dang, that was quick.

Man. The end of summer just whipped by me so fast I am still catching my breath.

With any luck, I'll be able to carve out some blogging time soon. Right now, I am going to make myself sick if I don't get some more sleep.

Pluto IS SO a planet!!!

I can't believe this! Pluto's not a planet anymore?? That's bullshit! I'm so upset about this.

As any fan of 2 Skinnee J's knows, Pluto is a planet.

Even besides my gut-reaction disappointment with this decision, I think the definition of a planet the IAU came up with is flawed in a scientific sense. Read it here for yourself. They say that a planet should be "a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit." It's point (c) that is dumb and arbitrary. "(C)leared the neighbourhood around its orbit"?? That's ridiculously vague language for a document like this. Maybe there's more to it that they're not releasing to the general public, but as that stands, that's just scorn-worthy. A scientific definition for anything should be concise, clear, and equally applicable in any equivalent situation. Point (c) makes the definition too fussy and variable.

Moreover, this definition of a planet only holds for our solar system. I bet when they come up with an intergalactic definition for a planet (and man, it's ludicrous that we don't already have one), Pluto will fit that definition. They just don't want to call it a planet in our solar system. It's a total NIMBY mentality. What did poor little Pluto ever do to them?? Anti-Pluto fascists.

link potpourri

Here are some sites I have up in my browser window right now which I've been meaning to post here:

Revealed: What mosquitoes hate about humans. First of all, I just want to say that if I had been a participant in this experiment, the mosquitoes would have flown to me every single time. Mosquitoes love me. How much do mosquitoes love me? Here's an example: during the semester I spent in Singapore in college, I went with a group of my fellow exchange students on a weekend trip to Malaysia. The one night we spent in a hotel, I had trouble falling asleep because I kept being bitten by mosquitoes while my roommate, a girl from New Zealand, slumbered peacefully nearby. When we got up in the morning, I had upwards of 30 bites on my face (the only part of me I hadn't been able to cover with the bedsheets - I tried to fall asleep completely under the covers, but I couldn't breathe), while my roommate did not have a single bite. I looked like I had contracted a sudden case of chicken pox. It was awful. So, my second point in linking to this article: as soon as they make a truly effective bug repellent using this research, I will be first in line to buy it. Damn mosquitoes.

Some thoughts on language:
Food for Thought: The Language Police and the Quesadilla - the whole "English only" thing pisses me off. Ever since I learned that the US doesn't have an official national language, I've thought that lack of specification was such a cool thing. There is strength in our flexibility.
An interesting corollary to the above article: Au revoir, freedom fries.
Also, Suck It Up: a defense of the much-maligned word from Slate.

I don't know if this link still works, but here is the Virginian-Pilot story about Mr. Adams winning the Douglas Southall Freeman Award from the American Lung Association of Virginia. Mr. A says the picture with the story is goofy, but I think it's cute. Anyway, mucho congrats to him!

Have any of you ever heard of Tippy's Taco House? I hadn't until I got a Where's George hit with a user note saying they'd gotten the bill from a Tippy's location. It's a regional DC/Northern VA thing, as far as I can tell. I'd like to check one out sometime - even if the food turns out not to be the best, at least they've got an entertaining name.

I watched TV the other day (this is a rare event for me), and I saw that new Levi's ad, where they have some random guy singing Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line." "Who the hell is this guy they got to sing this song for this ad?" I thought - so I searched for the answer online. The only relevant thing I found was this chica's livejournal, where, in this post, she wondered the exact same thing about the dude singing in the ad: "Who's the indie rock douchebag singing 'I Walk the Line' on the Levi's commercial?" Sadly, so far, neither of us have the answer. If you know, please do let me know.

I never did mention that Rani & Joy named their baby, did I? His name is Nikash, he was 6lbs 3oz, and he is the first baby I've ever known who has an e-mail address. Here is a pic:

This pic just makes me laugh because the poor thing has the most exquisite expression of suffering on his face! Like, "What the hell is going on here?? What happened to that nice, warm womb I was just in? This really sucks!!" Poor kid. But so cute.

Well, it is looking more and more like we're not going to be moving to Miami - at least not anytime soon (I will probably have more to say on this point in future posts). But if we did, I wouldn't mind living in Miami Lakes. The website makes it seem a bit Stepford-like, but really, it's the New Urbanist town design (and relatively low crime rate compared with Miami proper and some of its other less-savory suburbs) which makes Miami Lakes appeal to me. Check out the town's map on its website - it's kinda neat.

The weather is moderating, and I am so excited about that. It's supposed to be in the 70's for the rest of the week!!! I can move around the house without feeling like I am about to suffocate! I'm not covered in sweat all the time! I can actually get things done during the day because it's not so hot I can't move! Woohoo! 'Cause I was starting to feel like cooking breakfast on my laptop or baking cookies on my dashboard were less like jokes and more like viable options. (The cooking-on-a-macbook link is, in fact, a joke - the dashboard-oven story, however, is not.)

And speaking of fun with food - if you haven't seen this one particular Diet-Coke+Mentos video, you really do need to watch it. **Edit: OK, so apparently Coke made them take the video off YouTube (it wasn't Mentos that did it, because they have a link to the video up on their site and are now running a Mentos Geyser video contest. I tell you, I am less of a Coke fan every day), but it's still up at EepyBird.com, the site of the fine fellows who made it. Plus, there's tons of info on how they made the video and why the technique works in the first place. Excellent.

do you see it?

I added a little icon to the address bar - or at least, I tried to. Let me know if you can see it - if not, you're probably using Internet Explorer. Try bookmarking the page, then restarting your browser and coming back here. If you still can't see it... uhm... keep trying, because IE sucks? It should work, eventually, even in that broken browser, assuming you're using version 6+. I don't know what else to tell you.

Well, there is no reason I should be up this late, except that it's the only time of day when the temperature in this place even approaches reasonable. I'm sick of not getting anything done during the day, so I'm trying to get a few things accomplished now. I'll sleep when it's stifling in here.

I totally called it.

90.2 degrees Fahrenheit.

Kee-ripes.

I'm going to bed now.

it is effing hot.

Like this sign from downtown St. Louis says:


And it wasn't even as hot that day as it's forecast to be here today:


I'm not sure it has quite reached 101 degrees (the National Weather Service says it's 94 right now), but it might as well be - it's intolerably hot any way you slice it. It was 88 degrees in our place when I got up this morning. It was up to 91 when we left. We're at Freedom of Espresso in Fayetteville right now, chilling out and enjoying the air conditioning and free wireless (bonus!). We will probably be here until almost closing time (7pm), so if you want to come hang out, please do. There's a group of elderly women here knitting - I may just join them in a minute! And then we are planning on hitting up Target real quick, and then doing dinner at that new Mexican restaurant on Erie Boulevard, El Canelo. I predict the temperature will still be over 90 inside when we return to our house. Ugh.

So how hot is it? Well, my glasses actually fogged up when I walked out of our air-conditioned bedroom, it was so hot and humid this morning. When I went to take a shower, I turned the hot water tap one quarter-turn and turned the cold tap one half-turn, and the water still came out toasty warm. I figured I would just take a warm shower, and when I got out the heat wouldn't feel as hot. That usually works, but not today - I got out, and I couldn't dry off because it was just too humid. In addition to the moisture from my shower, I now had a fresh coating of sweat on me, too! Fan-tastic. Well, at least this is only supposed to last until tomorrow evening. Stay cool, folks!