chaoticutopia
Posts by this author
January 21, 2009
Here is one final thanks to all of my readers, especially for all of your wonderful comments over the last week. I know I'll miss blogging here. In fact, I doubt I'll be able to stay gone for too long. I promise, (barring any truly chaotic circumstances) that I will return. I may start a new blog…
January 12, 2009
This is a little unexpected, I'm sure. I sat down last week, on my three-year blog-anniversary, to put together my banner and start the updating that I've been talking about for a month, but I couldn't do it. I wanted the creative juices to flow, to get excited about blogging again, but instead I…
January 5, 2009
Well, here it is the first Monday in 2009, and judging by my inbox, which suddenly jumped to life, it is definitely time to get back to this poor site update. I was ready to dive in, anyhow, since the holidays are finally past, and my son returns to school tomorrow. (Yay!) Besides, tomorrow is…
December 29, 2008
I always get plenty of books for Christmas--more than I’ll ever have time to read, certainly. So, this year, when I started to tear the paper from the corner of another heavy and flat rectangle, it was hard to get excited. But underneath the paper, I caught a glimpse of a cracked cobblestone. The…
December 24, 2008
Anyone remember this song?
Well... Santa got in the Christmas Spirit (or was that into the Christmas Spirits?) and now he needs your help to play connect the dots. Yup. It's just what you think: (flash required)
Ho! Ho! Ho! Yellow Snow!
For more Holiday games, check out the Holiday Link Dump…
December 18, 2008
Humans!A film by Three Legged Legs
This snarky little film is my way of saying: I’m back, but I’m still busy--you know, being a human, consuming resources, yadda yadda. Since Christmas is only a week away, I’m going to use this time to post nonsense filler (hopefully some of it holiday-themed)…
December 11, 2008
Mumble, mumble, stupid holidays... mumble mumble, final exams... mumble, grumble, not enough time in a day... mumble, curse, mumble...
There must be some corollary to Murphy’s law that states every time I want to do something nice for myself, I will be swamped with other things. That seems to be…
November 27, 2008
Happy Turkey Day!
Shoot your own dinner! via Southbank
Thanks to my pal, Sara, who recommended this manic turkey shooter for Thanksgiving Day. I know it doesn't make sense, but then again, most holidays don't anymore.
November 21, 2008
Ok, this is just bizzarre. If you’re easily freaked out, don’t read this. It might start off nice and pretty...
This story begins sometime in the mid-1990s, when I was still young enough to do stupid things with friends who had too much to drink. It involves a sort of tradition for those of us who…
November 17, 2008
So, I’ll be the first to admit it. This blog is dead. I’ve noticed it happening to a number of sites I used to read on a regular basis, as the authors found themselves overwhelmed and occupied with many other things--school, work, life--chaos. Yet, what I’m facing is a little different. This blog…
November 4, 2008
Surely, you don’t need me to remind you to vote today. Everywhere we turn, there are little reminders. But what would happen if you or I didn’t vote today? Here’s an example:
If you know someone who says they don’t need to vote, you can customize this video and send it to them.
Finally, if you…
November 1, 2008
I promised one more comic before getting back to more serious research, and here it is. Sluggy Freelance is usually a serialized comic, but one instance last week stood out on it’s own:
"Don’t doubt my scienceness!"From Sluggy Freelance by Pete Abrams
If you are curious about the story leading up…
October 31, 2008
You might have noticed, this blog has been as still as tomb over the past few weeks. It isn’t as if I was waiting for Halloween to write again--on the contrary, midterms were keeping me frighteningly busy! But, while I did manage to completely bomb one test, this semester has been quite insightful…
October 18, 2008
Better late than never, I guess. We shot this video a few weeks ago at our local ScienceBlogs bash. We had martinis and hors d'oeuvres, played with balloons, and had some interesting conversations on science. Some of them were deep and insightful. None of those were filmed. We leave you with the…
October 15, 2008
American Progress by John Gast
Take note of the bison in the painting above, fleeing from America’s angel of death, a now-fallen angel named Manifest Destiny.Take note of the bison, fleeing alongside horseback-riding natives and dwindling wildlife.Take note of the bison, pressed ever-more westward…
October 11, 2008
Barbed wire stretched across the prairie, the slaughter of animals (and people)... the founding of the old wild west wasn’t so beautiful. Despite that, of the classes I’m taking this fall, titled "Don’t Fence Me In", has gotten me to take a closer look at the Western genre in literature and film,…
October 8, 2008
This poem seemed really fitting with the last post, yet I couldn’t fit it in anywhere. So here it is, all by itself, with some strange guy reciting it next to an egg cart:
Buffalo Bill’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus…
October 8, 2008
Some folks say that bison belong here, not the ’burbs. The great herds once covered the plains, shaping the prairie in their nomadic graze. They were a keystone species, holding the ecology of the plains in a state of equilibrium. Native Americans who lived on the plains depended on the bison for…
October 8, 2008
Time passes and the universe expands... but not so much locally. Here, something else happens altogether. Time passes, the amount of space stays the same, but the amount of information contained within grows increasingly dense. We may be products of this, or we may produce it. As we are driven to…
October 4, 2008
The ScienceBlogs party here this past Sunday was a blast. We had about half a dozen people stop by, altogether. We ate and drank, talked science and politics, and did silly things for the camera. On the latter note, I now have about a half hour of footage that we shot at the party that is waiting…
September 28, 2008
Ok, one more. You can’t leave the party without meeting Otto. He’s an infinite cat. That’s it! Thanks for coming, be it in person or virtually, and most especially, thank you for reading, commenting, and helping ScienceBlogs reach 1,000,000 comments!
September 28, 2008
Suppose you’re not really the social type at all, and would rather play around in some serene playground. Well, we have something for you, too! Take a break and chill out in Vector Park. They have all sorts of weird things to click on, like three-legged headless acrobats, an odd assortment of…
September 28, 2008
Since this party is being held in my house, I imagine someone is certain to mention the giant squid in the bathroom. If you can’t make it, it won’t be you--but you can still have that same sort of undersea experience.
Here’s a game review I wrote a while ago for JayIsGames, that was never…
September 28, 2008
It’s probably very common right now... you go to a cocktail party during the election season, and you end up discussing politics. Who said what? Who agrees with who? Hopefully, after comparing responses at the Science Debate 2008, you should have a good idea of where our candidates stand, and would…
September 26, 2008
Ok, I’ll confess--school has been blowing my f*$#!^& mind this past week--but in a good way, really. I’m studying a variety of interesting subjects which are all tying together in surprising ways... which has lead me to do quite a bit of extra reading and writing. Not that I mind. I just wish I…
September 13, 2008
After blogging about my experiences earlier this week, I had crows on the brain. So, as I went drifting through fractal sets, trying to come up with something for this week’s Friday Fractal (now a Saturday Set), I kept running across crow-like shapes. One in particular stuck out, perhaps because I…
September 11, 2008
Please join us!
Who:
Readers, commenters, and bloggers alike... anyone who likes to hang out, have a drink, and chat about science, life, and chaos... in other words, you!
What:
ScienceBlogs 1,000,000 Comments Party and Chaotic Utopia’s Back-to-Blogging Cocktail Party
When:
September 28th, 2008 4-…
September 10, 2008
It was a little like Hitchcock; an unconventional dark encounter on an unremarkable monochrome day. My dachshund and I were trailing down the same belt of green lawn, mud, and concrete as the summery day before, and the day and days before that. The skies were cast over with thick clouds, so we…
September 9, 2008
I love it when other people say exactly what I’m thinking, but in better words. Take Gloria Steinem on Sarah Palin for instance:
Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing--the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party--are trying to appease the gender gap…
September 8, 2008
Oh, what a couple of weeks. Between preparing for the DNC and hosting out of town guests, my plans to return to blogging were somehow delayed. Now the excitement has passed and I’ve run out of excuses to avoid my computer. So, as I turn to this giant pile of bloggable stuff, I am wondering how on…