*laughing

Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass. I’ve handed in at least one essay exam much like this, except mine was on 19th century American Literature.

also – from TSG –

They sure do have a funny way of celebrating Independence Day in the City of Brotherly Love. A brochure detailing Philadelphia’s 10-day Welcome America! festivities contains quite a gaffe in its “Kid’s Corner” section. A word search puzzle–an alphabetical grid where terms like “flag” and “historic” are hidden–contains the word “nigga.” Oops! According to the Philadelphia Daily News, Welcome America!’s ad agency blames free puzzlemaking software from Yahoo! for generating the inadvertant slur (right–the proofreader bears no responsibility). In addition to “nigga,” TSG enigmatologists were able to quickly sleuth out three other offending words–all of which we’ve helpfully outlined in blue.

word puzzle

Evil news…

Shetland Pony Gives Birth to Zebra
=================================
The owners of Tilly the Shetland pony received a double shock when she gave birth. They didn’t know she was pregnant – and they certainly weren’t expecting a zebra.
Tilly’s owners at Eden Ostrich World, a modest visitor attraction on a farm near Penrith in northwestern England had been unaware of the pony’s exotic past life at a wildlife park, where she shared a field with a male zebra.
“She was fairly fat when we received her and we thought that she was getting fatter,” Ostrich World manager Karen Peet said Tuesday.

You Might Be A Redneck If You Are 19 and Still In High School
=================================
Tom Sypniewski thought his “redneck” t-shirt was funny, but school officials deemed it offensive, ordered him to remove it and are now being sued for allegedly violating his free speech rights. Sypniewski, 19, wore the shirt, which listed comic Jeff Foxworthy’s “Top 10 Reasons You Might Be A Redneck Sports Fan,” to Warren Hills Regional High School on March 22 and was told to remove it.
He refused and was suspended for three days, losing an appeal to the Board of Education in April.

Nut Protests Bad Food And Service
=================================
On 12 separate days, Jack Neu has picketed a Parma restaurant, saying the food served at his oldest son’s wedding reception was old, cold and three hours late.
And now the restaurant is serving the Cleveland man with a lawsuit.
…Neu decided to protest outside the restaurant. Neu said that some people “flip me the bird” and others point out that he misspelled “Stancato’s” on his sign.

Zoo Animals Shoot Back
=================================
The bullet that killed a 41-year-old woman walking her child at a zoo over the weekend was fired intentionally from more than 100 yards, police said Monday.
The tragedy was compounded later Saturday when Bernita White’s mother, Barbara Sims, 67, collapsed and died of a heart attack after State Police in Detroit informed her of her daughter’s death.

Branded Woman Sobers Up
=================================
Anybody that pays $5 and gets branded with the mark of a bald-headed man with a mustache and goatee can get 50 cents off any drink for life at a Tucson bar called the Meet Rack.
But a woman is suing the bar owners and the man who does the branding, claiming that she was branded near her navel with a red-hot stamp against her will.

good news, bad news, no evil news

Well, it looks as if Paul’s staying! Hm… I think that’s a good idea. Look for another job, then quit. Best time to find a job is when you have one.

I got a voicemail regarding the apartment I want, I have to call him back this afternoon. Man, why does it have to be so complicated? I’d just like to take my stuff and my cat, and just sliiiiide in.

Back on filling out work order record sheets… “Validate your existence” is what it says to me… not really bad news.. it’ll be nice to show them how much I do in a given day. Sometimes I suspect that the big cheese thinks that the programming dept does nothing 95% of the time… Right. that’s why Kevin (a guy on salary) works sometimes hours after work for no pay to get something pushed through, or why I stay past 8, for virtually no rewards.

Sing-songing –

I saw a woman chewing with nothing in her mouth;
Her teeth were in her hands and her tongue was hanging out;
Then she started drooling and caught it in a cup,
The cup was full of pennies; it spilled when she got up.

Some guy is in the shadows grabbing empty air;
He could be catching butterflies if there were any there.

I <3 the residents

fascinating collection, reprinted frem ‘s journal

A bunch of interesting web search finds. Twill probably bore you to tears, but I find it all interesting.

“Did Caucasians inhabit North America before “Native” Americans? According to the few scientists who have studied the remains of Kennewick man, a pre-Colonial humanoid skeleton, the answer to this confounding question is “yes”. Kennewick Man, along with the oldest six human remains found within present day United States of America, display Caucasian characteristics in a geographical location traditionally viewed by Americans to have supported Indians indefinitely.”
http://www.teleport.com/~mcdsandy/english/kennewick.htm

Continue reading fascinating collection, reprinted frem ‘s journal

2 words of the day – nutraceutical & blackguard

nutraceutical (noo-truh-SOO-ti-kuhl) noun, adjective

1. A food with (or believed to have) medicinal properties.

2. Pertaining to nutraceuticals.

[Blend of nutrient and pharmaceutical.]

blackguard BLAG-urg, noun:
1. A rude or unscrupulous person; a scoundrel.
2. A person who uses foul or abusive language.

adjective:
Scurrilous; abusive; low; worthless; vicious; as, blackguard language.

transitive verb:
To revile or abuse in scurrilous language.

Blackguard is from black + guard. The term originally referred to the lowest kitchen servants of a court or of a nobleman’s household. They had charge of pots and pans and kitchen other utensils, and rode in wagons conveying these during journeys from one residence to another. Being dirtied by this task, they were jocularly called the “black guard.”

I’m a singin’….


JOY TO THE WORLD

Jeremiah was a bullfrog
Was a good friend of mine
I never understood a single word he said
But I helped him a-drink his wine
And he always had a mighty fine wine
Singin’…

Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me

If I were the king of the world
Tell you what I’d do
I’d throw away the cars and the bars
And the war
Make sweet love to you
Yes I’d make sweet love to you
Sing it now…

Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me

You know I love my lady
Love to have my fun
I’m a high flyer and a rainbow rider
A straight shootin’ son-of-a-gun
I said a straight shootin’ son-of-a-gun

Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me

Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the world
Joy to you and me

Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me

Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me

I wanna’ tell you
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the blue sea
Joy to you and me

Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me

Stuff.

Drat, my free pc fell through. The person I was going to get it from is in crisis-mode, and it’s not worth bothering her over.

Ah, well, I’m going to try an make big brain work like a good boy again… probably will be my project for while my sweetheart is off on her trip. I’m going to miss her terribly while she’s gone. Plans to survive are – go to the beach, and write her a love letter every day. Lose myself in my work. Ack. so much for chatting all day with her. I’m going to flip my lid, I know it. Spend more time looking for Apartments, work on the short story, and maybe convince Danny to go out, or My brother for the fourth. It’s no use though, if I look up and see fireworks, I’ll envision her with me, holding hands. Not such a bad thing. I’m glad I carry her with me in my heart.

In other thoughts… Don’t you hate when it turns out a person whos work your so impressed with turns out to have faults and failings? I’m sorely disappointed in a few of my childhood and teen heroes…. Ben Franklin, William Burroughs, Dr. Seuss, Thomas Edison. They all were brilliant minds, but seemingly *real* jerkweeds at times too. Pesky, but I guess that comes from being human. I’m a pod person, and still can be a stinker sometimes.

Drinking Arizona Iced tea, and resuming thoughts.

Whee! just gave me a text page! Hi!

This morning, after recovering from the nightmare, I checked my mail. (BB crashed again last night. time to get and install the new ram… that’s enough.)

I got a letter from someone I’ve probably not seen in about 5-9 years. Robin Tunkel… a guy I hung out with, gamed with while I was at FAU/working at the Library. A nice enough guy, he started dating a girl after I dated her. That was weird. He found me on a gaming list… accessdenied, and is in Jacksonville now. I wonder if he’s changed as much as I have. I wrote him back, and I’ll be interested in seeing what went where. He and I both had some ugly sides to us at that I’m happy to have left in the dust… bits of shell crumbled slowly off over time. I like who I am now a lot more than who I was/Who I hung around with then.

He went through some tough times, spent a week on my floor at my old apartment, when I was in a smaller efficiency than I’m in now. A different time, short hair, tight, or no beard. A period of playing Shadowrun/GURPS/Hero System. Other folks from that time include James Dawsey (a roomie for a while), Pam, Just started hanging out with Ray and Kathleen. Just finsihed hanging out with Brent and Steve. Robin & James were some of the only friends of mine to go to my father’s funeral, years ago.

Paul is quitting here today at five. That’ll be a big bummer… he’s the most easy-going account manager I know. Diana needs to take some of his calm-lessons. Terri will suffer a great deal, as I imagine she’ll take on all of his responsibilities. Lately, they’ve been staying until 7ish at night, getting on top of some of our new jobs, but with one of them gone, it’ll be really rough.

Dream memory

I had a horrible dream last night. A freaky, nonsensical one. For some reason I was running in a underground tunnel system, with a long, deep channel of water runnning down the middle. I had a box of comic books, and some little figurines that were Newton and my sweetie (Not sure if they were really them, or just toys, but my dream mind said to protect them at any cost). There was a pack of wolves chasing me, and the tunnel was badly lit… All I could see was the wolves eyes in the dark, and echoing growls. To throw the animals off my scent, I urinated on some of the comic books… I remember taking a long time to weed out the ones I didn’t like as much… old Issues of Superboy, and tossed them down a side tunnel. I dove into the water, and swam upstream… the water seemed very clean, so I don’t think I was in a sewer. only one wolf followed me, and I savagely ripped out it’s throat when it clamped it’s mouth on my right arm. It was very vivid, and turns my stomach just thinking about it. The body I put in the water, and sent it floating downstream to the others, hoping it would make them slow down, and possibly eat him. I waded out of the water, figurines still in hand, and bright lights and a klaxon alarm went off… I began running again…Newton was on my shoulder, wearing a diving mask and a snorkel.

Then I woke up, heart racing, and in a sweat.

Yuck.

evil news

Man Faces 7 Years For NOT Selling Drugs
=================================
Dealing drugs is a dirty business. Rogelio Arroyo of Modesto learned that when he tried to pass off about 6 pounds of dirt as heroin, said Lt. Raul DeLeon, commander of the Stanislaus Drug Enforcement Agency.
Now, Arroyo faces up to seven years in state prison for trying to sell phony drugs.
“That’s a lot of money for someone trying to sell dirt.”

Lotto: You Gotta Kill To Win It
=================================
Police believe an American woman whose remains were recently unearthed in Malaysia was used as a human sacrifice in a ritual to obtain lottery numbers from the spirits, newspapers reported.

Bank Robber Passes Out Money
=================================
A guard at a Turkish state bank robbed his own cashiers and distributed $25,000 to passers-by in what police said was a response to the planned closure of the bank.

Japanese Ace Launches Surprise Attack On Parked Car
=================================
A Japanese fighter jet conducting training Monday on the northern island of Hokkaido mistakenly fired its machine guns, hitting a car parked nearby.The gunfire also pierced the roof of the garage at the rehabilitation where the car was parked but did not hit a minibus as earlier reported, police spokesman Akihiro Ishikawa said.

Leaders Encourage Teen Boys to Buy a Lot of Beer and Girls
=================================
Just days after a phony legislative memo urged female pages to dress provocatively, the heads of South Carolina’s two major political parties told teen boys college money received from the state could “buy a lot of beer and girls.”
Democrat Dick Harpootlian and Republican Henry McMaster made their comments at the annual Boys State leadership event for some 800 high schools seniors on June 11, The (Columbia) State reported Saturday, quoting the Boys State newspaper, The Citizen Times.
Harpootlian noted that qualified high school graduates could get $4,500 for college from the state lottery. “That can buy a lot of beer and girls,” he said. “Democrats are for beer and girls,” McMaster responded. “Republicans are for cold beer and hot girls.”
McMaster later said he was trying to get the teens’ attention before discussing issues like gun control and education.

Woman Keeps Mom’s Corpse For 6 Years
=================================
According to authorities, a woman in San Luis Obispo kept her mother’s corpse as a housemate for six years.
Officers went to the residence and were invited inside by a 63-year-old woman later identified as the dead woman’s daughter.
Once in the home, police immediately noticed a strong unpleasant odor, reports said. After a cursory search, they discovered the source of the stench: A decomposing body.
An autopsy revealed that the body belonged to the owner of the home, who appeared to have died in February 1995, when she was 95.
Authorities said that the dead woman’s daughter had left her right where she’d taken her last breath — in bed.

Chubby is contagious?
=================================
Sitting next to an obese person may have greater repercussions than loss of personal space. A human virus that turns skinny roosters into chubby chickens is contagious, US researchers have shown. The overweight birds are causing a re-examination of the controversial idea that obesity could be catching.

Man Killed For Not Using 1-800-COLLECT
=================================
An exploding pay phone on the West Bank yesterday killed an Islamic militant singled out by Israel as a top terror suspect.
Osama Jawabri, 29, was killed when he tried to make a call at a public pay phone he often used on a square near his house in Nablus.
The explosion blew the phone booth to smithereens and sprayed shrapnel across the square.