Never gonn give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you

Best Part of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade:



Cartoon Network just Rick Rolled a nation, ladies and gentlemen. Classic. They're my heroes.

Hava nagila ve nis'mecha

In recognition of being a month from Hanukkah, I present you with the absolute worst "Hebrew" videos of all times for the song favorited by both you and me.... Hava Nagila

WTF Slut Hava Nagila...


Indian Hava Nagila
(I think they stole their dance from MC Hammer)



A Hard Day's Hava
(just wait for the old lady to toss her panties on stage...)



Hand fart Hava Nagila

Meet me at the altar in your white dress / we ain't gettin' no younger, we might as well do it

There's been a lot of controversy surrounding the gay marriage issue over the last few years. As you most likely know, Prop 8 just passed in California, changing the State Constitution to define marriage as an act between a man and a woman, thus overriding the decision made earlier in the year about the Supreme Court.

I found the following graph helpful in explaining the consequences of gay marriage. I think it paints a very clear picture as to why Prop 8 passed in California.



Wait... why did Prop 8 pass?

I live in America with a pair of Payless shoes / The Upper Peninsula and the television news

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is a diverse society of people. I've gathered that there is some sort of disconnect between the UP and the "hand" that is the rest of Michigan. Of course, this disconnect also seems to be between the UP and Wisconsin. I'm not really sure why that is. Nonetheless, from my nonextensive travels in the UP, I have gathered that Yoopers are fairly conservative small-town folk who have a strong affinity for the Green Bay Packers, shooting forest animals, and eating pasties.

That being said, I'm currently eating chocolate in the shape of the UP, thanks to my favorite Jonathan who brought it back for me last time he was up in Escanaba. Be it a Yooper bar or Macinac Island Fudge, the UP is okay in my book for its production of chocolate and sweets.

We fail to represent, we fail to be content, we fail at everything we ever even try to attempt

Juggles and I were hanging out for a few minutes before he headed to class and I to the library. He made mention that it seems that everything that we perceive as stable turns to chaos, while everything we think is up-in-the-air usually ends up having a logical pattern. He started talking about his summer -- school, women, work, and frisbee -- drawing examples of both the chaos and the calm from the various subjects.

For some reason, his mention of the chaos and calm triggered a great fear into me of "What Happens Next?" I don't know why it hit me so hard today, but it was a reminder that this graduate school phase is so volatile. We all are here together, then suddenly we are not. Once you start getting comfortable, it's torn out from under you.

Of course I have some ideas of what I'd like to do and where I'd like to go at the end, but it's entirely possible that the economy will be so bad that I'll have to move back in with ma' and pa' because a) there will be no jobs for me, and b) little money will be given to research, thus putting a damper on PhD funding.

So, I walked Juggles to class, fairly silently as I was processing this stuff. Then I had my head tipped down as I was walking toward the Diag when I suddenly felt an arm hard in my stomach. It was Steve passing by on his way home from lab. He scared the crap out of me. The thing with Steve is that he's flighty and filled with laughter, but somehow still solid -- making his opinion worth a lot. He somehow has this way of clearing my mind, even when he doesn't know there's something on it. I'm glad I've gotten to know him over the past 6 months. I told him what was on my mind in small detail, and he somehow worked his Steve magic by mocking me and whatever. Walking away, I continued my thought process, realizing that it's really not worth freaking out about now... There's nothing I can really do.

I arrived at the library and knew what had to happen. Before I started writing my presentation, I had to listen to the following song... Because it always makes thinking about the future a little bit easier, and reminds me of home.

I’m on fire and now I think I’m ready to bust a move
Check it out I’m rocking steady
Go!

Betty won’t stop listening to modern rock
How she hates to be alone
I try to compensate her lack of love with coffee cake
Ice cream and a bottle of ten dollar wine she says hey
I rock the Haro sport
I rock the cow girl blues
I rock too fast for love I’m footloose in my Velcro shoes
What’s up with Will and Grace?
I don’t get drum and bass
The future freaks me out

I’m on fire and now I think I'm ready to bust a move
Check it out I’m rocking steady
To the beat in my head
It goes oh, oh-oh-oh
I know that she’s the only one
I’d rather waste our time together
Yeah, ‘cause we can get down

Betty can’t quit carving question marks in my wrist
How come we’re so alone
We waste away the days with nicotine and television samples
From an era we hate to admit we embrace
We fail to represent
We fail to be content
We fail at everything we ever even try to attempt
And so the story goes
As only Betty knows
It’s time to take control
(Get Down)

I’m on fire and now I think I'm ready to bust a move
Check it out I’m rocking steady
To the beat in my head
It goes oh, oh-oh-oh
I know that she’s the only one
I’d rather waste my time with her

Betty, I need you
I miss you
I’m so alone without you
To call up on the weekends with my cellular phone

Betty it’s so hard to relate
To the whole human race
I don’t know where to begin
I don’t know where to begin
If we can both find a way
To do the things that we say
We might not sit in our rooms
And drink our daydreams away
Betty, I’m a dreamer
I’m not a vicious schemer
Oh Betty won’t you.. ah fuck it

I’m on fire and now I think I'm ready to bust a move
Check it out I’m rocking steady
To the beat in my head
It goes oh, oh-oh-oh
I know that she’s the only one
I’d rather waste our time together
Yeah, ‘cause we can get down.

Motion City Soundtrack, "The Future Freaks Me Out"

Rah rah rah for ski-u-mah.... ?

One positive thing is that Michigan finally won another football game. Unfortunately, it was against Minnesota.

im in yur pollz, votin' fer change.

Happy Election Day! One hopes this day will end in joy.



That aside, I am writing this post to report my newfound love for all-things pumpkin-flavored. Ever since Geoff got pumpkin pancakes at IHOP a couple of weeks ago, I've wanted to seek out such delight for my own meal. However, time has been an issue. So, this morning, I bought a pumpkin pie latte. Let me tell you: delicious! MmmMm!

Sweet surrender / is all that I have to give

If I ever get hitched, I'm getting my cake from Cake Noveau.

Check out some of these designs!










I'd have to get hitched in an art gallery in order for those cakes to fit in. That's a whole lotta MmMmmmmmMmmm!

I believe I can fly; I believe I can touch the sky....

Two things.

1. After many years of experimentation and observation, I have deduced that it is absolutely impossible to look "cool," "slick," or even "normal" while running with your backpack on.
   
   
2. Genetics is a great field that everyone in my generation should be interested in if, for the only reason, because there is a gene called Sonic Hedgehog (that regulates many aspects of embryonic development). There is also a protein called Pikachurin that is named after a Pokemon character. Also, of note, is a transposon (a "jumping gene" that moves around the genome) named after Michael Jordan -- the Jordan transposon. Yes, peers, genetics is cool.

Your love is like a rollercoaster, baby baby, I wanna ride....

Sometimes it's difficult to explain ourselves to older generations. I think my parents look at my generation, in general, as immature and lacking work ethic. But, I believe that's truly because we are the MTV generation. We're the video game generation. We maybe didn't have as much expected of us while we were growing up as other generations because we were playing sports or learning the violin or away at summer camp while our parents were busy working. But we learned to bask in leisure, much like other generations learned to get their butt in gear working... because we had to!

Anyway, the above cartoon summarizes falling in love... for my generation. Give us women/men with playpen balls 3' deep in their living rooms, and we will give them our hearts and souls!

The chemicals between us / the walls that lie between us / lying in this bed that chemicals displaced

So, bisphenol-A (BPA) is a huge deal, right? It's in pretty much all of the plastics you use, especially as food and beverage containers, as well as dental sealants. Heating and cooling of the molecules releases carcinogens. BPA is associated with diabetes, liver enzyme disorders, and CVD. (See, September 2008 JAMA. We're currently doing some research on its association with polycystic ovarian disease, and it's thought to be associated with many other endocrine and metabolic disorders.

The good news is that Nalgene, maker of my favorite 32 oz colorful water bottles, has a new product -- the Everyday bottle -- made of Eastman Tritan copolyester, which can be thrown in the dishwasher or microwaved, heated, cooled, all that great stuff. So, I bought two -- a blue one and a red one. Because, quite frankly, I keep Nalgene bottles everywhere -- in lab, in my backpack, in my frisbee bag, and at home.



Yea Nalgene!

Midterms are in full swing. Yikes! Wish me luck.

Happy birthday yesterday, Kevin. And happy birthday today, Mom!

Last weekend. Grand Haven.

Talkin' blues, talkin' blues; they say your feet is just too big for your shoes

I have about a gazillion little things to catch up on over the weekend since I don't have a lot of free time during the week. This said, I also like to have a chance to go and hang out with friends, as well, since I also don't see many of my friends now that our HME classes are separate from the General Epid and IH students.

So, yesterday was a huge errand day. Sure, I could have gotten more accomplished than I did, but I also wanted to do a few things to decompress and relax. This meant that today, Sunday, is my busy day. I gave myself an approximate schedule and even set my alarm this morning so I could get up and get moving. My first stop was the laundry room to deposit two loads of laundry in the washer, then I planned on coming up immediately to start the ruggelach dough (I decided I wanted to try my hand at making chocolate ruggelach, and decided this weekend was a good time for it). From there, homework, some cleaning, some more laundry, frisbe, dinner with Juggles, more homework, and eventually bed (preferably sometime before midnight).

So, stop one. Laundry room. Throw some clothes in the washer and, as I'm about to go upstairs, this man who is down there at the dryer goes, "So, how about that $700 Billion bailout?" This justifies a response, I guess, even though it's over and done with so why bother to bitch too much. So I say something to the effect of, "Yeah, unfortunate, isn't it?" BAD FREAKING MOVE! Apparently this warrants a 40 minute conversation, probably 35 minutes of which was the crazy man, speaking about how it's the people's faults and they shouldn't have taken out the money and going off about everything from California finances and how wrong any slightly socialist reform (welfare, etc) is in his mind. I was livid for a short while and threw my two cents in until I realized that I had an agenda and grew annoyed with this man's inability to shut the heck up. I mean, sure, he made some decent points but, being a Native American, he maybe shouldn't bitch about the welfare system and maybe should pay attention to the fact that no, 7-year olds do NOT make choices about their education, their parents do. Yadda yadda. Free will and capitalism and all that BS.

He eventually sensed my growing annoyance and left me alone, as my washer cycle was drawing to a finish anyway.

Lesson: I need to learn graceful tactics to escape awkward situations like such.tg

Money, it's a crime / Share it fairly but dont take a slice of my pie.

Over the last few decades, women have started to take over the sciences. There are still some fields that are heavy in the Y-chromosomes -- certain engineering specialties mostly, maybe physics -- but, women have really made a huge break into fields like biology, chemistry, and even math.

Though it's clear that there are a lot more higher degrees granted to women nowadays, where have all the men gone?

Business school.

Really, when you think about it, it's a good place for the Type A men-breed who were formerly obsessed with the status and fame related to inventions and such in science. B-school creates men of power and leadership who are destined to make a ton of money. Also, it seems like they don't have to work nearly as hard for it. They just have to wear their Striped Shirts, carry around their two thousand dollar laptops (more power than they will ever need) in their leather briefcases, drive their Audis Beamers, and be willing to shell out $60K a year (in-state) for tuition to one of the top B-Schools in the nation.

My very educated mother just served us nine pizza pies

Yup. Happened to me. Well, not that, specifically, but something similar. Probably involving something else scientific. Maybe ending in a breakup, mutual end to an otherwise good friendship, sumo suit throwdown, or reason to put scorpions in someone's bed because they just don't think right.

Just sayin', this science stuff is serious.