Nice!

So this is the headline for Case's "recent news":

Case Western Reserve University recognized as one of top campuses for LGBT students

Me: great.
No, really, wtf? They could also recognize the school as being great for computer nerds. And ugly people. And assholes. There are plenty of all of those types here too. Also that new logo they introduced a couple years ago is still stupid.

progress

Yesterday I finished the bulk of the text for my paper. It is only the results (one section for which there is no data at all was left unwritten) but I'm pretty pleased with myself. The figure legends are almost done as well and the Materials and methods are about 1/2 done in my view. This leaves the introduction (the most work in my opinion) and the abstract. I think I'm going to make my boss write the discussion, because I can't make that stuff up. My goal for this weekend is to preoofread what I've got so far and to think about what else I might need to do.

Dancing rule

New rule: If someone politely declines your offer to dance with them, don't try it again. Just go find that sleazy guy and go home with him.

END COMMUNICATION

Heat Vision and Jack

This is the best thing I've ever seen. With lines like "All monkey-sluts shall be absorbed" and a talking motorcycle and Jack Black and Ron Silver! And Jack Black becomes super inteligent when exposed to the sun. I mean, what more do you want? Watch it here. Amazing effects and acting. Ron Silver is a seemingly invincible villain-killer. Some background here.
Music by Tom Jones, Puff Daddy, The Hollies and Metallica. And some crazy techno music. And strippers.
I remember hearing about this in 1999 when I discovered Tenacious D. Now, after finally seeing it I can come up with no reason this show should not have continued. Of course, now Jack Black is too big a star to do something this brilliant. But back in 1999 he had the chance to make history with this show. History's loss.

"All monkey-tramps dance on Paragon's lap!"

Beer! D&D dvds!

As far as I know we are the only two folks brewing Futurama themed beer. So I guess this can serve as an official invitation to David X. Cohen (or any of the Futurama staff, especially Billy West and John DiMaggio) to come over, hang out and try some "Bender's Obsolete Ale." Or absinthe. Whatever it takes, you know?

Unrelated to beer ( but soon to be) I just found out this is happening. I watched this damn cartoon every saturday when it was on and then on sundays when it was inexplicably moved. Always entertaining. I mean, Tiamat! The Dungeon Master! Venger! That stupid baby unicorn! I'm super excited.

Chach fashion

What the hell is the deal with guys wearing sandals with pants? If it is warm enough for sandals, it's warm enough for shorts. the same goes for long sleeve shirts with shorts. If you do either you look stupid.

You can call me Lord BigFishington

Pop quiz: Who caught the biggest salmon?
Who caught the biggest halibut?
Who caught the biggest grayling?

The answer to all of those questions is me. Evidence can be seen on the right.

In the meantime, Greg Gutfeld has become my favorite person ever for his absurd commentary on everything. An example:

"Me: Boy, you look terrific today!
Myself: Thanks! I've been concentrating on my pecs at the gym!
Me: It shows!
Myself: Would you like to go upstairs?
Me: Sure...but only for a minute.
Myself: That's all it will take!"

That is an excellent example of how he rolls. More on him later.

work, moving and dead cats

Been busy of late. What with the grant due on July 1st (and it's only on my stuff so no one but me and the technician to gather data....wheee!) and moving and the trip....Busy.

So, saw Jarrod in C-Bus after the Mule/Umphrey's McGee show (which, by the way, RAWKED!!!). We went to a few bars. The first bar we went to turned out to be for, er, the limp-wristed set? No, to unPC. It was a gay bar. There. Jarrod took us to a gay bar. So I can cross that off my list. Great. And the bartender called me "Hon," which I thought was weird. Until I realized where I was. Which actually took a few minutes. But after that I drained my Whiskey and Coke and jetted.

Moving is a pain in my ass. Too much work for those lazy landlords. I'd better get that whole damn deposit back. The new place is shaping up nicely though. And I love Netflix, except when they get my discs too late. I mailed thursday and still haven't got my new ones yet. I mean, COME ON!

Bigface is probably dying. If he's not dead. Which kind of makes me sad, he was a good cat when he wasn't stealing my hotdogs or pizza. But he was in pretty bad shape this morning. I don't think he was even aware of me (which isn't too different than normal) but he was breathing. Oh well. I mean, I don't want him to suffer or anything but there's not much I can do for him right now. We'll see how he is when I get home.

On a roll!

Wednesday: Met Cool Carl at the bar for the second half of the Cavs. At least I remember going home and going to bed.
Thursday: Watched Jeopardy. Landlord Carl was supposed to bring people around to see the house. As far as I know, never happened. Woke up at 5ish in bed. Don't remember anything.
Friday: Watched the Cavs not win the series. One more game to go. Woke up at 8ish on saturday and couldn't find my glasses. Spent the next hour looking. Don't remember the previous evening.
Saturday: Work in the morning then Luke and Erin's for drinkin'. I want a black out hat trick this week. That'd be great. I'm gonna try and do it.

Coheed and Cambria

Back from the concert. Avenged Sevenfold played before C&C. Some other band opened. We were running late due to the Cavs actually WINNING (we watched them score enough points to win at the bar) and then ran into post game traffic. Also people were going to the Indians game. Chelsea met some dude named Darryl (sp?) there. I'm pretty sure we were in the older demographic (like Weird Al and Tom Petty), mostly because everyone seemed to be in high school or just finishing high school. What a fun, sexy group of people. John and I stuck to the back for A7X (as the kids were calling them). Chelsea and Darryl went to find some "mosh-pitting" in the front. After their set, John and I staked our area out for C&C which we hoped would not be in a mosh pit area, but still close. Unfortunately we managed to find a staging ground for crowd-surfin kids, which may have had a greater potential for damage.
Coheed opened with "In Keeping the Secrets of Silent Earth: 3" which was an expected and totally rocking start to an enjoyable concert. Except for the crowd-surfing punk kids. And the creepy, clearly underage girls. But I didn't let any of that ruin my concert. I got "Welcome Home" and "A Favor House Atlantic" to make me happy. John wanted some "Once Upon Your Dead Body" but no dice; he got "The Suffering" instead and was pretty happy. The last encore was super played out and psychadelic. The kids couldn't handle the voice box on the guitar (like Frampton uses) and prolonged guitar fantasticness from Claudio. I thought it was great, but could have been better (for me) with some chemical "modification." Anyway, Coheed and Cambria put on a great show. I wish I could have seen a full 2 set show from them but I'll take what I can get.

New addition

"You Dropped a Bomb on Me" by The Gap Band

Also, my boss seemed to confirm the whole "1 year left" thing this morning when he introduced the new undergrad to me. Which is A-OK with me. New apartment is picked out and it had goddamn better well have a garage. Closer to Coventry will be fun.

The bath what?

Graduation. That's the plan now. Like by next spring or summer. So in honor of that I am putting together a list of music to play while people meander into the seminar room including
Hocus Pocus by Focus (both versions)
Jack in the Green by Jethro Tull
Velvet Green by Jethro Tull
Gabrielle by Ween

Thats it for now. But its going to be great. Promise.

What a fun, sexy time!

What a crappy, busy week. Last week. This week should be better. Committee meeting on thursday went OK, they didn't seem too enthusiastic about spring '07 graduation. Better show 'em they ain't got a choice. Test drove a Mustang on saturday. It was great. The best ever probably. Now I just need to find one with the options I want. It goes fast fast. I liked that. As long as its not an ugly color.
Remember when I said no bands used horn sections anymore? I was listening to some Guns'n'Roses last week (Live Era, pick it up if you don't have it already) and they use a horn section! And it sounded awesome. Also, I'm almost always right.

Bottle of Wine, Fruit of the Vine

Upon waking up the day after Valentine's day what did discover but my date, still in my room! "What are you doing here?" I asked. No reply was forthcoming, so we simply stared at each other. Then I realized that my date was actually a big bottle of wine and it was still about 1/3 full. And I felt like Hell. And it was 4 AM. Then some of the previous night started to come back to me, things such as drinking lots of wine. And other things. And listening to depressing music. LOTS of depressing music. But I did remember that I thouroughly enjoyed listening to a lot of Gram Parsons (Flying Burrito Brothers, The Byrds). That will be my next major music purchase (ie, anything I can find that I don't already have). And I will conclude with some random thoughts and observations.

1. Why do people work out in hats? That is just gross.

2. No matter how many times I brushed my teeth this morning I could still taste wine.

3. The Rolling Stones make me think almost exclusively of cocaine. Do what you will with that information.

4. Upwards of 80% men look better with moustaches.

5. Making figures for scientific papers is either great or terrible. I can't decide which.

When the Superbowl is not at all super

First, let me say I had no personal investment in the Superbowl this year. I don't care about Pittsburgh or Seattle as teams. I do like individual players on each team, notably Troy Polamalu (crazy -silly hair, ridiculous second year player), "Fast Willie" Parker (first year RB, pretty good as well) and of course Shawn Alexander. He's just so happy. All the time. So I really didn't care who won. Seeing both teams sporadically throughout the season, Seattle seemed to have the stonger offense and Pittsburgh the better defense. I picked Seattle as 7 point favorites while still respecting the fact that both were pretty good teams.
First, the good. There were some funny commercials, my favorite being the Bud Light "magic fridge." You can watch them all here. I hate Bud Light. It is one of my most unfavorite beers. I will NEVER drink it unless there is nothing else to drink. That being said, they had the best commercials this year.
Next, the bad. What an awful game. And by awful game I mean officiating. First, D-Jac's TD catch as offensive pass interference? Maybe. Maybe I'll take that. But, and thats a big BUT, you need to watch both teams awfully careful if you want to call that kind of penalty. Which the refs did not do. Are you telling me Pitt receivers didn't make those same weak-ass push offs? Then you are either stupid or a liar. But I can accept that as a call, because it's hard to tell what exactly is "pass interference" (only slightly less vague than "football move").
Second, and this is totally ridiculous, is the call on Roethlisberger's "touchdown." I submit to you the worst officiating I have ever seen with that play. That clearly was not a touchdown. In no way. And Big Ben knew it, the asshole. You saw him throw his arm with the ball over the line AFTER he was down. He knew it and he was flat out cheating. But I don't blame the player, because I'm sure a Seattle player in a similar situation would have done the same thing. However, one reason there are supposed to be impartial officials is to take care of situations like this. Clearly the ref was either stupid, blind or pursuing an agenda.
Third, a relatively minor point. Hasselbeck throws an interception. Great. Sucks for him. The interceptor manages to run back to Hasselbeck where he tackled by Hasselbeck. Again, great. But wait, the ref calls a penalty! On Seattle? OK. On Hasselbeck? For a low block?? A LOW BLOCK??? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?????? There was nothing wrong with the block. There was something more sinister afoot.
What I mean to say is, from the start, Pittsburgh was going to win. And apparently if that means the refs had to cheat in order to allow that then so be it.
Further, I think it was a conspiracy (by whom I'm not sure) that was hatched even before the Superbowl itself. Think about Vanderjagt's missed FG at the end of the that playoff game. Did he really miss it? Or was is intentional. How could such an accurate kicker miss one of the most important kicks of his career? His contract with the Colts is up this year....Just something to think about.

Cross-posted at Science, Politics and Star Wars

I wonder if Duane Allman ate a lot of steak?

So I didn't need to change clothes. After a brief conference with other dinner-goers it was decided that our clothes were A-OK and we went as-is. And I got the biggest fillet I've ever had. And it was delicious. I'd guess it was like 1.5-2 inches thick. Nothing else was notable about the dinner other than my mighty-man steak, which pleased me greatly. And the tiny Chinese girl ate almost as much as I did, which I consider impressive since she's like 5 feet tall and only weighs like 75 pounds.

I listened to the Allman Brothers all morning yesterday (actually just Live at the Fillmore and Live from American University over and over) and I've decided they are probably the best band from the 70s. If Duane Allman hadn't died, I think they would have destroyed the Grateful Dead as an awesome tour monster-machine. Given the choice, I'm gonna choose the Allmans every time. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and claim that Duane Allman is the best guitar player that ever was. Why? Because there is no way to prove me wrong. Its totally subjective! In your eye.

Dress up for what?

Today my boss told me that I was not dressed properly for my dinner with the interview candidate tonight. I tried to explain that not only was I wearing an undershirt, but the shirt over that had a collar! Apparently I was supposed to understand or know that ahead of time. Let's be honest, I'm not out to impress anyone (unless its that girl in the cardio room, dammit!) so what do I care? Anyway, this place is supposed to be pretty expensive so I'll be sure to order some classy stuff. Report tommorrow on the food. But I need to run home and change clothes first. And come back and finish my work. All this after I spent 30 minutes in my boss's office showing him how to clean his computer. Apparently things like that aren't intuitive for him. Like dressing up for me. Small world.

In other news, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle is one of the funniest movies ever. I can't believe there are people who don't think it is funny. We will call those people "humorless bastards." I think we've watched the movie 5 times in the past 2 weeks and the frequency seems to be increasing. Sort of like Anchoman last year, although I will still turn that on whenever it is on HBO, everytime. So if you haven't seen either one see them. Immediately. and if you don't like them, you are a humorless bastard.

Shouldn't it be SotU and not SOTU?

Anyway, watched the State of the Union address last night after real-life Napoleon Dynamite was my cashier at Tops and proceeded to lecture me on Alaska, since he must have known more about it than me. Putz.

I thought the speech was OK, nothing stirring (for me at least) but many patriotic lines. I loved the lip service he paid to free market capitalism which was followed immediately with his socialist pet projects (health care, etc.). Doesn't someone at least proof read his speech so he doesn't directly contradict himself? Also, his science initatives SUCK. Don't whine and complain about diseases that are too expensive to cure or uncurable and then cut funding on the research. Duh.

John Roberts is a very handsome Chief Justice. Sam Alito looked confused and bewildered last night. Rumsfeld looks like Skeletor. Nothing against him, in fact I think its great that if he had the purple hood and ram staff he would be He-Man's bumbling arch-nemesis.

Exceptions to the rule

So I drank a bottle of wine last. So what. I know what I said before. Shut up. I had a really crappy day on monday and didn't want sit and be miserable (at least with a clear head). So I bought a bottle of cheap-o Shiraz at the drug store and drank it. So F you. Anyway, I felt pretty crappy this morning and still worked out so I got my punishment, right? I don't care. Rot in Hell. But the cardio was totally worth it (wink wink, nudge nudge) despite the fact that I don't want to move anywhere right now. So I feel pretty good and I'm pretty sure I won't drink tonight. Maybe.

Binge Drinking

Today I decided to no longer be an alcoholic. Instead, I will shift to binge drinking. What this means is instead of drinking heavily (almost) every day I will drink heavily only on the weekends. At best, I expect a marginal effect on my health, although I may surprise myself. Anyway, I hope this will both save me some money (not that the Beast Light was real pricey) and healthen me up.

Disco Fun Facts

There is a disco song about Rasputin. Just throwing that out there for future reference. Wait, here's the band too. They're called Boney M and that is golden. You can learn all kinds of crazy crap listening to disco radio stations. Although, I consider Barry White to be more "love-makin'" than disco. Smooooth.

Random Thoughts

1. I find girls with glasses more attractive than girls without. Glasses are pretty hot.

2. Why aren't horn sections big in music anymore? In the 60s, 70s and 80s there were horns all over the place, from rock to disco to pop music. Horns sound pretty cool, so start using them again.

3. I'm pretty damn tired of this "pop-punk" BS. These kids need to go back to work at Subway. You have nothing new to say and you sure can't say it in a creative fashion even if you do.

4. Is Stephen King's new book The Stand with zombies? After reading the first two chapters that is what I've been led to believe. And that isn't a bad thing at all.

5. There is a new movie starring Samuel L. Jackson called Snakes on a Plane. That should make you excited.