Announcement

First, let me apologize for not having posted in so long. Second, let me apologize for not making the following announcement earlier. Third, let me apologize for misinforming some of you that I had already made the following announcement on this blog.

The Annoucement:



Please see my wife's blog for more pictures and vastly better updates of how things are going.

"Organic"

The other day my wife saw a dry cleaners that advertised that they only used "Organic Solvents" in their dry cleaning processes. This amused the shit out of me, for you see, these clever dry cleaners know the actual meaning of the word and are using it accurately, but also deceptively, in a way. The most commonly accepted definition of the word "organic" is - relating or belonging to the class of chemical compounds having a carbon basis; "hydrocarbons are organic compounds". As you all know, over the past decade or so, the word "organic" has been saddled with a new meaning, a meaning promoted by trendy mega-corporations like Whole-Foods, Trader Joe's and Wegman's. The new meaning is of course the fourth down in the above linked list - of or relating to foodstuff grown or raised without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides or hormones; "organic eggs"; "organic vegetables"; "organic chicken".

You see, all dry cleaners use organic solvents. Organic solvents are solvents made of carbon atoms, as opposed to aqueous solvents which are typically made of oxygen (ie: water, H2O) that's why they call it "dry cleaning". The cleaning isn't done with water (an aqueous solvent, aka "wet") but instead with an organic solvent ("dry"). The most commonly used dry cleaning solvent is tetrachloroethylene, an obviously organic solvent (first definition), but simultaneously a decidedly non-organic solvent (fourth definition).

The clever dry cleaners my wife discovered were clearly using the technical meaning in their advertised "Organic Solvents" yet I fully expect that the dry cleaners were hoping certain customers would only be aware of the newer, marketing-driven meaning and think to themselves, "oh wow, this dry cleaning place must be really environmentally conscious". Don't get me wrong here, environmental consciousness is a good thing. What I think is wrong is to redefine words in the English language strictly for marketing purposes. All of the pesticides and herbicides used in industrial agriculture today are organic (carbon-based) as are all things made of carbon (like all foods, regardless of how they are grown (first definition)). As and aside; a few herbicides and pesticides exist which are non-organic because they are instead made of heavy metals. Ironically, these non-organic, heavy metal-based pesticides and herbicides are used only in organic farming.

Anyway, because of marketing giants like Whole Foods, actual government regulations have been passed that outline how foods must be raised to be labeled as organic (fourth definition). So today we have a situation whereby a food can be both organic and non-organic simultaneously depending upon whether you are speaking with someone who has taken an introductory chemistry class, or someone who shops at Whole Foods out of "principle". If you happen to fall into both categories, I expect you've had to rationalize things by context.

As a last point, if you happen to align more with the Whole Foods camp and perhaps feel that the fourth definition has now surpassed the first definition of the word "organic", let me make myself a little more clear. The first definition, "relating or belonging to the class of chemical compounds having a carbon basis" is a technical definition. It is like when doctors refer to your stomach area as your abdomen, or when scientists refer to an atom with two protons as helium. It is a solid term that has been defined and used for centuries now and is never going to change. I only wonder if these days some uninformed college students are enrolling in undergraduate Organic Chemistry (a med school requisite class) thinking that they will learn all about the chemistry of Organic Farming techniques. If so, I blame the marketing department at Whole Foods and the like for their contributions in the dumbing down of America. I salute my local dry cleaners for re-annexing the word "organic" for its originally intended purpose.

DHA

So as many of you know, my wife and I have been trying to get pregnant for a while now. Here's a great article that was on NPR's "Morning Edition" today, relevant to mom's and baby's health and DHA.

Click the link at the top of the article to "listen" to the show as it was aired on today's "Morning Edition"

Happy Halloween!

I had a lot of trouble working up some Halloween spirit this year for some reason. But alas, I've finally found some. I decided to leave work early to buy some candy and put up some of our easier decorations. We'll at least have the bare essentials. In any case, I've found a new artist today, and he's definitely good to check out not just for Halloween, but any time. I present Cyriak Harris.


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WoW

I felt the need to come in here and dust off this blog (now if I could just work up the motivation to re-paint the guest room). Apologies for not posting for so long (almost 8 weeks!). So, let's see, what have I been up to lately? Well for one, I've picked up my wife's addiction to World of Warcraft, and with it has come an indoctrination into the whole "WoW" subculture, which perhaps surprisingly, is populated primarily by 30-somethings. And by "subculture" all I really mean is short web videos that may be funny on their own, but are funniest when you are familiar with the WoW universe. Like this:

First I should probably throw up the one everyone sees on Sundays during football games, the new Toyota Tacoma ad.

Next there's the famous Onyxia Wipe. This raid leader just loses his mind.

Now we have Teremus the Devourer, who is led to Ironforge by an Elven Druid named Punchcat - solo. The video is 11 minutes long and only really funny to WoWers, so if that isn't you, just skip to the next video. Wiki here.

And lastly, my all time favorite - Leeroy Jenkins!
Wiki here.

Remember folks, don't be a Leeroy.

Anyway, if any of you readers have the inclination to try playing WoW, get in touch. My wife and I play on the Shandris realm and love playing with good groups.

I've converted to PM

I have a friend with whom I sometimes have conversations which often perplex me at a certain point. Until now, I had no way of dealing with the point this friend would make, as I was utterly unfamiliar with it. The perplexing assertion in question is that all knowledge, including Scientific knowledge, is culturally relative and not objective. I've come to learn that this is a classical post-modernist argument, and in recognizing this, I have been able to dig a little deeper into the subject. I eventually came across the paper quoted in part below. After reading it I have decided that indeed, knowledge is culturally relative and not objective. Science is a myth, and rational thought is an artifact. The scientific method produces illusions and reality is only perception.

The Absurdity of Truth: Nihilism, the conceptual paradigm of consensus and nationalism
F. Rudolf Porter
Department of English, Carnegie-Mellon University
John K. Tilton
Department of Politics, University of North Carolina

1. Precultural appropriation and subcapitalist structural theory

If one examines the prematerialist paradigm of context, one is faced with a choice: either reject precultural appropriation or conclude that society, ironically, has significance, given that consciousness is distinct from culture. The primary theme of Brophy’s[1] analysis of subcapitalist structural theory is the stasis, and thus the failure, of capitalist sexual identity.

In the works of Rushdie, a predominant concept is the distinction between closing and opening. But nihilism states that the significance of the reader is deconstruction. Any number of narratives concerning the bridge between consciousness and sexual identity may be discovered.

In a sense, Lyotard uses the term ’subcapitalist structural theory’ to denote the genre of subdialectic truth. Debord promotes the use of capitalist neocultural theory to attack sexism.

Therefore, many theories concerning subcapitalist structural theory exist. Bataille suggests the use of textual feminism to analyse class.

In a sense, the premise of subcapitalist structural theory suggests that government is intrinsically dead. Several discourses concerning a postdeconstructivist reality may be found.

However, in The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Rushdie examines nihilism; in Midnight’s Children he deconstructs subcapitalist structural theory. The subject is interpolated into a capitalist neotextual theory that includes consciousness as a totality...


For other essays which had a similar impact on me, please visit this link.

For the rest of the above essay, visit this link instead.

Rabbit in the Moon

I saw Rabbit in the Moon perform at the 9:30 club last night. I could go on for pages about how awesome the music was and how thrilling the visual performance was, but that would take a bunch of space, and others have done it better than I would at the moment anyway. Instead I'd rather focus this post on the one part of the night that was most pleasantly surprising to me.

Let me first just mention that Rabbit in the Moon are touring to promote their new album, "Decade" - a most aptly named work. You see, my wife an I met at a rave a little more than a decade ago, and electronic music has long been a source of bonding between us. In fact, the last time we saw Rabbit in the Moon perform was almost exactly a decade ago. The whole brain-tingling experience last night made my life feel recursive in the best way. The crowd was great, giving off that awesome good-vibey, dare I say, "PLUR" attitude all night. I had thought that this kind of music-based, neo-techno-hippyish culture was dead and forgotten. I'm now thinking that thought was cynical, and am interested in trying to see if I can find that vibe elsewhere again.

One quick anecdote from the night and I'll stop gushing. Chris met the cutest pair of young kids who, with their small group of friends, thought Chris was a great dancer (I was somewhere else at the moment). The girl of the pair wanted to pinch Chris' ass while she was dancing, but was too shy, so her girlfriend did it instead, and thus introductions were made (I had come back at this point). Anyway, when these two young lovers found out that Chris and I were happily married, and had been in the techno scene for 15 years or so, and were still having this kind of fun, they just couldn't contain their happiness for us. It was really sweet. I could tell that they were looking at us as something like role models, an image of what their fresh pairing could look like in a decade. At one point, the boyfriend said, "You guys make us really happy". Great kids, I started feeling protective of them.

It's tough enough keeping a good relationship going right, and frankly if people hear you met your special someone "at a rave" I know from our own experience that people are skeptical that what you have is genuine, and think it won't last. I like to think that Chris and I are living proof that all those assholes were wrong about us, and will continue to be wrong about the younger ones making it work like Chris and I have and do. Props to the young.

iPhone

So I had been meaning to make this post for a little while now, but I thought I'd hold off until I broke the thing in. As you may have guessed, I bought an iPhone, the 8Gb variety. Chris bought one for herself too. Let me just answer your first question by saying that I love it so much, I want to wear it from a big fat gold chain around my neck (I've told that joke so many times now its eating prunes and threatening the kids on our lawn). There were however, some initial glitches. The biggest glitch was that Chris and I hadn't yet bothered to upgrade any of our Macs since OS 10.3.9 (the iPhone requires at least 10.4). There was also the little issue of not having any USB 2.0 ports on any of our puters. Chris solved the problem for herself by just buying a new laptop (which she really needs anyway for her home web development biz) I however had to do what I do best, which was to yet again upgrade my ancient Sawtooth. This time I plugged in a 20$ PCI card with 4 external USB 2.0 ports. I think that last upgrade makes it official, there is really and truly nothing left to upgrade on that machine. If I find it laking in some piece of hardware or performance need, I may just have to buy a whole new desktop model and start the whole upgrade process anew So anyway, after buying this new PCI card and upgrading to the latest OS, I was ready to activate my iPhone and go. I loaded my phone up with tons of crap, movies, photos, music contacts etc. all of which came in really handy for my recent flights to and from San Fran. For instance, I had bought and loaded the entire season 2 of Robot Chicken and laughed my ass off for a good 3 hours or so.

So far the funniest iPhone event I've had came on the Monday I was in San Fran. The week before I had been showing off my new toy to anyone who cared to see it. At one point, whilst demonstrating the web browser, a co-worker of mine asks, "hey can you surf for porn on that?!" I hadn't yet tried to so I simply answered, "I don't know but I will definitely give it a try and let you know." So now fast forward back to Monday morning. Four of us (including myself, my longtime mentor, another scientist from my lab, and our young business development representative) were scheduled to meet in the hotel restaurant at 7 Am sharp to go over a presentation we were giving later in the day. I was ready to check out of my room at 6:45 and, realizing I had some time to burn, recalled the earlier question about porn surfing. So I sit down and fire the phone up and sure enough, yes, I find that you can surf for porn on the iPhone. At the moment of this happy discovery, I realize it is 7 Am and so I hurry downstairs to meet my colleagues. When I get there I realize that in addition to the group I came with, we have a fifth, unexpected guest at the table. A fairly new, younger employee of my company whom I've only just started to get to know. After some brief inquires I learn that she is at a conference in the area and that the travel agent just happened to book us all in the same hotel without letting either party know about it. Anyway, we're all happy to see her as it gives us all a good opportunity to get to know each other a little better. So, to clarify the scene, it's four guys at the breakfast table and this one woman, who we are all happy and surprised to have with us. For the sake of anonymity, I'll just call her "Jen". At some point one of the guys asks me if I've shown Jen my new iPhone. "Why no, I don't think I have". Jen shows some of the excitement I'd gotten used to at the prospect of playing with this new gadget, and I proceed to take the iPhone out. It is in sleep mode at the moment I place the iPhone in front of her to demonstrate the main page, and am about to hit the little button at the bottom of the phone that will wake it up. As I'm saying, "So here's the main scr..." this (NSFW!!) photo pops up in full-screen mode. I immediately pull my phone away, tapping hurriedly at the controls as Jen gasps and my head suddenly becomes extremely warm. The other three guys at the table immediately ask what the hell just happened as I sheepishly explain that I just showed Jen a photo of a nude woman I had forgotten I was viewing about 15 minutes ago up in my room. A roar of laughter comes up and then the jokes start and continue on for what seems like years to me. Fortunately (after my immediate and repeated apologies) Jen seems to have understood, despite her initial shock, that this situation was a regretted mistake on my part and that the humor in it was entirely at my expense. So embarrassing. I'm just glad that the displayed image was of the more tasteful Playboy-variety, rather than my usual trans-sexual donkey porn (kidding).

Easy Rider

Sorry for the long gap in posting, I've been busy. Last weekend Chris and I took a motorcycle safety certification course. We both passed and now I have an official "class M" license to drive motorcycles. Unfortunately, the weather over the weekend was really shitty in Columbia, causing delays in the training exercises we had to do on both days (because frankly, riding in the rain on freshly surfaced asphalt is really slippery). I actually almost bought it on on turn I made a little too quickly. My rear tire slid out from under the bike but I managed to get back in control in an instant. Even still, it was quite a thrill. I had promised a friend I'd help him move a couch after class on Saturday, and another friend that I'd attend his house party in the evening. After the rain delays in class, I was late for helping the couch moving, which itself also took longer than I expected, leaving me little choice but to bail on the house party (since I still had another day of class on Sunday which required attendance at 7:30 Am sharp). Sorry Spike!

Anyway, the Monday before this passed weekend was spent in San Fransisco on business, so for any of my friends out there who might be reading, apologies for not getting in touch. I only arrived in town late Sunday and flew back home Monday afternoon. I will say that if you are in the mood for seafood in the bay area, go to Kincaid's in Burlingame. The snapper stuffed with King crab was awesome, as was the sushi sampler.

caturday lolcat!

Some explanation may be required if you aren't quite the internet junkie that I am. In the beginning, there was FARK which hosts many "photoshop contests" from which many of the most famous internet memes have been spawned. Then there was the "lolcats" website which began to archive most of the lolcats photoshop contest pics from FARK, a signal that meme had matured. All this now leads us to today, which has seen not just one but two "caturday" threads on FARK. So I finally decided to break down and make my own contribution (above, and submitted to the second thread, along with another). It seems that lolcats is about to go mainstream (if it hasn't already). I don't even like cats generally.

Now if you are like me and can't get enough of this shit, then you should also check out a recent derivative thread called "lolpresidents" which has also taken on a life of its own and had me laughing off my stool for hours.

Friday Action Figure: Megatron

I saw the new "Transformers" movie at a matinee on July 4. I really liked it. It was the very first summer "blockbuster" for which I can honestly recommend that you go see it. All they had to do to win me over was to not screw it up. Of course, they may have had a lower bar to jump in re-making what was originally a Saturday morning cartoon rather than the rich and well-developed story line of a long-running comic book series, but still, they did a good job. I would even go so far as to say they fixed a thing or two. First they made BumbleBee a Camaro (first very old and then very new) instead of a Volkswagon Beetle which, I have to say was an improvement. Although I think it would have been much cooler if they had introduced Bumblebee as a '71 Dodge Charger Super Bee and then later as the modern Charger. A nicer fit that would have been. The best do-over though goes to Megatron who I always thought was a bizarre transformer in the cartoon. How exactly does the largest of the bad-guy tranformers convert into a pistol that can be held in the palm of any other transformer? I always thought that was stupid. Well they fixed it in the movie and had Megatron transform into a cannon of vaguely pistol shape, but giant, non-hand-holdable size. The movie also did a really great job of explaining how the transformers chose their familiar "incognito" forms of Earth-machines, which the cartoon never did as far as I know. This explanation opened the door for transformers to adopt multiple on-the-fly incognito shapes if the need arose, but they would do this infrequently enough, and under such desperate circumstances that it was easy to interpret this act as one requiring great amounts of precious "Transformer energy". That is, transforming between humanoid robot form and chosen incognito form was a snap, but adopting a new incognito form seemed a pain in the ass.

Biology Rules

There this field of study out there dubbed "evolutionary psychology". It is unfortunately what I would call "soft science" in that there are no real experiments. So they have to do what the modern physicists do which is essentially to make up hypotheses and then go looking for real world support for these hypotheses via direct observation. This isn't much better than what sociologists do so I'd say the veracity of either group's conclusions are about equally untrustworthy. In many cases, both groups start from the same set of observations, but propose wildly different root causes for the observed behavior. In most cases, I think both explanations are true, but most of the time I would have to go with the evolutionary psychologist's conclusions as "feeling" more at the root of things.

Here's a great evolutionary psychology article detailing "Ten politically incorrect truths about human nature". Spike and Jackie, this is for you.

Pop Quiz

1) The Sun revolves around the Earth - True or False?

2) What is a molecule?
A) A very small living thing
B) Two or more atoms bonded together
C) A wave
D) Silicon
E) All of the above

3) Which of these is a form of radiation?
A) Radio waves
B) Micro waves
C) Light waves
D) Gamma waves
E) All of the Above

4) Which of the following molecules stores hereditary information?
A) Silicon
B) Water
C) DNA
D) Sperm
E) All of the Above

5) What is a stem cell?
A) A cell which can grow into many different cell types
B) A cell from a cloned mammal
C) A cell which grows into a stem shape
D) A cell from an aborted fetus
E) All of the Above

Not to be all professorial, but I just read this article and it freaked me out. So I want to be sure all of my readers are up to snuff. Write your answers down before clicking the comments link to see which were right. No cheating.

Friday Action Figure: Silver Surfer

I saw "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" last weekend and as I expected, I was disappointed. This did not come as a surprise of course, it has practically become a tradition with Marvel comics to allow Hollywood to pervert and stupid-ize the story lines of their best heroes. Honestly though, the movie story line remained vastly more faithful to the original comic-book story than did the most recent Spiderman flick. The main thing I didn't like about the Silver Surfer movie was the ease with which the Fantastic Four came up with a way to negate the Silver Surfer's power. The Silver Surfer is a near-god-like being, and while his powers have been neutralized on occasion, it has always taken much more extreme effort. With such power, the conflicts that were usually faced by the Silver Surfer were almost never physical but usually moral or philosophical, which is what made the Silver Surfer series so fucking rad. Of course, Hollywood just knows that America is too stupid to appreciate the subtleties of a good morality play, so instead they screw around with the story line so that it fits the same-old vapid action movie formula. I would have really rather they focused the movie on the moral lessons learned by the noble yet amoral Silver Surfer character. Instead it was mostly a slap-stick superhero movie with awkward moments of seriousness shoe-horned in.

That said though, the movie was leagues better than the committee-written story sleazed on to us in the form of Spiderman 3. Ugh, what a piece of trash.

Next up: Transformers.

The newest twist...

...in the saga of my myriad diseases is that I'm not allowed to go to work. I hadn't mentioned it before because it was so minor, but the short fever I had developed from the Lyme disease as well as the minor sunburn from the antibiotic-induced photosensitivity resulted in my first-ever outbreak of shingles. For those who don't know, shingles are caused by the same virus that caused your outbreak of chickenpox when you were a kid (side note: chickenpox is not caused by a pox virus at all, but by a herpes virus called Herpes zoster, as opposed to Herpes simplex which causes genital herpes and facial cold sores). Chickenpox works essentially the same way as any herpes virus, that is, once you get it, it stays with you for the rest of your life, occasionally manifesting as outbreaks of pustules. With chickenpox, the outbreaks are called "shingles" and they usually only occur when your immune system is being challenged (like from an acute case of Lyme disease) or when it is being compromised (like from old age or chemotherapy). What many people don't realize though, is that you cannot catch shingles from someone else. You can only catch shingles from yourself, and even then, only if you had already had chickenpox (again, shingles is literally the re-emergence of the exact same virus that caused your childhood chickenpox - not just the same species of virus, but the exact same virus, laying dormant all those years, waiting for an opportunity). Having said that however, someone who has shingles can give a case of chickenpox to a chickenpox-naive person, but only if the chickenpox-naive person rubbed up against the skin sores of someone with shingles. Someone with shingles can't just cough on a chickenpox-naive person and give them chickenpox (in the way someone with chickenpox can). Is that all clear?

Anyway, my shingles sores are restricted to a 3x3 sq. inch section of my lower back. Despite my limited ability to infect people however, there is still that small risk that my lower back might be accidentally rubbed by the mucous membranes of some adult who has never had chickenpox or who has such a severely damaged immune system that they are vulnerable to chickenpox re-infection. With that in mind, my company apparently has a policy of not letting people with shingles come to work, so I was sent home yesterday (after I casually mentioned my spot of shingles to our HR director). I can't come back until I can produce a doctor's note saying that I am no longer contagious. I made a call to my doc yesterday and today, so hopefully this will all be resolved soon. Staying home is nice and all, but I've already taken most of the vacation time I need this year.

Save Internet Radio

Call your representatives.

Greece pictures are up!

So go take a look.

Abolish of the Fed?

So it seems that Ron Paul has introduced legislation to abolish the fed. I've heard only a few arguments about why this might be a good idea, so I did some more homework on it. I'm wondering what my economics-nerd and policy-wonk readers think of this?

Athens!

I need to start this post by apologizing to Rhodes. I was really angry while I was writing about Rhodes and I just didn't give the place a fair shake. Between the Lyme disease and the crazy photosensitivity I have from the antibiotics, the sprained ankle, and somehow losing 200 euro, I just needed to be pissed off at something, and the best thing I could come up with was Rhodes (and Greece in general). This is of course irrational, as all of the above could or would have happened to me no matter where in the world I might have been. I really ought to have been thankful for certain things. For instance, I have now had first-hand experience with medical care in a country with nationalized medicine. When it was apparent to me that I had a Lyme disease, i had a choice to go to either a public clinic or a private one. I wasn't picky, and just went to the first one we could find which happened to be a private clinic with a orthopedist and a dermatologist. I was expecting that I would have to rack up about 500$ or so on my credit card for private care, but at that point I was desperate and didn't feel like inquiring about whether I would be treated at a public clinic (as a non-tax-paying foreigner). So, after the diagnosis was done and the prescription was written, I asked, "How much do I owe you and do you take Visa?" He replied, "The charge is 60 euro, and I can take Visa but I don't usually, it will take a moment." I dazedly responded to this by handing him 60 euro in cash and walked out of the clinic to go next door to the pharmacy, where I purchased my 10 day, prescribed supply of doxycyline antibiotic for, drum roll please, 6.35 euro. That's it. For 66.35 euro and about 20 minutes of my time, I had a diagnosis and prompt treatment for Lyme disease from a private clinic. Nationalized health care is obviously putting pricing pressure on the private clinics. I am supposing that the private clinics would provide free or nominally costly care for the trade-off of a potentially longer wait, and I also suppose that there is a certain income tax burden that must be shouldered by Greek citizens, but fuck it. I still think it is totally worth it. In this instance, I am quite happy to tolerate government price controls. Besides, if highly skilled, one-of-a-kind, so-called "specialist", super-doctors really want to make the crazy money, they can move their practice to the Cayman Islands and still see all their same patients. For routine, basic care though, I think this nationalization scheme is the way to go. I think capitalism works best for goods and services where demand may be elastic (like televisions and Internet access), but for inelasticly demanded things (like food and drugs) I really think that some kind of government regulation of prices or distribution is the best way to go. The reason I say so, is because people will pay any price for life, and I think it just creates to damn much potential for predatory trade practices. I think that is the right way to characterize the USA's current, mostly-capitalized system of providing health care - predatory. It has gotten to the point where it is starting to look like war profiteering, except in the "war on cancer". (Most of that above diatribe was for Tom and Spike's benefit, have at it boys.)

Anyway, back on the subject. I don't feel particularly compelled to talk much about Athens, since we already did all the Athens touristy-stuff at the beginning of this vacation, and because we just got off the plane, and because we intend to just spend our last few days here just shopping for knick-knacks and chilling out.

Instead I think I'll see if I can continue on and give Rhodes a better review. The only other really interesting archaeological destination (besides the city of Rhodes itself) is the Acropolis at Lindos. I know I mentioned it before, but it really is worth a visit. The hike up the plateau is a decent one if you are looking for a work-out, but if you aren't, they have donkey rides for 5 euro which are a ton of fun. I say so only with a slight sense guilt about it though, as my particular steed was clearly straining under the weight of my fat ass, particularly on the last switch-back. The view from the top of the acropolis is really sweet.

The old town of Rhodes (in Greek it is "Rhodos") is packed in behind some well-preserved walls, and being inside them among the various shops and restaurants felt a little bit like living in an alternate dimension, where architectural advances were frozen in the dark ages but electronics and chemistry had still advanced enough to produce cheap digital watches, tacky sequined T-shirts, and tons of plastic refrigerator magnets. In the center of the old town is the "Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes", but for some bullshit reason ("an administrative conference") it was closed on Monday when we went to visit it. However, there was also a clock-tower nearby and this was open, so we paid our fee and went to the top to survey the old-city and beyond. It was only from this vantage did I notice how many ancient (and I suspect mostly unused and purely historical) mosques are in Rhodes. I had read about how Rhodes was under the control of the Ottoman empire for some 400 years (until around 1912 when the Italians invaded), and so it was obvious to me that many remnants of Islamic culture should remain, but seeing it really made me connect to that fact a little more and now I have a slew of other questions regarding the history of this place (for instance, why do all the guidebooks I read here refer to the period between 1523 and 1912 as a time of "decline and darkness and oblivion" for Rhodes? surely something good must have come from Ottoman occupation?) On a less complex level, I also noticed that many (all of?) the mosques had not only crescent moon symbols but also stars decorating their characteristic towers. I understand the whole symbolism of the crescent moon in Islam, but I hadn't previously known about the stars, which were incidentally, the exact same shape as the stars of our own American flag. It had me wondering if there may be a connection between the star symbols of our flag and the star symbols of Islam, and if Muslims feel on some level like the "stars and stripes" and what it represents somehow co-opt the symbols of Islam? Readers? Any thoughts? Might it be anything like how fundamentalist Christians would act if the porn industry started using crosses instead of "XXX" as their identifying symbol? I'm not trying to imply that this overlapping symbol-use might be the root of all east-west tensions. I'm just wondering if Muslims have noted this overlap and if any even care about it.

OK that's enough for now. I'm glad to back back in a happy mood again.

Opa!

Update June 22, 2007: Wikipedia and a couple of other sources have some good info regarding the star and crescent musings.

Rhodes!

Uck. Rhodes has some nice beaches, a ton of exactly identical restaurants, and a cool acropolis about an hour's drive away from the main town. It also has a cool medieval castle in the center of a well-preserved old city. Unfortunately, I don't really feel like talking about all that right now. Instead I feel like bitching. This vacation has been a real fucking bitch for me and I want to come home now. We weren't more than two hours in Rhodes before I slipped on a sidewalk and sprained my ankle, hard. It hurt so bad I actually saw starts and retched. I've never hurt so bad it made me almost-puke. I managed to find an orthopedic store which sold the kind of hard-core ankle braces I have at home and that is getting me through. Of course, the whole photo-sensitivity thing seems to be getting worse, to the point where even a brief flash of direct sunlight on my forearms feels like hot acid. Despite all these setbacks though, I was determined to soldier on and try to enjoy this vacation as much as possible. So we went to the acropolis at Lindos, where we rented ponies to do the hiking for us. It was a fun visit and afterwards we decided to hit the beach for some snorkeling at a small, beautiful cove just below the acropolis. Somewhere between paying for our ponies on the way down and getting back to our hotel after snorkeling and the drive back, I lost about 200 euros in cash from the front pocket of my shorts. Either they fell out in a bundle when were moving clothes around and to and from the car to the beach to the car to the hotel, or one of us accidentally left a door unlocked and someone broke into our car in the beach parking lot. Can't be sure which but either way I was (and still am a little) pissed. To top it all off Chris tells me that she got a call from our house/dog sitter saying that the heavy rains last week leaked into our basement and got our downstairs rug wet. Also, one of neighbors left an anonymous note at our door telling us to mow our lawn because a house was going up for sale next week, with references to "trailer trash" etc. With all the other crap I needed to get done before I left for vacation I didn't get a chance to mow my lawn (and it needed it) so I can imagine it does look shitty, but there is no need to be mean about it.

Anyone in the mood to do me the favor of mowing just my front lawn today or tomorrow? 20 minutes work and I'll pay you 30$.

Sigh.

Santorini!

OK. Back on track. Chris and I arrived in Santorini yesterday, an island that is really the ridge of a caldera, the largest neighbor of some other islands forming other parts of the caldera, all surrounding one more island, which is of course the tip of the massive volcano itself. When I say massive I really mean it too. Pictures aren't going to do justice to the sheer scale of this place. Imagine cliffs as tall and steep as those of the Grand Canyon, but dropping to an ocean. Now imagine a crater as large as Baltimore, and then fill it with seawater. Think about that, imagine being able to drive out to the mountain cliffs of Fells point, and from there being able to see across the sea to the mountain cliffs of Pimlico Park. Oh and the sunsets here are famous for a reason. Our hotel is built right into the side of the caldera cliffs like some modern version of an ancient Hopi village. Apparently the current residents kept the architectural traditions of the ancient Minoans going. It made me wonder if the Hopi had not been mostly wiped out by the whiteys if they too would be carving 5-star hotels into the sides of the Grand Canyon for visiting Seminole tourists.

Anyway, Chris and I decided that today was going to be a day of fun in the sun at the beach, just lazing around. I spent most of that time under the umbrella of course, but for a while I did lay out into the sun and attempted to get a light burn. I managed to accomplish my goal (a light pink which quickly faded to off-white, as opposed to my normal freckled alabaster), but it seems I am among the 10% of those who experience the doxycycline side effect of photosensitivity. It was a remarkable feeling actually, everywhere the sun touched my body felt like someone had just rubbed fresh Ben-Gay on my skin, like fire but less dramatic. It wasn't so much uncomfortable or painful as it was just intensely, distractingly, odd. Speaking of Lyme disease, I think I am going to live. My angry rash seems in rapid retreat and the antibiotic isn't too bad on my system.

Other random bits I haven't mentioned in previous posts:

The SCUBA diving in Mykonos was a disappointment honestly. The water is cold enough to require a wetsuit (which isn't a downside really). The water is clear as crystal and 100-150 foot visibility was the norm for the day. However, I expect that all this great visibility is due in large part to a severe lack of nutrients in the water, which of course prevents things from growing, which in turn obviates the existence of any large, diverse, or interesting aquatic animals. All I saw were some big schools of minnows, a handful of some weird spiny worms, and a little bit of an octopus. The octopus would have been the highlight except for the fact that he was doing a very good job of hiding himself, so I only saw a flash of tentacle and beak. What a tease. Judging by the size of his tentacle and suckers, I'm guessing his head was about half the size of mine.

All the most popular beaches in Mykonos have adjoining clubs. Literally. It just goes straight from sand to dance floor to bar. At around 5 pm, the DJ starts up and if you happened to have been sleeping on the beach, too damn bad, its time to dance fucker. I actually really thought this was cool as hell. Unfortunately, they play mostly shitty diva house, but some of it was tolerable enough for me to want to go on a Friday or Saturday night when the shit is really hopping so I might get to see how all those topless sunbathing chicks dance at night. *note to my wife: you are the hottest dancing chick I have seen topless and you know it*

Athens is a very cosmopolitan kind of city. Like New York or LA, everyone is beautiful and young, or selling something to them. The room we had stayed in was postage stamp sized and yet was considered "top shelf" and expensive. For the same amount of money we are living like kings in the islands, although our bed in our room here in Santorini is hard as a rock and in Mykonos, the bed was actually two singles pushed together. The same was true with our room in Athens and at one point we started to think this was some strange Greek-Orthodox cultural thing. Alas no, it is just a Greece thing I think.

Lessee, what else? I can say I have finally settled into my vacation stride. I know when I start to forget I even have a job.

Opa!

Lyme Disease!

..wait, what? Yes you heard right, today's post is not about a new Greek island, but instead it is about Lyme disease! It turns out, I have it! About two weeks ago, Chris and I were tromping around Liberty reservoir. About two days later we both noticed each of us had a tiny tick on our bodies. Chris is fine, but now two weeks later, I've got a really angry rash, of the typical sort for Lyme disease, and the center of it correlates exactly with where that tick had bitten me. So I managed to find a local private clinic dermatologist and got a prescription for doxycylcline, which I am now taking, enthusiastically. So, needless to say I am totally freaked out, having met more than a few people now who have been diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease. I've caught it early, so I hope to hell I will be among "most cases of Lyme disease [in which] symptoms can be eliminated with antibiotics". Wish me luck.

Opa?

Mykonos!

Chris and I left Athens two days ago for the island of Mykonos. Today has been our first real day out in the island exploring. We arrived here about 3 pm yesterday and ended up just taking a nap until about 7, after which we got dinner. Somehow dinner transformed into the two of us indulging in a late-night bender, courtesy of the Skandanavian bar. After dragging ourselves out of bed at the crack of noon today, we rented a Smart Car, and immediately took it out to some of the island's southern beaches, just to see what the place looks like. Driving around in this car was fucking hilarious. There's basically nothing to it, so it feels alot like a clown car, like to you could reasonably pick it up and store it in your closet at home. We have some good pics featuring the Smart car which we'll share. Anyway, I found a shop at which to book a SCUBA dive tomorrow, so while I'm doing that, Chris will probably be sunning herself at Paradise beach, which has a really awesome open-air adjoining club. I expect we'll end up there tomorrow night. Tonight we'll try to get to bed early so we can be more sporting at an early hour tomorrow.

Opa!

Greece!

Well here I am in Greece, so now I can say that my wife finally let me do her "Greek style". We've taken a ton of pictures (of Athens, not of us doing it) but won't be able to upload and post any until we get back of course. Sights seen: the Parthenon and the Erechthieon at the Acropolis and the Haephaisteion and the Stoa of Attalos at the Agora. We haven't figured out what we're doing tomorrow, but after we get some dinner (right after this post), we'll start thinking maybe about a nightclub to go to (if there is any place decent to go on a Thursday night).

Opa!

One last post

...and then I'm off to BWI. Tom recently introduced me to the concept of "Pareto Efficiency" which I do not yet understand but I gather has something to do with economic equlibria. Anyway it has made me wonder to myself if some clever mathematicians can link the math of Pareto Efficiancy to the math I normally use when considering equilibria, namely, the Michaelis-Menten equation. I expect there is little or no relationship at all, but still I'd like ot understand the Pareto end well enough to compare it and say why or why not. A little porject for when I get back maybe.

Where does culture come from?

I just finished writing a long comment in defense of a poorly-thought out throw-away line I had written in another comment on Jackie's blog. I don't want to revisit that too much but it got me thinking. Where do you think culture comes from most directly? It is a tough question because "culture" itself will need to be defined in any answer. I suggested that cut lure is a natural, extrinsic property of our biology, along the lines of what the evolutionary psychologists have been speculating. It is a purely hypothetical topic because I don't think any hypothesis or opinion on it is falsifiable (there never can be a control group for humanity). I have a few weak pieces of evidence that seem to suggest to me that culture (especially as it relates to issues of gender relations) is directly sourced in biology. I feel similarly about tool use and other basic behaviors. However I could easily be swayed by arguments that suggest culture is an ever evolving creation of humanity (like a house or a city or a non-profit organization) made with conceptual tools, and that participating in and influencing culture itself is not akin to using tools to build the house, city, or NPO.

Of course this gets a little bit into the meaning of "natural" too. Another word I've always had trouble with. Love and Rockets once sang a song with the following lyric, "You cannot go against nature, because when you do go against nature, it is a part of nature too". Calling something "natural" is to imply that it has not been interfered with by humans. This word and its use, by definition presumes that man is somehow an entity entirely divorced from nature, which is obviously absurd. The word "natural" has an absurdist meaning. Man is as much a part of nature as anything else, and every so-called "unnatural" action we may perform is in fact, just another part of the cycle of nature. Humans naturally build tools and use our big brains to do all kinds of things never seen before in nature. Army ants use their awesome powers of consumption to do things never before seen in nature before too (in their own way). It is the most wild act of anthropocentrism in my mind to suggest that the impact of achievements of humanity (subjectively good or bad) are somehow more or less significant than the changes wrought by any other creature on their particular environment. Everything needs to make changes to it's environment to survive, and all of it is natural.

Now I understand that this is mostly a philosophical point, but I just wanted to express it to perhaps better inform you on the root of my opinion that the origin of culture is biological. But maybe it isn't? For some reason I can't quite connect, but suspect is relevant is an observation I once heard was made by Carl Sagan. The observation was that there are essentially only three physical information storage media that exist in the world. The first is DNA, the second is the mind, and the third is a computer hard disk. The first information storage device encoded the creation if the second, and the second encoded the creation of the third. What kind of unimaginable information storage device will be encoded into existence by the computer? It makes me wonder if the Internet itself could be considered a new kind of mind? A very lonely mind. Wow, that was poetic and all but boy was it tangential. Sorry about that.

Unfortunately, since I won't be around to write any rebuttals to any comments I may get, feel free to assume I have answered in a certain way, just to keep the conversation going. ;)

Bedtime for me now.

Going Away Soon

Chris and I leave for Greece for two weeks starting this coming Tuesday. I imagine that posting will be light during that time, but hopefullly I'll make it to a net cafe once or twice to share some missives.

Falling down the depth of character

Its funny. One simple foray away from the usual shallow and vapid posts and I start drumming up comments and responses. Maybe I'll go in a different direction with this blog. Admittedly, as a corporate man, I'm a little afraid to be too open about things, particularly when I'm just testing ideas. It is the sort of concern that makes tenure track jobs more attractive despite the shitty pay.

Feminism and equality v identity

I've been posting comments over at my friend Jackie's blog in an attempt to get her to answer some questions I have about feminism, particularly in how it values gender roles in modern western society. I think she is more qualified to answer the question than anyone else I know, I only hope she doesn't charge me tuition. Every once in a while I get locked into a subject I want to know more about, particularly in the face of insufficient Google-ability.

While I don't know where our conversation may be headed (other than to a end in short time), I do know that for me, it is part of a larger internal dialog. I've been thinking of subjects and themes I might be able to use in some fictional story I'd like to write. In particular, every good story has to have a defining conflict and certain archetypal characters (a la Campbell's studies of Hero Myths, of which I have recently become aware - thanks Gregg). The characters, set, and setting I think will be the easiest parts of my story. I'm having the most trouble with the deeper conflict itself. The surface conflicts are always man v man, man v self, or man v nature, etc. No, I'm talking about the thematic aspect of the conflict, like free will v determinism (Brave New World, 1984, etc.) or truth v beauty (Frankenstein, Romeo and Juliet, etc.). I've been trying to think of other "great" philosophical conflicts that might exist. I had been thinking that "freedom v security" might fit until I started to realize that that is really the same as free will v determinism. The latest one I've been trying to reduce to its elemental bits is what I've so far been calling "equality v identity".

If you've followed me so far, lucky you, because I expect I might be getting abstract to the point of incomprehensible, but if not, try and bear with me. The conflict of equality v identity is most easily represented in my mind in the western systems of government and economy. The most fundamental underlying principle of our government is that "all men are created equal" and this manifests in our system of "one vote per person" (sorta, if you ignore the electoral college). Our economy is based on an exactly contrary fundamental notion that people should be free to make the most of themselves, "the cream shall rise to the top", etc. Capitalism itself is based on inequality. I think people feel happiest when these two opposing concepts are balanced and in perpetual battle with each. A country that becomes too capitalist has no middle class, and is essentially fascist. A country that becomes too equal has only one class, the perfect communist dystopian paradise, where no one is allowed to achieve any more than anyone else. So, it seems the best results are obtained in the balance between equality and identity. This is similar again to the balanced conflict between free will and determinism, that is, fully determined lives are suicidally boring, and fully undetermined, ie: "100% free" lives are too unpredictable to be sustainable (if you can't at least predict the sun will rise in the morning, it will be hard to live etc.). But back to equality v identity, the debate I'm having now is if "identity" is really the right word to describe the concept I'm after to describe this conflict. I feel like "achievement" isn't fundamental enough, because it goes deeper than that, achievement is tied to ego, and ego to identity. I'm open to sugestion if you're grokking all this.

Anyway, the tie in to feminism is the notion that culturally-defined gender roles (or cultural gender identities) are intrinsically bad. I don't know if that is true or not, but if so, it makes me wonder what ways of identifying oneself are ever good? I've heard arguments against nationalism, religiosity, provincialism, race-pride, etc. But don't most people agree that we should celebrate our differences too? And if so, how specifically? Are such differences only appropriately celebrated on the individual level? Is it always bad once these differences are celebrated on the group level? How can we ignore the most obvious differences between us (like gender)? It makes me wonder if pretending such differences don't exist might be as evil and extreme as pretending that they are the only things that matter, thus my "new" philosophical conflict - equality v identity. Would an uber-feminist that considers any gender-identity to be a bad thing be a convincing fictional villain? (probably not). Such a villain could be good in the sense that, like all villains, it would be easy to see how her motivations were pure, but how the execution of her principles could be evil. A redneck racist would make a more convincing but equivalent villain, but also boring and not new. I think I'm headed in the right direction anyway.

I haven't re-read this post, so I apologize if it is full of grammar issues. I'll proof it tonight after work.

Swamp Thing

Know what? Having a "Friday Action Figure" once a week is just too much for me to handle. I had originally hoped that it would motivate me to post more (and it has), but I'd really have to step it way more to make the Friday post stand out from the normal stream of posts. I just don't have that kind of time. So, with that said I think I'm going to cut this back to the "Sporadic Friday Action Figure".

Right.

Now if I had done a "Friday Action Figure" yesterday, it would have probably been "Swamp Thing" because I spent my entire day yesterday learning how to collect field samples of algae. Which for me was quite cool. It is almost pathetic that I could have spent the last 8 years as an "algal molecular biologist" never having actually isolated an alga from the wild. So as you can guess, this was a big deal for me. I'll have to go into lab later today to see if anything has grown up early.

Athiest Speciation Test

You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future. Scientific Atheist 100% Spiritual Atheist 42% Agnostic 33% Apathetic Atheist 33% Militant Atheist 17% Theist 8% Angry Atheist 0% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

News Flash

Some of you may remember that my company recently had asked me and my group to re-locate to our facility in Boulder, CO. Well, after a change in senior management, that proposal has been taken off the table. So, you all will have to continue to tolerate my being around for at least the forseeable future.

Belated Friday Action Figure

Spiderman 3 sucked ass. If you went into the movie knowing nothing about the Spiderman story, or about the origin of Sandman and especially Venom, you might think it was a fun and entertaining flick. After all, they are making a pile of money from it. However, as a long-time Spiderman fan, I was pissed. I would have been happy with the movie if they just introduced Sandman, and left it simple at that. I would have also been OK if they did a "fast-forward" episode, where most of Spiderman's enemies have already developed, and the movie then focuses on some big battle (perhaps even as the first installment of the "Secret Wars" story, leading up to the later introduction of Venom). But what they did instead was to mash together the origin of two of Spiderman's foe's, one of the very first and one of the very last, into a story line that makes no fucking sense at all. Twelve-trillion thumbs down. I hated this movie so much I am in a major thumb deficit. I will need to borrow thumbs from some of you people. I will need to hire the world's best economists to ward off spiraling thumb-flation.

Cayman Islands

Before I spent three days turkey hunting, Chris and I were in the Cayman Islands attending her sister Lisa's wedding. Lisa had managed to talk a fairly large chunk of the extended family into making the trip down there. Despite the expense, it seemed that everyone really enjoyed themselves and had fun catching up. Not having the history with these people that Chris did I felt a little bit like an outsider, but that's to be expected, I just went to bed early on the big night (and got teased the morning after for "passing out" from drinking too much, which I preferred to rudely confessing I was just bored out of my mind).

Anyway, the Caymans are supposed to be the third best SCUBA-diving site in the world (second to the Galapagos Islands and Morehead City, NC). Since I've been to the Galapagos and a number of others exotic sites, I felt it my duty to verify the claim. Not having been to Morehead City (yet) I would generally have to agree. The Galapagos is still by far the best diving I've ever done. The Caymans will be a close second with the Florida keys (specifically the wreck of the USCG Duane) and Maui following close behind.

The coolest thing about the Caymans was the diversity of wildlife to be seen. This was the same thing that made the Galapagos attractive actually, but the wildlife there is just plain cooler. For every school of barracuda you might see in the Caymans, there's a school of hammerheads in the Galapagos. For every giant grouper in the Caymans, there's a giant whaleshark in the Galapagos. Anyway, the Caymans is still great. I saw a bunch of trumpetfish, angelfish, parrotfish, pufferfish (which simply refused to bloat no matter how much I chased them), a medium-sized squid, many colorful corals (which at one site were large enough to form caves, thus the site was called "Trinity Caves"). Lastly, I saw this odd fellow who was normally camouflaged with the ocean floor until approached, after which he would pulsate with these awesome cobalt-blue rings you can see in the photo. Amazing stuff.

Don't Be a Turkey

Or else I might kill you and eat you.



As you may have guessed, I went turkey hunting over the past three days. It shouldn't have been as difficult as it was to talk myself into paying for a guide, because I know for a fact I would have never been able to nab a turkey on my own for a variety of reasons (primary among which was that I have never been turkey hunting). In any case, I am so glad I did finally talk myself into it. So let me recommend the fine outfitting services of Joe Austin of Delmarva Outdoor Adventure.

It was the best "class" I ever took and I can't wait to give this a shot on my own sometime. The season ends May 23rd so I expect I won't get the opportunity to try until next season (or perhaps during the short fall season). For now though, I'll just keep thinking about how this was easily the most fun thing I've ever done which required me to wake up before 4:30 AM.

The coming weeks

This summer is turning out to be a busy one. Chris and I will be away at her sister's wedding in the Caymans this coming Friday through Monday, then on Tuesday through Thursday, I'll be tukey hunting. So there will be a decline in posting. That said, I've decided to give you Friday's Action Figure a little early. I bring you, Leonardo of the The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.



It is at this point I would like to remind my fair readers that I am a 35 year old man. I am aware that most adults with a fondness for TMNT came to them via the animated cartoon series, which by most accounts aired at a period of time which would make most adult TMNT fans less than 30 years old. I however was a true leader in the feild of uber-geek fandom. You see, the animated cartoon was actually based on a poorly circulated, black and white comic book, distributed by what was then the flegdling company, Image comics, which would later grow to become the next biggest comic book outfit ever (after Marvel and DC). When I was 15 or so, I began to see value in collecting comic books, and so I did. I specificlaly only went after comic books that I thought were truly entertaining, but which also sold poorly. The comic-book version of TMNT was funny but also graphicly violent. The turtles themselves were believably bad-ass, unlike the vanilla shit-tarts they were presented as in the animated cartoon. You see, for the original creators, the whole joke was to make some characters who were more bad-ass and bloody than the reservoir dogs, but have them be some ridiculous animal. The joke worked on me. So, to this day I still have original, never-opened, first print editions of TMNT comics 1-10 as well as several of the spin-offs made along the way at that time. I rule.

Games

A while ago Chris and I were hanging out with some folks that liked to play board and card games. I actually really enjoyed the gaming, but I have to say that all but one of these folks were a little hard to take. I'd like to try and get something like that going again, and if so, I totally want to try out this game, where the object is to guess the use of some real, patented invention just from the diagram of the invention as detailed in the patent. I had heard of this game before, but a co-worker reminded me of it last night when he told a story about playing it.

And oh ya, I had some long thoughts on "Justice" that I think I'll try and post soon. I'm hoping this note will act as a reminder.

Idiocracy: for real for real

I first put the movie "Idiocracy" into my Netflix queue way back in September. Less than four weeks later, my friends all get back to me and start asking me what I thought of it. I'm all like, "Idiocracy, that's sounds familiar, why do you think I've seen it?" cuz like, I hadn't. Then I get all this heat about how I was the one who made such a big deal out of it they all put it right to the tippity top of there Netflix queue on my recommendation. For the record, I only recommended that ya'll add it to your queue, I said nothing about putting it to the top. For those of us with big queues (genetics) it apparently takes 7 months to see a movie that has been added, and that was even with some finagling to put it ahead in the line.

Anyway, I've finally seen it now, and it made me remember why the hell I was so excited to see it. It was awesome and even more entertaining than I expected. So, Joe, I seem to remember you saying you liked it too. And Spike you didn't like it? Anyway, I'm ready to have that conversation now, if anyone is still interested.

Friday Action Figure: Boba Fett

Boba Fett.

Allow me to explain myself. I had a number of converging thoughts that all eventually polymerized into today's post. These thoughts were, in no specific order, i) I should post more often. I know, I say and think this alot, but it never gets less true despite how few posts I may actually write. Writing is good for me after all, and a post doesn't take long. ii) I admire the posting frequency of one of my favorite blogs, Pharyngula, where the author has a "Friday Cephalopod" posting every week. iii) I didn't communicate it to anyone at the time, but the results of a recent "determine which Star Wars character you are" test had nearly-mystical significance for me. You see, all through elementary school, when teachers would inevitably ask us who our heros were, I would always answer, "Boba Fett". Boba Fett wasn't the first action figure I ever owned, however he was the first one I ever wanted. The first four action figures I whined my mother into buying for me were only precursors to my ultimate goal, and that was to collect the UPCs needed to get Boba.

So with that, I bring you something I hope to be a new series, a regular weekly offering, the "Friday Action Figure".

As an afterthought, I'm tempted to get deeper into a self-analysis on this Boba Fett issue (that is, why I chose a villain as my most admired hero, or why I never reported either of my parents as my heros) but that might break my rule about only discussing the most vapid and shallow topics in this space. Whatever, to this day I still regard Boba Fett at least as a fond memory of childhood and deep-down I think I still pretend the character is a role model even though in reality I know my own principles are rather divergent from Boba's. Just now while writing this I've starting thinking , "gee, maybe it would be fun to start collecting the Boba Fett comic books".

A Cry for Help

It is Friday night and Chris is sadly again, out performing "Into the Woods" while I am left twiddling my thumbs wondering what to do with myself. I've written a few outlines for some stories I'd like to write so that might be a keen project. At the moment I'm amusing myself by typing this on my laptop from my hammock in the back yard while I soak in the fresh air of nature, all the while tethered to civilization via the ephemeral tendrils of 802.11g. However no matter what I can't really escape this feeling like I'd really rather be socializing on a weekend night. You know, like people do. So, at least until Chris is free to be me lovely companion on these weekeends again, would one of you all please for mercy's sake invite me out to dinner at your place or soemthing? I know I really ought to be more proactive about this and plan ahead, but for some reason I just haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet (and I am out of practice). Somehow I just alwast forget, week after week, that I'll be quite this bored come Friday night.

Man, have I been writing some great blog material lately or what? Don't you just love to hear me whine and moan like like a wet violin?

Star Wars Personality Test

Friday the 13th

I don't have anything to post that is particularly scary or bad-lucky as would be appropriate for this day. But then again, I'm only superstitious when it is convenient or fun so I think I'll just treat this like it were any other day.

So with that said, here's the new TV show I would like to host some day soon.




Happy Friday the 13th!

Into the Woods

Chris had her opening night performance of "Into the Woods" last Friday. Despite the blinding jabs of pain every deep breath would deliver, I soldiered on and attended anyway. She did a great job. My wife has the prettiest voice in the world. Seeing her perform makes all these lonely nights lately worth it. I'm also happy because I enjoy tradition, and thus far I have never missed one of my wife's opening nights. So, to any of you who read this blog but haven't yet picked a date to see Chris as Cinderella, send one of us an email to get reservation info.

Celebrating

So, a few of my work buddies decided to take me out to celebrate my recent successful thesis defense. It was just supposed to be a normal old happy hour at my favorite bar in town and then an early night to bed. Its funny how things can change though. I ended up finishing the night with three lap-dances, two brawls, and one cracked rib. Good times.

Stuff and Things

I can't say that I have anything particularly interesting to write about at the moment, but fortunately that's exactly how I want it to be right now. I finished the last of my edits on my thesis, and they were approved by my internal examiner. Now I just need to print the pages and ship them off to him and that's it. After that I basically sit back and wait for a package from the University with my diploma in it. I may go the extra mile and get a copy of my thesis printed for myself as well, but that is strictly for my own amusement. It is getting to be that time of year when I start thinking about spring cleaning and renovations and lawncare. Unfortunately, Chris has been around nights lately because she's currently busy with a solid week of dress rehearsals before her big opening of "Into the Woods" this weekend. I'm excited fo rher show but really lonely in the house. I've finished my thesis and haven't yet picked up a hobby or other distraction, so I've been spending my nights kinda just twiddling my thumbs all by myself.

I grew up an only child and I used to be really happy with being all by myself. I'm sure I lost that skill after a decade of living with my wife but even still, I'm surprised by my current boredom and loneliness. Ack, I sound so pathetic going on like this. Somebody invite me over for a game of chess or something just to shut me up!

Dr. Casey, Ph. D.

I just finished, and my viva (British word for thesis defense) was successful. My thesis committee will recommend that the Trustees of the University of Hull grant me a Ph. D.

Sweet, eh?

Smarty Pants

Perhaps instead of defending my thesis next week, I can simply show my committee this blog post.





If you choose to take this test yourself, don't cheat!

things and stuff

Hey check it out. I beat Civilization III on "Emperor" level finally. I did it as Tokugawa with my new favorite Civilization, Japan. I'll tell you what, having a ton of Samurais maurading around early in the game is a real advantage. India never knew what hit them and Germany thought they had me pinned down, right up until I captured thier only sources of horses and oil. I don't care how many technological advances you've made Bismarck, if you aint got oil or horses, you can't move around.

Also, if I hadn't mentioned it before, I defend my thesis on March 13th, and I'll be in the UK that entire week. Now that my campaign with Civilization is over, I think I need to start brushing up on algal fatty acid metabolism again.

Clearing the Backlog - Part 2.

Between my last post and this one, I tried playing Civilization III on "Emperor" level as I recently managed to beat the game on the next lowest level, "Monarch". I think I just have to resign myself to being happy as a Monarch, cuz that Emperor shit is impossible. Maybe one of these days I'll get Civilization IV.

Anyway, I thought that I might get Part 2 done and maybe that will be the end of the backlog. Some of you may remember that really warm weekend we had here in the mid-Atlantic last month, maybe the second week of January? Anyway, my wife and her friend Jen managed to rouse their lazy significant others (me and Tom) up for a really nice bike ride along the paths winding out of central DC to Old Town Alexandria over the Potomac. I couldn't believe how warm it was that day, it felt like any other day in the spring (definitely not winter). Along the way we decided that this day would be the day that we started our awesome hipster bike gang. Chris dressed in some electric blue dress with a matching tiara and Jen had a devil's tail poking out of her waistband and some clip-on horns. Many heads were turned along the bike path.


Chris, Casey, Jen, Tom - the bike gang

The three of them each had decent bikes. I on the other hand had a real heavy POS I picked up for $75 from Toys 'R' Us, with knobby dirt tires. Needless to say I had to work pretty damn hard to keep up with everybody. Thank goodness Tom agreed to take the Metro back with me to DC from Old Town, because I'm certain I wouldn't have made it.



Okay on to the next topic.

In a previous post I made brief mention of Christmas without actually saying anything. So, just so you know, Chris and I spent the holiday at Chris' folks house in Long Island (as we do every year). It was nice and relaxing (as it is every year) and Ollie came with us to keep us walking around. I ate alot, gained some weight, and picked up some nice loot. The best of which was a new cookware set to replace our old shit, particularly the frying pans.


Guess which ones are old and which are new...

The interesting part of the trip for me though was the half day we spent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the day before and after Christmas (we did one floor one day and the other floor the next). I had never been to this museum before and was therefore totally unprepared for all the amazingly cool shit there was to see. I only have a very small sample of the pix we took up on the old Flickr photo dump. I thought I should leave you with at least one thing to look at though. So here's a picture of a goofy looking Japanese Emperor. Maybe he just beat Civilization III.

Clearing the Backlog - Part 1.

I have all these old topics littering my brain, which I had meant to blog about as long as 6 weeks ago. The reason I haven't blogged them before is because they are all photo-associated and I got lazy about uploading the pix from my camera, to the puter and then to Flickr. I don't want them to get too stale so I've decided to just blast them all out now in one big push, akin to my adventure on the side of I-270 the other day.

So here we go, in reverse chronological order:

Last weekend was fairly awesome for me. Somehow I had this huge surge of energy, which I parlayed into finishing several old projects I had lying around the house for a year or more now. The first of which was the installation of a nice display shelf for all of my radioactive Fiestaware.



If you were to Google "radioactive Fiestaware" you might find a link to Cecil Adams' "Straight Dope" column on the subject. Mr. Adams is usually right about most things but you shouldn't consider the guy the last word on anything. In particular he states that, "The actual amount of radioactivity [of the red Fiestaware] is extremely low--less than the normal background radiation you get from rocks and stuff." which is 100% unqualified bullshit. I would show you a picture of my Geiger counter pegged out when the probe is next to one of these Fiestaware dishes, but that's a little bit of show and tell I prefer to save for real life. So if you don't believe me, stop over for a visit some time.

Anyway, my second big project I finished last Saturday was this fish tank. Which I set up on the bookshelf just below the Fiestaware.



It is currently populated with three Danio Zebrafish, which are essentially the cheapest fish you can buy. My thinking here is that if I turn out to be a horrible fish-dad, their demise won't hit the wallet too hard and I can try again, hopefully the wiser. I have kept the fuckers alive for a week now, so I think I'm doing OK. These guys are a ton of fun to watch. I'm going to give it three months before I try to upgrade. And by "upgrade" I'm referring to an ulterior motive I have in setting up this fish tank, but I won't reveal that until I've already executed the plan (and no, it doesn't have anything to do with the nearby Fiestaware).

Alright. I think that's enough for now, maybe I'll blather out the rest later today or tomorrow.

Craigslist rules

I sold some stuff on Craigslist last week. I've only sold stuff on eBay before this, so giving Craigslist a run seemed like a good experiment. What I've learned - Craigslist is awesome if you just want to sell something fast. I did, so it worked out nicely when I got about 20 inquiries regarding my ad. I got what I asked for (100$) and the stuff was gone within 48 hours of posting. Capitalism can be so satisfying. The experience made me want to scour my house for other shit to sell.

Somebody won the Superbowl!

...but I have to admit, that this year, I hardly cared who. Thanks to everyone who came by to watch the Superbowl. It was fun having everyone over and I hope you all had fun too. I will say this though, next time I throw a superbowl party, I will have to make a rule, No Chatting in the room with the big TV! It became difficult to get into the game because I couldn't hear any of it! I must admit though, I'm not sure what the "causality" was - whether people were chatting because few cared about the game, or whether people didn't care about the game as much because of all the chatting. In any case, I apologize to anyone who came by really hoping to focus on the game itself. I hope the social scene made it worth it and you still had tons of fun watching the antics of the tots and the dog and Molly's spectacular demonstration of strength.

Last Weekend

Last weekend I

-Went to the DC Auto Show
-Had to take a shit on the side of I-270, where I found what I thought were the remains of a human elbow
-Saw Pan's Labyrinth and was surprised to find the movie is in Spanish with English subtitles.

Chilly

Yesterday morning I woke up to find the house at a crisp 55 degrees. Worried that my furnace was broken, I fooled around with the thermostat a little bit (turning it on and off basically), and the furnace fired right up, no problem. I came home last night after work and the house was a normal 70-ish degrees. Well, this morning we are back down to 58 degrees at the moment and no matter what I do to the thermostat, the furnace refuses to activate. There's a little red light on the furnace I've never noticed before which blinks red whenever I have the thermostat set to heat. Its blinking now. hmph.

Anyway, I've made the necessary call to a 24-hour furnace shop and they said they'll be sending somebody by this morning. Wish me luck. In a way this is kinda convenient because I have a new couch scheduled for delivery this morning as well. it will be busy around the old Racegate today.

Thesis update

So fucking close. My thesis has been done and ready for submission since January 1, but I haven't submitted it yet for a variety of trivial reasons. First, one of my examiners seems to have lost some paperwork, which had to be re-filed and only just got re-filed yesterday. I was on the verge of shipping my thesis off but I smartly called the graduate school just to double-check that I had all the materials I needed. It turns out I can't pay the filing fee by credit card, only cash or check, and if by check, then it has to be from an institution that can issue payment in British pounds. So I figured out a way to get that done, but I won't have that check in my hand until Tuesday. So on Tuesday, barring any other barriers, I will ship off my thesis, schedule a date for my viva voce (latin term for a thesis defense), fly to England on that date (before March 31), and then if I successfully defend my thesis, I will file some more papers, and get a PhD diploma shortly thereafter.

Wish me luck.

Pr0n

I went to the local dog park Sunday morning with Ollie, so that he could get some play time in and not feel so neglected later in the day when I would be planted to the couch watching the wild-card playoff games. The dog park is located off of a fairly rural road and along the way, I spotted a magazine that had been discarded. I only had to glimpse its glossy, full-color pages to recognize it as some kind of porn mag. Amused, I pulled over and got out my car to pick it up. As I approached I realized I was right about it being a porn mag. As a nice bonus, it turned out to be one of the more raunchy brands, the current issue of "High Society".

My first thought was "Score!" And then I immediately realized how silly this was considering I could just buy my very own new copy whenever I liked. I was still pretty amused at this whole event though. It recalled those special few times when I found some porno mags discarded in the woods when I was 16 or 15. Such a find was like gold and those instincts are hard to break. Being reminded of those days made me feel a little bit like I was 15 or 16 again, so what the hell, I picked the mag up.

It was in decent shape, it hadn't been rained on and had only just been rolled up so the pages weren't even bent or creased. I imagine that some teenagers had bought it the previous night (or stolen it from their Dad's stash) while they were out cruising, or maybe on their way to a party or something. At some point one of them decided to throw the mag out the window for some reason (oh the shame!). A quick flip through the pages impressed me. It is easy to forget that the free internet porn (NSFW!) I am most familiar with *ahem* is much lower quality stuff than what you can buy.

Anyway, Later that night during the Giants - Eagles game I remembered that I had this copy of "High Society", so I mentioned it to Chris. "Hey honey, guess what I what I found on the side of the road on the way to the dog park?"

I don't need to finish the rest of that conversation. Let's just leave it at this - "Score!"