a revelation on the South...

I know that Northerners who come down to the South complain all the time that life moves too slowly down here and that no one ever seems to want to get anything done on time. Well, I've had an epiphany on the subject brought on by observations of myself and those around me. My sample includes native Southerners, Westerners, Northerners, and even people from other countries and I've discovered that regardless of a person's point of origin, living here in NC for a period of time causes one to become increasingly lethargic (especially this time of year) and I think I've worked out why: You see, it's just too fricking hot here to want to do much of anything! It's very hard to get motivated when you know you're going to work up a sweat getting from your house to your car... It seems like a much better idea in this situation to simply lie on your kitchen floor in your air-conditioned house and moan about the weather. In fact, I challenge everyone out there to move down here for a summer or two and try to maintain your fast-paced, highly motivated lifestyle. I think it may actually be physically impossible.

Aren't you all glad I figured this out for you? Now if I could just figure out why living south of the Mason-Dixon line makes you incapable of working a 4-way stop sign, we'd all be in better shape...

grandparents and fleas

I was supposed to go visit my grandparents in scenic Aiken, SC this weekend. I had planned my week at work so I didn't have to come in over the weekend, I had gotten an oil change so my car would be ready for the drive, I had blocked out the weekend, so I had no social engagements planned.... I was all set to make the trek down south in two days until I got a phone call at 10:30 last night telling me that my grandparents were cancelling on me. I think it's a bad sign when your grandparents don't want to see you....especially when you're their only grandchild. I am pond scum.

Actually, the story is even funnier than that - you see, the reason they cancelled is apparently my aunt's apartment had become infested with fleas and they are going to try to help her take care of the problem. My aunt has fleas and my grandparents don't want to see me. Ah, my family is fun :)

today...

Today is a good day.

biology gone awry

Okay, so as a biology nerd, I sometimes think about things differently, so here's a random thought I had the other day while running:

The principle of mate selection in terms of evolutionary biology states that an individual animal will likely mate with someone whose genetic characteristics will combine with the original animal's characteristics to produce offspring with the highest level of fitness. Thinking about this in human terms, I started to wonder about the flip side of that equation: the people out there that are just so screwed up that nature wants their genes to be purged from the pool. Do they select mates who are equally screwed up such that their genes will combine to self-destruct and remove or at least reduce their influence in the gene pool? Think about that the next time you find yourself attracted to someone...

ew.

So I'm not really a biblical scholar or anything, but I recall something about plagues such as frogs, locusts, and hail while the Jews were in Egypt. I don't however, remember anything about body parts...

FLORAL PARK, New York (AP) -- The body of an apparent stowaway was ripped in half during flight Tuesday and his leg crashed into a suburban neighborhood, where a homeowner found the severed limb in the middle of her lawn, authorities said.

Pam Hearne heard "a loud crash" and later was stunned to see a foot clad in an Adidas sneaker and a sock in her yard, said Officer Thomas Blanchard. The leg, with hip and spine attached, dented the shingled roof of her garage before bouncing into the lawn.

Police suspect the remains are from a stowaway who may have been crushed as the South African Airways jet lowered its landing gear on its approach to Kennedy Airport.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said the pilot of flight 203 would have probably started lowering the plane's landing gear in the sky over the home in Floral Park, about 5 miles from the airport.

Peters said a Customs agent that met the flight at the airport found another leg hanging from the wheel well.

The airline said in a statement that the flight landed with "no impact" on the passengers and crew and it was working closely with authorities to investigate how someone may have stowed away.

The flight originated in Johannesburg, and made one stop in Senegal. Authorities had not identified the remains, which were hauled away from Hearne's yard in a plastic bag.

Hearne, a special education teacher, said that when she first saw the leg in the grass, "it didn't look real."

"But I am very glad that I live where I do," she said, "so I don't have to run for my life like this man probably was doing."

There have been cases of stowaways being crushed by the mechanism in aircraft wheel wells and perishing from the extreme cold at high altitude

Ummmmm?

Okay, does this seem dumb to anyone else?

I get an e-mail from my credit card company (a legitimate e-mail, not a scam), reminding me to make sure the e-mail address they have for me is current. They contact me via e-mail because they think my E-MAIL address may be out of date? Good thinking, guys.

I live in Nerdland

So I was getting gas this morning and there was a little note posted by the management essentially asking people not to pay for their gas in change because it took too long to count. As I glanced at the note, I noticed that someone had written on it. Now, in any normal town, you would expect to maybe see a phone number or perhaps a " ______ was here" or perhaps a lewd picture or limerick.... right? Well, as I looked a little more closely, I noticed that our petty vandal had done none of these things. Intead, this person had corrected the grammar on the note! I live in nerdland.