Green crystallized dead Russian mouse mineral thing
In geology, a pseudomorph is a mineral that takes on the shape of another mineral (or other object) by infiltration or incrustation. Petrified wood is an example, where the form of the original wood (right down to the cellular structure) has been replaced over time by minerals.
This here thing? It’s a mouse that has been partially incrusted with chalcanthite and atacamite. Where did it come from? Is it ancient? I don’t know! I found it years ago, while surfing the web for limonite pseudomorphs (for entirely personal reasons). It’s from the Fursman Mineralogical Museum in Moscow. Please to click the link and see it in its natural green.
When talk turned to Russia and Pravda and Lenin’s tomb and assorted other dead things — the internet today, for example — I naturally thought of my friend, green crystallized dead Russian mouse mineral thing.
February 26, 2008 — 4:09 pm
Comments: 26
Creepy Monday
So I had this dream about Mike Huckabee, and the punchline was, “not David and Goliath, Davey and Goliath,” which I woke up thinking was the funniest joke evarrrrr. Then my eyes adjusted and saw that I was lying on a mattress on the floor covered in cats and dustbunnies.
Monday. So very, very Monday.
Anyhow, Davey and Goliath — for all you philthy pherriners — was a stop-action TV program of the ’60s, brought you by the Lutheran church and Art Clokey (of Gumby fame). Yes, it was every bit as fun as it sounds. It ran Sunday mornings, and you watched because…what the hell else you going to watch Sunday morning? Davey and Goliath has to be in my top five Programs I Wouldn’t Want to Watch after Dropping the Brown Acid.
I didn’t realize until I Wiki’d it this morning that the sweet, stupid Davey of the Sixties turned into a major dick in the Seventies: cheating, contaminating a well and “telling a handicapped child to shoot himself for being so ‘dumb’.” I’d love to know how Goliath handled that one.
It’s still running on some religious stations, minus certain episodes. Violence, racial issues…that sort of thing. Yes, we have lived to see the day that Davey and Goliath is too edgy for children.
And speaking of edgy and creepy…a doctor in Australia is under investigation for mutilating and abusing hundreds of women.
Carolyn Dewaegeneire, a patient who broke her silence on a national TV news program last week, was admitted to Pambula Hospital on August 2002 to have a minor lesion removed from her labia.
Before she lost consciousness to a general anesthetic, she said Reeves leaned over and whispered in her ear: “I’m going to take your clitoris, too.”
After the operation she discovered all her external genitalia had been cut off her body. It is alleged Reeves later boasted of removing “all the fun bits” — and said she wouldn’t need them as her husband had died.
He wasn’t struck off for that. He was merely ordered not to practice as an obstetrician. He was struck off for disobeying and working as an obstetrician anyway.
Note to self: swing by the liquor store on the way home.
February 25, 2008 — 3:14 pm
Comments: 39
They want me. They want me bad.
Say, who’s up on parliamentary procedures? Is there any chance Huck will force it to a brokered convention and somebody totally else can grab the nomination?
Like Zombie Reagan or Maggie Thatcher or Chuck Manson or
Marvin the Martian or…somebody?
February 24, 2008 — 6:22 pm
Comments: 11
Evildoers? On the *Internet*?!
Have y’all run into this yet? I got this one clicking on the result of an images search.
Backstory here. Google just finished combing through three billion web pages looking for bad actors. They found about three million. One in a thousand.
They were surprised to find there was only a slightly greater risk of badware in the sleazy neighborhoods. So go on, surf porn with confidence (I’m looking at you, McGoo).
The breakdown? China: 67%. The US: 15%. Russia: 4%. Malaysia: 2.2%. Korea: 2%.
Malicious site operators in China fall into two broad categories, Thompson said: fraudsters looking to steal your banking password, and teenagers who want to steal your World of Warcraft character.
The solution mentioned in the article is to keep automatic updates switched on. Automatic updates can kiss my ass. The last time I ran automatic updates, it made Internet Explorer my default browser and loaded the vile Outlook Express on my nice clean machine. I turned it off, and now it pisses and moans every time I reboot. So I don’t reboot. How bout we just don’t give out our banking or WoW details instead?
I know, I know. It’s the weekend. I’m s’posed to be restesing. But I’m all about looking out for the minions.
Hey, can you cook potroast from frozen?
February 23, 2008 — 10:34 am
Comments: 23
And my heating pad is dead…
It started off with a fizzle, but it snew pretty good there toward the end. Just three or four inches, but it’s turning to ice now. Glad I’m not driving in it.
February 22, 2008 — 11:26 pm
Comments: 7
Snow day!
Okay, as snowstorms go, it’s not too impressive…but, as employees go, I’m a complete waste of human skin. So here I am, at home making pizza.
Hey! Want my pizza recipe? I believe I have already mentioned I was once a pizza professional. Yeah. Is there no end to my accomplishments? We made an award-winning, very deep dish Sicilian pie, and here’s how:
Start with raw white bread dough. That bagged stuff you get at the supermarket is fine. One of those (a pound) will make about two pizza doughs. You want to spread this in the bottom of a pie dish. Eight inches, eleven…whatever you’ve got. Press it into the bottom until you have a thin layer in the middle, and a thicker lip all around the edge. Try not to tear it.
The pie plate needs to be very slightly greasy, or the cooked pizza will stick. But too greasy, and it will pull away from the edges before it’s done. At the pizza joint, we simply wiped out the pans and left them unwashed; the accumulated pizza goodness did the trick. Wiping the pan with a very small amount of oil works, too, Mister Germophobe.
Now bake the dough, all by itself, in a 400° to 450° oven for about ten minutes, until the outer lip just starts to brown. This keeps the bottom of the pizza from going all wet and ‘orrible later on. First thing in the morning, we’d bake the whole day’s crusts and store ’em in the refrigerator until called for. You can too, just like a pizza professional!
When you’re ready, smear a layer of sauce on the crust (I use spaghetti sauce, for simplicity’s sake), then your desired ingredients, THEN your shredded cheese. Toppings under cheese — innovations you can really use. The shop used cheddar and mozarella. I like to use muenster. Whatever. Give this about ten minutes in the same 400° to 450° oven, and viola!
Let the pie sit a few minutes to firm up a little, then run your biggest knife underneath, all the way around, to make sure it’s totally unstuck. Leave the knife under the pie, hover over the cutting board, and pull the pan away from the pizza.
There you have it! Two years of my life in a nutshell.
— 1:22 pm
Comments: 72
Another boring day at the office
I hope you don’t mind if I post this, Felix — I thought it was cool and I figured since you’d mentioned it on your blog that it was okay. Squeak and I’ll pull it.
This is where Felix works. She’s a test driver for GM. She says it isn’t all that cool, but she doesn’t spend her day sitting between a woman with cattarh and a man who tacks “…and all like that…” on the end of every sentence he speaks.
February 21, 2008 — 2:28 pm
Comments: 26
Ow! What the hell…?
I woke up with a nasty headache this morning. I don’t get many of those; not since I quit smoking, anyhow.
I didn’t have any caffeine yesterday. I usually have a thermos of coffee and a couple of Diet Dr Peppers…but I forgot my thermos, and I’ve been stuck with black cherry soda since they were out of my favorite tipple since my last supermarket run.
Is that it? I’ve never believed in the caffeine-withdrawal headache. I thought I could pick it up and put it down at will. But I have been increasing my dose lately.
If this is the first sign of that nasty flu that’s making the rounds, I’m going to go HOWLING apeshit. In between trips to the bathroom.
— 11:19 am
Comments: 24
I have this here megaphone and I’m not afraid to use it
Last week, National Review called for a truce between McCain’s supporters and the flaming wingnut contingent, of which IR1.
I was going to go along — really, what’s the point of taking shots now? — but I had second thoughts. What if a McCain supporter says something that really torques me off seconds after I take the pinkie swear? My spleen would explode. I like my spleen. So, no. No promises.
But I’m not grinding any axes yet, either. I’m still doing math. Which is more dangerous: a misguided man who achieves many of his goals, or a very misguided man who achieves few of his goals?
Then there’s my other question: which is more insignificant, my vote or my blog?
Over sixty-three million people voted in the last presidential election, but there are over ninety million blogs. So, if my math is correct (and it never is) my vote is 1/180,000,000ths more significant than my blog.
But there’s more to it than math. What if one or more of you silly boo-boos actually writes in Zombie Reagan for president? Then my blog becomes several sixty-three millionths more powerful than my vote.
Uneasy lies the head that wears the…you know. The hat. The hat thing with the bells on.
February 20, 2008 — 6:51 pm
Comments: 42
One dead president to another…
To a few of us here today this is a solemn and most momentous occasion, and yet in the history of our nation it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place, as it has for almost two centuries, and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.
–Ronald Reagan’s first Inaugural address
G’night, Fidel!
February 19, 2008 — 12:21 pm
Comments: 83