Go Be Delighted

A Terrib(ly Perplexing) Experience: Museum of Jurassic Technology

2008-07-21T00:45:00.000-07:00

In early May, I found a dead bird on my back porch.

Naturally, I Googled the circumstance to see if it portended terrible things to come. All interweb forums pointed to "yes." And if the subsequent three months of my life were submitted as evidence they, too, would support this verdict.

But fear not, dear readers. I think I've found a way to reverse my ill fortune:

All I need to do is find a baby. And spit on it.

This, according to the superstitions exhibit at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a place full of dioramas, optical illusions and broken Rube Goldberg contraptions. Where I also learned:

Mouse pie will cure stammering.
A baby's caul (you know, the fetal membrane covering the head at birth) will give you second sight. Especially if it's your own, and you carry it with you in a small box til the day you die.
If one of the groom's shoes is untied at the wedding ceremony, he will have the power to loosen the "virgin zone."

Imagine yourself among all this and then add a soundtrack of elegiac classical music, operatic singing, thunder, lightning, and tortured screams, wafting from various exhibits and mingling together into a sonic cocktail of foreboding and unease. It's like a children's museum commissioned by the Dharma Initiative.

Other intriguing, if unsettling exhibits include:

Painted portraits of all of the dogs that have died in space.
Failed dice.
Cat's Cradle how-to holograms (Accompanied by recordings of women speaking in tongues.)

And, of great personal interest:

Dioramas of history's most notable Trailer Homes (complete with the requisite car-on-blocks)

Thankfully, the staff is humane enough to offer complimentary tea and cookies on the top floor. All of that befuddlement will wreak havoc on your blood sugar.

Behold

2008-07-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

Electron blue Fender Stratocaster with a rosewood fretboard, two single-coil pick ups and a humbucker. Hecho en Mexico.

(Photo by Jed Johnson)

New posts coming soon.

Spontaneously in Seattle (Part 2)

2008-05-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

After Saturday's chance encounter with culinary arts blogger Carina Ziegler, I added Issaquah's Tiger Mountain to my Sunday itinerary. I was committed to checking out Snoqualmie Falls for Emilio's sake, but since Issaquah was on the way (and, admittedly, I kind of wanted to check it out anyhow), I rallied around 9:30 a.m. and headed east on I-90 with hope of making it to both. I did, and I was not prepared for what awaited me.

The Tiger Mountain hike was unreal.

In a secret garden, enchanted magical forest sort of way. (THANK YOU, CARINA!)

Surely, if only I'd ingested the slightest amount of hallucinogens, secrets of the ancient forest would have spilled forth from the woods.

I think these characters, in particular, would have had a lot to share:

Unfortunately, I only had a granola bar, and my id did not burst forth from my messenger bag.

Drugs would have been redundant, though, at the top of the mountain, where the scene was effectively psychedelic. Submerged in cloud, the summit was silent save for eerie, other-worldly birdsong, the soft patter of rain, and the squelch of my shoes in the mud.

The trail at the summit.

View from the top: Cloudy, with a chance of trees.

Oh -- the mud.

For some reason, I thought my Chucks would suffice:

Duh.

And the only thing worse than climbing up a muddy mountain in Chucks? Climbing down a muddy mountain in Chucks.

Gnarly!

I hastened my descent after the fall, begging a group of lovely ladies for some band-aids along the way ("We don't have any, sorry," they replied. "Which is pretty pathetic for three doctors and a nurse.")

But I did stop to befriend a snail:

Out of the woods, my first order of business was tending to my wounds, so I stopped at a Shell and bought some band-aids from Dave, who suggested I check out the Rollin' Log Tavern across the street. Note taken.

But first: food.

I walked my bandaged hands over to the Issaquah Brewhouse and ordered the Kobe Blue Balls sandwich, a blue-cheese stuffed Kobe meatball sandwich on a marina-smothered hoagie bun. With potato chips and a pickle spear. Ohhh, it was Epic.

I met a man at the bar named G, a cuddly tattooed fellow who had just initiated a divorce from his wife of 5 years. He confessed that I was the first person he'd told; better to start with me, a total stranger, than with family and friends. We bonded over the difficulties of ending long term relationships over some Rogue Dead Guy Ale (very tasty).

Time for Snoqualmie Falls, another 20 minutes east of Issaquah. The falls were truly awe-inspiring:

My recommenders had warned that the Falls would be crowded, but they neglected to mention that it's also the site of a power plant (!)

Glorious nature.

Tranquil countryside.

Machinery aside, I did manage to capture this tender moment:

How. Adorable.

There were no discernable trails at Snoqualmie Falls, save for a super jam-packed .5 mile hike to the river. (Which made me all the more grateful for Carina's stellar recommendation.)

Frustrated, I asked the cashier at the gift shop if she knew of any good hikes nearby, and she gave me four slips of paper with cryptic directions to surrounding trailheads. I settled on Twin Falls, off I-90 exit 34.

Bingo.

Tiger Mountain had plenty of tranquil forest, but no fresh water. Snoqualmie Falls had plenty of fresh water, but no tranquil forest.

Twin Falls, though, was just right.

And I finally had that moment I was looking for.

Some pictures:

Water source.

Bottom half of the falls.

Top half of the falls.

Another friendly slug.

Prophesy.

The sun was setting by the time I left Twin Falls, and I was wet, muddy, stinky, and still bleeding from my morning tumble. So what to do? Why, head back to Issaquah for a beer at the Rollin' Log Tavern.

I enjoyed a Rogue American Amber and a basket of transcendently greasy fish and chips at the Rollin' Log, where I was tended to by a lovely mother-daughter team (Dixie and Heather, respectively).

When Shell station Dave had recommended the place earlier in the day, he said the Rollin' Log Tavern was " pretty much as good as it gets." I have to concur. The place is the holiest of dives: a nice arcade selection (bowling, Golden Tee, off-road racing), two pool tables, darts, a shuffle board, loud TVs, fried food, a hot nut bar, free popcorn, chewing gum and pork rinds and single-serving aspirin for sale behind the bar. Hospitable, close-knit, local clientele. I was tired, really tired, and I knew I should've gotten back on the road after the first beer. But I couldn't leave. In fact, I sort of wanted to die there.

Dixie recommended the Hefewiezen, and after Heather gave me a free sample, I relented, and stayed for one last beer and a conversation with Issaquah native Sharon and LA-bred Dave. I promised I'd look them up the next time I was in Issaquah (Soon, I hope. It's truly a gorgeous place).

Relunctantly, I walked back to the Sebring, passing another great looking bar along the way (H&H saloon, where several folks were singing along to one patron's acoustic rendition of a country-western song), and headed north for the final stop of the trip: Walgreen's, to replace a toothbrush I'd managed to knock into the Holiday Inn toilet (yup).

Outside the pharmacy, I was apologetically approached by a young man who had just gotten out of the emergency room for a kidney infection and "didn't want to be a bum," but just needed five more dollars to get his meds. So I bought the toothbrush, and gave him 5 of my $20 cash-back. He hugged me, and assured, "you've got great karma coming to you."

I hope so, and if it's true, I'd like to pass it along to Emilio, Debbie, the novelty store guys, Rachel and Eric, Denny, Carina and Sean, Shell Station Dave, G, Dixie and Heather, and Sharon and Dave for their help in shaping an extraordinary Memorial Day adventure. GOD BLESS YOU, CITIZENS OF AMERICA!

Spontaneously in Seattle (Part 1)

2008-05-28T23:14:00.000-07:00

As 2008 unraveled and I imagined what lay ahead, I forsaw myself spending Memorial Day weekend in the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, as May approached, a vacation didn't seem to be in the proverbial cards. Until my employer's tech team announced plans to"to upgrade the network" and give our Internet-less staff Friday off. And Wells Fargo blessed my Visa with 2% APR till 2009. And Priceline hooked it up, hard style. So, two days before the holiday weekend, I booked a vacation package to Seattle.

Out of respect for this auspicious turn of events, I decided to leave the particulars of my journey up to chance and let the recommendations of strangers guide what I'd eat, drink, see and do over the weekend.

After checking into the Seatac Holiday Inn, I began my journey at Sharp's Roaster & Alehouse, a Chotchkie's-esque BBQ joint with a fine selection of draft beer and a gigantic, cocktail-emblazoned carnival wheel, spun by the bartenders every half hour to determine the drink special for the next 30 minutes. I sat at the bar between Debbie, a real estate agent from San Juan Island, and Emilio, a cruise ship staffer from Seattle, who recommended -- over hot, gooey cornbread, barbeque chicken and Mac & Jack's African Amber -- that I start Saturday off at the Pike Place Market and head out to Snoqualmie Falls on Sunday.

Several others had recommended Pike Place Market (Carrie's screenwriter friend, Anthony Bourdain) so I decided to make it my first stop in the city. But first, I had to fulfill a childhood dream: a visit to the location of Kurt Cobain's final moments.

Saturday morning was gorgeous, and the lady working the Avis counter just happened to hook me up with a Chrysler Sebring Convertible:

Chryst!

So I got dressed in the most obnoxiously alt rock outfit I could muster-

-and set out to Viretta Park, off of Lake Washington Boulevard, with the convertible top down and Modest Mouse on the stereo.

I found the house:

And the park:

And one of several memorial benchs:

Of course, I had to add a note of my own:

And smoke a parliament next to the tree.

Egregious badassery.

Apparently, the house has been purchased and occupied by somebody else because every now and then I'd see some shirtless dude or bikini-topped babe bounce into view above the gate as if on a trampoline. Oh -- and for a good ten minutes or so, somebody was screaming, murderously. Nice.

After paying my respects, I drove west through downtown and meandered toward Pike Place Market. I emerged from the parking garage into an indoor boardwalk full of boutiques hawking antiques, jewelery, art, vitamins, and assorted novelties. The sight of slime lured me into one of the novelty shops, and I wandered in to find a twenty-something stoner and a bearded old hippie lounging idly behind the counter. Clearly these two knew where to drink.

I asked, and they suggested, without hesitation, Nite Lite on Second and Stewart ("Opens at 3:30. $1 PBR's, 4 finger beers"), as well as the Whiskey Bar ("but I don't know if you have enough tattoos") and the Pike Pub and Brewery ("if you like fancy beer").

I noted their recommendations, thanked them and left, and proceeded down the boardwalk to a Palm and Tarot Card Reader. Unfortunately, she had already left for the day. So I continued onward through the market, shuffling my way through the thick crowd past gorgeous displays of fresh seafood, flowers, jams, chocolates, soap, jewelry and art. I bought a $6 mermaid sculpture made of ash from the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption (it came with an informative card about the volcano; I couldn't resist).

The smell of fried seafood was overwhelming and, at that late afternoon hour, irresistable, so I stopped by Emmett Watson's Oyster Bar for a Hale Mongoose I.P.A. and a basket of fried oysters & chips. It was one of the best meals I've ever had. The oysters were so scrumptiously succulent the taste of them will follow me to the grave.

Next: the Pike Pub, where I had the pleasure of meeting Burbank residents Rachel and Eric over a sampler of the Pub's finest (recommended: Double and Tripel Ale. Not recommended: everything else). We chatted about Belgian beer, midwestern work ethics and the myth of the Bridezilla (Rachel's a wedding photographer: check her out), and Rachel recommended some spots worth visiting back in LA (Masa for bread pudding, Lucky Baldwin's for Belgian brews.)

After the pub, I called Jimmy whilst lounging on the pier, observing this totem pole:

I then headed to the Bourdain-approved Piroshky Piroshky for a decidedly unnecessary but nevertheless delicious apple cinnamon pastry. Mmm.

After dessert, I went on a quest to find a marquee I'd spotted while looking for a place to park the Sebring:

(No further comment necessary.)

Conveniently, this was near the Nite Lite, and so the evening began.

The Nite Lite's decor alone warrants a stellar recommendation: faux-rock walls adorned with lime green and birds-egg blue vinyl headboards, glittery green foil under the glass bar, fake icicles on the top shelf, $1 PBR special before 7 p.m.

It was large, quirky and sleazy.

But there was nobody in there. So I moved on to the Whiskey Bar.

The Whiskey Bar was a nice little hang for the "discerning biker" (clean and tidy rockabilly chic). But hands down, the best thing about the Whiskey Bar was Denny, a 63 yr old Tulsa-born oil refinery salesman (who didn't look a day over 50), who schooled me on Canadian Club Reserve and coke, the perils of New Orleans, and life, love and new beginnings. During the early days of his sales career, Denny had traveled through and fallen in love with Seattle and resolved to move there if he ever needed a place to start over. Unfortunately, that time came in the 90's when his beloved wife, a singer, passed away. We shared several tall whiskey and cokes together, and then, after revealing that he had arrived by motorcycle, Denny abruptly left. It was probably for the best. At that point, I was ready to climb on back and ride off with him into the sunset. Instead, I moved north, to Five Point Cafe.

Outside the bar is a lovely view of the Space Needle:

Inside the bar is cheap beer, a great jukebox, and colorful clientele. Around the time I realized the top shelf was adorned with softcore porno polariods, a robust tattooed woman in a pink tank top sat down to my right and ordered an Adios Motherfucker. She asked me if there were any tattoo parlors around and I apologized, "I don't know, I'm not from around here." She then pointed to a name tattooed on her back and explained, "I've got to get this name changed to Reyes."

"You might want to wipe that out altogether," I retorted.

"Huh. Hadn't thought about that."

She told me about Mr. Reyes, and what an asshole he was, and asked me about my notebook.
She said she wrote in her journal sometimes, after her weekly meetings. She had been addicted to crack, and was celebrating her second clean month.

We talked for quite awhile and she told me her name; regrettably, I cannot remember it, and I failed to record it, having tucked away my notebook out of respect for our conversation. I tried to convince her that she didn't need Mr. Reyes, she didn't need anyone, except for "what's in here" (Mel pounds her chest), and "you've got it. You've got that fire in you. I can see it."

I hope she believed me. After she left, a couple walked in and took her place at the bar: lovely, sweet Carina (a fellow blogger) and her friend Sean.

Carina graciously shared a Djarum with me, and I mentioned my plan to visit Snoqualmie Falls. She recommended Issaquah's Tiger Mountain instead. And so begins day two...

This is Your Brain on NYC

2008-05-27T23:51:00.000-07:00

Allegedly, exposure to the unfamiliar strengthens the brain.

When confronted with stimuli, the brain's neurons branch out and connect with one another to exchange information. If you do something repeatedly (drive the same way to work everyday, or eat the same daily lunch, for example), information travels down pre-worn pathways, and there's no need for the brain to forge new neural circuits. But when you do something you've never done before, your neurons must reach out to new, unfamiliar neurons and forge additional connections, thus increasing the processing capacity of the brain.

That said, NYC gave my brain quite a workout.

From the moment I boarded the plane to JFK, my gray matter was forced to contend with the new, strange and unfamiliar. Here are the highlights (conveniently categorized into headings and sub-headings for your browsing pleasure):

SCIENCE

The American Museum of Natural History

Let's start this off with a bang, shall we? And by bang I mean a 4.5 billion year old meteorite!

This is the Cape York meteorite, discovered in Greenland in 1894. At 34 tons, it’s the heaviest meteorite in captivity (yes, this was the term used on the accompanying text). According to earth and space explainer David Teich (a kind and patient man), it formed 4.5 BILLION years ago, when the stray bits of our solar system that failed to coalesce into planets and moons fused into meteorites. The molten material cooled at a rate of 1 degree Celsius every MILLION YEARS! At that rate, it would have taken a few billion years for this meteorite to settle into its present state.

How awesome is it to touch something 4.5 billion years old? Totally awesome. Of course, the ground we walk on (i.e. Earth) is also 4.5 billion years old; actually, all of that inorganic matter is 13 billion years old, it's just been morphing into different forms since the Big Bang (or whatever force birthed the Universe into existence). But to touch something that reached its present form 4.5 billion years ago? Yeah. Totally.Fucking.Sweet.

Other highlights:

The Spitzer Room of Human Origins

Did you know that the Khoisan people in South Africa carry the most ancient human DNA mutations? Or that modern humans are tolerant of non-human dairy products because our goat milk-drinking ancestors were the ones who survived famine? Neither did I. Till I came here.

Dinosaur Hall

Q. Is it an Apatosaurus or a Brontosaurus? A. An Apatosaurus, says the explanatory sign. Both names were used to describe the same species of fossilized dinosaur in the 1870s. Since Apatosaurus was used first, it's the name preferred by scientists.

ART

Museum of Modern Art

My knowledge of modern art borders on the Philistine, but I do enjoy it. Proof: a montage of blurry photographs of my favorite pieces, obnoxiously taken to serve my faulty short-term memory.

Mark Rothko, No. 16

This is the kind of thing I'd skip over in a textbook, but in person, I found it quite striking. According to MOMA, the "forms and colors are meant to arrest the viewer in a state of reflection," and I have to say – it worked. I couldn’t stop looking at it and went back to it several times. I took several pictures, but none of them captured the beauty of the colors. They elude digitization.

Ad Reinhart, Abstract Painting

Oh, Ad Reinhart. Your nihilism is hilarious.

Jackson Pollack, Full Fathom Five

Loved this for its color scheme, but mostly for its texture. Bottle caps, keys and cigarettes are buried beneath the paint, giving the piece a rollicking, “tumultuous” feel.

Jasper Johns, Flag

This is another piece I'll skip over in a textbook, but the encaustic paint (pigment mixed with wax) over newspaper created a pretty cool effect. Apparently, he was a fan of taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary. Yay for him.

Robert Rauschenberg’s “combines” were sweet. Love me some collage.

Rauchenberg, Factum I & II

Another Rauschenberg creation, proof positive of the uncertainty principle.

Duchamp, To Be Looked At... for Almost an Hour

It'll get you hiiigh.

Francis Bacon, Painting

Wicked.

Alberto Giacometti's bronze dog.

Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

Dali, The Little Theater

Eleven planes of glass = one surrealist piece of awesome.

Andre Masson, Battle of Fishes.

According to Masson: "Left to chance, pictorial compositions would reveal the sadism of all living creatures."

I can get behind that.

But you know what I can't get behind? Matisse.

Fuck Matisse. Fuck him and his dainty pastel dashes. He makes me feel like I have a cat (See also: Feist, white wine).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Turns out the Met has much more than boring old paintings. Oh yes.

It's a mind-numbingly large and labyrinthine warehouse of pillaged artifacts. Such as:

4,000 year old Celtic armbands! (Could've sworn I had a picture of this... but I can't find it. Sadness.)

And an egregious amount of Egyptian burial stuff!

Some swords!

Suits of Armor!

Behold the 1549 armor of German Emperor Ferdinand I (and his accoutrement):

Feast your eyes on these 16th century Italian spears, capable of lacerating the flesh of men in hundreds of different ways!

And old furniture!

1820 NYC Grecian Sofa.

(I was particularly taken with this couch).

TRANSPORTATION

Bear with me for a moment while I sing the praises of Delta Airlines ...

As a Southwest devotee, I was a bit hesitant to fly Delta, but my fears were completely unfounded. Not only do they have a fine selection of free snacks (biscotti, cheese crackers, salami, trail mix), but they also have TV screens in the seat backs featuring movies, TV shows, games (including interactive -- and free -- in-flight trivia) and a fucking map showing your flight trajectory, remaining flight time and all sorts of other interesting facts, like outside air temperature (-70 degrees), distance traveled, altitude, etc. Yeah, so I was into that.

And that in-flight trivia game was pretty fun: a series of 20 questions with multiple choice answers and a little "in case you were wondering..." factoid dessert. For example, say the situation was:

Q: Ridley Scott directed what 1982 film?
A: Blade Runner
In case you were wondering: Blade Runner was based on Philip K. Dick's novella "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

But every now and then you'd get something like:

Q: Mellow Gold was the title of whose 1994 album?
A: Beck
In case you were wondering: Beck is the man.

(For serious.)

FOOD

Well, I started out with a bran muffin. But from then on, it was all gluttonous Street Meat, baby! OH YEAH!

Hot Dogs
What's on the New York street dog? Sauerkraut, and some sort of brown, tangy mustard sauce. Tasty, but doesn't hold a candle to a Chicago Dog— I'm not even sure it stands up to the Angeleno bacon-wrapped hot dog.

Nevertheless, I ate several from random street vendors, and was still compelled to check out Papaya Dog on 42nd street, particularly because I assumed it was in some way affiliated with Anthony Bourdain-approved Gray's Papaya. I had two dogs and a papaya drink and it was good; it would have been mind-blowing if I was drunk, but it was good. Though I have to admit I was a little suspicious of the two dogs-and-a-drink deal for $3.50. Rrruh?

Burgers
I took a long walk in cold rain to check out the co-worker endorsed Shake Shack, which was really great for the price – I had a quality, thick juicy cheeseburger and some expertly salted crinkle cut fries. I also had a strawberry shake (hey, why not) but wasn’t too impressed with that – Chick-fil-A does it better.

Pastrami
Katz serves beer and pickles. What more do you need? Oh – a pastrami sandwich perhaps? Oh yes indeed.

DRINK

Oh boy.

Let's hit this chronologically, shall we?

Wednesday

While waiting for Pete to finish hobnobbing at his NYU archivist function, I ducked into Terra Blues on Bleecker street and cozied up with some Maker's Mark during a refreshingly unpretentious solo blues acoustic set. 'Twas a nice venue: small, dark, candle-lit, intimate; yet kind of divey, with paper mache looking angel wall sculptures affixed to dark blue walls in need of a fresh coat of paint.

Once Pete found me, we headed to a mysterious bar (I neglected to record the name of it) for gin gimlets, refreshingly crisp cocktails made of gin, lime and soda (sort of like a mojito, without the mint and sugar). We then moved along to the Blue and Gold for Pabst and Magic Hat Apricot Ale. After building a nice buzz, we parted ways, and I resolved to sit on the chair-backed log in the Hudson Bar once I got back to the Hudson Hotel.

And then I went the wrong way on the subway, and got lost in Brooklyn for one hour.

Luckily -- or not -- the Hudson Bar was still open by the time I made it back at 3:00 a.m. I paid $12 for a watered down vodka soda and stared at the ceiling mural (some abstract art design that looked like a child's Crayola crayon sketch enlarged to 100x its original size) while two chubby girls in satin dresses closed down the house with a rumpshaking rendition of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable." After they finished, I was asked to take my vodka drink upstairs. Fatigued, I complied.

Thursday

On the way back to the Hudson after more academic conferencing and a sniffling, chilly walk across several dozen city blocks, I got lost on the subway. Again. I ended up by Les Halles. So what would Anthony Bourdain do? Why, he would go into Desmond's Tavern, the local Irish pub. (Seriously, it's been televised.)

I enjoyed several Smithwick's there among the local happy hour crowd, none of whom were particularly interested in speaking with me.

After that I walked to Central Park and shared my Holden Caulfield moment with some ducks on a rock in the middle of the pond. Then back to the Hudson, to check out the Library Bar. It was a chill space: black and white photographs of cows wearing various kinds of hats lined the walls, as well as books; all sorts of books, about porn stars and Tanzania and supernovae and Marilyn Monroe. Chess boards were built into the table tops and a large blue pool table anchored the center of the room. It would have been a cool place to drink alone, but my sniffles had worsened, so I packed up early.

Friday

Pete -- did we do car bombs at The Library? Yes, we did. With the sultry bartender from Montreal.

After that, we went to the 2 by 4. Two words: Exultant sleaze. Wood paneling, cheap beer, pool tables, bartenders in bikini tops dancing on the bar. What more could one ask for?

How about some Yuengling on the way home? And my botched interpretation of an improbable Body Worlds pose and the subsequent repercussion: a skinned knee and bruised cheek after faceplanting on Pete's roof. Twice.

Saturday

All right; now I was sick. But that didn't stop me from going back to the 2 by 4 after dinner, then on to the Belgian Room for Delirium on tap and Burp Castle for the Monks-on-a-bender mural before heading off to Pete's roomie's birthday fiesta at Lit.

There are two levels to Lit. The first is a Short Stop-esque bar/dance floor with a DJ spinning Vampire Weekend for a smattering of greasy haired patrons. But this isn't where you want to be. You want to go downstairs into the basement, and dance among the exposed brick and cigarette smoke (yes, you can smoke down there!) to soul, oldies, new wave and classic rock. I powered through my Dayquil induced haze and had a blast. But dancers beware: don’t set your favorite purple sweater on one of the booths. Because the staff will move it. And lose it.

In Memoriam: Purple Sweater

The last photograph of my purple sweater and me (center).

Dear Purple Sweater,

I only knew you for three months but I felt I’d known you forever. You were a particularly soothing shade of purple. Plum, perhaps. You matched nearly everything. Even my purse. I have tried to replace you but the only retail outlet with purple sweaters in stock is H&M and the quality is far inferior to Express. We had some great times. And some bad. I’ll never forget you.

Love,
Mel

And thus concludes the boozing.

PEOPLE

I was shocked by how friendly everyone was in New York. I haven't been approached by so many strangers since... well. Ever. Strangers helped me wrangle my bags and hop onto the right subways, complimented my chic bangs (thanks, Summer), and interjected their own wry opinions into private conversations. Unexpected, truly. But refreshing.

Though nothing beats an old friend.

And now:

A GBD Salute to Peter O.

Peter is a great friend. He will drop everything to show you around town, and cheerfully agree to accompany you to cheesy tourist traps, even if you end up too hungover to visit them the next morning. He will not laugh at you when you faceplant twice on his roof, drunk. (All right, he will, but not in a mean sort of way.) He will take you to the Natural History Museum, twice, and wait patiently while you take painstaking notes on every exhibit you can get your hands on, and wait even more patiently for you to post 2% of those notes to your blog, 2 months later. He will also take pictures of you cheesing out in front of a stegosaurus.

Thank you, Peter.

Alain de Botton once asked, Why travel? When you bring your worries, your insecurities, your anxieties with you, everywhere you go? I say: to know the feel of a 4.5 billion year old meteorite. Or the taste of a Papaya Dog. Or the pain of smashing your face into shingles. Or the comfort of reconnecting with an old friend. To "expand the mind," as they say. Figuratively. Literally.

WeHo Field Guide: Black Mustard

2008-05-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

The last time I had a lazy Saturday afternoon, I decided to take a leisurely stroll through Runyon Canyon Park to enjoy some time in the great outdoors.

That's what I had planned, at least. Unfortunately for me, it was 94 degrees and high noon on a sunny day. Further complicating my endeavor was dehydration from an inadequate amount of water on my person (and a bout of heavy drinking the night before), and lack of sunscreen. Within 20 minutes I was wheezing, sweating, sunburnt, and deafened by the sound of blood pounding through my temples. As I climbed to the peak of the park, I had to avert my attention from all of the dizzying city views, gloriously bronzed beefcake, and unleashed dogs and redirect all energy toward the most pressing task at hand: survival.

Now that the temperatures have cooled and I've been a few more times and my heart is more accustomed to inclined terrain, I've been indulging in some of the natural wonders of the park. One plant in particular caught my eye: a tall, shrubby weed with yellow flowers. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this darling little plant is black mustard, the same thing that keeps growing defiantly in my front yard, despite constant weeding by my neighbors.

I don't believe in weeding. I figure, if the sucker can triumph over all of the elements working against its survival and access enough nutrients to grow, then let it grow. Who am I to get in its way? (Of course, I realize that this same attitude will someday lead to a reputation among youth as the crazy-old-lady who lives in the creepy house with the overgrown yard.)

So I let it grow. It looked kind of odd among the other plants, but I was into that. It was a renegade; a Bickle, a Bjork, a Bourdain.

And then one day I came home, and it was gone.

I know my neighbor ripped it out. I do not begrudge him for it. He's only home once a week, on Saturdays, and he spends the entire day tending to his own lawn, so if my black mustard is ruining his ambience, I'll let him have it.

But aside from looking a little peculiar, is it really all that bad?

Consider:

Black mustard seeds are commonly used in Indian cuisine, particularly curry
In Eastern Europe, ground black mustard seeds are mixed with honey to create a cough suppressant

FYI:

Black mustard is native to the southern Mediterranean region of Europe
The plant is rumored to have been introduced to Southern California by the Franciscan Padres "who scattered the seed along the Camino Real to mark its route."

Via

You are in for a Terrible Experience. Sorry.

2008-05-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles is a lot more tolerable now that I have a backyard. I love the great outdoors, and now I've got them. The only downside to all of this is the yardwork, which occasionally leads to a startling encounter with wildlife. Like the squirrel who lives under the bamboo leaves. Or the moth that flew out of the bougainvillea and onto my face. Or the bird that died on my porch steps.

Oh yes -- today, I found an ant-covered dead bird on my back porch steps.

Several questions immediately came to mind: How did it die? Where did it come from? What does this mean for me? Is this an omen, portending terrible things to come?

I asked Google. And I found someone faced with more or less the same situation, who had posted his concerns to Yahoo! answers and gotten the following response:

"You are in for a terrible experience. Sorry."

Thanks, T-Luv. You fucking asshole.

Dan Deacon @ the Echoplex

2008-05-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

I never finished my post about my first Dan Deacon show in 2007 because I could not competently articulate how the performance affected me. There were certainly plenty of lush details to work with -- the "cheap-sounding, rainbow-hued, breakcore-tempo electronic noise," the Dayglo green skull, the zealous crowd obeying Deacon's orders to run around in circles high-fiving each other and then dash through a human tunnel of joined hands -- but I couldn't draw all of these delicious ingredients together into a Meal. As I began writing about it, I kept defaulting to Carrie's observation that "this is what people from the 80s thought 2007 would be like," and while this is a profound and valid assessment, I felt cheap citing another's interpretation while my own eluded me. So I didn't post.

But now that I've seen him again for the second time, I think I've got it.

It came to me while I was tying my shoe. His set had begun and I was dancing; dancing like I hadn't danced since 2001, and the onslaught of footwork had undone the bow on my ballet flat. I bent down to tie it and the gentleman behind me asked, "are you okay?" To which I replied, "yeah, man, I'm just tying my shoe." His question surprised me -- why wouldn't I be okay? Then, it occured to me: this was a raver asking another raver, presumably under the influence of and overwhelmed by substances, if she was going to be okay; a kind and prevalent gesture I had witnessed during my days in the rave community, a gesture I now implicitly (though not immediately) understood on account of our shared identity and communal knowledge. Though he was barely-legal scruffster in striped neon and I was a 25 yr old admin. assistant in my work clothes, I was On the Same Page with this person because there were shared experiences among us.

And this, I would say, is the best thing about a Deacon show: in a post-PLUR world, it provides a space for all ravers-at-heart to come together and share the liberating experience of dance. Regardless of who each individual audience member is/was/is going to be, the frantic beats and childlike play of the Deacon experience induces a communal Fun capable of fusing each distinct member of the audience together into one blissful organism for the duration of the set. This was rave at its best in the 90's; this is rave at its best now. And I will conclude with another astute observation from Gillogs:

"I was trying to think of the difference between raves in the late 90s and last night. I decided: shirt size."

And to that I would add, pant-leg width.

When Galaxies Collide, Part 2

2008-04-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

Images of colliding galaxies, courtesy of Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes.

Gorgeous.

Scents and the Sixth Sense

2008-04-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

WARNING: Nose jobs may interfere with your ability to see dead people.

During last Wednesday's Norman Lear Center panel on the "Economics of Attention," David Merkoski dropped a knowledge bomb by bringing up the Vomeronasal Organ and its association with the fabled Sixth Sense.

The Vomeronasal Organ is a olfactory sense organ located in the cartilage of the nose. It's a chemoreceptor organ that detects pheromones, chemicals that elicit behavorial responses in others. For many animals, pheromones trigger explicit behavior such as aggression, mating and/or territorial pissing. But for humans, pheromones are attributed to the more implicit "Sixth Sense;" the feeling that the guy across the room is The One. Or a total creep. Or dead.

The presence of VNO in animals is widely accepted among researchers, but its existence in adult humans is controversial. D. Troiter's paper in the Oxford Journal of Chemical Senses concludes that there is a VNO pit in approximately 92% of adult humans, but there is no concrete evidence of its functionality as a sensory organ. Now, we know that humans can perceive pheromones, and the effects of pheromones on human behavior are well-documented: you may have heard about Claus Wedekind's T-shirt study, or the menstrual synchrony of females living in close quarters. But researchers think these pheromones are perceived by other tissues in the olfactory system, rather than the VNO.

Code Green

2008-04-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you tried to board a flight without a government-issued photo ID?

Well.

1. The TSA officer picks up a radio and calls in a Code Green.

2. Another TSA officer walks up and helps the first one fill out some paperwork.

3. You walk through the Puffer, a machine designed to search your body for explosives and narcotics by shooting short blasts of air all over your body (Think the glaucoma test at the optometrist, but everywhere.)

via

(Yes. It tickles.)

4. Yet another TSA officer searches your bags and dusts your electronic devices and shoes.

5. You get a pretty blue stamp on your boarding pass and proceed to your departure gate.

New England State of Mind

2008-04-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

There's a row of white rocking chairs in the hallway connecting Terminal C to Terminal B in Boston Logan International Airport.

WeHo Field Guide: Bougainvillea

2008-04-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

It's alive!

That jumble of thorny brown twigs in my backyard is alive!

And it's produced hundreds of bright red flowers!

Some fun facts about Bougainvillea:

Bougainvillea is native to South America (particularly, Brazil, Peru and Argentina).
Bougainvillea growers unite under the Bougainvillea Growers International
It was named after French admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville, who "discovered" the plant in Brazil in 1768.... according to Wikipedia. According to BGI, it was discovered by French naturalist Dr. Philibert Commerson, who named the plant after Bougainville, who commanded the ship on which Dr. Commerson was sailing (ohhhh.. controversy!)
The plant is a thorny vine that grows rapidly in warm climates and requires little water to flower
It's perfect for bonsai or topiary purposes, and can easily be shaped into many forms

Human. Animal. HumanAnimal.

2008-04-02T20:38:00.000-07:00

You might want to be sitting down for this.

Researchers at Newcastle University in England claim to have created human-animal hybrid embryos.

The embryos were created by injecting DNA from human skin cells into cow eggs.

Yup.

Rest assured, they only lasted three days. And Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority mandates that all surviving embryos be destroyed after 14 days.

What if these embryos matured? Would they be hunted, caged, kept as pets? Would they be endowed certain inalienable rights? Would we declare a human-animal hybrid history month, honoring history's most prolific human-animal hybrids? Possible candidates:

The Centaur

The Cowardly Lion

Bush/Chimpanzee

24 hrs in NYC

2008-03-26T23:48:00.000-07:00

3:00 am
2 hour train/subway ride from JFK ends in emergence in Central Park/knee-buckling awe of NYC/Maker's Mark consumption in Hudson Hotel. Hotel Motif? Mountain Lodge in SPACE.

8:00 am
Awakening. Walk to nearby cafe, consume yogurt-bran muffin.

10:30 am - 2:00 pm
Academic conferencing/Enlightenment.

2:00 pm
Return to hotel/nearly faint from starvation.

5:00 pm
Walk down Broadway through Times Square to Rockefeller Center. Observation impeded by famine-induced concave posture.

5:30 pm
Hastily consume street dog. (Field note: not sure what was on it - there was sauerkraut and some brown stuff, it was tasty, satisfied hunger).

6:00 pm
Search frantically for street receptacle (sic) to deposit mustard-laden napkin; find none, nearly wipe out in search of said receptacle (sic) in 630 (?) Fifth Avenue, aka where that Atlas sculpture is. (NOTE: new shoes incompatible with freshly-waxed marble floor).

6:15 pm
Achieve Nirvana at New York Public Library maps division (Specifically, Oxford Economic Atlas of the World1965, charting world climate, birthrate, and beer production).

6:30 pm
Overwhelmed by beauty of NYPL architecture

6:45 pm
Get in line for Empire State Building observation deck (Objective: observe view at dusk, for daylight visibility plus nighttime light show).

7:00 pm
Depart line after being informed it's another 45 minutes long

7:30 pm
Take seat at Terra Blues bar on Bleecker street, after failure to find Petey Pete. Watch competent solo blues set.

8:00 pm
Retrieved by Pete; eat pizza at Two Boots

..... pm
Drink Gin Gimlets at small, chic bar

--- pm
Drink Magic Hat Apricot Ale at Blue and Gold. Talk about film archival/miscellaneous science matters.

12:30 am
"Return to Hotel" on D train

1:30 am
Return to Hotel for real, after being lost in Brooklyn for 1 hour

2:00 am
NYC firefighters put out flaming trash can on 58th and 8th ave

2:30 am
Girls in satin dresses close DJ set at Hudson Hotel bar with an enthusiastic interpretation of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable"

3:00 am
Retire to room with remainder of vodka soda; Honey-Maid oatmeal raisin cookies

WeHo Field Guide: Sirius, the Dog Star

2008-03-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

Last week, I took the dog for a 10 pm walk and noticed an unusually bright, twinkling object just left of the constellation Orion. Was it a plane?, I wondered. A UFO? A top secret government WMD?

No!

It's Sirius, the Dog Star!

Sirius is the brightest object in the sky and is not one star but two; a binary star system consisting of a white main sequence star (Sirius A) and a faint white dwarf star (Sirius B). The Sirius star system is one of the closest to our own solar system.

Sirius is part of the constellation Canis Major, Orion's canine hunting companion (thus its nickname, the Dog Star).

Orion and Canis Major are about to beat down Taurus.

The heliacal rising of Sirius marked important events for early civilizations:

the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt (and the beginning of the Egyptian calendar year)
the hottest and dryest days of summer (aka 'Dog Days') in Ancient Greece
the beginning of winter in Polynesia, where it was an important tool for navigation (Sirius was known as Ka'ulua ("Queen of Heaven") in Hawaii, and was celebrated at the winter solstice.)

WeHo Field Guide: Lavender

2008-03-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

Spring has sprung in West Hollywood, and as the flowering plants around the neighborhood bloom, so does my curiosity about the treasures to be found within a two mile radius of my new home. So, in honor of the vernal equinox (yes, it's today), I'm compiling a West Hollywood Field Guide showcasing the natural wonders of the 'hood.

First up? Lavender.

Lavender is apparently a very popular landscaping plant in the neighborhood; there's a bush at nearly every other residence, and the scent of all of them combined is enough to overwhelm pedestrians to the point of light-headedness.

Some fun facts about lavender:

Lavender is a genus of flowering plants in the mint family
Lavender is native to the south Mediterranean, tropical Africa, and southeast India
Dried lavender can be used as potpourri -- or moth repellant!
Lavender oil (located in the bud of the plant) has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties, and was used in hospitals during WWI to disinfect floors, walls and other surfaces. Lavender oil is also rumored to relieve headaches, if applied to the temples.
Lavender oil can also heal acne (when diluted 1:10 with water) or soothe burns
Lavender produces tons of nectar, and is therefore popular among bees
It's also an allergen (which explains my perpetual state of stuffiness)
Lavender can grow almost anywhere, but thrives in rocky soil and dry, sunny climates

Miss Janet of Spira

2008-03-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

I just came across this truly remarkable Hype Williams video for Janet Jackson's "Call on Me," which was clearly influenced by Final Fantasy X and/or X-2.

Enjoy.

GBD in NYC

2008-03-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

Attention East Coast Readers:

I will be in your hood next week (and by your hood I mean New York City -- that's where y'all live, right?). So if you have any suggestions for what to see/eat/drink while I'm there, throw them my way.

Welcome to My Laboratory: Space Crystals, Pt. III

2008-03-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

The space crystals finally grew, but they did not grow far, nor wide.

Rather, they grew a few millimeters in length and fused into a Kool-Aid orange biscuit.

Disappointing.

But what did I expect for $10? I mean, really? This?

*sigh*

Some facts about crystals:

-- Crystals are solids in which "the constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are packed in a regularly ordered, repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions."

-- The word "crystal" came from the Greek word "krystallos," which means clear ice.

-- Some people believe crystals have healing powers. Like Amanda, from America's Next Top Model. But not Jesus.

-- The name "Crystal" peaked in popularity in the 1980s.

Welcome to my Laboratory: Space Crystals, Pt. II

2008-02-26T10:51:00.000-08:00

My deepest apologies, dear readers, for the tardiness of this post. I must confess that tragedy has befallen my most beloved endeavour, and I have been too distraught to blog. I hope that when I explain what fate hath wrought, you will understand . . .

My space crystals have failed to grow! Sure, there are little crispy-looking things at the bottom of the solution, but nary a giant virile citrine crystal! *faint*

Do you see any space crystals? (No. Just a rock covered in orange dust.)

What's worse, the experiment's instruction booklet says that this plight may be the result of an imprecise measurement of boiling water on my part. (The horror!)

Is all for naught? Nein -- I have been assured that I if add more water to the growing solution, I still might be able to grow thick, luscious crystals. I will do as suggested. Until then -- carry on, dear readers. Carry on.

Welcome to my Laboratory: Space Crystals, part 1

2008-02-18T20:51:00.000-08:00

Nothing like a three-day weekend to guilt you into starting all those projects you should have finished three months ago. Like getting your oil changed. Or pulling up weeds in the backyard. Or growing your own homemade SPACE CRYSTALS!

According to the box, this Space Age Crystal Growing Kit will produce glittering, symmetrical crystals in only one week! Natural crystals take thousands of years to grow. So yeah, that's a pretty good deal.

All you have to do is pour (almost all of) the crystal powder into a plastic container, add 1 cup and 3 tablespoons of boiling water, and stir. Then, you pour the resulting solution over a rock in a second plastic container, and cover this container for one hour. Then, after one hour, you take the lid off and sprinkle the rest of the crystal powder onto the rock and . . . it turns out this is more complicated than I thought it would be.

As instructed, I placed the crystals in the most temperature-consistent area of the house: in the bedroom, next the CD player. I then exposed it to Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher" -- er, I mean, Nirvana's With the Lights Out (Disc 3), which, it turns out, is a pretty pointless collection to have if you convinced your Mom to buy you every Nirvana recording in existence in 1995, like I did.

No psychoreactive properties have been recorded (yet).

But the crystals should form soon. I'll keep you posted.

Total Eclipse of the Moon!

2008-02-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, February 20th will be your last chance to see a total lunar eclipse until 2010!

The eclipse begins at 8:43 pm EST and ends at 12:09 EST. (Which means the eclipse will begin before sunset on the West Coast. Bummer.)

The last total lunar eclipse occured August 28, 2007.

Lost Roses

2008-02-14T22:00:00.001-08:00

Dear Jasmine B.,

I have your roses.

I found them on my doorstep when I got home from work tonight. Bill sent them. He apparently cares very strongly for you because they're arranged in a classy glass vase and accented with mosses, orchids and other flowers I cannot identify without a field guide. Oh - and they're from Mark's Garden. This shit ain't cheap.

So if you want 'em, come and get 'em. But if you and Bill are on the outs and you're just going to put them in rubbing alcohol or something, I will gladly keep them.

Yours truly,

Long Live the Chicago Dog

2008-02-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

The search for the best Chicago-style hot dog in LA was on my "To Do" list for 2008, but it turns out that Losanjealous' Kid Danger has already done my work for me.

Check it out.

Now I can get to those guitar lessons.

Oh Make Me Over

2008-01-29T09:49:00.000-08:00

I learned a few interesting facts at the Clinique counter last night:

1. Oily skin is a sign of dehydration.

Apparently, water neutralizes oil and leaves skin healthy and blemish-free!

2. When applying concealer below your eyes, use your ring finger.

The ring finger applies the least pressure to the skin, so there's less risk of popping blood vessels.

3. Wiggling mascara onto lashes creates a natural curl.

"And will avoid that boxy shape you get from eyelash curlers," says the makeup artist. WTF is an eyelash curler?

4. The Clinique staff is psychic.

"Did you get a new job?"

Am I that predictable?

5. You don't tip the makeup artist.

Though you are expected to tip on top of a $180 haircut, or a $140 massage, you apparently do not tip the woman who spends one hour applying makeup to half your face, another 30 minutes watching you try to do what she's done to the other half, and another 15 minutes correcting your failures.

By Faith, not by Reason: Cabazon Dinosaurs

2008-01-25T16:11:00.000-08:00

If you've ever driven to Palm Springs during daylight hours, chances are you've seen the World's Biggest Dinosaurs at a little truck stop called Cabazon.

But have you been recently? You know, since it was appropriated in 2005 by the Institute for Creation Research and turned into an intelligent design propoganda farm?

[Reggie in the mouth of a creationist T Rex]

It sneaks up on you. First, there's a suspicious sign outside asking "is evolution true?" Then, you walk into the gift shop, and notice the Jesus books among the dino lit. Then, you realize all the children's t-shirts bear the motto "By Design, Not by Chance." *Shudder*

Further investigation reveals that the gift shop is constructed around the following ideological framework:

1. Dinosaurs are simply too fucking awesome to have been generated by some chance event like natural selection; thus, they must have been designed by God

2. This one fossil of a so-called "early human" was made up; thus, all fossils of so-called "early humans" might also be made up

3. The ever-popular "God said he created every living thing in the Bible, duh, and the Bible is true because God wrote it."

Yes, and you can read it all on their website. I present, for your consideration, a passage from their online reading materials:

"The story we have all heard from movies, television, newspapers, and most magazines and textbooks is that dinosaurs “ruled the Earth” for 140 million years, died out 65 million years ago, and therefore weren’t around when Noah and company set sail on the Ark around 4,300 years ago.

However, the Bible gives a completely different view of Earth (and therefore, dinosaur) history. As God’s written Word to us, we can trust it to tell the truth about the past. (For more information about the reliability of Scripture, see Q&A: Bible.)

The Bible records the genealogies from Adam to Christ. From the ages given in these lists (and accepting that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to Earth around 2,000 years ago), we can conclude that the universe is only a few thousand years old (perhaps just 6,000), and not millions of years old (see also The earth: how old does it look? especially under Jesus and the age of the world). Thus, dinosaurs lived within the past few thousand years."

Good God in Heaven!

If only the processes of natural selection hadn't been documented. (Finches, anyone? Antibiotic-resistant bacteria?)

To conclude: The mailing address listed on the website is a P.O. Box. Creepy.

Elves in Iceland: A GBD Special Report

2008-01-25T09:38:00.000-08:00

I am in love with Anthony Bourdain.

Too bad he's married.

During last night's No Reservations fix, Tony mentioned a peculiar fact that I'd heard before, but never believed:

That 80% of Iceland's population believes in gnomes, elves and fairies.

A Google search procured plenty of evidence to support this assertion:

Icelandic Folklore

Anecdotal Evidence

Popular Literature

Travelcasts

Authoritative Travel Guides

Newspaper Reports

[insert Bjork joke here]

When Ostriches Attack

2008-01-21T17:17:00.001-08:00

During a road trip through Texas in 2005, my traveling companion and I stopped at Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, a drive-through safari just north of San Antonio, seven miles west of I-35. For the price of $15.50, visitors receive a bag of feed and the go-ahead to drive through a few hundred acres of wild animals with the car windows rolled down.

It was here that I learned an invaluable rule; a rule I am socially obligated to pass on to my fellow Americans in the event they find themselves on an "African Safari - Texas Style:"

Never let an ostrich approach your car while the windows are open and your passenger has a bag of feed sitting on his lap.

Because that ostrich will stick its ugly head right through that open window and nip at that bag, wherever it may lie.

Luckily, we escaped unscathed, thanks to the swift acceleration of my Ford Focus. Perhaps I would have been more cautious if I had read this Wiki first -- How to Survive an Encounter with an Ostrich.

Read. Take note.

Source of Antimatter Discovered!

2008-01-16T10:35:00.000-08:00

What happens when the gravitational force of a nearby black hole or neutron star tears an ordinary star apart?

Antimatter is born.

[According to a research team working with data from the European Space Agency's International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL).]

Read all about it.

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UFO Sighting: Can a Few Dozen Texans Be Wrong?

2008-01-15T10:55:00.000-08:00

A few dozen people claim to have spotted a UFO in Stephenville, Texas.

Residents say a giant, low-flying object zoomed silently across their night sky on several different occasions in the past few weeks.

The object was reported to be a mile long and a half mile wide. Some say it was followed by fighter jets.

Can a few dozen people be wrong? Or could it just be a case of (God-fearing) mass hysteria?

Bringing Bubonic Back

2008-01-15T09:42:00.000-08:00

The plague is back and moving to Africa.

via

The World Health Organization reports that between 1,000 and 3,000 people are infected with the plague each year in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda.

There are only 10 to 20 cases reported in the US each year.

The plague comes in three flavors: bubonic, septicemic and pneumonic. All are caused by the bacteria Yersinia Pestis and spread to humans by fleas in the following horrific manner:

"Bubonic plague is mainly a disease in rodents and fleas. Infection in a human occurs when a person is bitten by a flea that has been infected by biting a rodent that itself has been infected by the bite of a flea carrying the disease. The bacteria multiply inside the flea, sticking together to form a plug that blocks its stomach and causes it to begin to starve. The flea then voraciously bites a host and continues to feed, even though it cannot quell its hunger, and consequently the flea vomits blood tainted with the bacteria back into the bite wound. The bubonic plague bacterium then infects a new victim, and the flea eventually dies from starvation. Serious outbreaks of plague are usually started by other disease outbreaks in rodents, or a rise in the rodent population."

If you're bitten by a plague-vomiting flea, the bacteria will enter your tissue, and then probably travel through your lymphatic system and settle in your lymph nodes, which enlargen. Thus, bubonic plague ("bubo" means swelling of the lymph nodes in Greek).

Or, the bacteria will enter the bloodstream (septicemic plague) or the lungs (pneumonic plague). Septicemic plague and pneumonic plague have a much higher mortality rate than bubonic plague: 90% of those infected with septicemic or pneumonic plague die, compared to 60% of those infected with bubonic plague. Pneumonic plague is especially problematic because it can be spread by coughing or sneezing.

The plague killed 25 million people in Europe in the 14th century - one third of the continent's population.

Happy New Leap Year

2008-01-10T11:06:00.000-08:00

The Earth has completed one revolution of its 93.2 million mile, 365.25 day-long orbit around the sun.

Since there are only 365 days in a calendar year, the quarter of a day we lopped off in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 will be made up on Friday, February 29, 2008.

So the heavens are giving you one more day to fulfill those resolutions, people. No excuses.

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Yosemite National Park v2.0

2008-01-08T16:05:00.000-08:00

As promised.

Since my birthday coincided with the adoption of a stray dog, I looked for a pet-friendly place to celebrate and settled on Yosemite National Park. After all, what dog doesn't love the great outdoors?

This one.

Thousands of trees to pee on and what does he go for? Trash cans, cable boxes, pavement.

More surprising, though, was the discovery that Yosemite is a rather dog un-friendly park. A NO PETS sign greeted us at the trialhead of Mariposa Grove, an enclave of Giant Sequoias.

But we took him anyway.

Here's what we saw:

The Grizzly Giant

Yes, those are people down below.

According to the Mariposa Grove trail guide, the Grizzly Giant is about 2,700 years old -- one of the oldest living sequoias in the world.

The Clothespin Tree

Numerous forest fires carved this hole in the Clothespin Tree.

The California Tunnel Tree

A hole was cut through this tree in 1895 for stagecoaches to pass through.

(Because going around the tree was too complicated, apparently)

The Faithful Couple

These two trees grew so close together they fused at the base.

The Fallen Monarch

As you can see, the roots of the giant sequoia are wide and shallow; their shape maximizes the amount of surface water accessible to the tree and stabilizes the tree's large trunk.

Big Dude in an even Bigger Tree

Holy shit.

This cross-section of a fallen sequoia puts the age of these trees into perspective -- the third green marker from the top indicates the size of the tree during the Civil War:

The giant sequoia, or sequoiadendron giganteum, is one of the three species of redwoods; the others are the Dawn Redwood (China) and the Coast Redwood (coastal California). Giant Sequoias are the largest living things in terms of volume (Coast Redwoods are the tallest; Bristlecone Pine is the oldest).

Forest fires are necessary for the survival of giant sequoias - they clear away brush and smaller trees that compete with the sequoias for water and sunlight. Also, fire plays a key role in the reproduction of the giant sequoias by drying out their cones and releasing seeds, which then fall to the ground.

After the Mariposa Grove, we drove into Yosemite Valley to see the park's famous rock formations:

Tunnel View

(El Capitan on the left, Half Dome on the right)

El Capitan

Half Dome

Sentinel Rock

These formations were created by glaciers, which crept through Yosemite Valley one million years ago and eroded the granite rock along its joints.

We didn't get to see Yosemite's famous waterfalls, because they're dry in the Fall.

Yosemite Falls (Dry) - the highest waterfall in America.

April and May are the best time to see them -- right after the winter snow melts.

And now, a pleasant surprise:

Should you perish on your journey through Yosemite's wildnerness, rest assured that your remains will be safe from scavengers -- Yosemite has its own cemetery!

Filled with fellow travelers who have met certain doom, such as . . .

A boy

Believed to be John Morgan Bennett. He drowned attempting to cross the Merced River by mule in 1870.

A Frenchman

May have been Etienne Manet, a "slightly demented" orchard owner who was found dead in his cabin.

Some dude from Boston

Er, George Ezra Boston, a native of Virginia, who died in 1875 in an arson fire believed to have been set by a "notorious Indian scoundrel" named Piute George.

...and a whole bunch of others, as documented in the Guide to the Yosemite Cemetery by Hank Johnston and Martha Lee, available for $3.50 from the Yosemite Bookstore, or on loan from the nearby Visitor's Center.

The cemetery was established in 1870 on the same ground used for centuries by the Miwok people to bury their dead.

Death and history kept me occupied until dusk, so we returned to the park the next day and drove to Glacier Point for a magnificent view:

We then started walking the four mile trail that leads from Glacier Point down to the Valley, but the dog started wheezing so we turned back. It was a phenomenal hike, though -- the view couldn't be captured on my measly digital camera, but I gave it a shot anyhow:

Glacier Point is 7,200 feet above sea level, and 3,200 feet above Yosemite Valley. If you're thinking about visiting, please note that the road to Glacier Point is closed in the winter (November-May).

After Glacier Point, we drove back into the valley and stayed until sunset. I'll leave you now with a random shot of Yosemite at dusk:

Nice way to end the day.

More Meteors!

2008-01-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

Attention East Coast:

Stay up late tonight to check out the Quadrantids, which are expected to peak at 1:40 a.m. on Friday, January 4th.

The West Coast will be out of luck; the radiant (the part of the sky from which the meteors spew forth) will be too low on the northern horizon to see.

Tiger Meat

2007-12-25T20:25:00.000-08:00

I finally have a preferred cause of death to go with my preferred method of burial:

Getting Mauled by an Escaped Tiger at the SF Zoo on Christmas

Seriously.

Les Savy Fav @ the El Rey

2007-12-16T12:36:00.000-08:00

Things you missed at the Les Savy Fav show:

* Tim pulling an eager fan on stage to sing with him and then finger-fucking said fan in the mouth

* Tim jumping into the audience and howling like a wolf with several concertgoers

* Tim's account of the formation of the La Brea Tar Pits:

"On this day, millions of years ago, the La Brea Tar Pits were created by mammoths and sabre tooth tigers, who threw a party . . ." (before he was cut off by the band)

* Tim licking lighting equipment

* Tim licking audience members

Tim
(via Kathryn Yu, Pitchfork)

* Tim coming out for the encore in a Santa suit and throwing several gigantic stuffed bears into the audience

* The mosh pit tearing apart the bears like piranhas

* Getting tiny synthetic fibers from said bears in your eyes and mouth

* Me moshing in my finest Christmas sweater

Things you didn't miss at the 23rd Street Christmas Sweater Party:

* My Christmas sweater reeking of a hundred varities of B.O.

Bjork @ Nokia Theatre

2007-12-13T15:25:00.000-08:00

The inside of the Nokia Theatre looked like the lovechild of the Staples Center and the El Rey.

via

But the theater was the perfect size for Bjork: Large enough for spectacle, small enough for intimacy.

The evening started with a bottle of red, a bag of gummi bears, and me yelling "Bring it, hipsters! Wow me with your math rock!" at opening band Ratatat. They brought it . . . in a very mild, underwhelming way.

Bjork, however, was out to kill me. After the flags were raised and her brass section marched out on stage and played a lovely little intro, out she came, in a shimmery golden butterfly dress. She started the set with two intensely emotional songs from Homogenic:

"Immature" (featuring some of the most precise lyrics ever written):

How could I be so immature
To think he would replace
The missing elements of me?
How extremely lazy of me

And then the terrifically heartbreaking "Unravel:"

While you are away
My heart comes undone
Slowly unravels
In a ball of yarn
The devil collects it
With a grin
Our love
In a ball of yarn
He'll never return it
So when you come back
We'll have to make new love

Whew.

She didn't stop there -- she stepped it up with "Unison," "Joga," "Hunter" (during which she suddenly shot streamers out of her fingertips, no lie), the "Pleasure is All Mine" and "Pagan Poetry" until I was completely distraught with emotion; vulnerable like a wounded animal, even. And then, at my weakest moment, she assaulted me with a pyrotechnics-infused performance of "Earth Intruders."

And an "Army of Me" full of green lasers. And an "Innocence" full of confetti. And a delightfully creepy "Cover Me" segue into a technicolor "Wanderlust."

And then - "Hyperballad." My favorite song. If you haven't heard it, it's Bjork singing very sweetly about throwing things (car parts, bottles and cutlery; even herself) off of a cliff, before rising into an exhilarating chorus of:

I go through all this/before you wake up/so i can be happier/to be safe up here with you

And then, at the end, the song breaks into an electrifying house mix. The entire audience danced like it was 1998.

She closed the set with an explosive "Pluto" and came back for an encore of "Oceania" and "Declare Independence." The lights stayed low after she walked off the stage and I think we could have gotten a second encore if we'd asked for it, but we humans typically don't ask for what we don't expect.

Bjork, the greatest human of all time.

It was the best show of 2007. Maybe the best show I've ever seen, eva.

I've maxed my Vegas quota for the year but if you haven't, you should catch her at the Pearl, tomorrow. Get in the car and go.

The Word of the Year is . . .

2007-12-12T10:25:00.000-08:00

w00t:

a gamer's exclamation of happiness or triumph

Geminid Meteor Shower: December 13-14

2007-12-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

A geminid meteor via.

Mark your calendars for the Geminid Meteor Shower, which is expected to peak on the Pacific Coast in the early morning hours of December 14th. Astronomers bill the Geminids as the "year's best meteor shower," with "slow, bright, graceful meteors and fireballs" originating from the constellation Gemini.

Sweet Potatoes v. Yams

2007-12-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

I successfully cooked two dishes this Thanksgiving: corn casserole and butterscotch yams. The yams were a departure from my aunt's renowned sweet potatoes, and my cousin raised the question, "what's the difference?"

The answer: Everything - or nothing at all.

Though sweet potatoes are often called yams in the US, the starchy root vegetables that most consumers buy are actually sweet potatoes, and not yams, which are entirely different plants. Wikipedia clears up the confusion:

"Yams are a monocot (a plant having one embryonic seed leaf) and from the Dioscoreaceae or Yam family. Sweet Potatoes, often called ‘yams’, are a dicot (a plant having two embryonic seed leaves) and are from the Convolvulacea or morning glory family."

Yams.

Sweet potatoes.

How do you tell the difference? Yams are darker-skinned and sweeter than sweet potatoes.

Fun facts:

Both sweet potatoes and yams grow in tropical climates. Sweet potatoes are native to the Americas; yams are native to Africa and Asia.
"The word yam comes from African words njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat," and was first recorded in America in 1676."
"China is the largest grower of sweet potatoes; providing about 80% of the world's supply."
"Besides simple starches, sweet potatoes are rich in complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, beta carotene, vitamin C and vitamin B6."
"In many societies yams are so important that one can speak of a 'yam culture'. Growing the tuber is associated with magic; the best ones must be given to the chief or king; there is a series of myths connected to a divine origin; a farmer may gain a lot of prestige by growing the largest or longest yam; etc. Here are some examples of where this applies:
In Micronesia, see for example Pohnpei.
In Melanesia, see for example Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea.
In Polynesia (west Polynesia only), see Samoa, Tonga."

More info.

We've Moved

2007-12-03T10:16:00.000-08:00

The move to West Hollywood is complete.

I'd like to thank Marcelo, Josh, Kyle, ZACH! and UHaul for making this dream come true.

Back on the blog . . .

Seinfeld and Joel: Genius Squared

2007-11-19T10:14:00.000-08:00

There's always a good reason to go to Vegas; this time, it was Billy Joel at the MGM Grand. Luckily for us, there was also a Comedy Festival at Caesars Palace, and we kicked the weekend off by scoring standby tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld at the Colosseum.

Seinfeld was relentless. My eyes were watering from beginning to end. His stand up did not deviate far from "what's the deal with yadda yadda yadda;" yet every joke seemed fresh and mind-blowingly hilarious. Amazing, considering he's been running with the same schtick for 20+ years. He had some really great bits about going out, and doing nothing, and . . . oh, you get the idea. The content was predictable; the execution was extraordinary.

The opening comic, Mario Joyner, was really great, too. He's one of those "that's so TRUE!" comics, but his delivery was impeccable. My favorite was his bit about Home Depot and how any idiot can buy a nail gun (he said they might as well rename it "You're on Your Own.")Yeah, okay, you probably had to be there, but I found it especially hilarious given the impending move and my own visits to the HD. When he mentioned the DIY check out and the pigeons in the store, I realized, "hey, this guy goes to the same Home Depot I do!" No, really. The guy lives in Santa Monica and I suspect he's going to the HD on Wilshire and Union. The same HD I will be visiting today. To buy more painters' tape and brushes. *sigh*

Billy Joel

"Don't Take Any Shit From Anybody!"

Wow. What can I say. I'm pretty sure we were the youngest people there who had voluntarily bought tickets (there were a couple of preteens with their parents, and I couldn't help but think "do you know what you're about to see, you ungrateful little brats?") The show was amazing. Not only is Joel an immensely talented musician and, like, totally awesome, but he's also an exceptional showman. He played bits of Sinatra and Elvis in between his own songs. He cracked jokes about car insurance and Elton John. And he brought one of his guitar techs -- his roadie of 25 years -- onstage for his so-called "American Idol moment." Joel explained that his roadie was a really good guy and just wanted to do a religious song for us all, and invited us to be Simon Cowell or Paula Abdul (the latter of which elicited an enthusiastic "yeah!" from me). Then, "Chainsaw," a hefty roadie dressed in stage crew black, bounded onto the stage and gave us his best Bon Scott impression while the band (and Billy) tore through "Highway to Hell."

Yeah, it was awesome.

After closing the set with a rollicking "You May Be Right," Joel came back for an encore of "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant," "Only the Good Die Young," and "Piano Man." Then, he bid adieu with a "Good Luck!" and a hearty "Don't take any shit from anybody!"

These two events comprised the bulk of the trip, though we did make it over to Fremont Street on Saturday afternoon, with brief stops at the Golden Nugget (to check out their aquarium-penetrating water slide) and the Girls of Glitter Gulch (where the ladies did their best Britney to "Gimme More").

If you'd like to know more about my half-dozen other pilgrimages to the Holy Land, check out my Vegas Retrospective.

Ultra Pure White

2007-11-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

My Yosemite post has been delayed yet again because of the urgent need to repaint my apartment Ultra Pure White. So, while I've got paint on my mind, and elbows, and calves and feet, I thought it appropriate to look into the history of this liquid embellishment.

The first paint was made by Early homosapiens out of red and yellow ochre, hematite, manganese oxide and charcoal. Our ancestors used these materials to decorate their cave dwellings.

"The first recorded paint mill in America was reportedly established in Boston in 1700 by Thomas Child. A century and a half later, in 1867, D.R. Averill of Ohio patented the first prepared or "ready mixed" paints in the United States."

Lead, which was added to paint to speed drying, increase durability and resist moisture, can cause "nervous system damage, hearing loss, stunted growth, reduced IQ, and delayed development (in children). It can cause kidney damage and affects every organ system of the body. It also is dangerous to adults, and can cause reproductive problems in adult men." Paint containing more than .06% lead was banned for residential use in the US in 1978.

If you're going to paint a dark wall, use primer. Seriously. Or you'll be sorry.

Yosemite National Park

2007-11-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

I've returned from a lovely long weekend with Yosemite's giant sequioas, granite cliffs and stellar jays. I'll write a substantial post about it later this week. Until then, some pics:

Oh, the BEAUTY!

Old Timey Contraceptives

2007-10-30T13:02:00.001-07:00

I did follow through with the Trixie costume - sort of. You can buy a lot of things on Amazon.com, except authentic-looking nineteenth century blouses in dust bowl brown.

So I ended up going with a more traditional Halloween saloon girl look.

To make up for the lackluster ensemble, I accessorized with some abortifacient herbs. (A bag of Ceylon rose tea masquerading as tansy.) And while researching abortifacients (substances that induce abortion), I discovered some interesting facts about early contraceptives:

- Silphium, a member of the parsley family, was a powerful abortifacient harvested in ancient Greece. It was so popular it was harvested to extinction around the 1st century.

-Other supposed abortifacients:

Wild carrot
Black Cohosh
Slippery Elm
Pennyroyal
Nutmeg
Mugwort
Papaya
Vervain
Common Rue
Tansy

- In the 2nd century, the Greek gynaecologist Soranus advised women seeking abortion to drink water that blacksmiths had used to cool metal (PS: guy's name is Soranus).

-Old western prostitutes used coins as cervical caps (according to David Carradine). Asian women used oiled paper; English women used beeswax.

-"From 1930 until 1960, the most popular female contraceptive was Lysol disinfectant -- advertised as a feminine hygiene product in ads featuring testimonials from prominent European "doctors." Later investigation by the American Medical Association showed that these experts did not exist."

- Condoms were first made from animal intestines

-The first IUDs (intrauterine devices) were used on camels. Apparently, Arabs would stick pebbles into their uteruses to keep them from getting pregnant.

SoCal Halloween Maze Review

2007-10-30T00:47:00.000-07:00

Stencils of the world, unite!

Though I've slacked on the Halloween-themed blogging, I did make it to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood and Halloween Haunt at Knott's Berry Farm. Here's a quick recap:

Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood
Five mazes, including the tram tour through the backlot, which wasn't as satisfying as last year -- you could still walk through the Bates motel and the flaming War of the Worlds plane wreckage, but there weren't as many zombies lurking about. The other mazes improved, however. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre maze was extremely detailed and, overall, the scariest, but there were some truly frightening moments in the Nightmare on Elm Street maze (one of the scare actors scared me so badly I fell backwards into the person behind me. Frankly, I'm surprised I didn't end up here). Overall, very quality experience. I was assaulted by chainsaws (sans chains) twice. What did it feel like? It tickles.

Halloween Haunt at Knott's Berry Farm
Though the TGI Friday's pre-game did not disappoint, the mazes did. Perhaps they're understaffed on Sunday nights because there was a noticable decrease in scare actors, in both the mazes and the scare zones. The new mazes were underwhelming (Killer Klown Kollege, Doll Factory) -- even, dare I say, dull. My favorite maze from past years, the Asylum, was structured differently and missing the scariest part of all -- the smoke-filled infirmary ward. The best mazes were (surprisingly) Beowulf and Pyromaniax (the log ride -- the premise was "disaster at the moonshine factory." Very disturbing.) I did notice that there were more animatronics this year -- at the expense of staff, maybe? Are all the good scare actors going to Universal? Next year I'll have to step up...

The Science behind Spirit Boards

2007-10-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

Now that the worst of the wildfires are over (we hope), let's get back to
science and the supernatural.

Maybe carbon monoxide poisoning, infrasounds and paranoia aren't enough to explain the sights and sounds that accompany hauntings. Maybe you, like 33 percent of Americans, believe these are, in fact, caused by the spirits of the dead. How might one reach out and communicate with these spirits?

Through Ouija Boards, of course.

Ouija boards -- also known as "talking boards" or "spirit boards" -- are flat boards bearing letters, numbers and symbols. These boards often come with message indicators, or planchettes; when people rest their fingers lightly on a message indicator, it moves around the Ouija board and spells out messages that some say come from the dead.

Although some believe that spirits control the planchette, others say there is a simple scientific explanation for this movement: the ideomotor effect. The ideomotor effect is the body's involuntary and unconscious response to psychological stimuli. (Crying, for example, is attributed to the ideomotor effect). Scientists say that Ouija board users may be moving the planchette even though they think they're not exerting any pressure on it. This movement would be more pronounced if more than one person had their fingers on the planchette.

For some interesting history on the Ouija board, check out the Museum of Talking Boards.

If you're interested in hearing some Ouija board stories, check out graveaddiction.com

The word "Ouija" is now copyrighted by Parker Brothers. If you're interested in buying your own gateway to Hell, you can find it here.

Is Carbon Monoxide Making us Mental?

2007-10-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems tense here at the Annenberg School, and at first I thought it had something to do with an impending lecture from She Who Must Not Be Named (yes, the Young Republicans have arranged for her to speak here in an hour, and the Los Angeles Police Department has already combed the building for bombs), but then I wondered if the fires are to blame for everyone's headaches, fatigue and general malaise.

Then I remembered that while researching the science behind ghostly phenomena, I ran into an interesting fact about carbon monoxide -- that "Carbon monoxide poisoning, which can cause powerful auditory and visual hallucinations, depression, and a generalized sensation of illness and dread, was recognized as a possible explanation for haunted houses as early as 1921."

Sure enough, one of the gases released by mass quantities of burning homes is carbon monoxide.

Could we all be suffering from a case of mild carbon monoxide poisoning?

***

Which one of these puts you most ill at ease?

A.

B.

C. All of the above

Smells Like Burning

2007-10-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

We're surrounded by fire.

The sky was pale orange yesterday morning and heavy with carcinogens by the time I got out of class last night. The air smelled like ground beef roasted on a tire fire.

As I drove home with watering eyes and the occasional hacking cough, I wondered, how are these wildfires affecting my health?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoke from wildfires contains gases and fine particles that can "hurt your eyes, irritate your respiratory system, and worsen chronic heart and lung diseases."

Fabulous.

Once I got home, I visited the SignOnSanDiego fire blog to check the fate of Rancho Bernardo, a small community northeast of San Diego where my aunt and uncle live. They had to evacuate on Monday, when the Witch Fire tore through the area. Last night, city officials released a list of the homes destroyed in Rancho Bernardo.

Can you imagine finding your address on this list?

Luckily, none of the homes on Pacato Circle South were mentioned.

But the fire did raze an entire neighborhood about a mile north of where she lives, and about 200,000 acres of adjacent land.

As an arborphile, I have to admit that what bothers me most about wildfires is not the loss of homes, but the loss of vegetation. Earlier this year, 800 acres of Griffith Park went up in flames. I hoped that my favorite spot in the park (and one of my favorite spots in Los Angeles), a grove of tall squirrel-filled evergreens, had been spared. But, when I returned to the park to visit the Griffith Observatory last month, I learned that, indeed, it hadn't.

Now that large swaths of San Diego county have been destroyed, I wonder, how long will it take to grow back?

So far, I haven't found a conclusive answer.

But I did learn that fire can help foster biodiversity in some ecosystems, and that fire actually assists in the reproduction in certain plants, such as the lodgepole pine, whose cones "are sealed with resin until fire melts it away and releases the seeds."

Hmm.

Ghosts . . . or Pareidolia?

2007-10-22T17:35:00.000-07:00

All right, so we've determined what happens to your body once you die, so let's move on to more mysterious matters:

Ghosts.

Some say that if you die a particularly traumatic death then you might emit enough electromagnetic energy to imprint a lasting image at the location of your departure, which may pop up at certain instances in the future often enough to constitute a haunting...

...or not.

Possible scientific explanations for ghostly phenomena:

Sound -- Frequencies lower than 20 hertz are inaudible, but they can cause people to feel a "presence" in the room, or "unexplained feelings of anxiety or dread"

Carbon Monoxide -- carbon monoxide poisoning can cause auditory and visual halluncinations and general malaise.

Air pressure changes -- can cause doors to slam, or houses to creak.

Pareidolia -- "a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant."

Well. Whatever you think it is, consider this:

My friend's father claims that this picture was taken with a digital camera he locked in a safe while he was out of the country.

Fake? Real?

You tell me.

The White Man

2007-10-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

Q: The following passage was taken from a science textbook. What year was it published?

"Before the white man arrived on the Great Plains of North America, nature through millennia had evolved a balance. The land easily supported a wonderful variety of living creatures, many competing with each other to survive, yet all to some extent dependent on one another. They seldom lingered in one place long enough to damage the area by overgrazing... Jack rabbits, ground squirrels and many other smaller animals flourished on the Great Plains, but each species' natural tendency to multiply was constantly checked by available food and by predators. The Indians themselves, largely nomadic, adjusted to the natural order. But the white settlers saw wealth in the grasslands in the form of cattle and sheep. They killed off the competing herds of pronghorn and bison. Predators were poisoned, as were the prairie dogs into whose holes the cattle stumbled, often breaking their legs. Birds feeding off poisoned carcasses were poisoned in turn. Insects and small rodens on which the birds had fed then multiplied and the land suffered devastating plagues. Cattle overgrazed the range, and sheep nibbled the grasses to their roots. The biome was torn apart, erosion set in and large areas of the once rich plains turned into deserts."

A: 1963 Life "Ecology"

FIRE!

2007-10-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

We interrupt GBD's Month of the Dead to bring you . . .

WILDFIRES!

Severe drought + Santa Ana winds/ Downed power lines = Apocalypse

Back to Basics (or not): Body Decomposition and Soap Mummies

2007-10-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

Before we get into ghosties and ghoulies and the walking dead, let's start with the basics:

Death.

(This is not a real corpse)

According to Webster's, death is a permanent cessation of all vital functions, the end of life, the state of being dead, the destroyer of life represented usually as a skeleton with a scythe (when capitalized).

Our body's cells die when they stop receiving oxygen. This happens one of two ways - our hearts stop beating and circulating oxygen through our blood stream, or we stop breathing and bringing new oxygen into our lungs.

The first cells to go are the ones that need the most oxygen: the ganglionic cells of the central nervous system (including the retinal ganglion cells, the cells in the eye that transmit visual information to the brain. Perhaps this is why we "see the light" in our final moments?). Once the cells of the brain stem die, any respiratory or circulatory function that remains will cease.

Once our cells are dead, they no longer produce the energy that warms our bodies, so our temperature drops (algor mortis). Our blood, no longer propelled by our hearts, succumbs to the force of gravity and pools in the areas closest to the ground (livor mortis). Our muscle tissue, without oxygen, stiffens (rigor mortis). Every now and then, biochemical reactions can cause our dead arms and legs to twitch. And, according to the BBC, "On the odd occasion, when these gases reverberate against the vocal cords, noises may even be produced."

AHHHH!

Then the real fun begins: decomposition.

Once our white blood cells are dead, they can no longer combat the bacteria that live in our bodies. So, these bacteria grow and begin to break down internal tissues. This biochemical process releases gases that bloat the body and produce that lovely rotten corpse smell. Eventually, the bacteria will break all of the tissue down until only a skeleton remains.

Unless, a lot of water is involved and the corpse becomes too acidic for bacteria to feed. If that happens, "the body fat remains as adipocere, a yellowish-white, greasy, waxy substance which smells of cheese, earth and ammonia. This substance floats on water, dissolves in hot alcohol and ether, and when burned produces a faint yellow flame."

Whoa!

The transformation of body fat into soap-like adipocere is called saponification, and it is especially common in corpses with a lot of fat (obsese corpses, infant corpses) or any and all corpses that have been laid to rest in air-tight caskets in moist ground.

Translation:

"Many - and perhaps most- dead bodies interred within USA and Canadian cemeteries during the past century are still largely intact, 'down there' - and it's all due to adipocere formation. The grisly image of millions of buried and entombed soap mummies might not be serene, but it is apparently a shocking reality."

I won't force the evidence upon you, but if you're interested in knowing what these look like, click here.

I, personally, do not want to be a soap mummy. I want to be left out to rot on the open acres of the University of Northern Iowa's Body Farm in Tennessee.

Don't you?

South Bend storm nearly claims USC Trojans

2007-10-19T14:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, my football team nearly died while descending into my hometown.

It's a moment ripe with metaphor. Any takers?

Shadowlands: Ghosts on the Internets

2007-10-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Back in my Tarot card-reading quasi-Goth years, my favorite site on the Internets was Shadowlands, the web's finest collection of *true* ghost stories (some interesting, some incoherent).

There's also ample information about ghost hunting.

This was one of my favorite sites when I first got the 'net in '95. As you can see, it's still very Web 1.0.

Specter. . . or Photoshop?

Month of the Dead

2007-10-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, October. The temperatures are cooler. The days are shorter. I can finally move the Halloween decorations out of my bedroom and into the rest of the apartment. And my roommates can't say one damn thing about it.

I love this month.

Ever wonder where Halloween came from? Well, according to the History Channel, our modern day Halloween descended from the Celtic celebration of Samhain, which fell on October 31st, the last day of the Celtic new year:

"This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.

In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes."

So the transition of October 31st from November 1st is so spiritually significant the worlds of the LIVING and the DEAD are permeable! Fitting, then, that at this moment, I came into the world! Mwahaha ahaha! aAH! ahAHAH!

(I was born at 5 a.m. on November 1st)

In honor of this (un)holy moment, Go Be Delighted will feature fun facts about specters and corpses and other terrifying horribleness through the remainder of October. Scurrred yet?

New Earth!

2007-10-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

Scientists say a new Earth could be in the works around HD 113766, a Sun-sized star only 424 light years away from our own Blue Planet. Astronomer Carey Lisse at John Hopkins University says that a dust belt full of Earth-grade materials is beginning to fuse in the star's habitable zone -- the area where "temperatures are moderate enough to sustain liquid water."

Reggie and the Paramylodon harlani

2007-10-02T23:57:00.000-07:00

We took our new dog to the La Brea Tar Pits on Saturday.

Here, Reggie sits atop a Harlan ground sloth (scientific name: Paramylodon harlani), one of the Pleistocene megafauna found in the park's excavation sites. The Harlan ground sloth was six feet tall when standing.

Here, Reggie sits with a short-faced bear (scientific name: Arctodus simus). Scientists believe that the short-faced bear was the biggest bear that ever lived -- the creature was eleven feet tall on its hind legs.

Scientists have also found sabre-tooth cats, dire wolves, and mammoths at the tar pits, but unfortunately no dinosaurs; they died out 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period and, at that time, Los Angeles was submerged in the ocean. Ah!

And that's why there's all this "tar" laying around for the animals to fall into. According to the website, the pits are actually deposits of asphalt, the lowest grade of crude oil; oil that was "formed from marine plankton deposited in an ocean basin during the Miocene Epoch (5 - 25 million years ago). Time and pressure converted this material into oil - and for about 40,000 years, this petroleum has been seeping to the surface around Hancock Park."

And that petroleum will suck down anything in its path:

Is entrapment still occurring at Rancho La Brea?
Yes. About 8 -12 gallons (32 - 48 liters) a day ooze and bubble to the surface occasionally trapping invertebrates (insects and worms), reptiles (lizards), birds (mostly pigeons, but also hawks, egrets, ducks, doves, and sparrows), small mammals (rodents and rabbits) and occasionally large mammals (dogs and humans) especially during warm days when the asphalt is softest.

ehhh...

The Tao of Kanye

2007-10-01T18:57:00.001-07:00

Wisdom from Kanye West's Graduation:

"Look at the valedictorian, scared of the future/Scared to face the world, complacent career student/Some people graduate, but we still stupid."

-- Good Morning

"You can still be who you wish you is/It ain't happen yet/And that's what where the tuition is"

- I Wonder

"I was splurging' on trizz/But when I get my card back activated/I'm back to Vegas/ cause I always had a passion for flashing' before I had it"

-- The Good Life

"And you can live through anything/if Magic made it"

-- Can't Tell Me Nothing

"Now everybody got the game figured out all wrong/I guess you never know what you got till it's gone/I guess that's why I'm here and I cant come back home/And if you don't know by now/I'm talking bout Chi town."

-- Homecoming

"So if the devil wear Prada/Adam Eve wear Nada/I'm in between, but way more fresher."

-- Can't Tell me Nothing

"Lauryn Hill say her heart was in Zion/I wish her heart still was in rhymin."

-- Champion

"People talk so much shit about me at barbershops/they forget to get they hair cut."

-- Everything I Am

UPDATE: The Tao of Kanye coming to a bookstore near you!

Gamers in Space

2007-10-01T02:05:00.000-07:00

Richard Garriott, the creator of the genre-defining MMORPG Ultima Online, is going to space!

Congratulations, Richard!

Arsenic and Old Space Debris

2007-09-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

Scientists say the fumes from the big boiling crater in the Peruvian town of Carangas are not making people sick.

The culprit? Good ole mass hysteria.

Six hundred Peruvians claim to have suffered from headaches, nausea and sore throats after visiting the suspected meteorite impact site.

But scientists have not found any evidence of toxic fumes at the site. If there were fumes emitting from the hole, they wouldn't have come from the meteorite -- they would have leaked from the Carangas subsoil, which contains high amounts of arsenic.

Furthermore, there is no conclusive evidence that the hole was caused by a meteorite -- it is more likely that it was a hydrothermal explosion.

So no super space bacteria yet. *Whew*

The crater.

Cocks and Capons

2007-09-26T23:17:00.000-07:00

Tonight, a classmate mentioned that humans typically don't eat roosters because their meat is too tough.

I decided to investigate.

And I found this interesting tidbit of information from an anonymous user on the now (it seems) defunct http://www.qeok.com/:

"Rooster meat is by far tougher than hen's meat, but it is edible. It's the hormones in the meat that makes the difference. Just like with beef, for instance. A yearling steer (Castrated male, castrated while young) makes the best beef available. Cow meat isn't nearly as nice, and is often sold as 'budget' beef. It's still fairly edible, but has a little different flavour and is a little tougher, because of the estrogen that goes through their system. And bull meat is quite tough and stringy, and has a very strong flavour to it, because of the testosterone in it. Hope this helps!"

So great steak is from Mars, shitty flank is from Venus.

It never occurred to me that male muscle and female muscle would have different tastes and consistencies. If hormones have such an impact on the structure of our meat, do they also affect the structure of our brains? Of course, hormones affect the chemical composition of our brains - they affect emotion. But is the actual architecure of neural tissue different for men and women?

Would a male human taste different than a female human?

**

Some interesting rooster facts (courtesy of Wikipedia):

A rooster pecks with the force of 15 pounds
Castrated roosters are called "capons." They're tastier than other chickens because they grow more slowly and accumulate more fat.
The Dutch translation of "cock-a-doodle-doo" is "kukeleku"
Chicken feet are popular in Chinese cuisine

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger SPACE BACTERIA

2007-09-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

Noel Murphy says that bacteria like salmonella grow stronger in Space:

"Arizona State University's Centre for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology has found space salmonella, after 12 days, killed mice more swiftly and exhibited genetic variations. Space evidently triggers a different response in the bacterium even if scientists insist it's nothing it can't do on earth given the right circumstances."

He then wonders if our bacteria-infested space junk might fall back to Earth and plague us with super diseases.

Must investigate....

Happy Fall Equinox

2007-09-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

Our Planet has reached that point in its orbit where the celestial equator merges with the ecliptic and daytime and nighttime are more or less equal to one another. Yes, it's the Fall Equinox, folks. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the days will only get shorter from here.

FOUND: Chihuahua mix in Exposition Park, near USC Coliseum

2007-09-22T23:38:00.000-07:00

Howdy, internets:

If you lost an extremely well-behaved, cream/tan-colored chihuahua mix near Exposition Park (between the Natural History Museum and the USC Coliseum) right after the 4th quarter of the USC / Washington State game, you can find him here:

South Los Angeles Animal Services Care Center

3612 11th Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90018

213.485.0117

We found the dog wandering Exposition Blvd. (near Vermont Ave.) and took him in. He's extremly docile and quiet, and loves car rides and tailgate leftovers. He's already neutered and seems housebroken.

If no one claims him, we may keep him and name him "Reggie."

PS: USC DPS is so fucking lazy and worthless they not only refused to call animal control on our behalf, but couldn't even look up the number for us. Consider yourself warned, Sorority Row - if your little snoogle wanders off, it's up to God and the streets.

GBD's Exclusive 25th Birthday Bonanza

2007-09-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

Both of my roommates turned 25 last weekend, and I was faced with the challenge of making two VIPs in my life feel very special, instead of that-much-closer-to-30.

It was a daunting task, but a task accomplished by delighting them with the most exclusive clubs in Los Angeles!

Because what eases the transition into your late 20s better than partying in places inaccessible to the general public?

So, without further ado . . .

Les Deux

After watching a herd of paparazzi sprint toward its general direction, I expected the worst from Les Deux, but it turned out to be quite enjoyable.

It wasn't a stuffy, minimalistic dance club like I'd expected but a small, Victorian house with one large first-floor lounge, a roomy second-floor VIP balcony, and a large cobblestone courtyard lined with chocolate-leather booths. The DJ spun a nice mix of Top 40 and 80s dance music underneath a projection of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet.

The atmosphere was relaxed and chill, and the bartender gave us two-for-one Patron shots. After all, how can you resist these faces:

Les Douche.

We talked our way up to the VIP room, which was occupied by a group of disability insurance salesmen from Boston and a couple of Marines. One of the Marines was the PR Director for the Marine Corp - the person responsible for convincing journalists to come to Iraq and write about all of the good and reprehensible things going on there. She was revealing all sorts of fascinating things about Iraq that I was trying very hard to retain but promptly forgot a few moments (and sips of vodka soda) later. I think she described Iraq as "four times worse than Tijuana" but that, of course, sounded absurd in the morning. At any rate, after admitting, "we never should have gone in there in the first place, but since we did . . ." she shifted to more Les Deux-appropriate topics such as her childhood aspirations (acting) and the brand of my dress (Free People). She was a fascinating person, and I wish I was sober enough to remember our conversation (yay, America). Her male companion gave me a flashing Pentagon keychain.

After we left, we bought two of the best bacon-wrapped hot dogs EVAH! I think they were actually bacon-wrapped spicy sausages, not hot dogs, which brought the experience to a whole new level. The sausages were wrapped in toasty, grease-soaked buns and topped with veritable mounds of onions, peppers, mustard and ketchup. As Sarah and I devoured them under a nearby awning, men kept approaching us and asking us where we were from. No one believed us when we said "LA." (Dunno why, I mean, wtf, right?)

The Magic Castle

On Friday night, Sarah and I got all dolled up and went to The Magic Castle, the private members-only magician's club on Franklin and Hollywood.

It was just as awesome as you might imagine. I won't spoil the mystery for you, but let me just say that the place has five bars full of aging magicians eager to perform tricks and buy drinks for pretty ladies.

We weren't allowed to take pictures, so think of a Hogwarts full of strange uncles.

Club 33

I thought Disneyland's Club 33 was a nightclub. It's not. It's a very expensive French restaurant with antique furniture, crimson walls and gold-embroidered drapes. It's like eating inside of a Louis Vutton bag. Seth and I got the five course Prix Fixe menu - quite tasty. The toilets are rather peculiar:

"I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?"

Once inside, you travel to the dining area via elevator:

Pretty cool, huh?

Pirates of the Caribbean is even better after five glasses of wine.

But do not go on the Finding Nemo submarines until you've completely sobered up.

(Or ever, if you're afraid of being submerged in water, like I am.)

**

Now, you might be wondering how you can befriend someone like me; someone who has the know-how to get you into these wonderfully exclusive Southern Californian establishments.

(Lots and lots of cash.)

No, seriously, the truth is that I owe it all to Sarah, Becky and Barb G. Thanks, ladies.

Feathery Velociraptors

2007-09-20T12:29:00.001-07:00

Scientists have discovered quill knobs on the forearm of a Mongolian Velociraptor, which indicates the dinosaur had feathers.

I can't decide if I'm disappointed or freaked out by this.

The Forgotten (Pirate) Prisoner

2007-09-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

A very *exclusive* post is coming soon . . .

But until then, be delighted that it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Not "national." International.

Yup.

In other pirate-related news, I went to Disneyland over the weekend and realized, during my second trip through Pirates of the Caribbean, that my dad's 1966 Forgotten Prisoner model kit could very well be based on the first diorama of the ride. The Forgotten Prisoner is a skeleton dressed as a pirate and chained to a wall with a sword through his chest. Very similar to Pirates' first corpse.

(The model, without the sword.)

But then I discovered that the ride didn't open until 1967. So was the figure in the ride based on the model? Is it just a coincidence? Is the image of a skeleton pirate chained to a slab of concrete with a sword through his chest such a common element of the American psyche that it sprung up simultaneously in various incarnations in the 1960's?

Did it have anything to do with this? (I mean, I guess there were no pirates in that, but there were skeletons.)

At any rate, it's comforting to know that although the Forgotten Prisoner is 41 years old, he's adapted very well to modern times -- he has his own MySpace page.

When Galaxies Collide

2007-09-13T09:05:00.000-07:00

Galaxies. Trillions of them. With trillions of stars. Whoa.

If humans manage to escape Earth before the Sun turns into a Red Giant and boils away the planet's atmosphere, we'll have another astrological obstacle to overcome:

The collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies.

Sure, it will take a few billion years, but it's inevitable -- the gravity of the two galaxies is pushing them toward each other at a rate of several hundred kilometers per second. Eventually, they will collide, and the combined gravity will scatter their stars into new galactical formations. Our night skies would be forever changed - if, somehow, we're still around to observe it.

The Andromeda Galaxy is visible to the naked eye. We see it as it was 2.5 million years ago, since it's 2.5 million light years away, and its light takes 2.5 million years to travel to Earth.

With the proper equipment (i.e, deep space telescopes such as Hubble), we can see galaxies as far as 13 billion light years away. These galaxies are almost as old as the Universe itself, and predate the existence of Earth. So, when we look at pictures of these galaxies, we're viewing space as it was before the Earth even existed!

Consider, for a second, the distance implied by 13 billion light years. A light year is the distance light can travel through a vacuum in one year -- 5,878,625,373,183.61 miles. Multiply that by 13 billion . . . my calculator broke.

Now Showing at the Observatory: Jupiter and the Galilean moons

2007-09-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of visiting the Griffith Observatory last night, which had its 72 year old 12" Zeiss telescope pointed toward Jupiter.

I got to see the Jovian planet and four of its moons - Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. The sight looked a lot like this:

Except that I could actually see the creme and orange colored bands of Jupiter's cloud layers, which was pretty cool. (The Great Red Spot, unfortunately, had already rotated out of view.)

The image I saw through the telescope was not how Jupiter would have looked (from close range in space) at that moment, but how it would have looked (from close range in space) 45 minutes earlier, since its light takes 45 minutes to reach Earth.

Some other fun facts about Jupiter:

* Jupiter is two and a half times as massive as all of the other planets combined.

* Jupiter has a very faint planetary ring system.

* The orange and creme colored bands are cloud layers in Jupiter's atmosphere. They rotate in opposite directions; the resulting turbulence creates great storms (such as the Great Red Spot).

* Its largest moon, Ganymede, is bigger than the planet Mercury.

* Its fourth largest moon, Europa, may have oceans of water underneath its icy surface (and, therefore, may have extraterrestrial life as well). (Like Saturn's moon Enceladus.)

* Galileo discovered Jupiter's four largest moons in 1610, via his new and improved telescope. This was the first time anyone had actually observed satellites orbiting anything other than Earth, and his discovery cast major doubt on idea of an Earth-centered universe.

(He also used his telescope to discover that Venus went through phases, which proved Copernicus' earlier hypothesis that Venus, and the other planets, orbited the Sun. This observation got Galileo in trouble with the good ole Church and he was put under house arrest outside of Florence for the remaining years of his life.)

Last night was my first visit to the Observatory and it did not disappoint. If you live in So Cal, check it out. They're going to point that telescope toward Mars in a couple of months.

This is Why I Drink Starbucks

2007-09-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

According to Energy Fiend, there's so much caffeine in Starbucks coffee that it would only take 27 Grande cups of it to kill you.

Comparatively, it would take 71 cans of Full Throttle to kill you.

Or 296 cans of Coke Zero.

Hmmm.

Mogoi (Yeti) National Park

2007-09-06T11:51:00.000-07:00

Documentarian Les Guthman came to class last night to speak about his documentary “Churning the Sea of Time: A Journey Up the Mekong to Angkor" (which was a really beautiful look at the Mekong River, which runs through Vietnam and Cambodia). He mentioned another documentary he had worked on, "Into the Thunder Dragon," about two unicyclists who had cruised through Bhutan in search of the Yeti, the mythological giant Himalayan snow monster.

They had wanted to travel through Bhutan's Sakteng Wildlife Park , which is dedicated to protecting the natural habitat of the Yeti. But they couldn't. Because it's so dedicated to protecting the habitat of the Yeti that humans are not allowed there.

Seriously.

I pointed out that you can also find the Yeti at the Matterhorn in Anaheim, but I don't think he was listening.

R.I.P. Steve Irwin

2007-09-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

Today marks the one year anniversary of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin's death. I remember the night he died -- Seth and I were in Las Vegas, drinking some cheap beers at the Stardust (now defunct as well). We read the news from the muted television behind the bar. I didn't follow his career very closely, but I was sad to see him go -- it's rare to find a person who lived life so passionately, and with such dedication to a worthwhile cause .

In memoriam, Animal Planet is airing some classic croc specials this week, now through Thursday.

*

The Most Dangerous Roads in the World

2007-09-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I read Paul Theroux's account of driving through Tibet and was reminded of an interesting post on darkroastedblend.com about the Most Dangerous Roads in the World.

Check 'em out.

The Day After Tomorrow

2007-08-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

What does global warming have in store for the US?

Massive storms in the Midwest!
Hail the size of baseballs!
More lightning in the West . . . and more fires!

This forecast is brought to you by NASA.

Countdown: Halloween

2007-08-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

My favorite holiday, Halloween, is only two months away!

I wanted to apply to be a Knott's Halloween Haunt Monster, but I have class on Wednesday nights. Oh well - maybe next year.

As for the costume, I'm going to attempt to pull off Trixie from Deadwood. If anyone knows where I can find 19th century whore garb, let me know.

Photos of the August 28, 2007 Lunar Eclipse

2007-08-28T03:07:00.000-07:00

Some blurry photos from my Sony Cybershot:

Unfortunately, my camera couldn't pick up the red hue of the moon once it was fully obscured by the earth's shadow. But if you're reading this, oh, now (as in 3:10 a.m. on Tuesday, August 28th) you still have about an hour to check it out for yourself.

Reminder: Total Lunar Eclipse TONIGHT!

2007-08-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

All right, kids, now that you're all bogged down with homework, it's time to stay up all night to watch the moon pass through the Earth's shadow!

Between 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. on the West Coast!!

Back to School

2007-08-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

You know how the first day of school smells differently than any other day? What is that? Is it the scent of over-ripened summer? The perfume of burgeoning opportunity?

I think it's a combination of waking up way earlier than you usually do and breathing in the post-dawn air (before it's sullied by rush hour commute traffic and roasted by sunlight) . . .

. . . and office supplies. Mass quantities of office supplies. Paper. Glue. Plastic packaging.

That's it.

BioShock

2007-08-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

It's like an underwater, art deco Resident Evil. And it really made me nostalgic for the Queen Mary.

I was a little hesistant to pick it up at first because I'm terrible at shooters. (I can never keep track of where I'm going, or what I'm pointing at. Truth is, I'm just really uncoordinated. I can't whistle, nor snap. So moving my virtual head with one toggle switch and my virtual legs with another is a little much to ask. To me, it's like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time. Which I can pull off, if I think about it hard enough, but I gotta admit, it's pretty jerky.)

Luckily, BioShock is civil enough to offer an easy mode for those who are "new to shooters."

How euphemistic.

And fortunate, because I'd hate to miss out on this game for lack of skill. It's creepy - not just in a "Surprise! A genetically mutated psychopath!" sort of way, but in an unsettling, morally ambiguous sort of way. It's cerebral - the story draws on both Ayn Rand and George Orwell to tell the tale of a laissez-faire capitalist utopia gone wrong. It's gorgeous - breathtaking, really. And it's really fucking fun.

M-Theory: Shizzam!

2007-08-21T00:39:00.000-07:00

The Science Channel’s documentary "Parallel Universe" fucked my brain beyond repair.

It began with string theory. Which states that the smallest bits of matter are not zero-dimensional particles, but one-dimensional strings. If everything is made of strings, and we can figure out how these strings behave, then we could theoretically figure out the way everything behaves and sum it up in one neat Theory of Everything. Too bad five different string theories emerged . . .

Each of the five string theories accounted for 10 dimensions of space, since the strings would vibrate in 10 dimensions. Eventually, scientists realized that if they incorporated a newfangled 11th dimension called "supergravity" into their theories, then all five string theories would be compatible. In this 11th dimension, all the strings would be woven together into the "membrane" of our universe (hence: M-Theory). Which would mean that everything is connected. (Of course, a good dose of shrooms will precipitate the same conclusion.)

What will really fuck with your soul, though, is this: the eleventh dimension would contain not only the membrane of our universe, but also the membranes of an infinite number of universes. Universes where there may be life; universes where there may not be life. Universes where there may be civilizations of human beings; universes where there may be civilizations of unicorns. Universes where Paula Abdul responded to your fan letter; universes where Paula Abdul did not respond to your fan letter. You get the idea.

The existence of parallel universes is one possible explanation for the weakness of gravity (relative to the other forces). Consider this: when you take a magnet to a paperclip, that paperclip overcomes gravity to jump to the magnet. And we can overcome gravity ourselves by climbing up a cliff; you have to be in shape, of course, but it’s possible. So why is gravity so lame? Perhaps it "leaked" into our universe from another universe? Hmm?

The existence of parallel universes would also explain the Big Bang theory – new universes are formed when membranes collide. Physics combine, explode, burst forth. Etc.

Are you lost? Yeah, me too at this point. I’m only beginning to comprehend this. Further investigation is necessary - and assured.

The Hawking Paradox

2007-08-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

Few men affect me like Stephen Hawking.

The smile has a lot to do with it. Hawking let it shine a number of times during "The Hawking Paradox," the BBC documentary about his work on black holes. In 1970, Hawking combined the theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity into one neat equation that described the mechanics of black holes:

The equation suggested something controversial -- that black holes would emit radiation. Radiation that would eventually cause a black hole to evaporate and disappear.

Along with everything inside of it.

The idea of information disappearing into a black hole did not sit well with other scientists. It violated a fundamental tenet of physics: that information cannot be destroyed; it may be altered, but it can never disappear. Regardless, Hawking stood firmly by his theory and insisted that information must disappear; after all, that's what his equation suggested, and he knew his equation was right.

*Cue grin*

The argument over the disappearance versus the preservation of information entering black holes became known as the Information Paradox, or the Hawking Paradox. While many scientists refused to believe that information disappeared after entering a black hole, they also remained enamored with the beauty of Hawking's equation and began to explore how both outcomes could coexist. Eventually, an Argentenian physicist named Juan Maldacena crafted an equation that explained how information behaved once it entered black holes -- and the equation showed that information was not lost.

Hawking was not convinced. But before he could dissect Maldacena's paper, he fell gravely ill with pneumonia, and was hospitalized for three months.

During this time, he developed his own answer to the Paradox.

At a conference in 2004, Hawking conceded his earlier argument and presented his modified theory: that black holes emit the information they swallow (extremely altered, of course).

Though many attendees were excited to hear Hawking's announcement, most found the new theory lackluster at best. To this day, he is still working to complete the proof that would prove this theory.

But it's getting harder. By the conclusion of the documentary, Hawking was beginning to lose the ability to manipulate his speaking device with his hand and had to rely on making facial expressions to communicate ideas to his research assistant. When his assistant interpreted incorrectly, Hawking would wince. When he got something right, Hawking would smile.

Today, Hawking operates his speaking device with a muscle under his right eye.

Can you imagine? Sitting there with nothing to do but think, knowing that many of your colleagues think you're wrong, that many of your colleagues think you're crazy, yet still going, continuing to thrive 40 years after they said you would die, never letting up even as you lose control of everything around you - even your ability to communicate?

"I want to understand the Universe, and answer all the big questions. That's what keeps me going."

-Stephen Hawking, 2004

Hawking is preparing to go into space in 2009 and is currently writing a children's book that is "like Harry Potter - without the magic."

Yep - Time Travel before Hoverboards

2007-08-20T23:37:00.000-07:00

Read all about it.

Toe Jam and Earl: There's no place like Funkotron

2007-08-19T22:08:00.000-07:00

This evening, on the 25th level of Planet Earth, Toe Jam found the 10th piece to his spaceship and sailed home to Planet Funkotron . . .

. . . where the grass is fuchsia, the streets are paved in gold, and the doormats say "yo."

This is only the second time I've beaten Toe Jam and Earl, the quirky Sega game about two funk-loving aliens who must piece their spaceship back together after crash-landing on Earth.

I was inspired by this weekend's viewing of King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters to commemorate the moment with digital photography:

You can move your character through Planet Funkotron after you beat the game.

The homecoming parade.

Toe Jam and Earl, reunited with their families.

Ain't that a happy ending?

Blinding You With Science: MEGAMOUTH!!

2007-08-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

In LA County's National History Museum, between the water fountains and the mesozoic fossils, Megamouth, a 15 foot long, 1550 lb. shark, sits bloated and yellow in his display case.

The first Megamouth was discovered in 1976, when it was captured off the coast of Hawaii. The second Megamouth - the one on display at the museum - was found near Catalina Island in 1984. Only 37 other Megamouths have ever been found; most of them were captured in the Pacific, off the coast of Japan.

The Megamouth shark sports an unusually large mouth with "a bathtub-shaped lower jaw and an enormous short-snouted head with small, pointed teeth." It has a reflective lining inside its mouth that is thought to attract prey.

Little else is known about the shark, but scientists are currently testing tissue samples from the specimen at the museum in hopes of learning more about it.

We Have Broken the Speed of Light

2007-08-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light.

Does this mean we'll have time-travel figured out before hoverboards?

Well . . . I'll take it.

MC Skat Kat: Original Bad Boy

2007-08-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

It's said that at some point in her burgeoning adulthood, every young girl will go through a phase where she will desire and covet nothing but complete assholes.

Is this learned behaviour? Genetic? Biologically predetermined?

Perhaps. But I'd like to present another theory for your consideration:

The corrupting influence of MC Skat Kat

In her seminal hit "Opposites Attract," Paula Abdul tells us that her lover, MC Skat Kat, parties all night, moves fast, shouts, smokes, steals the covers, gets obsessed and is always broke.

Yet, Paula still loves him, still desires him, and when they get together they have "nothing but fun."

Well, shit.

What young girl doesn't want to have "nothing but fun?" And apparently, as Paula has stated, she can only do so with her complete opposite -- a possessive, free-loading cigarette-smoking loser like MC Skat Kat.

You owe me extra now, Paula!

PS - Straight up! Paula Abdul's Greatest Hits is only $7.99 at Amoeba.

Vegas: A Retrospective

2007-08-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

I've returned from Las Vegas.

Barely.

About 10 miles past the abandoned waterpark, my alternator conked out and I had to be towed to Barstow.

Luckily, the mechanic there was open late and kind enough to fix me up. But we still didn't make it in time for Rock the Bells.

Bollocks.

Regardless, as this concluded my fifth trip to Vegas in the past year, I thought it appropriate to do a little Best-Of as reference for the less-seasoned.

Best way to spend the day

First, head over to the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. There's something for everybody -- from $500 corsets at Agent Provocateur to Pete Rose at Field of Dreams. But my favorite will always be FAO Schwartz. I'm a sucker for giant stuffed animals.

Christy meets Octopus.

After you've had your fill, make your way over to the Mirage for Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat.

Sure, you have to pay $15 to get in, but once you're there, you can chill by the dolphin pool and drink $7 32 oz. Sin City Amber Lagers. It's the best deal in town. And they've got a baby dolphin, too!

Just watch out for Montecore.

Best novelty drink

The BeatleJuice at the Mirage's Beatles-inspired Revolution Lounge is a slightly sweet and very strong blueberry martini that is actually worth the $12.

Best novelty diner

Dine among Klingons at Quark's Bar and Restaurant at Star Trek: The Experience in the Las Vegas Hilton. Actors dress up as Star Trek characters and roam the restaurant while you eat; if you order a salad, they may even harass you for being a leaf-eating Earthling. I recommend a Hamborger and giant cauldron of smoking mixed drink (thanks, dry ice!)

That is not a statue.

Best bulk booze

Forget the sugared-up yard-long margaritas and get a boot full of mango daquiri at Coyote Ugly. It actually tastes good. You can refill the boot for cheap and for a small fee, you can add a double shot of 151.

Best hotel room

The Venetian. Every standard room has a sunken living room! It was hard to leave.

Worst hotel room

The Tropicana. Stains, hard mattresses, ugh. Cuervo margaritas help.

Most surprisingly enjoyable stay

Hooters Hotel and Casino. Clean rooms in Spring Break decor and poolside chicken wings. It started off as a joke (let's see Morrissey and stay at Hooters! Meat is murder! Bah!) but I gotta say, I'd be happy to stay here again.

Best thing you will ever see in your life

I saw a lot of great shows in the past year - Massive Attack, Bjork, Christina Aguilera, Modest Mouse, Girls Against Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Slint, Morrissey, Amy Winehouse, Jarvis Cocker, El-P, The National, The Decemberists, Andrew Bird. But nothing even came close to Elton John and the Red Piano.

Not only do you get Sir Elton and giant inflatable legs, but you also get an amazing video accompaniment directed by David LaChappelle. A white trash ballet brawl? Set in a trailer park? Inspired by Tennessee Williams? Yes, please. More more more.

Most surprisingly awesome show

The now defunct We Will Rock You, the futuristic rock opera set to the music of Queen at the Paris Hotel and Casino, brought grown men to tears. The performances, sets and costumes were great, and the story instills the viewer with the importance of Rock in a way that School of Rock never could.

Most surprisingly offensive show

I suppose I was drunk, but during the course of LOVE I did a 180 from thinking it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen to the most exploitative thing I'd ever seen. I left the theater murmuring curses at Paul McCartney under my breath. The Beatles is pure, man!

Most surprising moment during a show

Being pulled up on stage by Penn to throw knives at Teller -- after a Witch Doctor and a shot of Patron (see "Best Meal as of February 2007" below).

Most disappointing show

Folies Bergere at Tropicana. What with this dude MC? What's with the dude dancers? What's with the dude comedian? I paid for tits and feathers. Which comprised only about 7% of the show.

Speaking of that . . .

Most off-the-hook strip club

Scores.

Period.

Worst strip club

Anything all nude, sans liquor. Make sure you know where you are before you drop that cover.

Most Overrated Nightclub

Tryst. Do you like three minutes of Michael Jackson inexplicably mixed with three minutes of Nirvana, transitioned into 45 seconds of Journey? Then this lame-ass DJ is for you.

Best bar to score a Jack and Coke and some old science textbooks

To the right of the Tropicana's Tuscany Italian Cafe, there's a tiny little bar with an even tinier little room with a leather couch, a couple of chairs, a flat screen TV, and two built-in-the-wall bookcases full of your parents' old science textbooks. If you ask the bartender, he'll let you take one home. But hurry fast -- it's getting the bomb in November.

Blinding myself with science.

Best meal as of February 2007

Before it became the Voodoo Steak House and completely changed the menu, the Rio's Voodoo Lounge had not only the tastiest entree in town ("Chicken Some Street in New Orleans") but also the best drink -- a smoking cauldron of "Witch Doctor," ten shots of rum topped with a little plastic ghost.

Best meal as of August 2007

Japonais at the Mirage. Sensual ambiance, solid food.

Best dessert

Banana Cream Pie at Emeril's at the MGM Grand. It's as big as a cat.

Best display item

Christina Aguilera's chaps from the Dirrty Video at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

Maybe it's just me.

Most annoying surcharge

$20 for picking up the "Pleasure Box" off the Caesars Palace amenity tray and laughing at it.

Most triumphant moment

Winning $80 on the Big Six at Treasure Island.

SPACE HOTEL!

2007-08-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

YESSSSSS. Finally, a hotel in space!

The "Galactic Suite" will open in 2012 and will take guests around the world in 80 minutes!

For 4 million dollars, you get three nights in the hotel and an eight week training course at a "James Bond-style space camp on a tropical island."

Then, you get to fly up to the hotel and spend three days watching the sun rise 15 times and manuevering around your room in a velcro suit.

They haven't figured out the toilet situation yet, but you'll be able to bathe yourself by floating through a chamber of water bubbles.

It is going to ROCK! I can't wait!

(PS Please send all donations to Melody Lutz @ Please Send Me to Space Blvd. I have $0123 dollars in Los Angeles, CA 90089 kthxbye.)

Vivo el waterpark abandonado fuera de Las Vegas.

2007-08-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

GoBeDelighted will be on hiatus for a few days while Christine and I travel to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.

Yes, I'm looking forward bronzing my skin in the 108 degree F air and stealing more old science textbooks from the Tropicana, but I'm also looking forward to showing Christy the abandoned waterpark that sits on 1-15, halfway to Vegas.

The former Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark was opened near man-made Lake Dolores in Newberry, California in 1962. According to this long-winded Wikipedia entry, it was one of the earliest waterparks in the United States, and its adjacent resort was popular with the motocross and water sports crowd. The park closed in the late 1980s after bad management, and what's left of it is scheduled to be torn down and replaced by homes in the very near future.

Apparently, if you actually get off I-15 to check out the park, you will be greeted by a cranky old man in a truck and/or a pack of dogs who will shoo you away from the "private property." As one survivor reports:"it was like a horror movie - or at least an episode of Scooby-Doo."

Blinding You With Science: Gravity Kills

2007-08-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

Last night's episode of "The Universe" -- you know, the History Channel show and primary source of my astronomical knowledge -- was about the life and death of stars.

Stars are born when gravity pulls a cloud of hydrogen together into a ball. Gravity would immediately collapse this ball of hydrogen together into an extremely dense nugget of matter; however, the very act of gravity pulling hydrogen together into a ball creates heat that synthesizes hydrogen into helium molecules. This synthesis (aka "nuclear fusion") creates an "outward" force to balance the "inward" force of gravity so that the star ceases to contract. (Imagine arm wrestling someone of equal strength: both of you are applying great force, but no one's arm is going anywhere.) This period of stasis in a star's life is called the "main sequence" -- our own sun is currently in the "main sequence" phase of its life.

Eventually, though, all of the hydrogen molecules in the core of the star are turned into helium, and then things get crazy. If the star is quite large (nine solar masses or more), then there is enough energy for its new helium core to fuse, which creates carbon, which fuses together to create oxygen, which fuses together to create neon, and then silicon and sulfur and iron. At this point, the star is at the end of its red giant phase, and no more elements can be synthesized because, unlike the lighter elements preceding it, iron does not produce energy when it fuses together. Rather, iron consumes energy when it fuses together, and at a certain size the iron core can no longer support its own mass and collapses from the size of our Sun to the size of Manhattan in half a second. This sudden collapse creates a massive shockwave that explodes the rest of the star's material into space -- a supernova. The energy released during a supernova synthesizes the heaviest element of the former star -- iron -- into all of the remaining heavier elements in the universe.

That means calcium, silver, gold, everything. Everything heavier than iron in all of existence was synthesized from the material of an exploding star.

Deal with that.

So, in sum:

1. Everything around us is a product of gravity's force on hydrogen.

2. No finite amount of hydrogen can withstand the force of gravity.

3. Gravity always wins, and produces a lot of cool stuff.

So where did gravity come from?

Gifts from the Land of the Rising Sun

2007-08-05T20:19:00.000-07:00

BFF Christine has returned from Japan with a bevy of treasures for watashi:

Curry-flavored Pringles.

Awamori - snake sake.

Unagi pie - a cookie-type thing made from crushed dried eel. AKA a "snack for nights."

"Men's Style" - chewing gum for men.

"Hope" mini-cigs.

Cell phone bear, penguin cookie cutter, paper frog.

Arigato gozaimashita, Christine!

The Power of Love

2007-08-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

As you transition into your wonderful August weekend, remember that love is beautiful, love is strange . . .

One fateful morning, after a night out with the bros, 24 year old Brit David Brown woke up with a slight hangover and a telephone number running through his head. Puzzled, David sent a text message to the number, asking "Did I meet you last night?"

Michelle Kitson had not met David the night before, but when she received the text, she responded, and the two began exchanging messages.

They decided to meet.

They fell in love.

They honeymooned in the Indian resort of Goa.

See?

Don't need no credit card to ride this train.

Have a good one.

(Reuters, April 2007)

Blinding You with Science: Life on the Moons of Saturn

2007-07-31T23:50:00.000-07:00

Saturn is a remarkable planet for many reasons:

Saturn's rings are 21 Earths wide, 65 feet deep and spin at a rate of 20-40,000 miles per hour

The material that comprises Saturn's rings is constantly eroded by micro-meteorites and the rings may one day disappear

There's a huge ass hurricane on the south pole and a hexagonal vortex on its north pole

It's less dense than water and would float if put in a giant ocean

But the weirdest thing about Saturn are its moons.

Titan and Enceladus, two of Saturn's 48 named moons, may have the ingredients necessary to support life.

Titan is the only moon with an atmosphere - an atmosphere made of methane and nitrogen, which are the same two ingredients that comprised Earth's early sky. When scientist Margaret Tolbert of the University of Colorado combined these elements in her lab and exposed them to sunlight, organic compounds began to form. Egads!

Enceladus is covered in snow -- yes, frozen water -- and one region in its southern hemisphere is covered in steam-spouting geysers. (We know it's water vapor because our space probes have flown through the geysers and collected samples, apparently.) Scientists think that the geysers are caused by Saturn's gravitational pull on Enceladus; this pull creates a tidal force that moves ice deep beneath the moon's surface. The friction of this movement warms the ice until it melts, and heats the water until it evaporates, until spouts of water and water vapor burst through the surface of the moon.

Scientists say there may be life in the water beneath the moon's icy surface -- but it would only be in the form of microbes and bacteria.

So, what if we found life on one of Saturn's moons? Would that put an end to Creationism? Or, could one claim that God put the microbes on Enceladus to test our faith?

Discuss.

Girls Against Boys performing V-Lux @ the El Rey

2007-07-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

w/ The Moonrats
July 22, 2007

So how was GVSB at the El Rey?

You mean, how was GVSB in my art deco basement?

Because that's what it felt like. The show was criminally under-attended. But who cares? More GVSB for me!

And I must say that the evening was positively enchanted. First, I "won" two tickets to the show via MySpace (let's be honest -- they were giving them away), so my wonderful roommates Seth and Sarah came along.

Sarah and the "GVSB"

After Sarah's expertly mixed shots of vodka, apple pucker and orange juice (what I hereby declare "The GVSB"), the three of us walked to the El Rey under the wispy clouds of a pink sunset. And then -- lo and behold -- it rained! In Los Angeles! A drop of water fell from the sky and kissed me square on the forehead! It wasn't enough of a pour to clear the smog away, but it was a nice accent to the evening.

We got there way too early and started drinking accordingly. After an impressively catchy set from The Moonrats (think GVSB meets Modest Mouse), GVSB walked onstage and I fled to the dance floor with Seth's jack and coke.

I was looking forward to the moment GVSB took the stage as the Moment of Truth: the moment when the opening throbs of "In Like Flynn" would part the crowd and separate the merely curious from my Brothers and Sisters, my fellow Bulletproof Cupids in this Tropic of Scorpio. So when the curtains opened and Johnny Temple started in on that bass, here's who I saw: two chunky, acne-ridden latinos; one short, greasy lip-syncer; a giant and giantess with long blonde hair and black t-shirts and jeans; the awkward, the horny, the misunderstood; the abominable, the Unfuckable, the Chronically Unlaid. Brimming with sexual energy but deprived of grace, charm, chance. The Loser Sleaze - those of us who, if we could just make it through the night, would show you a good time/coz we were already tired of waiting/already tired of waiting around.

So when Scott McCloud invited us to come down to his level in the opening lines of "In Like Flynn," we assented wholeheartedly. Down below, McCloud et al. began dishing it out: from the cheeky philosophy of "Go Be Delighted" to the carnal double-bass assault of "Rockets are Red" and onward through the apologetically skeevy "Satin Down," the aggressively apologetic "Let Me Come Back," the guilty angst of "Learned It," the sedated sensuality of "Get Down," the dire ecstasy of "Bulletproof Cupid," the whirlwind high of "Seven Seas," to the frenzied climax of "Billy's One Stop," a song McCloud claims is about being pulled over by the cops; a song that ultimately concedes to the numb hangover of "Bughouse."

Whew.

After V-Lux, they launched into "Tucked In" and "Cruise Your New Baby Fly Self," which surprised (and delighted) me quite a bit and stoked my hopes for all of Cruise Yourself -- hell, all of the catalogue straight through You Can't Fight What You Can't See (EXCEPT Freak.on.ica, sorry guys). But then they played "Crash 17 (X-rated Car)", one of the best from House of GVSB. Then, for the encore, two crowd-pleasers - "Kill the Sexplayer" and "Superfire." I cheered my hardest for a second encore, but it wasn't meant to be.

So yeah, it was pretty amazing. Epic, indeed. I felt as though some great need had been satisfied; some divine truth had been revealed. It was the perfect show -- Seth and Sarah were there to keep me company, and kind enough to watch my bag as I rocked out show-lo at the front of the stage. Seth only stopped by occasionally to hand me more drinks. What a sweetie.

Seth and I, delighted (and drunk).

Ahhhhhh I just love you guys so goddamn much/so come on mover/so come on switchman/so come on shaker/so come on switchman, baby.

get down/and shake your thang.

Amoeblog interview with bassist Johnny Temple

YouTube of GVSB performing two of their best songs in 1993: "Bulletproof Cupid" from V-Lux and "My Night of Pleasure" from Tropic of Scorpio

Another YouTube of GVSB performing this blog's namesake, "Go Be Delighted" from V- Lux, as well as "Wow Wow Wow" from Tropic of Scorpio.

Mouth Breathers and Paste Eaters: Comic-Con 2007

2007-07-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

Favorites from this year's Con:

Wall-E panel

Sound designer Ben Burtt (Star Wars) demonstrated the layers of sound that will express the personalities of the characters in Pixar's upcoming Wall-E. Burt explained that he looks for sounds that have an emotional texture -- which can be anything from squeaky doors in hospitals or WWII engines he hears on History Channel programs and then purchases on E-bay (the latter is the noise for Wall-E's motor). Interesting stuff.

Director Andrew Stanton revealed the story of Wall-E: the last robot left on a trash-filled earth breaks out of his trash-compacting daily routine when he becomes curious about the trinkets humans have left on their discarded planet and falls in love with a probe droid sent down from lazy humans' luxury spaceships (the humans have become couch potatoes - fat blobs who lie around on hover-lounges.) It's "The Little Mermaid" meets "Idiocracy." And it brought me to tears twice.

Iron Man panel

Well, Robert Downey Jr. was there, so, yeah -- he has a way of lighting up the room. Equally enjoyable was Jon Favreau, whose enthusiasm for the movie was infectious. Terrence Howard pointed out that "every movie is like a comic book - you get to go into another world and experience something new." Gwyneth Paltrow sat quietly and smiled politely. And then Stan Lee showed up and delighted us all. And the movie? F-ing awesome. Iron Man kicks ass and Robert Downey Jr. seems perfect as Tony Stark (He was wildly approved by fans of the comic, as well as those of us who hadn't read the comic, myself included).

Are you the King of Kong? Donkey Kong contest.

A tie-in to the upcoming documentary, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, the Donkey Kong contest invited Comic-Con attendees to give the classic arcade game their best shot Thursday through Saturday. The play-offs were on Sunday. Fun to watch.

Life-sized Old-school Batmobile

Sweeeeeeeet.

LEGO Hogwarts

It would be mine . . . if it wasn't $99.

Naked Fat Rave banner

Representing a collective of artists. No "Naked Fat Rave" comic book (yet), but one can dream . . .

These treasures were among the few I could process during my whopping two hours in the Exhibit Hall. It was a little too crowded to stop and absorb anything. Just imagine navigating through thousands of people who are attempting to walk forward while looking left and right and up and down . . . while looking left and right and up and down yourself. A little tricky.

But I did complete my Comic-Con experience with this obligatory cell-phone exchange:

"Where are you?"
"Do you see the guy with the light saber?"
"No."

Exactly.

Off to Comic-Con!

2007-07-27T16:37:00.000-07:00

Without a costume, sadly. I was hoping to get Tifa together, but life has been quite the bullet train lately.

However, I do hope to run into this dashing gent:

Slint performing Spiderland @ The Fonda

2007-07-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

10:10 p.m.

Arrive at the Fonda after an excellent avocado kobe burger at Lucky Devils.

10:20 p.m.

Run into Kurt, et al. before the set.

10:35 p.m.

As Slint takes the stage, the audience moves forward and leaves the comfortable mauve leather couches near the bar wide open. We move in.

10:37 p.m.

Once sitting, the crowd blocks my view of the band. I stand up to see if I'm missing anything.

Nope.

10:38 p.m.

The Fonda looks like it's made out of styrofoam and cooperatively painted in gold and cerulean blue by kindergarteners.

10:40 p.m.

Girls to the left of us in the bebe dresses will.not.shut.up. But the one in the polka-dot dress starts hopping from foot to foot like she's at a Hanson show, so I let it go.

10:43 p.m.

In the middle of "Nosferatu Man," I realize that Slint plays the same kind of creepy off-key slow rock I wrote in eighth grade coz I didn't understand chord progression or music theory.

10:50 p.m.

In the middle of "Don, Aman," I realize that 1) all of the members of Slint have, up to this point, stood completely still while playing, 2) the singer does not play an instrument, and 3) the back-up singer only sings in between licks; thereby exhibiting the same level of uncoordination I possessed in eighth grade.

10:51 p.m.

I realize that, although the members of Slint can put together a great song, they may be no more musically talented than I was in Jr. High.

11:00 p.m.

Committed to researching this theory.

11:20 p.m.

Theory supported by terrible "new song."

11:30 p.m.

Left early

But Spiderland still FUCKING ROCKS!

Cat Predicts When Patients Will Die

2007-07-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

From the AP:

Twenty-five recently deceased patients at a Rhode Island nursing home spent their last moments with Oscar the cat, who only curls up next to people who are within four hours of death.

Gah!