Wednesday, June 30, 2004

much anger

Yesterday afternoon I had a hankerin' for some Skittles. So I scrounged through my spare change and came up with the requisite 65 cents and trekked down three floors to the candy machine. Upon locating my skittles, I got ready to insert my change only to find they had raised the price of skittles in the vending machine to 70 cents! Now I would have to trek all the way back up to the lab and find another nickel and all the way back down if I wanted to experience the rainbow of fruit flavors! You can't just go changing vending machine prices without telling people! It's just plain rude! There's my rant. Thank you for your time.

when good science goes bad

Okay, I'm just going to admit it upfront - I'm a huge nerd, so if you don't want to read something nerdy, stop reading right now.

I went to see Day After Tomorrow over the weekend and at the beginning was all excited because the guy at the beginning was presenting a scientific scenario that is actually based in current research. I was even more excited because I had actually read the paper when it came out, so I actually knew what he was talking about. (see? nerd.) I was sitting in my seat thinking, "I'm so impressed that someone in Hollywood actually took the time to research climate change theory!" HOWEVER, as the movie continued, I became increasingly disappointed as the scientific plausibility pretty much ended right there. I could launch into a lengthy tirade about how and why most of that stuff couldn't happen the way they presented it, but, really, no one wants to hear it. Suffice to say, the rest of the movie laid out a scenario which was based solely fantasy and sensationalism, and I fear that because of this, the fact that the original premise is based in "real science" will be lost on most people. Stupid Hollywood.

Saturday, June 19, 2004

the generic aisle

I was wondering the other day what happened to the generic aisle at the grocery store... I have memories from my childhood of walking down the generic aisle in my local King Soopers, surrounded by a plethora (of sweaters? no!) of food items in white containers with black stripes and black lettering denoting contents such as "frosted corn flakes" or "white rice".
I can't remember the exact timing of the generic aisle's disappearance, but am left only to wonder what happened to cause it to vanish and what became of the mediocre quality goods at low low prices that it once contained...

Friday, June 11, 2004

...and this is why we don't visit unannounced...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/06/10/uk.body/index.html

My real question, though, is will this guy be charged with trespassing?

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

sweet serendipity

Well, I hauled my little jet-lagged self into work today after being in
Colorado and Alaska for two weeks with enough time to say hi to my boss
before he left for the rest of the week on a trip to Maine. For the rest
of the week you can find me surfing the internet or sitting in Duke
gardens :P