octopus vs shark

who'd of thunk it?

Run! Octopus (SAIPAN)

This one is just a day in the life of an octopus... pretty neat though

Octopus changing colors

and heres one that just shows off the cool camafougeing ability of the octopus.

Octopus escaping through a 1 inch hole

and here is an octopus demonstrating its general invertebrateness. I would say that it's pretty amazing, but actually I think i've known some people who are as spineless as this. I can imagine that the ability to fit into such small spaces might actually prove pretty annoying to a person though... you'd be walking along the sidewalk with your freind, and then suddenly he disapears. a few seconds later he'd show up again and be lik "uh, sorry, stepped on a sidewalk crack back there and... uh... fell in, actually."

Walking octopus

well, I was going to start a sort of "marine animal of the week" feature on my blog, but then I went to wikipedia and decided that they already had a pretty good and extensive article on the octopus (which is what I wanted to write about), of course it occurred to me that I could just delete it, but that wouldn't be very nice. in any case, in doing some research I happened upon this video, which I actually recognize as having been taken from a nature film that I watched not long ago. I think it's great, because it depicts an octopus that has actually decided that the best way to camaflouge itself is to pretend to be a coconut. I'm not even kidding, that's what the said in this nature film. apparently enough coconuts wash out to sea that this is actually a good idea. I just love it because I can totally see myself doing that, you know like, "aahrg! look, shit! a shark! quick... lets all be coconuts and hope that this particular shark isn't a vegetarian!" I also think it's really fascinating that a mere oceanic invertibrate can be so smart.

Old things

Alright, so firstly I need to apologize for not updating my blog in about a month, I don't want to make it feel all neglected.

so here are a few of the really exciting things that have been happening in my life.

I got to have lunch with Nobel laureate John Hall (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2005/)
well, not just me, me and a bunch of other physics students. It was still pretty cool. But the thing is, I didn't really care too much about the research he did. i mean it's cool and everything, but if I want to know about it then I'll just read his paper. It still presented a neat opportunity though, because I love to hear well informed people talk about stuff they actually know about, and it occurred to me that he was in a really good position to know things about how science and public policy intersect (because a nobel laureate seems like just the sort of person that people would go to for advice when drafting legislation). So whilst everyone else was all going on about laser based spectroscopy (which is actually very similar to what I have been working on in the lab), I just wanted to know whether or not people in the Bush administration were really as stupid about science as they seem. Although you never really get a straight answer from these guys, the jist of it was... well... "YES".

I also finally went climbing, but first I had to take the "beginner climbing course" thing. But see, the course was mostly about knots, and, as some of you already know, I am simply GOD of knots. I even helped to teach a knot tying course back when I was in the boy scouts. What you may not have known, is that I was at the time assigned the official "figure eight knot tyer persone," which met that when someone needed to learn about tying a figure eight, I was the guy to go too.

So you can imagine my joy when I learned that the first knot we needed to tie was the figure eight. "ha ha! I'm just ganna OWN this course!" thought I, so I did not pay attention while we were being shown.

But of course, it is I, the Rugged Explorer. Which means that when it actually came time to demonstrate my unparalelled knot-tying ability, I could not remember for the life of me how to tie a figure eight. Everyone around me quicklly tied their own neat little figure eights, but I was getting weird looking figure threes and twos and all sorts of stuff everyone around me kept using some cutesy little saying to help them, something like "just strangle the bunny and poke its eye out." I wasn't sure why they felt compelled to say it out laud over and over again, but eventually I'm thinking "couldn't we just shoot the fucking bunny and be done with it." (note: I am actually very fond of bunnies and would only advocate undue violence against them in jest). I had just finished tying something that looked a little like an intoxicated figure four when the intructor says "OK, everyone finished! everyone show me your knots." and one by one we would present our knots for inspection. When she got to me, I quickly tidied up my figure four, held it up proudly and declared "well, I'm exactly half way there." well, it was funny at the time anyway (hey at least I didn't say that I inadvertantly tied a figure infinity, that would have been really dumb).

So anyway, I climbed, and I'm happy to report that I made it all the way up to the elephant (I know i know, elephants don't climb walls, but this particular wall had a very attractive elephant shaped rock adhered to it, I'm still wondering why).

Incidently, I should also mention that somebody really needs to design a new, more comfortable harness. I mean, not to be too graphic or anything, but I'm not even sure if I can have kids now. I don't think I'll ever have to worry about falling, because there is no greater incentive to stick close to the wall without taking any risks than the prospect of having your nads crushed together like grapes at a vineyard (Ok, really dumb metephor, but you get the point).

Ok, so the other day I was trying to explain to some freinds about how I like old things (not people, objects) because they have more personality. This is true. For instance, my car is a Mazda protege from the eighties that I got for two hundred dollars, and I love him. I don't usually name objects, but I do talk to them and offer them comfort, and my little blue mazda and I have been through some stuff together. A similar thing is true of my cell phone. Most people seem to update their phones about four times every month, but I've had the same one for several years now, and she isn't exactly looking her best (see, phones are "she" because they are sleek and sexy). And just as is the case with my car, my phone and I are like just little pals, she's gotten me out of some serious fixes (such as when my car got all depressed and stopped working). I would also tell you all about my sandels that i had for so long that I eventually had to duct tape them together, but my mother threw them away when I wasn't home, and I don't like to talk about it.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that I have yet to mention the down side to possessing such an array of old but very freindly items. See, in general, they don't don't, as such, work. See, my $200 dollar car has been sitting in sort of a sad sort of Dilapidated state for over a year now, unable to start, or even to blink his headlights in a sad forlorn sort of way (he has served as an excellent rental space for squirrels and bees, however). More importantly, my phone and I haven't really been so much on the same wavelength lately (tee hee... wavelength... get it?) and these days "she" is sounding abit like an old women. The voices of people speaking on the other end sort of waver in and out and there is no small supply of static. Nonetheless, I have faith in my phone, but usually this ends up being a bad Idea. Talking to people on my phone usually makes me sound either like a dumbass or a jackass. Someone will say to me "my dog died today" but I will hear something like "pffffr-og psshh-day," and since I hate saying "what?" over and over again, I'll just be all like "well hey, that's great! frog day! I love frogs." and then the person will hang up and never speak to me again.

Sometimes I make the mistake of thinking that, just this once, my phone will make some sort of temporary recovery and actually let me call someone and have some sort of coherant discourse go on. In fact, I did this earlier today, I had this spontanious revelation "I want to call..(person)."
So I did, and then immidiately thought better of it and hung up, because I didn't really want to come across as a total idiot to this person (she kinda cute). Unfortunately, these days there is caller ID, which means that it wasn't long before I was being called back, and knew that I would just have to give it my best shot, I think i made it through, but I don't know yet for sure (they second time, though, I think I got most of it). In any case, If I ever seem like I'm in a hurry to hang up, now you know why.

anyway, I still have a few chapters to read before bed, so the saga must continue tommorow.
Bye for now

Ok, so I don't generally watch Colbert (or much of anything else, really), but I thought the video below was really funny.

Colbert vs. Westmoreland

Stephen Colbert interviews rookie congressman Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), where they discuss his term and (in)actions in office. Hilarity ensues.

Of puddles and high frequency sound and things

Wow, it feels like forever since I've posted here. I just always forget just how busy life gets once the semester starts. Suddenly I hardly have time to to laundry, and my life starts to consist entirely of scribbles. They show up everywhere. There are scibbles on my hands and my arms, on every available piece of paper, and occasionally on the foreheads of innocent bystanders. I don't even remember what most of them were for, and my handwriting is so bad that I can't go back and fugure it out. I'm sure that they were important at the time though.

But anyway, I had to go get a sonogram last weak, and I just wanted to say that it was REALLY COOL. I generally don't like medical procedures because they feel very invasive to me, but I got to watch my own heart beating in real time, how cool is that? I'm always really awkward getting things like this done, I try to be sort of freindly and conversational, but I just end up saying lots of dumb things (I suspect we've all been there to some degree or another). I kept saying things like

"Oh, hey, I think I can see an image of the virgin mary in the sonogram picture!"

and the person doing the sonogram (radiologist? sonogram specialist? nurse? I don't really know) would sort of say "uh huh"

"no no, for real, look she's kind of wedged between my kidney and my pancreas"

"uh huh"

"shes playing the banjo..."

"hmmm"

From the beginning she had been pretty friendly, giving me a little tour of my insides (this is your heart... this is your stomach...ect), andshe remained fairly friendly (apparently she has to put up with this sort of stupidity often), but I couldn't help but notice that by the end of it she was maybe pressing just a tad harder with the sonar emitting device than was probably necessary.

"and OVER HERE is your KIDNEY" she would say.

"ouch" I would say.

"Hmm, it looks sort or flat and bruised"

"well it does NOW you feind, gimme that stupid sonar emitting device"

Other than that though, everything went fine. The equiptment involved is super cool though, and I just think that it should be pointed out that it is PHYSICS at work. So when you think physics, don't just think about destruction and nuclear bombs, think sonograms and cool medical devices.


heres another sort of interesting story. It rained the other day. but that isn't the interesting part. See, its just that I have to walk to school everyday, and everyday I have to pass a particular point on my journey which has a tendancy to develop astonishingly large puddles.

Now, on this particular day, I don't think that the word "puddle," or even the phrase "very large puddle" could ever manage accurately to canvey the incredible liquidy vastness of this body of water. A veteran scuba diver probably couldn't make it to the bottom of this puddle without succumbing to tremendous, unceasing, pressure. Well, ok, I'm stretching the truth a bit, but it was pretty big.

Anywho, the puddle was positioned in just such a way that I couldn't go around it by going off the road (for reasons that would take too much time and effort to explain). But just as I started to enter the road to go around it on the left, a very large bus came out of nowhere and cut me off, stopping for a light right where I needed to wald. So I found myself stuck in a position such that I would just have to brave the puddle. I was not the only one to realize this though, the bus was packed with people, and they all seemed to be keenly interested in what my next move might be.

They seemed to assume that I was stymied, but I knew something that they did not. See, I was wearing these new shoes, and these shoes had been marketed and advertized as being "absolutely waterproof." In fact the shoe box made a really big deal of it, with pictures and cute diagrams proudly displaying the shoes water thwarting abilities ect. Truly these seemed like shoes fit only for a truly rugged explorer, and naturally I assumed that this met they could handle little things like puddles. What I didn't know was that there must be a disclaimer on the shoe box that makes exceptions for Extremely Large Puddles From Hell (ELPFH).

So of course I just turned to the people on the bus and displayed my most charming smile. And with that I stepped confidently forward directly into the heart of this puddle. Now, to my shoes credit, the leather did, in fact, prove impervious to H2O. Unfortunately, the puddle proved just a little deeper than my shoes proved tall (or perhaps that my shoes proved a tad shorter than the puddle proved shallow :) ). In any case, I just stood there, and sighed heavily as I watched bubbles emerge from my feet, which were being quickly inundated with water. On the bus I could hear much laughter and merriment. I'm glad to have made their day.

The really annoying part is that the leather proved just as impervious from the inside as it did from the outside, so for the rest of the day I sounded a little like the monster of the black lagoon going down the hallways. My shoes, being hardly worn, also squeaked terribly. so walking down the otherwise silent halls sounded kinda like.

squish-squeeeeeeeek-splud squish-squeeeeeeek-splud

and every time I passed an office, I would see it's resident peering out to see what wicked thing this way comes, sometimes with there chairs tetering precariously on their back two legs, so that they could maximize their view of the hallway.

I would just smile charmingly.

so anyway, thats how exciting my life is at the moment, but now I have some very important scribbling to get done.

later,

a quick update

Firstly, as you've no doubt already noticed, I've changed the font around here to give this page a bit of personality. I need people to tell me if it just makes it too hard to read though.

I've also added a little poem by Shel Silverstein. I really love Silverstein. There's just something sort of profound and worthwhile in the simplicity of his poetry, and it's good to read some good stuff that's really just for fun, and not trying to be all tediously deep or anything. I think it's really just good to look at the lighter and more fun side of life most of the time. But it's actually not the poem I wanted to put there. I need to find a way to surpass the 500 character limit (or find something new).

Apart from that, there really isn't much to say at the moment. School work is back and I spend an awful lot of time and energy avoiding it. It's always difficult to again form good homework habits. Basically I just do a lot of pacing.

I did breifly visit my nephew (oh yeah, and my sister and her husband) this weekend, and he's only two, so that's always kind of fun. He's always telling me about dinosuars. He manages to work them into every conversation. for instance, on the car ride back I was talking about certain clubs at school, and he says something like "well, blahblahsaurus has a club on his tail that he can hit other dinosaurs with." (but he acually knew the name of the dinosaur, I don't, this is one area where my two year old nephew is better educated than I am). He also kept trying to feed me little wooden mushrooms, he's kind of a goofball.

just a note

just dropping a note to mention that my network at home isn't working, and I won't be able post much until I figure out how to fix it.

Something new

As many people know, I'm not really one to try new foods. This is actually one area where the term "intrepid" is not entirely applicable insofar as I'm concerned. I try only to eat PNF (Perfectly Normal Food). Eventually I intend to become a bit more daring in this regard, but everytime I'm presented with something new, I think "why would I eat that when I already know I like corn flakes?"

But anywho, I decided the other day that I would try a new place. I went to "Ten Rens tea house (or maybe Ren Ten's, I don't remember now)." Now I know that that sounds perfectly innocuous, I had thought so too.

It didn't take me long, though, to learn that it actually takes a lifetime of skill development and learning to become a competant tea buyer.

I mean, I thought I could just walk in and say:
"uh, can I get some tea?"

So that's what I did. and I know that I was a little vague, I know perfectly well that there are lots of teas in the world. But usually these teas come with titles like "green tea" or "orange tea," which usually gives you a pretty idea of what's going on, and I guess that I just assumed that "can I get some tea" might just translate roughly too "I just want the most normal, most common, least surprising tea that you can offer me."

Instead, the person at the counter seemed kind of usure how to respond, and I was presented with a long list with a lot of chinese words on it, which nobody had ever apparently found the time to translate.

"uh" I said (I say "uh" alot when I interact with stangers, it may make me sound clueless, but it's acually a tactical technique intendent to put them off their gaurd). so "uh" I said "I'll just take whatever is sort of cold and icy."

"They're all cold and icy."

damn, hadn't expected that. Doesn't anybody ever drink hot tea anymore?

"well, give me what's normalist"

"Okay, I'll get you the sylogrenatoslytoskisaky." and I could tell that she was suppressing laughter as she looked over at her coworker. This was obviously some mean practical joke that they played on people who hadn't dedicated their lives to tea.

So, of course I said "sure, I'll do that!"

"k, and do you want that green, black, orange, purple, of sort of a vague turqoise color that nobody can quite define."

I decided to go out on a limb. "green" I said.

"and ya want the balls?"

"uh, balls?"

"yeah, like, it's bubble tea, duh, you gotta get da balls." (note, that she was actually much more polite than this, but I'm trying to convey the "vibe" of the conversation)

"er... it doesn't say anything on the menu about getting balls in my tea."

"it's in chinese"

"oh"

"you know, it's the tappiocca"

"tappiwho?"

Apparently, everybody who is anybody just knows that your supposed to get balls of tappiocca in your tea. I didn't know what tappiocca was, and I still don't. It sounds like a dance, or maybe something your supposed to remove when you gut a fish. You know, like "Hey dad, can I eat this part?" "heck no, son, thats the tappiocca, quick, throw it overboard before it attracts flies."

so anyway, I got some strange green tea (which actually turned out to be a brownish orange) which had a whole pile of big grey balls resting at the bottom, which were apparently tappiocca.

It wasn't bad, but was way to sweet to finish. They also served it with this really big straw. So big, in fact, that the strange brown balls of tappiocca (diameter- 1/2 inch) kept trying to make their way up it. and every once in a while I would notice a great big brown ball quietely making its way up my straw in a very menacing "I'm going to lodge in your throat and asphyxiate you, so that future generations of students can laugh about that dumb physics major that died on a ball of tappiocca." sort of way.

so, anyway, that's the event of the day. not terribly exciting, but soon the semester will start, and I plan to get some sort of vespa, which I shall call the adventuremobile, and I suspect that then I will have some things to write about.