Pictures of Swedish Dance Bands of the 70's

Apparently, Bad Taste ignores international borders...

http://pics.yemii.com/swedish-dance-bands.html

Word of the Year: hypermiling

from World Wide Words:


Once again the Oxford American Dictionary is first past the post in the race to announce the Word of the Year.

Last year, you may recall, it chose "locavore" (see http://wwwords.org?LOCA).

This year, its word is another you've read about in these columns, "hypermiling" (http://wwwords.org?HPRM).


The finalists included

"frugalista", a person who leads a frugal lifestyle, but who stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes and buying second-hand;

"moofer", a mobile out-of-office worker, who works away from base with the help of modern communications; and

"topless meeting", one in which the participants are barred from using their laptops, Blackberries or mobile phones.

Cleric capers

I recently attended a wedding which was officiated by a Priest direct from Ireland.

I was introduced to him during the reception, and after a few minutes of banter, I could tell he was a "salt of the earth" type of guy. When he asked me what I did for a living, I told him that I worked for a pharmaceutical company.

"Do you make Viagra?" he asked.

"No," I replied, "My company makes cognition enhancement drugs. The way I see it, what's the use of being excited if you can't remember WHY?"

Then it was off to the races as we traded Viagra jokes...

"Talking about Music is like Dancing about Architecture" - steve martin

The 2009 AAAS/Science Dance Contest
aka "Dance your Ph.D."

The American Association for the Advancement of Science sponsored the project, in which contestants were asked to upload to YouTube a dance video which explained their doctoral thesis.

Thirty-six dances -- including solo ballet and circus spectacle -- had been submitted online. A panel of nine judges -- the three winners of the first "Dance Your Ph.D." contest, three scientists from Harvard University, and three artistic directors of the dance company Pilobolus -- scored the dances on their ability to bridge the art and science worlds.

The Winner:
Sue Lynn Lau chose classical ballet and highly kinetic party dancing as the way to interpret her Ph.D. thesis, "The role of vitamin D in beta-cell function." As The Nutcracker Suite lilts in the background, Lau, a graduate student from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, appears as the Sugarplum Fairy, delivering marshmallow glucose to four beta cell dancers. Meanwhile, a fifth dancer flings and twirls around the stage--representing the sunlight required for vitamin D biosynthesis.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/1120/2

see: http://gonzolabs.org/dance/contestants/ for a list of all winners in various categories, their thesis, and a link to their YouTube video.

Everything you know is Wrong

science news article:

Pot joins the fight against Alzheimer's, memory loss

Scientists from Ohio State University report that marijuana, contrary to the conventional wisdom, may help ward off Alzheimer's and keep recall sharp. Their findings, released today at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington D.C.: chemical components of marijuana reduce inflammation and stimulate the production of new brain cells, thereby enhancing memory.

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=pot-joins-the-fight-against-alzheim-2008-11-19

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"Our marijuana study showed that... ummm... oh yeah, that Oreos are awesome with milk."

Game for a future generation

Read the following two statements.
Pick the one that was uttered by a Vice Presidential candidate:

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska's investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have that, and I believe that our education, like such as in south africa, and the Iraq everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should
help the U.S. should help South Africa should help Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future.

http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/the-wild-wordsmith-of-wasilla/?em

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Things you've always wondered about...

BBC news item:


A couple have divorced after the wife saw the husband having online sex in the virtual world of Second Life.

So how do computerised characters have sex?

"First you need to buy genitals," says technology journalist Adrian Mars, explaining the process in Second Life. "You start off with no genitals and then you buy some. These objects can do all sorts of things. You can have ones that ejaculate at the right moment.


full article at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7729207.stm


(that excerpt above piqued your interest, didn't it?)

Otto the octopus wreaks havoc

news item:


A octopus has caused havoc in his aquarium by performing juggling tricks using his fellow occupants, smashing rocks against the glass and turning off the power by shortcircuiting a lamp.


Staff believe that the octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction.

The short-circuit had baffled electricians as well as staff at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany, who decided to take shifts sleeping on the floor to find out what caused the mysterious blackouts.

"Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better - much to the distress of his fellow tank inhabitants."


full at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3328480/Otto-the-octopus-wrecks-havoc.html

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1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

An old man approached the White House. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.
The old man said, "Okay" and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."
The man thanked him and, again, walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U. S. Marine, saying, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush. "

The Marine, somewhat agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand? "

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it."

"You know you've worked in a lab too long when....."

You know you've worked in a lab too long when...

You can't watch CSI without cursing every scientific inaccuracy

Liquid nitrogen is only half as dangerous as you thought

You have to check the web to find out what the weather is outside

You realize that almost anything can be classed as background reading

Warning labels invoke curiosity rather than caution

You decide on conference to attend by the quality of the food served

You've used dry ice to cool beer

You can no longer spell normal words, but have no trouble with spelling things like immunohistochemistry or deoxyribonucleic acid.

You have a callus on your thumb.

You can open the toothpaste with one hand.

You wash your hands before and after using to the washroom.

When you hear tween, you think of the surfactant, not the age group.

You can identify organs on road kill.

You've never worn a clean lab coat.

You don't fear rodents. Rodents fear you.

You flinch when you hear the word "significant".

When your banana go bad and you get fruit flies, you can't help but check their eye color

You own Invitrogen t-shirts, and actually wear them.

You refer to your children as the F1.

You've used Kimwipes as Kleenex.

You say "mills" and "megs".

You've played Battleship using pipet tip boxes.

The scent of latex reminds you of work, not play.

Your parents still have no idea what you do for a living

On this date in History... November 13th

"On November 13th, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife. Deep down he knew she was right, but he also knew that someday he would return to her. With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the home of his childhood friend, Oscar Madison. Sometime earlier Madison's wife had thrown him out, requesting that he never return. Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?"

political cartoon for Nov 4th

functional flip-flops

All summer, my son was wearing his favorite flip-flops.
What makes them his favorite ones?

Look at the little gizmo on the bottom of one of them.
Yup, it's a beer bottle opener...

E-mail error ends up on road sign

Remember the Chinese restuarant which used translation software to determine the English words for the restuarant's name, and then unknowingly displayed the translation server error message on its sign?

Here's a similar example, but this one's in Welsh.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7702913.stm

free Obama victory sticker

Hey, Want a free Obama sticker to celebrate our victory? It's designed by Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the iconic HOPE poster. And MoveOn's giving them away totally free -- even the shipping's free. I just got mine. Click this link to get your free Obama sticker: http://pol.moveon.org/shepstickers/?id=-14244673-WrR2VVx&rc=fb.connect Thanks!

"Oh, that's completely different. Never mind."

Is there something terribly wrong with this product or is it just me?

Is there something terribly wrong with this product

or is it just me?

understanding the campaigns

Some of you may have friends who just can't understand WHY McCain lost the election.

Here it is in a nutshell:

Just as Love conquers Hate,
Hope trumps Fear

Ah, USSR... what a country!

I spent an hour and ten minutes in a voting line this morning.

As I was waiting, a man next to me said, "Ya know, they should make Election Day a national holiday, so it doesn't conflict with our work schedules."

The woman next to me replied, "I came from Russia, and I was living there when it was the Soviet Union, and it WAS a national holiday. Nobody had to go to work on an Election Day. It was a fun time. While you waited to vote, there were food and beverage carts, and music, just like a street fair."

"And," she teasingly added, "the voting process was so easy. They handed you a ballot -- already filled out -- and you just put it in the ballot box."

not the best endorsement

"I'm delighted to support John McCain, and I'm pleased that he has chosen a running mate with executive talent, toughness, and common sense, our next vice president, Sarah Palin."
--- Dick Cheney [01-Nov-2008]

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And Cheney shoots two more people in the face...