What Bible was he reading?

A news article on a "ghetto talent show" and watermelon eating contest that has sparked controversy had one line that particularly caught my attention.
"Watermelon, back in the days, was a good food for African Americans, according to the Bible, but at the same time, it had an attachment with slavery and bondage ties," the Rev. Carl Johnson said.
Really? I don't recall the bible ever mentioning "African Americans." In fact, the only mention of melons of any kind in the entire bible (I checked) is Numbers 11:5, which is talking about the Israelites being hungry and dissatisified with god while wandering in the desert. I won't deny the attachment of watermelon with slavery, but would like to point out that many communites, not just predominantly black ones, have watermelon eating contests. As for invoking the bible, for shame Rev. Carl Johnson, for shame.

Art and Over Analysis

This evening was a gallery opening in the Fine Arts Department, and being a hermit who appreciates the finer things in life, I made a point to attend. They always have great free food. The gallery is divided in two. The lower level was devoted to one artist who was obviously fixated on societies fixation on physical appearance and the things that feed that fixation. There was alot painting depicting ads from boy's magazines for things like "build muscle to impress girls" from the 50's. There were also a few McDonald's references and images of children flexing. Upstairs, many artists had prints and paintings of different subjects. All of it was abstract art, so its hard to say if it was any good. Many of the prints included images from engineering specs or designs for equipment like oscilators and things. I'm sure that the artist have no idea what these diagrams mean and just included them because they look complicated. The thing that lead me to over analysis was the their was no food being served in the downstairs portion. Consiquentially, everyone was gathered upstairs, concentrated around the bagels and lox, fruit platter and coffee. If this had been intentional, it would have been a great demonstration of glutteny and people's true modivation for attending these gallery openings and would have served to illustrate the theme of the downstairs portion of the gallery nicely. When I asked one of the girls working there if the artist was around, they informed me that he was not there because the reception was specifically for the upstairs artists. Therefore, all of my ideas about the gallery visitors embodying an artistic theme were invalid. It therefore falls under Gelnaw's law of maximum irony, since it was unintentional.

Poem and Platitude

Poem:
The only way to be sure
That your love is truly pure
and to prevent being later burned
is if your love is not returned.

Platitudes:
In this world of instand gratification, I really hate waiting for the bus.
People don't want instant gratification, they want constant gratification.

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, unless you're a hermit.
The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked to.

now reread the poem as though it were about Jesus.

Warning: Emo Poem

Hypnotized by clear, deep, pale blue eyes
We shared a love of frequent kiss and frequent sighs

Epiphany!

You are beautiful to me
for I am beautiful to you too.

I see myself in her,
How I think I want to be.
We were wanting wonton wanting
To cure shared insecurities.

I thought I loved you because you are beautiful
But I loved you because you were mine.
Until this realization came to me
Our love had seemed so pure and fine.

Two mirrors juxtaposed,
Multiplying the image unto infinity
But glassy surfaces are imperfect
And by infinite reflections, eradicate all sincerity.

Beneath the water, there’s something there
But from looking deeper we did refrain.
A love so young and drowned mercilessly
A drooping bouquet is all that remains

I’m an ugly narcissist and Echo so are you,
But I suppose everyone else is too.

One flew over the kookaburra's nest

The Australian sport of midget tossing or dwarf heaving as it is also known originated in a community of Scottish immegrants to Queensland in the mid 1950's. Since then, the sport has spread to New South South Wales, Victoria and even to New Zealand as recently as 2001 (although Kiwis call it dwarf tossing and claim that they taught Peter Jackson during filming of LOTR). Popular history of the sport tells that it was originated at the end of a sheep shearing season. Shearers would cut off the wool and throw the sheep down a shoot to a holding pen. After they ran out off sheep, but not before they ran out of beer, several enebriated shearers grabed their virtically challanged co-worker, shaved him down and threw him down the shoot. Since then, the tradition of shaving the midget has been co-opted for improving aerodynamics. Today, the sport is very much like caber tossing in that a large scot grabs the midget, stands him virtically (though not necessarily right side up) in both hands and then heaves him end over end into eitheir a sand pit or a water hole. Judging is based on distance of the toss and the acuracy with respect to the midline of the sand pit or water hole.

Geocache

Yesterday Hydrass, Bento and I went geocaching. For those who perhaps don't know, that's hiking around looking for a hidden box using a gps unit and given coordinates. It was a good indicator and a bad sign that when the guys showed up and asked which way we'd be going, I said "south" and pointed to the river valley in the north. The ability to lead is not necessarily a prerequisite for leadership. The hike to the first box wasn't a hard hike, but we didn't find it either. The next one was an easier find, but a harder hike. The later part of that was my fault. Pretty much every time I gave a direction, I should have said the opposite one. I partially blame the fact that the GPS unit didn't get good reception in the woods and the fact that I'm dyslexic. We got to the base of a hill and the GPS unit told me that the cache should just be a little bit to the south. I darted into the woods in that direction and ended up going a considerable distance before I found the cache. I went back and got the guys, who grumbled the entire way about all the bush-whaking. Really, who's more foolish; the fool or the fool who follows him? After this, I handed the gps over to Bento who lead us to the next cache with only minimal bush whaking (Hydrass didn't even go through the bush, preferring to take a path rather than a straight line). We found the last cache and went to Keagan's for food and drink afterwards. In all, I've learned that the longer you screw up, the harder it is to justify your incompetance with "hey, where's your sense of adventure?"

Now Taking Requests

Today, I saw both a 2 liter bottle of butter flavored syrup and a man playing the bagpipes on a street corner for change, and with that said I'm now out of even remotely interesting things to blog about so I'm taking requests. I think a few others did it a while back, so I think that I've waited long enought not to be considered jumping on the band wagon.

Cheeeese-bur-ger

This morning I found a black capped chickadee crumpled on the front steps of the earth science building. It's head was folded under the body but otherwise it seemed in good shape. I went inside, opened the museums, put my lunch down, grabbed a couple of bags and went back outside. While it may seem gastly to pick up dead animals wherevery you find them, it is a great way to get specimens for a comparitive osteology collection. To clean this specimen, I thought I'd give dermestid (scavenger) beetles a try. I picked the bird up in the plastic bags and the darn thing blinked at me. Not dead, still alive, can't skeletonize it. After about twenty minutes in a specimen box, while I was seeing if google could provide information on the care and rehabilitation of chickadees, the bird started to scratch at the lid and get restless. I took it outside, pulled it out of the box and it flew off just fine. It must have just been a bit dazed by a collision with a window.
As for the odd title, one of the distinctive calls of the black capped chickadee is a long high note followed by two lower shorter ones and sounds much like the words cheese burger.

and then there was one

Today my work load doubled. The other summer assistant hired by the department quit so that he could take a real job in Ontario. No two week notice, just quit. Today is his last day. This now means that for the rest of the summer I'll be doing his job too. I haven't exactly been stressed out to keep up or anything, but it is agravating to know that for another 4 weeks, I'll be living up to the expectations for two people. C'est la merd.

Guys and Dahl's

Or
The Hermit, the Troglodyte and the Chocolate Factory

Sunday, a friend of mine, a fellow with whom I work while at the Royal Tyrrell, came up to Edmonton for a visit on a rare break from his current position at the same museum. My friend, who I shall call Trogador, is a troglodyte; he lives in a teepee. The reason for this is that he is one of two principal people operating the summer camp offered through the Tyrrell. He works with children from morning till night five days per week and uses what time he as away from the little beasties to set up for the next week’s camp or to develop programs. And so it was up to myself, and another friend, who I shall call Dan, to provide a mediocre substitute for some much needed therapy.
Sunday afternoon, Trogador came into town, and by about 10pm he and I were stuffed with BBQ and quite tipsy at Dan’s (incidentally, neither Dan nor his room-mate drink, but tolerate it extremely well). Only on a limited number of occasions have I ever heard someone bemoan their life nearly as much as Trogador did on Sunday. Being a twenty-five year old dateless wonder, who still hasn’t finished a bachelor’s degree and is an underpaid camp counselor living in a teepee and being forced to tolerate begrudgingly incompetent and unanimated co-workers gave him much to rant about. It’s funny how somebody who is so jaded works so extremely well with children.

Yesterday, Trogodor returned to Drumheller and I accepted an invitation to go with Dan (who is incidentally diabetic), his girl-friend and another couple to see Tim Burton’s rendition of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was disappointed and the version with Gene Wilder was better; better Wanka, better story telling, better blend and balance. Since I can’t give anything away, I’ll suffice it to say that one of the movie’s most glaring problems was actually the effects. Tim Burton is well known for his use of dramatic scenery and splendid visuals. In this movie he tried to accomplish too much of them with CGI. In the beginning of Edward Scissor Hands, there was a menacing cookie making machine. I was expecting devices like that to populate the factory. They did not. What actual physical machinations there were (i.e. the singing ‘small world’ style puppets seen in the preview) were really effective, while several that were CGI were superfluous, distracting and actually lessened the magic. Most of my other problems with the movie pertain directly to major thematic points and the superiority of Gene Wilder to Johnny Depp, but I’ll let those of you who see the movie make up your own minds.

You Are Here

Saturday I purchased a new toy. Its a Magellan Explorist 300 GPS receiver.

I've wanted a GPS unit for a while now and since my grand parents gave me a bunch of money for graduating, I finally broke down and bought one. It has pretty much all of the features that I wanted in a GPS (location, barometric altimeter, thermometer, electronic compass and basic maps). On the down side, it doesn't have the capacity to be plugged into a computer, which means that you need to actually be somewhere to enter it as a way point and the maps aren't as detailed as I might have liked. On the other hand though, the Garmin model that has the altimeter and compass and USB connectivity (which means the potential for detailed maps and uploading or downloading .loc files) was about $70 more. Software for more detailed maps also runs about $100+. For nearly two hundred dollars, I can buy alot of maps. Not only that, but since the USGS puts alot of their maps online for free, and since you can now download google maps, the issue of having a map with me becomes moot. Having a GPS now enables me to do two things in particular: entertain myself with a hobby of Geocaching and record the exact location of fossil finds so that I can eventually return to them.

Home Hunting

My land lords just informed me that it would not be possible to extend my lease for another 4 months, so I gave notice that I'd be out at the end of August. Considering that I had wanted to be out of there at the end of April, I shouldn't be too dissappointed by this. Really, its a tiny, ugly, run-down appartment with a vile bathroom that is shared with the other 5 residents of the building. I've never had anything nice to say about it except that its cheap and really close to campus; $400 CAD per month and a 15 minute walk (25 when ice is on the ground). I have two great fears regarding getting a new place; that it will possibly be worse and will certainly cost more. In my search for a new place I've found some interesting ads. exceprts from the original ad is in normal text with my comments in italics:
-We welcome you and your pet to 400 square feet of open space (no bedroom) complete with kitchen (fridge and stove) and bathroom (shower only). shower only, but where do you poop?

-Walk to Downtown, Queen Alex Hospital & Glenrose Rehab Hospital! That's right, our standards include druggies. Please, won't you join us?

-Across NAIT Bach apt 118**-106 St $395 incl utilities, clean, quiet, secure. Win Hawaii trip. Wow, a vague chance at going to hawaii sure makes it worth live there.

-Blocks to NAIT - Free Water!! Bright Clean Upgraded Bach & 1 suites. You will love this Peaceful bldg. Finally a place to call home! if you're currently homeless, this would sound great.
-1 BDRM. bsmt. suite, large windows, N/S, christian person. $390 share util. DD same, 4 appls. follow the link to exactly how this would turn out.

War of the Worlds

So I saw War of the Worlds last night with a couple of friends and I approve. I just finished reading the book so I had a fairly clear picture in my mind of what should be included. I must say that a few of the ways in which it differed, dispite being very cool visually, disappointed me and created some issues that didn't make sense when thought about critically. Naturally, I won't say what these are so as not to spoil it for those who haven't yet seen it. A couple of other ways in which the movie differed from the book I had no problem with at all because they were still in keeping with the spirit of the novel or greatly improved it for the big screen medium.
Also, the special effects and cinematography were spectacular. My uncle (by marriage) was one of the top special effects guys for the movie. His name is Pablo Helman, and his name actually came up in the credits, in the big important font, before Tom Cruise. I really have to hand it to my uncle. A lot of the CG creations looked like actual physical objects. The alien tripods were especially cool, as were the death rays and the sounds that the tripods made.
In conclusion, I sooooooo want a death ray and my birthday is coming up in a little over a month. hint hint

Hoatzin Hatchlin'

A long while ago I wrote a post about the possibility of genetically engineering (not cloning) a dinosaur. One of the creatures that I cited as having vestigial primitive characteristics was the Hoatzin, a bird that hatches with digits on its fore-arms capable of grasping branches. The digits are clawed and i always assumed that there were three of them because they are always describd as un-fused. The good folks in the CT lab at the University of Texas at Austin have scanned a juvenile Hoatzin. My misconsections are shattered. Rather than being three separate, unfused digits, the individual phalanges are not fused as they are in adults, enabling them to curl their fingers. However, digits II and III (not III and IV as Feducia would have us believe) are still syndactylous (fused to one another). Oh well, I suppose this would be why my genetic monstrocities never developed proper hands. Oh well, back to the secret lab to try something else.

continuing yesterday's theme

Killing Time

Any philistine with a camera can photoblog. It takes a philistine with paper, pen, a juice can, a 150 ml beaker, a book of matches, three nickles, a dime and a ruller to draw it out.

As one may guess from the plethora of links in my sidebar, I've been reading web-comics alot lately. Clickig through batteries of witty, amusing and well drawn comics about the lives of young, interesting people has made me wish that I'd kept practicing my drawing. The above drawing is of my new watch, which my grandparents gave me for graduation. Its battery is charged by a solar cell in the face and I consider it to be the finest watch that I will ever own. Viewed as a whole, the drawing is a reasonable facsimile, but when one looks at the individual details, it is highly inacurate. For example, the mode dial is actually set to 'kill' and the 24 hour dial doesn't match the time shown by the watch's primary hands.
I consider this drawing to be much like my job as assistant collections manager. When viewed on a resume it looks like a fairly good job. I can even bulster it up to sound like a prestigious academic position. If however anyone actually asked me what my typical day was like, I'd either lie or have to tell them that I perform menial tasks so mind crushingly boring and tedious that I'm actually dumber for having accomplished them. For instance, for practically two weeks straight, all I did each day was make cardboard trays that would fit into bankers boxes. Today, after transcribing the information on the individual labels of a new collection of corals, I spent the rest of the day putting stickers on boxes. These particular stickers were barcodes that need to be assigned to boxes of drill core. There are roughly ten thousand boxes. Each box already had four previous forms of identification on it, such that there is hardly room to put on the important new stickers. Each box is in order within a subsection, but each subsection of the collection is in an order, the logic of which may only be known to my boss (currently on a three week vacation) and certain necromancing mystics. I didn't realize the futility of trying to correlate the barcodes with the numbers allready on the boxes until about 400 boxes into it.
Einstein said that he appreciated his job as a pattent clerk because it gave him time to think. I think about how much I hate menial tasks or hating the fact that I'm isolated where nobody can appreciate how zen I am for having the patience to do them. Like the drawing, the job could be done better, faster and with greater enthusiasm by a souless piece of electronics. I on the other hand have set about this new and gargantuan task with all the vigor of a snail on fire.
I don't envy the cartoonists mentioned above because they are talented, but because they are actually using their skills. They have creativity which they put to work. My collegues in the department (for the most part) have problem solving skills which they put to work. To paraphras Napoleon Dynomite, skills are important, but it's frustrating when you're never called on to use the skills you have.

Stick to your strengths

By and large, the U.S. is good at only a few things. First, we make better movies than anyone (sorry Bollywood). Second, we're born followers. The American people love to follow. They're kind of like sheep in that way. When someone does end up leading, usually they screw it up because the whole lead by example thing eludes them. Last, Americans destroy things better than anybody. This is the country that brought you the A-bomb. When our nation's leader's aren't kissing corporate ass, or diddling the interns, they're usually tearing down the buildings and lives of people in another country. Most recently, the scientific community has jumped on the bandwagon of smashing things. Most notable in this group is NASA. For years, they've been failing to land probes and roves on Mars, instead smashing the billion dollar robots into the surface. They finally got the hint and decided to intentionally smash an expensive robot into an astronomical body. The probe dubbed 'Deep Impact' collided into Comet Tempel-One flawlessly. Michael Griffin, Bush appointed head of NASA, was quoted to say "Wow, we sure smashed it good, huh! Well, that's about the best mission we've ever had, I tell you what. Hey, lets see the instant replay on that. Wow!"
So remember, unless you celebrate the independence of your great nation by incinerating a small piece of it, the terrorists win.

Badass Grammer

Because being a Badass means never having to say that you're sorry or use the proper conjunction of 'they are.'

It's a good thing fossils are mostly inflamable

The title is the third thing that flashed through my mind when I saw 3 fire trucks and an ambulance parked in front of my appartment building. The other things that I thought were:
1. Oh Sh*t! My appartment must be on fire!
2. And my hat is in there!
4. And never got insurance!
5. I wonder if it's my fault?
6. Oh, it's my neighbor's house that's on fire, not mine. Whew!

Delayed Acolades

I received a notice in the mail yesterday that I made it onto the dean's honor roll. w00t? This sort of thing seems alot less impressive now that I'm not officially a student. It might have been better if I'd found this out before re-sending grad school applications. Oh well, c'est la universite