West Virginia least like the rest of the country!

No kidding.

Here are the bottom five:

Kentucky 47
Vermont 47
New Hampshire 49
Mississippi 50
West Virginia 51

We’re still having internet problems at home. (At this point, we get about 30 seconds of connectivity, then crash.)

So until things are better, enjoy this:
Bound for Glory: American in Color 1939-1943

This is probably my favorite picture. It’d be just as interesting in black and white as in color.

It’s like being nibbled to death by cats.

Context?
(more…)

So, we’re now watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and of course we’ve started with Season One, which is only marginally better than Season 2, which I find… horrific.

However, while watching the pilot, I realized why I find the character of Wesley Crusher so grating–he’s a Mary Sue.

Lo and behold, I look up Mary Sue and there it is.

Doesn’t really help me as I sit here and watch Season One. (cringe)

Which leads to the bigger question of how it happened. In my opinion, Jake from Deep Space Nine was very well written and rarely made me cringe, even when he was being his most teenager like. So how did things work out so badly in Next Generation?

As I was walking from the ATM to the cafeteria, I noticed that one of the signs I regularly passed had two words in English that you never want to see together.

Emergency Dentistry

I can’t think of any dental emergency that would be anything less than horrific.

And there’s your reminder to make sure you floss every day.

vomitorium•
noun (pl. vomitoria)
1. each of a series of entrance or exit passages in an ancient Roman amphitheatre or theatre.
2. a place in which, according to popular misconception, the ancient Romans are supposed to have vomited during feasts to make room for more food.
— origin Latin.

Okay, I also thought that the definition of vomitorium was the second. And I’m pretty sure I’ve read it used in fiction with the second (incorrect) meaning.

Actually, it might be amusing to point out exits at the CAC as vomitoria.

sparagmos noun [mass noun]
the dismemberment of a victim, forming a part of some ancient rituals and represented in Greek myths and tragedies.
— origin Greek, literally ‘tearing’.

I think the most disturbing part is the idea that it happened so often that they needed a word for it.

Went to pick up my prescription yesterday.

Cash price was $133. My cost? $110.

I am really hoping that was just me needing to meet my deductible. Though things like this are why Michael and I live under our income level. As much as one doesn’t like spending $110 out of nowhere, at least we have the money.

This is the truth.

Especially the bit about whiskey.

(for more information, see here.)

And today’s spam winner is:

Mr. Watson! Come here! I need you!

Doctor: So do you ever have thoughts about hurting other people?
Me: I did mention that I do software support, didn’t it?

It was a people watching extravaganza this evening in Morgantown.

As I was walking to meet my co-workers for dinner we passed two intoxicated white trash guys having a yelling match in a parking lot off High Street (Townies: Daniel’s parking lot near where the “Steppin’ Out” mural used to be). I say intoxicated because not only was there a significant slurring of words, but the only coherent phrase I heard uttered (yelled) was, “I ain’t yer bitch!”

And to further the excitement, apparently soon after we turned the corner, fisticuffs broke out, and there may have been body parts slammed into a car. (One of the people we were meeting missed the yelling but caught the brawling.)

But still, to see an almost aggressively heterosexual guy yelling, “I ain’t yer bitch!” leads me to wonder what lead up to that argument.

Probably just drugs and alcohol. But still, one can imagine a fascinating (and sordid) story.

A gladiator graveyard was discovered at Ephesus.

The Ephesus graves containing thousands of bones were found along with three gravestones, clearly depicting gladiators.

Two pathologists at the Medical University of Vienna – Professor Karl Grossschmidt and Professor Fabian Kanz – have spent much of the past five years painstakingly cataloguing and forensically analysing every single bone for age, injury and cause of death.

They found at least 67 individuals, nearly all aged 20 to 30.

What’s even more interesting is that they discovered signs of gladiators’ lives being taken (as opposed to death by combat) in two different ways: one evidence of death in the ring where “a kneeling man (had) a sword rammed through down his throat into the heart” and the other was death after a fight out of the ring because “a number of the skulls showed rectangular holes that could not have been made by any of the known gladiator weapons. Instead, they suggest the use of a heavy hammer…”‘One possible explanation, which is supported by a number of archaeologists, is that there must have been an assistant in the arena who basically gave the gladiator the coup de grace'”

I find it pretty fascinating how much sociological detail can be gleaned from a graveyard.

Stealth vegetables for kids. (Okay, I just love the phrase “stealth vegetables.)

And more on the totally unshocking news–drinking soda is associated with poor diet and increased BMI, while drinking milk is associated with a higher nutrient intake and lower BMI.

Mmmm…. chocolate milk.