Last night, I decided to watch The O'Reilly Factor, because Jon Stewart was going to be on, and I wanted to see him verbally kick O'Reilly's ass. In this I was not disappointed. However, in order to see the first part of the interview, I had to sit through about twenty minutes of show. Twenty rage-inducing minutes.

The show started off with O'Reilly talking about a DailyKos poll which found that 39% percent of self-identified Republicans believe that Obama should be impeached, 63% believe that Obama is a socialist, and only 42% believe that Obama was born in the US. He questions the validity of the poll, saying: "Don't get too excited, their polls aren't usually accurate. Their poll in Massachusetts had the Senate race too close to call." Because pre-election opinion polls always neatly mirror the results of the elections. Margin of error? What's that?

O'Reilly brings Karl Rove on. Rove talks about how Obama has a "thin skin" and can't stand to have people criticizing him. Then he talks about how the polling firm who conducted the DailyKos poll had Martha Coakley beating Scott Brown in the Massachutsetts senate race. (...wait, I thought it was 'too close to call'? Are they talking about different polls?)
Then Rove mentions "an interesting poll" where someone tallied the amount of profanity used on liberal and conservative blogs, and how DailyKos was at the top of the list for the liberal blogs. WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYHING.
Rove: "We're being lectured to about what's appropriate by people, who, y'know generate four-letter-words on their blog all the time."
OH NOES, NOT DIRTY WORDS. Using dirty words obviously precludes any sort of intelligent or thoughtful commentary, and therefore everything the DailyKos says is irrelevant and untrue!

Then, Karl Rove questions the methodology of the study:
Rove: They just simply said: 'Do you think President Obama was born in the United States?' Only 30% said 'no he wasn't.' But by saying your choices are: 'Yes he was', 'No, he wasn't', or 'I don't know', I mean, they sort of drove things to these-*gets cut off by O'Reilly...who agrees with him*
The reason those were listed as the only choices was because THEY WERE THE ONLY CHOICES! Either you believe the president was born in the United States, or you don't (or you don't know). There are no other answers, unless you think that President was born in some sort of extra-dimensional netherworld which technically occupies the same space as some part of the United States, in which case 'I don't know' still pretty neatly covers things.
Rove again: "Part of what we get in this poll is there's no cost in saying 'yeah, I don't like what the president's doing.' There's no cost, particularly when you start putting in a whole series of these negative comments in there and allow people to just bloviate."
WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

I think what Rove was trying to say was that, given the anonymity of the participants of opinion polls, they could have just lied their asses off and said they thought Obama was born outside the U.S. just for a lark and/or because they were angry at the president, knowing that there wouldn't be any consequences. If so, that's a danger in any poll, and can't really be used as a specific criticism of this one. Plus, I doubt that a few people giving false answers would have a significant impact on this poll (although I have no idea how many people were involved).

Then Rove starts talking about how people from all levels of the political spectrum have criticized the president. I still have no idea what this has to do with the poll in question, because the poll is not about criticizing Obama, it's about the prevalence of belief in obvious falsehoods about him. O'Reilly says something about how the point of the poll is to demonize Tea Party people and anyone who's not a liberal.

At this point, I realized I was only eight minutes into the show and I was already yelling at the TV screen. I did manage to get through the remaining amount of show before the interview, but if I ranted about every other stupid thing that was said during that time, this entry would be an even bigger mass of tl;dr.

Congratulations Bill (and Karl)...I had no idea it was possible to cram that much stupidity into eight minutes of airtime. Well done.

From The Guardian:

Dictionaries have been removed from classrooms in southern California schools after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for "oral sex".

Merriam Webster's 10th edition, which has been used for the past few years in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (for children aged nine to 10) in Menifee Union school district, has been pulled from shelves over fears that the "sexually graphic" entry is "just not age appropriate", according to the area's local paper.

The dictionary's online definition of the term is "oral stimulation of the genitals". "It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature," district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper.

I honestly cannot think of anything to say to this other than: ARE YOU SERIOUS? You're banning that dictionary because, OH NOES, it has "dirty" words in it!? As one parent points out the in the article, you might as well ban encyclopedias because they have information about penises and vaginas*.

ETA: Also: "...we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature." Now I'm imagining all the school district's administrators clustered around the dictionary, looking up dirty words and giggling XD.


*Okay seriously Firefox, why is 'vaginas' not a word? What's the correct plural of 'vagina', then? 'Vaginii'? Or does it just stay 'vagina' like 'moose' or 'sheep'?

From Politico:

The Supreme Court on Thursday opened wide new avenues for big-moneyed interests to pour money into politics in a decision that could have a major influence on the 2010 midterm elections and President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

The long-awaited 5-4 decision overruled all or parts of two prior rulings by the court that allowed governments to restrict corporations and unions from spending their general funds on ads expressly urging a candidate’s election or defeat. But the decision upheld disclosure requirements for groups like the one that brought the case.

...President Obama led a chorus of Democrats and public interest groups attacking the decision, saying in a statement that the court “has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” and vowing that he will work with congressional leaders “to develop a forceful response.”

“It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans,” the president said. “This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington—while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates."

So much for "balancing the wrongs with your rights"*.



*LOL, gratuitous Schoolhouse Rock clip.

So, the city of Port-au-Prince is a disaster area, people have lost their homes, their businesses, their friends and family, and even the most basic of necessities are almost-impossible to obtain. Thousands (hundreds of thousands, really) of people are dead or injured. You have a chance to help out the people of Haiti, do you:

A) Donate to one of the organizations on the ground in Port-au-Prince.
B) Send food/water/supplies (assuming the plane carrying them will even be allowed to land.)
C) Waste money that you could've spent sending food or donating money on a bunch of essentially useless solar-powered techno-junk and send that instead.

The answer, obviously, is C:

AS international aid agencies rush food, water and medicine to Haiti's earthquake victims, a US faith-based group is sending Bibles to Haitians in their hour of need.

Not just any Bible.

These are solar-powered audible Bibles that can broadcast the holy scriptures in Haitian Creole to 300 people at a time.

Called the "Proclaimer," the audio Bible delivers "digital quality" and is designed for "poor and illiterate people", the Faith Comes By Hearing group said.

According to their website, the Proclaimer is "self-powered and can play the Bible in the jungle, desert or ... even on the moon!"

The Albuquerque-based organisation said 600 of the devices were already on their way to Haiti.

I'm not saying that it's wrong to try and give comfort to suffering people, but I think they'd be a lot more comforted by, say, having adequate food, water, and medical supplies/treatment, than by having Bible verses blasted at them. Maybe I'm wrong.

Also, and this is the least offensive thing about this article, but your product works on the moon? In a vacuum?

Went to the dentist this morning. I think this is probably the first time in my life I have ever desperately wanted to go to the dentist XD. I got my teeth cleaned, and I need to go back next month to have one of my fillings redone. Fun times. Oh god, I still have another hour until I can brush this stupid fluoride coating off. It feels like my teeth are coated in dried glue.

Anyway, here's a meme, ganked from uglyduckling_me:

Answer the following 12 questions about yourself:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you?
12. Your username?

Type your answer to each of the above questions into FLICKR's search. Using only the images that appear on the first page, choose your favorite and copy and paste each of the URLs into the MOSAIC MAKER (3 columns, 4 rows).

( Mosaic and photo credits are under here... )

I am so tired. I didn't sleep last night...instead, I stayed up and did battle with a computer virus. And I was victorious! Um...I think. Nasty bugger, though.

Anyway, I let the rats free-range around the living room for the first time a few days ago. Of course, as soon as I let my attention wander, Arthur ran down the stairs and hid under a dresser in the basement. Fortunately, he decided to come back upstairs soon afterward. I still remember what a pain it was to dig Milo out from under that dresser =P. I also moved all the boys in together in one big cage (which I spent approximately four hours cleaning beforehand XD). They love it...I find them sleeping in the tunnels (sometimes preventing other rats from getting in or out by sleeping in the entrances to the tunnels XD), and all curled up together in their giant igloo, and using the scraps of fleece I gave them as a toilet rather than using them as bedding as I intended XD.

Also, my final (really very late) Christmas present arrived on Thursday! My Axis Powers Hetalia shirt. Or, as my mother misread it: Axis Powers Metallica XDD I loled so hard. And then I had to explain Hetalia to her...which was interesting XD.

Speaking of Hetalia (yyyeeeahh...can you tell I'm a bit obsessed at the moment? XD), Apparently the anime has just been licensed in the U.S.!. I kind of have mixed feeling about this, because the company who licensed it was Funimation...who I kind of have a deep loathing for XD. Although I am curious to see what everyone's English voices sound like. Also, this means the manga might be licensed as well...and right after I got my Japanese copy of the first volume! Gah. (Note to self: If you want an anime/manga to be licensed in the U.S., just tell multiple people that it will never be licensed in the U.S. XD)

Oh yeah, happy 2010! Ha, I totally forgot it was a new year...even though I spent new year's with a group of friends making dirty jokes, playing card games (I am the king of Revolution!) and eating German gummy snacks and vegetarian pizza XD. Good times.

Okay, it is off to bed now, I believe.

I had a fantastic Christmas! I got a few books (The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins, Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne, The Spy Who Haunted Me by Simon R. Green, and Leviathan by Scott Westerfield (A WWI AU with steam-powered machines and genetically engineered beasts, not to be confused with the politcal/sociological/religious/what have you writings of Thomas Hobbes, which is what my brother thought it was at first XDD). I also got the first volume of the Hetalia manga, which I love, despite the fact that it's in Japanese, which I, um...don't read at all XD (That's what online scanlations are for!). I also got an awesome t-shirt with PZ Myers riding a squid, fighting Ken Ham riding a T-Rex, and some giftcards and money. But my favorite presents are the books (and the money, which I can use to buy more books) XD. I rearranged my entire bookshelf just so I could fit them on it. My poor bookshelf XD.

And the rats got some 60% cacao Ghirardelli squares (and a couple yogurt-covered hazelnuts) They love dark chocolate XD. But they can't have too much of it. They'll also be moving to a larger cage, as soon as I get off my lazy ass and clean out Ollie and Milo's old cage properly XD.

Rin and I hung out on Christmas. I went over to her house and watched her play Katamari Forever and Borderlands (I couldn't really play anything, because I had a blister on my thumb from trying to play Streets of Rage/II on the Wii, using a Gamecube controller. NEVER AGAIN. That D-pad is murder on my left thumb =P). Also, I just remembered I totally forgot to give her the picture I drew her for Christmas XDD; whoops.

Anyway, here's a few sort of chrimassy pictures of the rats:
( Seven maids a' milking, six maids a milkiing, FIIIIIVE MAIDS A' MILKING! )

And now, I'm off to attempt to draw/write something. Or maybe play video games since we just got our (repaired and upgraded!) PS3 back XD.

The house is freezing. Especially my room, which is the coldest room in the house no matter what the weather is. I swear to god, If it had been any colder in there last night, I would've been able to see my breath. I ended up sleeping under three comforters, a flannel sheet, and a fleece blanket, while curled into a tiny ball and wearing my fleece robe XD. And gloves. And two pairs of socks. If it's the same tonight, I'm going to have to throw a towel or a blanket over the rat cages to keep out the draughts, because it was fucking ridiculous in there. It probably would've been warmer if I'd had my window open. Sheesh.

Also, the PS3 broke. Again. My brother said it was some kind of hardware problem, so we're sending it in to be repaired (and to get a hard drive upgrade!). Which will hopefully only take a few days. (If we were sending it in to Sony, it would take weeks.)

Dash is much, much better. He's gained quite a bit of weight, and is well on his way to becoming the pudgy little rat he should have been all along XD. BUT...the other rats have started sneezing quite a bit...it may just be the draughty air coming in through my window (which really needs better weather stripping), but...yeah. Felix has been less active than normal lately, so I'm worried that he caught whatever Dash had. So all the rats need to go to the vet. Sigh. I should really move their freaking cages somewhere less cold and horrible. At least they're high off the ground in my room (and not right next to the freaking window, like my bed is.

...Firefox is telling me that 'draughty' is not a word, and I just realized it's because I'm using the British spelling XD. Whatever, I like it better.

1. Dashiell's doing much better, but he's still not 100%. He'll be done with his meds after tomorrow, and hopefully that'll be the end of it. I'm just worried that he's so small and skinny, and he's still a bit pale. But he has a lot more energy than before...he's been getting in dominance scuffles with the other boys lately, and he keeps pinning Ozzy (who probably weighs 3 times as much as he does XD). I think he's put on a bit of weight thanks to the leftover turkey I've been feeding him. Those rats go nuts for turkey, it's ridiculous XD. It's the only food which they will pass up peas for. But I still need to get him some Ensure. And maybe Pedialyte, because I'm not sure how much water he's been drinking. (I never see either Dash or Arthur drink. I know that at least one of them is drinking, because the water level in their bottle gets lower, but I've only ever actually seen either of them drink like, twice since I've gotten them. Weird.)

2. Rin and I went to this cool independent bookshop last week. It's called The Haunted Bookshop (and no, not because it's haunted...it's named after a book by Christopher Morley XD), and apparently it's existed for years, but I'm a recluse who rarely leaves her house and knows nothing about the city she's lived in for her entire life XD. It was a great shop...they had a really good selection of fiction and a decent non-fiction section. They even had a couple of adorable shop cats! They also had a lot of older books, which were printed in the 40s and 20s, and which I would have loved to have bought (I was seriously considering getting The Pickwick Papers, which I've never read, despite having had a rat who was named for the main character XD), but I was afraid that the rats would chew on them XD. Plus I still have no space on my bookshelf. I ended up getting a volume containing the first three books in Simon R. Green's Nightside series, since I regrettably owned none of them. Now I really have no shelf space.

3. I'm so freaking behind on every show that I watch XD. Except House XD. And Hetalia. But I haven't watched any of Fringe since it started up again, and I'm behind on Glee (yes, I watch Glee. Shut up XD), and a million other things. My poor DVR is groaning with unwatched episodes XD. I'm also behind on shows that I download...I've still only watched the first episode of Merlin season 2, and I've been ignoring the new season of Top Gear. And now QI's started up again. GAAAAAH. WHY CAN'T THERE BE MORE TIME FOR TV-WATCHING?! And how do I not have enough time for TV-watching in the first place? It's not like I actually do anything during the day, other than work on my comic.

4. Speaking of said comic, it's coming along pretty nicely. I've got rough drafts for three chapters/stories/cases/whatevers, and I'm in the process of typing up (since I can't read my own handwriting XD) and revising/fleshing out the first chapter. I've also got an outline for a third chapter which I want to put in there (but I have no idea how long the first two chapters will end up being, so we'll see). I've got designs for all the major characters (and most of the minor ones), and I've been taking pains to try and develop all the characters properly, since character development is a major weak point for me. Actually, I think writing in general is a bit of a weak point for me XD. I'm really selling this potential comic, aren't I? XDD Mayhaps my writing would improve if I stopped staying up all night to write the rough drafts of my chapters XD. But that seems to be the only way I get them done, because I have the attention span of a baked potato, and if I don't focus on one thing at a time, my mind flits around like a hummingbird with restless wing syndrome.

5. I'm in a weird mood today. I think it's the lack of sleep.

So I watched a bit of America Before Columbus last night...it wasn't really that exciting. In fact, the most interesting part was the description of the program that DirecTV gave me:

"Evidence reveals that the country had millions of inhabitants before Europeans arrived."

I mean, I personally had no idea that there were indigenous people--or, as I call them "Native Americans"-- living in this country before it was colonized by Europeans. Thank god the evidence "revealed" this astounding revelation!

I wonder what happened to these "Native Americans"? I sure hope we didn't take their land, wipe most of them out, and expose them to diseases that they'd never been exposed to before, thereby killing even more of them, and then offer them reservations to live on as consolation for the havoc we wrought upon their land and their lifestyle. That would've been kind of a dick move.

Rin and I took Dashiell to the vet yesterday, because he hasn't been doing so well lately. The vet thinks he has a respiratory infection or possibly pneumonia, so he's on a course of antibiotics in a meat-flavored vitamin solution for a couple weeks. Which he hates taking XD. I have to have someone else hold Dash while I squirt medicine into his mouth, which means I have to wake up at 7AM so that I can give Dash his morning dose at a time when someone else is home. Plus I've been feeding him baby food every few hours (since he hasn't been eating very well). And I haven't really been sleeping very well this week, so I'm exhausted today XD; It's worth it if it makes Dash feel better, though. He seems to be doing a bit better today, but I'm not sure if that's because of the meds or because I've been making an effort to make sure he eats and drinks properly. Maybe a bit of both.

Also, I finally figured out that I could email myself pictures from my cell phone (and I've had this phone how long?) so now I've got a bunch of crappy (but adorable) pictures of ratties past. I've been panicking about getting my pictures off my phone lately because my mom's phone (the same model as mine, but slightly older) died unexpectedly a couple months ago, and I didn't really have any way of getting photos off my phone (I have a micro SD card, but it got stuck in my phone and no one can get it out XDD). Plus, I might be getting a new phone soon (my brother just got an LG Versa, and now I totally want one)!

Yeah, I'll stop babbling and go back to watching Top Gear, now XD.

From Pubmed.gov (via NCBI ROFL):

"The effect of wearing different types of textiles on sexual activity was studied in 75 rats which were divided into five equal groups: four test groups and one control. Each of the four test groups were dressed in one type of textile pants made of either 100% polyester, 50/50% polyester/cotton mix, 100% cotton or 100% wool. Sexual behaviour was assessed before and after 6 and 12 months of wearing the pants and 6 months after their removal. The rate of intromission to mounting (I/M) was determined. The electrostatic potentials generated on penis and scrotum were also measured by electrostatic kilovoltameter.
...The polyester-containing pants generated electrostatic potentials while the other textiles did not. These potentials seem to induce 'electrostatic fields' in the intrapenile structures, which could explain the decrease in the rats' sexual activity."

Rat pants. XD

I'm curious as to how they got the tiny pants to stay on without them being chewed to pieces and/or wriggled out of almost immediately.

Someone needs to duplicate this study...and take pictures...and post them all over the internet.

For me, the best part of Halloween (besides getting to dress up) is the week after, when the Halloween candy goes on sale. I mean, who doesn't like cheap candy? Kimberly Daniels, of Kimberly Daniels Ministries International, for one. According to her, these fun-size holiday treats are the work of Satan! Or at least his minions. From Charisma magazine:

The word "holiday" means "holy day." But there is nothing holy about Halloween. The root word of Halloween is "hallow," which means "holy, consecrated and set apart for service." If this holiday is hallowed, whose service is it set apart for? The answer to that question is very easy—Lucifer's!

...During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.

I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.

Oh, that crafty Satan. Trying to tempt us with delicious half-price Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! Quick question, though: Are the praying witches part of the manufacturing process, or do they just visit random stores and pray over the candy there? If I had some Easter candy, would the 'holiness' of my chocolate bunny counteract the evil of black and orange M&M's?

Also: The reason the root word of 'Halloween' is 'hallow' is because it's a shortening of 'All Hallows Eve' (more specifically, the Scottish All-Hallows-Even), which is the day before 'All Hallows Day' (also called 'Hallowmas' or 'All Saints Day'), a christian holiday which honors the various christian saints. It's true that Halloween also has roots in the festival of Samhain, but a lot of supposedly christian holidays are like that.

BRB, I'm off to exorcise* my leftover Halloween candy.

* Did I say exorcise? I meant eat.

My birthday was nice, but relatively uneventful. Rin bought me Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin (I'm halfway through it right now. Did you know that the first bony-headed fish's (I think it's called an Ostracoderm) head was made of a bunch of teeth that had fused together? With enamel, and pulp and everything. Nature is weird), and I managed to avoid having a questionably clean tiny sombrero put on my head when my family went out to dinner (just imagine how many heads that thing's been on. Euurgh).

Sunday, Rin and I went to the mall that we never go to, and bought rat plushes. The cashier seemed pretty interested when I mentioned that Rin and I both had pet rats. She was amazed that they would come when called and could do tricks, and she asked what they eat and where they lived. It was pretty cool talking to someone who didn't just say: "Eww, Rats!" and look at me as if I had just admitted to creating mutant strains of dangerous bacteria in my basement. I also bought a couple of Simon R. Green books, and Rin and I bought a couple of Push Pops from the dollar store, because neither of us had had one for a really long time. They were just as delicious as I remembered XD.

Today, my brother is home from school with the flu. He's been sick for the past couple of days...but that hasn't stopped him from playing WoW. And coughing all over the keyboard, mouse, and monitor in the process. I had to wipe down the entire desk, computer (including the keyboard and mouse) and computer chair with Lysol before I could even think of using the computer XD. It wouldn't be so bad if he would actually bother to cover his freaking mouth when he coughs. Oh well.

I have the weirdest urge to draw steampunk art right now. I blame steampowers.

Y HALLO THAR BIRTH MONTH.

Somehow, even though I know that Halloween is the last day of October, I'm always surprised when it's immediately followed by the first day of November. I'm beginning to think it's some sort of defect in my brain.

ANYWAY...I ended up spending Halloween at Kat's with Rin and Deidre and some other friends. It was a lot of fun. We played a bunch of random games, including a bastardized version of Balderdash! (where we opened the dictionary to a random page, picked a word we didn't recognize, and made everyone come up with a fake definition). My personal favorite word picked was 'fagoting' (my definition involved writing slash fanfic about canonically straight chracters, I think XD), but a close second was 'robalo' (Rin's definition was 'The act of being robbed by a buffalo XD). Also, I think there was something about sexual acts involving mashed potatoes XD. We also watched a Halloween episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (poor Giles, all alone in his house with his big bowl of candy and his awesome sombrero XD), and played a game which involved hiding and finding objects in the dark and leaving clues as to where the objects were hidden also in the dark and getting groped repeatedly by someone dressed as the Cheshire Cat also also in the dark! XD To be fair, I was wearing my corset jacket as part of my "costume" (I was a vampire...lol, I'm so original), which squishes in my stomach and shoves out my boobs, so it's actually kind of hard NOT to grab them XDD.

So, yeah...it was fun XD. I also handed out candy at my house for a bit beforehand, and a lot of kids liked my half-assed, thrown together-in-two-seconds vampire costume XD. It was basically my corset jacket, a pair of those customizable Scarecrow fangs, and a fake rat (my real rats have a tendency to take blind leaps in random directions if they hear loud noises, so I decided not to bring them to the door XD). Oh, and my 'I'm not dead yet' shirt from Spamalot XD. I thought it was appropriate.

I just realized my birthday is on Friday XD. WTF.

The past few days have been a lot of fun. On Friday, I went with a couple friends (and a friend-of-a-friend) to check out Frightmare Forest. It was a lot of fun, but quite muddy, and not particularly frightening. I think we probably annoyed some of the costumed performers, because Kat decided to act insane during the "group therapy session" (an interactive bit of the haunted forest/asylum) and we were talking and laughing through the entire thing XD; I didn't find it scary, especially not the second attraction, where you basically walk through the forest. We walked through the entire forest without seeing any of the performers until we got to "the vacuum" (which was actually the scariest bit of the whole thing for me, but that's because I'm mildly claustrophobic XD). But it was still a lot of fun, and afterwards we went to Wendy's and then went to Kat's house and played Apples to Apples for three hours XD. I love that game.

Sunday, Rin and I hung out for a bit and I got a rat-shaped window cling XD I love it. I don't care if it's a Halloween decoration, it's staying on my window forever...or at least until I move out.

Yesterday, I went over to Kat's house again, and she, Deidre and I had a writing party. Kat's mom (I think?) inherited a publishing company of some sort, and Kat's been working on trying to get a Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Comic/Graphic novel arm up and running. So she and Deidre have been working on stories for a while now, and I brought a few of the ideas I'd already come up with, and decided to start trying to actually develop one of them. I've got an outline of the first chapter/part/whatever and a bit of a possible second chapter so far. But it's definitely a lot farther than I've gotten with most of my crazy comic ideas XD. It's nice to be able to bounce ideas off of other people, and have them bounce ideas off of you, and to be able to work in a relatively non-distracting creative environment (there was a dog, but she's adorable and a total sweetheart, so it was fine XD). I'm kind of stuck for ideas for the second chapter-y thing, but that's the advantage of having other people around when you're writing.

I'm going over there again tomorrow to work some more. Hopefully I'll make some more progress XD.

The Large Hadron Collider, the gigantic particle accelerator built by CERN has had it's share of problems. Only a couple of weeks after it was first switched on, there was a problem with the electrical connection between two of the superconducting magnets, which caused a helium leak, and damaged several of the magnets. One of the scientists working on the LHC was arrested for suspected connections to Al Qaeda (no, seriously!). But all major, ambitious scientific projects like this one have troubles. When the Hubble Space telescupe Telescope was launched, it had a flaw in its mirror which drastically lowered the quality of the images it was producing. So these problems are totally normal, right?

From the New York Times:

A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

...Wait, what? This theory (scientifically speaking, it's really a hypothesis and not a theory) sounds crazy, but this is particle physics we're talking about here. It's always been the realm of the counter-intuitive notion and the just plain weird. Plus, one of the originators of this theory, Dr. Holger Bech Nielsen, is considered one of the founders of String Theory, another fucking weird theory, but a fucking weird theory which is true. At least, as true as anything can be in a world where cats can be both alive and dead simultaneously.

But what about the grandfather paradox involved here? If the LHC has created a Higgs Boson particle in the future, which causes a ripple which sabotages* the LHC in the past (our present), then the LHC would have never created the Higgs boson, and there would be no need to sabotage the LHC, so it would still create the Higgs boson...and so on and so forth in that fashion until we're all hopelessly confused. Apparently that's not a problem:

While it is a paradox to go back in time and kill your grandfather, physicists agree there is no paradox if you go back in time and save him from being hit by a bus. In the case of the Higgs and the collider, it is as if something is going back in time to keep the universe from being hit by a bus. Although just why the Higgs would be a catastrophe is not clear. If we knew, presumably, we wouldn’t be trying to make one.

...I'm so confused.


*I'm not sure if I should be using past tense or present tense here. Not only are particle physics and time-travel confusing, they make other things confusing as well!

Yay, I've got a cold! Guh. I sound like my vocal cords have been rubbed vigorously against a cheese grater XD. Also, I really need to stop watching QVC. They've almost convinced me that $149.82 (or 3 easy payments of $49.94!) is a great deal for a cashmere blend trench coat. All the people who have called in seem to be treating their telephones like the speaker at a drive-thru, and they all sound like that lady from Poltergeist. Y'know, the one with the really high-pitched voice? *shudder* Creepy. I want to stop watching but I can't. It's a serious problem XD.

Anyway, here's a pointless book meme.

ABC Book Meme

For this meme, you list a favorite book that starts with each letter of the alphabet. If you don’t have a book for a letter (such as Z or X) than you can substitute a favorite book that simply has that letter in the title (ex. The Lost City of Z or Hot Six by Janet Evanovich). However, you can only do this a maximum of 3 times. (Z, X, and Q. But not Z, X, Q, and V.) Books can be of any genre from fiction to non-fiction to poetry to textbooks.

( List of Books under here... )