After my quixotic and miserable 2006 campaign for public office ("Cigarettes for Kids" was not the greatest platform), I've tried to lay low....quashing any flashes of enterprise by scolding myself in my mother's clothing in an unconvincing falsetto.

Let me tell you about how I fucked that up today.

David Taylor. I've talked about him before. He' ( Read more... )

I have a friend who, in light of some recent romantic troubles, needs distraction. And as someone who makes a living...albeit a non-paying one...by making a fool out of himself, I thought I could provide one for him. So I suggested we go do karaoke at a local den of buggery (that's "gay bar," for you unannointed). After all, if ONE dumpy spinster ( Read more... )

After becoming the last person in North America to hear about the now-passe' Susan Boyle phenomenon, I spent some time thinking about spinsters. Specifically, me. As both of my readers know, I, like Dame Boyle, am frumpy and gauche, but I can't sing. And while I find Schönberg's ouevre (specifically Les Miserables) schmaltzy to the point of ( Read more... )

What happens when you feed star trek trivia, Enya lyrics, and shit like that to a computer program (MEGAHal) and then talk to it? You don't do any research all day. And then this happens:

Me: The Borg destroyed 39 starships at Wolf 359.
MEGAHal: The only ship to survive was the fat one.
Me: You are, of course, speaking of Tina Yothers?
MEGAHal: Of ( Read more... )

All right, all together now. One, two, three....

"WOO SPRING BREAK!!!!!111ONEp(6)"

With my heritage in mind, my advisor gave me his blessing to "get drunk on St. Patrick's Day" - a holiday I've been celebrating for five consecutive days. What have I learned ( Read more... )

Ah, Mardi Gras. Thank you for reuniting me with my first and second true loves (grain alcohol, blaxploitation ( Read more... )

Sometimes Bad Things Happen to Good People (TM). I am not a good person, but I found myself stranded in Harvard, Illinois on Friday all the same. Apparently bad things happen to "liars and assholes of the first degree," too ( Read more... )

I have two offices. By that mean I use another office that isn't mine. The room adjacent to my primary one is technically reserved for an observational astrophysics group, but that prof. doesn't have students anymore. Really it's just a bunch of decaying Sun computers and a microwave, which I use to reheat my coffee ( Read more... )

Graduate physics courses in classical electrodynamics are generally regarded as an excruciating experience, akin to a root canal or a typical episode of Scrubs. This dubious
distinction probably has a lot to do with the canonical text in the subject, Classical Electrodynamics by John David Jackson - a terse, horrible book with problems no on can ( Read more... )

A cute article on my weird advisor. Not my research, but it's alluded to in one of the later paragraphs.

This is the kind of research I do as a...uh...physics graduate student. It is officially opposite day, every day, until I graduate. Expect Republicans to start storing bribes in their freezers while Democrats start fucking little boys in ( Read more... )