Abbrev.

So I'm embroiled in my reading for Human Variation and I keep getting confused and distracted. I'm sure the material is doing it's part as the scope feels less focused and defined than in past weeks. But a large part of it is due to the fact that I keep misreading an abbreviation in my mind. LD. What does that mean to you?

In the world of this week's Human Variation assignments, it means 'Linkage Disequilibrium', or 'the nonrandom association of alleles'. In that context it's neat because it's a means of variation in the genetic code beyond single point changes. But the problem is that for the longest time I read strategies for a certain children's card game and, unless I keep a laser focus, I read LD as 'Land Destruction', one of the most annoying, pathological game strategies. I keep hitting LD in this 15 page article and my gut reaction says 'ewwww, I hate LD'. I don't want to read about LD because if I agree with it, it's just going to be bitching and moaning, and if I don't I'm going to find myself in direct opposition to whoever thinks it's a justified deck theme. It takes me a moment to remember: 'Human Variation. LD is kind of cool.'

Abbreviations can be used because of relevance. They only make sense under the assumption that both the reader and the writer have similar background experiences. They cease to provide a convenient, abbreviated form of communication, however, once they become homophones in the written word.

Heebie Jeebies

Have you ever been in a public sit-down place with friends, and there's talking and laughing to be had? And then you get that weird feeling like someone is watching you, and out of the corner of your eye you can see someone eye-locked dead in on your conversation. It's kind of creepy, yes? Why the hell do people do that?

Marriage Trials

Itching to see a big gay production? This website has constructed reenactments of the first few hours of the first day of court proceedings, based on released transcripts and descriptions from people watching the trail in person. The dialog is accurate, in all it's dry, droning glory.



It's worth mentioning that while the words are there and the actors portraying the transcript and description appear to make attempts to look and sound similar, the nuances of words and the exact nuances of things like stutters and pauses and the like will be different. This shouldn't be confused with actual trial footage. If you watch it, listen for words, not necessarily for presentation, which is put on to make distribution of the exact dialog palatable.

Beck, Palin, Fox News

It's kind of old news now... but then again I have lot of old news I never logged on about.

Sarah Palin hired by Fox News? I wasn't foso if i wuz goin 2 *headdesk or lolz when I hear dat (trendy is like a second language to me).

I think I might have done both, a dangerous maneuver to be done while driving, leave it to professionals, please. To welcome her on board Glen Beck, clearly enamored with big bright puppy dog eyes, "interviewed" her. This 'let me read you pages of my journal' (not even kidding) stuff is just plaine sappy! Five minutes into the beginning and already you can tell this is going to be an hour of sweet, sweet, right-wing love poetry.

Remember back in the campaign, when right wingers were calling Obama the antichrist because some people were more or less worshipping him like an idol... I'm curious to know if you see any parallels to that here. To worship Omaba, you had to be hopelessly optimistic. Apparently, to roll on with the now golden Palin cash cow, you need to be able to suspend you knowledge of basic american history (see later below).

It's an hour long interview. There's a lot of... material. More than enough for the... *drumroll*

NEW SARAH PALIN DRINKING GAME!!!

Here's how you play at home: sit down and watch Sarah Palin talking with alcohol. But every time she says something hilariously dumb, remember her legions of followers and her ever expanding political platform and drink until the world is happy again. Just to warn you, no one actually wins the Sarah Palin Drinking Game, it's over when the last person loses.

Need a sample round? Get ready and set, then watch the clip below!

Now lets not be obvious. Lets give her at least the benefit of the doubt and try to pretend that she avoided the most popular, common answer of 'Thomas Jefferson' in order to seem more rogue... so she really didn't find herself giving a five year old 'don't know it' answer of 'All of them!' and really she was so well informed that OH MY GOD THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE JUST CAUSED THE CAPILLARIES IN MY LEFT EYE TO HEMORRHAGE!!!
Happy Drinking!!!

Ferret XMas

The ferrets sure love Christmas. I don't think it has anything to do with the birth of their lord and savior (little known fact: Ferret Jesus was born the exact same moment as human Jesus... but they technically call him *squeak-squeak-low-dooking-noise*). I think it has more to do with travel and all the new random crap that comes with the season.

In addition to their accordion style ferret tunnel, which they never get tired of running through even when it's laid out in the same place (as if it was going to lead somewhere different... no... it's just the same open space of floor two feet away), they also get to smell new presents as I bring them home... wrapping papers and tape (OOOH TAPE!!!). For some reason they also never seem to get tired of crawling in plastic bags. I think it has something to do with the noise and the static cling... but who the hell could even tell what a ferret's thinking.

Life as a ferret must be either insanely exciting or maddeningly frantic.

Out of In Your Face -book

Oh internet, you are a wonder. You're fucking massive! I don't think humans were meant to be as connected as the functionality seems to put us sometimes; and that uncomfortably close proximity is only made possible by the internet!

Case in point, I submit Facebook. A social networking site, it allows you to keep up with an absurd number of people as they continue to update every inane detail of their life. In the case of my close friends, I really appreciate it. In the case of casual acquaintances, I guess it's kind of neat. I mean it helps me get to know them better without all that awkward... what did they use to call it? Conversation? As for people I really don't talk to though it's annoying.

I really don't care that they uploaded pictures, have a tough status update, or that they lost their phone and need the numbers of all their real friends. We don't talk and have no real impact or contact on each other's life. We have nothing in common and there really is no point in staying so up to date on people who have, and never really, had anything to do with my life. I might as well be following strangers. Scratch that! A lot of these people are in their own circle of friends. Bascially I just get updates about how they all get along with each other... which is all well and good... but basically I feel like I'm looking into a Alpaca Enthusiast Group meeting; I have no real attachment to alpacas.

But I can't un-friend them, that seems a little antagonistic. There must be a compromise. What's that Facebook? 'Hide' is a feature that can 'Hide' people right out off my reading list? You mean I can actually use facebook and ignore people I don't particularly care about? Why it's just like real life! *click*click*click*click*click*click*and *click* Ahhh, I now have a little breathing distance.

As the internet was conceived a way to connect everyone in near limitless ways, I think it's also key to let us all to disconnect a little bit. Ahhh... Facebook hasn't jumped this much closer to serenity since I blocked Farmville!

Cleaning Cubed

I started cleaning. I ripped everything out of my truck yesterday and spent this morning blowing everything around my appartment like a huge storm of vacuuming and organizational skills. Too bad I really don't have the time to finish any of it today, I'm writing the rough draft to my now infamous Animorphs paper and working today. I also spend quality time with Kyle and such. But it doesn't really matter if everything in my apartment is completely wrecked (seriously, everything is pretty much blown apart right now), my roommate is still out of town!

Things in life remind me of a Rubics Cube. You have to carefully mess everything up before you can put it back together better than before!

Artifact

I walked into my old room in San Antonio on Saturday night, home for the Sunday and tried to go to sleep. At 11:40 I heard a light beeping sound. It's been in my room for as long as I could remember, I've always thought it was a watch I lost somewhere with an alarm set. I went through several watches in high school in particular and I was big into setting alarms; I figured I set it for 11:40 am and the AM/PM thing got switched.. Anyway, I could never find it because of the way the beep echoes, it's impossible to tell which corner of the room it's coming from, and my room isn't even messy or anything!

By some weird coincidence I was able to tell where it was coming from that night. Turns out it wasn't a watch at all (which may be why I had trouble finding to start with). It was a really (really really) cheap PDA I got from sending in Cocoa Pebbles proof of purchases through the mail. I think I remember I ordered sent off for it because it was free and I just liked getting stuff in the mail back then (It was a lot of fun to have free junk delivered... I should start doing that again). I think I played with it for 30 minutes, obviously set an alarm, and then dropped it in a junk drawer. That was almost 10 years ago! This thing has been setting off that soft phantom watch beep alarm every night at exactly 11:40 pm since then!

I thought about how such an insignificant whim could just keep going and going on, as endless as needless. There aren't many things I took up in early high school that still keep going; blogs, stories, movies, books, ideas, ideals, dreams, plans for the future... most of those have undergone radical changes or been outright abandoned. This dumb thing though just kept enduring on for no reason. It made me think about what we really leave behind..

Vista to 7

Holy cow! To everyone whose computer is infected with Windows Vista (any of the various strains), for the love of God go and upgrade to Windows 7! I made the swtich today and the difference on my little laptop is HUGE! I can see animations! The screen saver actually works! It doesn't take 15 minutes for my computer to start up!

Is Windows 7 better than Leopard? Hells NO! But unlike Vista, it will actually run on a computer! I'm so excited! Running this is like getting a brand new computer that isn't a piece of junk! It feels like a brand new computer! The operating system change is that huge!

[why the hell did they even bother releasing Vista again?]

Enganst

I was reading over the syllabus for my English class and I found something that pissed me off.

"Exams, discussion questions/ responses, and homework will receive a numeric grade, but all papers and presentations will receive a letter grade, the point-value of which is listed below: A 95, A- 92, B+ 88, B 85, B- 82.. F 59"

Did you notice there's no A+ 100 in there? That's because there's no such thing as a perfect paper (or apparently presentation)! There are a 15 point paper and a 15 presentation. So if I get MAXIMUM points on both of those I still automatically still lose .5 points on my FINAL grade. I'm trying my best to salvage points after a horrific test and a misunderstanding of the attendance policy! No, but go ahead and dock any rounding factor I had. Let's all just round down this go around! No, really it's cool! I understand this is how you save English as a language. Lord knows if kids thought they were getting 100 points on their work instead of 95 points, there's be no point to life as we know it all hell would break lose! Bitch, I hope I get the chance to round down you tax return... because, you know, you technically get so much... but... the system probably might have an error in your favor... so we'll fix that for you. Just to make sure you know how the world works. Isn't learning fun?

I think English teachers do the 'no perfect paper' thing in an attempt to pretend that they aren't the ones determining what good English is. Like there's some all mighty God of English papers that looks down when they leave a stack on the alter at sunset and etches red letter grades in lighting bolts down from heaven as a form of judgement. 'I can't say that your paper is perfect', they're saying, 'because in the grand scheme of things no English paper is really PERFECT.'
Bitch, in the grande scheme of things, when I sign up for this class, I'm promised an OPPORTUNITY to score 100 out of 100 possible points. I know you grade the paper and you personal opinion may resonate with some techniques more than others. I'm writing a paper for your class to be read by you. If you feel like I deserve full credit for fully completing an assignment then I deserve full fucking credit!!

The Fall Atmosphere!!

I'm in a fantastic mood today. It could because I woke up freezing cold. I love cold, why the hell do I live in a small midwestern Texas town? I've been asking myself that a lot a lot lately. The weather is a big part of it. Would I be terrible to say that social atmosphere is another part? Probably. I'd also probably be incorrect. I know that eventually I'll have to accept the fact that people are pretty universal, especially when they're all put under the same laws. Even if I move up north I doubt some things will change, in fact when I think about it logically I'm sure of it. Realizing that is probably some part of growing up.

If growing up means that I'll reconcile everything I've ever wanted out of life, I'll remain a fool forever.

Ardisleeplessness

I hate it when I procrastinate and end up having to pull an all nighter over an assignment that's dumb and not even all that hard. You'd think I'd have learned by now to always get things done ahead of time! I guess I should be glad at least that now I at least get it done in time, regardless of exactly how much sleep I loose in the process.

Forecast

I went dragging Benny around campus today; I love these cold fronts moving though. They never last long, but they are heavenly none the less. They remind me that I want to move northward. Ahhh, I can't wait until I'm away from Texas heat...

Nature Lover

This morning was beautiful. It was the kind of day that made me happy to be outside and walking around. I went up to a tree and just wanted to hug it, strongly embrace it in my arms! But that would have been slightly embarrassing with everyone watching. Instead I leaned by it, opening up a channel of mutual support. The tree supported me just as I supported it and we gazed blissfully together into the cold gentle wind. Then unable to restrain myself I reached a little lower. I don't think there's anything too weird about grabbing a tree.

The A&M Water Polo Game

I went to a water polo game today! A&M hosted a club tournament. They competed their team against other schools' teams most of today continuing through tomorrow. It's been 4 years since I played and probably 3 years since I even watched a game, so I was surprised at how much I instantly got into the game. Everything, terms, lingo, strategy, experiences, all came rushing back during the first quarter. I wish there were more water polo games around to watch. I kind of want to play some again, although I'm still so hopelessly out of shape. It's something to work towards though. =)

In terms of the game itself, things were pretty one-sided. The game was A&M's team vs. UT's B team. I forget the exact score, but A&M had a 15 point lead which constitutes one count of rape. I think if I ever have kids in sports, I'm going to be an annoying parent to deal with. I kept wanting to tell them 'tighten up', 'drive!', 'someone cut to the side and give the goalie someone to pass to!' Yeah, I'm probably going to be that asshole...

Getting Well Soon

My animals don't like me much these days. Grim has an infection, so I'm changing out his tank water and trying to get him to eat. He doesn't care for most things though. I can't blame him, his right eye looks like hell.
For some reason the flea bombing failed more than usual. Right after we got back we were still finding fleas in the carpet. I'm hoping those are just chance hatchers. I'm trying to crack down on them, I gave Trolly and Norman their first bath a few days ago. They hated it, it was the most pitiful thing you could imagine. Trolly was too small to get out of the tub, so she just stood in the water sudds up and shaking with this expresion that said 'Dear god, why are you doing this to me?!" Norman is big enough to jump out once he gets his front claws latched on the edge, so I had to push his feet back when he started scratching up the side. He's a little more simple, it was more of 'Okay, I want to get out... Okay, I want to get out... Okay, I" over and over again. I felt terrible but then I saw little flea specks drifting off of them and going down the drain. At least it largely worked. I've been monkey-grooming them for fleas every day since. They don't like being held down or the flea comb. Trolly is now terrified of me picking her up. I think Norman's too dumb to remember anything past 30 seconds, so at least he still loves me.

Bascially, I'm a terrible pet owner in general at the momment.

The Ever Dominant Bean

I went to my Anthro lab today. We're still doing heredity and alleles. I thought it was funny that we using little colored kidney beans as props, like we were all back in elementary school, grouping random pairs of red and white beans as alleles for 'people' and then eliminating the ones from the gene pool when natural selections or a random catastrophe deemed them fatal. It just goes to show you that you're never too old to play with counting beans.

Forever...

We finished our discussion Judy Blume's book, Forever..., in my adolescent literature class. For those of you who haven't read it, it's basically porn for tween girls. Perfect families, practical sex talk, she names her boyfriend's penis Ralph (the name comes up surprisingly often). I don't consider myself a prude, but I can't decide if I'd let my teenage daughter read books like this. On one hand, I guess it's informative and empowering. On the other hand, it is pretty sexual.

Scammers Need to Speak Better English (for sexual purposes)

One of my roommate's friends had his facebook account hacked. A scammer came on and tried to get him to wire money. I was nearby and grabbed the computer. Hilarity ensued. Be warned, we get a little GRAPHIC. Reader discretion is advised.


Michael
11:27
hey
11:27Michael went idle

SupremeThor
11:27
hey!
what are you up to?
11:28Michael became active

Michael
11:28
i'm in some kind of deep shit right now

SupremeThor
11:28
oh?

Michael
11:29
I'm stranded in london

SupremeThor
11:29
whaaaa?
how did *that* happen?

Michael
11:29
got mugged at gun point last night
all cash,credit card and phone was stolen

SupremeThor
11:30
what were you doing in london...?

Michael
11:30
I had a trip for summer
It was a Brutal Experience,but thank God i still have my life and passport saved

SupremeThor
11:32
well, there's that

Michael
11:33
my return flight leaves in few hours but having troubles sorting out the hotel bills

SupremeThor
11:34
well that sucks, you might be late for class
*I take over for Justin*
well are you going to be okay?

Michael
11:36
wondering if you could loan me some few $$ to sort out the hotel bills and also take a cab to the airport

SupremeThor
11:37
hmmm, about how much?

Michael
11:37
I will pay you back the cash immediately i get back home
it just 600$

SupremeThor
11:38
that's cool, but you have to pay it right back

Michael
11:39
since i still have my international passport with me
i can use that as identification as soon as you send the money to me
through western union

SupremeThor
11:39
don't you have paypal?

Michael
11:39
dont hav much init
that why i contact you for the help
because I know i can count on you

SupremeThor
11:41
what are friends for?
anyway, we go way back
western union?

Michael
11:42
yea
All you have to do is to have it send through western union
to my information

SupremeThor
11:44
okay, I'm pulling it upnow
I'venever used this before
this is weird huh?

Michael
11:44
ok
it very simple

SupremeThor
11:44
I'm kind of glad you called I was thinking about you the other day

Michael
11:44
You can visit there website for instant transfer within a second transfer on www.westernunion.com

SupremeThor
11:45
yeah I'm on the site right now

Michael
11:45
ok
just click on send money
you will find it in the website

SupremeThor
11:45
did you ever break up with that girl?
oh i have to make a new account

Michael
11:47
ok

SupremeThor
11:47
but anyways, are you single again?

Michael
11:48
am not sure that is necessary
am not sure that is necessary
all you have to do is to use your credit cards

SupremeThor
11:48
i miss the way you smelled

Michael
11:48
you dont need any acc again

SupremeThor
11:50
it keeps tellingme to make one
do you ever think about that night?

Michael
11:50
hmmm
yea
but please i really need the cash
we will talks about this as soon as am back
ok
so are you still on the website
?

SupremeThor
11:53
noone has ever made love to me like that

Michael
11:54
hmm
ye
yea*

SupremeThor
11:54
the way you were just on your back

Michael
11:54
try and creat an acc and do the transfer

SupremeThor
11:54
with me thrusting into you

Michael
11:54
ok?

SupremeThor
11:55
don't you care about us?!

Michael
11:55
I do
and you know that
but i need your help nw
you are not showing me any concern
why?

SupremeThor
11:56
oh I'm gonna help you so hard
we need to get your hot ass back home!
okay I'mon it
okay, did it go through?

Michael
11:58
hey, this is really me now

SupremeThor
11:58
ooooh

Michael
11:58
no money needed

SupremeThor
11:58
things were just getting interesting!
lol

Michael
11:59
lol ya i can see

SupremeThor
11:59
we were cybering with your nigerian friend o.0
anyway...

Michael
11:59
i have a nigerian friend

SupremeThor
11:59
don't click on bad links

Michael
11:59
?

SupremeThor
11:59
well, whoever hyjacked your account
my roommate was having too much fun with it all!
although i'm glad you didn't really get mugged in london

Michael
12:00
me too

SupremeThor
12:01
anyway
i'm going to go find lunch!

Michael
12:01
thanks for the heads up justin

Ice Skating

I took some time off from the massive amount of studying I'm trying to pull off and went ice skating again tonight. That makes 3 times in 3 weeks so far. After the initial improvement bloom on my first time I'm still pretty slow and a weak skater. You'd think that running all the time would give me a boon in skating... and you'd be wrong. Last week I noticed that my ankles sink inwards and that causes my blades to meet the ice weird. This week I busted out my foot arch support and shoved it in my boot. It definitely help, but didn't fix the problem my far. I think it has to do a lot with how I rest myself on my ankles, I naturally just relax them inwardly instead of standing on top. I've decide to spend this next 7 days trying to walk on top of my foot instead on the inside. I'm hoping it'll build up more support.