood is all ... not goood. So I made an appointment to talk to my doctor about Ritalin. Friends have told me the wonders it's done for their concentration, and while I'm loath to add a fourth drug to my daily psychotropic regimen, I am getting desperate enough to try it. So now I just have to wait for two weeks to see my pusher and tell him, "Give me my drugs, man. I can get the money, I just need my drugs!"
I wonder if I should change the name of this blog to "Sonic Lady with a Hat." I've noticed lately that the word "sonic" appended to the beginning of things seems to make them better. This has been most noticeable on television, where I see ads for stuff like the Sonic Clean Between Machine, an interdental cleaning device. Calling it just the Clean Between Machine lacks a certain ... sonicity. Then there's the Sonic Scrubber or whatever, which uses sonic technology to blast away stains on grout and such. And who could forget Sonic Earz, the sound amplifier that's advertised with the question "Do you ever wish you had sonic hearing?"
And of course, let's not forget the sonic screwdriver.
I have seen the following ads at least 4 times each in the past 90 minutes:
The Sonic Clean Between Machine!
Guys Gone Wild!
Hair Club for Men! (where they say that a full head of hair is the most attractive part of a guy, or something like that, but then they show a bunch of shirtless guys with perfect torsos... torsrices?)
Also, I hate all of this phlegm that keeps hanging on inside my throat.
There's a birdhouse nailed to the silver maple outside our family room window. The tree is about 4 feet across, and has some pretty substantial branches. Unfortunately, it's also really close to the house, & I'm a bit concerned about some of those substantial branches landing on the house in a windstorm. But anyway - there's a birdhouse on it, right under one of those branches. Right now, there are 2 soggy gray squirrels on top of the birdhouse, and on keeps poking its head out of the house below them. Apparently they don't have any other dry places to go.
Last Friday I drove up to Langdon to visit my family. During my visit, I contracted a cold. Ugh. The drive back on Tuesday wasn't very much fun, and I've spent the last couple of days feeling like ass. But I'm on the tail end of the infection - I'm at the excessive sneezing portion of our show, and have been sleeping too much.
This morning, Ben left for Indiana. One of his cousins is graduating from high school, and Ben hasn't seen most of them for a year, so he and his mother will be spending a little over a week with his family. Ben is also going to be seeing our friend Fran in Cincinnati for a day or so as well.
In the mean time, I'm waiting for the rain to stop so that I plant the new perennials we've got waiting on the patio.
This afternoon Ben & I went to see Hot Fuzz at the local cinema. We were literally the only two people in the audience for the 4:25 show. It was kind of nice - not having to worry about yelling out "He's right behind you!" or something. That happened to us once before - we were up in the Twin Cities, and went to see Spirited Away, and nobody else was there. Kind of nice, feeling like they're playing a movie just for you.
Hot Fuzz was hilarious. A definite 9.5/10 stars. It loses half a star for running a bit long. At around the 90 minute mark, it was starting to feel like it was time to wrap things up - but the remaining 30 or so minutes were totally worth it. If you haven't seen it yet, either go to it, or plan to rent it when it hits the rental market.
So after several months of hearing Ben and people at school talk about Heroes and seeing various critics rave about it, I finally broke down earlier this month & watched the first episode on NBC's web site. Of course, for some reason, I wasn't able to watch any episodes between the first and the 5 or so most recent, so I figured I'll catch up over the summer, and besides, I needed to focus on getting school finished up.
So now I'm 6 episodes in (mostly watched in the last 2 days) and officially hooked. The sad part is that tomorrow morning I'm leaving for a 4-day trip to Langdon to visit the folks, & I'll be in an electronic hinterland of non-wireless dial-up. So, I'll be Heroesless for several days. But on the plus side - hopefully Ben [redacted]. (It takes way too long. Where's my real-time streaming video!? Curse you Charter Communications!) [Tangent: [redacted] So then I'll wait the long summer for more, and of course by the time they start up again, guess where I'll be? Yeah, back in school, & not seeing TV.]
I'll also have to wait to see the new ep of [redacted] until after I return, rather than watching it Sunday as soon as that one is ready. Yeah, as much as "I don't watch TV," I really watch the parts that I do watch. And I mean that exactly the way it sounds.
I've decided that every once in a while, I'm going to check out cnn.com just to have something to blog about. It seems there's no shortage of crap going on in the world.
I think my fave story of the day is this video (very mildly disturbing, mostly just annoying) about a 17-year-old Iraqi girl. Religion has contributed so much good to the world, and continues to do so, as the clip so clearly illustrates.
New Look! Same Great Taste!
Jerry Falwell kicked it today, permanently. Is this perhaps a cause for rejoicing? Enh, don't really care that muc -ELLIOTT! THAT IS NOT YOUR FOOD!
Sorry, had to remind the cat which dish is his.
So, where was I? Mr. Moral Majority brought such joy to this world, and his is an intellect that the American public - particularly in the South, one imagines, where most folk can give or take book-larnin' - will sorely miss. It is small consolation to know that other sociopaths like Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson continue to carry the torch of belligerent intolerance that Falwell somehow turned into a virtue in America. It should, of course, be noted that even John McCain, perhaps the only prospective Republican candidate with half a brain (further research is required to verify this) looks for the approval of the freaks who think it's better to give money to a religious con-man than to make sure their kids learn actual science in a classroom.
P.S. Did I mention I'm talking, mostly, out of my ass, from the seat of my pants, and off the cuff?
For those of you unfamiliar with the "berries & cream" reference (which sounds kind of dirty out of context), I offer to share the joy.
What's with the weather, man? Yesterday it's 90 degrees (which is a sin, in my well-reasoned opinion) and today its... 55? WTF??! Why can't it just stay a perfect 68 all the freakin' time?
Saturday night Ben & I attended the 2007 Geek Prom at the Science Museum in St. Paul. It was ... well, let's just say it was geeky. The music, provided by E.L.nO., was decent, danceable, and fun. I wonder if all geeks love the 80s, or just the ones who were there.
Sadly, there was no drunken debauchery. Well, maybe a little - but I'll get to that in a minute. They advertised "a cash bar" but all they had was beer, wine, and an appalling blue thing that approximated a martini in some vague way. Perhaps it was the Vulcan equivalent.
So shortly after the new king and queen were crowned (a friend of ours was last year's queen, which is part of the reason we went), I was looking around the room, and suddenly the door on the men's room flies open, and 5 or 6 naked guys come running out onto the dance floor, then out into the next room, then back into the restroom. Hilarious. On principle alone, I declared it the high point of the night. Then a rent-a-cop (possibly St. Paul PD, but I'm not sure) shows up, & after the guys get dressed, they're escorted out of the building.
I'm wondering, was there really a need to arrest these guys? This was a private-ish event (open to all, but in a private venue, at least), open to those 18 and up, and it's doubtful that those present had never seen a penis before. In fact, as I noted immediately afterward, for most of the guys there, it was the closest they'll ever get to seeing a naked woman.
So, everyone has a good laugh, and the audience applauded the streakers after they came out of the restroom, in an effort to show support for them and disdain for the authority figures. No harm done. Well, I should clarify. Some harm did befall a few innocent bystanders (including last year's queen) when the cops decided an appropriate response to streakers is the use of pepper spray. Yes, they sprayed several people with pepper spray (though apparently none of the streakers showed any ill effects). Jackasses. That's all I can say.
P.S. One of the streakers had been dressed up as a little lad who loves berries and cream. Yeah, it was creepy.
In the future, if a link leads readers to something that qualifies as Not Safe For Work (NSFW), I'll flag it as such. 'Kay?
I label this post Part 1 not because I know there will be subsequent parts, but because there might be, and because it implies that there will be, so people will keep coming back in anticipation of future "Summer Vacation" posts. Seriously, they will. I'm sure of it.
So I've been finished with the school for 5 days now, and what have I been doing with myself? I had thought, "Once the semester is finished, I'll have time to make a blog entry every day. How exciting and modern I will be! Everyone will want - nay, need to be my friend." (Perhaps I need a catchy slogan.)
I should have known better, of course. Summer vacation has been, at least initially, a time for sleeping in and watching TV, and doing a bit of reading, and avoiding anything that smacks of responsibility. Until today.
Today, I moved several dozen strawberry plants. The story goes like this: A couple of years ago, Ben's mom gave us a 5 or 6 very sickly little strawberry plants that were of a variety she didn't care for. I figured I'd stick them in the ground & see what happened, but was more keen on getting them to grow than really getting anything out of them. They were planted in very poor soil, but watered regularly, and seemed to perk up.
Then they started spitting out runners. And this year, there was a thick mass of strawberry plants covering about 30 square feet. So I moved them, and decided that if I spaced them about 12 to 18 inches apart, they would have enough room around them to spread a bit. We now have about 100 square feet of strawberries, and I'm curious to see what happens over the next couple of years.
Then I moved some daylilies. I had moved a few when we first moved into the house, and they were doing fine in their new home. The problem was, that new home was getting overrun with weeds, and was also a place better suited to the strawberries. So I moved the lilies again, and now I have to go back outside and move the others that are still next to the house. I've no idea when they were last divided, but I can imagine it's been a while. Also, because they are currently in heavy shade, they haven't bloomed since we've been in the house. Their future home has more sunlight, so maybe we'll get to see what they look like in flower - though I suspect they're the standard yellow or orange ones, which can be nice, but a bit boring, no?
Wow. If you made it this far, you have a higher tolerance for boring rambling b.s. than I'd anticipated. Maybe I'll need to try harder next time, yes?
This guy ought to win a Darwin Award - although at 48, he might already have reproduced. Then again, there's no mention of a grieving widow.
http://tropist.com/media/800-hotdoll (not necessarily NSFW, but a bit risqué)
Yes, the "hotdoll" part makes it seem like this link will take you to a sex-toy. It's so much better than that.
The only way they could make it better would be if it vibrated. And additional colors might be a nice touch.
Now I just need to find my nearest retailer.
**UPDATE**
Check out the lower left part of this picture (again, not necessarily NSFW, but a bit risqué). Realize that this thing needs to be cleaned. "Regularly."
I mean it. If you're easily offended by things like bestiality, don't click this link (SFW, visually, but disturbing). Also, probably stop reading this post right now. You've been warned, & you choose to read it anyway, don't come crying to me blah blah words.
I only point out the article because of my favorite phrase in it. One of the people says, of his fellow zoophiles, "I'd invite them to my home, and I'd treat them like any other person that was in my house. I did summertime barbecues, Thanksgiving. I did Christmas dinners. One year we did a turkey and a ham (emphasis added)."
Really. A guy who likes to f% (or be f%ed by) horses shouldn't say things like that. Although it raises the question: Is it still bestiality if you f% a pig after it's been dismembered & part of it has spent 20 minutes per pound in a 325 degree oven?
Yea, it is Death, and at his side Famine, heralded by the emoticon at the end of that title.
But seriously folks, "reality" TV just keeps getting weirder.
I had a final in my American Cities class today. At 1:30. So I've spent the last few days trying to cram as much as possible in to my brain about public policy, local government fragmentation, local public financing, racial and ethnic segregation, concentrated poverty, third-world urbanization & its attendant slums, and urbanization in China. I got to the room a few minutes early, and everyone was trying to spend their last precious minutes studying. (*That seems silly to me. Around 12:00, I realized I'd reach saturation, and wasn't going to learn anything more on the matter. So I took a nap. If I don't know it by 10 minutes before the exam, I'm not going to know it.)
So, 1:30 rolled around, and the instructor (Ed) hadn't shown up. The guy's never late. Plus, he's the associate dean of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. He's not a flake. So what's the deal? After five minutes, people were getting very loud, and throwing out ideas like, "I wonder if he'll let us skip one question to make up for the time" and "How long do you think we should wait around?"
10 minutes, still no prof. WTF? This is the final exam! It's not like it could easily be rescheduled.
15 minutes. Ok, now I think I'm about to leave. Some people wondered if something had happened to Ed - traffic accident, or something like that.
17 minutes: The door opens, and Ed steps into the doorway. Now, the entire semester, I've never seen him look really upset. He's typically easy going & in good spirits. Today, though, he seemed preoccupied, & was rather abrupt. He told us the final is canceled, and that he'll grade us on what we've done to date, and have a good summer - and then he disappeared again. Nobody knows what happened, but one student who had seen him about a half hour before the exam said he seemed to not be having a good day. (Hang on, I think I need some Scotch tape for that infinitive. Ha!)
That makes 2 finals in 2 semesters that have been canceled. Of course, the other one for a rather different reason (but that's a story for another time).
SO, the upshot is: I was going into the final with a solid A- in the class. I don't know how I did on the last paper (we were supposed to get those back today), but I'm pretty confident that it was in the A to A- range. The final was the one thing I was worried about, & that's been removed from the equation. Yay me!
Ben also sent me this other fun item. I had always wondered what was missing from my life, and now I know. Not a customized Kleenex box (an oval box, no less - since when do Kleenices have rounded corners?), but a customized set of Febreze ScentStories. They could send you a set of absorbent paper of some sort, and you could rub them on the things that you want replicated in your smell-o-box. Then their elite team of scentologists could go to work replicating each smell -- sorry, scent -- and in 7-10 business days you'd have a new set of fragrances to spruce up your home. Presumably. Because FSM knows we need more scent-delivery options for our homes.
A while back, I posted an entry about The Secret, a scheme aimed at relieving morons of their money by asserting that their thoughts hold the secret to (a) getting everything they've ever wanted and (b) manipulating the universe to do so. Well, today Ben found this thoroughly enjoyable article from Slate illustrating how effective the secret actually is.
So I'm correcting papers from this undergrad landscape ecology class. One question addresses habitat for a raccoon that eats pinon pine nuts, and needs clean open water where it can wash them, "because it has no saliva." One of the students refers to the fact that (in the context of the question, involving the impact of development on the raccoon's habitat), the raccoon is still within an acceptable distance "of water for them to wash their nuts in."
Funniest thing I've read this semester.
***UPDATE!***
A second student used the same phrasing, but he italicized it: "If it is like any other raccoon, it will not shy (sic) to go around the buildings at night to wash its nuts."
Oh, and if any of my students are reading this (probability approaches 0 for this event), thank you!
Although this story doesn't involve pussycats....
So apparently, if you restrict your dietary intake to only water for 10 days, politicians will do what you want? Is it just me, or are religious people not very bright?
