dino plant.

pretty sure i need this for my office. best part? you can forget to water it! that's how i take care of all my plants! but this one will just hibernate for 50 years until i remember to take care of it again. sweet.

too bad birthday/hanukkah is over...

linguistic lunacy.

i'm pretty sure that this could be categorized as child abuse.

a linguist, d’Armond Speers, decided to only speak to his newborn son in Klingon. yea, you heard me right. according to wikipedia:

"Dr. Speers is known for having undertaken the endeavour to raise his child bilingually in English and Klingon; Speers spoke in Klingon and his wife in English. A few years into his life, the child began rejecting Klingon and gravitating towards English, as he could use English with many more speakers. At the time of Speers' attempt, Klingon even lacked words for many objects common around the house, such as "table". The experiment ultimately failed when the child refused to use Klingon when he got older."

of course, now this guy has been hired to help create an official Klingon dictionary. and i thought i was weird...

vomit-fest.

thank you to tlc for inundating me with commercials about the time traveler's wife movie, coming out this friday! even though i previously said i was "excited" for this movie to come out, that was only because it's one of my all time favorite books of all time. unfortunately, the trailer makes me want to stab my eyes out, and makes me so sad for its suckiness. here it is, but don't say i didn't warn you...




if you see it, let me know what you think (especially if you read/enjoyed the book).

that being said - i will remind you all that i will be away for the next 2-ish weeks. i will be sure to look out for goo blobs, and do bucko updates when i return!

science nerd.

yes, i am. and when i found out yesterday that they might be giants is coming out with another (who knew they had any?!) kid's cd/dvd called here comes science, i knew i had to have it. not only do i just love science. and music. and sciencey musicians who also make kidlet music. BUT - it reminds me of one of my all time favorite books, science verse. observe:


















and equally as good as some of the titles in science verse - "amoeba" and "mary had a little worm" - are on the here comes science cd - "meet the elements", "electric car" and "roy g. biv". did i mention that I'm excited??

so excited!

as you may or may not know, i will be off to alaska in august for a cruise with the landis fam. my coworker told me about an interesting development, and asked me to look out for it in alaska:

goo blobs!

that's right. there are "goo blobs" floating around alaska. the odorous substance has been described as "gooey", "gunky" and "hairy". hairy AND gooey?! wow. maybe it's flubber? anyhow, i will be sure to look out for said blobs, and will take pics for all to see on my return.

dream job.

nerd factor 12! colbert's interview with robert ballard, archaeological oceanographer extraordinaire. can i be bff with this guy?

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Robert Ballard

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Funny Political News

Christian Bale Parody
Joke of the Day

dear tom friedman:

i love you.

all: read this article, it's highly awesome and important.

in other news, hope everyone is having a fantastic christmas/new years/winter break.

two thursday tidbits.

first off, it looks like caylee anthony is really dead. i don't know if you've also been following the case, but this kind of thing is another one of the various things i'm interested in. so, caylee anthony is 3 years old, and has been missing since june. her mom, 22 year old casey anthony, was recently charged with murder, and is being held in the orange county jail. not only did searches for cloroform come up on the mom's computer, but a neighbor told police she had asked to borrow a shovel, and police dogs smelled human decomposition in the trunk of her car. sounds guilty to me...
also, i think i found the perfect job for me: Secretary of Food. no, not because i like to eat. but because i'm really interested in agriculture reform (in addition to energy technology and climate change). so, vote for me. or tell obama to pick me. either one.

"sir, are we doomed?"

this one is pretty scary stuff. i'm not sure if you've heard of the economic crisis happening in the world right now, but my main main tom friedman is pretty concerned about it. not only in this article does he suggest that we stay home and save our money by eating tuna, he believes that bush should instate obama's secretary of treasury pick tim geithner now. additionally, he suggests that inaguration day should be moved up to thanksgiving. pretty scary stuff, but definitely an important read.

on a bit lighter note (only because it was on the colbert report), friedman discusses his new book "Hot, Flat and Crowded". friedman had recently been on the daily show and was not funny, so i was glad to see him redeem himself here:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Thomas Friedman

Ron Paul Interview
Bob Barr Interview

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

science in the news!

In the spirit of my middle school "Science in the News" Tuesdays (yes, I realize it's Thursday, but I don't control the news):

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star. (!!!) I'd like to remind everyone that our planet (Earth) circles a star as well. This amazing discovery comes after years of improvements in data analysis and observational techniques. According to Dr. Marois, (of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada) the images and data amassed so far are "a window into what our own solar system might have looked like when it was 60 million years old.”

Stay tuned for further ridiculously amazing discoveries!

For further reading:
NASA Press Release
NYTimes Article