personal
pharyngula | May 8, 2011I haven't even managed to leave Kamloops, British Columbia yet, and I'm already planning ahead to next week's event in Philadelphia. And look: now, in addition to myself, both Tom Flynn and David Silverman are coming. They've already let all the riff-raff in, so anyone else who wants to come will just raise the average quality of the guests in attendance.
drorzel | May 5, 2011That title isn't a euphemism-- SteelyKid decided to use this week's Toddler Blogging to try to teach an old Appa a new trick. First you go up up up on your head:
Then you flip down:
Ta-daa!!
pharyngula | May 5, 2011Tomorrow, I'll be in Kamloops, British Columbia. The godless have been rampaging across that province, what with this evil conference where atheists will be actually encouraged to speak, and a bus campaign in Kelowna and Kamloops and Victoria, where innocent eyes will be assaulted with vile atheist propaganda, with slogans like "There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life". Then, of course, I'll be descending from the skies like a wrathful angel, striding across the landscape with my eyes afire, crushing the pious with my righteous fury, while occasionally being mistaken…
pharyngula | May 3, 2011Did you know that this is the last week of classes at UMM, and I'm ooga booga GAH! Heebity heebity heebity boo, wibbledy bobbledy not you too, and jeez I'm gonna hork. Galumphedrin. Yaaah - yaaaah - yaaaaaaaaaaaaieeee. Go away kid, you bother me. Pthththbbbbfhfhththt. Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
So. Yes. You were saying? I was saying? What!? Please, can I take a nap now?
Thwock.
I KNOW! Really, I do.
I hope that explains everything.
P.S. I meant that most sincerely, every word of it.
drorzel | April 30, 2011SteelyKid and Kate are down in Boston this weekend, which has given me time to get some work done around the house, and go to some restaurants that they don't like. It's left me a little deprived of cute, though. So, as a counter to that, some cute video of SteelyKid riding her "motorcycle" (her term) down the small hill by Grandma and Grandpa's:
(She can just barely reach the pedals, but can't use them very effectively, so she just scoots it along with her feet, and picks them up once she gets going. The abrupt stop at the end of this was in order to demand another jellybean from Grandma.)
drorzel | April 29, 2011Today's blog silence was the result of travel down to and back from New Haven, where I gave a talk at Southern Connecticut State University. Weirdly, this was also a day full of reminders of my own advancing age:
-- After the talk, I wandered around New Haven a bit, visiting places I used to go when I was a post-doc at Yale. It's been long enough since I lived there that they are now re-renovating buildings that were extensively renovated while I was there.
-- The wandering was to kill time before getting dinner with a friend from college, who is a doctor in the area. We went to a bar near…
drorzel | April 28, 2011Kate and I have spent a lot of this week being thwarted by technology in one way or another, so SteelyKid decided to set us straight about how things work. First, she demonstrated how to work the tv:
Then she showed us how to take pictures on her phone (because, of course, all phones take pictures):
And, finally, she explained to Kate how to view the pictures she had taken on the phone:
We'd be embarrassed at having to be taught how to use common devices by a two-and-three-quarters-year-old, but we're so relieved to have Internet connectivity back in Chateau Steelypips that we can't think…
pharyngula | April 23, 2011And as a first step, that involved being fitted for a squid balloon hat at the American Atheist convention dinner last night.
You're all jealous now, I know.
drorzel | April 21, 2011I'm sitting on the couch reading when Emmy trots in looking excited.
"Hey, dude, I've got a great idea!" she says cheerily. "You know how your puppy is away for the week?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I think this is the perfect opportunity to class up your blog a little. I mean, you always post pictures of her on Thursdays, but she's not here to take a picture of, so..."
"So... What?"
"Well, you should post some pictures of me, silly!"
"Yeah," she says. "Just like that. I'm an excellent dog!"
"Yes, you're the best. The Queen of Niskayuna." She flops over, and I rub her belly. She's quiet for a minute,…
sa smith | April 20, 2011All I asked for my birthday this year is The Apocalypse.
Dont let me down, Skynet!
**fingerscrossed!!!!**
drorzel | April 19, 2011The New York Times had another article on the environmental impacts of shale gas drilling, which reminded me that I had intended to write something else on the subject after February's post on the fracking panel at AAAS, but never got around to it. The hook for the article is yet another study showing that the environmental questions are more complicated than just the question of how much CO2 is released in burning gas vs oil or coal, with loss and leakage during the drilling process potentially producing a lot of greenhouse gases.
This is, of course, a single study, and includes the…
pharyngula | April 19, 2011Stalkers in two languages, English and Portuguese.
I don't count the French Canadian one.
pharyngula | April 17, 2011I'm not home yet. I'm still in Hawaii, relaxing for a bit after the Society for Developmental Biology conference. After this, though, it's a storm of events every weekend for quite some time. Here's my schedule:
21-24 April: Des Moines, IA, the American Atheists national convention.
29 April: Oswego NY, the SUNY Oswego Secular Student Alliance.
7 May: Kamloops, BC, Imagine No Religion conference.
13 May: Philadelphia, PA, the anti-superstition bash.
21 May: Washington, DC, Jamie Kilstein and I are setting Washington DC on fire.
28 May: Morris, MN. I'm staying home and getting some rest. You…
pharyngula | April 16, 2011I want you to know that I have a very nice office back home. It has a big window with a view. The view is of a tree and a parking lot, but still…it's a nice office.
Then yesterday I got to tour the Kewalo Marine Laboratory just outside of Honolulu, where the SDB meeting is being held. We stopped by Mark Martindale's office, and uh-oh, what's this? Is that envy writhing in my breast, and discontent thrashing in my soul? Look at the view he's got.
When I get back to Morris, I'm going to have to stomp down to the administration building and demand that they install an ocean. Do you think it…
drorzel | April 14, 2011SteelyKid has been sick this week, which made it a perfect time for me to fly down to Maryland for a couple of days. Fortunately, she and Kate have both forgiven me. I did break out the new friend I purchased for SteelyKid a couple of weeks ago, and have been holding in reserve:
The fuzzy blue fellow is a plush Eeyore, who was a big hit. We read the story from The House at Pooh Corner where Pooh and Piglet build Eeyore a house at bedtime tonight, and when Eeyore made his first appearance, she had the stuffed Eeyore kiss his picture in the book.
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, just…
drorzel | April 7, 2011A shot from this morning, before SteelyKid had gotten dressed:
Why is she balanced precariously on the arm of that chair, you ask? So she could do this, of course:
This was the exciting game of the morning: climbing up on the arm of the recliner, then doing a dramatic drop back to the seat. Over, and over, and over, with much giggling.
Hey, you might've done the same, if given an armchair of the appropriate scale. SteelyKid sure made it look like fun...
pharyngula | April 4, 2011Last weekend (no, the weekend before) I got to stop on a long layover in Seattle and have dinner with the family back home. My sister took a few pictures, and so just because I can, here's me and my mother.
See? She doesn't look at all demonic.
pharyngula | April 1, 2011Rats, I didn't realize what day it is, and now no one is going to believe the announcement I just made is real…at least not until the 2nd rolls around and the persistence of reality sinks in. So I guess I better post stuff here, just for today, since no one is going to switch their feeds around just yet.
Anyway, I'm in Illinois, at Elmhurst College! Some people were asking for the details: I'll be speaking at 4pm in Illinois Hall, the auditorium in the science building on campus. It's an open lecture, feel free to show up.
I currently have no specific plans for the evening afterwards. If any…
drorzel | March 31, 2011SteelyKid has extremely fine hair that doesn't grow very quickly. While this leads many people to mistake her for a boy (that, and the fact that a lot of her play clothes are from the boys' section at Target, because lots of girl-toddler outfits are ridiculously impractical), it does lend itself to spectacular bedhead:
She's actually admiring her own crazy hair in a mirror (out of frame to the right) in this shot. She liked it enough that she insisted on keeping it that way, so that her friends at day care could admire it.
And, of course, it wouldn't be Thursday without the traditional Appa-…
pharyngula | March 30, 2011As are we all. But Ray Comfort imagines what his last words will be, and they're quite a doozy—twelve paragraphs of god babble, more mindless regurgitating of his usual evangelical spiel, culminating in this:
So, please, repent today. Confess your sins to God, and then forsake them. Then trust alone in Jesus for your eternal salvation and God will forgive you and give you everlasting life.
So, as he lays dying of terminal logorrhea and metastasizing melodrama, Ray Comfort's last thoughts will involve hectoring everyone else around him. He's not a very nice person. I don't think he's even…