Getting to know the newbies (a.k.a. the "pi" meme)

Janet started it. John and Mike picked it up. Afarensis used it to avoid working on a post. John and Bora quickly chimed in as well.

Well, given that it's a Sunday and that I usually don't do any heavy duty science or medicine posts on Saturdays and Sundays, it looked like a perfectly good way for me to waste some time in a (hopefully) entertaining way for my readers, particularly since the questions are actually pretty good ones.

Yes, it's the ScienceBlogs v.2.0 Meme:

3 reasons you blog about science:

1. It's my life's work. (What else am I going to blog about, besides science and medicine?)
2. It's intimately related to my interest in critical thinking.
3. To educate about evidence-based medicine.

Point at which you would stop blogging:

1. If it ever became a choice between blogging and my marriage. (Hard as it is to believe, there are some things way more important than blogging.)
2. If it ever became a choice between blogging and my job. (Although ScienceBlogs does give me some minor renumeration for my efforts, it's nothing I could ever hope to live on; all it really takes care of is the cable modem, some beer, and the occasional DVD or CD. If my real overlords--as opposed to my Seed overlords--ever said to put a cork in it, I'd really have very little choice but to stop. Ditto if I ever found that the blog was seriously affecting my career.)
3. Death or severe disability.

1 thing you frequently blog besides science:

Holocaust denial

4 words that describe your blogging style:

1. Insolent (Of course, but respectfully so--most of the time, anyway; I make exceptions for Holocaust deniers and some others who just don't deserve my respect)
2. Erudite (translation: lots of big words, many unnecessary)
3. Detailed (translation: long-winded)
4. Silly (Occasionally, anyway. Come on, you've seen my EneMan posts, haven't you? And, although it probably strikes fear into the hearts of my Seed overlords, the Hitler Zombie is waiting in the wings; indeed, he may even make an appearance as early next week.)

1 aspect of blogging you find difficult:
Letting the blog go silent for a day or two every now and then, even now when I'm busy reviewing NIH grants for a study section, have a paper that I have to retool and resubmit, and have a final report due for the Army this Friday. (Maybe blogging is a bit of an addiction.)

5 ScienceBlogs blogs that are new to you:

1. Discovering Biology in a Digital World
2. Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge
3. Dynamic of Cats
4. Effect Measure
5. Pure Pedantry

9 blogs you read outside the ScienceBlogs universe:
I keep track of way more than 9 blogs outside of the ScienceBlogs universe and, oddly enough, several blogs that I used to be a regular reader of outside the SB universe are among the newbies, but here are a few who haven't been assimilated or are not about the correct subject matter ever to be assimilated (in alphabetical order, with, sadly, many worthy blogs that I frequent via my RSS feed aggregator left out):

1. Holocaust Controversies
2. Kevin, M.D.
3. Left Brain/Right Brain
4. Majikthise
5. The Millenium Project
6. The Politburo Diktat
7. Photon in the Darkness (sadly, it's been a month since he's posted anything)
8. Pooflingers Anonymous
9. Skeptico

2 important features of your blogging environment:

1. Coffee
2. iTunes

6 items you would bring to a meet-up with the other ScienceBloggers:

1. Laptop computer (the better to blog the event with)
2. Beer
3. Some of my EneMan promotional items
4. iPod with adapter cable, the better to inflict my musical tastes on everyone else
5. My Young Ones T-shirt (either that, or my Evil Dead or Return of the Living Dead T-shirt, in homage to the Hitler Zombie)
6. A hidden recording device for later blackmail purposes (just kidding...maybe)

5 conversations you would have before the end of that meet-up:

1. With Abel Pharmboy about alties' misuse of the legitimate science of natural products.
2. With Bora about how on earth he could manage to run so many different blogs.
3. With Dr. Hildreth and Dr. Charles to try to pick up tips on writing in a more literary style
4. With Tara about arguing with antivaccination loons and HIV/AIDS "skeptics."
5. With PZ to see if I could figure out just what his obsession with cephalopods is all about.