You’re a Cardassian! Intelligent and devious,
you’re a bit of an enigma to those around you
and scientific to the core.
What Star Trek Race Are You?
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(T)he first study ever to analyze genes from all the living families of lizards has revealed that snakes made their debut on the land, not in the ocean. The discovery resolves a long-smoldering debate among biologists about whether snakes had a terrestrial or a marine origin roughly 150 million years ago.

Call me a geek, but I think this is really interesting. (Of course if you’re in the bothered by not enough legs as opposed to too many legs category, this is probably more disturbing than interesting.)

The paper also identifies the relationship between dachshund and snakes:

(T)he burrowing lifestyle of many other species, including legless lizards, is correlated with the complete loss of limbs or the evolution of very small limbs.

The best survival rate is experienced by people who sleep 7 hours, rather than 8 or more, or less than 4.5 hours

Great. Here I was happy that I was finally getting enough sleep, now they tell us it’s better to get less sleep.

Not that I really know how much sleep I get, since I read until I fall asleep, which doesn’t give me a clear idea as to what time I actually fall asleep.

Guess this means I no longer have an excuse to quit doing my homework so early in the evening.

I received an interesting e-mail yesterday about a post I made regarding a 1800s train safety poster.

Michele, who sent me the message, came across the poster herself and liked it. You can see for yourself here, although the smaller text is difficult to read.

After complaining (at least internally) about my dearth of vivid dreams, my mind has decided to compensate me, with a recent bombardment.

Most, however, have been extremely disjointed and strange, with only bits floating to the surface to make sense.

One bit from last night that stuck with me was with my ex-roomate Steve (aka Spam aka Bruce Lampshade). It was pleasant, if strange (he needed to borrow some pajamas) but thinking about Steve always makes me feel guilty. He was my roomate at a time when things weren’t going particularly well in my life, and I was a rude bitch to him. I apologized to him several years ago, which made me feel slightly better, but still that is one portion of my life that causes me to cringe in retrospect.

Makes me wonder why he appeared in my psyche at this point…

And why he needed my pajamas.

Jim Henley nails the Superbowl Hooplah.

No, I’m not going to even give you a teaser, just go read.

Oh yeah, the economy is in GREAT shape.

1) WVU IMPOSES HIRING RESTRICTIONS TO HELP MANAGE BUDGET CUTS
In a memo to deans, directors, major administrators and regional campus presidents, Vice Presidents Scott Kelley and Robert D’Alessandri along with Provost Gerald Lang announced today the implementation of a hiring restriction on classified and non-classified state-funded staff positions until further notice. The measure is being taken to help manage the impact of a 1 1/4 percent mid-year rescission and a recommended 2.5 percent budget cut for higher education in fiscal year 2005. Decisions for making exceptions to filling critical positions must be made at the vice presidential level.

And just think! WV tends to lag behind the rest of the nation in economic recovery!

See that’s the thing about trickle down/vodoo economics. It’s not so great if you’re the one waiting for the damned trickle.

At dinner tonight (It’s late class day. We went out.) I was whining (I’m being honest, it was whining) about how tired I was when Michael and I had the following exchange:

Me: …I’m even having bad hair!
Michael: It’s not really bad hair…
Me: Right.
Michael: It’s not bad. It’s more chaotic neutral.

Jon Blake Cusack, from Holland, Michigan, told local newspapers the US practice of adding “Junior” or “II” after a boy’s name was too common.

So, when his son was born last week, he decided on the name Jon Blake Cusack 2.0, as if he were a software upgrade.

I really can not believe that he talked the mother into it.

The again, someone I used to work with swore up and down that he went to school with a Lemonjello and Orangejello, so I guess people are more than willing to give their children strange names.

Just last week I was thinking about how bothered I was by the fact that I had not had any really vivid, memorable dreams in awhile. Yes, some of my dreams are extremely creepy, but some of them are very good, and when I awaken all I want is to go back to sleep, to continue dreaming.

I was beginning to wonder whether the fact that we’d be watching so many videos was the problem, since we have gone through two complete seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine since the beginning of January. Well, Friday I had an extremely vivid dream, so I decided that my theory was kaput. (Saturday’s dream was also vivid, but extremely disjointed, so there was nothing I could salvage from it, except the feeling.)

I did discover, however, that there are other problems with watching so much TV–it makes me physically ill. Okay, you can stop laughing now, but I’m serious. I’ve noticed before that on days when we had watched a lot of ‘Buffy’ I’d have a headache before we were through. Well, Saturday and Sunday we watched the entire 6th season of Buffy. Friday I went to bed with a headache. Saturday with only two and a half episodes left, the headache was back with a vengeance (despite aspirin) and we had to turn off the TV completely because it was making my sick to my stomach. Really. For about five minutes I was serious afraid I was going to vomit, and I ended up napping for about an hour. Only then was I up to finishing watching the rest of the season.

What on earth is wrong with me? Normal people don’t get sick just watching TV!

Good grief.

At least I know now that I should definitely continue to avoid cable.

That said, however, we’re eagerly awaiting Season 3 of DS9 to arrive–this to be watched at no more than a couple of episodes at a time. It’s better that way.

Of course I’m not sure that I need more darkness right now. Since Christmas we’ve watched seasons 5 and 6 of ‘Buffy’ seasons 1 & 2 of ‘DS9’ and I have also reread ‘The Sandman Library’ as well as some of Charles de Lint’s darker books. I figure that to round things out I just need to rip through Thieves’ World again.

From a more sane perspective, perhaps I should watch the ‘Princess Bride’ and reread some Terry Pratchet–just to balance things out.

We shall see.

And to add insult to injury. It looks as if someone I know has gotten one of those e-mail harvesting viruses, which has been spoofing my e-mail address to send out viruses, as I have received several “Returned to sender addressee unknown” replies, for messages I never sent out.

This really pisses me off, as the account that is being spoofed is one that I have used for several years (since 99) and yet have managed to keep spam free. Grrr….