To-Do List

So it's Christmas break, and I'm back at my house at school for a few days and have been attempting to be somewhat productive with my spare time. Last night I took the time to write a to-do list of things I should do today. It is nearly eight now and I was just considering rewriting my list to incorporate the things I did do today. This way I could feel more accomplished. Below I have included both versions of the list.

To Do (version 1, 3AM)

• Email school office about a class
• Email a professor to ask a question
• Finish putting up clean laundry
• sweep/mop the bedroom
• clean windows
• put up that picture
• put the headboard back on the bed (pics of my artistic creation of a headboard possible later)
  
• go grocery shopping
  

To Do (version 2, 7:30 PM edited for reality)

• Stay up until 5AM watching Mystery Science Theater 3000
  
• Wake up past noon.
• Sleepily talk to the instrument repair man who woke you up at 1PM.
• play online
  
• look through pile of folded laundry for clothes
• watch UFO documentaries
• play video games
• order out for pizza
• blog

Oh well, it was a long semester. Perhaps a little laziness is in order.

Good to be Bad

If you are like me, you know there are some things that are just so awful they rock. Don't feel bad about this. Don't be ashamed. Don't try to hide it (ok maybe try to hide it). Sometimes your friends won't get it. Sometimes you just have to accept that not everyone can be enlightened. I've decided to put together a list of some of these things. Enjoy.

Next - If you flip to MTV in the middle of the night, you're likely to find Next. Scientific studies show that exposure to this show will start to kill your brain cells after about 15 minutes. The premise of the show is that a stupid teenager gets to choose from 4 or 5 other stupid teenagers on a bus to go on a date. There are small (sometimes just one dollar) amounts of money involved. The stupid teenagers are given scripted "zinger" lines to help them cope with rejection. All in all it is supremely awful... and really funny.

McNuggets - I know that McNuggets are not chicken. I understand the phrase "processed chicken product". Perhaps it is some relic of my childhood, but I can't live without McNuggets. I try to stay away from Crack Ronalds, but the menu item that keeps dragging me back in are those tempura fried nuggets (dipped in honey please). The trouble is I always miss the dark meat nuggets. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Too bad they were taken off the menu in 2003. If you are of a similar opinion, there is an online petition to get them back.

Smiley Face - This underground stoner flick with Anna Faris stole my heart. Premise is: Jane (Anna Faris) accidentally eats too many pot cupcakes. From the scene where the entire movie stops for several seconds to allow Jane to stare at a lamp to the one where she rolls on the ground because backing her car out of the driveway was too scary, it's eerily hard not to pull for her. Be warned though. Unlike Harold and Kumar, she doesn't get a happy ending.

Laurel K. Hamilton - I'm pretty into fantasy novels and I considered putting the whole genre on this list. I decided to stay simple though, and go with Laurel K. Hamilton, author of the Anita Blake series. Ever wonder how to activate a triumvirate of power between a necromancer, master vampire and werewolf pack leader? That's right. Orgy. Despite the creepily sexual Mary Sue-ish protagonist, and the repetitive plots, the series is actually fairly compelling and not a bad rainy-day/beach read. Also, whether you're in it for a sexy vampire, a realistic and capable female protagonist or a good ol' vampires v. weres v. zombies extravaganza, these books are better than Twilight in every way.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 - What happens when you search out the worst movies ever made, use them to create a low-budget tv show featuring robot puppets, and constantly change the premise and main character of the show? Emmy-nominated, Peabody Award-winning genius. That's what happens. Possibly the root of all my crap loving, MST3K is the king of all "So-Bad-It's-Good". A basic episode is an old sci-fi movie with silhouettes of the sarcastic host and two robot puppets watching it and ripping it to shreds with short skits before commercial breaks. Lines like "I'm gonna curl up in his sock drawer and sleep for days" still remain in my vocabulary (parents, this is why you shouldn't let the tv raise your child). Some titles of the movies featured include "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies", "Danger!! Death Ray" and (my favorite), "Squirm" which is about radioactive worms.
Hard to find now, DVDs can be special ordered and some of the episodes are available for download on itunes.

So thats it. Five awesomly bad things from me to you. Enjoy! (or at least try to)

Doubt

I just saw Doubt, and it was completely enthralling. I left the theater impressed but I realized the true genius after I scoured Google for 45 minutes trying to find answers to the unanswered questions the movie leaves behind. By the way, they aren't out there, and what a brilliant move. The murky mysteries and unresolved questions are now stuck in my mind because they are unanswerable, just as they are with the fictional characters.

The cast was phenomenal. I've been a fan of Meryl Streep, but Philip Seymour Hoffman won me over with this one (I've previously been unimpressed by most of his work and have always remembered him as the flaming reporter in Red Dragon). Amy Adams was wonderful as well. The cinematography makes use of a lot of slanted shots, providing a subtle sense of uneasiness throughout the film, and without revealing too much, the visual metaphors and symbolism added a lot to the drama. Attention was brought to some recurring details (possible spoilers: like open windows, popping light bulbs, storms and fingernails) which were obviously significant, but never explained, leaving the viewer doubtful of even the film-makers' message.

Ten Reasons I Will Not Miss 2008

10. Large Hadron Collider - The good news: It didn't suck the world into a black hole. But it did break. After only 9 days of functioning.

9. Big Name Deaths - Namely Tim Russert- journalist for MSNBC, Heath Ledger- actor, Benazir Bhutto - president of Pakistan was assassinated by al-Qaeda to be succeeded by her husband (technically 4 days before 2008), Mark Felt - aka Deepthroat and others

8. Russia v. Georgia - A small yet very real war broke out between Russian and Georgia this year in early August. The troops have been called off now, but tensions remain as the two countries squabble over oil, civilian deaths and their conflicted history.

7. Sara Palin - I never want to hear her talk again. Unfortunantly she's still one of the most popular republicans, despite arguably cementing John McCain's loss.

6. Hackers - One of the most under-reported stories of the year, foreign hackers cracked the CERN computer system, both presidential campaigns, the White House and the Defense Department this year.

5. Torture - We did it. Dick Cheney has admitted to supporting water-boarding. Investigations are currently being called for about possible/probable war crimes commited by the United States involving torture of prisoners.

4. Oh Fuck, The Economy - In case you didn't notice, the economy tanked. After a creeping recession had already taken root before summer, and the federal takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, September brought the failure, sale or crisis of several large banks including Washington Mutual, Morgan Stanely and Wachovia. An emergency bailout was organized for the banking industry and rushed through congress. The auto industry was soon to follow.

3. Oh Fuck, The Economy Local Edition - People are getting laid off everywhere. National unemployment was 6.7% in November with rates even higher in vulnerable areas including 8.4% in California and South Carolina, 7.9% in North Carolina and a whopping 9.6 in Michigan and 9.3 in Rhode Island (thats nearly one in 10 people if you're doing the math)

2. Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai - In November terrorists attacked the Indian city, killed at least 164 people and eventually held hostages in landmark luxury hotels. The attacks not only resulted in loss of life, but have helped stir up animosity between India and Pakistan. Things are still tense, and some fear conflict. Update(12/26/08): Pakistani troops have been positioned near the border in preparation for a possible invasion.


1. Prop 8 - A proposition put on the ballot in California and largely funded by conservative religious groups like the Morman Church passed on election day, Nov. 4. The proposition took away the right for gay couples to marry in the state and struck a severe blow to the gay rights movement. Protests and the occasional riot have been springing up all over the country.

(Vice)Presidential Puppy-gate Update

PETA, in all their obnoxiously easily offended glory, has started giving Joe Biden hell about his new german shepherd puppy. If you check out their article "Joe Biden Buys One, Kills One" by Christine Dore they allege that his new pup came from a puppy mill, and that now his supporters will all march out and buy purebred german shepherds.

Uh huh.

It's starting to stir up some media noise though. Biden has respondend that he is now looking for a second puppy, possibly a golden retriever, this time from a shelter. Nice pander.

My Rocky Love Affair With the History Channel

My first post to this blog was about how excited I was about a documentary on the History channel about Dr. Bueno de Mesquita. I have to say, I was thoroughly disappointed by the show. Instead of an indepth look at the Doc and his computer program that predicts the future, they spent most of the show comparing him to Nostradamus, and then talking for a long time about Nostradamus.

Now, don't get me wrong, Nostradamus is pretty interesting but I got tired of hearing about him really quickly. First of all, he was probably not a prophet (although he tried pretty hard). He wrote a lot (at least 1000 I'm not sure the total number) of vague prophecies, with no definite linear chronology to assign them a specific date or time period. You go write 1000 four line verses about what might or might not happen at some point in the near or distant future. I bet you'll get a few things right too. Prophet or not, he's old news. Bueno de Mesquita might have a

computer

that can predict the

future

Oh and remember the "Lost Book of Nostradamus" special the History Channel featured a while back? You know, the one where someone found a manuscript that might have been from the time period, and might have been penned by Nostradamus, and was filled with illustrations from the major arcana of the tarot? The "experts" from this documentary claimed that the image of a burning tower (on the left), which is a traditional tarot image (see image to the right), featured among other traditional tarot images, was actually a prediction of September 11th.




















Dear History Channel,

I love you, but your weird inaccurate Nostradamus fetish has really been embarassing me lately. Please stop. Find help or something.

Love,
Courtney

To the well-meaning electronics salesman:

Yes. I did know that Halo is a really popular game. I even knew that I need a 360 to play it. Thanks though. Without you I might have ended up buying the Bee Movie game because the case had so many bright colors. Boy was I confused by all those titles.

Ass.

Einstein was a panthiest.

"The individual feels ... the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves in nature ... and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole."

(Vice)Presidential Puppy Update!

The Obama family is being all boring and slow about picking a doggie but look at Joe Biden's new German Shepherd! Puppies for everybody!!

daww.

No name yet. Apparently he's waiting on his grandkids to pick a name.

25 Uses for a $5 Bottle of Witch Hazel

I picked up some witch hazel at the drug store last month after hearing that it can help get rid of the redness left behind by mostly-healed acne. It worked great but I was curious about what witch hazel was actually supposed to be used for. Turns out, EVERYTHING. It has antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and astringent qualities. Below is a list of things that you can use this stuff for.

1. skin sores
2. diaper rash
   
3. small cuts
4. swelling (soak cloths and press them to area)
5. bruises
   
6. acne
7. reduce pore size
   
8. psoriasis treatment
   
9. eczema treatment
10. aftershave
11. cracked skin (antiseptic and helps moisturize)
    
12. insect bites
13. poison ivy rash
14. varicose veins (use same as swelling treatment)
15. hemorrhoids (witch hazel is the active ingredient in many OTC treatments)
16. speed healing of cold sores
17. sunburn
18. heal body piercings (having had several I could totally get on board with this, it is thin, so it won't hold moisture the way neosporin will, and smells less than tea tree oil and bactine. Plus it stops bleeding and swelling which bactine won't)
19. athletes foot
20. swimmers ear
    
21. use as hair spray (so long as you don't have dry hair)
22. use to degrease hair roots (dab with cotton ball)
23. use to reduce under-eye circles (see swelling and bruises)
24. make-up remover
25. repair cracked varnish on old furniture (let it soak, and it will slowly melt it)

And this doesn't even cover all the applications that work internally. Those would require preparing some sort of tea with the leaves of the plant. These are just uses for that one 16oz. bottle I got from the drug store last month (which is only about an eighth used up) which brings me to a word of caution: the brand I bought, as with a lot of brands is made using a lot of ethyl alcohol, so don't drink it! I know it seems silly but there are numerous sources saying "drink it to cure _____" this doesn't apply to the drug store brand! Other than that, I highly suggest going to pick up a bottle. It runs about 5-7 bucks a bottle and is very much worth the money.

puppy update!

The Obamas were in full on adorable couple mode and talked for a short while about what kind of dog they are looking for in an interview with Barbara "Wawa" Walters.

Barack says no girly or yippy dogs. I'm still holding out for my evil demented plan (see original post on the puppy situation) muahaha.

Magic Lantern and Cyber-Terrorism

This is apparently old news, but hey it is new to me, maybe someone else was under this particular rock

Rumors on the intertubes are rampant about Magic Lantern (which definitely does exist), a FBI engineered computer virus, created to be a remote keystroke logging program. Reports popped up up in forums and on sites like Slashdot that Norton and McAffe were pressured by the bureau to have their anti-virus software ignore the government worm.

wait...

WHAT?!

Since most of the news on this was pretty old I went looking for fresher updates. I found this article from this November which, while it didn't really give me the feeling of being a highly reputable source had this to say:

"Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed that the FBI no longer feels compelled to obtain judicial oversight or even the consent of cell phone operators when deploying base station-faking technology that it employs for the illegal geolocation of mobile users."

I may do some fact-checking on that later, but would you really be surprised? Add to this the recent malware attack on the US Defense Department, the hacking of both presidential candidate's campaign headquarters and reports that the White House computer network was hacked multiple times by someone in China, suspected to have been funded by the Chinese government.

It is an ugly (cyber) world out there. It makes me nervous that a) the government is apparently pretty ok with violating personal privacy. Ok I mean, the patriot act and all that (by the way what jerkoff decided to name it that?) but I never really thought much beyond the traditional wiretapping etc. and b) in response to the foreign attacks, they are doing that thing they do when they arn't confident: withold all unneccesary information, and try to play down what they do release:

"Oh yeah Mr. President we uh, well the defense department and white house MAY have been... okay yeah they were compromised. Not by anyone important really... Okay it was China and Russia. I mean. No big deal. Just uh... don't... put anything too important on your office computer." (okay I made this dialogue up)

I have a sneaking hunch that sometime soon somebody is going to somehow hurt our infastructure with this. I don't like it. I don't like it that the government isn't being very confident about foreign attacks while being far TOO confident about internal violation of privacy. It doesn't make me feel very safe. C'mon guys, get with it.

post race post race thoughts

(Originally written Nov. 6th)

Ok, newsflash: Obama is half black. We all knew this right? I mean... its kind of obvious (unless you got convinced he was muslim) and there was a lot of discussion pre-election about the Bradley effect (where white people SAID they would vote for a black guy to look good, but then didn't actually do it) but nobody, especially Obama himself, really harped on the fact that "hey look, this black dude is doing really well". People said "Barack Obama is doing really well".

What I mean to say is just what the massive crowd of my fellow South Carolinians at the victory speech of the democratic primary said: "Race doesn't matter". I was moved to tears by that speech, not because of the speech itself so much, but the reaction of the crowd. Didn't we JUST take down our confederate flag in 2000? I hate to play off of a negative stereotype of my state but honestly, when South Carolina says that race doesn't matter, start listening.

And so, after winning South Carolina, and the nomination, and the presidency, everyone has started talking about race again! The news anchors were saying "how great this is for an african-american." What about "how great for a democrat?", "how great for an underdog?", "how great for an idealist?", "How great for a man who has worked his way up from the bottom?", "how great for any American to win an election by such a historically HUGE margin?". I understand it is a great achievement for African-Americans and I do not mean to state by any insinuation that that's not true. I just think that this is more of an indication of the transition from race being an issue to a non-issue than an indication that this one man has overcome that issue all on his own.

I had come to appreciate the fact that Obama is essentially post-race. This in itself is a milestone, more of a milestone in fact than if race had really been acknowledged. The fact that nobody really thought it was a big deal says SO MUCH MORE about the state of American society than if people thought it was a problem, and overcame their bigotry to vote for Obama. Bigotry didn't even come into play (ok I know there are assholes out there still playing that card, I'm talking about the vast majority of Americans who apparently know its crap). I mean... you can't get more equality than not even needing to acknowledge race. I think it is pretty wonderful that an individual's race has little to no impact on what the American people think of them.


Sooo... does race matter? Do I not understand this because I'm not a minority? Is the media suddenly harping on it just because it is history or because it suddenly matters? Is Obama really "post race" the way I think he is?

Puppies!

As much as I love to resist the pull of emotion in favor of reason when it comes to things like politics, I am PUMPED about the Obama puppy! Ever since he promised one to his girls on election night I have been totally captivated. The secret, dark evil part of me wants him to get a stereotypically black dog just to completely challenge anyone to make fun of him. The rest of me just wants to see a cute puppy! Good lord how did I get so wrapped up in this?

Apparently I'm not the only one. At his first press conference after the election he got questions from reporters about it when they were supposed to be focused on the economy. Obama responded with the concerns of his family on this "pressing issue" and in the process referred to himself as a mutt (maybe he shares my secret dark evil sense of humor about what breed they should get). There's even www.nameobamaspuppy.com (Bar(ac)k the vote!).

It's so cute I can't stand it. Even if I have to put up my "refusing to be swayed by emotional news stories" hat for a while. OOohshapuppy!!!

Viruses that do Anything

I know next to nothing about virology, but I have always wondered...

How do you know if you have a virus? You start having symptoms. We can't even really treat the virus medically, we just take care of the symptoms. What if you had a virus that gave you no symptoms? What if you had a virus that DID have symptoms but you didn't know it? What if you got a virus that made you gain weight, grow your hair more slowly, act more aggressively or become depressed?

Well. You might.

AD-36 is a human adenovirus that may be linked with obesity. There is a positive correlation between having the virus in blood samples and having high body fat. Similar viruses caused weight gain when chickens and mice were infected. It's a virus that can make you fat. Chew on that.

Not a virus, but similarly tiny and morbid, cordyceps fungus infects insects bodies and brains. The fungus drives them to act against their instinct and climb very high before dying. This ensures that there will be maximum spore dispersal when the fungus grows and matures in the insect corpse.

Who's to say there isn't something out there to cause other random symptoms that we would never suspect as a result of being sick?

If you've got a few minutes, check out the free Science Talk podcast from Scientific American from 6/12/2008. They discuss how outside chemical signals and/or foreign organisms could really affect us in ways we don't normally think about.

First Post! Dr. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

I have some quirky ideas about philosophy and how everything (and I really mean everything) works. Mostly I think that everything is mathematical, and more complex than we can really comprehend. Enter theoretical physics. I'm sure I'll write more about this later. Anyway, this being the basis for my fundamental belief on how the universe works, I was very interested to see the ad for the new History Channel special on "The Next Nostradamus". According to the commercial he has come up with a formula (here's that math) that predicts events.

To the web!

Apparently this man is Dr. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita of New York University, and he is not some new bible code weirdo, but a game theorist. He has spent 25 years developing a computer program to predict international events. The CIA uses him as a resource and according most sources, he's right 90 percent of the time. I don't know what they used to define right and wrong, so take that with a grain of salt, but this guy has really caught my attention.

Read much more about him at Good Magazine here

If there is one overriding mathematical law dictating the universe, maybe this guy has cracked a part of it. I'll watch the show and do a little more digging and probably post about this one again.