July 03, 2008
FSP talks about the ways in which scientists are - and are not - like rock stars. I've thought about this before, but more in terms of the similarities in being on stage and being public personalities. When I first...
June 15, 2008
Why would anyone need or want to smoke a cigar at 7:30 am?...
June 09, 2008
I haz dem. Seriously, it's like 90 inside and that's cool compared to the outside. The furbots are draped over anything not upholstered, and rotate themselves to cooler spots periodically....
June 05, 2008
Nothing I hear later today is going to top this (which I just heard said about 20 feet away). I think the guy's point was that senators haven't made successful presidents, but what he actually said was:There have only been...
May 21, 2008
Just stop it. I'm sure I'm not the first to make this point, but would someone remind the national news that Sen. Kennedy is not dead? All these premature obituaries that are being run are just morbid. He's ill, but...
May 03, 2008
One of my favorite cool things vanished from the web, but on a lark I searched again and found it: organic html. It's back in the blogroll under diversions. By the way, just playing with different sites, the one that...
May 01, 2008
I officially name that Armand's word of the day. Yes, this is a truly random thought....
April 30, 2008
Personally, this makes me happy.On a more serious campaign note, what's with the Democratic candidates facing their enemies and/or hacktacular assholes this week? Barack Obama went on Fox News and was interviewed by Chris Wallace last weekend. Hillary Clinton is...
April 25, 2008
So this isn't related to anything in particular. But I just thought I'd share that my love for Becki Newton's Amanda on Ugly Betty increases by the day. If there's someone working on tv today who does a better line...
April 22, 2008
Chili chocolate gelato made me feel a lot better - maybe it'd work for you too....
April 19, 2008
Just back in town after a couple of days away... So, you think George Bush is an asshole, eh? Via PZ. Disney characters reimagined. Ahem....
April 13, 2008
Everything you ever thought to ask about the causal relationship between red shirts and death on Star Trek. Via Kottke. Warms my geeky little sci-fi loving stats crunching heart, it does....
April 12, 2008
Via Sully, some carved crayons. Coolness....
April 11, 2008
We have the most awesome postal worker. I think sometimes that my dogs love him more than they love me, because every time he visits, every time they see him, he brings treats. So, they have developed this habit of...
April 05, 2008
From a comment thread discussion about NG subscribers: NG has a lot of features that attract compulsive hoarders. They are pretty. They carry some status. You can spend time sorting and displaying them. [whistles a happy tune and keeps moving]...
Warning, whiny rant ahead. This time of year is the hardest to be involved in academics, whether on the consumer or provider side of things. The earth is burgeoning, bursting with color, the weather is warming, the days are getting...
April 02, 2008
First the complaints. Recently, our fine institution revamped its websites, from the main page to the libraries to the directory search function. Guess what? Functionality to the toilet. I should never have complained before about the online databases automatically logging...
March 23, 2008
I know everyone else means about the Iraq war, but I just have to confess, especially to Armand, that I was terribly wrong about Buffy being "teh suck."...
March 21, 2008
Not that I am opposed to catching criminals, but I find it awfully interesting that suddenly Morgantown is a hotbed of federal investigation into two criminal rings, one for drugs and another for prostitution....
March 09, 2008
No surprise here, but the Bush administration ignored lots of warnings about Bin Laden, and a new book has the details. So those missing emails from the White House? Yeah. Your choices are deliberate or incompetent, and an expert in...
February 29, 2008
Sully asks which of two ads is more offensive, linking to a criticism of a PETA ad and to a criticism of an anti-smoking ad. The latter calls the ad out as poor taste because it evokes 9/11. Looks to...
February 28, 2008
"I'm trying to figure out what part of this Univesity isn't run by idiots."...
February 27, 2008
...because thinking about Myron has me in the mood. Stalin? Are you lurking? Because the first video is just for you....
February 20, 2008
Because I am home sick, reading mindless blogs about fancy clothes and award shows and what not, I just noticed that this (taken this week at the Designers' Guild Awards) sure looks a hell of a lot like this (photoshopped...
February 08, 2008
This will be somewhat obscure, 'cause I don't want this to be public (this will make sense; just read on).I've been invited to have dinner with a gentleman being inducted to this august University's Alumni Hall of Fame (or whatever...
January 29, 2008
I just realized that Endymion will be rolling the same night the Super Bowl will be played. Either Mardi Gras is way too early, or the NFL season has dragged on too long....
January 21, 2008
The mainstream media does a terrible job reporting on science. How about reporting on control variables or the limits of correlation, for example? Norbiz says it's for real this time. Say it isn't so! "Six feels like zero" was not...
January 19, 2008
So the latest (that I can keep track of) inane brouhaha stirred up by the Edwards and Clinton campaigns over a comment by Senator Obama had to do with grossly misinterpreting something Obama said about President Reagan. Predictably, it was...
January 16, 2008
January 15, 2008
January 11, 2008
Drive by Truckers, Bar-B-Q sandwiches, sweet tea, cute cafes that play the Soft Bulletin in its entirety, sunshine, vintage shops, record stores and sleeping in. Now that's what I call a college town....
January 02, 2008
I realize I don't pay close attention to the weather, but did people know this was going to happen? I'd say we've already gotten 9 inches (on flat surfaces that need to cool for accumulation - there's a good foot...
January 01, 2008
And if that's not the official name of today, well, it probably should be....
December 18, 2007
December 17, 2007
It won't just be ham, potato salad and sweet tea... There's also Scared of Santa, a South Florida tradition. And while not having anything to do with Florida, this does have fine examples of the kind of stylin' sweaters I'm...
December 14, 2007
For many years, I have been a customer of Working Assets long distance. They have been a wonderful phone company, and I credit them immensely for helping me discover that I had been "slammed" by a pro-life phone company that...
December 11, 2007
You'd think employers would ban them. They can't be good for their health plans (or the health and fitness of their employees). I'm now stuffed with meats and cakes and a cookie and a brownie and ... well, you get...
December 07, 2007
December 06, 2007
The joy of the academic schedule is the "time off" around the holidays. As most of us find, however, breaks aren't really breaks, just breaks from some kinds of work that allow us to get other kinds of work done...
November 27, 2007
...but possibly therapeutic for aggravated commenters. Be sure to try out nuke and the other options. MARS ATTACKS!!! Hat Tip to punchdrunk...
November 26, 2007
... there are a lot of days where this pretty much sums it up for how I feel....
November 24, 2007
On handshaking: Some politicians (I won't name names, but you know who I mean) won't shake Hugo's hand. It's not that Sarkozy thinks Chavez is a great guy or an example of good governance, but that he appreciates that Chavez...
November 07, 2007
But I prefer to think happy thoughts... Confetti, right? Nature's confetti?...
November 03, 2007
My damn cat stole a raw steak off a plate (next to the stove) last night. I first knew something was amiss when I saw him streaking by me (head down from the weight of the steak). I start yelling...
Growing up I was not naturally social. Even today I go to a Renaissance Fair and ......
October 30, 2007
The beauty of ugly, via Neatorama....
October 25, 2007
This probably tells more about me than I should reveal, but when I was a kid, I loved this shit: Yes, even though I think The Rat is evil....
October 18, 2007
I absolutely love this photo....
October 15, 2007
Then don't make your bed. 1.5 million of 'em ... ewww....
October 10, 2007
So I think the Literature award will be announced tomorrow, and the Peace Prize announcement is just days away. Do ya'll really think Al Gore will win it? Are there other possibilities you think are strong candidates? Personally, I think...
October 05, 2007
Deaths from amoebas are in the news, garnering attention because of public health concerns, and their possible relation to climate change. While in the last few years, if anyone had mentioned amoebas to me, I would have thought about intestinal...
October 01, 2007
Leave it to Wonkette to create this term. And sure, she's something of a hottie. Are there any other PMILFs out there? I can't think of any off the top of my head (though the PM of Portugal, Jose Socrates,...
September 30, 2007
Several weeks ago, at the beginning of the semester, there was a story about crime in the campus newspaper. Actually, there were several. One discussed the surge of crime our town experiences when the students come back, pinning the blame...
September 19, 2007
I don't know if it's more of a reflection of what I'm reading, what I'm eating, or how I'm sleeping, but last night I had a dream that Britney Spears moved into the neighborhood, and I called my two-doors-down neighbor...
September 16, 2007
Not that I had anything else to do this afternoon, but I sat out in the glorious sunshine under blue skies and crocheted a sweater for my dog....
September 05, 2007
Guiding us to 24th place nationwide - that was pretty great.And yes, I am still embarrassed by my performance on Academy Awards. By the way, Shaw won in 1938 for Pygmalion....
September 02, 2007
"At the tone the time will be ... " California's decision to drop its audichron service means that there will soon be only one state in the country where you can hear that once familiar service - Nevada. And Nevada's...
August 27, 2007
Clearly, I've been suffering from outrage fatigue and blog burnout. But now this: Puppy Whistle - video powered by Metacafe I am paralyzed with teh cute. It's all over for me....
August 26, 2007
Actually, I usually like spiders. However there is now a brown and black one with striped legs by the basement door - one that looks truly scary....
August 19, 2007
Another summer down. Back to school tomorrow. Less than twelve hours to go, and I'm still hunting for some motivation or something....
August 18, 2007
...nice weather...to dive, to swimming... ...name it, and I go......
August 16, 2007
There's been quite a bit of discussion about whether or not an internal bra is a tool of the patriarchy or not. On the one hand, the pitch seems aimed at conventionally "pretty" people who are concerned about meeting oppressive...
August 08, 2007
...of the totalitarian world....
August 03, 2007
but in case you were wondering, it's 84.4 degrees on my back porch, and 87.6 degrees in my kitchen. Yes, the time stamp is 9:26 pm....
July 25, 2007
Remember the scene when Pippin knocks the skeleton down the hole, and then the drums begin, beating a slow, regular cadence that heralds the imminent doom of the journey through Moria? Every summer, summer begins to end with the sound...
July 12, 2007
Last weekend the blog was silent because I was off in Portland (Oregon) at the annual meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology. It was the first time I'd attended that conference, despite the fact that normally it's held...
July 04, 2007
Last night as I was busily getting tanked packing for my upcoming vacation, I was stunned to hear some boom crackle boomity booms coming from the downtown area. I should have known, given that earlier I had heard copius blowing...
June 27, 2007
1. Laura Bush: We need to get the message to girls everywhere, not just in Africa, that they have a choice, that they can be abstinent and make choices for themselves that keep themselves safe. Laura disregards that safe choices...
June 21, 2007
Via Pandagon, a story in the NYT about freegans: Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from...
June 10, 2007
If you are the kind of person who, like me, refuses to carry a purse, and thus ends up keeping your dee-lee-shous leepy steecky in your pocket which, being the careless kind of person who doesn't carry a purse and...
School's out and everyone is traveling, students are away and kennels are full. This is how I find myself caring for over two hundrend and fifty pounds of extra dog for the next couple of weeks. This ought to be...
May 31, 2007
I now have a Mac. Technically, a MacBook Pro. I'm still trying to figure it out. Apple seems to do everything differently from Microsoft. I hope, in time, this will prove to be "better," not just "different." Thus far, everything...
May 26, 2007
Live it up this weekend, and travel safe, wherever the holiday weekend takes you....
This makes me a little thrilled, and a little ill....
May 19, 2007
It's like having Antiques Road Show at your fingertips. There's this guitar that my mom let me take last year, as I was once again muttering about learning guitar. Of all the instruments - normal and exotic - I play,...
May 18, 2007
In the last couple of months, I have filled out two online surveys of regular blog readers, both part of dissertation projects by political science graduate students at the same university, and both referred by Bitch, PhD. This is a...
May 14, 2007
May 04, 2007
So, I'm at that point in the grading cycle where even despamming Bloodless is a happy diversion, and my brain gets attracted by weird language in the spam trap queue. The one that got me just now was "incest hentai"...
April 30, 2007
Even though it's technically about Katrina: "Tell them we blew it," one disgusted official wrote. But she hedged: "The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I could be persuaded."...