job dissatisfaction

As most of my decision-making tends to happen, I decided, on a last-minute whim, to register for a class at Planned Parenthood on sex ed in New York City schools. The idea behind the class is to examine what kids are being taught in schools, whose education programs tend to center around abstinence platitudes like, "if you don't aim to please, don't aim to tease." I figured, whatever, not my usual scene but still somewhat intriguing.

However, by the time I got around to RSVPing, the event was fully booked. Usually I would throw down the press credential and presto change-o, all of a sudden there's plenty of room. I imagine that would happen here, too. But I challenge you, mythical reader, to come up with a relationship between electrical engineering and sex. Short of teledildonics--waaaay over-reported by those excitable folks at Wired--there is nothing, nothing I tell you!

Best answer wins a hippo.

I like this guy

Rollie Fingers has good style.




(from SI.com's Facial Hair Hall of Fame)

this is even weirder!

forget my previous post on lifting and twisting animals. This one truly speaks for itself, and it's on sale on eBay, RIGHT NOW!

U. S. PATENT FOR BOOT SPIKES BIKER OR COOL PEOPLE

"We have the pleasure of offering This U.S. Patent # D 453987 S for the Boot Spikes. Shown in photos are prototypes that were hand made and they can be put on any color or style leather, webbed fabric or mesh fabric. These Spikes could be easily mass produced with the right equipment. Boot Spikes are really hot with the younger generation and bikers and can be made any color, like sparkling rhinestones or leather. If you are looking for a product that has potential to make money, take a look at this. No payment due until you come visit us for inspection and demostration and ownership changes hands. Our client invented these and went thru the process of obtaining the patent, it can be yours..."



Just to be clear on this--I have no problem with somebody selling boot spikes biker or cool people, but the PATENT for them? And indeed, the USPTO issued a patent for a "pair of animal repelling boot harnesses" in February 2001. The asking price is $100,000.

Save the lesser bodily discomfort!

I came across this while perusing online patent auction sites. I'm afraid to imagine what this thing actually does:

Device for Animal Husbandry

The Dawmac Stock Handler has a revolving and lifting action that can be used for husbandry of sheep, cattle, goats, pigs and deer. It is ideal for drenching, all types of foot work, dagging, mouthing, bellying, eye clipping, stud stock work, ewe-lamb mothering etc.

It can be used by a number of power / energy sources - air pressure, gas, water, oil, etc.

This is a machine designed specifically to help farmers in lifting heavy objects and twisting. The machine saves the operator's back and other lesser bodily discomfort.

Fish - Fish - Fish

What need is there for fish to sing, when I can roar and bellow?

Oh, several months have passed, and I have not one excuse for the pure neglect that seems to characterize my treatment of you, Blog. But I recently returned from a trip to the Bahamas, and I have a thought.

I was thinking about how on my trip I only saw one (living) fish, and how that was odd given the amount of water I encountered. It seemed a bit disappointing that I’d in fact seen much more interesting fish the previous week in a Chinatown bar, whose toilet had one wall that was entirely fish tank. You end up doing your business in a room that's lit by aquarium-glow while staring at brightly illuminated fish. Weird. (this is NOT to imply that the rest of that bar is anything resembling "normal." Please. DO NOT make that logical leap.) Amazingly, no one on the other side of the fish tank could see through---I'm not sure how that works. There was one fish with a really large lump on its forehead, the kind of lump that makes you think he's not long for this world. He swam more slowly than the others, and we hypothesized that Brain Fish was the only one with the powers to grasp the absurdity of tanklife, and had a very bad headache.

The Bahamanians, by contrast, were much more interested in doing devastating things to groupers and conches and dolphins (!! I suspect this was code for mahi mahi) and serving them on plates.

But this fishlessness also reminded me of my science writing class's strange discovery last year that there are no ants in Riverside Park (we counted--even the professor, the world's finest ant man, was stumped). So I thought, what is up with this lack of biodiversity? Or rather, to be more upbeat about things, what’s up with this bio university. Now obviously that’s a weird term with all its scholarly implications. But then I ran into trouble comparing ‘diverse’ and ‘universe’. Universe as we know it means the everything, the one whole thing, but shouldn’t it perhaps also mean half of diverse? Ick, I broke language. I also looked up universe and ended up with a definition telling me that the universe is the only closed system, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I suspect if I became more attuned to these sorts of constructions-—or through some bizarre time warp (or twisted parental joke) had to learn English as a native Latin speaker-—things would become completely incomprehensible.

Yeah, yeah, mono- would probably resolve my troubles with uni-. But that’s not nearly as enjoyable as the University of Bio.