That Thing That Attacks Luke On Hoth Is Called A Wampa

You will probably have to wait until after this weekend to get the final piece of the TeleTARDIS conspiracy theory. Also maybe I will finally write my family holiday letter. In the meantime,

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Be Seeing You

"I'm r^2. I'm the coefficent of determination."

I promise I'll bring you Part 3 of the TeleTARDIS thesis soon. Here's a preview:

 

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Be Seeing You.

Boil Update:
This time I actually remembered to put aloe on my burn immediately!!! Yes, I was an idiot AGAIN, but this one is hardly a singe and I think the immediate application of aloe should help. Maybe someday I'll give you a bit of my self-analysis as to why I'm so careless with/of my body.

TeleTARDIS Part 2

Greetings, avid readers! This evening I continue my presentation of the TeleTARDIS theory. Last time we looked at overall structural elements and the presence of helpful robots.  Though I feel the evidence presented in my previous post should prove more than enough to convince naysayers, my scientific training compels me to provide a full accounting of all (or most of) the observations that led to my brilliant conclusion, just in case I need to write it up for a peer reviewed journal someday...or someone tries to steal my idea (btw, GO FOR IT. Anyone who is compelled to somehow elaborate upon a Doctor Who/Teletubbies conspiracy theory is probably the type of person with whom I'd enjoy collaborating).

We've gone over basic structure, so let's now turn our attention to the manner in which the individuals in question interact with their respective surroundings. If the Teletubbies are indeed inside a TARDIS, you would expect to see them performing actions similar to those the Doctor does. 

The Second Doctor at the controls

Dipsy at the controls

 Guess what! My theory wins AGAIN! This first set of photos is a pairing of a screenshot of the Second Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton from 1966-1969 and, courtesy of the availability of discs from the Santa Clara County Library, the first Doctor I ever saw. My library's DVD selection is insanely good. You should envy me.) and the ever...um....well, I was going to say "competent" but that just doesn't sound right. Let's go with "the ever-entertaining" Dipsy (he is the green Teletubbie despite the fact that it looks like yellow in this screencap).  According to the infallible Wikipedia, he "is named "Dipsy" because his antenna resembles a dipstick. He likes his black and white furry top hat, which he once lost. Laa-Laa found it, but instead of simply returning Dipsy's hat to the stricken Dipsy, she ran around it for about ten minutes shouting "Dipsy Hat! Dipsy Hat!". He is the most stubborn of the Teletubbies, and will sometimes refuse to go along with the other Teletubbies' group opinion."

But wait...this might just be a freak occurrence! I can't possibly expect you to believe the Doctor and the Teletubbies interact with their respective control panels the same way from just one set of photos, now can I? (What I CAN do well is construct exceedingly long possibly run-on sentences) No, I wouldn't ask you to trust me from just one photo pair.  Also, in the spirit of full disclosure I should admit that once I started finding these matching things it got entirely too fun and I have about six bazillion picture sets that I really want to post but will never make it on here because that'd be entirely too much effort.

I once saw Teletubbies in French. I bet at some point one of them says "Allons-y!"

The Tenth Doctor

 Thus, it is with great pleasure that I am able to present you with this fine set featuring Dipsy hard at work (yeah, it's from the same film sequence. So sue me. Properly conducting this investigation in a manner designed to remove any observer bias would 1)Defeat the purpose and 2)Take entirely too much time and energy), and a fine screencap of the Tenth Doctor (played by David "Sex on Wheels" Tennant from 2005-2010.  Generally I try to avoid objectifying people but I'm afraid I just can't help myself in Tennant's case. He's a fabulous actor and I'd love him even if he looked like Gollum..which he kind of does at one point during his stint as the Doctor, but that's not relevant...so that combined with his oozing of charisma is a little too much for my poor brain to comprehend and I'm reduced to basic primordial objectification...or something).

Once you start looking for similarities, they seem to pop up everywhere. This fine combo of action shots shows in detail just how similar the workings of the two machines are (in case you're confused, the picture on the left is from the Teletubbies and the one on the right is from Series 4 of Doctor Who).

Tinky-Winky working the TubbyCustard machine

Martha Jones working the TARDIS controls

Let's not forget the communication camera units in Chez Teletubbie and the TARDIS.  By this point it should come as no surprise that, again, they seem to provide shockingly similar views:

Camera 1

Camera 2

Uncanny, isn't it?






With minimal effort, one might imagine that this pair of photos depicts a video call from one TARDIS to another or maybe just one room in the TARDIS to another (yes, there is a secondary control room).


I was going to present my last little bit of evidence, but this has taken entirely too long and I want to go to sleep now, so you're just going to have to wait for that.

Be Seeing You

TeleTARDIS Part 1

Unlike my Weevil concept, proper exposition of my latest theory can really only properly be done with lots of visual aids. In order to avoid a criminally slow-to-load post and also because fussing with photos takes extra time this will have to be broken into several segments. However I'm sure you're pretty impatient by now and thinking something along the lines of this, so I'll lay my basic theory out for you in one sentence: I believe the Teletubbies are renting/occupying a room in the TARDIS.

Madness, you say? Well check out these shocking photos that reveal the TRUTH!!!

TARDIS console room circa 2005

Let's start with basic layout. The TARDIS control room is circular with a control console in the center and lots of random circles everywhere. What does the interior of the Teletubbies' house look like? The same damn thing! And lest you complain that the photos aren't identical, I've provided a shot of a previous incarnation of the TARDIS. That shit can change, but the elements remain.

 

TARDIS circa 1978

 

 

Note the shockingly similar color palettes between the Teletubby house and the recent TARDIS. How often do you see a glowing blue-green light featured prominently in conjunction with white lights and metallic elements? Well, to be fair I don't know how often YOU encounter that particular interior decorating combo, but I sure don't see it with any regularity.
Look at those arching supports coming in from the sides and consider how similar that central pillar in the Teletubbie house looks to a TARDIS control console.

While we're on the subject of these photos, I'd also like to point out the presence of K-9, a hilarious robot dog who appeared in 1978 and has traveled around with the Doctor and his companions in a number of incarnations. K-9 has the great potential to be annoying, but instead I deeply love him/her. I'm a total sucker for cute little ears (as evidenced by my obsession with the Daleks'), and K-9 has got tiny saucer antennae that swivel back and forth. Also (s)he tends to offer extremely helpful advice that the Doctor then ignores. 

The point is: small compact amiable robot who looks after its owner(s), provides invaluable help, and generally hangs around looking adorable and acting with considerably more sense than any bipedal creatures in the vicinity. Hmmmm....that really reminds me of something...oh wait, that's right: THE NOO-NOO!!!!

Next time, we will examine further evidence that the Teletubbies are occupying a room on the TARDIS and what this means in terms of a larger mythology or perhaps conspiracy within the BBC.

Be Seeing You.

#youpoorbastards

Okay, so remember my genius Weevil Jumpsuit Conundrum? Well it turns out that I seem to have a knack for developing elaborate conspiracy-type theories to do with Doctor Who. My latest one is more of a further-reaching BBC conspiracy theory, but no less ridiculous than Weevils in Jumpsuits.  Since this one relies heavily on visual data, I think it's more accessible to the general public (as opposed to the abstruse specificity of the other) which is good as I assume there's not a huge overlap between the target audience for these two shows. That being said, I'm giving you one last warning: stop reading before this gets any stupider. Because it will. Oh yes, it will.

Still with me? No? Excellent. I prefer monologuing to myself.

A little bit of backstory:
1) In the Doctor Who series, the Doctor flies around in this space/timeship called a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space) which, though it looks like a police telephone box on the outside, is actually a vast network of sprawling rooms on the inside.
2) The Teletubbies have this strange vacuum cleaner/friendly robot thing that I deeply love.  I was (once again) in conversation with Randall and for some reason I referenced the Noo-noo. Oddly enough, he didn't know what Noo-noo was, so I went searching for pictures and maybe some video to explain it.
3)Man I love lists.
4) At the time I was "attempting" to write my term paper on death, dying, embalming, and the American Obsession with Control. Also I probably hadn't had a lot of sleep. In short: RIPE FOR DISTRACTION.

So, I found this clip to show Randall, since it has some quality scenes of the Noo-noo scooting around looking awesome. Here's a short clip from Series 4 of the recent reboot (and by "recent" I mean five years ago) of Doctor Who.  Do you see where I'm going with this? Well, if not, you will, and if so I will soon present my case in more detail. Also, if the Teletubbies kind of freak you out, go watch some Boobahs.  The real fun in that video starts around 2:30, and that final shot...*shudder*. Ater that, the Teletubbies should seem positively wholesome and normal.

Be Seeing You.

Edit: I just watched those two first clips in succession, and if you DO see where I'm going with this either you follow me on Twitter, I've told you about my theory, and/or you're barking mad because apart from being British, they really appear to have NOTHING IN COMMON.
...or do they? DUN DUN DUNNNNN!!!!! (that's supposed to be dramatic music)

In the Meantime.....

My absence from writing anything here has has more to do with me going mental over finals and such and less to do with writer's block/lack of ideas.  However, I still thought I should share the genius picture/statement my Medical Anthropology teacher posted on the class website:

ALL STUDENTS, ALL CLASSES: DO NOT END UP LIKE THE TORTOISE (STUCK ON A POST). SUBMIT PAPERS WHEN DUE AND PREPARE FOR THE FINAL EXAM. 

It took  me a while to get it. At first I was stuck on the utterly hilarious image. Who puts a turtle on a post? (That looks more like a painted box turtle than a tortoise to me, but I'm entirely too lazy to actually research that).  Then I realized he might mean the whole idea of "stuck on a post" as in "stuck on not knowing what to write."  Now I'm back to considering that maybe he did just mean totally awkwardly marooned and failing and didn't intend for "post" to be a play on words. I just don't know.  Instead I will go tidy up the house and if I have time, start on a delightful analysis that I got the idea for/began to compile in the wee hours of some morning (Monday maybe? Saturday?) when I should have been working on my Medical Anthro paper and not procrastinating. 

Be Seeing You. 

Edit: What is going on with the text formatting here? I DON'T KNOW. I'm sure I could figure it out/fix it if I really really wanted to, but I just don't care that much. 

Hot Mulled Cider + Futuremug = Very yes

If you're an interwebs nerd (and let's face it: you're reading a blog, so chances are pretty good) or simply like to keep up with breaking science news, you may have heard that the astrobiologists down at NASA-Ames (exobiologists? At one point they changed the technical name of the department and since then I've been confused about which title I should use. Let's go with astrobiologists because 1)It sounds cooler, & 2)That's what their website uses) discovered some insane crazy awesome bacteria that can actually use arsenic (As) as a complete substitute for phosphorous (P). You may be thinking "so?" but trust me when I say this is insane. INSANE I tell you!!! The DNA, RNA, and primary energy molecules (ATP) of EVERY SINGLE LIFE FORM ON EARTH are built using P.
It's kind of funny that this announcement occurred yesterday because even though I'd totally forgotten that they were going to be making some announcement I'd been thinking about the astrobiology department quite frequently for the past several days.  You may remember that yesterday's blog post touched on the hypothetical situation of being stuck in an elevator.  That topic comes up not infrequently in my life (usually it doesn't involve the serious WTF bit) and every single time it does, I think about the elevator in building 239 on the Moffett campus. I don't know if it's been worked on since I interned there (it's been at least 5 years or so), but given the amount of money NASA tends to get I highly doubt it. This elevator liked to go a little past the floor you had pressed, then kind of drop/clunk down three or five inches so you were (pretty) level with the floor when the doors opened. It also made strange clunking sounds in general. I always considered it a bit of a gamble whether the doors were actually going to open and thus any time I imagine getting stuck in an elevator, it's that one. I tended to use the stairs. 
You may be thinking, "My god! What an unsafe work environment!" to which I would respond, "Hey, at least we didn't have Legionnaires disease in our air system like Building 19 did!" 


I found it amusing that the San Jose Mercury News had the article about this crazy ground breaking scientific discovery of bacteria unlike anything we've ever seen (the arsenic ones, not the Legionella) in the "Local News" section.

By the way, sadly we did not get to exhume the raccoon today because, um, we couldn't find it. Not only did they cut down the tree we buried it next to and take away the marker stake we'd put on the site, but they dumped all the debris from grinding down the stump RIGHT ON TOP of exactly the area we knew the grave was in. After entirely too much shoveling we concluded that although it broke our hearts to admit defeat, if Admin really wants the raccoon out of there they can go fucking find it because we sure as shit couldn't. So no moldering raccoon for me. My heart is a little bit broken.  On the upside I will be taking so much Anthro next term and I'm super excited for it. Speaking of which, I need to go do that paper for my class. Shut up, you! It will get done!

Be Seeing You 

Boil Update:
You know how in the one episode of South Park they have the counter for the number of times they've said "shit"? I kind of wish I had one of those for the number of times I've used some variation of the word "suppuration" in my Boil Updates. What is it about pus that's so friggin gross? It's bad enough when it doesn't smell, and when it does..well...like I said: no one wants to smell themselves rotting. I tend to avoid using anti-biotics whenever possible, but I finally went out and bought some Neosporin for my burn because I wasn't a fan of having to drain out the build-up under my bandage several times a day. I put the Neosporin and Tegaderm on there this afternoon, and it looks like it has already cleared up. Win.

Personal Lessons in Ethnography, Part 2.2

Warning: my grammar and use of tenses reach a new level of epic fail in this post

Essentially the icing of fail consisted of 1. Shit-talking my friends to my face and then being surprised when I didn't agree with his assessment. 2. Referring to me in the third person when I was about a foot away.

Edit: I realized I should probably re-post the cast of characters because otherwise it sounds like I'm talking about the most drama-filled episode of Sesame Street ever.

C: the friend in question who is awesome and I love
M: C's boyfriend. Considerably less awesome.
A: has been friends with C since early childhood, I've known her and C since early high school. Highly opinionated with an extremely forceful personality.
B: friend of C from the same religion, has become friends with me and A over the past year or so
I: I just mean "I" as in the word you use instead of "me", maybe I should have gone with numbers...

I went to C's house the night after the birthday dinner party of disaster.  I hadn't expected to encounter M again so soon, but I was glad because it meant a chance to possibly see a better side of him.  Hint: this did not happen.

In the context of a conversation we were having, M made some joke about how I clearly wasn't a suitable person to associate with and C. said something along the lines of "but she's a friend you like." I let it pass without comment because, um, OBVIOUSLY he doesn't like our other friend. There was no comment to be made! It's not like this was a news flash. I guess he didn't see it the same way because not two minutes later as I stood about a foot away from him he said to her something like, "I guess your friend didn't catch your slip-up." Sure, I was holding still and looking in another direction because I was acting as an art reference model for C, but it's not like there was any possible way I couldn't hear him say this. She delivered a pretty crushing "No, she understood," so there wasn't really anything I needed to add, but it was WEIRD. Did he think that by not referring to me by name I wouldn't realize he was talking about me? I am standing about 18 inches away from you! I can understand how someone might mistakenly assume that I'm way more of a completely oblivious space cadet than I actually am since I do a lot of staring into space rather than making small talk. Also I am kind of a space cadet a bunch of the time. However, even IF I was actually that dumb, I AM STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.  Even if I didn't understand you were talking about me, that's still super rude. It struck a truly strange balance between bizarre and laughably dumb and wtf?!

I can only assume that the combination of my lack of reaction to C's original statement and her "No, she understood" led him to the erroneous conclusion that I agreed with him in re our other friend because that's the only explanation I can imagine for how he subsequently proceeded to make his fail whale of an evening even worse! As I said, I was acting as a reference model for C, and at one point I was supposed to look horribly anguished. Conversation proceeded as follows:

M :"well, if you want to be anguished, just imagine being stuck in an elevator for an hour and a half..."
My Brain: "that wouldn't be so bad. Do I have my Leatherman on me? Is this that elevator at NASA?"
M: "...with A and B."
My Brain: "Um. Wait. Wut? Srsly?! Did you just say that?!! DOES NOT COMPUTE." [no I don't know why my brain talks like a lolcat. STOP JUDGING ME]
My Mouth: "Uh, I wouldn't mind that."
M: *looks super surprised, maybe even shocked*
My mouth: "Well the trick to dealing with people like that is to just-"
M: "Not listen to them?"
My Brain: "Wait, WUT?!!!!!!!"
My Mouth: "Um, no. You just have to go with it."
My Brain: ";kfaekjiorcmaephaf firt4mjtwhsi3"

Then, due to a combination of insane schedules neither A nor I got a chance to actually talk to C for almost two weeks following that lovely weekend. I began to spazz a bit because as we all know, textbook abusive behavior features isolating the victim from his or her friends.
We finally got a chance to talk tonight. C knows that his behavior at B's birthday was super inappropriate, and though she did offer the excuse that he was feeling poorly, we're all on the same page about it. What I told her is that what really matters to me is that he genuinely makes her happy because in the end, her happiness and mental health are the things I care about. I don't give a shit if her boyfriend doesn't respect me. If he is good for her, then that's awesome.

That being said, he lost my trust and respect in a fairly spectacular manner. Those things don't grow back real quickly and there will always be a scar.

Be Seeing You

Boil Update:
To continue my last thought in a wholly disgusting Boil Update fashion, let's stick with the wound/scar analogy. Not talking to C about the entirely inappropriate nature of M's behavior at the birthday dinner was like a cut and the concept of an abuser cutting off the victim's contact with friends was like some nasty bacteria. Leave those two together for several weeks of silence and you've got nasty suppuration and a throbbing boil. By acknowledging it, we essentially lanced the boil thereby easing a lot of my paranoid agony. However, I will be keeping an eye on the injury and if that shit starts to fester measures will be taken. If gangrene sets in, I'm fully prepared to lop off the arm. I don't really know what this means in practical real world terms, but the point is I love my friend and would do near anything to protect her.

Homicide, Plastination, and Displaying a Torso in Your Home

I bet you're wondering about the Cakewreck icing on the gateau of fail, but do you see a number in the title of this post? No? Well then NO GATEAU FOR YOU.
Mostly I'm busy being insane, studying for anatomy/physio finals (had my lab test this week, lecture test is next week), attempting to research and write a short (8-10pgs) paper for Medical Anthropology that focuses on how the American practice of embalming is a physical manifestation of our cultural obsession with controlling death. The breakthrough on that came yesterday when I realized I can acknowledge all the caveats in one big chunk thus 1. Getting a chunk of writing down on paper and 2. Then I don't have to worry about making them the entire time.  This is a huge relief because despite having read four whole books, sections of two more, and at least five papers I was no closer to a coherent explanation of this practice. Then I realized that this is an 8-10 page paper. Coherent explanation isn't going to happen in that space. I can pick and choose what I want to focus on. I mean, it's not like this shit is going to be peer reviewed, which is essentially what I was thinking of before, so I feel slightly less INSANE about that. Also have a take home exam for that class that involves writing two short essays on questions he's given us. I haven't even looked at those since class on Wednesday. Wait. Wednesday was just yesterday. Maybe he handed them out on Monday. That makes more sense. Either way, the point is I'm not even thinking of that yet.
I've also been going through an epic laundry shuffle that involves washing the great majority of my clothes since I hadn't washed anything in a really really long time (I have a shit-ton of clothes. I'd be embarrassed about how many, except I either wear most of them or they're key parts of costuming).
Mostly what I'm trying to say is I feel a little like I'm only just keeping my brain from leaking out through my auditory meatus. Speaking of which, neural tissue makes water go all cloudy. It's really quite disgusting.
Tomorrow we exhume the raccoon we buried last Spring! Boo for the person whose loose lips keyed Admin onto the existence of this little project, but yay for diggin' it up! Mostly I'm worried we won't really have enough time to properly excavate it. Rest assured I will take photos, and if you're really lucky I might even refrain from posting them!
Be Seeing You.

Boil Update:
I don't have a boil. I DO however have some burns on my forearm from some unfortunate run-ins with the edge of our wood stove. You'd think after like, the third time I'd learn some way to NOT hit my left posterior forearm on the edge of the stove opening, but nooooo. At least my scars are consistent. They're not really bad scars, though the burns look pretty nasty and at the moment the current one hurts like a bitch. It did not help that this time I totally forgot about the existence of aloe and ice. Really what I forgot was that even though it doesn't hurt very much at first and is super easy to ignore, you've got to get shit on there quick to keep the flesh from continuing to cook. Then I made the mistake of covering it fairly early on with a non-breathable bandage. Burns are gross. It's never nice to smell one's own body decaying.  Oh, wait...did I disgust you? Well you should have learned by now that you SHOULDN'T READ THE BOIL UPDATES if you don't want to be horribly disgusted!!!!

Personal Lessons in Ethnography, Part 2.1: Examples of Assitude

Okay, so there's no way I'll actually be coherent enough to truly treat this like a pure anthropological study, but at least I'm not spittin' mad any more and thus am no longer worried my words may be sullied with excess vitriol. I won't get into the larger issues at stake here, but I figured I'd at least share some of the "examples of assitude" I alluded to in my earlier post.  To avoid confusing labels (I can't keep saying "my friend" because this involves several of my friends), let's label the cast of characters thus:

C: the friend in question who is awesome and I love
M: C's boyfriend. Considerably less awesome.
A: has been friends with C since early childhood, I've known her and C since early high school. Highly opinionated with an extremely forceful personality.
B: friend of C from the same religion, has become friends with me and A over the past year or so
I: I just mean "I" as in the word you use instead of "me", maybe I should have gone with numbers...
Okay, so now that we instituted that either totally obvious or completely paranoid rubric, let's get on to the story.

Last Saturday (11/13/10) B had a birthday gathering that included all individuals in question. Over the course of the afternoon and early evening, M occasionally made comments that were distinctly tinged with bigotry, but the real fun didn't start until we all went out to dinner. B rode in the same car as M and C and apparently he bitched about A the whole way there. Now, I can understand being overwhelmed by her and/or not up to spending a lot of time in close proximity to such a whirlwind of energy if one is not used to it, but it's unclear exactly what she did to earn such animosity (we have a few theories...but those mostly have to do with her being a strong female and therefore a threat). The strangest element here is him doing it in front of B. Did he for some reason think she wouldn't tell us?
There were a whole spate of assitudinal moments at dinner, but we all avoided seriously starting shit given that it was B's birthday dinner. Prime examples include:
-M insisting that fried foods aren't bad for you, and when questioned by one of our other friends insisted that it was proved by 'science'. I missed this (I did a lot of going to the bathroom to avoid having to spend time in his proximity...also because I have a tiny bladder), but apparently he tried to bust out some sort of nonsensical explanation, clearly unaware that the woman to whom he was talking is a Cal grad who works in the microbio industry. Fail #1
-We were debating the possibility of genetic resistance to Poison Oak and A mentioned that she had Native American ancestry. M's response: "Oh, well that must mean you have the gene for alcoholism too". Um, yeah. I think I can just stop labeling the Fails here since this covers #'s 2-437.
-In a discussion that somehow involved the downsides of a stereotypical 1950's marriage (WHY WERE WE TALKING ABOUT THIS?!) he said something along the lines of "Well, you only don't want it to be that way when it benefits you. I'm sure there are a lot of aspects you do want." I don't remember if it was me or A, but one (maybe both) of us asked for an example. I was genuinely curious because there were a whole number of interesting sociological routes he could take, so what does he go with? He pointed directly at A and said "Well, I bet you like it when your boyfriend buys you lots of expensive things."
1) A runs a half-million dollar government program. She pays her own rent, she pays/has paid for her own tuition, she pays for her car. In fact, she makes quite a bit more money than her boyfriend, and really neither of them are into getting a whole bunch of unnecessary material shit for each other.
2) One of her personal pet peeves is women who predicate their relationship on having the man buy them lots of things.
3) In short: bitch got told, even though A's response was pretty much just telling him the above, with explanation of why #2 is a pet peeve (you know, relationships being based on respect and affection, etc. instead of material wealth...ridiculous shit like that). Again, it being B's birthday dinner, she kept it cordial.
-Then there was some whole thing where he bitched about tipping and splitting the bill to some insane degree (even though he wasn't the one paying: C was). This shit started up and I could tell it was going nowhere good so I put in my money and went to the bathroom. It was still going by the time I got back.

So, overall, M didn't make the most stellar of impressions that evening. However, given that this was only my second time meeting him, I didn't want to jump to a judgment too quickly. Okay, granted, I had already judged him and decided he was a judgmental bigoted dick, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and allow for the possibility that this wasn't true, that somehow there was some sort of explanation for him coming off as a total dick. I decided I needed to see him again before I really made up my mind.

Coming Soon: Part 2.11, The Cakewreck Icing on M's Gâteau of Fail

Be Seeing You.

As If I Could Maintain a Consistent Narrative

Here's the deal: I'm in the midst of researching (and soon, I hope, will be writing) a term paper.  I think it's going to propose that the American practice of embalming is indicative/tied to a modern trend of ignoring the dying process.  Since we can't ignore death, we do our best to ignore how we get there. The paper is still in the early stages of development (read: I need to do SO MUCH MORE research), so the specifics of my thesis may change, but mostly I wanted to figure out some way to talk about (cosmetic) embalming because it's super weird.
Occasionally I realize that my obsession with death must be rather creepy when viewed from an outside perspective. Maybe someday I'll attempt to articulate my views. In the meantime, you can hang out with Dickinson and Yeats.
In addition to this, I'm attempting to learn a bunch of muscles in the human body (not, thank god, all 800 of them) as well as points of origin and insertion (shut up right now, don't even go there). I will undoubtedly immediately forget all this knowledge the moment I leave the final (here's hoping that doesn't happen BEFORE the final), but for now it's imperative I learn that shit.
My point being, my mind has not really been composed enough to continue Personal Lessons. I'll work at it in chunks, but can't promise any sort of regular updates for the next several weeks.

Be Seeing You.

Edit: And yes, I'm using time I don't have to write this. I'm a bit like a slacker Dalek Procrastinate...PROCRASTINATE

Personal Lessons in Ethnography: Part 1.1

In a shocking turn of events, you will not be getting a fully fleshed Part 2 with any immediate alacrity. Part of this has to do with my uneasiness about sharing a delicate social situation that is still developing with the faceless menace of the Interwebs. I don't want my words to be twisted or misconstrued, particularly in any way that might adversely influence matters, so careful thought (always at a premium in my crazy brain) and precise elocution (yes I realize that's a debatable use of the word) are required. My previous post is a bit of a rant compared to the style in which I would prefer to present this.  The struggle between my desire to view and share events in a detached, unbiased manner and the extremely strong feelings and opinions I have as a human being and a loving friend is what inspired the title of this multi-part story in the first place. It's one of the fundamental issues any rigorous anthropologist must confront. Since this is my personal blog and not a peer reviewed journal, I feel comfortable excusing myself from absolute unbiased assessment, but I think one of my greatest assets as a friend to the woman in question is my ability to employ logic and reason such that I am generally able to view an issue from multiple points of view.

Also, I'm lazy.

 Be Seeing You.

An Interesting Personal Lesson in Ethnography: Part 1

As an anthropologist, I try to comprehend individuals from their own point of view, view situations with an impartial eye, and understand social constructs/societies without passing judgment. However, as a female and a human being, you can bet your ass I judge shit. I have exceedingly strong opinions, particularly when something or someone threatens me or mine. Particularly "mine". A threat to my person rarely upsets me as much as a threat against those I love.
My good friend is a member of a religion that, suffice to say I do not hold in high regard, not least because I believe it has had an extremely negative impact on her happiness and her life. However, she believes strongly in her faith, and I have to accept that. She's her own woman and though I don't necessarily agree, I respect her choice. This has brought me into close contact with a totally alien society that often goes against what my heart, mind, and gut tell me. I try not to interfere, but this shit just crossed the line.
To be fair, it's not the religion itself that's the issue so much as the situation it has created. In this parallel world, marriage and childbirth are completely central to a woman's place in the world. It seems an unmarried woman is regarded as worth less as a person, and though it's never explicitly stated (though in some cases, it's only just the other side of explicit) this knowledge permeates the life of every believer. By age 30, she's considered on the shelf.
It was a bit of a shock to me to find out that that concept still actually existed somewhere beyond my Regency romance novels. Srsly, guys? For reals? However, this constant denigration of the unmarried state is causing some serious issues in my friend's psyche since she is now pushing 27. It's become imperative to find a suitable partner. The catch is, he's got to be of the same religion. Now, my friend is awesome and incredibly artistically talented and open minded and intelligent: it's hard to believe that any man actually awesome enough for her wouldn't have left the church by now. In this culture that emphasizes conformity but lacks extreme mechanisms against personal defection, the pool of 'counter-culture' types is just not going to be very large.  It was thus fairly exciting when my friend started dating a guy who might actually fulfill these criteria.

Unfortunately, this man is an utter ass.

In many ways he embodies the arrogance, the blindness, and the intolerance that I find so despicable in the religion as a whole.

In Part 2 we will discuss 1)Incidents of assitude/evidence for my admittedly harsh assessment of his character, 2)Why I consider him a direct threat to my friend's well-being, 3)The ways in which his personality and this situation might fit into the larger context of the religion as a whole, 4)No, seriously guys: what universe is this dude living in?

Be Seeing You.

I Wasn't Going to Bore You With This...

...but then I thought "well, shit: as long as I'm doing any sort of writing at all I might as well post it on my blog. Heh. I have a blog."
Also I initially posted it as a Facebox note, but I'm jumpy about drawing too much attention to my account and obviously this is the most genius thing ever and clearly the Interwebs will come flocking to my door, so I felt like I should put it in a forum that contains less DEEPLY PERSONAL information (btw, if I don't want the world to see it, I don't post it on the internet. However, I am also paranoid as shit). Thus, let us move on to:

The Great Weevil Jumpsuit Conundrum Explained....Maybe 

DISCLAIMER: If you haven't watched Torchwood but plan on doing so and don't like horrible spoilers, don't read this. If you haven't watched Torchwood and never plan on doing so, you also probably shouldn't bother reading this because you won't understand it and it'll probably bore the pants off of you. Basically, this all came about because of the wonder of Twitter. I tend to live-tweet (as if we could really dead-tweet anything) shows/movies I'm watching on my infoslab. Nichols pointed out that the real mystery of the Torchwood series is: why are Weevils all wearing matching jumpsuits?! He had a good point. Neither he, nor Julia, nor I could come up with a good explanation. No one ever questions it on the show and thus we never get a proper answer...

"In the Torchwood: De-Classified television special that covers this episode, Burn Gorman jokingly remarks that Owen will transform into the "King of the Weevils" if he isn't truly dead."

What this quotation (which I got from somewhere, maybe Wikipedia...really I don't remember and thus REFUSE TO CITE it) doesn't say is that he actually uses the phrase "find his way into the sewers and become King of the Weevils" and then busts into maniacal laughter. It was a particularly quality moment and it got me thinking, "wait...as King of the Weevils, Owen would have the power and influence to distribute jumpsuits...". However, the Weevils are jumpsuited at the very beginning of the show, so obviously THAT can't be the answer.
Then it hit me.
Duh! The space-time rift runs through the city! Obviously somehow he travels back in time (maybe because the radiation in his body resonates with some wave coming out of the rift, and blah, blah technobabble which I'm totally able/willing to come up with if you want) and distributes jumpsuits THEN! "Why?" you may ask. Two possible explanations:

1) All the events portrayed in the show happened exactly the same way except it was an alternate reality where all the Weevils were actually naked. After a while as King, Owen gets tired of seeing nothing but (as Nichols so eloquently put it) "Weevil peen" and goes back in time on purpose to distribute jumpsuits so future him won't have to live (or, you know, whatever it is he does in place of living) with seeing all Weevil nudity ALL THE TIME.
2) Owen becomes King of the Weevils, then gets transported back in time, but the Weevils in the past are naked! Again, he's not real down with this for whatever reason (I refuse to speculate on that here), and institutes jumpsuit distribution. Thus, all future Weevils (including all the ones the future Torchwood team encounters) are jumpsuited.

Either way, he could use his knowledge of what was once "the past" to make shit-tonnes of money, enough to build his own jumpsuit factory with specific delivery to Weevils (maybe they have a big sewer grate in the middle of the factory floor and finished product gets thrown in there) which explains why they're all matching.

My theory seemed to hold up, even through Children of Earth. In preparation for writing this note I went online to find pictures of Weevils sporting jumpsuits. Oddly enough, there aren't really many good images of this out there and the best one I found (the one that's posted) doesn't come from Torchwood at all. In fact, it comes from Doctor Who and is most definitely not in Cardiff....so WHY ARE THESE WEEVILS CLOTHED?!  If Weevils are indeed an alien species and not simply endemic to Cardiff (and I'd like to point out that we're never given any real reason why this should be the case), then my theory should only hold up for Cardiff Weevils unless that low grade telepathy the Torchwood team speculates on works over long distances and Weevils all across the world travel to Cardiff to obey the jumpsuit dictate of their King. Also, if I remember correctly, this is something like a few thousand years in the past, so either these are time-traveling Weevils or the jumpsuits came from someplace OTHER THAN EARTH. Maybe these are Weevils from future Cardiff, recruited by other more technically advanced alien races and they bummed a ride on someone's ship. Then it occurred to me: wait...why do the Weevils even care about the Doctor?
At this point in time I finally acknowledged I was putting entirely too much thought into this and decided to cut it out. Also because looking at that picture reminds me how much I can't wait for Series 6 to start up. In conclusion, I leave you with this:

Sometimes I Get Really Stupid Ideas

Just in case my nerdiness was not already painfully obvious, my latest creation should put an end to any doubts. I had this idea awhile ago and may well expand upon it (the previously mentioned plush crypto-taxidermy), but I had a chunk of modeling substance that was going to dry out if I didn't use it immediately, so I figured I'd take a stab at giving my idea a physical form. There is nothing about the resulting product that is not shoddy. Shoddy design, shoddy modeling, shoddy painting. I don't even feel it deserves the title "prototype" but should rather be considered a three dimensional rough concept sketch. Full comprehension of its stupidity requires passing knowledge of both Doctor Who and well known behavioral patterns of certain South American mammals. I also worked up a little intro piece which will make NO sense if you don't know what a Dalek is.

Does anyone really believe Devros managed to create the Daleks on his very first try? Surely he had some experimental mishaps/precursors before he constructed the ultimate killing machine! Practicality insists that he would have started with a less lethal model just in case he wasn't able to control early prototypes.

In truth, it's likely another creature roamed the scarred landscape of Skaro, bleating out the much less terrifying but infinitely more disgusting cry of "EXPECTORATE".

I present: the Llamek

Be Seeing You.

The Circle of Willis

Louis Wain would have been proud.

Have I Ever Mentioned My Vibrant Social Life?

Okay, so since I have pretty much zero capacity to remember anything, I can't recall if I've written about this before. Also, I don't want to open another browser window and find out because the kernel on my computron is freakin' out a little and I think it has something to do with the interwebs. Now what the hell was I talking about? ....Oh, right: I tend to go out twice a week, once on Thursdays to get hot chocolate with two (sometimes) three ladies and once sometimes Friday or Saturday to play D&D.  Before school started up again, these were pretty much my ONLY contact with the outside world. On this particular Friday past, our bold group of adventurers faced the challenge of 'making something'. Two of our party went about constructing a plush owlbear in-game (i.e. there is no actual cute plushie owl bear that resulted from this....yet. Llameks are already on my list, so plush cryptozoology may be inching up on me), while certain other members of our party decided it would be a really good idea to write a ballad about our adventures. Except I actually wrote one and Jesse (who would have made a pretty great bard back in the day) performed it with all appropriate gusto in spite of the fact that it was truly terrible. We were in pretty fine form. I even managed to get in a line about the sweet robe we got from a litch we had defeated

The Doom-Filled Ballad of the Harbingers

It began in the land of Tolkeineth,

where many an adventurer did go,

But many an adventurer met his death,

for there was a lich below. 

And then one day the Goblin King,

driven from home by the dead,

Attacked a town where heros supped and

Lo! his minions bled.

Dominique was a crafty lich,

but no real match for his foes;

They slew him straight and smashed his box,

and also stole his clothes.

Enchanted bears and Hill Giants

fell beneath their blades;

They smashed their way through time and space,

Shadar'kai and slades.

Golems and zombies rushed the field, 

but then came Ahulugaran,

Who slew the leaders and left that land

in the hands of Caleron.

Look, I told you it was bad. My assignment for this week was to work it into ballad verse so we could sing it to the tune of the "Gilligan's Island" theme. Since I still have yet to make my mini some new wings, I don't think anyone should be expecting that anytime soon. 

Be Seeing You

Boil Update:

What a horrible disappointment. I really think it was glorifying it to call it a boil at all. In the right light, I can sort-of see where it was, but like my perception of the disturbed earth over the raccoon, it might just be in my mind. 

Last spring we buried a raccoon near a tree, but over the summer they cut the tree down, so there's a little uncertainty as to where exactly the body is. I'm pretty sure I can still see signs of disturbance in the place I seem to remember burying it, but as noted before, that could just be observer bias and a manifestation of my CRAZY.

Forensic Taphunamy

How often do ordinary people think about death? I can only assume the thought is not right alongside most people most of the time. I feel my own mortality very keenly and I"m okay with it. It's the mortality of those around me that would be much harder to deal with.
The fact of the matter is, Death walks alongside us everyday but just like the Tarot card, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Your bones are constantly dissolving (then getting rebuilt), and your outer layer of skin is continuously sloughing off. If either of these things weren't happening, you'd be one unhappy motherfucker.
Okay, the real point to this post is to say that I'm still working on my post-Burn reflections, but I've gotten a bit buried (heh:buried) in trying to adapt to starting school again and figuring out scheduling for some of the most awesome "Special Projects in Anthropology" ever.

Protect Your Neighbor's Rainbow

"May the moon and stars, Venus and Mars; Shine on your Dreams of Gold."
I'm sure all of you who avidly follow my blog have been wondering "WHERE IS HANNAH?!!! I CAN'T LIVE ANOTHER DAY WITHOUT HER WRITINGS!!!!"
Fear not. I am here.

....maybe that's a reason you should be afraid.

The Western Desert Lives and Breathes

The desert strips everything bare. Neither personality, nor perception, nor the body itself can hide from the piercing eye of the elements. Flesh and artifice melt under the heat of the Evil Day Star and the persistent, scouring alkali sand. We become what we are, and though that may bring to light certain heretofore unacknowledged undesirable elements, sometimes our true appearance comes as no shock at all.
I subscribe to Open Source Anarchy: "The comedy turns to violence much more quickly than the hate." I wish I could take credit for that glorious description, since it articulates a type of friendship I've found difficult to explain in any coherent manner. I dance on the edge of the knife and don't particularly fear being cut. I suppose I deliberately bait predators because unlike the majority of (sane) humanity, I'm not real scared of getting punched in the face. If I don't bait them, who ever will? We all need laughter in our darkest moments.
I've more to say but exhaustion is outpacing me.

Be Seeing You.

Ad Hoc Blog Post

As I've previously mentioned, I'm busy going insane and creating things for my trip to the desert and I really don't have the time to even be writing this, but I know some of you simply live to read my amazing blog (which is always perfectly written and crystal clear). The point is, I will probably be practicing radio silence for the next several weeks, and figured I'd share a taste of what I'm up to.
1) Making my Dalek hat, which involved learning how to solder EL wire. The ears were supposed to be aqua, but I had issues with soldering that damn stuff and so settled for purple at least for the desert. If this gets made into a Halloween costume, I'll switch the colors out.
2) Constructing my Utili-Bodice. I still need to sew EL wire onto it to make it nighttime safe.
3) Repairing my old hat by decoupaging on top of it.
4) Making a collage for my camp. This has evolved into Auto-Bot, Playa Scout. Basically it's going to be a picture of this little robot with a merit-badge type sash. I'll post photos someday. It's not done yet.
5) Constructing a Sculpy statue of Carl from Llamas with Hats to secret in my friend's tent without his knowledge. Ronny originally sent me the link with the note: "I'm not sure which one's me and which one's you". I don't get many chances to be directly creepy, so I have to maximize creepiness efforts during the time we're in the same vicinity. I am also counting on the fact that he is not reading this blog. A fairly safe assumption.
6) Did I mention packing? I'm going to a week-long party in the desert.
7) Also I need to make sure all is good with my hexa-yurt (living structure)
8) Not to mention pre-desert personal grooming: my friend is braiding my hair tomorrow and I'm getting a mani-pedi on Friday morning.
9) There are probably about 7 billion other things too, but for now I'm just going to go shopping for the six gazillion items I need.

Be Seeing You.

Boil Update:
This was either a super-bizarre spider bite or the wimpiest boil known to humankind. All that remains is a small hard node (that doesn't hurt) and a patch of shiny skin. I had such high hopes for disgustingness. On the upside, I don't need to worry about blood poisoning from it!!!

Early Indria Irish

I try to be a good person. I really do. It doesn't always succeed. I'm kind of fascinated by the concept of someone out there hating me. Or just disliking me. By this point, I'm pretty resigned to rejection. I can't think of a way to phrase that in a manner that sounds less like a Strong Sad diary entry, but I don't mean it in the horrifically depressing way it sounds. I'd elaborate on this, but sleep just hit me like a forty ton sack of badgers.

Old at an Early Age

How is it that AIM has become an antiquated form of communication? I've often wondered about the fact that I grew up in Silicon Valley and yet am a Neo-Luddite. ....Maybe I should rephrase that. Let's go with "a non-bomby Neoluddite". Beware the power of the Great Interwebs!! You too could have buried deep within thee a shared belief with a serial killer!
It will get progressively creepier if you subsequently recall that one of the two or three best talks you've attended while at The Great School of Existence was given by his brother.
Do you recall Theodore Kaczynski ?
I suppose where he felt anger and superiority, I feel sorrow. Lots and lots of sorrow. I think Yeats had it wrong. It's not Love and Death- it's Love and Sorrow.
I think people tend to misjudge me by the amount of shit I know. I may sound all classy referring to Yates and shit, but the truth is I only know that poem because it was made into a song by The Waterboys. Basically Mike Scott is a latter-day incarnation of Yeats. Except perhaps maybe even MORE barking mad. Also, I only know about The Waterboys because of the random tape we found in Old Champ (no, there is no link for that one. yet.) and I only know that song is a Yeats poem because my sister was awesome and took me to a concert in Ireland. So really, there's no class in any of that! Another fine example is the somewhat prodigious knowledge I have of Regency-period England. I might vaguely know the precedence of nobility titles and a fair amount about mourning costume and yes, some proper forms of address and dress, but the ONLY reason I know this stuff is because I adore Regency romance novels.
The knowledge gleaned from romance novels comes in handy sometimes (the historical details, you smutty-minded fools!), but I never expected to ever have any super productive use for the massive amount of information stored up from my years of reading countless sci-fi and fantasy novels. More the fool, me!

Look, interwebs: I'm already testing you. It would spoil the experiment if I were to expose you to any more insanity for this evening. It's time for a fateful appointment with a Dalek hat.

Be Seeing You.

Boil Update: Initial diagnosis very much in doubt now. The node has gotten harder and less painful. Showed it to my friend who's practically a doctor by now (literally) and she was just about as mystified as me. My guess is maybe the staph got in but my immune system killed it fairly quickly and so it just never developed to full boil stage. I will keep you updated because if you didn't actually want to know, you so could have skipped reading this part.

Space Madness is Transmitted via Scaly Sloths

I don't know if it's common to the Burner community at large or if it's just an AutoSub thing, but there's a certain state one gets into immediately pre-Burn that is referred to as Space Madness. It sets in when one realizes s/he hasn't done any of the 30 gazillion things s/he meant to do in the intervening year. Suddenly one must rush to complete art projects, modify living structures, fortify clothing (b/c the playa dust will eat a straw hat in approximately 1.2 seconds), and develop the perfect utility belt. My insane East Coast compatriots tend to contract said madness about two weeks earlier than me since they have to get everything ready in time to ship it across the country via container trucks (like I said: insane). This fact (namely: I live on the correct coast with idyllic weather) has led to several instances of hilariously bitter anger at my existence. Those poor, poor fools.

See, some of us only contracted the crazy about a week ago and most of that time it was in an incubation period. But now the phage/prion/whateverthehell has ENTERED MY BRAIN and PROLIFERATED.

Be Seeing You.

Boil Update:
Beginning to doubt initial diagnosis as there seems to be little suppuration going on. Certainly not enough to grow to "golf-ball size". As far as boils go, I don't think this is really of the super-hardcore Biblical variety.

Stupid Buddhist Humor

Stupid Buddhist (or in my case, specifically Zen) humor is a unique subgenre of hilarity that amuses me to no end but I find impossible to explain.  Inability to explain anything hasn't ever stopped me from trying though! Ha ha, suckers! This particular topic (like pretty much everything else I'll ever be talking about on this blog) has been in my consciousness for quite some time, and I made reference to it on Twitter, but decided it needed a longer explanation.
The Dalai Lama has a Twitter account which is just about the best thing EVER. Given that he frikin' loves technology I have no doubt that most of the time it's actually him tweeting his random thoughts of awesomeness like, "Compassion and love are not a luxury. As the source both of inner and external peace, they are fundamental to the survival of our species." However, he occasionally posts links to videos of his talks or visits & the summaries thereof have obviously been prepped by a PR team (because he doesn't seem the sort to refer to himself in the third person). The point is, these posts always refer to him as HHDL. I can't explain why the fuck I find this so friggin' hilarious, but I do. I really really do. In case you're not familiar with the forms, his official title is 'His Holiness the Dalai Lama', which I recognize is entirely too long for Twitter. Even 'His Holiness' is too long. There's just something funny about his title being turned into an acronym in order to accommodate a society (and consequently a technology) obsessed with briefness. My mom also found this fact hilarious, but I strongly suspect it's one more instance of shit that Buddhists find funny that quite possibly no one else will.
Other examples include the ever classic book The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi by Susan Moon. There is a section extremely reminiscent of "Letters from the Pet Department" in A Thurber Carnival by James Thurber (a book that is sure to have its own blog entry someday) with quality letters to Tofu Roshi asking questions like, "Every time I sit down to meditate, the song Found a Peanut pops into my head. Is there any hope for me?" and another concerning a dog who won't meditate and whether it's acceptable to just tie him to the Zafu for 40 minutes a day. The former is funny because it's true. The epically annoying shit your brain will dredge up during zazen is incredible, not least because the entire time you're trying to clear your mind of everything and that one damn song just WON'T GO AWAY. The question about the dog...well...this is one of those points where I can't even begin to tell you why I find it so funny. 
I'm sure I'll come back to this topic again someday, but for now I'll stop while I'm ahead (read: haven't deleted my entire blog post accidentally) and go do some productive shit like clean the kitchen and go pick up my car from the garage. 


The real irony of this post is that I'm so paranoid about this entire blogging thing that in all likelihood, no one will actually read any of this so once again I'm attempting to explain shit to a non-existence audience! I'm kind of digging this. Maybe I'll just let knowledge of this thing seep out in a natural ooztastic interwebs fashion. I just realized this also gives me a platform to debut my Interwebs-exploding art piece that I will someday unveil. 


Be Seeing You.

Gasping for Breath: A Juan Gris Retrospective (curated by Dan Hoffsteader)

I have a boil on my leg. It's nowhere near as nasty as it sounds, but I find the entire concept somewhat unsettling. See, any mention of boils immediately makes me think of buboes (which are, incidentally, not related to and only slightly less viscerally disturbing than Boobahs). In turn, buboes make me think of the Black Plague, which brings me to today's topic. That's right! It's time for your very first edition of "Craazyy, Crazy Theories and Cosmic Questions"!!!!!

Today's topic: The Black Plague

 Whenever I think about Bubonic Plague, I marvel at the fact that it's still alive and well in today's ground squirrel communities.  Just think about that. This disease ravaged Europe during the Middle Ages, killing an estimated 30-60% of the population, but until maybe a decade ago, I hadn't a clue it was still around because we NEVER HEAR ABOUT IT. Why? One word, my friends: antibiotics. Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine any individual who contracts this once-upon-a-time-death-sentence can now be rid of it with a one or two week course of pills!
This is the point where my mental crazytrain always takes a specific side spur. I've never actually done any research on this, so it's entirely possible an answer lies out there waiting for me and I'm just too damn lazy to find it, but consider this: penicillin (the first recognized antibiotic) is produced by certain types of mould, often found on bread. Knowing what I do of food sanitation in the Middle Ages (for example: "let's spice this meat so you can't taste the fact that it happens to be ROTTING"), it's pretty reasonable to assume that people wouldn't be bothered by eating some bread with a little mould on it.  According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia,
"The use of bread with a blue mould (presumably penicillium) as a means of treating suppurating wounds was a staple of folk medicine in Europe since the Middle Ages."

So my question is: did anyone contract the Plague and inadvertently cure themselves by eating moldy bread? The chances seem too good for it not to have happened, and I can't help but feel like there's a short story or a plot device or SOMETHING in this concept, but I'm not really inclined to take it anywhere else, so this entire mental sidespur just gets filed away to miche about in the library of Reoccurring Crazy Thoughts and Ideas.

Adding My Voice to the Collective Din

Do I really need a blog? No, of course I don't. However, do I occasionally fly off into bizarre flights of fancy and feel the need to share said insanity with the world sometimes? Why yes, omniscient interlocutor, I do indeed!
Despite growing up a child of Silicon Valley I'm really not very tech savvy, and my stubborn adherence to Neoludditism has rather prevented me from learning the skills required to craft a proper website. Really I need to make a site that showcases my artwork, but 1)Omg pain-in-the-ass (The issue with being an artist is that I can't stand having a non-esthetically pleasing site and every "handy do-it-yourself" site I've encountered thus far just drives me mad), and 2)In classic fashion, the computron with 99.5% of my art pictures on it is having kernel issues and freaks out if I so much as turn it on, let alone try to retrieve data.
The point of all this rambling is mostly to say don't expect much from this blog. Don't expect much from me. As you may have already noticed, I'm not exactly eloquently terse, and I have serious issues actually saying whatever it is I'm trying to communicate.
Oh, also: I can be pretty super creepy. If you don't want to hear about death and decay, take three steps back, take a deep breath (it's important you move away before taking the breath because the decay microbes produce some stinky byproducts), and flee off into the relative safety of the World Wide Web I won't be offended. I swear. I'm too busy stalking about a gazillion other people to bother.