Natural selection?

So an old lady was given a jay-walking ticket in LA last week. She claims she started walking when it still says walk, the officer says it was flashing don't walk.

Regardless, the argument they're making is that too many 'wayward' pedestrians are getting clocked by cars, so they want to stop that by ticketing them.

I say, won't natural (or cultural) selection cull the herd? If they keep getting taken out, eventually the only people left will be those that don't walk against the red. It seems like the ticketing is extra work.

Who wants to bother little old ladies more? The LA Traffic Police want to bother little old ladies more.

- barrett 'n megan

among the fields of heather...

I admit to having SAES - Stupid American Ethnocentrism Syndrome. So I once had a strange question for a friend from France, "Do you have any wild animals in France?"

I know that sounds dumb, but quite frankly, when I think of France, I think of pastoral scenes and Paris, not wildlife. I'd never considered the possibilities of a forest.

Tonight I mentioned this to some friends, and one suggested that Scotland probably had some good wildlife, but he also thought England had huge forests, so I was doubtful. We did the dutiful google search for Wild Animals Scotland and we got this website: Wildlife Scotland.

They list a total of 14 land animals including goats, squirrels, voles and the ever exciting Scottish Wood Ant.

oooooooooooooooohhhh.........

I was actually suprised they didn't list Nessie with their sea animals. And they include a bat in their land animals, though the birds get their own section. But you can't just call it mammals, thanks to those ever important ants, so I guess I see the dilemma.

The best thing about this website though, is that it's for wildlife excursions. So if you're looking to go see some exciting deer and squirrels...think Scotland!

Who wants to fool themselves more:? The scots want to fool themselves more.

-barrett 'n megan

Fashion 101 - take 2

I am not a fashonista. I wear t-shirts and jeans and I should probably buy some new underwear one of these days.

I don't try to look fashionable. But it kills me when people try to look fashionable and fail. One of my greatest joys is to walk into bars and see folks trying to impress the other sex in the most hideous of outfits.

And this weekend I saw one of the worst I've seen in a while.

We were playing pool and I couldn't stop staring at this girl. I was trying to will her to leave the bar with my mind, just so I wouldn't be transfixed on the hideous outfit. It went something like this:

Sequined Gold Shrug.

+

I didn't even know what a shrug was until I shared this story with a friend. Apparently that's what you call the annoying short jackets that just accentuate your boobs. Add gold sequins to THAT and you know you've got a winner.

This was over a very low cut shirt with a push up bra underneath it, so the girl was all out there.

Beneath this came a multi-color peasant skirt kind of like this one from Wal-Mart:



That went down just to about her knees. Yuck. combined with the glittery shrug this was not going well. But she wasn't done.

Oh no. She had to wear a pair of jeans underneath it. and they were light blue jeans too, not even something dark that might go unnoticed.

It was AWFUL. And I sat their bitching and moaning about it like I am want to do on occasion. Most of the guys I was with were conceeding that it was pretty bad. But one of them solidy stood by the fact that he didn't give a damn about the outfit. It was just fine. because all he saw were the breasts (his words, not mine). And that must be what the other guys who were swooning over her were thinking too. I admire their honesty. but the girl could have been just as successful in the low cut shirt and push up bra with the jeans, all the hideousness I was put through was unnecessary. She still could have gotten a guy in the sack, and it wouldn't have taken her an extra 10 minutes to get untangled from the crazy outfit. Ugh.

who wants to get people's attention more? Sparkly girls in push up bras want to get people's attention more.

- barrett 'n megan

Headlines of our times

How sad is it when CNN.com gives the two following headlines equal, unillustrious, play? :

Scientists crack mystery of planet formation

Katie Couric announces move to CBS

Ugh......I feel dumber just for having seen that. Come on, they figured out how planets form!!! That's a BIG deal people, big deal.

This is when we need to stand up and point out to CNN that these types of topics are not of the same caliber, and shouldn't be presented as such. If you tell them, they will change things. It makes me happy to see that on the 'most popular' list of articles, Planets is ranked #4 while Katie is only #9, this is a start. If we show them we are unimpressed, they won't post these kinds of things. I'm just sorry that the most popular article at the moment is "Eminem divorces wife Kim - again"

Who wants to learn more? WE want to learn more!

- barrett 'n megan

Pork, the other white...fish???

According to an article in Nature Biotechnology, scientists have cloned pigs that are high in omega-3 fatty acids. Well...some of the pigs didn't have the transgenic gene, and some of them had chronic heart conditions, but of the others, they had increased omega-3s. So now, it will apparently be benificial to eat pork, should you select to eat from the cloned transgenic pork. Now there's a conflict for folks, so often the health-conscious who want the omega-3s are the same as the one's who don't want transgenic foods, decisions decisions...



What suprised me, though, is that the acknowledgements mention no evidence of funding from Pork producers. This project was funded by the NIH, the ACS and a Transplant Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. I really expected funding from the National Pork Board or something. Now, part of the funding comes from an 'unrestricted gift' from the Transplant Center, and I suppose that they could have recieved money from Pork.org...someone should look into that, there's got to be pig money in there somewhere that they're neglecting to mention.

Who wants to go hog wild more? Transgenic pigs want to go hog wild more.

-barrett 'n megan

Some lyrics shouldn't be written...or recorded

Surely, someone makes decisions about what songs to record. They tweak lyrics, change chords, say 'I don't think people will like this', etc... Yet plenty of stuff gets by. On my drive home from Chicago late last night, I found Donna Summer's disco re-recording of MacArthur Park. The song is pretty absurd to begin with, but you add disco and the fact that's it's 2:30 am and I start to question the nature of my reality.

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!

Do those lyrics make anyone else think of anything in particular? The song was written in the summer of 1967 by Jimmy Webb. The same summer as the first San Francisco Be-In. The same summer that the U.S. Government outlawed LSD.

Did I mention that it was originally the 7 minute coda to a 22 minute long piece? Oh, and did I mention that LSD was popular that summer? I did? Oh, okay, just checking.

So yeah, even with those bizarre lyrics, MacArthur Park was a hit. Even more of a hit when converted into disco. So next time you're getting upset over some of the trash that's out there now just remember that we've been putting...unusual...music out there for decades now. Ashley Simpson is nothing new. I could see a Merry Prankster singing a song called I am Me too.

Who wants a lid for his cake dish more? Jimmy Webb wants a lid for his cake dish more.

- barrett 'n megan

Talking to myself

So I was at work the other day, alone, and saw my coffee mug from the day before. I'd left it on a table. I said "Oh, so there's my coffee mug from yesterday". I said that out loud. I was alone in a building, fully aware I was alone in a building, and yet I had to say that out loud. Obviously I knew that it was my coffee mug from yesterday, I'd already processed that information in order to say "there's my coffee mug from yesterday". So why on EARTH did I say it? Why do we say things when no one else is around? Do we just like to hear ourselves talk? Does it make something more concrete if we speak it?

Who wants to assert themselves on the world more? People who talk when alone want to assert themselves on the world more.

-barrett 'n megan