Merry Christmas to all!

Right now I'm at my parents' house in East Texas, enjoying the Christmas vacation from school.  It's been rainy and cold, but I guess that's Christmas in a place that's too warm to snow.  Moist and cold is as close to a white Christmas as I'm going to get, I think.

Well, that's enough holiday blogging for me.  Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

What a world...

The sickness is deep.

Ringo!!

It's really one of life's great questions.  When we get tired of seeing Mary all over the place, whose image will show up in burned toast, doors, and other weird places?

Now we have the answer: Ringo Starr.  Yes, the lovable drummer has gone from cult victim to complete loser to deity.  You know, when I think about it, that doesn't sound too bad.

Non contact...sort of

Yesterday at my frisbee game I got my very first concussion.  At least the first one I remember (ha ha).

All I can say is I hope this was my last concussion.  I had a headache for hours.

Publication time!

So, back by popular demand!

I actually don't have much to say here, but thought I should take a moment out of my busy day to let everybody know that Joe (my mentor in Houston) just called for my permission to put me down as an author on a paper he's submitting.  Take that, everyone who's not me!

Blocking access

Hey, friends.

As most of you know, I'm applying for grad schools in the next few weeks. Also as my long time readers/people who've talked to me for more than 5 minutes know, I am an opinionated man. Someone mentioned to me that it was often a good idea to scrub the internet of any information you don't want admission boards to see. I can't do that completely, but I am going to restrict access to this blog for a while.

What that means is that if you are currently reading this, I am totally OK with you continuing to do so. I just need to know who you are. So, send me an email or just leave your address as a comment on this thread. I'll add you to an approved list.

Access will be blocked to anybody not on that list at the end of this month. Thanks, guys!

Movie review: Transformers 2

Ever since the first Transformers movie came out a few years back, I have said the same thing about a sequel: it will only be good if the opening sequence includes a robot stepping on Shia LeBouf's character, giving him the ignominious death he deserves. Transformers 2 failed to deliver.

They did manage to take some of my advice from the first movie. First, there is way more robot on robot fighting. I really felt like the first one, for a movie about giant robots who fight, displayed a serious lack robot fighting. They mostly fixed that.

Second, in the first one it bugged me that the top secret squad of super soldiers carried only small arms. If you're using pistols to fight giant flying robots it just doesn't matter how many Jason Statham jumps you do. You're still going to lose. In this movie, they pull out the gunships, tanks, miniguns, railguns and other things that delighted the little boy in me. Could have used more, but I was glad they tried.

Megan Fox is still attractive, though I found her less attractive in this one than in the first one. But the movie makers definitely went out of their way to remind the sweaty nerds in the audience that they were doing them a huge favor by including lots of boob shots. After about 20 minutes it got a bit silly in that respect.

Speaking of boobs, the immature humor was a bit much. And coming from a guy who just started a paragraph with "speaking of boobs" that means a lot. There were dogs humping each other, robots humping legs, and enough crotch jokes to make even the most seasoned Boy Scout think it was time to grow up. Nobody needs to see that a Constructicon (robot made from construction vehicles) has testicles made from wrecking balls.

The plot was pretty bad. There were so many different MacGuffins that it was often hard to keep track which one the characters were interested in at the moment. The bad guys have an elaborate plot with a trap and all...to get the good guy to go literally 20 yards out of his way for an ambush. Characters just sort of disappear and reappear when it is convenient. And, of course, the entire good guy team has a combined I.Q. of 34.

All in all, it was nice to see the extra explosions and fighting, but I'm not sure if it was worth enduring the confusing main plot and the extremely painful love story on the side.

Lacy, gently wafting curtains

Let it be known that for my next birthday/other cake-worthy occasion, no cake other than this one will be accepted.

Actually, this one would also be accepted, but making the goggles out of fondant takes several days according to the instructions, and that is just plain silly.

As if we needed more proof...

Math students are even more nerdy than scientists. Check out the link.

Food is good

A few days ago I got home to Provo after a summer with Sam and Mollie. When I got home, I realized that I needed to step it up on the food I'm eating. Mollie made such good food that now bachelor food seems like such a step down. So I went shopping and spent a lot of money on good food (instead of the usual junk I buy) and have tried to make one good meal every day.

These recipes are all adapted from a cookbook that Mom bought me for Christmas. It's good. I say adapted because I feel about cooking a lot like Calvin feels about puzzles: I don't want my dishes to turn out like something somebody else made. Where's the fun in that?

Monday: marinated chicken sandwich

Mix some olive oil and balsamic vinegar with spices for the basic marinade (Did you know that marinate is a verb and marinade is a noun? I just learned that). It's basically like making a quick vinaigrette. Add to the marinade some freshly chopped rosemary (somewhere in the neighborhood of 1T). Pound 1 chicken breast to about 1/2 inch thick (it's thinner than you think) and let it marinate for an hour.

Turn on the broiler, remove the chicken from the marinade, and broil it on both sides. While that's going, chop 1/2 tomato into chunks (mostly because I like tomato better that way- slices would work too). Slice up 1/2 an avocado. Dice a little bit of red onion. Slice a hoagie bun and toast it in the oven. It doesn't take long because the oven is really hot for the chicken.

Stack: Bread, avocado, tomato, SALT (I forgot this on one sandwich and it was way less delicious), onions, 1/2 of the chicken, then bread. This is enough stuff for two sandwiches. Eat. Yum.

Tuesday: Different marinated chicken sandwich

It was so good the first time I just couldn't resist. Actually, the truth is I marinated the chicken for something else and realized that I didn't have any rice so I thought fast and made a sandwich with it. Good nonetheless, despite sounding a little weird.

Mix a bit of Bulldog sauce (sweet teriyaki) with soy sauce. Add a teaspoon or so of sugar. There's your marinade. Do everything else as on Monday. Yes, even the avocado. Avocado goes with everything.

Wednesday: Beef and tomato stir fry-ish thing

This was super easy and really good. Buy the cheapest, thinnest steak you can find at the store. Slice 1/2 a pound into thinnish strips. Chop up a tomato and a half or so into wedges. Dice about
1/4 C red onion. Throw all that into a hot skillet till the beef is done. (The next time I make this I will also use some hot peppers). Salt, pepper, and garlic (as if I have to say this).

Cook 1 packet of ramen noodles without the salty flavor packet. Drain them and set aside.

Mix 1T black bean sauce (from the Asian isle of your grocery store) with about 1T water. Add to beef mixture. Add noodles. Stir together till everything is warm through and everything is covered in sauce.

This recipe was really easy and pretty darn good (considering how easy it was).

More updates as the week of delicious meals continues.

Tired of racism

Well, folks, I've been reading the news and I came to a conclusion. I'm tired of racism. Some of you may not know this, but I belong to a group that is judged because of a stereotype based on the actions of a few.

That's right. I'm a white male.

I've read about two things that really bother me, and they both have to do with the same thing. Perceived racism where none is intended. I have voiced my opinions on this before, but I just thought I would weigh in on these specific issues.

First is the Gates case. I used to live in a crappy apartment that was pretty easy to break into. A few times in my years there I locked myself out and had to break back in. Every time I did so, I thought about how it must have looked to an onlooker who did not know me. Because I knew all my neighbors and they all knew me, no one ever mistook me for a thief and the police were never called. But I was always ready to be cooperative with police should they show up.

Say what you want about the arresting officer. Gates himself could have stopped it all if he had replaced all his indignant shouting and accusations with these simple lines:

I appreciate your concern for the safety of my neighborhood, officers. I can see how this might have looked like a break-in. Here is my ID, showing that this house is, in fact, my residence. Is there anything else I can do for you, or will you be leaving now?

That clearly communicates that he is in the right and that he wants the officers to leave without making unfounded accusations.

The other bit of racism in the news is all this noise about the ObamaJoker posters. I read a disgusting article this morning that said (in many more words) that when somebody photoshopped Joker makeup onto GWB it was a simple message about how GWB is an unpredictable psychopath, but when somebody photoshopped Joker makeup onto BHO it was a nuanced subliminal message revealing that the photoshopper is a filthy racist who can't accept that a black man runs the country.

This accusation disgusts me. Opposing a belief set that happens to come from a black man does not make me racist. I like these Joker posters, not because of any racial undertones, but because Uncle Barry is turning out (in my opinion) to be a bit like the maniac who Alfred aptly describes as just wanting "to watch the world burn."

And anybody who disagrees with me is a racist. Or a commie. Or a jerk.

Police

Just a quick thought. Lately I've read a lot of news about racist police and whatnot. I think this is distracting us from the real issue that police should be focusing on. Anybody with me?

Liechtenstein

From the Onion:

GI Joe

I just watched a trailer for GI Joe. It makes me sad. I'll tell you why after the video.




So, my big problem is that it doesn't feel like GI Joe. It feels like the director watched Iron Man and said "man, I wish they had asked me to do that movie. That would have been awesome."

The giant mech suits? The dude falling out of the truck? Seriously? The following things really bother me about this preview (and of course the movie it represents):

1) The bad Crazy Train cover. Bad cover, Hammer. Very bad.
2) The magic mech suits. Whaaaat?
3) If you look closely, Snake Eyes isn't wearing a mask...just lots of black make up. Seriously. Watch the trailer again- I'll wait right here. I guess since they put everybody else in skintight leather, they had to do something to make Snake Eyes stand out. But skintight skin? Come on.
4) Marlon Wayans.

Despite all this, there may be a few things that could save this movie.

1) GI Joe is awesome. This offers me some hope, but admittedly little, given what happened to Transformers.
2) There are a lot of actors I like in this. Mr. Eko (The link is to the whole episode, but you only need the first 20 seconds or so to bask in Eko's glory), The Invisible Doctor, and even Sienna Miller, although I'm not sure how she'll do as the Baroness.
3) Ray Park is Snake Eyes, so maybe we'll get some cool fights. I mean, he played Chuck Norris in a movie...that's pretty awesome.

So, I think I'll see it, but probably only at the dollar theater. It really doesn't look like it's worth 8 bucks.

Flat Earth

Hello, friends. Or whoever is reading this. Enemies. Spies. Super models looking for a date. Whatever.

My brother John and I were talking yesterday about the Flat Earth Society- people who believe that the Earth is not round, as most people seem to think, but a huge disc. I would really like to meet a flat-earther some time, just to ask some basic physics questions. Here is my big one.

In order for a flat earth to exist and not collapse in on itself, there must be no such thing as gravity. To give us the illusion of gravity, the earth disc must be accelerating through space at 9.8 meters per second squared (the acceleration of a falling object due to gravity). These are not my assumptions, but theirs. My question is how these assumptions are possible when put in context. Let's look at some numbers.

Because the idea of a flat earth comes from a strict interpretation of the bible, we will take a very conservative estimate for the age of the earth: 6000 years. That means the earth is:

6000 x 365 or 2,190,000 days old

2,190,000 x 24 or 52,560,000 hours old

52,560,000 x 60 x 60 or 189,216,000,000 seconds old

Because the earth is claimed to be accelerating "upwards" at 9.8 meters per second squared, that means that at this very moment, the earth is traveling at a speed of:

189,216,000,000 x 9.8 or 1,854,316,800,000 meters per second

1,854,316,800,000 x 2.23693629 or 4,147,988,543,077 miles per hour

Because the speed of light is fixed at 299,792,458 meters per second, the earth would currently be traveling at:

1,854,316,800,000 / 299,792,458 or just over six thousand times the speed of light.

Let me repeat that. Flat earth theory, plus some simple arithmetic, states that the earth is currently traveling at 6000 times the speed of light. The speed that nothing can surpass. Using some of the same math (I won't put it in) we find that it would take the earth disc just barely over a thousand years to hit light speed. Which means that somewhere between Adam (ca 4000 BC) and Noah (ca. 2300 BC) the earth hit the maximum possible velocity, and stopped accelerating.

[edit- John pointed out to me that I was remembering my math wrong- it would take a year to hit light speed. So, Adam was just figuring out that animals tasted way better cooked by the time the earth hit warp one. Hurray for science!]

Sorry flat earthers, you'll have to try a bit harder to convince me!

Cricket

This afternoon, John and I were outside playing with Sam's kids. After we played hide and seek for half an hour or so (and all the hiding spots in the pretty empty back yard had been used several times), we were looking for something else to do. So we taught the boys how to play Cricket.

We have no idea how to play Cricket.

So, basically we just hit balls with bats and hockey sticks and made up names for anything we did. Here are all the moves I remember:

Punching Judy: hitting a ball slowly up a hill
The King Richard: Standing squarely over the ball, hit down onto it with your bat, making sure that it stays right where it is. This move can only be done with a flat ball
Googley: Hitting the ball downhill
Wicked Googley: Hitting the ball downhill towards a slide
The Crumpet: Fake hitting the ball with a hockey stick, but really kick it
The Dutchess of York: Pick up the ball with two bats and throw it
The Changing of the Guard: When a player drops his bat, another player picks it up, both players bow, and hand the bat off. The receiving player must say "the changing of the guard."
The Junior Patrick: Hit the ball over a red car

I'm pretty sure those are the real rules to Cricket. Or at least pretty close.

News time, children!

In the news!

First, did you ever hear of the cat lady? That crazy old lady a couple blocks away who has a few dozen cats? What if she were a rabbit lady? Now that would be weird.

Next: as a scientist, I always tend to side with my own team in the scientists vs animal rights activist debates. I'm glad to see that the courts feel the same way.

And, finally, how do we stop the decline of the music industry? Do we need to put an end to piracy? Increase album prices? Blame the economy? No! They just need to make better music. Nuff said.

Good idea, bad idea

It's time for another good idea, bad idea.



Good idea: Making sure everyone in the USA has health insurance

Bad idea: Putting everyone in the USA on Medicare

Yep, folks, that's the way things look. The House just proposed a bill that would "cover 95 percent of Americans" with their new healthcare system. Well, they almost proposed a bill- they have yet to put a price tag on it. Maybe because they couldn't propose a number that big without giggling? All we know is that its' bigger than the Senate's proposal, which is supposed to cost 1.4 trilion (yep- 14 with eleven 0's) dollars over the next 10 years.

Doctors would be paid what they are currently paid for Medicare patients plus 5%. That sounds great...unless you know anything about Medicare. I admit right now that I am not in the category of people who know a lot about it, but I am someone who knows something about it.

I used to work at a Doctor's office. The doctors I worked for could only see a limited number of Medicare patients. Why? Because the government paid them next to nothing for those visits. They lost money on every Medicare patient they saw. And now we want to put 95% of Americans on this program? The doctors won't be able to afford to stay open.

Now I know doctors make a lot. But it also costs a lot of money to be a doctor. You have to pay a rather large support staff (Where I worked, there were about 3 nurses, 1 receptionist, 1 file clerk, and 1 insurance specialist per doctor). You also pump a massive amount of your income into malpractice insurance.

They also expect drug companies to "pay rebates to the government on drugs dispensed" to low-income beneficiaries. They want pharmaceuticals to give the government a piece of the action every time they sell drugs to poor people? In case you hadn't heard, big pharma is going under. They don't have any money. Producing new drugs costs an amazing amount of money, and once they pay to produce one, a foreign company can sell it way cheaper. (Ever wonder why prescription meds from Canada are so cheap?)

I think the big lesson we see from this is that we can't have it all. Sorry, folks. We can't expect to sue over every little thing that we don't like AND have cheap doctors. We can't expect to buy off-brand drugs AND have big drug companies giving piles of money away. It just doesn't work that way.

PETA

So, in case you haven't heard, PETA is full of crazy people. I mean, seriously crazy. Yesterday I was going to downtown DC to play Frisbee with some friends from church when I saw an ad on the Metro saying that PETA would be in the same place as we were going to play. They were protesting something or other "every day, all summer long" on the National Mall. I was halfway looking forward to seeing them there and half hoping they would just not bother me.

When I got off the Metro, it was raining relatively hard. I forgot about PETA and started worrying that none of my friends were going to come play since it was so wet. I was wrong, and we played muddy Frisbee for a few hours. It was super fun.

As I was leaving, I realized that the PETA people weren't there- I can only assume that they didn't show because of the rain. If a group of Frisbee players don't mind the rain but protesters who claim to have an important cause are afraid to get wet, that can only mean one thing. I like Frisbee more than PETA likes animals.

Ghost written by Olivia

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-written by my Niece, Olivia (10 months)

Passive-aggressive notes

For anybody who hasn't seen passiveaggressivenotes.com, may I suggest starting here.

Filthy Hippy Dinner

So, tonight I ate vegetarian. Before you stop reading in disgust, let me explain: all the meat was in the freezer and I was too hungry to wait to thaw it. I promise to make it up by eating 3 pounds of meat tomorrow. Before noon.

So, here we go. I cooked 1/3 cup of couscous in 1/2 cup water with a little oil and garlic salt. I chopped up a carrot, 2 green onions, and about 1/3 of a bunch of cilantro (I don't know how much it was, it was about 1/3 of the bunch you buy in the store). When the couscous was done, I mixed in the vegetables and a bunch of spinach. Then, I added some lemon juice. That's it. It was just a couscous salad.

If I do this again, which I probably will, I think I will make a couple changes. First, of course, I would add some bacon or something. Yeah, bacon would have been smart. Also I think I would wilt the spinach first. That would make it a little easier to eat.

But, all in all, a good dinner, despite the lack of meat.

Wanted: movie nerd

So, I just found out that a movie I love is soon to be released in theaters. But it is a limited release, which I assume means that it only plays in some theaters. Am I right about that? More importantly, how do I find out what theaters are the select ones? Anybody know?

Harry Potter Spells I'd like to see

As promised, here are some spells that Harry and Co could have really used. Also, as I was typing these, I realized that they really do feel better if they're written with exclamation points. As we learned in the movies, spells work better the louder you shout them.

Attacho Permanentus!
Everybody and their dog seems to know the spell for making somebody's wand fly out of their hands. Since wands seem to be kind of important, I would think somebody would have developed a spell for permanently attaching their wand to their hand. Or at least duct tape it in place or something.

Silencio!
Since saying the magic words seems to be so important, why not have your first attack always be to make it so the other person can't talk? Actually, I'm pretty sure this spell did exist in the books, but was never used this way. It would have made all the fights look like samurai movies- lots of intimidation and circling angrily, but once the first person strikes, it'd be over.

Pubertus Enda!
I got so sick of the various hormonal problems with all the characters, and really wanted a way to jump them all to being 20 or 25 years old. Or just cut out a third of each book. Either way would have solved the problem.

Uranium!
Sirius Black was the world's #1 murderer because he killed a couple dozen people? Seriously? That just tells us that the magical world has a serious lack of firepower. This spell could be some sort of magical nuke. That'll show those Death Eaters who's boss. Plus, it already sounds latiny, so Ms. Rowling wouldn't even have to try very hard.

Finally, I think it needed this song.



Can any of you think of any I missed?

Harry Potter

The other day I was talking to some co-workers about Harry Potter. (I work at a genomics research foundation. What do you want?) We were thinking about the things that bugged us about it, and I thought to myself, where better to talk about something no one cares about than a blog?

(In case you can't guess, there will be some spoilers)

So, the biggest problem for me is that things that work in one book apparently don't work in other books. A lack of consistent internal rules.

First, if time travel is possible, and so commonplace that they let a 13 year old girl do it to take extra classes at school, then why not make it so Voldemort never killed anybody? Or was never born? I mean, they have magic police that show up right after Sirius killed all those people...so why not assess the situation and then show up half an hour earlier?

Second, one of the big plot points is that you can cast a magical spell to make it so no one can ever find something (like the Potter Parents house). So why does everybody hide things behind ridiculous D&D traps? We've got Voldemort hiding his magic death whatevers in the middle of a magic lake surrounded by zombies, we've got Dumbledore hiding the Magic Rock behind the giant chessboard and quiddich test...so why not just hide these things in the magic can't-be-found spell?

Third, the whole self-sacrifice magic thing. What was that supposed to be? I mean, at the end of the last book, we see that Harry used his magic love to protect everybody, just like his parents did to protect him. But he didn't die. His love magic was able to protect hundreds of people just by being willing to die. So, is she telling us that no one in all the magic world was willing to die to stop Voldemort? Not one single person? Remember that it doesn't take an actual death, just being willing to die. I find that hard to believe. (Especially since there were lots of people who actually did sacrifice themselves to stop Voldemort.)

We also thought that there would be some useful spells we would have loved to see, but I'll leave those for another post. This is enough nerd talk for one day.

Hancock

The following things failed to save Hancock from being a lame movie:

Will Smith
My Favorite Retard
Delightful music by John Lee Hooker
Writers who obviously read "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex"

I mean, seriously. How could you put so many good things together and get such an OK movie? It wasn't bad, it just wasn't great. The effects were good, the acting was pretty good, the plot wasn't bad. It's hard to put my finger on what was missing. Maybe somebody who's seen it can help me out. All in all, I'm thinking B- range for this one.

Curry...is there anything it can't do?

I love it when science says good things. In today's news we learn that eating curry is good for you. Mmm...sciency.

Breaking Bad

So, I finally watched the Breaking Bad finale today. It leaves me with only one thing to say. HOLY CRAP.

I was expecting to be blown away, and I was actually surprised. Not that it was a bad episode, just that it wasn't at all what I expected. Hard to surprise somebody who's waiting to be surprised, but they managed.

I'll try not to give anything away. The events between Walt and Skylar finally satisfied (they've been at the same place for quite a while). That purple monster was a bit disappointing at first, but as I thought about it it was part of a larger idea that I really liked. The whole episode/season/show really was about losing control of life, and the monster really fit in that. Not what I expected, but good. I'm glad Jane got what was coming to her (I guess that was in last week's episode, but what the hey). I really liked her at first, but she really started to make me mad lately. Jesse displayed what I think was his best acting yet. All in all, it was a really good episode. Some finales this season have really done well (LOST), and some have really disappointed (The Office...man that was lame), and I'm glad that Breaking Bad managed to stay on Santa's good list.

Who is California's Daddy, and What Does He Do?

I just read an article about Governor Arnold "It's Not a Tuma" Schwarzenegger, and I thought that Arnie deserved some praise from me for a job well done. Especially since his decision has gotten lots of other people saying less nice things about him.

California is in massive debt. Part of this, according to Sam, is due to the fact that in California issues and finances are voted on separately. In other words, the people can vote for a new program to help elementary schools, and at the same time, vote to refuse funding to that same program. As with so many problems, it is one of people thinking that words are magical and will solve everything.

Anyway, for that and other reasons, California is broke. Not just broke, but way broke. As in decided not to give tax refunds this year broke. Arnold put out a vote to the people for an increase in taxes that would cover the debt, and the people voted it down. So Arnold did the only thing he could do: he started cutting programs. I can't say I like cutting funding to the programs he cut (state parks, schools, etc), but I think it was the best of limited options.

It frustrated me to read in the article about people protesting, putting up pictures of children needing medical help, etc. Those protesters need to go back to the days when Mom and Dad explained their allowance to them. As we were all told when we were young, money does not grow on trees. If the people want lower taxes, they have to also have fewer government programs. That's just how it has to work. It would be great if we could all stop paying taxes and still have all the things we want from the government, but it just can't happen.

Arnold, I salute you for making the tough decision. More importantly, I now officially forgive you for using the phrase "pump up" in your campaign speeches.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Moment of Zen - Pump Up Sacramento
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Stem Cells

In scientific news today, I read that President Obama's new policy on Stem Cells will (if not changed before it is passed) ban almost all current stem cell lines from being used. Nice work, Barack.

Here's the deal. In 2001, George Bush made an executive order that banned government funding of stem cell research on new cell lines. Most people think that this means he banned stem cell research, but that is not the case. What that means is that any scientist could do basically any stem cell research he wanted in the United States, as long as somebody other than Uncle Sam funded it. California even used state funds for a huge stem cell research institution. Just not federal funds. In addition to anybody being allowed to do any stem cell research they wanted under Bush, there was a list of about 20 stem cell lines that the federal government was willing to fund research on. So those ones became somewhat standard for lab use.

Standards in cell lines are very useful. It means that a researcher in Hong Kong and a researcher in Alaska and a researcher in New York could all do the same experiment and reliably get the same results. That standardization of results allows collaboration. It's a great system that works pretty well. But then Barack decided to "help."

In March of this year, he came out and said:

Today, with the Executive Order I am about to sign, we will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers; doctors and innovators; patients and loved ones have hoped for, and fought for, these past eight years: we will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research.

Sounds nice, right? Lifting bans, giving hope, and that change that our dear President is so fond of talking about. But here's the problem. The policy that is now starting to come out for how to apply these nice words includes very tight regulations on which cell lines can be used. And almost none of the ones used in the past fit the regulations.

Not only does this policy try to enforce retroactive ethics (it says these old lines were generated without really informing the donors of all possible uses of the cells, so we shouldn't be allowed to use them), but it also bans research on artificially created stem cells. As in, created without aborting a naturally conceived fetus. This isn't just a ban on funding, but an actual ban on research.

What that means is that the United States is no longer allowed to use the cell lines that other researchers are using. We cannot collaborate with anyone from other countries unless they switch to our lines, which would be much more expensive and impractical for them than just finding someone else to collaborate with. Our researchers will have to throw years of research down the drain, because they are not allowed to continue using the cells they have worked with.

In the end it's just another case of sweet, sweet words doing more harm than good. Thank you, Mr. President, for creating change we can believe in.

[edit- I just realized I never posted the article- here it is, but you need a subscription to Nature to read it.]

I suggest a new strategy, R2

For those of you who have never played Monopoly with me, let me start by saying that I am a very accomplished cheater. This is why I don't play Monopoly. Because I always seem to have more money than everyone else. It's a gift.

And by gift I mean "gift of money from the bank when nobody else is looking."

So, I was playing one of my very favorite card games with my nephew Harrison and my brother Sam. Sometimes I forget that playing with kindergartners requires some, shall we say, finesse. Or cheating. It's like that scene from Star Wars. "That's because Droids don't cry and whine all day when they lose." "I suggest a new strategy, R2. Let the child win."

Let's just say that I never thought all my years of practice moving money quietly would be put to use in this way. I mean putting money in somebody else's hand? Now that's an accomplishment.

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, internet, I've had a great birthday. And now I'm going to talk about it. And you're going to listen. And you're going to like it. Or else.

The saga really starts yesterday. I am working in DC for the summer and staying with my brother Sam, his wife Mollie, and their three kids. I got off the airplane yesterday and when I got in the car I asked the boys how they were. Noah (3) immediately said "We made a poster for your birthday tomorrow!" Sam reminded him that it was supposed to be a surprise, and not to mention it any more. On the way home, Sam asked the boys what they wanted to show me first when we got home (as a tour of the house). They wanted to show me their room first, because that's where my surprise poster was. Again, Sam reminded them that since it was a surprise, they weren't supposed to talk about it.

We get to the house and Sam shows me around a little bit. We get to the kids room and Noah runs to the closet and points out to me the secret poster hidden there. Ah, kids and surprises. They're as bad as Dad.

Today I woke up not feeling particularly 24. I just wanted to relieve myself and brush my teeth. When I left the bathroom, Harrison (5) and Noah were standing outside the door with my poster. Only Harrison wanted to be in the picture, but they were both there.
Now, you can't see this (because I took a bad picture) but the poster is cut outs from Spiderman and Iron Man coloring books. With happy Birthday written in the corner. Actually it says Iron Man Happy Spiderman Birthday, but the names are just in there in case I didn't know who they were. It was very sweet.

After breakfast we went to church, where Noah demonstrated that he learned what most of us guys didn't learn till we were teenagers: that church is way more fun if you fall asleep while somebody scratches your back. Way to be ahead of the curve, Noah.

For my special birthday dinner, we had hamburgers and corn on the cob, which were both great. And Mollie made me a fantastic birthday cake.
Those of you who can count will notice that there are only 16 candles on this cake. No, I did not turn 16 today. We just didn't have enough. I tried to explain to the boys that each candle counted for a year and a half, but I think all they cared about was what was under the candles. Sam told them that we wouldn't eat cake until dinner was done, dishes were cleared away, and we had sung Happy Birthday.

When everybody was done, Sam and Mollie both had to walk away from the table for a bit, and Noah asked me why we weren't eating the cake (this question had been bothering him all afternoon). I told him that we had to sing Happy Birthday first, and he looked at me with the most desperate, pathetic puppy eyes I have ever seen and tried his hardest to sing, but only got past the first "Happy Birthday to you" before trailing off. He told me he didn't know the rest and started staring at the cake and slowly edging toward it, as if waiting for me to say it was enough.

Sam and Mollie came back and the boys sang again with some parental support.

As you can see, their main focus is on the birthday boy.
Harrison was trying to sing hard enough to blow out the candles so I had to cover his mouth to avoid eating too much spit. As soon as the song was done, though, the boys blew out most of the candles anyway (good thing I already knew what my wish would be), and I finished off the last 5 or 6.

I got some great presents, but the people interested in reading those are the people who gave them, so I will spare the rest of you the bother of wishing you had as awesome of a family as mine. Thanks, everybody!

Star Trek

New Star Trek : Old Star Trek :: Alcatraz : Harry Potter

Let me explain. Lately I have been studying for the GRE, and something I am not great at is the analogy part (remember the SAT? It's like that). So, here is my word bridge:

New Star Trek is like Old Star Trek made by somebody who knew what he was doing, just like Alcatraz is like Harry Potter made by somebody who knew what he was doing.

That is to say the new Star Trek movie was awesome. So awesome that I almost wrote AWESOME in all caps. Almost. Here's what I liked about it:

The casting was great. I worried from the previews that Kirk was going to be too much of a tool, but then I realized that Kirk being too much of a tool is basically impossible. Sylar was a great Vulcan, and the bad Spock hair cut looked right on him. Chekov was appropriately awkward (hehe..wictor...). Simon Pegg was the best Scotty ever. I mean, I think he's the best most things ever, but especially Scotty. With Uhura they sort of...well, went with the spirit of the law. She went from this:

to this:

Not that I'm complaining.

Lucas should have seen this movie before he did the Star Wars prequels. They showed pre-teen Kirk for about 5 minutes- just long enough for everybody to say "wow, that dude is kind of a badass who doesn't like authority." After that, they got the child actors off the screen.

The action was actually pretty darn good. Not really necessary for the plot, but good. It seemed like ol JJ was talking to somebody about making Star Trek and said "oh yeah? I bet I can even get in a GOOD fight scene!" And he delivered. Well done, JJ.

I think my favorite part of the movie was the fan service. It was very well done. They had basically everything a fan would need (pretty much every character said at least one line that you sweaty nerds have been waiting for, including "Damn it, blank, I'm a doctor not a blank!"), but it wasn't so much that the people who don't live in their mothers' basements couldn't have any fun. The fan service was subtle. A certain person walks on the screen in a red uniform and about half the people in the theater say to themselves "that dude's toast...". But when he dies, the other half isn't left trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

I do have a few small complaints, but since they are kind of big plot elements, I will leave them out so as not to spoil other people's fun. The only complaint I will share is that a woman on the Enterprise is sleeping with a man on the Enterprise, and that man isn't Kirk. Whaaa? How'd that happen?

As a parting thought, for all you nerds out there, check out the landscape on the planet Vulcan. If that doesn't give you a nerd-high, then I don't know what will.

Defensive Driving

Well, internet, I've got a real treat for you today. This week I went to a defensive driving class so I could save money on my car insurance. For any of you thinking of doing that, let me warn you: it will bore you to tears. I survived by doodling and taking good notes. I now present them to you, my adoring public:





No explanations necessary. Which is to say, I just smashed my hand with a ladder and don't feel like typing any more right now.

Star Trek

Yes, I'm a nerd.

I thought I should get that out of the way. In case you are worried about another movie review, fear not, friends. I haven't seen it yet. I just saw a great Onion News Network video about Star Trek that I thought I should share. Consider yourself in the loop.

Texas

So, according to the news, Texans have been talking lately about seceding from the union. I missed the start of this story, so all I have seen is the commentary on the commentary on the hearsay. I will try to figure out what the heck is going on, but in the meantime, I thought I ought to clear something up for those of you who are confused.

It is a matter of some debate whether or not Texas has it in its constitution (or somewhere else) that Texas is allowed to secede from the Union whenever it wants. I do not care about that debate. Why? Because it doesn't matter what the paper says. If Texas tries to leave the Union, the Union won't let it go. Remember the last time some states decided they didn't want to be part of the good old USA? There was a big war where the good old USA said "too bad, you're with us."

I am from Texas, and mean no disrespect to my patria terra. I just think that it's time to accept that we are Americans too, and should quit talking about leaving. Even if we did somehow manage to win another War of Northern Aggression, it's not like we did that great governing ourselves last time.

Movie review

In the last few days I have seen a few movies. I thought I should let people know my thoughts on two of them. Because I'm sure the interweb is full of people who care about my thoughts on movies.

First Wolverine. I'll try to keep the spoilers limited to things you would see in a trailer, but no promises. Wolverine was like a football game where the home team is up 90 to 0, and then the other team scores a touchdown in the last 20 seconds. It was a great movie, but it was so close to being an awesome movie that it kind of makes me sad. The action was really sweet (somewhat unbelievable, but I mean, it is about a guy who has metal claws that come out of his hands so I don't really expect a super-realistic movie).

They did an excellent job casting this movie. I liked the guy they chose for sabretooth way more than they guy from the first X men movie. And the Love Interest (I'm sure she had a name, but I don't remember it) had the best super power of all: being a really foxy Canadian babe. At least, it seemed like it was a super power. They also gave my favorite dog-man a part, as well as Charlie/Merry. I was sad that they couldn't get Sawyer for Gambit, but the guy they went with was good, despite having a relatively small part and some writing that didn't make much sense.

The effects left something to be desired. I mean, sometimes they were great, and sometimes they looked really fake. There were a couple times when I was just stuck saying "really? That's all you got?" Like when Professor X showed up for his cameo, it looked like Patrick Stewart walked into the studio and said "hey, guys, I got somewhere to be in 20 minutes, so let's get this done in one take, alright?" Also, the blue screen in the movie part of the studio must have been broken, so they just went over to channel 4's news room and did his scene in front of the weather guy's blue screen.

All in all, a very fun movie for action, but don't expect to walk out of it thinking it was a documentary.

Next movie: Hitch. This one I've seen before and got convinced to see it again. That was my first mistake. Hitch tells the story of two romances: one between a beautiful, fun, billionaire and a big fat nerd, and the second between two ridiculously attractive people.

Sadly, this movie's plot is even harder for me to buy than Wolverine. Will Smith and Super-Babe One have some small miscommunication that would be easily resolved with two sentences, but of course that never happens. Instead they both sit around crying about how much they still love the other person till Will makes a huge romantic gesture that makes it all better. Hurray!

The real thing that this movie makes me think about is one of my theories on dating. Here's my theory: the difference between a man being sweet and persistent and a man being a creepy stalker has nothing to do with what the man does, but only with how the girl feels about him.

Let me explain. Will meets Super-Babe One, and she is a bit cagey and stand-offish but they have a conversation. She doesn't give him her phone number, so the next day he has a walkie talkie delivered by courier to her office and asks her on a date via walkie. She says no, so he asks for a different day. She says no. So he asks again for a different day again. The thought of Will doing this made all the girls in the room swoon. But I wonder, what would happen if Steve Buscemi had done that? Or Clint Howard? That would be the creepy guy you tell your friends about who just won't leave you alone.

All in all, that is one of the things I like least about romantic comedies. There are so few that I can watch and say "yeah, that could happen to somebody like me." But this post is getting long and I don't want it to go any more into my theories about why I am single. The take home message, kiddos? If you're looking for a good movie this weekend, watch Wolverine. Not Hitch. Nuff said.

Summer plans

Well, folks, it's been a while since I posted anything. I would like to say that it's because I've been busy, but that would be a lie. Unless you consider playing a video game about Washington DC after a nuclear holocaust as me being busy. If so, then I've been very busy.

I just thought I should let y'all know about my summer plans since they've been up in the air for a while. I leave in a week to go to Washington DC (pre nuclear apocalypse, in case anybody was wondering) to research at the J. Craig Venter Institute. It should be really fun. It was my first choice for a place to work, and I got it (but got rejected from the other two places I applied...).

Anyway, that's it. I just figured I should let people know, and posting it here saved me a few phone calls.

Tempting...

Hello, internet. How are you?

Now, I don't drink but I think I might have just found something that tempts me just the tiniest bit. Just a little...

Bubble boy

The other day I saw a presentation on SCID, also known as the Bubble Boy disease because people who suffer from it are confined to a sterile life in a bubble. As part of the presentation, the group gave away a bottle of bubble solution with a bubble wand to people who answered questions. I managed to get my hands on one, and put it in my backpack.

Today I was in a really good mood walking home from campus, so I got it out of my backpack and blew bubbles all the way home. It was interesting to see how people reacted. Most people (including a couple people I know but not that well) avoided eye contact. They just kept their eyes down and kept on with their gray rainy day (it had stopped raining long enough for some bubbles, but it was still gray and cloudy). It was kind of sad.

One dude got this big grin on his face and chased the bubbles as they blew away. That was definitely the highlight of my day. The moral of the story? Bubbles are fun. Watching your feet isn't.

Samur-ific!

Yesterday I went to UVU to watch Yojimbo. Their foreign film club (or something like that) was having a screening, but only 8 or 10 people showed up. It was kind of sad. Nice theater, awesome movie, and nobody there to see it.

The movie itself was freakin awesome. If you don't know Toshiro Mifune, you need to find some of his movies and watch. Yojimbo is a good place to start.

It tells a great story (that will seem very familiar to Clint Eastwood fans who saw Fistful of Dollars) about a Samurai who drifts into a town torn apart by rival families. Toshiro Mifune plays this man with no name, who is called various things including Sanjuro ("Thirtysomething"), Yojimbo ("Bodyguard") and "that two-bit Samurai". Anyway, whatever you call him, he decides to help clean up the town by getting the two sides to kill each other.

I think my favorite part of this movie (along with other Samurai movies) is that there is no real boss inflation, and the Hero and Evil Boss aren't elevated to superhuman status for their final showdown. They're still just people. There's lots of build up and sharpening their claws, but once the actual fight starts, the two run at each other and one of them sticks his sword in the other guy. Then the other guy dies. There's something beautiful about that simplicity. No Die Hard-esque villain resurrection, just a good guy vs a bad guy.

Well, I'm tired of rambling about this movie. Go watch it. It's playing in a couple weeks on the International Film Channel if you have it.

I should keep a list...

The other day I went to a water polo game that some of my friends were playing in. As is my habit, I shouted myself hoarse. When I woke up this morning, I had the most awesome gravely voice. I felt like Edward James Olmos or Will Arnett. The only trouble was that I couldn't think of anything awesome to say with my deep voice. So, I've decided that I need to make a list of things to say just in case I ever find myself in that situation again.

Here's what I've got so far:
Permission not granted
Frak
Where's Sean Miller?
He's no good to me dead
[edit: I can't believe I forgot these:
They hit me with a truck
War, war never changes]

Any suggestions?

Awesome

Now I hate to just post a link that I saw on John's blog, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I've just got three words for you: Naked Obama Unicorn. Nuff said.

Jobs

Lately I have heard a lot about the bad economy. People are losing their jobs left and right. Today, I realized that it is not as bad as we all think.

There's a story here. My roommate Scott just bought a very nice TV (a very nice TV), and when he took it out of the box, it didn't work. He called Sharp and they sent over a couple guys to fix it. When they got here, I was a bit underwhelmed. The technician was about 45 years old and looked very tired. The assistant was 30 or so, and definitely smoked pot while playing D&D in his mom's basement.

They asked where he bought the TV, and gave eachother a secret scoff when he told them he had bought it online. They told him that buying anything online was really risky and he should only purchase from stores with a physical location because there were more people to complain to when things broke.

Next, the technician (let's call him Harold) stared at the TV for a few minutes while the assistant (let's call him Milton) whipped out his cell phone and started playing solitaire. Harold told him to put it away, so he hid it by standing behind the couch and continued to play. Harold asked Scott the same questions he had answered over the phone ("so, it's not working?" and "are you sure it's plugged in?"). Then Harold called tech support, and they asked him those same questions. They unplugged it and plugged it back in a few times, and then decided that it was unfixable. All this while Milton continued to play solitaire. They told Scott to ask newegg for a new TV because this one was broken.

While these guys were here (about 45 mintes or more) I realized that somebody was paying them. Somebody paid these two guys to come over to our house, play soliatare, and ask the same questions we had already been asked. The only thing they did was take information they already should have had and determine that the problem was beyond their skill.

Then here comes the great part. While these two were being paid, they called somebody else (who was also being paid for his time) and all he could do was ask them the same questions and determine that it was also beyond his skill. There was something beautiful about seeing the three of them being paid to have a conversation about how none of them knew how to do the job they had been sent to do.

So, my thought is this: as long as these guys are getting paid, I don't think I have to worry about my job future.

Best dream ever

Last night I dreamed that I was Jeff Foxworthy's personal assistant. But not in his normal job as a comedian. I helped Jeff in his secret job as a hostage negotiator.

We were out negotiating the release of a little girl who was kidnapped, and when we met the kidnapper, it was Sayid from LOST.


Jeff kept his cool pretty well, but he kept calling Sayid all these really bad racist slurs. As his personal assistant, I felt the need to let him know this was a bad idea, but he just told me to relax and let him do his job. I woke up before the end, but it was looking like the little girl was going to get to go home. Hurray!

Tasty Animals

Today is March 15th, a very special holiday in my books. It's called International Eat A Tasty Animal for PETA Day (IEATAPETA). This day is about eating as many tasty animals as possible in protest to PETA's offensive ad campaigns and crazy views.

This morning as I was thinking of announcing my celebration plans, I glanced through the news to find that PETA is trying to make George Clooney flavored tofu. Yep. Flavored with his sweaty gym towel, no less. Thankfully, Clooney isn't giving his permission (I suppose that even crazy celebrities have their limits).

So, with such an example of what I am protesting, here are my wonderfully carnivorous plans. Last year I got 4 animals, if I remember, so this year I am trying for 5. For breakfast, I am having eggs (chicken) with potatoes and little chunks of pepperoni (beef and pork). For lunch, turkey sandwiches. And to top it off, for dinner, baked fish with potatoes and onions. It'll be the best, tastiest protest ever.

Not my fault

Wow, it's been a busy week. And it's only Tuesday. I've decided that for the sake of my own sanity, I should take a quick break.

I was reading the news when I came across an interesting article. According to researchers, the human brain processes images of objects differently than it processes faces and hair. There are even people who suffer from facial blindness and hair blindness. This means that although they have no other noticeable visual impairment, they just plain don't notice what people look like.

Now, I'm no scientician, but I think that's probably me. I have serious trouble recalling faces, to the point that I honestly had to go find a mirror when I had to put my eye color on my passport application. I just couldn't for the life of me remember what color my eyes are (I seem to remember putting green on the application, but I still don't remember seeing them). I've always wondered if everybody else sees faces the way I do or if I'm just weird. I guess this settles it.

Scomboli

This week I cooked for my dinner group, and I thought I would share. Actually, the recipes I used were mostly from Sara, so almost anyone who reads this blog could just get them from her. So, my real purpose is to record this for my own use later. Hurray for selfishness!

Scomboli is not difficult, but it is a bit complicated. You have to have a lot of balls in the air at the same time (especially if you are foolish like me and try to also do a salad and dessert at the same time).

First, make bread. I used this recipe (scaled up from Sara):

3T yeast
3/4 C warm water
3 C hot water
4.5 T sugar
1.5 T salt
7.5 T oil (I'm sure there's an easier measurement than this, but I don't know the conversions)
9 C flour

Mix the yeast, warm water and sugar. While the yeast rises, mix everything else. Mix in the yeast. Let rise 10 minutes, stir down or knead. Repeat rising and kneading steps for an hour.

While the dough is rising, prepare the toppings. Fry up a pound and a half of sausage, and cut about a pound of pepperoni into slightly smaller pieces (1/4's or so). Mix:

1 beaten egg
1/2 C oil
1/2 t oregano
1/2 t basil
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper

Split the dough in two or three parts (probably best to do 3) and roll into rectangles. Put on toppings, starting with oil mixture. Top with a pound of shredded cheese. Jelly roll and allow to rise for 30 minutes. Bake 30 minutes at 350.

I also did a really delicious salad from Sara's recipes. Heat 1/4 C apple cider vinegar with 1/2 C sugar (to let the sugar dissolve). Once it's fully dissolved, remove from heat.
Add:
1/4 C oil
Any spices you have that you want to add (I used salt, oregano, basil, and Mrs. Dash)

Pour mixture over 1 bag spinach. Add 2 cans mandarin oranges and about 1/2 lb cooked bacon. In the future, I would probably make about 1/2 as much dressing. Or just more spinach.

And last but not least, a dessert. This one actually comes from Mom's recipes, not Sara. It's a blueberry coffee cake.

2C flour
1C sugar
1T baking powder
1t salt
1/3 C softened margarine
1 C milk
1 egg
1C blueberries

Beat everything except blueberries till smooth. Put about 1/2 of the mixture in a greased 9x9 pan. Layer blueberries on top of that, and pour the rest of the mixture on top. Add topping (below) and bake at 350 for an hour (the recipe says 40 minutes, but that's never enough).

1/3 C brown sugar
1/4 C flour
1/2 t cinnamon
1 T margarine

when done baking, top with glaze:

1C powdered sugar
2 T milk
1/4 t vanilla

It's really good. Sorry the post was so long. Enjoy!

New Zealand...is there anything they can't do?

In case I haven't made myself clear in the past, I love New Zealand.

First there was Lord of the Rings, which showed me that New Zealand is where I want to live (also that I want to have lots of little hobbit kids with Rosie and run around barefoot). Then there was Flight of the Conchords, which showed me that New Zealanders 1, hate Australians 2, are really funny and 3, get to say "yis" and "bid" instead of "yes" and "bed".

Today, New Zealand has amazed me again. The Weta Workshop (the guys who did lots of the special effects for Lord of the Rings) have made a woman into a mermaid. I don't mean for a movie. A woman who lost both her legs to an illness wrote them asking to make her a mermaid so she could swim, and they made her a functioning mermaid suit. Like, she can put it on and use what remains of her legs to move the tail and actually swim.

How awesome is that?

Bare knuckle air hockey

So, the other night Dan Anderson and I were at a friend's house playing air hockey. I'm not sure exactly how it came to this, but one of us got the bright idea of playing without the mallets. We balled up our fists, put them vertically on the table (as in with our arms directly above the hands) and used our fists to hit the puck. It was like bare knuckle boxing, but with air hockey.

This was actually really fun, if somewhat painful and stupid. It made for a much more calculating game, as you had to decide how much it was worth trying to hit the puck on that particular pass, or if you would just let it bounce back and let your opponent take another shot.

One of the pucks we used was not round, but an octagon with pointy corners. That was definitely the hardest. I still have a red mark on my right hand from where I tried a little too hard...

Surprise!

Science has come out with a huge surprise today. It turns out that when women dress in revealing attire, such as bikinis, men tend to objectify them more. Yep, it's true.

Brain scans show that when you show men pictures of women in bikinis, the part of their brain associated with tool use is activated, and the part associated with interpreting other people's intentions and feelings is shut off.

It seems so...logical.

Quotes

Best unnecessary quotation marks ever.


[edit- I take it back. This is by far the best.]

Jet Packs Was Yes!

Well, folks, it's time. Science has brought me an invisibility cloak, it has brought me energy guns, and now it has finished the hat trick by bringing me a jet pack. That's right, a jet pack.

I think I'm going to quit my job and become Booster Gold.

Bored

Well, folks, I should be working on a presentation for tomorrow about how a fetus protects itself from its mother's immune system, but instead I'm playing around on Youtube. So, here you go. I'll pretend there's somebody reading this blog if you pretend that this counts as a post. Deal?




d2

Happy Birthday!

Today is my old buddy Charles Darwin's birthday. Because I go to a religious school, and because I am surrounded by woefully uninformed English majors, I have heard a lot of silly things about evolution and religion.

This week I heard someone say that we should all have the "courage to believe" in a strict creationist viewpoint despite heaps and heaps of evidence to the contrary. This person went on to say that anyone who believed in anything other than the 100% creationist theory - that God sat down and individually crafted every life form on earth - was not a true believer in God.

I disagree. I am a very religious person, I believe in God, but I have trouble with the idea that He sat at his workbench and made each individual creature. First of all, I just don't think that God is a micromanager. But that is an argument for another day, because it isn't the main thing that bothers me about this idea. My biggest beef with this is that it proposes a very different God than the one I want to believe in. Let me explain with a couple of examples.

First, chickenpox. I just can't believe that the same God who asked that the children be brought to Him would also create varicella zoster- the nasty little virus that has no other purpose than to torment people (especially children) with highly contagious rashes.

Next on my list are several kinds of wasps that, through various chemical means, can turn another bug into basically a zombie, generally to keep it alive long enough for the wasp's kids to eat it alive from the inside out. I don't really believe in a God who would create critters like that.

These are just two of the many examples of things that don't make much sense if you think of a loving creator individually crafting them, but make perfect sense if you think of them from an evolutionary perspective. All in all, the God who strict creationists believe in sounds a lot like this one:



Now, lest anyone think different, I should set the record straight that I do believe in a loving creator. I just don't believe in a micromanaging loving creator. I believe that He created the universe, and everything in it, but that it is very possible that He used evolution as a tool to create. I do not see how these models are mutually exclusive. If you would like to read a great book about these two going well together, I would check out Finding Darwin's God by Miller (I reviewed it a few months ago).

Happy Birthday, Chucky D!

crazy milk conspiracy

So, one thing I have always loved is reading conspiracy theories. I'm not sure why. They're just fun. Lately, some of these have had some bad press, as the "immunizations cause autism" set of theories has recently been debunked pretty handily.

In light of that, gmail brought me this beauty: the Milk Conspiracy. Yep. The milk conspiracy. Apparently big dairy is taking all the nutrients out of your milk by pasteurizing it. I'm not sure what exactly they stand to gain by doing this, but I am sure that it is truly evil.

Dr. Douglass also says he has proof that raw milk tastes better. I'm not sure how you prove something like that, but I admit that I am very curious. Not curious enough to give this nutcase my email address (you have to to read the report), but curious.

C-O-L-A cola

So, for anybody who has ever wondered why I am opposed to the enlightened European health care system, wonder no more.

Kim Petras, a German teenager, was Tim Petras until a few weeks ago. After psychologists determined that Kim was actually a girl stuck in a boy's body, she got a sex change. And the German health service paid for it. Seriously.

So, if we go over to a socialized health system here in the good old US of A, does that mean that my tax dollars are going to pay for things like this? Am I seriously going to have to fund sex changes so that little Kimmy can -and I quote her words here- "wear tight jeans" and "enjoy swimming and bikinis"?

I think that my money could be much better spent.

Quidditch

Last night my ward had an activity playing quidditch. It was surprisingly fun, despite what Lewis Black would say.

We had one goalie per team, three chasers (people who scored goals), two beaters (people who carried baseball bats and hit beach balls at the chasers) and one seeker (who went outside to find a hidden tennis ball). Did I mention that the whole time, every player has to hold a broom between their legs?

Yeah, it was pretty fun. And surprisingly demanding physically.

Stop changing my memories

Last night the guys and I watched The Empire Strikes Back. It is such a great movie, but every time I watch it I notice some new thing that George Lucas went back and messed up for me. Last night I noticed that Boba Fett's voice has been changed. Check it out. This is what he sounded like when I was a kid:


and this is what I heard last night:


It's just not cool. That guy has been the voice of Boba Fett for 30 years, and ol' George just went back and changed him for no good reason. All I can say is this: George, quit changing my memories. I liked Star Wars just the way it was.

Hack

Best. Hack. Ever.

Great dinner

The other day I cooked for my dinner group, and I have to say I am pretty proud of how it turned out. First, I made a soup based loosely on this recipe, adding 1/2 pound of sausage, 1/2 a green pepper, some onion, and 4 or so stalks of celery.

Then, I made bread bowls, mostly following this recipe, except that I used wheat flour instead of semolina. The bowls turned out a bit smaller than I expected, but I think that that is due to my not having a good warm place for them to rise. Even though they were slightly smaller than I expected, they were really, really good. And pretty easy to make, even if they were a bit time consuming.

Top it all off with a salad, and call it dinner. It was very enjoyable.

Cold Souls

This weekend I went to the Sundance Film Festival up in Park City, and it was really terrific. I waited in line for a couple hours to see a film called "Cold Souls" starring Paul Giamatti.

Cold Souls tells a story about Paul Giamatti (playing himself), who is struggling to separate himself from an unlikeable character he is portraying in his job as an actor. His agent tells him about a new scientific procedure to remove the soul from a person, thereby relieving the pain of a tortured soul. After much deliberation, Paul goes through with the procedure.

I won't go into more of the plot, because a big part of the enjoyment in this movie is experiencing it. All I will say is that the rest of the movie goes into some of the interesting questions about what life would be like if there were such a way to remove and replace souls.

It is not a comedy, but it does have some great, great jokes. When Paul is discussing the procedure, the doctor tells him that they can safely store the soul right there in New York or, if Paul preferred, ship it to their warehouse in New Jersey to avoid sales tax. Paul shudders at the thought of his soul being stored in New Jersey.

I was there for the premiere, which means that after the movie, the director, the crew, and several members of the cast (including Paul Giamatti) got up for a question and answer session. I didn't have any interesting questions to ask, but I just thought it was neat that they were up there willing to answer questions from fans and hopeful filmmakers.

All in all, it was an amazing movie, and I sincerely hope that it is released to a broader audience.

Dream come true

I logged into Google Reader this morning and saw the following headline: Scientists weave invisibility cloak. Seriously, folks. The future has officially come.

Reading the article reveals that it is slightly less impressive than it looks at first blush, but only slightly. The "cloak" is not something mobile that you can just wear around, but something fixed to hide a bump on a flat surface from microwaves. But the idea is there. They can bounce electromagnetic radiation off of something and make it look like it's not even there. Now that's cool. Who knows, maybe the invisible motorcycle isn't that far away...

Meetings, Agendas, and Duct Tape

So, I've got a new calling in the ward out here. I'm Sunday School president again, which is really one of my favorite callings to have (next to plain old Sunday School teacher, which I like a bit better). This morning we had stake training for all ward leaders. In my stake these are usually dreadfully boring meetings, but I went out of good faith and hope that I would be able to say something that would be useful.

Not the case.

After a brief "Hurray for us!" meeting, we split into groups (all the Sunday School presidents to one room, all the Missionary Council chairs to another room, etc). I hoped that this would be my chance to give some good input to other people in this calling, since I think I have some pretty good ideas. The meeting ended up having basically nothing to do with teaching, or helping other people teach, but instead focused on how to lead a meeting with our council (in my stake, somebody read Ballard's talk/book about councils, so they renamed all callings "council"- so instead of being a Gospel Doctrine teacher, they are members of the Gospel Teaching Council).

When Brother Johnson asked for input about how meetings should be run, I raised my hand to comment that they should be as short and efficient as possible, to allow the teachers more time to prepare better lessons. A couple words into my response, I could see Brother Johnson (and several other people in the room) scowling at my blasphemy that meetings should be short. It felt like in the movies where somebody is kidnapped, and the kidnappers take the duct tape off their mouth so they can talk to their loved ones on the phone- I tried to shout out as much information as I could for anybody who was listening before the duct tape went back on.

Giving a training on how to lead these meetings wasn't a horrible idea, but it was just so poorly done. The most memorable part was where Brother Johnson was talking about agendas. He asked if "preparing" meant we should go into a meeting with a set agenda and stick strictly to it. The obvious answer (according to him) is no. We should go into a meeting with a rough idea of what should be done, but just sort of let the meeting lead itself. "The best leaders are the ones who let the people they lead do the actual leading."

So frustrating. You can lead a Mormon to an agenda, but you can't make him drink...or have a short meeting...or something like that.

Taken

Tonight I watched Taken, with Liam Neeson. I know that it doesn't come out in American theaters for another couple weeks, but as it is a foreign film, it is already out on DVD in Europe.

I give that movie an enormous A+. As is pretty obvious from the previews, Liam's daughter is kidnapped, and he tracks her down. But what you might not get from the trailer is how amazingly awesome Liam is in this role. It's like if Jason Bourne decided to kill everyone he met, not just the other secret-spy guys.

They do a great job with this film of making the bad guys really despicable. This is important because when the good guy goes on a killing rampage (as he does in this movie), you sometimes lose the vision of him as a good guy. These bad guys are so contemptible that my only regret was that Liam couldn't have killed them more. Or more painfully. Or again.

Anyway, this movie was awesome. See it if you want to see a couple hours of awesome rampage.

Mistborn 3

Well, I finished reading Mistborn 3: The Hero of Ages this week. It was really hard to put down, so I figured that the safest thing to do was to just give in and read it as much as I had time for so that I could finish it before school got too busy.

I must say that I am extremely pleased with this book. The twists and surprises are very twisty and surprising (with a few exceptions), but not so much that I feel like Brandon was just trying to shock us. In short, satisfyingly surprising, without resorting to LOST-esque cheap shocks.

The whole idea of this series is very interesting. I can't really explain it here, because it would take too long, but I will give a brief overview. If you are someone who hates surprises, like Dad or James (who am I kidding- neither of them know how to get to my blog), read on. If you like to enjoy books, stop reading now and pick up Mistborn at the library.

Mistborn takes place in a ruined world ruled by an evil despot (so, the same setting as 2/3 of fantasy books). In the first book, a group of thieves set up an elaborate plot to overthrow the Lord Ruler, the god/emperor figure. They manage to free the slave-caste of people and kill the Lord Ruler. As he dies, he tells them that in killing him they have doomed the world. Bummer.

The second book focuses on the "now what" question that most books ignore. The world has had a thousand years with no questions about who is in charge because the Lord Ruler kept order by force, killing anybody he had to. Now that he was gone, who should rule? How do you keep order in a world whose god was just killed? The empire falls apart, with various noble families grabbing what they can and some members of the Lord Ruler's old administrative body taking power in other places. This book asks interesting questions about right and wrong ways to keep order.

In the third book, we start to find out that the Lord Ruler wasn't that bad of a guy. He was in a very tough situation and, although his actions weren't ideal, he was generally trying to do the right thing. He (and the whole world around him) were in the middle of a war between the Gods (no one else knew about this war, because they thought that the Lord Ruler himself was god). He ruled by force in order to ensure that he stayed in power, because he was the only person capable of destroying Ruin (one of the two Gods) when the time came. The story follows the same crew of criminals as the other two as they begin to discover their roles in this battle. In the end, of course, good triumphs over evil (because that's what's supposed to happen), but it's not a cheap super-happy Scooby-Doo ending.

In all of these books, Brandon Sanderson takes jabs at standard fantasy cliches. For instance, the Good Guys and Bad Guys are often related, but seem to have no qualms about killing their father, mother, best friend, etc. as long as they were on the other side. In Mistborn, you have a married couple of Good Guys talking:

"You have to admit that you're unusual, Vin.... Plus, you've managed- in our short three years together- to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiancee. That's some kind of homicidal hat trick."

I think my favorite thing about these books is how consistent they are. The way things work in the first book is the same way they work in the later books. That is not to say that there is no development, but just that there's no Harry Potter magic that works this way in one book and that way in another (but that's a rant for another post).

In conclusion to a very long post, if you haven't picked up Mistborn, you should. It's on sale for the next week or so at Barnes and Noble.

Mmm...pot roast

So, there were two great things that happened today.

First, I made a delicious pot roast. I was very proud because I've never made one before. It was surprisingly easy. First I made a rub with garlic powder, onion salt, and a couple other random spices (I think I used cumin as one). Rubbed it on the roast, seared the sides, and put in a bit of beef bullion (plus about half a packet of Lipton onion soup that I had around). I put a lid on it and simmered it for about 2 hours, then added a whole onion chopped up and 4 chopped up garlic cloves. Simmered for another hour, and added 5 quartered potatoes and 4 or 5 carrots. Simmered till the carrots were done and made gravy out of the juice.

It was really good.

The second thing was watching one of the best Robot Chicken shorts ever. I hate to post another one of these, but it's just so darn funny.