science IS cool!

complaining that he, the non-musician, never got the chance to go on rock tours, my friend ben decided that he and two of his friends should embark upon a united states tour this summer, displaying their trumpet, experimental fiction, and quantum physics skills. here is the facebook invite, if you're interested in their talent synopses: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=19668364814&ref=ts
anyway they stopped in chicago a few days ago and played(?) a show in the attic of a friend's house. ben--newly published!--did a few flash readings and told a joke about a walrus, and peter's performance was really cool, but what really BLEW ME AWAY was jim's science demonstration about magnetized ferrofluid. according to wikipedia, this substance is "a liquid which becomes strongly polarised in the presence of a magnetic field. it is a colloidal mixture comprising extremely small magnetic particles suspended in a liquid. the particles are coated with a soap or detergent to prevent them from clumping together." or basically, it is iron filings in a special liquid.
the bizarre properties of this fluid have just recently been discovered and i forget the larger consequences of this finding other than that cancer research and nasa are involved. the only thing i really remember is that jim used a bunch of magnets to pull this ferrofluid into fucking ridiculous shapes and movements. here are a few youtube videos so that you can see for yourself:




that shit is real! sachiko kodama is using ferrofluid in his sculptures now; he builds these large, spinning, christmas tree-like bodies:

what the heck?!
so the night was a success and i regained faith in my love of science, despite the fact that i did poorly in ap physics. oh ben might be mad if i didn't include this: http://www.myspace.com/bensegalfiction

**NY CELEB SIGHTING NO.1**

Oh no big deal, just saw Ms.WENDIE MALICK yesterday!




Time: Approx. 4:45 PM
Location: 46th St, between 6th and 8th Ave

Get the Gawker people on the line, what's up Wendie!!!?!

Crossword Puzzle

Across:
31. Brawl (5 letters)

Answer: Melee

Thank you Super Smash Bros. for providing me the answer!

The little joys

So I'm working for the Summer Teaching Institute, which is basically where all these high school teachers come to Carleton for a week and learn how to better instruct AP classes blah blah. They filled out forms a few months ago and some smartass chemistry teacher named like Keith or something wrote "Quantum K" as his nickname, not knowing that the nickname file was the one imported to the nametags. Now he looks like a total douchebag.

In other news, I just bought a plane ticket to Buenos Aires.
And I miss all of you.

Summer Songs

I don't know if any of you guys read Soul Sides, but they've created a separate blog for their "Summer Songs" annual feature that's pretty sweet. Alternatively, you could just read Soul Sides.

http://soulsummer.blogspot.com/

Everyone needs to work reunion next year. If I haven't told you already, it's Carleton at its best. Security basically takes the weekend off, leaving alums and student workers alike to party wherever and in whatever capacity they choose. There were fifteen naked people in the Boliou fountain last night. I was one of them. I was also holding a bottle of root beer-flavored schnapps (which, at 22% alc. by vol., tastes exactly like flat root beer). Alumni threw Kirke's clothes in the bushes, and, I think, stole my wallet before sobering up and returning it to the lost and found this morning.

Oh yeah, and The English Beat played a two hour set in Great Space. It was great. Some of you might think that you haven't heard of the English Beat, but I'm guessing you've heard this song. The class of '83 started early, so they were all wasted and dancing furiously, along with most of the rest of the 20+ year reunion crowd. In a strange role reversal, I found myself standing at the edge of the dancing with most of the rest of the student workers, watching stoically and feeling nostalgic.

And since the ice has been broken regarding posting cute things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RyHQlnMvWg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5DwIcnpBCA

I might be a little behind on these, but this kid is pretty fucking hilarious.

Old EuroDonald Had An Organic Farm

I'm sitting in the airport eating my last European meal, a McDonald's hamburger. MckieDee's in Europe does hamburgers so well! It's a gourmet burger! Well. That's about it from Amsterdam.

Pieh's Doppelgänger Online

Sorry for two posts in a row, but I was really weirded out by this.

Am I crazy, or does this guy look exactly like Pieh?

Fuckland

http://www.myspace.com/fucklandfuckband

the next 5 months in...

carleton in geneva

HEY GUESS WHAT, KIDS?

A.SCIUTO has landed. He is in the SHOWER right now. Reasons why you should be jealous:

- he went food shopping while I was at work today and then made curry noodles with chicken and red peppers for us for dinner

- we watch an episode of dexter together each night before we go to sleep

- he sleeps on a mattress in my room

- he is wearing an ALL-STARS T-SHIRT RIGHT NOW

- he is ALEX SCIUTO.

we love and miss you all.

I'm Here: A Blog Post

West Coast, baby! It's fucking freezing. No, really. Today was nice, I put on shorts but that was seriously pushing it. I bought long underwear today. LONG UNDERWEAR. It's summer, wtf?

But it's really quite lovely. Last night the ladies and I went on a loong walk, across the bridge, down the bayfront where there are MANY orca murals, back across and 1.5 miles to the jetty and the beach to watch the moonrise. Pretty nice ladies all around. YOU might even like a couple of em. Can you believe it?

That's the bridge!

The research center (located on MARINE SCIENCE DRIVE yes I live on MARINE SCIENCE DRIVE)
across the bay from.. any other civilization (except for the rogue brewery..)

There is science EVERYWHERE here. No, really. This is actual science and it's scaring me. I can't bullshit my way out of this one. MARINE SCIENCE DRIVE.

I started my research training today. Woke up at five to meet my mentor (who is the best mentor of them all, although he doesn't have the best style of them all NOR a mustache) and we headed out to Yaquina Head, about 10 miles from the science center. We climbed to the top of the lighthouse, looked down, and saw around 80,000 birds sitting on 2 big rocks in the ocean. Common Murres. They look like penguins.


My job for the summer? To account for the productivity (eggs, hatchlings, deaths, fledglings, etc) of around 120 specific nests. They are not marked. I identify the birds by location relative to geologic features on the rocks. And then I take pictures of the birds with fish in their mouths in order to identify the fish. And then I cut open dead bodies that wash up on shore to check out stomach contents.

Standing up there today I was freezing and overwhelmed but I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. How in the hell did I pull this off?

I got a new bike today for a birthday! A road bike. I flew around town and it was heaven.

An email forwarded from my mom...

...because I asked her to... because I thought it was really cute.

BROLERT: This is the least bro-esque post in a while, maybe ever, so, heads up. Don't keep reading if you think the brog has balls.

For some reason I feel like this post is just for Anne and Erika for their love of cute animals and babies, respectively.

Last comment: I would've emailed this to the Cute Animals list... if it existed... which it should.

-------------

ATTENTION ALL DOGS!!!

THE FOLLOWING ARE IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS FOR EVERY DOG TO KNOW

Instructions for properly hugging a baby.

1. First, spy a baby:


2. Second, be sure that the object you spied was indeed a baby by employing classic sniffing techniques.

If you smell baby powder and the wonderful aroma of wet diapers this is indeed a baby.


3. Next you will need to flatten the baby before actually beginning the hugging process.


**Note: The added slobber should help in future steps by making the "paw slide" easier.

4. The "paw slide"
Simply slide paws around baby and prepare for possible close-up.


5. Finally, if a camera is present, you will need to execute the difficult and patented "hug, smile, and lean" so as to achieve the best photo quality.


Xoxoxo!

Texas Tea Time

Has anyone ever seen the MTV show "America's Best Dance Crew"? It shouldn't surprise you that I'm no dance fanatic. But lately, whenever I'm channel-surfing and I flip to this show, I'll always take a moment to check it out. 

I was watching it this evening thinking it was a repeat of the first season, which aired during spring break, but then I saw a dance crew I had never seen before: Houston's Distorted X. I guess they're in the midst of the second season. This is really the only picture of the group I could find, off the MTV website. Unfortunately, it really doesn't do justice to how hot these girls are, and how rad it is to watch them boogie down. Highly recc'd to mah bros, especially those of us who won't be getting any ass anytime soon. Word.

New Jersey's as boring as it should be, but I start my job tomorrow which will hopefully add a jolt to the summer. Downed my first from-tap brew here in New Jersey last night with some high school bros -- finally!

Another check on the to-do list: I finally got around to listening to the second half of the Clash's London Calling, which for some reason I've always put off. Good stuff. I also had my 12-year-old brother Sam make me a Lil Wayne playlist, which I've been enjoying the hell out of, along with Tha Carter 3. Tom, I think your comps could highly improve by studying Lil Wayne's use of simile and metaphor. "I'm rare like Mr. Clean with hair"? You can't teach that shit. He also compares being fucked on drank to being a turtle: "I'm like a turtle when I sip the purple"; "I'm on that syrup on that turtle time." I love it.

It was 101 degrees when I got off the plane

Do you guys know how glad I was when this blog went bold on Google Reader?

Home's pretty okay-- nice to see the fam but I don't think I could spend more than a week here before I became REALLY bored.

My favorite moment so far was at Jonah's award ceremony the other night. He was receiving an award for participation in the special olympics. Of course, when they called his name, he was too scared to get up in front of everyone, so he threw himself on the floor and covered his ears. As his big sister, knowing what's best for him, I dragged him up to the edge of the crowd, pulled him to his feet, and pushed him out into the open.

Quickly, he realized how much he loved this attention. So many people standing and clapping, all just for HIM! So he walked as slowly as possible, pausing on occasion to cup his hand over his ear and urge the crowd on for more clapping with his other arm. If it died down, he would start it up again. He finally made it up to the front (to accept the award from our mother, btw, the head of the school board), when he took an ENORMOUS bow and spent at least one more full minute creeping away while applauding himself before I dragged him off. I thought I would die with laughter. He cannot NOT make a scene.

Hope you guys are having more eventful times than I am... Off to Oregon on Sunday though! Terrifying.

brawlmore

I mentioned this to a lot of people, but the Baltimore Freedom Academy is one of the coolest places in the world. I might work there after I graduate. It's a charter school, so they don't have to do standardized testing. There's about 400 students overall, chosen by lottery through the Baltimore City system. The curriculum is open. It's all project-based learning. So teaching geometry would involve, for example, planning and building a garden. Teaching government would involve doing research and interviews with city social workers.

My mom might teach English there next year. She just had an interview.

When she went in, she ran into Bill Zorzi.



Zorzi wrote for The Baltimore Sun for 20 years, and then was a writer for The Wire. He actually played himself in the 5th season, if anyone recognizes him. He is now the journalism teacher at the Freedom Academy.

According to wikipedia, "As a reporter Zorzi has been described as tough and cranky...He is an acerbic and profane presence." Kind of an understatement for anyone that has seen the show.

Post-Carleton, if I worked at a 400-student charter school with my mom and Bill Zorzi, I'd be pretty happy.

In other home news, I'm happy, busy and sweaty (it's miserably humid). I've gone to the zoo, 2 hangout roofs and 3 of my favorite restaurants in less than 24 hours.

I'm particularly excited about seeing these guys on Saturday: