Month: September 2004

I've been watching MASH reruns since last saturday :)

weird.

Muppets Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker defeated Dr. Strangelove, Dana Scully of “X Files” fame and Star Trek's Mr. Spock to be voted Britain's favorite screen scientists.

Monday, September 6, 2004 Posted: 0728 GMT (1528 HKT)

EXETER, England (Reuters) — Muppets Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker defeated Dr. Strangelove, Dana Scully of “X Files” fame and Star Trek's Mr. Spock to be voted Britain's favorite screen scientists.They beat their closest rival by a margin of 2 to 1 and won 33 percent of the 43,000 votes cast in an Internet poll published in Monday.

Spock came in a distance second with 15 percent followed by The Doctor, from Dr Who, who garnered 13 percent. Scully, the only woman in the poll, came in sixth. “They are accessible, humorous and occasionally blow each other up,” said Roland Jackson, of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA).

The balding, white-coated Honeydew and flame-haired, bulging-eyed Beaker created an array of crazy gadgets on the popular television show. “They're the kind of scientists you would like to be but never quite dared to,” said Alan Slater, a scientist at the University of Exeter in southwestern England.

The poll, sponsored by the BA and the BBC cult television website gave the public five weeks to choose their favorite scientist from a shortlist of 10 that included Dr. Evil from the film “Austin Powers,” Dr. Frankenstein, Frank N. Furter, of the “Rocky Horror Show Picture Show,” Dr. Emmett Brown, of the film “Back to the Future” and Q of James Bond fame.

Results of the poll were announced at the start of the week-long BA science conference here.

In an email conversation with A.:

“I'm glad though that you got the courage to stand up to your mom. Hopefully, things will be better when you meet a girl that will sleep you off your feet.”

Sara came over last night and wasn't feeling too happy, so I tried to cheer her up with some chickeny-booze goodness:

Marinate two cubed chicken breast in the following:

– olive oil
– white wine vinegar
– black pepper
– chili pepper
– enough port to cover everything (I used Grahams tawny 10 years)

Sautee everything, adding diced celery and mushrooms. Add more port. Cover and let simmer until the veggies are tender. Uncover and turn up the heat to reduce the liquid to a thick sauce. Serve with veggie rice.

I've been working on my LJ.NET client for the better part of the last 6 hours… impressive. I got a lot done, which is really cool. I came to the office after having breakfast with Michel, essentially to pick up my paycheck. It wasn't there, so I decided to wait 'round a bit to see if bossman would come in. It's now 6 hours later, and time just flew by. And I have my paycheck.

Since I didn't end up going to TO, I spent the day in my underwear doing chores. Did some laundry (things are back to normal – I'm missing a sock), a spot of dishes. Watched a lot of TV with the cat.

I did something really annoying. Instead of putting my phone in vibe mode (by pressing the * for 3 seconds), I locked it (by pressing # for 3 seconds). I tried to unlock it, but the usual default lock codes didn't work (0000 or 1234), and none of the usual PINs I use worked either (in the off chance I actually changed the default setting). I had to go online and look up the damn manual to find out that the default lock code for my phone are the last 4 digits of my number. That was a pain…

I will not be going to Toronto after all. The last nail in the coffin was the price of transportation :( A train ticket would cost me 250$ for a 5 hour trip. I could always take the bus, but that's still 200$, for a 9 hour trip. So no.

Added to the fact that I couldn't find a place to crash, so I'd need to tack on the price of a hotel, and that I didn't have anybody to go see the show with…. it's not worth the price :(

I'll just take a long weekend and pamper myself at home with the cat.

THE lesbian love life of domestic cattle has prompted a fact-finding mission to Malaysia's central highlands to study the world's last remaining herd of wild cattle.

Lesbian cow study udderly serious
By Leah Moore
September 2, 2004

THE lesbian love life of domestic cattle has prompted a fact-finding mission to Malaysia's central highlands to study the world's last remaining herd of wild cattle.

Australia's only professor of animal welfare, Clive Phillips from the University of Queensland, is hoping a basic study of Malaysia's endangered Gaur cattle will help explain why domestic cows mount each other during fertile periods.

“With domestic cattle the cows show mounting homosexual behaviour when they are on heat and the wild cattle don't show that,” Professor Phillips said. He said factors such as stress, a selective domestication process which favoured outwardly sexual cows and the number of animals on heat in a small enclosure, could explain why domestic cows displayed this deviation in sexual behaviour.

“Possibly in the wild you don't get enough cows on heat in one area together,” he said. “There is evidence that this oestrous display is more overt in cramped conditions.” However, he said stress was probably the major factor as studies of rabbits in laboratory situations and koalas in captivity showed a similar increase in homosexual behaviour from that encountered in the wild.

“A lot of animals in stressful conditions display this behaviour,” he said. “It is a bit of a stress release.” The study, which begins today, will also examine the differing feeding practices of wild and domestic cattle.

“A very clear difference is that wild cattle are not grazing but browsing,” Professor Phillips said. “They are eating from scrub, bushes and trees rather than grazing on grass.” This information could change conventional thinking about the care of cattle which had insisted the animals must be fed from the floor.

Unlike other domestic animals, such as the chicken and the jungle fowl, very little study has been done on the wild relations of cattle, and with only a few hundred remaining Professor Phillips, who left for Malaysia yesterday, said the gathering of information was “urgent”.

“It tells us essentially about the needs of cattle and what is normal behaviour in the wild and by inference, what is abnormal,” he said.

I've just been told that I can no longer use MSN at the office for personal use.

Well you know what boss? I'm only here cause I have bills to pay, and that's no longer a valid reason to endure this shit.