Poppycock and Wormwood

Moving!

2006-06-21T04:03:00.000-04:00

I'm movin' the blog. Tomorrow you'll see a redirect page instead of the blog here. My new space is over on WordPress. It's still under construction, but I gots all my old posts and comments. Also, an incredibly silly new title.

Click on Annie below to go to the new page!

Bad News, Cute News

2006-06-19T11:44:00.000-04:00

OK. I'm going to balance out today's unbearably bad news with two unbearably cute things I also saw today.

Bad News:

Horrible wildfires have been hitting near my soon-to-be new home as well as the rest of the pitiful amount of forest this country still has. "Wildfires have burned more than 2.9 million acres nationwide this year, well ahead of the average of about 900,000 acres by this time of year."

Oh, and Siberian permafrost is about to release an ungodly amount of carbon emissions. Yay, global warming!

Cute News:

MMMM, crocheted spaghetti and meatballs, eggplants, and salad to wear. Also see Twinkie's eggs and bacon scarf at Whip-Up.

The Hobbibot 2006 will finish your knitting for you! One of the many damned cute guys on WeeWonderful.

Latest Headline:
30 YEAR OLD WOMAN MANAGES TO STAY ON BIKE WHEN RIDING ACROSS ROUGH SUN-TOASTED GRASS.
Snicks (otherwise known as my momma) lent me her bike and I rode kindof for about half an hour until my brain had completely melted in the 95 degree weather. So, I need more practice. Typical Crotchfester (otherwise known as my hometown, Rochester) weather this week: one 95 high day followed by a week of 60 degrees and rain. Awesome.

MMM, Blogging

2006-06-16T23:38:00.000-04:00

Yes, sorry, my three friends. I haven't been blogging. I've been knitting, or crocheting actually. And gardening. And getting sun-burnt. And drinking a lot of beer and eating many ice creams.

At the end of the month, I'm off to Misery, to visit the family in Joplin and Kansas City. Then to my wonderful new town in a terribly conservative state. I'm trying to figure out how to get residency before the mid-term elections. Yay!

OH. Found out my new town has a great bike/walk trail through the whole 'urban' area. So I may finally learn how to ride a bike! Yay! After that, I'm sure that learning how to drive will be a piece of cake. Yay! Why have I waited 30 years to do this?!

Oh right. I'm lazy.

Linky Goodness

2006-06-06T16:02:00.000-04:00

I keep seeing so many great sites and posts about Al Gore, climate change, alternative fuels and general political outrage. So I'm posting them here should you want to read them too. Many came from the Biomes Blog or Eschaton.

Robert Newman's The History of Oil
Video of a very funny and educational comedy routine at London's Hoxton Hall.

How to Talk to a Skeptic
Nice formulation of responses to the usual questions asked by global warming skeptics for the layman. The comments left by people are also pretty helpful.

How far can you drive on a bushel of corn?
Popular Mechanic's is even discussing alternative fuels in a rational manner... why can't President Haliburton? This is basically a short article laying out the pros and cons of the various alternative fuels being talked about... like Willie Nelson's BioWillie biodiesel.

Expose Exxon's 'Toast the Earth'
Flash movie with a catchy song about ExxonMobil.

Barack Obama's Renewable Fuels Legislation
Description of Obama's new bill to require the development of new fuels by oil companies.

---------------------------------
And now... the Honorable Al Gore:

ABC interview.
I think he's wearing those fabulous boots he wore to the Wired talk here as well. So awesome.

Transcripts of the FreshAir interview.

National Geographic review of An Inconvenient Truth
Review of the science in Al Gore's presentation.. a very favorable review.

Ebert's review of An Inconvenient Truth
Another very favorable review. This time for it's entertainment and production value.

Al Gore on Constitutional Issues
Transcript of a speech from earlier this year where the former VP gives his opinion on the phone tapping business and the defense of the Constitution.

"And it is we the people who must now find once again the ability we once had to play an integral role in saving our Constitution.

And here there is cause for both concern and for great hope. The age of printed pamphlets and political essays has long since been replaced by television, a distracting and absorbing medium which seems determined to entertain itself more than it informs and educates.

Lincoln's memorable call during the Civil War is now applicable in a new way to our present dilemma: "We must disenthrall ourselves," he said, "and then we shall save our country."

Forty years has passed since the majority of Americans adopted television as their principal source of information. And its dominance has now become so extensive that virtually all significant political communication now takes place within the confines of flickering 30-second advertisements, and they're not The Federalist Papers."

Draft Gore for President in '08
For Publius and Brazen Hussy.

---------------------------------
.. And for fun. Another beautiful man, Stephen Colbert:

Stephen Colbert's Knox College Graduation Speech
OK. I'm glad I got to see Victor Navasky's speech at CUNY this year, but how did Knox get Stephen Colbert?!? "My name is Stephen Colbert, but I actually play someone on television named Stephen Colbert, who looks like me, and talks like me, but who says things with a straight face he doesn't mean."

Petting wet animals is fun!

2006-06-06T15:40:00.000-04:00

Ah... yeah. Forgot about the blog thing while in NYC.

Ithaca is lovely. In the six months since my last visit, Flapjack's cat Rufus miraculously changed from a small black kitten into an enormous fluffy pile of animal. No seriously, he looks like a badger. We've been having a blast chasing him around, baking brownies, staining furniture, paintin' the living room, and generally gallivanting around the gorges.

We also went to check out the Farm Sanctuary in Watkin's Glen. It was pouring outside, so there was the added bonus of getting to slosh around in mud puddles... which I enjoyed thoroughly. Check out my new friend Simon the pygmy goat. He was sweet, REALLY likes to be petted.

My favorite was the turkey (can't remember his name) who let us pet him for a real long time. I had no idea they could be so social. I also got to pet a cow (Linda), rub an enormous pig's belly and play with a variety of other rescued animals. I highly recommend visiting if yer in the area. They also help people adopt animals they've rescued... hint hint hint to a certain Hussy I know who wants to own a goat someday.

I also realized this week that the diet I've been aiming for over the past months would make me a Vegan. I'm slightly horrified! Most of the 'vegans' I've known are kinda crazy and usually total jerks. Huh. That sort of blows.

Art, Halliburton, and Dinner with Boogerbrain

2006-05-23T23:09:00.000-04:00

Just saw a recent project of Meg Hunt's called Disconnect the Dots, in which she and other illustrators send each other artworks to finish. Seems like a fun idea, if I knew any artists or was at all bent in that direction. Maybe I could find someone to finish my knitting projects. Or my grant proposals. I like this one, by Meg Hunt and completed by Patrick Murphy.

I love Meg Hunt's characters. Also Secret Friends Society (Hope Larson and Kean Soo). You should see Salamander Dream, you'll die of cuteness overload. It's kinda sad too, so be warned.

I think Bush should just be referred to as President Halliburton from now on.

Once again this year, between July and September I will be exactly twice the age of my lil brother, Boogerbrain (15 and 30). Aw. He's so puny and pimply. You'd think he'd be wise enough at this point to realize he doesn't have to answer to Boogerbrain anymore, but he still does.

Mom took us to a psuedo fancy dinner at a PF Chang's tonight. When asked what his fortune was (i.e. outta the fortune cookie) Boogerbrain said, "A strange man will show up at your house and recongize your talents." What a snot. Afterwards we watched Kimodo vs. Cobra and I tried out my Double Cobra Attack on him... which was pretty much a 15-minute noogie.

See you guys in NYC tomorrow!!

Another way to hug a tree... Or cut it down.

2006-05-20T23:47:00.000-04:00

So I read this today and thought I'd share it. Turns out I have yet another consumer habit to kick in order to be a good treehugger and liberal. But I think this one will be a heck of a lot easier than giving up shrimp. Damn that's hard!

I don't know why I didn't realize this before (probably because I'm none too smart), but by having a bank account or credit card and by paying said company for this service, I'm also supporting whatever nefarious activities they invest in. Like giving money to the Republican party or, say, bailing out Enron, paying for logging in Indonesia, building pipelines in the Arctic. All that fun stuff.

It's not all that difficult to find more reputable companies though. And I'm pretty excited about the prospects!

Here's the article at Co-Op America. Care of Tree Hugger.

New York and Climate Change

2006-05-18T11:01:00.000-04:00

Brazen Hussy and I are now pledged to go see An Inconvenient Truth opening weekend. On a related note, I just came across this at Mongabay. Folks at Columbia's Earth Institute determined the distribution of low-lying coastal areas that are the most susceptible to the effects of severe climate change. Here's a map of the areas in NYC (click on it for a bigger image):

As I have been saying.. Bye Bye Staten Island! Although, bye to Coney Island too.

This, of course, reminds me of the Daily Show's 'War on Terra' spots I was showing to my undergrads. Here's one of them, but not the episode with NYC underwater. Darn. Still, it's pretty damned good.

Dr. Hello Kitty

2006-05-16T23:02:00.000-04:00

I've told some of you about this before, sometimes even remembered to give the url. Here it is in all it's brilliance, The Hello Kitty Psych Test.

When I took the test a couple years ago I had a lower stress profile, she told me I should buy a puppy. This time I'm supposed to learn Karate. Huh.

Same Sicko, Same Crankypants

2006-05-16T22:34:00.000-04:00

Would cleaning an attic and moving a 300lb couch out to the barn make you sick? How about give you a a 101 degree fever for a few days? I got sick. Good thing I'm visiting the Fam, I got to act like a real baby.

I have a lot of good news, it's true. I am really excited about my new life as a forester out West, the prospects of that excellent grad program, I FIXED MY COMPUTER (more about that later), and I got my awesome t-shirt from WFMU in the mail finally ("Eat Flaming Death, fascist Media Pigs!" indeed). And yet, I have officially descended from that wonderful cloud of joy I was on a few weeks ago. I'm back to being my normal cranky self. The universe can feel free to realign.

I also found that old Japanese soda bottle La Blonde gave to me many years ago. I'm not sure if she meant to show me the resemblance it had to myself, or was just asking for me to throw it out for her, but I kept it. I personally see a pretty apt resemblance in the expression. That's how I feel.... all the time. Of course when I showed it to my mom she said "Aw! It's my little crankypants!" So there you go.

As an update the soda has been discontinued! But fortunately good old google helped me find a picture, so I've made it my new icon. Awesome.

The 'E' Word

2006-05-09T14:07:00.000-04:00

Here's quite a nifty collection of images for use in pro-evolution lectures. This beauty was 'borrowed' from the Institute of Creationist Strategies. I added a frame to it... just to make it purty.

OH and there are stickers too!

Not that I plan on teaching again any time soon, of course, but evolutionary theory was pretty fun. I included a bit about postmodernism, to discuss alternative paradigms. Here's my favorite image from that, I wish I remembered where I got this from! Sorry whoever made it!

Dozer

2006-05-06T23:54:00.000-04:00

Here she is. In a rare moment when she isn't lying on my feet or other appendages. All wet, pond-smelling, 90-pounds of her.

Also known as 'The Doze' and 'Princess Dozerina'.

News from the Farm

2006-05-06T23:39:00.000-04:00

Woohoo! Turns out the neighbors (who downed all the trees in the lot across the street from us a few years back to make room for their suburban dream house in the middle of the country) have got unsecured wireless to go with their enormous SUV's and irritating, yippin' dog!

I gots connections now!

Still miss the food/drink in NYC, and my lovely friends.. but I have dog, I have grass, and I have wireless. I think I can last the next couple months until I start my new grad program.

If only this damned machine would stop dying every twenty minutes.

No Footloose?

2006-05-05T23:11:00.000-04:00

I always thought I was more of a Ren McCormack. Although, the quiz is spot on... I AM an inspiration to my peers.

You are Hard Harry from Pump up the Volume

You are shy, but once you overcome that you are inspirational to those around you. You are rebellious and like to push the authority figures buttons.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Happy Belated 'Screw Adjuncting Day'!

2006-05-02T13:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a lovely day. Oh, yes. I gets large fellowship, Brazen gets awesome job, AND my mom made me a cherry pie. OH, and our pal Lil Rebel finished the revisions of her thesis yesterday! So excellent!

In light of the fact that so many of my friends (Brazen Hussy, me, Lil Rebel, La Blonde) now have positions that are totally research related, with no teaching necessary, I think May 2nd should now be officially named Screw Adjuncting Day.

Adjuncting is fun! AND profitable!

So Long, Suckas!

2006-04-30T20:46:00.000-04:00

I left NYC today. Woohoo! Hopefully I'll either be back in the forest chasing wildlife or will be relocated to a new graduate program very soon. For now I'm back with the fam. The dog is comfortably lying across my feet. Unfortunatley, the position is not very comfortable for me. She weighs 90 pounds.

That Brazenest of Hussies tagged me.
I am full.
I want no more food.
I wish I hadn't eaten so much.
I hate food. Wait, that's a lie.
I love food. Yeah, that's more like it.
I miss my friends who make good drinks. Why aren't you here?
I fear I won't see La Blonde again.
I hear my dog making funny noises, I think she's dreaming about food.
I wonder when I'll have a home again. And furniture. My camping hammock doesn't count.
I regret ALL of my ex-boyfriends.
I am not particularly good at saying goodbye.
I dance only when no one is looking.
I sing only when no one is listening
I cry everytime I see that commercial with the pizza taking a shower.
I am not always in a good mood.
I make with my hands obscene gestures at boys.
I write poorly.
I confuse being a graduate student with having a real life.
I need a drink. Is there any other answer to this question?
I should email the program and tell them to give me the fellowship already.
I start giggling whenever I hear the word 'boob'.
I finish the dishes before I go to bed, yes?

I tag Wild-Eyed Rose. Just to give her more work to do!

Sometimes Love Just Isn't Enough

2006-04-28T08:26:00.000-04:00

Why do you hate me, Computer? You were so pretty, I loved you so much. But it turns out you have issues that just can't be fixed. When I need you, you overheat and turn off. Now we're stuck together. Forever. Or at least until I have a job and can afford someone to replace you. Damn you Toshiba for making me love you. Damn you for making me cry.

Ethical behavior?

2006-04-27T11:11:00.000-04:00

So, I gets an email from the department at that lovely school I want very much to transfer to. It's from the woman who is collating the applications for the large fellowship, asking if anyone has a disability because they forgot to put that in the application. They need to know right away so they can make their final decisions.

The thing is, she sent the email to all the competing applicants... which means that I now know the names of all the competing applicants.

Needless to say I spent an hour or so googling all of them.

Honestly though, my current institution has hardly encouraged me to be professional or ethical.

Fainting Goats!

2006-04-26T12:07:00.000-04:00

Just the other night we were weighing the relative merits of Nigerian Pygmy Goats versus Fainting Goats as a more amusing pet... and lo and behold this was posted on Art Dorks:

Argh!

2006-04-25T00:10:00.000-04:00

Silk Stockings just told me that my template isn't looking too good on her machine. Damn it. My screen is abnormally large, so I didn't realize that the marking was too wide.

I'll fix it tomorrow on a lil screen.

Sad Christmas!

Excellent Posting

2006-04-23T22:16:00.000-04:00

Came across an excellent post on the Immigration debate (via Frozen Texan). REALLY worth reading.

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez responds to the immigration issue. One quote:

"Meanwhile, since taking office, George W. Bush has SLASHED taxes for the top 1 percent of the population – ie the VERY RICH. The average amount of money SAVED in taxes for the 1.3 million wealthiest Americans PER YEAR thanks to these new laws is: $53,120 PER PERSON. That is a total of $69056000000.00 - PER YEAR - in taxes that we were getting from the nation’s mullti-billionaires BEFORE Bush that we are NOT getting now, taxes that the billionaires would not have even noticed were gone. That's $69 billion. A year. For this amount of money, we as a nation could have provided health coverage for 40 million AMERICANS for a year; almost the exact number of Americans now living without health insurance. For that matter, we could have provided health coverage for FOUR TIMES the number of illegal immigrants as currently reside here; not that you'd ever want us to do something like that. My point is, this money you're worried about? It's being taken from the poor to give to the rich by our sick Reverse-Robin-Hood administration.

Sixty-nine billion dollars PAID BY OUR GOVERNMENT AS A GIFT TO THE RICH OF THIS NATION is many, many times more than anything 11 million illegal immigrants working for $4 an hour could contribute.

You want to talk about people sucking the country dry and not doing their part to contribute to the nation? Let’s talk about Bush’s billionaire friends and their outrageous and criminal tax cuts, and the people who suffer as a result."

Nifty! I'm Green!

2006-04-23T22:10:00.000-04:00

The Chloroplast
You scored 56 Industriousness, 41 Centrality, and 30 Causticity!

You're the Chloroplast!

Most of the Earth's energy comes from the chloroplast's ability to capture the energy of the sun and fix cabon dioxide for conversion to starch. Like the mitochondria, they have their own DNA and live somewhat independantly from the rest of the cell.

In terms of real life, you have it all! You're the person everyone wants or wants to be. Just watch out for being overconfident, as you may end up alone.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 47% on Industriousness
You scored higher than 81% on Centrality
You scored higher than 78% on Causticity

Link: The Which Cell Organelle are you? Test written by fading_shadows on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Rock And Roll

2006-04-21T00:18:00.000-04:00

I am not pretentious. No one who knows me would ever say that I was. Silly perhaps, bitter and pessimistic, naturally. But the fact remains that I've never liked popular music. There are many other explanations for that fact, and the one that I generally believe has to do with my parents. My mom specifically. She is a wonderful, excellent person and all of my friends love her. However, her musical tastes while I was growing up (mid 70's to 90's) ranged between Yes to ZZ Top to Def Leopard to Indigo Girls to Dave Mathews. So basically she shared the same music with my peers my whole life. How was I to rebel? Of course by loving opera, They Might Be Giants, The Cramps (I love you, Lux!), and anything else that could possibly irritate her.

That being said, Rock and Roll Karaoke is the best idea any human has ever had. [After gin and chocolate, of course.] If you have not seen Dr. BH's latest post, it basically entails watching your fellow pleebs sing monster ballads with a live band in one of the most famous old dives in the East Village. To be fair though, most of the participants are semi-professional rock and roll karaokers, so they bring a lot to their show. I never knew I could love GnR, Poison, Metallica.. and even Rush. But I lost my voice from screaming with joy. It was excellent. Rock and Roll Karaoke, will you marry me?

I just don't know how I feel about Castro.

2006-04-19T00:19:00.000-04:00

The BBC news has been talking about good ol' Fidel lately and I'm having a difficult time figuring out how I feel about Cuba. The BBC interviewed Cubans on both sides of the issue, and it's hard to know what to say.

On one hand, there are those who have emigrated because they, essentially, don't like being oppressed. The country is stifling when it comes to free expression and free trade. Granted, so is ours sometimes, and not as openly.

On the other hand, there is free education, free health care, etc.. I met a young girl this past year who lives in Cuba and loves it for these reasons. The rest of her extended family in Nicaragua are struggling and their livelihoods continually suffer because of the crappy deal these countries get from the US. It was worth the cost to her personal freedoms to be taken care of.

The Fickle Finger of Fate

2006-04-18T23:56:00.000-04:00

Someone on the bus was trying to say 'fickle finger of fate' five times fast without accidentally saying another f-word... one that probably shouldn't be said loudly on a bus at an hour when everyone is sober. Needless to say several folks got up and moved.

Kismet or Coincidence: Two ladies for whom I worked for in the past kindly sent emails to their colleagues telling them how excellent I am (all lies) and that they would be silly not to take me as a PhD student. [I am blessed with excellent friends.] Well, last Monday a program contacted me to that they had JUST heard they had approval for a new fellowship and had extended the deadline to apply for next Fall. Hence the $30,000 fellowship I mentioned earlier.

I also turns out one of the folks who I cited heavily in my thesis proposal is there, is the head of the graduate program, and is very interested in my work. He would be a great advisor.

This also means, unfortunately, that I have to retake the GRE's. The damned company won't send out official score reports after five years (I took them in 1999). I'm not very excited about this. They got rid of the best section! No more logic problems! Damn them.

Quandary

2006-04-15T23:20:00.000-04:00

So another long week draws to a close and once again I have put off doing the dishes. Problem is, I only have 4 forks, one bowl, and two plates, so I can't really get away with this for long. And yet... I still don't want to do them.

So the question is, can I eat this salad with a spoon?

Maggoty Goodness

2006-04-12T19:50:00.000-04:00

I should have been an entomologist. Ever since learning ALL about botflies last month, I've become obsessed with fly larvae. Disgusted, but also intrigued.

Apparently the folks in Cape Town aren't enjoying their maggots quite so much. From Reuters:

Rat-tailed maggots, every bit as ugly as they sound, have been popping out of basins, toilets and taps across Cape Town, sparking a citywide panic that health officials tried on Wednesday to calm. [However] if swallowed, the cylindrical, crush-resistant grub-like body was unlikely to cause major health problems... "Since the rat tailed maggot is quite large and clearly visible to the naked eye, it is highly unlikely that it would be ingested in the first place."

YUM!

Photo from BugGuide

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be grad students.

2006-04-11T23:22:00.000-04:00

Why I *heart* graduate school:

1) Because after I've put six unfunded years into a program, the faculty can still refuse to answer emails or write a letter of recommendation.

2) Because someone at another university can say "Your website is impressive and your work looks very interesting... we're excited to work with you" and then encourage me to apply for a $30,000 fellowship. While my own faculty say "This isn't science. You don't need a PhD to do this."

3) Because all of my friends are just as miserable.

Not to be confused with the Rocky Mountain Oyster

2006-04-02T01:29:00.000-05:00

Swiped from www.rickbrookes.com.