discopete1

http://home.speedfactory.net/cardwell/

in a sort of out-of-date way

Via st_rev

Yeah, so I did that thing, pasted it into my journal, hit preview so I could see the results, then deleted it.

Definitely less fun than the old one. We actually saw a copy of Mr. Fangs on a banner for Creative Loafing's Besty of Atlanta 2006 (!) Indicating he must have acheived some kind of mass appeal. Perhaps this was the spotlight that caused APD to crackdown hard on the burgeoning street art movement in Atlanta. The only Dr. Blade sign I saw, in Cabbagetown, had been completely done over.

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I walked to work, then I took the train to work, and then I got a ride in a car to a regional supercenter mall that form the hub of the dictionary definition of "edge city". This maul offers wireless, so that's why I"m bugging you.

It appears he is no more.

Has he been replaced by a far more prim graffito, in reaction to some past crackdown in the past year?

http://mrfangs.com offers no advice.

While doing traffic counts this week and last, something occurred to me.

Illegal immigrants are probably some of the best drivers around.

Thye went to all that trouble to get here, why would they let themselves be apprehended and deported for a little thing like reckless driving?

I'd love ot see the actual stats on crimes/1000 illegal immigrants vs crimes/1000 American citizens. Aside from the one, initial crime, I bet they're saints, as a class.

If it weren't for due process, I bet exile would be a great way to deter recidivism and export the American Way we're all up in arms about.

Not-quite-identical twins:

Geneticist Carl Bruder of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and his colleagues closely compared the genomes of 19 sets of adult identical twins. In some cases, one twin's DNA differed from the other's at various points on their genomes. At these sites of genetic divergence, one bore a different number of copies of the same gene, a genetic state called copy number variants.

...

For example, one twin in Bruder's study was missing some genes on particular chromosomes that indicated a risk of leukemia, which he indeed suffered. The other twin did not.

I have a particular interest in copy number variation, if only because it seems very important but is infrequently discussed.

Rosemary's is coming up this weekend. She hasn't been here since December - typically it's far better (and less costly) for me to come to Philadelphia. She gets here Friday night, and leaves Monday afternoon.

So much to do, and so little time. Washing and cleaning and de-cluttering nearly done. But what to do when she's here?

Unfortunately, the weather's not cooperating at this point - showers forecast all weekend. This puts a serious crimp in any plans to see "Prince Capsian" at the Mansfield Drive-In. (They're also playing "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" - wang at the drive-in, y'all.) Also was interesting in visiting the Hill-Stead Museum and Canton, but that's not really rainy-day activity.

Maybe we'll finally get over to the Carousel Museum in town here. And a trip to Newbury Comics would be cool, though I'm not much in a spending mood since I just paid an ass-load of bills. (So I guess that trip to the Gold Club may be out, too.) I still have to show her the new digs for my group.

But we are bowling Sunday night, and it looks like we'll get some of my friends to roll with us.

Otherwise, I think we have some other indoor activities in mind ... a DVR full of "Lost," "The Office" and "Dancing with the Stars" episodes that Rosemary missed. (Get your mind out of the gutter, you.)

Any other activities we should think about up here in Connecticut & Massachusetts land?

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( UFOs in the UK, circa 1984 )

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A quick one to start us off: my favorite workout at the gym - to observe, not to perform - is the desultory chin-up. That's when a guy walks up to the bar and does one chin-up, maybe two, before remembering how hard they were. Then he drops to the mat and walks off like he has something else in mind.

Now to talk about how much reading sucks: I'm glad that the fantasy story trope of "your wish comes true, but it's twisted" gets less play these days. You know the one I mean: I wish for a million dollars, but it comes in the form of a life insurance payment when my wife dies. Or I wish for time to read in peace and quiet, but I only get it after a nuclear bomb wipes out civilization. Also known as the "monkey's paw" conceit, after the 1902 short story which spawned it, this slapdash shortcut has been worn into a faceless grit through overuse. Holy hell, it's annoying.

For one thing: if horror is really just a form of Gothic moralizing (the prince who taunts the Red Death plague gets infected; the girls who sleep around get their throats slashed; etc), then what lesson should the reader learn from this story? "If you get the chance to make a wish, phrase it very carefully"? Great lesson; I'm sure it'll stick with me in the wish-filled future I anticipate. "Getting what you want without hard work will curse you with sorrow"? I can see that - kind of the Protestant work ethic with slick urban styling - but maybe there's a better way to phrase it. Really, I see nothing but downsides to telling generations of impressionable children that "getting what you want will ruin your life."

For another: note that the magical malefactor always picks a particularly ironic way to fulfill the wish. Irony requires intelligence - recognizing a pattern that matches in some ways but differs in others - so we have to presume that the monkey's paw has, I dunno, some evil genie watching it and waiting to screw over the life of whoever holds it. Because if I had to grant evil wishes, and I felt particularly lazy, I wouldn't be very creative about it:

Rube: I wish my boss hadn't fired me.
Genie: Fine! Now your boss hasn't fired you, or anyone else - because he's dead!
Rube: I wish I looked just like this for the rest of my life.
Genie: Mwah-ha-ha! You'll look exactly the same for the rest of your life if I kill you in five seconds!
Rube: So you're not exactly granting my wishes as much as looking for an excuse to murder people, are you?
Genie: Just for that, I'm going to murder Jeff Probst! Ha ha ha ha ha!

And so forth.

(but wait, there's more!)

LA Times: Asked about Obama, Claypool hesitated, then said he would not vote for him because he was black.

For the record, I am from Maryland. I was born in Johns Hopkins hospital. When asked the ubiquitous question "What part of the states are you from?" (I was asked this at least 20 times in the last two days) this is my answer:

Maryland. Baltimore, Maryland.

My abdominal muscles (specifically, both sets of obliques) are super-sore--they hurt when I laugh, when I stretch, and when I bend in certain ways--and I can't for the life of me figure out why. I did a whole bunch of interesting things this weekend, but none of them involved sit-ups, and that's exactly what it feels like I did: about four hundred sit-ups. Ow.

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One of the interesting things I did do this weekend (well OK it was yesterday, but the semester's over so it still felt like the weekend) was go to a Cuddle Party. I've always thought Cuddle Parties--at least, the official, structured kind that you pay to get into and cuddle with strangers--sounded sort of silly and sort of creepy, but I recently met one of the founders of Cuddle Parties through SFSI, and she piqued my curiosity. Some of my friends were curious, too, and wanted to go check it out, so I decided to take the opportunity to try to suspend my judgments and push my boundaries and see what a Cuddle Party is actually like.

So, Cuddle Party in a nutshell: you show up, sign in, change into your PJs, and sit in a circle on top of a pile of fluffy cushions and blankets. The facilitators explain the point of cuddle parties--to provide a safe space for adults to explore boundaries, communication, and non-sexual touch--and the rules (which pretty much boil down to keeping your PJs on, not engaging in sexual activity, and being required to get a verbal "Yes" from someone before touching them), and then there are introductions and communication exercises, and then you pretend to be a cow in a magical field (I am not even kidding), and then people make with the cuddling. Or not, as the case may be, because you don't have to cuddle if you don't want to. And thank goodness for that, because one of the things I discovered last night is that I am utterly disinterested in cuddling with total strangers.

I sort of already knew this. In fact, when my friend first told me he was thinking about checking out the cuddle party, I said, "I don't know, the thought of cuddling total strangers doesn't really appeal to me." But I didn't expect it to be as uncomfortable as it was; faced with a roomful of strangers ripe for the cuddlin', I wanted to run and hide in the kitchen. I tried it anyway, though, since part of the reason I was there was to push my boundaries a little. I cuddled for a bit with one of the people I came with but didn't know very well, and I accepted lots of hugs from (and even offered a couple to) people I'd never met, and I said yes to a couple requests to touch my arm or hold my hand. And I found it strange and boring and uncomfortable, so I extricated myself from the action and sat by myself for a bit, watching and processing.

It wasn't all strangeness and discomfort, though. I did get to cuddle with my amazing friends later on in the evening, which was a much more pleasant, comforting, and oxytocin-releasing experience. And it was kind of liberating to be at a social event and be able to just chill in my PJs and not feel like I had to be pretty or otherwise impress anyone. And the reminder from the rules that "Maybe" is just an invitation to ask again later was a timely one for me, because lately I've been guilty of telling people "Maybe" when I really mean "No." So I'm definitely glad I went to check it out, it was certainly a learning experience, but I'm not sure if I'll ever go to another one.

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I have some weirdness about feeling so uncomfortable at the Cuddle Party. I feel a little strange about not being into it, if that makes any sense, especially since I'm generally a very affectionate, touch-oriented, and pro-cuddling person. The more I think about it, the more I realize that part of the issue is that I'm actually okay with not wanting to cuddle strangers, but for some reason I feel like it's something I should be trying to get over; and part of it is my long-standing issue with feeling guilty about being picky, about needing to choose between and prioritize people. But I'm too damn tired to write any more about it tonight. :)

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Turns out that my dog fits in my pants better than I do:

Did you know that Obama is so elitist that he was still paying financial aid payments as of 2006?