still laughing....

talent and a wicked sense of humor are genius when combined...new favorite site:

ROFLCATS!

This is just a taste...

¡Adiós!

htw

the creature stirs....

Now I know what the creature from the black lagoon feels like and let me tell you...the little guy gets a bad rap! All it needed was some freakin' sleep and it would have rescued kittens from trees and helped old ladies cross the street. I have class again this weekend and then interim will be over (if I don't die first). Here I am, off the clock, sitting at my desk in the ol' biblioteca doing homework. Okay, I'm blogging right now, but I've been doing homework since six o'clock and now I've got to drive an hour home...yada, yada, yada....I know, quitcha bichin'.....

Tomorrow is my morning off and guess what, no more swishing with the stuff from Hell! I get the plaque and staining cleaned off tomorrow and get to throw the rest of that godforsaken bottle away! I may soak my teeth in coffee all day tomorrow just to celebrate!

We are fully into the Summer Reading madness here at EOL and my goal is to remain semi-sane. No sense in making promises I can't keep :) We are turning one of the desks up here into the Mystery Machine, I'll have to take a pic so the world can worship our genius. T's done all the hard work, I just have to help with assembly. We debated over whether or not the teens would think it was lame, but I love it so those that don't can...eat bad scooby snacks!

Alright, that's enough blathering for tonight. I'm heading home to thoroughly examine the insides of my eyelids.
¡Adiós!
htw

got the link fixed....

...to Kenny's Korner! Thanks to my friends who pointed out that it wasn't working. I have no idea where I got the underscore from...just seemed like it should have one :)

Everyone bail on! there's a great, resonant pic up today...maybe that will be my next tattoo, still researching and getting ideas at this stage though. I'll have to wait till fall 'cause I don't want to interfere with all the swimming I have planned. For me, tattoos are a winter sport :)
¡Adiós!
htw

Volcanic Slideshow

I'm just loving the Seed Magazine feed's Daily Zeitgeist feature! Today there was a link to a slideshow of 24 pictures and accompanying audio for each slide from a photographer, Djuna Ivereigh, documenting the eruption cycle of Mt. Merapi in Java, Indonesia. Check it out!

On a similar note, mark your calendars for October 14, 2007! That's when the Pompeii exhibit opens at the Birmingham Museum of Art!

¡Adiós!
htw

Beware the Irritated Librarian

Thanks for the find S!

Enjoy and remember....we're watching...

Adiós!

htw

Tracking Multiple Objects

The daily stuff from the Seed magazine feed usually contains at least one thing I, as a scientific non-entity, can understand and enjoy. Today it was the cognitive ability to track multiple objects. One of the scientists notes:

"Most adults can, with a little practice, track four out of ten randomly moving objects for ten seconds -- they fall apart when there are more than four objects to track or more than ten total objects (the "most difficult" trial features four objects to track and twelve total)."

The University of Guelph website has a Multiple Object Tracking Demo that is sure to hurt the pride. I aced the easy and normal but bombed the difficult stage....how humiliating for my ego. I was sure I had those little b*%^$#d's nailed but it just didn't happen. First go around I got 1 out of 4, second 3 out of 4...I am too much of a sore loser to have gone for a third try (it would not have been a charm, shut up)

Adiós!
htw

"Pure Reason is a Disease"

I just read this great article from The Boston Globe about the correllation between our feelings and our thoughts. Scientific research is now beginning to suggest that the brain cannot properly carry out its cognitive functions without emotions to go with them.

In 2004, Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene used brain imaging to
demonstrate that our emotions play an essential role in ordinary moral
decision-making. Whenever we contemplate hurting someone else, our brain
automatically generates a negative emotion. This visceral signal discourages
violence. Greene's data builds on evidence suggesting that psychopaths suffer
from a severe emotional disorder -- that they can't think properly because they
can't feel properly. "This lack of emotion is what causes the dangerous
behavior," said James Blair, a cognitive psychologist at the National Institute
of Mental Health.

This makes me reflect on all the problems I've been having these last couple of years...the whole time I've been in grad school actually. I have not traditionally been an overly emotional person so this whole depression thing has knocked me for a loop. To feel this way and be unable to do anything about it has been a very humbling experience. On top of the depression, I'm ashamed of being depressed...what is that called? Is there even a name for it? The harder I tried to feel better, the more miserably I failed, the worse I felt, talk about your vicious cycles. I don't like having to take the antidepressants, but I'm terrified of not taking them. Is this the new me? (Please, no) Will I be able to stop taking them after I get out of school and settle into some sense of normalcy? (Please, yes) I would love to be off of them by the end of the year but again, what if I can't? What if I'm forever unable to control my own emotions?

These are the questions that keep me up at night and are completely unnecessary because it doesn't matter. I won't be able to change anything if it turns out that this is my new persona. I'll just have to live with it and adjust like everyone else, but I don't have to like it. I liked being the steady oak, not the brittle, trembling leaf at the mercy of life's breezes that I've come to be. I guess that's what it comes down to...I don't like myself anymore. I love my job and I have great friends, but I don't like myself. I'd really love to know just exactly what is going on in my brain (chemically, hormonally, anything else-ally) to cause this. How is what I'm thinking affecting what I'm feeling? That is what caught my interest about this article I found. The author of the article, Jonah Lehrer, has a book coming out in November so I put in an order card for the library. Proust Was a Neuroscientist is a great title and the cover is unusual

What does a madeleine have to do with anything and how many people know what one is?
I love the quirkiness of that image :)

htw

one of my new fav websites

XKCD

it doesn't stand for anything and has no hidden meaning...it's just randomly chosen letters and I found it through my RSS feed for Seed magazine, a science publication. Here are some of my favorites so far:

There are archives on the website, so check em' out if you're interested and piss off if you're not :)

Love,
htw

The last...hopefully

I had scaling and root planing done on the left side today so HOPEFULLY that will be the last time I'll have to endure that loveliness and I can get this periodontal crap behind me.

Please let me be some kind of poster child for dental hygiene. Go to the dentist, he/she is your friend. Don't take a seven year hiatus during college because you don't have the money but you still buy pies from Milo's, doughnuts from Krispy Kreme, and assorted candies from every gas station between Montevallo and Gardendale yet you neglect to floss, don't brush before bed sometimes because you're too tired, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah, wah, wah, wah ,wah, wah, wah, etc.

So kiddies, brush, floss, use a toothpick, use Listerine, see your dentist, get dental insurance just in case...take care of your teeth before they take care of you (or your pocketbook).

Adiós!

htw

faces only a mother could love...

check out these photos of some of the crazy things living in our oceans. not that these creatures could get me, but yet another group of examples of why I don't like swimming in the ocean. We are not at the top of the food chain there, get over it. you want to go swimming at dusk? then don't bitch when a shark attacks you, moron!

Adiós!

htw