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| So I apparently contracted the flu over the weekend, not sure which flu exactly, but as far as I can tell, I am recovering slowly but surely. So while I sit in my apartment temporarily ignoring my bed (which I have spent so much time in the last 2 days), here’s some news of the world: Ice Skating Bear Kills Circus Hand MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A bear on ice skates attacked two people during rehearsals at a circus in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, killing one of them, Kyrgyz officials said Friday. Cannonball through house Civil war enthusiast, William Maser, 54, accidentally fired a cannonball into his neighbor's house and is now being charged with a felony count of discharging a firearm into an occupied structure. That's in addition to the charges of reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct that he was already facing for this incident. Schwarzeneggar drops F-bomb in veto letter A straight reading of the guv's letter laments "the fact that major issues are overlooked while many unnecessary bills come to me for consideration," and concludes, "I believe it is unnecessary to sign this measure at this time." But a vertical read of the far-left-hand letters in each of the missive's eight lines offers a more blunt explanation: "I f- you." Happy Halloween! | | |
| A tradition that has grown with the popularity of Halloween is the “Haunted Trail” or “Haunted Maze,” a sort of expansion upon the age old “Haunted House” concept that had been so popular long ago until people realized that a house, or usually rather, a part of a house, was too short for the amount of terror one wanted to inflict upon somewhat unsuspecting victims. Nowadays, practically every amusement park has some Halloween overlay, where at least some mazes are brought out for public enjoyment. Living in Southern California and being close to Hollywood, this usually means that the majority of the mazes here will have some horror movie tie-in, though they honestly begin to blend together, once the parks transplant the same gags to different backgrounds you quickly learn what exactly to expect. I avoided the haunted maze scene for many years, until one year I decided to pay a visit to Universal Studios Hollywood, and what was at the time “The Mummy” maze. Being a weekend afternoon in March, the maze was scarcely populated with roving actors that typically populate the maze; nooks and crannies of the maze where faces usually peered out were noticeably empty or temporarily filled with a dummy head on a stick. I had the good fortune (or perhaps not so good fortune) of entering the maze behind a group of particularly loud girls, whose screams gave our group plenty of advance warning as to the surprises that awaited us in the next room. It was for this reason that I spent most of my time in the maze shaking hands with mummies and anubises and asking how their day was going. Walking out of the rather barren maze, I was reminded of the haunted house that my elementary school had put together, and how comparably better it was, or at least seemed to be when I was a little kid. In elementary school, it was an annual tradition to hold Halloween carnival, where our playground was temporarily turned into a collection of red and white striped tents containing your standard carnival fare; ball tossing in various iterations, spinning wheels, and sand art being usual staples. Along the side were small food carts, offering up cotton candy, popcorn, and other culinary delights kept our grade school energy levels up and spending our parents' money. The library was temporarily commandeered and transformed into a haunted house – the windows covered with black butcher paper and the insides painted in blacklight, with gags from the local party supply store. Volunteers from the sixth grade class took turns dressing in black and jumping up on the unsuspecting guests. There was a great deal of pride in our haunted house; particularly when teachers would pay a token visit and we would be able to get them back for all our struggles in class. While we never had the budget or special effects of Hollywood, our liberal application of glow in the dark paint and fake blood seemed to make up for it, and that was more than enough for us. | | |
| The year before I entered high school, a group of seniors at my high school to be misinterpreted the word “prank” for “vandalism.” The day before graduation, they broke into the school and used frozen fish to break glass trophy cases, causing what apparently amounted to thousands of dollars of damage. The students, unsurprisingly, were expelled and not allowed to graduate. No explanation was given as to why frozen fish were the weapon of choice. The years following saw a lack of senior pranks, much to my dismay, as it only served to confirm my suspicion that I was going to school in a hellhole. Every now and then whispers of a prank would appear; a random intercom in the middle of the day or a few people disappearing every now it then. It made me want to pull a prank of my own; to show people how it's done. But what to do? Thankfully, my friends shared a similar goal as my own, and come junior year, we began deliberations on what we could do for our senior prank. At the outset, a few rules were set. For one, it couldn't be illegal or lead to our arrest. Two, it had to be relatively cheap; we had pretty much no budget to work with. And three, we had to be able to set it up really quickly. So basically, we had the same rules that hackers use at MIT. And with these set in place, we began to brainstorm. Being the nerds that we were, our first idea was not only improbable, but terribly nerdy at the same time. The idea was to convert our school's flagpole into a giant electromagnet by wrapping it in probably several hundred feet of wire, hooked up to a car battery. We weren't exactly sure what would happen as a result, but we dearly hoped that it would mean people would become unnaturally drawn towards the flagpole if carrying enough metal on them. Perhaps we could have demagnitized everyone's credit cards and caused a great degree of chaos. Unfortunately, this idea fell victim to the budget rule of pranking, as it turned out large quantities of electrical wiring added up, and we would probably get in serious trouble for demagnetizing everyone's credit cards, particularly the principal's. We then considered filling some school space with something; balloons, foam, cardboard hexagons, among other things. But the more we looked into it, the more this idea seemed uninspired; it was as if everyone has tried to fill a locker hall or classroom with one thing or another in the past. And while we weren't all that concerned with the mess we'd make or the inevitable cleanup, we figured that if we were going to pull off a prank, it should at least be something that few people have pulled off. Otherwise, why bother? So then we thought to ourselves, what would be memorable? Throwing a brick of sodium metal into the school pool? (Remember, we're nerds) Orchestrating a large Diet Coke and Mentos experiment? A friend of ours had managed to buy a brick of pure sodium off of eBay, of all places, and thrown a large chunk of it into the local park pond, with explosive results. Thankfully, no animals were harmed in the orchestration of that stunt. But the real problem with these pranks was they were so short term; there would need to be a large crowd witnessing it to make the effort worthwhile. That, and our cover would be blown. And so we reached our coup de grace, the one prank we agreed on; find a farm willing to rent out their animals for the day, and release them in the school. More specifically, release a calf on the second story of our school's new administration building, hopefully ensuring that the calf would be hanging around for quite a few hours while someone figured out how to get it down (you can lead a calf up stairs, but it's damn near impossible to lead them down). In addition, we pondered releasing two piglets that would be labeled “1” and “3,” respectively, with the hope that this would lead to a schoolwide search for the nonexistant “2.” Having passed our test for an appropriate amount of chaos caused, we then needed to check what could happen if we were caught. And it is here that we unfortunately hit a snag, as we discovered that the city did not allow livestock within city limits, punishable by a surprisingly high fine. And so it was back to the drawing board, though with the limited amount of time left in the school year, the last three months passed with no new efforts on our part, and particularly dumb efforts by other individuals, including spray painting phallic symbols on a math teacher's door and turning the school intercom on and off. And so our pranking dreams came to a close for high school, and we left it to others to take up the task we so regretfully left behind. | | |
| a retelling Once upon a time, in a village far away in the realm of fantasy, there lived a young man with a beautiful heart. Smooth and flawless, the bright red organ kept a perfect rhythm; the young man was very proud of his heart. Every chance he had, he would enjoy opening his chest for others to admire his heart, and they would all agree that his heart was the finest specimen that they had ever seen. That was, until one day in which the man had gathered a crowd to look at his heart. “Is this not the most beautiful heart you have ever seen?” he asked the audience. There were murmurs of agreement amongst the viewers, until one voice from the crowd objected, “My heart is far more beautiful than yours.” “Who said that?” the young man asked, stunned at the audacity of the claim. An old man stepped forward, his face etched with hard lines by time, his body bent over his cane. At the sight of the old man, the young man began to laugh uproariously. “You?” he asked incredulously, “How could you possibly have a more perfect heart?” The old man said nothing as he opened his chest to reveal a heart that resembled a patchwork quilt. The surface of the heart was uneven and roughly hewn, as if created by someone who only had a vague knowledge of what a heart looked like. Colored in a multitude of shades of red, his heartbeat was erratic, and with each beat, blood trickled out of gaps in his heart. The young man and the surrounding crowd recoiled at the sight. “You see,” the old man started, pointing at the patchwork heart, “each piece of my heart represents a person who I gave my love to – I tear out a piece of my heart for them, and often they give me a piece of their heart in return. Sometimes the pieces don't fit. Sometimes a person may not give me their heart in return.” The old man pointed at the gaps in his heart. “Though these holes hurt, I hope that someday they may come find me and give me a piece of their heart, while the patches remind me of all the love that I have shared.” The young man looked at the old and saw the beauty of the gaps and scars that lined the man's loving heart. His previously boisterous voice lowered to a whisper as he meekly asked the old man, “May I give you a piece of my heart?” “Of course, my child. As long as you take a piece of mine in return.” said the old man. The young man reached into his perfect red heart and tore out a piece to hand to the old man, who did the same. The young man thanked the old for his kindness, and from that day forward shared his heart freely, and no one could deny that the young man had the most beautiful heart that the world had ever seen. | | |
| Hi there. You must be the new guy. Welcome to our lab, let me show you around. We share the floor with three other labs. To your left is the Hong lab. If we are ever out of anything, feel free to ask any of their lab members, they're usually a lot more organized than we are. But don't mention this to Dr. Hong or our boss. If you let on, you will be let go. Here is where out lab starts. On the left are Ben and Todd. If you ever lose anything in lab, go see them. Chances are they have it. For the same reason, you should always write your name all over your own stuff. Do not confront Ben or Todd about their kleptomania; just walk over, take your stuff back, and go. They'll understand. We speculate that their kleptomania is fueled by a need for social contact. Nonetheless, do not attempt to converse with Ben or Todd, as you otherwise will not hear the end of it. At the next bench sits Lisa. Lisa is the love interest of Mike, who sits over there. They take the bus to work together every morning. For Lisa, it is just another routine event made slightly more interesting by Mike's company. For Mike, it's the highlight of his day. The rest of us think that Mike will eventually ask Lisa out, and after a period of dating, it will end terribly and they will never talk again. Needless to say, you should not mention this to either of them. Next to Mike sits James. James hates undergraduates. When you inevitably pick up undergraduate students, be sure to inform them of this. Failure to do so may result in the verbal abuse of your students, which will be reflected in your quarterly review. If your students ever need anything from James, it is best that you ask for them. But don't expect to get it either. What's this about a quarterly review. I'm glad you asked. Feel free to ask questions. Ask too many questions, however, and you may be let go. Every three months you will be given a letter from our boss outlining his thoughts on your work. Included will typically be a series of noncommittal statements about your progress, ending with a demand for experiments to be performed more quickly. Do not take these statements too personally, as the boss will have probably forgotten about what he wrote within a day. Nevertheless you should take these notes into account, as otherwise, you may be let go. On the wall is the eyewash station and chemical shower. Feel free to use them in the case of emergency. Expect to clean up afterwards; there is no drain underneath the shower. Note that access to the eyewash and shower is usually blocked by any number of obstructions. The unintentional goal of this is to limit its use and by extension the number of accidents in lab. Please act accordingly. If you will be having accidents in lab, please plan them around the one time a year when we clean the area for safety inspections as your access to the showers will be unhindered. Here is Esther's bench. If you ever break anything in lab, please report it to Esther immediately. Failure to do so will result in a long lecture on responsibility and lab etiquette. It is highly recommended that you limit the number of items in lab that you break, as too many will result in you being let go. Esther recently had a grandchild, so be sure to ask to see the pictures she has on her desk to stay on her good side. Oh I nearly forgot. Out by the elevators is out kitchenette. You may store your lunch in one of the two refrigerators we have. Do not leave your food on the counter, as we consider any food left on the counter as free game for the rest of us. On Thursdays the Hong lab has their lab meetings, so free lunch will likely be available as they bring up their leftovers. Our lab meetings do not include food, so plan accordingly. In the event of free food, it is best that your arrive at the kitchenette as soon as possible to ensure yourself a serving. Beyond this bench is the Cameron lab. You have no business in being over there. You will be introduced to the rest of the lab on a need-to-know basis. If you have any other questions, ask Bill; he sits over there. If you need to order something, see Esther's student, whose desk is over there. If the alarm goes off, see Mike. If all else fails, you can come see me. This is my bench. I sit right over there. Now please go away. | | |
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