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Hehehehehehe…

“The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington’s face.”

— Rob Corddry, “The Daily Show”

That one’s for you, Liz… 😉

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A milestone…

So, for those who have ever sat next to me in class, you know I have Solitaire on my Sony Clie (a Palm device, for those who don’t know…).? Finally, I “won” $100,000, which means that the game no longer keeps count, since it can’t go over 5 digits.? Therefore, I must restart the game at $0.? But before I do, I mark the occasion with some stats that have been recorded since beginning the game over a year ago:

Games played: 1227

Games won: 500

Games Lost: 727

Percent Won: 40.75%

Longest Win Streak: 6

Longest Loss Streak: 12

Average Game Time: 1:59

Total Time Played: 1d 16h 52m

Shortest Win Time: 1:20

Highest Score: $100041

…time to reset…

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The absolute worst song

So, I defy you people to come up with a worse song than “Summer Girls” by LFO.? Yes, this is the worst song ever written.? I only bring this up because I heard “Hey Ya” by OutKast yesterday…which is a close second…but “Summer Girls” is, by far, the single worst song ever written.? Please…try to find a worse one for me…

Here are the lyrics.? I recommend taking a few shots of tequila before reading them…

————————————————-

Yeah…I like it when the girls stop by.. In the summer
Do you remember, Do you remember?
…when we met..That summer??

[Chorus]

New Kids On The block,had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick.
And I think it’s fly when girls stop by for the summer,for the summer
I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch,
I’d take her if I had one wish,
But she’s been gone since that summer..
Since that summer

[Verse 1]

Hip Hop Marmalade spic And span,
Met you one summer and it all began
You’re the best girl that I ever did see,
The great Larry Bird Jersey 33
When you take a sip you buzz like a hornet
Billy Shakespere wrote a whole bunch of sonnets
Call me Willy Whistle cause I can’t speak baby
Sumthin in your eyes went and drove me crazy
Now I can’t forget you and it makes me mad,
Left one day and never came back
Stayed all summer then went back home,
Macauly Culkin wasn’t Home Alone
Fell deep in love,but now we ain’t speakin
Michael J Fox was Alex P Keaton
When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch

[Chorus]

[Verse 2]

Cherry Pez,cold crush,rock star boogie
Used to hate school so I had to play hookie,
Always been hip to the B-boY Style
Known to act wild and make girls smile,
Love New Edition and the Candy Girl
Remind me of you because you rock my world
You come from Georgia where the peaches grow
They drink lemonade and speak real slow
You love hip hop and rock n roll
Dad took off when you were 4 years old
There was a good man named Paul Revere
I feel much better baby when you’re near
You love fun dip and cherry Coke,
I like the way you laugh when I tell a joke
When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch

[Repeat Chorus]

Bridge In the summertime girls got it goin on,
Shake and wiggle to a hip hop song
Summertime girls are the kind I like,
I’ll steal your honey like I stole your bike

[Verse 3]

Bugaloo shrimp and pogo sticks
My mind takes me back there oh so quick
Let you off the hook like my man Mr. Limpet
Think about that summer and I bug,cause I miss it
Like the color purple,macaroni and cheese,
Ruby red slippers and a bunch of trees
Call you up but whats the use
I like Kevin Bacon,but I hate Footloose
Came in the door I said it before,I think I’m over you
but I’m really not sure
When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch

[Repeat Chorus][Bridge]

In the summer girls come and summer girls go
Some are worth while and some are so so,
Summer girls come and summer girls go
Some are worth while and some are so so,
Summertime girls got it goin on
Shake and wiggle to a hip hop song
Summertime girls are the kind I like
I’ll steal your honey like I stole your bike

[Repeat Chorus]

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More reasons why Republicans are dumb…

As reported in the February 9, 2006 episode of The Colbert Report, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said the following to the senate judiciary committee regarding President Bush’s wiretapping shenanigans:

“I gave in my opening statement, Senator, examples where President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt…have all authorized electronic surveillance of the enemy on a far broader scale…”

— Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzalez
“I can’t believe he said that!? Those are precious state secrets!? No one’s supposed to know about George Washington’s covert electronic surveillance program!”

— Stephen Colbert

Seriously…who the hell appointed that guy?? Oh yeah…the Republicans…what a big surprise…

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So, I was sitting in class…

…and Dr. Ryerse was talking to us about Gap Junctions. Basically, these are connections between cells that are made up of proteins. Think of them like connecting two pieces of cloth with a hollow rivet… They are very important in a variety of cellular functions, but perhaps most importantly, in synchronizing all of the cells in the heart (and muscle in general) to make one single contraction and pump our blood.

Anyway, in talking about these, he brought up a few points (most of which I can’t remember…) that got me thinking about how much of ourselves we know nothing about. In the physical sense, our bodies “just work”…but how and why? I mean, we go walking around every day and the general public doesn’t know (or care…) about how the cells in our heart know how to contract at the same time and pump our blood.But we’ve been working on “science,” in the general sense of the word, for thousands of years yet we’ve only scratched the surface.
Shouldn’t we care about these things? Shouldn’t we be more interested in learning all that there is to know about our bodies, so we know how to fix the problems there, rather than the problems between bodies in foreign countries? If I remember right, Bush plans on cutting a variety of programs, generally social, educational and scientific interests, in favor of more money to finance his Iraq vendetta. Does this make sense?
I guess it’s just human nature, but here’s the point: people don’t care how something works, only that it continues to work. People don’t care about science until it affects them. Funding for scientific endeavours is only readily available to people working on health-related fields, while funding for other research (such as ecology, sociology, etc.) is harder to come by. We save the minimal amount of funding to pay for “important” things like helping fix lung cancer (caused by cigarettes) or funding faster propulsion (so we can blow up other countries) or funding research into lower emission vehicles (because we have to drive big SUVs rather than using the smaller vehicles we already have).

Seriously, I think if the USA just saved a third of the money being poured into Iraq and other worthless ventures (congressional salaries, military stockpiling, tax cuts for the rich, etc.) and instead put it into general scientific (physics, biology, chemistry…) and social (arts, humanities…) research, the world would get a lot better really quickly.

At the very least, we, as a culture, would be seen as less hypocritical in the eyes of our enemies…’cause that’d solve a lot of other problems…

…it’s amazing what thoughts can come out of a discussion on gap junctions, eh?

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One more rotation…

So on Monday afternoon, I’m starting my fourth (and final?) rotation with Dr. Heather Macarthur. I’m actually pretty excited about this rotation since, for the first time, I’m doing research in stuff I’m pretty interested in. I wanted to go to SLU because of the research going on in Dr. Westfall’s lab, and Dr. Macarthur works really closely with him…thus, the research is similar…

Here’s the rundown: Parkinson’s Disease is characterized by a loss of motor control because (so far as we know) neurons localized in your brain (acround the cerebellum and nucleus accumbens…I think…) die for some reason. It is thought that one way these neurons die is due to oxidative stress. For those of you who know anything about chemistry, there are things called “free radicals,” which are analogues of known compounds that are missing an electron…hence, they “want” to bind with something else by any means necessary. In the body, these free radicals can do a lot of damage and can end up damaging or killing a given cell. We take antioxidants (and we have natural ones in our bodies…) to prevent damage by free radicals…surely you’ve heard of those…
Well, dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is important in controlling our body movements in our brain (among other functions). Apparently, there is a “version” of dopamine known as dopaminochrome that is essentially a dopamine free radical… If this stuff accumulates in your brain, it can kill off the cells it inhabits…and in Parkinson’s patients, it is possible that this molecule ends up accumulating where dopamine is normally localized.

(side note: as Dr. Macarthur pointed out to me, we normally think of Parkinson’s patients as moving uncontrollably. Actually, Parkinson’s patients would normally not be able to move at all, but the drugs we give them flood the cells with dopamine, causing more uncontrollable movement. I didn’t know that…thought it was interesting… :-P)

Anyway, Dr. Macarthur’s lab works with dopaminochrome in rats, detecting it and analyzing its effects. Actually, they use a drug that causes Parkinson’s-like effects in rats or cell lines, which allows for testing. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll end up doing in her lab, but I think I’ll be messing with an HPLC (high pressure liquid chromatography) that’s been modified to detect dopaminochrome in a variety of situations… If all goes well, then I’ll be doing this stuff for the next 4 years until I get a Ph.D… 😛

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LNSEMSF

Courtesy of Steve Hosack, I present to you the Leonard Nimoy Should Eat More Salsa Foundation official website. If any of you actually have souls, you should join.

From the site:

“We here at the LNSEMSF believe that Leonard Nimoy is excellent, and salsa is excellent, and if Leonard Nimoy would eat more salsa, he would become an unstoppable force of excellence. For anybody doubting this belief, we have researched the projected level of Leonard Nimoy’s excellence with and without salsa.”

They even have data to support their findings.? I’m in awe…

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To pose a question…

I was leaving class today and had a random thought, which I thought I’d record here and see if I got any responses. The question is: why is cussing/swearing bad? I mean, they’re words. Simply words. Why is it bad to say “shit” but not “poop?” They have the same meaning, but one is considered “worse” that the other. I know that, as a stigma, it was/is bad to “say the Lord’s name in vain,” as the Ten Commandments dictate. But “shit” isn’t exactly in the Bible on a list of “you can’t say these things.” Are they simply social constructs? …which brings up the question of when they’ll be considered alright to say, because while “damn” wasn’t allowed on TV or socially 50 years ago, or “bitch” even, they are more “socially acceptable” now. On the other hand, saying “damnit” could be put in the “Lord’s name in vain” column, according to some.

So yeah, what the hell? 😉 (that was my moment of irony for this posting…don’t blink, ’cause you may miss it)

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On getting fit(ter)…

So yeah, Nathan and I are going backpacking over Spring Break again, so I’m trying to work out a bit more than I had been before. Last year, I did alright, but certainly should have been able to hike further and faster. I’m back to being able to jog for 20 min straight at a pace of 6.5 mph, which is a little over a nine minute mile. My goal is to be jogging for 20 min at 7.5 mph, which is about an eight minute mile. I think, by mid-March, that should be entirely attainable.

On a related note, my new frame pack arrived yesterday…5600 ci Kelty Red Cloud for about $100, so it was a steal ($75 less than at REI). I’m excited to get to use it! I still need to get a water filter though, since a). mine broke last year and b). I can’t trust Nathan to bring iodine tablets to cover our asses when we get stuck in the middle of nowhere and have to boil water to stay alive.

…but that’s another story…

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Review: Underworld Evolution

Josh and I went and saw “Underworld: Evolution” yesterday, the sequel to the aptly titled “Underworld.” Basically, Kate Beckensale plays a vampire who is caught up in various levels of intrigue concerning a war between the vampires and Lycans (werewolves…) for many centuries. If anything, she proves that she can not only act in silly romantic comedies, but also in action movies wearing tight leather jumpsuits.

Overall, the movie wasn’t terrible, but I can understand where many critics find faults. Primarily, the story was relatively difficult to follow. There were lots of characters mentioned and referred to, and the movie picked up right where the previous one left off…so if you haven’t seen the original in awhile, it’d be good to see it again before watching this. They do a good job of using flashbacks, etc. to show you what happened in the earlier one, but there’s still enough left out that I was confused for much of the movie.

The effects themselves were pretty good, but could have been better. I mean, with a budget of only $48 million, they did a good job stretching the money as far as possible. Some of the man-to-werewolf conversion scenes were still kinda hokey, but no more so than in the first one. The acting was pretty good…but the action scenes could have been a bit better. I mean, when they happened, they were good…but there weren’t that many spread throughout the movie. Really, the last 20 min of the flick is where all the action was…and it was well-done…but more would have been welcome. I guess you can only have so many werewolves in your movie for $48 million… 😛

Anyway, not a terrible movie…not my favorite by any means, but if you liked the first one, you’d probably like this one…maybe even more so…