Saturday, November 29, 2008

impossible...lie...filling...She is....


I came across this site today after googling for a character that Yolanda discovered called "Peanut Cereb", that's a lot like Banao. This site has high res scans of a lot of Japanese stationary, stickers and envelopes. I've been clicking through for over ten minutes and haven't seen half of them. Now instead of paying the high prices of Kinokuniya and Mitsuwa, you can print them out at your leisure. Enjoy!

Friday, November 28, 2008

thanksgiving 2008

Our thanksgiving party was a lot of fun. I think we had about 20 people which is way more than I thought we'd have. There was a LOT of food and after we ate, most people just stared at the thanksgiving-themed iPhoto slideshow I was running on the television (which you can order as a DVD from me for $1.99 if you'd like, just drop me an email). Almost everybody made a hand-turkey which I thought was great, because I thought most people were going to make fun of them. Here's a picture of the wall of them:

From turkey 2008


Also, we have leftovers! even after a lot of people took food with them. Here's a picture of a very small portion of them, which was breakfast this morning:

From turkey 2008


we have a about a turkey and a half left, a whole pumpkin pies, cookies, a whole thing of stuffing, potatoes, two things of gravy, an entire tofurkey, a dozen rolls, and that's all I can think of. 2 yorkshire puddings too. Thanks everybody who came for all the delicious food and delicious company! I was very glad to see all of you. Thanks also to everybody who somehow made the plates and cups disappear. When I went around with a bag to get loos garbage, there was nearly none to be found. A second thanksgiving miracle, after the Diane Keaton miracle.

Greenhouse Pictures

Here's some photos of the greehouse that I took a few weekends ago while I was weekend watering, and a picture I snapped of myself while washing pots. I washed 1164 and 50 flats in 4.5 hours, which is by far my personal record. That works out to about 4 pots a minutes, which includes scrubbing, washing transport to and from the pot washing room and stackking in pyramids of 36 to dry. If you're wondering what our lab does, I really couldn't tell you. Something about genetics and all that, small RNAs and viral replication. I honestly don't really know.Here's the website if you'd like to read all about it. My job is pretty good, and since minimun wage is increasing in Oregon in 2009, I'll get a raise. I can listen to my iPod a lot of the time and its warm.

From Blogger Pictures


From Blogger Pictures


From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

Friday, November 21, 2008

do yourself a favor and

do yourself a favor and listen to today's writer's almanac by garrison keeler, at npr's website for the poem at the end.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Cha Cha actually paid me! it only took 5 months and 4 emails to get their attention. After that it was easy.

Saturday, November 15, 2008



link

a dozen spiders just ballooned

a dozen spiders just ballooned into my face. this is what mobile blogging is about.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

MRE


For my food science and technology in western culture class, my group is doing a presentation on the development of the MRE or Meal Ready to Eat. If you don't know, it's what troops are given when they are away from any kind of kitchen or cafeteria. One of my group members purchased one tonight, and I though that the instructions on the heating unit were pretty funny.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Cyclops Copepod



I picked up a couple of these ladies by accident the other day while trying to capture some diving beetles in the park (i caught 2 of those). It's been so rainy that a couple of gigantic puddles have appeared in tanbarky and leafy areas. Even after only a day, they were ripe with invertebrate life.

This gal is a Copepod, from the genus Cyclops, because of that red eye spot. The water droplet is about 4 mm across. She's also got a couple of egg sacs. They are crustaceans, and things like diving beetles and fish will eat them. I saw one paper when doing some quick research for this blog entry that suggests that they filtered diseases that might harm fish. The paper said that the cyclops would eat the actinospores, and the fish that consumed the copepods wouldn't contract the disease that they would from the lone actinospores. Pretty neat. When the camera is still, you can see the hundreds of even smaller organisms floating about in the droplet around the copepod. If anyone would like to buy me a light microscope so I can see what they are, please feel free. Xmas is right around the corner. Also, let that be a lesson to not drink out of puddles that might look clean. You might drink a trillion water fleas. I also managed to grab a lot of some kind of worm, but they didn't photograph well. Too shiny.

An aquatic entomology class was added for the winter term and I am very excited. However, if I take it, I probably won't have time to take botany as well. I have to take botany for some other classes. If I kept them both, I would have a 16 credit load of Botany, Aquatic Ent, 2nd term Organic Chemisty, and statistics. I don't think I should try it but I really really really want to take it and its not always offered. My advisor said that I could probably move botany to next winter, but it looks to me like botany is a pre-req for some other classes that I need to take.

Monday, November 10, 2008

He'll be in stitches


My funny joke will most likely result in my roomate Tim's finger being busted. It's not even a real peanut butter cup. I ate the candy and filled the foil with tissue, because it was too heavy to put on the platform.

Another note about the traps: the package says "No bait required". I assume they mean because they've put the fake cheese there. I think that that is funny.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

3-Deatrice and other things

From 3d


cross your eyes until the 2 pictures overlap. if you are having trouble, use your thumb to cover the picture, so that you can see the left picture with your left eye and right picture with your right eye. Then focus on your thumb. Slowly, lower your thumb and the 3-D picture will be behind it.

I've been working on this instead of homework.

We've had mice in our apartment the last two days. You think we live in squalor now but we really don't, it's very tidy. Tim saw the first one yesterday afternoon run through the dining room. He yelled "there's a mouse in the house!" and I locked Beatrice in my bedroom before she could get mouse-disease. We had it cornered under the oven with bowls ready but it somehow vanished. We pulled the oven out and it was nowhere, and we DID see it under the oven, so who knows. We talked to maintenence but they said it'd be Monday before they came over. We bought some classic mousetraps from safeway, and i'd just listened to the Radiolab podcast about "Building a Better Mousetrap" and they said the classic ones work. They do! We've killed two in two days. Tim heard the first one die. Somehow they are getting in under the sink, probably through the dishwasher. I also spotted a hole in the back of the cabinet where we keep the potatoes. The potatoes weren't bad but I threw them out, because they likely had plague.

I had brunch with my brother and his friends this morning for his 30th birthday. It was delicious and fun. I also had a lovely drive back to corvallis. I snapped many pictures with my phone but they mostly turned out lame.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Tea

I got some tea from the Dollar Store, 100 bags for a dollar. It's not bad, but what I really like about it is that it's so weak that I can put a bag in my thermal mug and leave it there for hours and it doesn't get all over steeped and bitter.