People have been crowing about 2012 as the end of the world for a while now. I suspect its starting to lose a little traction what with there being real problems to focus on (like unemployment, an economy that appears at times to be slouching towards recovery and at other times slouching towards Bethlehem. Also, at least amidst the hype there have ( Read more... )

2010 was a hard year. We lost the baby, and that will always be the thing that defines it for us. Some good things happened: I passed my exams (with distinction, something I'm crowing about a little bit now, because ultimately it will not matter in any other way), I was admitted to doctoral candidacy. These are good things, its true, but that's ( Read more... )

While the Dream Act failed the cloture vote in the Senate, repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell has just been passed. We watched the vote, and it was a good thing to see. As for the Dream Act, while we can always blame Republicans for being ridiculous on immigration (with, amazingly, the exception of George W. Bush) the Democrats had a big hand in its ( Read more... )

The past few days have been quite cold by Florida standards. We're refusing to turn on the heat, out of principle. Its actually really nice to be cool, or dare I say cold, again. I do not, however, think the 5,000 year old cat is terribly impressed by the weather. Today, while working steadily on my prospectus I watched the cat make his way across ( Read more... )

So I just checked my OASIS status and it looks like all the paperwork has gone through at the Grad School. I am now officially listed as a DOCTORAL CANDIDATE!

I love urban legends. I've loved them since I was a little kid getting the crap scared out of me by the hook-man. Bloody Mary terrified me, as did the legend's iteration (along with a number of other mash-ups) in Candyman. There's an interesting sidenote, a research direction not quite explored, in a recent article on the mirror ghost mythos from ( Read more... )

The first week in December will be known, from now on unto eternity, as The Week of Two Hundred Pigs ( Read more... )

A while back (following Hurricane Katrina) my grandfather moved out of his house in Thibidaux and in with my aunt and uncle in Houma. His ancient house has been sitting unoccupied for the past five years, gathering dust. The house is a strange treasure trove filled with items and ephemera from by-gone ages, and I remember as a child playing with ( Read more... )

We came, we saw, we ate a turkey, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with pork sausage.


( Read more... )

A few years ago I spent a Thanksgiving with my friend Dave and his then girlfriend. They were both vegetarians at the time and we had a Tofurkey log. It was a strange disorienting experience. It didn't taste bad, (it was a little dry but it was flavorful). It was mostly disorienting because it dispensed with the usual trappings of imitation mea in ( Read more... )