Kablammo!

Why is it so hard to find tuna in oil? Tuna packed in water is just too dry; you can’t eat it straight from the can. I don’t mind tuna salad or other dishes made with canned tuna, but I do mind being forced to add things to tuna in order to make it palatable. And whatever beneficial health effects you might arguably gain by purchasing flavorless tuna is no doubt offset by the fact that you’re required to combine it with mayonnaise in order to eat it.

And then when I do scour the shelves of a couple different grocery stores, passing over dozens of brands of water-packed fish, all I find is tuna in olive oil. I don’t mind olive oil in general, but I do mind it being used as an excuse to make everything “gourmet” and therefore extremely expensive. That, and I’m not a big enough fan of olives to want everything I consume to have their sweet-salty-fruity aftertaste. Especially tunafish. (Or horse mackerel.)

Considering how many people seem unable to distinguish between “there”, “their”, and “they’re”; it seems tremendously unfair that the same thing doesn’t happen with “your”, “you’re”, and “yore”.

You know all those stories about people drowning in newspaper, figuratively speaking? Sure, you can blame it on the hoarding.

But I blame it on the newspapers. Seriously, do they need to print quite so much all the time?

Il pleut Il pleut
Il fait beau
Il fait du soleil
Il est tôt
Il se fait tard
Il
Il
Il
toujours Il
Toujours Il qui pleut et qui neige
Toujours Il qui fait du soleil
Toujours Il
Pourquoi pas Elle
Jamais Elle
Pourtant Elle aussi
souvent se fait belle!

Clifford Brown died 50 years ago today.

If you know who he was, you know why that was a goddamn tragedy. And if you don’t know who he was, well, you’re living proof that it was a goddamn tragedy.

He’s not even in the same class as Robert Johnson or Kurt Cobain (or Len Bias, for that matter), since he didn’t play a part in his untimely demise.

But as you listen to his recorded legacy, don’t weep over what might have been, just celebrate what was.

Song of the Moment: «I Get a Kick out of You» — Clifford Brown

My objections to this year’s NBA Finals are almost identical to my objections to the 2004 US Presidential elections.

That is, I’m questioning the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’. The Dallas Mavericks were outscored by the Miami Heat in four consecutive games; George W. Bush received more electoral votes than John Kerry. Those are facts, and neither of them is in dispute. But one can question the way those came to be so.

I’m not saying I agree with the conspiracy theorists in either issue, or even necessarily with the more level– headed folks.

I don’t think either contest was stolen, but I can’t be sure at all. It’s just like Scalia going hunting with Cheney and then not recusing himself, or a patent examiner examining an application in whose assignee he owns hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock. The appearance of impropriety is what’s important here.

Dirk Nowitzki getting called for a foul when Dwyane Wade shoved him doesn’t, in itself, mean the NBA is rigged; neither does the CEO of a company known for making easily- and untraceably-tampered-with voting machines publicly pledging to deliver the state of Ohio to a particular candidate, in itself, mean the 2004 election was stolen. But, really, how fair can any contest be when the system overseeing and regulating it screws up all the time?

Go figure, I set five alarms for this morning because I absolutely had to get up, and I was out of bed with the first one. Not that I’m complaining.

An hour from now, I will be at my job. (Whatever that means.)

Pat Robertson’s Age-Defying Shake

Do you wish you could leg-press 2000 lbs, just like your hero, Pat Robertson? Just click on the link above to get access to the secret recipe for his age-defying protein shake! With legs like that, you’ll really be able to kick some smarmy Darwinist ass!

UNSW Embryology- Molecular Development- Sonic Hedgehog

I suppose this is what happens when kids who played videogames grow up and get Ph.D.s. Now we have a bunch of papers with abstracts like

Embryonic stem (ES) cells differentiate into functional motoneurons when treated with a sonic hedgehog (Shh) agonist and retinoic acid (RA).

and

Sonic hedgehog regulates Gli activator and repressor functions with spatial and temporal precision in the mid/hindbrain region.

• candor / candid
• splendor / splendid
• pallor / pallid
• squalor / squalid
• valor / valid ?
• liquor / liquid ?

Or just read this for more of the same.