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pharyngula | February 11, 2006So did everyone tune in?
It was a middling show. He said good things about UMM and well, honest things about Morris, so I'm not going to complain about that.
As usual, the gospel music gives me the heebie-jeebies, but I just content myself with the knowledge that I was listening to a pleasant shadow of the richness the composers and musicians would have produced, if only their talent hadn't been tainted with the rot of religiosity.
I sat next to Skatje, who looked weary with the burden of accompanying a pair of old fogeys to listen to some other old fogies act out skits and music that were…
pharyngula | February 11, 2006OK, people, this is too cruel. I was gone all day yesterday, traveling to the Twin Cities for this Darwin Day event, and the site gets 37,000 visits. Are you all trying to tell me it's better when I'm not around to clutter it up? If I take off for a week will traffic climb to Daily Kos-like proportions? (There was a link from fark that might actually explain the sudden surge.)
Anyway, I'll give a quick summary of what I was up to yesterday.
I started with a 3 hour drive to Minneapolis, which was very exciting. High winds, blowing snow, near whiteout conditions. The weather was bad enough that…
pharyngula | February 10, 2006This afternoon, I'll be at the Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus, celebrating the birth of Charles Darwin. Everyone is welcome, so come on down!
Events:
1:00P - Lecture by historian of biology Professor Mark Borrello, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, on the history of Darwin and evolutionary theory.
2:00P - Lecture by biologist and blogger Professor P.Z. Myers, University of Minnesota—Morris, on evidence for evolution.
3:00P - Panel discussion of University of Minnesota evolutionary biologists on their cutting-edge research at the U of M titled "…
pharyngula | February 7, 2006
Or maybe not. At least I'm crunchy/slimy.
Hmmm…it looks like I make a cameo appearance in another entry, too.
pharyngula | February 3, 2006
Although it is true that this fine group played the Edson auditorium tonight, and there was a rumor that they dragged the most uncoordinated old geezer in the house onto the stage, and there was a faint possibility that he made an embarrassing spectacle of himself with his wooden posturings and arrhythmic spasms, I must categorically deny that it could have been me.
If anyone took photographs of this…degrading hypothetical event, I will pay good money to see them erased. If there was a video recording made, I will report any blackmail attempts to the police.
We will not speak of this again.…
pharyngula | February 3, 2006It's about 3°F outside right now, and it's supposed to get up into the 20s later—it's unseasonably warm out there. How much warmer? About 16°, on average, as you can see from the map.
Niches has the weather stats. I'm going to walk out into the sauna outside and go to class.
pharyngula | February 1, 2006…but my university actually supports me. There's a profile of yours truly that's part of a random rotating collection of links on UMM's main page (if you don't see it there, reload the page; it'll appear eventually.)
I am aware that I am slightly harsher and more radical than many of my colleagues on some issues (others have their own domains of expertise and radicalism), but one of the great things about UMM is that even if they don't explicitly endorse all of my opinions—and that acknowledgment on the main page is not an admission that this university is a hotbed of militant atheist…
pharyngula | January 31, 2006There's a great story in the Rake about the Dakotas—that place just a few miles west of where I'm sitting. This is an odd part of the world, where population is actually contracting and drifting away to leave our rural communities standing rather lonely and empty.
Quite obviously, North Dakota has a problem. Even as some of its cities grow and become more cosmopolitan and diverse, namely Fargo and Grand Forks, which huddle against the border of Minnesota, the rest of the state seems to be returning to nature. It's a conundrum across the country, this decline in rural vitality, but the matter…
pharyngula | January 30, 2006I gave up on caffeine this past summer—I actually cut it off cold turkey for a good long while. I'm backsliding a bit now, though, just because my early morning teaching schedule has me feeling mostly exhausted all the time (I hope I adjust soon).
This new blog, Smelling the Coffee, is not helping. Even the title is driving me nuts. I'll probably pop in to the coffee shop in town this afternoon, but I'll settle for mere decaf.
pharyngula | January 28, 2006It's the evening. It's January. This is Minnesota. And it's raining. There is liquid water on the ground.
This is simply not right. I am distressed.
tlambert | January 27, 2006What could be more science bloggy than a place with a science in its name? So here's Silas and Justin in Botany Bay.
pharyngula | January 21, 2006That is not my picture, I'll have you know, and although last night's party was lightly attended, it was quite pleasant, with plenty of food and good conversation, and it went on until midnight. I had no idea how louche Grrlscientist was, though…I should have gotten a photo of her dancing on the table with the lampshade on her head, but I figured it would be breaking her anonymity to publish it.
pharyngula | January 20, 2006Another week, another Friday Random Ten. This one is playing right now, and poor grrlscientist can actually confirm that yeah, I listen to this stuff.
Bergfäst (Mountain Haunted)
Gjallarhorn
Before The Night Is Over
Gaelic Storm
My Weakness
Moby
Hjaðningaríma
Gjallarhorn
I'm not worried at all
Moby
The Good Times Are Killing Me
Modest Mouse
Forshyttan
Hedningarna
Don't Make Me Dream About You
Chris Isaak
The Man Comes Around
Johnny Cash
Hot Hot Hot!!!
The Cure
pharyngula | January 17, 2006You wouldn't know it to see it, but we aim to make Morris, Minnesota the Mecca of science blogging. How else to explain how we could draw Grrlscientist away from that boring dump of a town, New York, to visit our lovely prairie village for a week? It's true: a whole two of us ScienceBlogs people are chattering away from this lonely outpost in the rural wilderness.
Any other science bloggers who want to stop on by, feel free. We've got a roomy house with a zippy wireless connection, and who needs anything more? Jay Manifold has been here, Radagast once drove by within a few hundred miles, and…
pharyngula | January 13, 2006I've got to inaugurate the new site with a Friday Random Ten, don't I?
My Generation
Patti Smith
Ghost Riders On The Storm
California Guitar Trio
Women's Prison
Loretta Lynn
Coming in from the cold
The Delgados
Noctuary
Bonobo
Evolution
Ayumi Hamasaki
Death Is Not The End (With Nick Cave)
PJ Harvey
Walk Through My Door
Gaelic Storm
Lord, Fix Me
Madison Prayer Band
Leave My Monkey Alone
Warren Zevon
cmooney | January 12, 2006This Friday the 13th, I'll be sleeping in, then getting some work done, and hopefully taking it easy in the evening. It wasn't always so. Back in college I used to party on these days, making a point of floutting all kinds of hoary old superstitions, and (at least theoretically) buying myself an eternity of bad luck in the process.
I remember one "superstition bash" in my college dorm room where people were dancing, then we suddenly turned on the lights and I shattered a mirror. Gutsy, huh?
Another time, we set up a huge ladder in the middle of the Yale campus, and tried to see whether…
tlambert | December 25, 2005 Here's Silas with his Christmas present. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers.
Blogging is likely to be light to non-existent this week because I'll be in Perisher on holidays. It's a National Park so poor Silas can't come and has to stay home with the house sitter.
tlambert | August 31, 2005Thanks to everyone who sent congratulations on my 20th wedding anniversary. The traditional gift is china, but Tim Blair sent a flame:
Look up "Oh my God I've married an obsessive shrieking hypocrite!" and you'll see a picture of Lambert's wife.