lambaste lam-BAYST, transitive verb:
1. To give a thrashing to; to beat severely.
2. To scold sharply; to attack verbally; to berate.

Lambaste is perhaps from lam, “to beat soundly; to thrash” + baste, “to beat vigorously.”

watching “when bears attack” …

then going to bed. night night lj world.

My poor sweetie’s machine must’ve fallen down.

I hope she comes back! ( we’ve had two games of AOK crud out on us)

In other news, still no machine, and no word from Astley since 9:30 am… but ?I’ve been pestering him. My last call, a 1 minute talk into his voice mail was pretty terse… he knows now beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s in deep dung.

I’m not really mad, but I am so disappointed in him. Not much I can do about it… I’m just going to go to his place, pick up my machine, and demand my money back. It was a simple fix, and I could’ve done it myself 17 times over. (My whole reason for him to do it was cheaper hardware prices and he’d hook it up… well…the cheaper hardware seems to be defective, as does the installer.)

If I didn’t have the laptop, I’d be so steamed… thank goodness for that. I know now not to use him again.

I feel unattractive today. Sort of rough around the edges. Despite this, I’m going to reactivate newt cam via the laptop, for how long, nobody knows. 🙂 Tweaking chillcam to plop my desktop into the achives every 10 min or so too.

A nap might do me some good.

I wonder if lj is up and working, now that laundry and playtime with Newtie is done.

we shall see!

My baby vanished, so I guess no is as good a time as any to gather my laundry and to do it.

Hope LJ gets better soon!

Goodie goodie gumdrops! As part of their fall schedule,Fox will be airing 22 new episodes of The Family Guy, one of TV’s most underrated comedies. The only real problem with the show is that in order to follow it at all, you need to have grown up in the 70s or 80s watching ridiculous amounts of television (check and check).

How long has LJ been down for, this time?

I know what you’ve been thinking: “Yeah, Iron Chef is okay and all, but wouldn’t it be a whole lot better with Captain Kirk presiding over it?” Fear no more, The mighty UPN is going to give you your wish.

for you .:)

found via

http://www.philosophers.co.uk/games/check.htm

No tensions! 0%

The PHC has detected no tensions in your thinking.

There are a number of possible reasons for such occurrence:

1. You have a very consistent set of beliefs;
2. You have very few beliefs – and consequently answered none or only a few of the questions!
3. You’ve done this test before!

first time test taker, answered all questions.

Are flamingos pink because they eat shrimps? And if so, what other animals have their pigmentation altered by what they eat?

Cecil replies:

For once the old man leveled with you. Flamingos are in fact pink because they eat shrimps, which contain a red pigment. I confess this knowledge causes me some distress, because it reinforces the cartoon view of the universe, which I learned at an early age to distrust. In cartoons, exploding bombs merely blacken your face, a character who runs off a cliff can pinwheel in midair for several seconds before plunging earthward, and if you drink a bottle of red ink you’ll turn red. Common sense (or painful experience) soon teaches us the truth about shrapnel and gravity. But drinking that red ink? It’s honest to God the way the world works.

What we’re talking about here is a class of plant-derived compounds called carotenoids–that is, carotene and its chemical cousins. People who are regular Straight Dope readers–heck, people who are regular breathers–are familiar with carotenoids, which have many useful properties, the most notable of which is that carotene is a precursor of vitamin A. Beta carotene, found in so-called cruciform (Latin for “icky”) vegetables such as broccoli and turnip greens, is thought to prevent cancer. More relevant to this discussion is the fact that carotenoids tend to be a persistent red orange in color. Depending on formulation, they impart a red, pink, orange, yellow, or even green cast to some plants and to the higher links in the food chain by which those plants are consumed–and thank goodness, because it would be a dull world otherwise. Examples:

Wild flamingos are pink because they eat carotene-containing brine shrimps (one species) or blue-green algae (another species). Lacking such food in zoos, they turn white unless fed caroteniferous substitutes–carrots, beets, or red peppers in the old days, or the additive canthaxanthin today.

Salmon caught in the wild are orange because of their diet of crustaceans that contain carotenoid. The flesh of farm-raised salmon, which don’t feed on crustaceans, is an unappetizing gray unless the fish are given the carotenoid astaxanthin.

Carotenoids are often found in conjunction with chlorophyll, the chemical that makes plants green. When chlorophyll production stops in autumn, the green fades but the carotenoids remain, turning tree leaves red and orange.

Normal human skin color doesn’t derive from carotene. However, Straight Dope readers know that (1) if they eat enough carrots (which, duh, contain carotene), they’ll turn orange, and (2) if they have no interest in eating vegetables but would still like to be orange, they can take beta carotene pills providing 10 to 30 times the normal dietary amount. This is done in the ill-founded belief, apparently common among northern Europeans, that the resultant color resembles a suntan and will cause people to think, “Ach, Fritz, you look like you chust got back from der Riviera.” On the contrary, you look like you’ve got hepatitis B.

“The plumage of canaries can be changed from yellow to red if they are fed paprika during molt.” This comes from Straight Dope curator of birds George Angehr, who says he got it from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Ornithology. Knowing George as a kid would have added a whole new dimension to pet ownership.

George also reports that the “bloodsucking bug Rhodnius as well as several species of tapeworm derive their porphyrin pigments from the heme unit in the hemoglobin of their host.” This has nothing to do with carotene but does indicate that the stuff isn’t the only pigment in the world and also gives my assistant Jill the opportunity to remark, “Edith, what are you feeding that tapeworm of yours to give it that healthy glow?”
Nature abounds with other examples of carotenoid-based pigments, which can be found in egg yolks, oranges, butter, tomatoes, mangoes, and many other fruits and vegetables, all of which can be used to generate an array of exciting party colors in your higher vertebrates. But why stop with yellow, orange, pink, and red? I’m thinking of those blue-green algae. A little carotene, a little chlorophyll, and whoa, you’re walking into the next sock hop the color of a kelp.