I'm a freaking geek.

Its 3 am. I have a test in the morning. I can't sleep because Hollywood annoys me. Why?

I decided I needed to unwind a little, since I've been running since Monday. So I watched a little TV. The guy was poisoned, the antidote bottle shattered on the pavement. Analysis revealed the chemical makeup of the antidote, which could be replicated except that it was missing A antigens. The guy had AB blood which means that he has both A and B antigens. Since he was poisoned by a neurotransmitter affecting the nerves and brain, I would think his blood would be safe, but lets just assume they can't use his own blood to get the A antigens to make the antidote to pump back into him. They made a fuss over the girl also having AB blood and "sacrificially" drawing blood from her arm to make the antidote. But AB simply means she can be any blood type and give her blood to him. Since her blood was not going directly into him, but was going to extract the correct antigen she could have been type A and he would have lived. Instead, the characters must be fated to love each other because they have the same blood type and her blood saved his life.

Come on Hollywood, cut the sap and do your research. For once, choose the LESS sappy plot line, just to throw us off.

Ok now I can sleep. If I know chapters 7 and 12 the way I apparently know chapter 8 (the circulatory system), I'll be fine tomorrow.

Neil Patrick Harris

Typically, actors playing themselves on film are listed "as Himself" in the film's credits. Due to the over-the-top, outlandish nature of his role in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, he requested that his credit read "Neil Patrick Harris" instead of "as Himself". This was to make clear that he was playing a fictional character that was in no way a true representation of himself.

I'm glad he's not a total sellout. I respect him a little more now... but I don't think I'll forgive him for having anything to do with those awful movies.

EDIT: The first paragraph is a quote from IMDB. The second is my own writing. In response to the person who commented on this, I "left NPH alone." In fact, I painted him in a positive light. I had thought that he was a washed up actor with nothing better to do than make fun of himself in a God-awful movie but now I find that he does have dignity. It is the movies I am bashing, neither of which were his own conceptions and he had nothing to do with the writing, directing, or production of them (if he had, they might be good movies). In bashing the movies, I am not bashing Neil Patrick Harris.

Doe a deer!

The world needs more spontaneous musical numbers. I find it hard to believe that ALL of these people were in on it in the beginning- if people just started dancing on the street, I'd be VERY tempted to join them if I could figure out the moves easily enough.

junk mail

I frequently check my junk mail file, because hotmail tends to err on the side of caution in distinguishing friend from foe. Here is the latest intriguing possible phishing attempt.

to:
from: gonzalezparanoidym@someemailprovider.com
subject: ssm
text:

she will present the new year program in the meeting next week so be sure to exist there.

A mystery...

There's something weird going on. This is a picture of our long-term mulch pile. Its where we throw tree clippings, weeds we've pulled, and various other things that won't decay fast enough to use as mulch right away.


Here is a close up of the same mulch pile. There is a greenish-yellow goo underneath everything, it extends throughout the entire mulch pile. I know. I poked it with a stick. It is a little scary because it jiggles like its alive and must be the inspiration for a bad alien movie.


The goo was there before NJ was bombarded by the rain monster. But in the recent steady-month-of-rain, I have discovered that it has spread to my outdoor potted plants, which are located no where near the mulch pile.


The shiny parts, where it looks like the soil is wet, is actually that jelly-like goo. The weird thing is that it is a peach-yellow-red color in the mulch pile. In the pots, it is clear.


I used a stick to scrape it off the top of the soil, so some of the clear bits got dirty, but I managed to keep one piece dirt-free. Interesting to note is that it has that sunlight-through-a-glass effect like a magnifying glass.


It gives off no odor, does not appear to have any root system or a base like a mushroom would, has no visible spores, does not appear to have a nucleus like a fertilized egg sac of some sort, and it bounces.


A google search did not reveal anything useful. A few other people have had similar questions but no one has provided answers. "Slime mold" is an actual mold, but none of its variations seem to look anything like this. Of several species of jelly fungi none look like this. The closest wikipedia article I could find was on a bacterial colony eaten in Asia called Nostoc or Fat Choy. It looks like this on the inside, but the outside forms small circles, rather than just a big shapeless blob. (Note: Nostoc is considered toxic by some scientists but apparently the Asians don't care. It seems they will eat anything, but thats a mystery for another day.) The last possible explanation (for some- but its not suitable for me) is that it is star jelly, which is a compound of organic matter of extraterrestrial origin that falls to earth during meteor showers.

If anyone reading this is better at web research than I am, feel free to try and find an answer. For now I have to assume that I somehow have Flubber living in my yard.

(Note: I wish this website had pictures: http://gardenline.usask.ca/yards/slime2.html This describes it pretty well except that its not in the lawn, and has been around for quite a long time without having developed "fruiting bodies" or spores. Apparently, its not confined to NJ either, as this link from the UK shows: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1000481)

Rainy days

I'm a little irritated right now. It probably has something to do with hormone levels, but it also goes back a few days.

April showers happened in June this year. I don't listen to the news because news stations suck, but if I did I bet I would be able to find a station oohing and ahhing about this month being the wettest on record since some date.

The other day I noticed the horizon was bright, but all the rest of the sky was covered by a dark cloud so it felt like 9 pm at 4 pm. There was very little light coming through, and what did come through was the color of pea soup. It was gross looking. I went around cracking the windows open a little and went upstairs for a few minutes to check the forecast for storm warnings. I went back downstairs to find Jack whining to be let out. I opened the door and he bolted for the garage. Within seconds, the sky opened up and there was sudden torrential rain.

The gutters couldn't drain it fast enough...


The driveway couldn't drain it fast enough... (that little flood going down the drive is about 2 inches deep all the way across)


There's my garden, washing away...


A little hail for good measure...


And a puddle over the septic field (nice...).


After getting about 5 inches in 15 minutes, the rain let up. I went out to survey the damage and discovered a groundhog in my garden, eating what the rain didn't kill. I hit him with a stick a few times, so I could see where the hole in the fence was. I should have killed him, but maybe thats just my hormones talking.

That was Monday, Tuesday we will skip right over so it won't get me started on a long tirade. This morning also did not start on the right foot. I now have a running list of beings/entities on my lista di merda.

~The rain for flattening my plants
~The groundhog for eating my plants
~The garden itself for simply not growing
~My school for bouncing my class around to a new teacher every week
~Mom for shouting and throwing shoes out the window while I tried to sleep
~The bear for ignoring Mom
~The bear cubs for walking in the road and slowing down traffic while I'm trying to get to the farm
~Bailey for blowing his nose on my shirt and (more importantly, on my diaphragm which I need to breathe)
~Shiloh for headbutting me in the ribcage and then spooking
~Al Gore for not realizing how damn cold it is in JUNE
~My wrists, knees, and ankles for not realizing that I never actually broke anything so there is no need to tell me when its about to rain
~The weather, for being "about to rain"
~Estrogen for making me think I need a list like this

Thats all for now...

World News

My email provider puts headlines with links to the latest news on my home page. Here is my response to them:

Topic, Oprah: She had someone on her show who said something and some doctors said she was an idiot for endorsing a quack, and it got picked up by Newsweek so now she's upset.

My response: Oprah, get over it. We all know you can say whatever the heck you want on your show and your rating might go down for a week but it will be back up again in no time. Much like your weight.

Topic, TV's Digital Switch: a 3-page article on how to know if you will be affected by the switchover and why its happening.

My response: Its happening because they want your money. Will you be affected? No. TV is already digital, its called a computer. Search Wikipedia for Hulu, then search BitTorrentz. Be careful, one is legal, one is sketchy.

Topic, Myths about Sex: Can you get an STD on the toilet? Can you get pregnant on your first time or during your period? Find out here!

My response: You CAN get pregnant by being an idiot, so... read away. Cause if you clicked the link just because it had "Sex" in the title, you probably need the answers to those questions.

Topic, My Parents are Jealous of my Happy Life: A "Dear Dr. Counselor" type of letter.

My response: You're whiny. Grow up.

Topic, Shia LaBeouf's Dad Sold Weed to the Hawaiian Mafia: I really can't elaborate, the title says it all.

My response: Wow. Just wow. Since that headline was so utterly useless I thought certainly I could find something more important to living life as an intelligent being on a world news website. So I headed over to BBC to see what was there. Apparently, all they are concerned about is an Iranian election that isn't really an election, and what was on Michele Obama's dinner table last week.

I am forced to repeat myself. The media is useless. All of it.

EDIT: My apologies. I apparently am not in a good mood.

two things unrelated

I officially have 500+ hours of massage school under my belt. Thats what I need to be certified in NJ, and yet, my schooling is not yet complete, because we exceed the minimum requirements. I am in the last stretch of the race when I am completely exhausted yet the end is in sight.

Not to change the subject at all, but I was reading a blog asking the question, "Where exactly is Judas Iscariot?" He demonstrated remorse, was it also repentance with a belief that Jesus has the power to forgive him? In that case he would be in Heaven. But if it was only remorse that he'd lost his standing in society, or if he gave in to despair that nothing could be done about his sins, or simply the act of killing himself, one would think that perhaps he's not in Heaven.

Someone made this comment: "I fail to see how sending to Hell the man who brought about what was needed for salvation is considered justice."

Which makes the topic even more complicated, because then we get into the debate about fate vs free will. Anyway. I'm sort of just thinking out loud here. Anyone want to weigh in on the topic?

Gardening

I spent some time today working around the house. I planted a few things, pruned some stuff, dug up some roots. The usual. But it gave me lots of quiet time, to think.

I was thinking about the economy and politics, and how no one is quite sure whether the No Child Left Behind is working or not. I thought also about the debate about taxes- equal taxes or tax based on income?- and all of a sudden, it came to me. The answer to at least two of our problems.

The government should set taxes based on the average IQ and GPA of the high school from which a person graduated. This would eliminate the debate about whether or not to tax based on income. It would also cause schools to strive for better teaching standards, and would cause towns to put more towards the school budget in an effort to attract more people to move into that school district (better school = lower taxes for the kids when they grow up = parents securing their kids' future). The down side is dumb kids won't be allowed into the school because it would bring the averages down.

So instead of the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, we'll have the dumb getting dumber and the smart getting smarter. Which is actually a better deal because you can get infinitely richer or poorer, but we are already pretty much at the limits of dumbness in this society and the human brain is only capable of so much intelligence.

If you couldn't tell, this was more about the presence of dumb people than a brilliant political solution to anything.

In other news, I was wondering if a couple could, as a prenuptial agreement, sign their wedding vows as a binding document in a court of law. Meaning, they couldn't get a divorce if they wanted to. I'll have to ask a lawyer about that.

Last thing, my great aunt sent my dad some 91-year old letters from my great grandfather on my dad's side to my great-grandmother. He had good handwriting for a guy, and he always started his letters with "My dear girl" which I thought was cute. However, apparently he was a womanizer, though I am not sure to what incident my (m)patriarchal relatives are referring when they say that. Still, it was fascinating when a piece of my history arrived in a large manila envelope in the mail today.

So there's an update, the first in a while. Hope its enough to last you for a while.

Quote

"You should read Lamb by Christopher Moore, where Jesus's best friend learns Kung Fu. Since Jesus was opposed to hitting, they invented a martial art for him where he used the other person's force against him. They named it Jew Do, or 'the way of the Jew.'"

I love it...

The only problem
with Haiku is that you just
get started and then
~Roger McGough

Joke

Hans Grapje was raised in a Catholic school in The Hague and, as a young man, aspired to become a priest, but was drafted into the Army during WWII and spent two years co-piloting B17s until his aircraft was shot down in 1943 and he lost his left arm. Captain Grapje spent the rest of the war as a chaplain, giving spiritual aid to soldiers, both Allied and enemy.

After the war, he became a priest, serving as a missionary in Africa, piloting his own plane (in spite of his handicap) to villages across the continent. In 1997, Father Grapje was serving in Zimbabwe when an explosion in a silver mine caused a cave-in. Archbishop Grapje went down into the mine to administer last rights to those too severely injured to move. Another shaft collapsed, and he was buried for three days, suffering multiple injuries, including the loss of his right eye. The high silver content in the mine's air gave him purpura, a life-long condition characterized by purplish skin blotches.

Although Cardinal Grapje devoted his life to the service of God as a scholar, mentor, and holy man, church leaders agree: he will never ascend to the Papacy. No one wants a one-eyed, one-armed, flying purple Papal leader.

Illness

So, a while back, F spent two weeks in the hospital. The week he was released ($400,000 debt later), N went into the hospital for an organ removal. The week HE was released, J went in for an angiogram and is scheduled for triple bypass surgery tomorrow. He should be released Friday or Saturday. NOBODY is allowed to get sick next week.

Growl...

Its done and gone, its been over a month, and I don't even remember the person's name. But his pretentious comments are still bothering me. After realizing that he wasn't going to listen to my voice of reason, I shut my mouth, but I still sometimes daydream about correcting his ignorance with verbal abuse. He made my view of his professional field drop about 12 notches.

Studying for my test

I have a test on chapters 8 & 9 (Cardiovascular and Lymphatic systems). I'm reading over the section talking about the heart.

"The two atria are separated by the interatrial septum. In the fetus, the two atria communicate with each other through an oval opening, the foramen ovale, shunting the blood from the right to left because the lungs do not function and the placenta takes the place of lungs. This opening closes at birth when the baby takes its first breath and remains as an oval depression (fossa ovalis)." (Emphasis mine.)

Ok, so it makes perfect sense to do it that way. If the lungs aren't working yet, it is useless to send blood there to be oxygenated. But it makes sense to me, a thinking, intelligent being. Considering that this whole entire course has been focused on the chemical reactions that cause cells and parts of cells (that are non-intelligent) to do things that cause muscle contraction, blood clotting, hormone release, and phagocytosis (immune system cells "eating" foreign bodies), I don't think the developing human body does anything "because the lungs do not function." Using those terms implies that the developing heart has some sort of plan or thought process or intelligence behind its actions, rather than a response to a chemical that the pituitary or hypothalamus has released. I'm willing to accept that there's an intelligence behind the wonders of the human body. But I highly doubt the authors of my textbook are willing to accept it.

Oh well.

Education

At church yesterday, they asked all veterans or current servicemen to stand so that we could recognize their service to the country.  That's great, I'm thankful they served (every day, not just holidays).  But that's not what this particular holiday is about.  The living veterans can have Veteran's Day and Armed Forces Day (although, it can be argued they don't even get Veteran's Day since that day was originally called Remembrance Day to remember those who died in wartime).  But Memorial Day, once called Decoration Day is: "designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country".  I wish more people would understand the meaning behind the days they celebrate.  (Cinco de Mayo is another perfect example).

Leesport PA

So, Friday morning I stayed up till 5 am trying to fix my computer. While waiting for things to load on it, I was simultaneously packing for the weekend, making lists of things my car needs done to it, and putting away my winter clothes/having a sneezing fit.

3.5 hours later, I was up and at the student clinic, massaging ungrateful wretches, I mean poor poor people with lots of shoulder injuries. As soon as clinic was over I turned on my trusty Tomtom (which by the end of the trip I desired to throw out the window on the Turnpike) and began to program it to tell me how to get to the jujitsu clinic in Pennsylvania. As it turns out, the address I got from the clinic website does not exist, according to Tomtom, but a quick call to mom to look up the address I used last year set things straight. Its a good thing I don't throw crap out and am somewhat organized about where I keep googlemaps directions.

I arrived safe and sound, and opted out of the "pay-$20-a-night-for-a-cabin-with-no-electricity-and-no-heat-and-no-locking-door-and-no carpeting-and-bugs" deal, and chose to sleep on the mats in the dojo. That was a better experience than last year, where I felt that the "martial" spirit had never left the mat and therefore kept me awake all night. This year air was peaceful. Perhaps it was not the mat that changed, but me.

Sheela working with a green belt.


Cara and I-forgot-his-name-already! working on some judo stuff after classes.


Peter... every time we turned around he was on the mat with someone. Or so it seemed.


After classes, we were stuck in the dojo avoiding torrential rain. We grabbed a deck of cards and began Rorshack tests on ourselves (Cara's idea- psychology major that she is.) Apparently, I keep all my assets hidden. Some are organized, some are scattered, and a good deal of them are all in one big pile of crap (sound like my bedroom to anyone else?)


Peter has a scorpion. But at the risk of revealing everyone's innermost psyche, I'm not going to share their card-psycho-analysis. Read into it whatever you want to. We did.


Cara's horseshoe.


Wu's whatever-shape-that-is.


Done with the psychology class, we began a game called heart attack which ended up being almost as violent as jujitsu. Maybe it was because we were on a mat, and it was easy to hit people without thinking about it.


The dojo picture. Wu, me, Barb, Peter, Sheela. And Professor Okazaki above the mantel piece.


Last year, the clinic was in the same location. Ben and Amish got it in their heads that we were all going to go visit a Chinese Pagoda that happened to be somewhere in Pennsylvania. I was following them in my own car and as it turned out, they left me in the middle of Reading at a stoplight. I managed to get lost enough to make it to the "other" side of the tracks, where no one spoke English and I had to keep my doors locked, drive slowly, and avoid one-way streets. As you can tell, I made it out alive, and decided that THIS year, Tomtom was going to bring me to that darned Pagoda if it killed me.


As you can see, it did.


So anyway... I had a good time at the clinic, took quite a few bodywork and therapy classes, and got a whole brainful of stimulating information to mull over during the drive back. Speaking of which... I mentioned an incident with my Tomtom. It cost me $.75 to get to Camp Joy via Interstate 78. Instead of sending me back the way I came, which would have been intelligent, Tomtom sent me from 78 past Philadelphia, to the NJ Turnpike, which cost me $8.55 and 25 minutes of stop-and-go traffic. I should have trusted my instincts and taken 78 to 287.

But at least I didn't get lost in Reading this year (twice last year!). Thats the important part. That, and learning jujitsu.

I know too much...

So, a friend of mine posted this picture on her blog:


My reaction was this: "Wow, look at how perfectly the bicep fits under the deltiod. Oh wow, look at that brachioradialis. I didn't know you could develop that muscle enough to be able to see it from a distance. Ok so then the brachialis is THERE and the coracobrachialis is THERE..."

Somehow, I don't think that was the reaction K was fishing for when she put that picture on her blog.

I feel like I am taking this Anatomy and Physiology thing way too far.

Old Movies Vs. New Movies

On hulu.com, there is an hour-long video called "The Best of Abbott and Costello Live." Around the 50-54 minute mark, Abbott pushes Costello backwards. He staggers into the side of a waitress who is cleaning a nearby table. She proceeds to do a stime over the table and flying dishes, and sits up, straightening her blouse. Costello comes behind her to see if she is ok, and she reaches up and throws him with a seated version of Kesa Nage. It is things like this that make old movies so wonderful. Old movies use no bad language, no raunchy jokes, and no flashy fancy martial arts moves. They stick to the unadorned jujitsu throws, and make us laugh with a bucket of nails and a mouthful of milk.

Now for my observation of new movies. They're good. They're entertaining. But what's with the actors who accidentally slip into past roles? Take Orlando Bloom. He played Legolas, a sharpshooting archer elf. Then he was cast in Troy. Ok, good he's got a nice role he can sink his teeth into and he actually kind of looked masculine in it. But all of a sudden his character has a bow and arrow. And then all of a sudden, he was wearing the Legolas face. Ok we mess up, it happens to all of us, but why didn't the director catch it and refilm? Here I am, and the movie has brought me to ancient Greece, and my brain suddenly is expecting him to shout some Elvish curse at an orc.

It happened again last night. Zachary Quinto plays Sylar, the evil bad guy stealing the superpowers of our favorite genetic mutants (Heroes, not X-Men). We watch with baited breath as he seduces our favorite character only to pick their brains (quite literally) to gain more understanding and power. So then last night I went to see Star Trek (first time in a theater since maybe August with Dark Knight) and there's Zachary Quinto playing Spock. Excellent job. But then, Uhura follows Spock into the elevator, and looked him in the eyes asking, "What do you want from me, Spock?" Something about the way he looked at her, made my brain scream, "He's going to cut open your skull and absorb your powers! RUN!!" Then the moment was gone and he was Spock again.

What do you think? Do you think this is something actors do accidentally? Or do you think this is something my brain creates because I have seen them in other movies before?

Massage Clinic

If you didn't already know, I'm working for credit in a student massage clinic at my school. In order to "further the profession," and for insurance purposes, we have to be able to speak medical, just like anyone else who is required to wear scrubs for their profession. This means that the medical abbreviations used on insurance forms and by doctors and nurses are the same abbreviations we use in clinic. Usually. Today, there was a clerical error discovered.

In case you are not aware of basic anatomy, the Erector Spinae group is a set of three muscles (Iliocostalis, Longisimis, Spinalis) that runs up the side of the spine. It keeps your spine erect. If a therapist finds any muscle to be tense on a client, we are supposed to note it in their chart. Today, Janna was handed the chart of Client C, and looked back on the previous massage session to see if there were any problems.

The last therapist to work on C happened to make a mistake. Instead of marking that there was "(Mild/Moderate/Severe) tension in the erectors," this therapist wrote, "Tight erection." The clinic supervisor, Sandy, was called in to have a look. It took her half a second to process it, and the look on her face as she came to the realization of what it said was priceless. She then had a knee-jerk reaction somewhere between getting a tooth pulled and grabbing a high-voltage wire. Then she sighed and said, "One of these days I'm going to lose my job..." And walked out.