first off, tdapenguin, thank you for not making us get breast implants or botox.

now, in the "made of awesome with awesome sauce" file:


and, because this morning's two minute nostalgia sublime was noozles (which strangely i actually remember), and my adult brain warped the cute cartoon into something much, much better, i present to you one of my favorite sequences from warren ellis's nextwave:
page 1
page 2
page 3
(i need to make an lj icon of that last panel. also, having read that, go back and watch the first few seconds of the noozles intro. yeah.)

ETA: NO.

because then i'll be totally set for jeopardy. the last two nights i've pulled the final jeopardy answer out of the air, total guesses, right both times (also, only the returning champion got them right as well). last night was "in 1947 editor william styron said this book was a long, "tedious pacific voyage best suited" for national geographic" (kon tiki-- i have a vague recollection of this being a trivial pursuit answer when i was little) and tonight was a leader born in kiev, later a US citizen, who became PM in 1969 of a country founded in the 20th century (golda meir).

i just had to brag a bit ;) one day i'll drop out and make all my money as the next ken jennings! riiiiight....

i don't know what's wrong with me but apparently my stomach hates me. yesterday i woke up with a splitting migraine at 6:30am, stumbled to the bathroom for half a dose of excedrine (can't take the caffiene of a whole dose) and three ibuprofen, and went back to bed for another hour or so. i wasn't feeling great when i woke up the second time, but i figured it was aftereffects of the migraine. buuuuut it got worse. i haven't vomited from sickness since i was in fourth grade, but this was one of those times when i started to wonder if maybe it would help. but, i had experiments to set up, terminate, and otherwise poke, and my classmate leremy defended his thesis (in less than four years?!) in the afternoon. no option to go home, really. and i was wearing a skirt (good luck token for leremy, and he better appreciate it!) so that didnt exactly help.

anyway once i got home things got a bit better. there was that first moment of "oh wow, i didnt realize i feel this bad" once i got on my sweatpants and lay down on the couch, but after that it was nice to not be gritting my teeth to get stuff done. sal made soup for dinner, and then a pot of cream of wheat during the daily show when i started to feel funky again.

anyway, i've been managing it a bit better today-- it's a weird discomfort that feels like a mutant, nauseous version of hunger. so i figured out if i eat something gentle every half hour or so i seem to do okay. i'm now once again ensconced back on the couch with another pot of cream of wheat, mint tea, and a banana. looking forward to not moving for a bit. trying to decide whether tutoring tonight would be a good idea. mostly just blogging because i'm a bit pathetically proud of myself for actually dealing with the fact that i'm not at 100%. go me.

of all the people to go in for a good old-fashioned fridging. of all the ways to end a web short. you had to pick that one. i mean, sure, i'm crying because it was a sad ending, but even more so because i expected better of you. if even you can't resist the refrigerator, what hope do we as a species have?

is rocking hard! kim notified me that this being e3 week and all, the rock band 2 setlist has been released. and it is made of 99.9% FDA certified awesome (+/- 0.2%).

my personal highlights (mostly just squeeing that there's more than one girl song!):
Alanis Morissette "You Oughta Know"
Bikini Kill "Rebel Girl"
Blondie " One Way or Another"
Bob Dylan "Tangled Up in Blue"
Devo "Uncontrollable Urge"
Foo Fighters "Everlong"
Jimmy Eat World "The Middle"
Joan Jett "Bad Reputation"
Kansas "Carry On Wayward Son"
Modest Mouse "Float On"
Presidents of the USA "Lump"
Rage Against the Machine "Testify"
Social Distortion "I Was Wrong"
Survivor "Eye of the Tiger"
The Donnas "New Kid in School"
The Go-Go's "We Got the Beat"
The Guess Who "American Woman"
The Muffs "Kids in America"
The Offspring "Come Out & Play (Keep 'em Separated)"

harmonix for the WIN. let's see what activision can bring for their next game....

dr. horrible's sing-along blog, act 1, is now live!

sal is a genius and guessed that it might go up at midnight... which, if eastern, would be a reasonable hour here. and he was right! yays!

can i be felicia day when i grow up? i'm probably older than her already, but still.

all on the same theme: the genius that is joss, and the awesome that is dr horrible's sing-along blog. so first of all, watch the teaser if you haven't.

then read joss's explanation of the master plan.

then read the awesome captain hammer (should have been captain tightpants, harrumph) comic (key line: "pass the science ingredient!")

and my personal favorite, and the source of about sixteen new away messages, the gawker interview with joss. (randomly selected key line: "Nathan will sing your scrotum off, Poi-Dog!")

the fangirl is giddy.

more cat pictures


must remember to print it out and put it up over my desk. should be good for a couple advisor-bafflings, and would really add to the ambiance. or something.

of course, i havent read the actual results of the study, and i'd like to see some statistics at the very least, but i find this stuff fascinating.

in short, they tested male and female students for ability to rotate 3D objects in their heads (for some reason i've seen this parameter-- that males on average do better at-- to argue that males are just naturally more analytical/smarter/better at science). then they had them either play a puzzle video game, or medal of honor, a WWII first-person shooter game. and as it turned out, the shooter actually increased 3d rotation ability in both groups, but in females more dramatically, such that the gender difference was drastically reduced.

so. boo gender roles, yay video games.

i'm hoping to get some detailed info, but given the way my week looks, dont count on anything substantial out of me, kind of ever.

from today's writer's almanac (emphasis mine):

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

this one goes out to all the music dorks in the audience.

okay, so as part of my ongoing descent into battlestar-galactica-related geekiness, i'm looking to get me a copy of "all along the watchtower." however, while there's only one version by hendrix and a couple by dave matthews band on itunes, there are about a million different performances/recordings by bob dylan. anyone have a recommendation for choosing among the throng of dylans? or some hint as to what might be the "definitive" version? i am clueless as always when it comes to music :p

go. watch. NOW.

muahahahaha!

yay! this totally made my day. and yes, blub indeed :) hopefully this goodwill will get us through another day of air-travel fun....



in case embedding fails

the first video, for background info

i've been surrounded by cnn all day. there was no sound in the other concourse, so it was mostly ignorable, though sal poked me to make fun of the wolf blitzer report on how people were shocked SHOCKED that the obama campaign seal looks "suspiciously" like the u.s. presidential seal. uhhh, congratulations, guys, you got the allusion of the GIANT EAGLE. but apparently this is a bad thing "obama is trying to make himself look presidential" they scoff. but... uhm, of course? anyway about then was when i went to sleep so i got a break.

anyway, i just sat through an ac360 report on a high school where something like 16 girls got pregnant, and seem to have wanted to do so. and the coverage is frankly insipid.

first of all, it's one of the last segments of the show, and they've been teasing it at EVERY commercial break. like "stay tuned for the sordid teen pregnancy story! you know you want to!"

then they report in scandalized tones that the school doctor, who had been providing students with contraception, had resigned. where did that come from? i understand that some people fear kids will have more sex if contraception is easily accessible. but these girls, as they reported, *wanted* to be pregnant. apparently, the girls were showing up at the school nurse's office repeatedly asking for pregnancy tests until they were "satisfied with the result." they did not want to use contraception. so why is the doctor resigning? i'm baffled. bad writing.

last, they bring on a psychologist to argue-- surprise!-- that it's all pop culture's fault. apparently juno made the whole thing look like so much fun that having babies became the trendy thing to do. the psychiatrist claimed that since the media spends so much time fawning over reproducing celebrities, and not showing "the consequences" of having babies, the girls aren't aware of what they're getting into. i have to say, lumping media coverage of jamie lynn spears in with juno is *really* insulting-- to both my intelligence, and to the movie itself.

i'm cranky and i know it. but seriously? did anyone think of maybe talking to the girls? their thoughts were remarkably absent. there are myriad reasons, spanning from "this is how i plan to make my life meaningful, because school etc isn't doing it for me" to "everyone else was doing it" to "i wanted to get more attention." using this as a jumping off point get to talk about teen sex, and to point fingers at the media (always the other media of course). until my 10 hour adventure in the airport, i had done a pretty good job of avoiding stuff like this (only watching tv on hulu helps) and was enjoying the willful ignorance. now my brain just hurts.

i'm rambling. there seems to be a plane present now though, so maybe just maybe things are looking up. maybe. ::runs off to find wood to knock::

oh dear sweet fancy moses we are STILL at the airport. we got to san jose TWELVE HOURS AGO. if we had taken a CAR from here to albuquerque, we would have gotten there two hours ago AT THE LATEST.

now, i have spent some relatively enjoyable time playing phantom hourglass on sal's ds. but i would prefer to have done so while lounging on a couch, armchair or bed, rather than the very hard floor of an over-air-conditioned airport.

this terminal is an absolute zoo. maybe i've been pretty lucky in my air travels, but i dont think ive seen an airport this crazy since the one time i attempted to fly back to school after thanksgiving. i feel bad for the counter agents-- i get the distinct feeling the people screwing up are eating cheetos in an office building several miles away, every once in a while sending a message down to the ground troops that oh, we don't know when the plane that's supposed to go to vegas will get out of the hangar. and the plane leaving for los angeles can't board until the las vegas plane is out of the way. and oh, you people headed for albuquerque, we've added another 15 minutes to your estimated departure time.

right now, our etd is 8:!5, but five minutes ago it was 7:45. sal just asked, and it turns out those numbers are wild guesses-- they won't know when we'll board until they know when the plane will be brought to the terminal. and once we get to new mexico, you have to factor in the 70 miles we have to drive from albuquerque to pojoaque.

our total transit time to maui was less than this. we're going two freaking states over and its going to take at least 14 hours. and of course, we don't particularly have a choice, since all the other airlines were too expensive for us. let's just go with "i am unthrilled" and call it a night. bah.

we're wandering around outside the security checkpoints at the stores and stuff. we hear an announcement about the location of the airport chapel. i joke maybe that's where we should try next. as it happens, said chapel is at the end of the terminal, right next to the currency exchange.

sal: "boy, jesus is gonna be pissed"

so. in the category of "you get what you pay for." we got plane tickets via expedia to go to sal's cousin's wedding, which is tomorrow noonish. even the cheapest tickets were a lot more than i was wholly comfortable with, but thats the way things go so i reserved our flight-- us airways to albuquerque via phoenix.

we got to the airport with plenty of time to catch out 9am flight-- early enough, in fact, that i managed to finish the last y: the last man trade paperback before we even boarded. so much for saving that for inflight entertainment. (also, brian vaughn needs to stop hanging out with joss whedon. seriously.)

right, anyway, we landed 15 minutes ahead of schedule at phoenix, yay! i had been a little worried about the very short time between our flights, so that gave us a good buffer. however, when we went to find out what gate we were at (rather, to make sure the boarding passes that we had printed at the san jose airport were still correct) our flight wasn't on the list. odd. so we went to the gate on our boarding pass. vacant. not good. then we notice that the customer service area is a few yards down the terminal, and that there were several people in the line already. after queuing up, we were able to discern that our original flight to abq (it's too tiring to type it out every time) was cancelled. wow, gee, thanks for telling us! it's not like that's important information or anything!

so we wait in the slowest moving line ever. there were 8-10 people ahead of us, and by the time we got to the front of the line, there must have been at least 20 behind us. the woman at the desk said we had already been transfered to a different flight, which sounded like good news. except that the flight doesn't leave until 7:30 tonight. all this took place before 11:30 this morning.

oh, but it's not all bad. they gave us two $5 food vouchers. for two people for two meals in a frakking airport. thanks ever so much. the woman seemed genuinely sorry they couldnt do more, and besides, i hate yelling at people who aren't at fault so there wasn't much we could do.

i should probably mention that we could drive to los alamos from here in 4-6 hours. which is LESS than we're spending here. but we couldnt talk us airways into paying for a rental car and gas for that kind of trip. also, driving 6 hours in 111 degree heat (which is the most recent reported temp for phoenix) isnt my idea of fun either.

so here we are. the massive awesome good news of the day is that the phoenix airport has FREE WIRELESS! we were worried it was going to be like $2 a minute or something, and were already planning our impassioned "please please give us free wireless so we dont go nuts over the next 8 hours" speech, but thankfully we don't have to give it. i also had a large beer with lunch (which cost 1.5 of the two vouchers) and am feeling much better. i'm still reasonably pissed that i'm not going to get new mexico chile for dinner, not to mention the fact that i'm spending 8 hours of one of my very few vacations in a gorram airport. but after calling em and mom to vent i'm no longer feeling like throwing a sobbing tantrum.

oh, and massive awesome good news #2, as brett so wonderfully helpfully pointed out: free spore creature creator demo!

first you steal a good portion of my sophomor year with your dirty sims, and now this?! you tempt me with a game that manages to simultaneously satisfy my god complex, my obsession with massive character creation options, AND my fascination with evolution.

must not give in. must... graduate!

but honestly, i've been resisting buying civ iv for so long i think my resistance is down. this could get ugly.

as if i needed to think jeff at shakesville was even awesomer. but today's entry is another *really good* one. basically the whole thing is one of those "yeah! i totally would have said that if i could have articulated what i think!" anyway, here's my favorite part (the bold is a quote from a column by a woman bemoaning the decline in fatherhood, what follows is jeff's response):

Sixties-era feminism also has played a role, with its view of men as expendable and of traditional sex roles as oppressive.... If men and women are the same, who needs dad?

Heh-deedy! And if your two lungs are the same, why not just rip one out, just for the heck of it? It's not like two functional lungs are better then one for a whole host of obvious reasons, from redundancy to spreading the workload to the fact that it's a lot less painful to not yank a lung out. Of course, if one lung is cancerous, it might need to come out to keep the other lung functional...but whatever. Point is, because feminists think men and women should have equal household duties, that means men are expendible. I mean, I think that's obvious.