January's Best Picture Award

This picture definately ranks in my top ten of inspirational photos. (Full story here).

Bet you won't guess who...

[Somebodies] have taken their latest step towards their apparent goal of total world domination.

Now follow these instructions. Place the fingertips of both hands on your computer moniter in a Vulcan mind meld fashion,........, go on, do it.... Okay, now focus your thoughts and guess who this is talking about in today's news .......................... oohhh, nope, you're wrong (for as tempting as that answer was), now guess again ...................... wrong............... try one more time ................ Wrong again. Okay, okay. Click here for the answer.

Amazing Race 6 - Episode X

Sadly Lori and Bolo got elimated in these week's episode. A simple mistake cost them the game. We will miss them. The best was the teams leaping into the pool to swim across right before making it to the finish mat. I've never seen people so agressively leap into a pool, even in the Olympics. (Which could be that in the Olympics the swimmers aren't in full clothing, and they also know how to powerfully slip into the water rather than crash with mighty force into the surface tension). This week they were in Sri Lanka (having been filmed in September of 2004), and it was sad to know that the places the teams were at were probably hard hit by the tsunami just months later.

I'm still in love with Kris and Jon. They are so amazing in their style towards the game and each other. Now that Lori and Bolo are out, I'm barracking for Rebecca and Adam (Momma's little Hell-boy) for runner-up. I think Rebecca rocks, and I pity her having to put up with that spoilt child trapped in a young-man's body. If Kris and Jon don't win, Rebecca at least deserves half a million for putting up with Adam. But I really do hope Kris and Jon win. Whatever the case, please save us from the "model alliance!"

The Airline Napkin Wipeoreum

Heh-heh-heh.

(Via Michelle from a Dave Berry blog).

Sliding support for an Australian Republic

When the British royals give us so much intrigue and amusement, why on earth would Australia want to become a republic? No wonder national support for forming a republic is low. Woman's Day and Woman's Weekly magazines would be reduced to Woman's Moment and Woman's Hour without the national continued interest in the monarchy. And let's all face it ladies, who wants to forgo the 1/99,000,000,000 chance of becoming Mrs. Prince Williams? I mean, even the Americans are jumping on board.

Images of Wisconsin

This past weekend we got walloped with a snow storm. This is what campus looks like right now:

This is a different image of Wisconsin from six months ago:

The above picture was taken on the Kickapoo River during a lab canoeing trip. Yes ladies and gentleman, you heard right, the "Kick-a-poo" river.

Ah Wisconsin....

The bacterial science of Vacuuming

I use the PubMed search engine daily at work. Occasionally I type in random searches. Today's great find is this (abstract only):

This study shows that vacuum cleaners are effective collectors and reservoirs of microbial contamination and that these contaminants are able to survive for up to two months.

Nice huh. Let us all meditate upon this point next time each of us changes the vacuum cleaner bag.

iTunes verses free downloading and other options

Read this article if you are interested in shifts and trends in the way we listen and view entertainment media. My brother convinced me to use iTunes music store and it has been a great experience. I spend more money on music overall now than I did before. A $9.99 all you can listen too per month music service I would definately pay for (if the selection was HUGE), and I would be spending more money with that $9.99/month than I even am now. What's more, I would be happy doing it. I wonder what will happen in the next few years.

Horses can sing

They raised the age limit for American Idol, but how about allowing horses on. If you have sound on your computer, check it out. (I cannot be held responsible for anything else on that website).

Amazing Race 6 - Episode IX

As a child my mother would always remind me "when in Ethiopia, don't forget your donkey." Thank goodness Jonathan or Victoria did not have the same upbringing. Finally we get to see that couple be eliminated. Jonathan was verbally abusive till the end, and I will have to admit that spending one more viewing minute listening to Victoria scream every sentance would have been one minute too much, especially considering I could have flipped over to Fox and listened to wanna-be American Idols sing their hearts out while the panel stiffled their giggeling. Ah reality TV, gotta love it.

I still think Kris and Jon are just wonderful and amazing. They safely came in third without any dramas. And I still really like Lori and Bolo. The thing with Lori and Bolo is that although they yell at each other, they are equal and they treat each other as equal even when they are yelling. There is a respect there in some bizarre wrestler way. It's unlike Hayden and Aaron, she is always putting him down, or the reverse case of Jonathan and Victoria, where he is constantly stepping on her to make himself feel better. I would love it if Kris and Jon win, but would still be okay if Lori and Bolo win. Go teams!

UPDATE: Last night was my first real time watching American Idol. I'm hooked. Feeling sheepish about my growing reality TV addiction, I started reading some blogs of some respected law professors (lawyers write great blogs) to try to ground myself in current events. The second blog I read had this. Classic!

22 Fahrenheit is not a heat wave

22 degrees fahrenheit is not a heat wave, but up here in Wisconsin lately it seems like it would be (today it was 1 F, -17 C for metric people). Here is my recent adventure with the sub freezing temperatures:

The night before flying home for Christmas I was at work late (till 12:30 am) trying to get a decent amount done before I left on break. I went out to my car to drive home and the battery would have nothing to do with turning the engine over. (It was 2 F at the time). I ran the battery down trying to start my car, and then for some reason I decided to try push starting my car on my own. I managed to push my car about 2 metres into the parking lot, and realized there was no hope. All my energy sapped, and now feeling numbness in my extremeties, I couldn't get my car back into its parking space, so I locked it and left it, and headed back to work. Once at work I called a cab and got home. In the morning I got the bus back to work (flashing a wallet with no bus card to board the bus, and the conductor didn't even notice) and had AAA jump start my car. I managed to get my car back home and parked it on a hill facing down so as to be able to easily push start the car when I returned from vacation and the conference three weeks later...

...so the three weeks went by and I got an appointment at the dealership to have my spent and dead battery replaced. Out I went to my car with my sister to give it a bit of a shove down the hill so I could jump start it and drive to the dealership. After prying the doors open (which were frozen shut), and scraping off a sheet of ice on both the outside and the inside of my windshield, I put the car into gear, pushed in the clutch, and had Lan put all her weight behind the car. No movement. She pushed more, again not a budge. We gave up, obtained some jumper cables, and boosted the car with Lan's car. Once the engine was spluttering along (which took about 3 minutes to finally turn over), I put my car into gear and tried to move the car. She wouldn't budge. I accelerated more, and with a loud pop she finally leapt forward. The breaks or axel or something had been frozen solid! Has anybody ever heard of such a thing?! Who, in their founding-father's mind, establishes a metropolis where it gets so cold that mechanical parts will freeze together from the freezing rain. Please people, have some decency! That's it, I'm sick of this country! I'm moving to Canada!!.........

Momentum

"I am convinced that momentum is more fundamental than velocity." This was said by one of my college physics professors. I would have to agree with him and that statement has remained in my head for the past decade since I heard it. Occasionally an event occurs that reminds me of it. Yesterday morning was such an event:

After spending an entire day in the Denver airport trying to return to Madison, having flights delayed, then canceled, then volunteering to be bumped to get a free voucher, we (the lab) ended up staying at a hotel two nights ago in Denver near the airport. We got the morning flight yesterday and had to take a hotel shuttle to the airport. The snow was coming down hard as we exited the parking lot in the massive hotel van. We were traveling very, very slowly up a very slight grade, and the back of the van began to slide sideways at maybe an inch per second. I saw that we were headed towards the corner of a dumpster, but for some reason in my mind I computed that once we hit the dumpster, the van would come to a stop. I mean, it was sliding soooooo slowly. Well, we did hit the corner of the dumpster, and we just kept on moving sideways, which meant that the corner of the dumpster shattered the large glass window which one of my co-workers was sitting next too (no injuries, all is well). We finally came to a rest when the corner of the dumpster had gone far enough into the van to get lodged onto the metal frame. We all climbed out the driver's door and waited for the next shuttle. I was reminded once again, that although our velocity was so slow, momentum (mass x velocity) is more fundamental.

The next shuttle we took hit a snow-hidden curve on the street and launched the passengers on that side of the van about 6 inches into the air. After that we made it safely to the airport, to Madison and to our apartments. Physically we were all fine, emotionally, well, lets just say some handled it better than others...(as is generally the case when traveling in large groups).

Amazing Race 6 - Episodes VII & VIII

Episode VII found the teams eating a huge bowl of very spicy soup in Hungary. It looked like even the team members who powered through the bowl lost their lunch as soon as they moved around a bit. Most of the team members though just puked, and puked and puked till they had passed the entirety of the bowl of soup through their mouth, down their throat, to their stomach and back up again, which apparently counts as long as you get the soup on the ground, and not back into your bowl (which one team learned the hard way). This weeks unsupportive sig. ot. award goes to Kendra (of Freddy and Kendra) who chose to point out to her boyfriend who was powering through the bowl of soup that there was plenty of vomited soup under the table from previous teams. Great work Kendra. Freddy promptly lost it. Sadly, this week saw the end of Gus and Hera however. I will honestly miss them. They were one of my favourite teams left. Kris and Jon, and Lori and Bolo are now my favs that are left.

Episode VIII was a non-elimination round which unfortunately saved Hayden and Aaron (Hayden bugs me). Classic, classic TV moment however, when Momma's Little Hell Boy (Adam) was trying to descend into the depths of the ocean (arguably only 15-25 feet) in an old style diving outfit for the Fast Forward. He couldn't figure out how to release the valve so he ended up just floating out of control near the dock. French diving instructors were jumping in full clothing off the dock into the water trying to help him. It was magnificent. Meanwhile his girlfriend completed the entire task without him. Eventually they made him go down and do a mimic of the task on his own once he figured out how to release the valve. It was great TV. All up a fun show. I'm liking Lori and Bolo more and more, and Kris and Jon remain, calm, humorous and kind to one another. They are an excellent team. We'll see how they hold up.

So when will they do an Amazing Race - All Stars?

Christmas, Firefly and a Sleeping Pill

I returned yesterday from my Christmas holiday back home. It was great. Family, boy friend, friends, pets, food, etc. Can't get much better than that. Billy (my brother) introduced me to the short lived TV show "Firefly" that he has on DVD. Loved it! Finished them last night. I flew back yesterday morning, boarded the flight from SLC to Minneapolis, didn't pay attention to the flight time, (which was less than 3 hours), and I took a sleeping pill as soon as I got on the flight. Bad, bad idea. I woke up at touchdown and stumbled my way to the connecting flight (which was finishing boarding when I got there). I may have been drooling still. I don't know. Thankfully I made it to the right gate on time and fell into the right seat, and then woke up at touch down again. Apparently there had been a long delay on the tarmac before take off, something about an electrical panel, which ended up giving me more sleep time. It was a fun trip.

Tomorrow morning I fly out to go back west again (Colorado) for a conference. I'll be back in a week, so no blogging during that time.