Monday, December 15. 2008
It’s currently 8:25am on Tuesday here in Australia, and I’ve just enjoyed a fantastic traditional Aussie brekkie. As they say here, “it was yuge!”
It was also mighty delicious. I could get used to roasted tomatoes, mushrooms and baked beans with my breakfast.
D just headed off to the train station to head to work, leaving me here at the cafe to take advantage of the free wifi to update y’all and to upload some photos. As promised, I’ve taken some photos of the greatest energy drink ever made:
It was really tasty, but I can’t report any kind of psychedelic effects. Bummer :)
Before heading to breakfast this morning, I watched the local news broadcasts on telly, sort of round-robining through the 3 different news stations each time they got to the sport report. The big stories this morning are that the 30th ATM in Sydney was exploded during the night (they didn’t get any cash this time, however), a famous Aussie bloke with the nickname “Chopper” was attacked by a nutter with a tomahawk, and that after months of talking up the 20-20-20 plan (reduce carbon footprint by 20% by the year 2020) was just reduced to 5%. There is apparently much protesting. Oh, also, there was great coverage of the Iraqi journalist who threw both his shoes at George W. Bush during a press conference.
I got a little bit sunburned whilst walking around yesterday, and one of my eyes is completely bloodshot after the plane flight. Now I understand why they call late night plane flights the “red-eye.” International travel tip: it is counter-intuitive, but it’s actually better to sit in the middle part of your plane’s row as opposed to the aisle. At this point I feel pretty fantastic, not at all jetlagged at all. (Other than waking up at 5am local time and unable to continue to sleep.)
No phone connection yet, but at this point I’m seriously considering just not bothering. I’m clearly rather addicted to always being connected, and it will probably do me some good to have to go out of my way to check in. Anyway, catch you later. I’ll check in later with some more things I’ve found interesting.
Friday, April 11. 2008
Dangerous animal virus on US mainland? – Yahoo! News
The Bush administration is likely to move its research on one of the
most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to
the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about a
catastrophic outbreak.
Can prehistoric mammoths now be cloned? – RussiaToday
The creature’s organs were also perfectly preserved, and its heart
could be clearly seen with the help of computer scanning techniques. Some experts hope that the perfect condition in which the body of the
mammoth was found could allow extricate intact DNA from his cells, and,
as a result, clone the animal in future.
The new Geneva collider will re-create the rapidly changing conditions in
the universe a split second after the Big Bang. It will be the closest
that scientists have come to the event that they theorize was the
beginning of the universe. They hope the new equipment will enable them
to study particles and forces yet unobserved. Artificial sperm takes men out of equation – NEWS.com.au
ARTIFICIAL human sperm could come to the aid of infertile men, according to a team of scientists who have used lab-grown sperm to inseminate female mice. Dr Engel said if sperm could be grown in the lab, it would be possible to take early germ cells from one woman, turn them into sperm cells, and use those to fertilise the egg of another woman.
Cloning long-dead species, recreating the Big Bang, making cattle viruses easier for cattle to catch, creating a man-less utopia — what could go wrong? I mean, it’s not like these scenarios haven’t all been done TO HORRIBLE EFFECT in movies, right?
This stuff boggles the mind…
Tuesday, April 8. 2008
New Species Of Infectious Disease Found In Amazon
“Hey, a new species of infectious disease! Let’s bring it home!” Yes, and be sure to cross-breed it with bird-flu and SARS-thrax too while you’re at it.
Man with suicide victim’s heart kills self
It is a well-documented fact that if you put part of a killer inside an otherwise-normal person who happens to need that part, he will become a killer as well. I mean, duh.
From now on I’m keeping my eye open for this type of story in hopes to make this a continuing series. There is just so much that the movies teach us about the world that’s completely ignored; maybe I can make a small difference, possibly preventing this type of thing in the future.
Tuesday, May 15. 2007
Gunman “Terror” Story #1 [story from Portland Cacophony Society mailing list member “Lance from France”, as none of the online stories have any information anymore]
A man went to attend a Yoga class at Linn Benton Community College this morning, wearing a plain ordinary grey trenchcoat. It was not even black, like the ones in the movie THE MATRIX.
Yet, the sight of him caused a complete panic on the campus this morning. A student imagined that he was carrying something under the coat, perhaps a sawed off shotgun. The Linn County Sheriff’s Emergency Response team rushed to the college, as well as city police officers from both Corvallis and Lebanon. The school was put in a complete lockdown.
Well, the police quickly tracked him down, and burst into the Yoga class with drawn pistols and assault rifles. It turns out the man was unarmed,
and had nothing on him. But he was immediately taken away under police escort for further questioning as to why he was wearing a trenchcoat on campus. There was video footage on TV from a news helicopter showing theofficers with him as he was being escorted. His car was also searched, but nothing was found in it either.
Although there is no indication at this time that any real threat everexisted, the college announced that it will stay in lockdown until 4:30pm today, effectively shutting the school down the entire day. Police are continuing to sweep the school as a precaution, and checking for nearby donut stands.
Gunman “Terrorism” Story #2 During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on locked door.
After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.
“I was like, ‘Oh My God,’ “ she said. “At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out.”
The first instance was a completely imagined threat blown way out of proportion by panicked school officials. The second was school officials LYING to clueless students about an imagined threat. Which one is getting all the press coverage? Which one is more outrageous?
Sure, the teachers in the second story used bad judgement and probably ought to be reprimanded somehow, but the poor guy in the first story did absolutely nothing wrong, yet was detained and questioned by the cops, and an entire school was shut down for the day. Over NOTHING
I have lots of outrage to share around, but most of it goes out towards the people behind story #1. These “better safe than sorry” reactions have got to stop.
Oh, and stop telling kids there are things to be scared of when you know perfectly well you just made them up.
Friday, April 20. 2007
Know what I find more disturbing than the reaction over the whole Don Imus thing?
The fact that over 1/6th of all the visible reactions to it are by people who think that the plural of “ho” contains an apostrophe.
187,000 people too many.
1,210,000 people know it, but that’s not nearly enough.
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