Did I tell ya about the time I...

I think I've gotten to the point in my blog where I just start reposting about the same shit, over and over. And I'm not talking about recurrent themes, because obviously I have that goin' on. I mean, how many times can I possibly talk about my fat ass, man troubles, my penchant for dancing, clutziness and, well, basically about MYSELF? Quite frankly, I'm becoming tiresome.

Oops, that went off topic for a bit, it wasn't repetitive themes and my completely assinine self-focusedness that I was going to talk about right now. I was talking about rewriting the same posts, again and again. Next thing you know, I'll forget that I've already written about my extreme shower thantophobia or that I already told ya'll that I bit it on the ice in front of the Education building, and I'll end up working it into another story here on my blog. BO-RING!

Case in point, I came across this post the other day: why i oughta... which is about my frustration with the printer in our office, LAST MARCH. This post is almost a dead ringer for something I posted just a couple weeks ago about the new printer: Death threat to printer. I could hardly believe it. Pretty soon I'm going to have to preface every post with: "Did I post about the time I..."

In fact, I'm even getting to the time in my life where I have to preface every story with: "Did I tell ya about the time I..." because I have no idea who I've told what to. And now that I have a blog, it's even worse! I have to start a lot of conversations with: "Did you read my blog post about..."

Maybe I should go back to being mute. Complete muteness.

And after that fiasco with the search engine words in a previous post, I think I should go for Alzeimer's testing.

Next thing you know I'm going to be repeating EVERYTHING, including my mistakes with men. Oh. Yeah. Boring repeated theme. Backspace NOW.

So here's the answer to both repetitive posts, repeated themes AND my completely assinine self-focusedness. Tomorrow, I'm NOT going to talk about ME. I'm going to talk about SOMEONE ELSE. Wah ha ha ha ha! You'd better HOPE and PRAY that it's not YOU, because I can turn this extreme self-deprecation problem right around and deprecate your sorry ass for a change!!! That's right. You're gonna WISH I'd talk about myself again!!! Just you wait.

Hmm... I've never told anyone that I was going to deprecate their ass before. It sounds kind of tough. I like it. I think I'm going to serve up that sidedish a little more often.

Sidenote: Are you thinking right now that I've lost it? My question to you, how can a person lose something they never had? Further to that, in those songs where they say "like the desert misses the rain" or whatever... Does that mean the desert doesn't miss the rain because it never had it OR the desert doesn't know what it's missing so doesn't even know to miss it OR that the desert doesn't need the rain because it's perfectly fine the way it is, in fact, it's not even supposed to have rain? Hmm. I used to think the desert would miss and need the rain, because we think of deserts as being a bad situation... I'm confused.

That's it, I cannot possibly talk about deserts and rain ANYmore. See what happens when I don't talk about myself? Or was I, subconsciously? Good Lord. I'm bailing on this convo. TIME TO GO. bye.

Just 'cause it smells good, doesn't mean you should eat it...

Last year at Christmas, a dear friend gave me Cocoa Butter Body Butter from the Body Shop. It was wonderfully luxurious. I made it last almost a year, and recently went back to replace it. All the smells of the awesome body butters made me drool in the store. I had trouble choosing, but finally went with Mango.


Now every time I use it, it smells soooo gooood that I just wanna get a big spoon and scoop out a gigantic mouthful of it! And I would have if it wasn't for the deterring memories from my childhood of tasting the yummy-smelling bubblegum flavoured chapstick, and being sorely disappointed...

Well, at least it doesn't have any menthol or icky lanolin in it!!!



Glue, on the other hand, smelled AND tasted good. Ewww -- I never ate glue! Or did I? Only the kids in my elementary class could tell you for sure. Or maybe they couldn't because they were too busy picking their noses and eating it or eating gum stuck under their desks to notice! I never understood why kids pick their noses and then have to eat it. WHY??? I asked my brother what it tasted like and he told me to try it. I refused. There's no way in hell I'm trying THAT. It shall remain a mystery.

And I guess so will the taste of mango body butter.

The Stench/Affection Trade-Off

My cats always run into the washroom while I'm doing my 'business'. They know they have me captive within petting distance, with not much else to do at that moment but reach down and give them a scratch. I don't read on the can because I'm never in there long enough. Plus if I'm reading something good, it encourages me to stay in there overtime and my legs start to get numb. I hate that.

Anyways, it must be worth it for the cats to run in and get their few seconds of scratches. I can't help but wonder though... Is enduring the stench a good trade for such fleeting affection? Maybe they forgot how bad it got the last time. Maybe they're gamblers, hastily taking their chances, keeping their toes crossed that refried beans weren't on the menu recently. Perhaps they think it would be rude or too late to bail. Or it may happen that by the time the stink hits their nose, the scratchin' is so good that they don't even notice how thick the air is anymore.

Perhaps this is analogous to relationships. We race in, hoping to have the guarantee that someone is there to pet us. Occasionally, there's a bit of a stink. Maybe turning on the fan or spraying some flowery-smelling stuff helps. Perhaps we adapt. Sometimes we find ourselves taking a step back to evaluate the tenuous trade-off of stench for affection. And there may be moments, usually as we foresee the likelihood of our impending death by suffocation, that we high-tail it the hell outta there as fast as possible!

East Indian buffet = A world of pain

As soon as we entered the restaurant, we knew we were in trouble. We asked the young waiter how late they were open and he said for another hour and a half... "Why, are you planning to eat for an hour and a half?" Jen said no because she didn't wear loose pants. He replied that she could simply use his.

That should have been our cue to leave. But no, we can't turn down a perfectly scrumptious Indian buffet, even if we'd have to endure another hour of the waiter's best lines.

We both walked up to buffet and said, "This is gonna hurt." In hindsight, that was foreshadowing. Jen piled up her plate like a pro... I didn't realize saucy food could STACK like that! We didn't even get to sit down yet when he started in on us. Here's a VERY abbreviated version of some of the conversations...

Are you two sisters? No.

So you aren't sisters? You look alike. Uh, no we don't... so at this point I'm wondering if he thinks all white people look the same.

You have the same colour eyes. Actually, Jen's eyes are about twice the size of mine. He agreed and said that hers were very nice because you can see the colour better. Her eyes are very large, very pretty. That left me feeling real good.

What do you girls do? Both students. Which is why we have to eat out at cheap East Indian buffets and chow down like we haven't eaten in days and don't know where our next meal is coming from.

You work together and eat together? Do you do everything together? Um, not EVERYTHING.

How old are you? Why do you want to know that?

No no, you don't have to tell me your age. Just think of a number... how many times you go out to drink wine in a week. Are you thinking of a number? Now double it, add 5, multiply that by 50, add 1735 and then subtract your year of birth. What is the number? Was this some sort of skill testing question and the one who gets it right wins a prize? Since we both did the math wrong, he had to get out the calculator.

Ok what is the number? Hmm. Maybe he was looking for a particular number.

Later, when he was out of the room, I made a break for the food. As I was dishing out, there he appeared. Why did you take the small plate? Because this is round two and I'm already starting to feel the pain. Pain? What pain? You look like you can eat whatever you want and stay slim. Riiiight. That was laid on thicker than the butter chicken sauce there...

Later... Do you like Indian men? No? We paused on that one. Uh... Actually, we don't know. Never tried.

At this point I was wondering what the restaurant policy was on customer harrassment. We were just trying to have a nice dinner and enjoy our food, and this guy was unrelenting! He seemed nice so we didn't want to tell him off, but still!

I was just wondering because you said you cook East Indian food. Most white girls cook Indian food for their East Indian boyfriends. There are a lot of East Indians around here... So where do you girls like to go out and party? What are you doing after this? Not going out?

Yikes. He finally left us alone to wallow in pain for a bit while he talked on the telephone. But all good things must come to an end.

Luckily it was Jen who had to pay the bill. He asked why we were leaving because he was really enjoying watching us pretty girls. That wasn't creepy at all. Then he asked if we liked dirty jokes and proceeded to tell one. That was really effective in reducing the creepy factor. Then he struck up another convo about when we were going out next and could he come along... No response. Jen and I were on what I call Operation Dodge-the-Question. (Boys- if a girl is on Operation DTQ, this is a huge hint that she's not so into you and you should stop asking her personal questions.) Of course, dude didn't clue in to Operation DTQ because by the end of the conversation he asked for Jen's email address. She had the moment that all us girls have trouble with at times- saying no in a way that absolutely won't hurt his feelings. And since there is no possible way to do that, she gave it up. We edged towards the door as he yelled to Jen, "You'll have an email from me by the end of tonight!"

With that, we finally made our escape. Jen's email address for our freedom? It was a good trade. She took one for the team that night.

Excerpt from the email:
i really enjoyed talking to u girls but just could not compliment u enough as u were with ur friend , but just to let u know u look really very pretty and the way u r ,sooooooooooo sweet ,r u always like this

Poor guy. I must give him kudos for trying! However, when a guy comes on that strong it leaves a girl inevitably wondering if she's just the obsession of the moment, and tomorrow night it will be someone else, etc.

Several of us girls had a discussion about it the next day. There was a lot of giggling and comments such as:

I can't believe that. Does the guy have no sense of reality? It is like some lines from a really really sad Bollywood movie.

OMG that is hil.. do guys actually write things like that these days?

Apparently! The more important question is – are there girls that actually respond to this? Yiiii.

Comments from Jen:

No I don't think I'm going to go on a date – this may be extremely uptight and anal retentive, but I have it when people use "u" instead of "you" – just seems kinda lazy. I mean, if you're text messaging fine but if it's an email, write it out dammit! And he used "u" like 80 times, haha. I don't know why that annoys me but it does. And I choose to make a sweeping judgment of his character based on that haha!

And yes I DO need to learn how to say “no thank you” … preferably while running fast and far!

Maybe I can just get a wig and wear it next time. I do like wigs. As for the email – Some gems:

“u look really very pretty” – lie! I was in scrubby comfortable clothes, my stomach was about 4 times its normal size after buffeting for 2 hours, and the previous 2 nights I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep each night. I was like one of the extras from Night of the Living Dead.

“u r ,sooooooooooo sweet” – wouldn’t be saying that if he could’ve heard the commentary running through my head, which was laced with a variety of profanities and unseemly comments
“r u always like this” – nope, and you’re gonna find that out REAL quick … has my foot been acquainted with your crotch yet? No? Well then! *WHAM*


Jen, let's practice a script for next time we run into this scenario. How about: "That's very flattering and you seem really nice, but I'm not interested. Thanks though."

Yeah, could happen.

Perhaps that's better than my response the other night, "Why do you want my number? You don't want my number!" Good one. The crazy part is that was my response to a guy who I thought was REALLY cute. Ah, how can I possibly pick on Jen about this when I'm just as bad at it? And I have a few years on her too!

Looks like we'll both have to practice our "yes, please call me" and "no, please don't call me" responses before we go out next time, particularly before we go to that East Indian buffet place again...

The Perfect Boyfriend

Deneen gave me an early Christmas present... It's a giant human-length pillow, perfect for nocturnal cuddling. She calls it the perfect boyfriend!!!

I've tried it out the last few nights. He's not bad, not bad at all. I'm not sure about perfect though. Here's my breakdown of the situation:


Ways he's just like a typical boyfriend:

Useless at the times you need him most.

Makes me overheat and I have to kick him to the other side of the bed in the middle of the night.


Ways he's better than a typical boyfriend:

Doesn't toss and turn, hog the covers, fart, grunt/snore, try to take my pillow or tickle me.

Doesn't mind if I do one of the above (uh, only one... and I'm not saying which one).

Never crawls into bed in the middle of the night smelling like booze or cigarettes.

I don't have to feel guilty about reading in bed.

Doesn't eat in the bed or leave his underwear on the floor (he doesn't even wear underwear... actually just these starry glow-in-the-dark flannel PJs, also known as a pillowcase).

There's no groping, or ahem, poking.


Ways he's not as good as a typical boyfriend:

A little too soft (maybe he should get his ass outta bed sometime and WORK OUT).

Doesn't spoon.

Lack of pillow talk (It's a little tiresome when I do ALL the talking).

There's no groping, or ahem, poking.

Thanks Friends!

Hey Everyone! Just wanted to shoutout a "thanks!" for voting for me (if ya did, if ya didn't, thanks for NOTHIN'! hehe, just kidding.)

Anyways, the numbers were such that in order to be in the top 5 in my category, you all would have had to vote at least every day last week, and then perhaps some more! Haha. I guess you have LIVES or something! I know you did more than your fair share Rosie, thanks for the nom again :) Besides, it just seems like a popularity contest, and Lord knows, I was never really that popular!!!

So go to the left panel of this page, click on the Canadian Blog Award link, and check out the ones that made Top 5... They must kick some serious ass (or in the humour category- some knee-slappin' hilarious ass)!


Update: This just in, my sis just nominated me for a 2006 Weblog Award in the humour category. It's nice that you guys like my blog, really it is, but I don't know if I can take the pressure! I'm really not that funny, just weird.

Brrrrr!!!

It's cold out there folks! I can just hear it now. I can predict with 100% certainty, that in the next few days I'm going to hear the following phrase: Is it cold enough for ya? Like I mentioned in a previous post , people have GOT to come up with something better, anything! That phrase is covered in lamesauce, thicker than creamcheese icing on a bad carrot cake in a feeble attempt to make it taste good. When the temperature dips this low, I LOVE my hot showers even more. I cannot stand in there long enough or have the water hot enough. The most retarded products to use when you're trying to warm up, however, are shampoos, conditioners and body cream with peppermint or menthol in it. It doesn't make sense. First I have a shower to warm up, but then I freeze my ass off with minty freshness!? I looked at the ingredients in my bone-chilling moisturizer and sure enough, it contains menthol. Attention all companies selling products in Canada during 8 winter months of the year: I live in the Great White North, I don't NEED a "cooling sensation." If I want to be "cooled", I'll go and jump in the nearest snowbank, thanks. Weird, I didn't notice this before, but this cream also has lanolin in it. Oh geez. I didn't know I was spreading a greasy yellow substance secreted by the sebaceous glands of wool-bearing animals on my skin. Ewww! I can't imagine taking an animal's skin-grease (or even a human's) and using it to moisturize.

Hey Dan, my hands are really dry right now and I see that your hair is exceptionally greasy today, can I rub my hands in it? Ahh, that's better. Thanks. Now all I need is some minty freshness, cuz my hands just aren't cold enough right now. Oh but they are stinky. Maybe I will take a dash of mint with that after all...

Homogenized Sphincter

One thing I like to ask people when they're eating a hot dog is, "So how's the homogenized sphincter?" They pause for a moment to compute that, and then keep right on horking it down. Especially when they're drunk. Or a kid who doesn't know what sphincter means.

Nowadays, when apple juice and spinach can be infected with E. coli, a type of bacteria that originates in the gut, it adds new meaning to the phrase, "Eat shit and die."

Eating can be pretty risky. And I tell ya, I'm willing to take that risk every day, day in day out, as often as possible!

"Eating is risky, but not eating is even more hazardous to your health." That’s what my old food microbiology prof used to say. True dat.

If you want to choke down some interesting info about the fast food industry, check out the new movie Fast Food Nation. If you eat fast food, you should see it. Afterwards, you'll WISH it was only sphincter in those burgers!!! Ah, just kidding! Or not... Guess you'll have to see it to find out.

Plaigerism! Or not...

On November 5th, I posted The many paths to my ramblings. It so happened that I was laughing pretty hard at the search words people used to find my site. I shared the joy and laughter with y'all and posted some of them...

Then, on November 10th, guess what someone else on the "Best Humour Blog" nominee list posted? Oh yeah baby-- Search Engine Hits. I was livid. I thought for sure there was plaigerism afoot. I paced a groove into the floor. I screamed "WHY GOD!?" into the skies (not really expecting an answer). Then I was flattered for a bit. After all, if someone wants to steal my idea then it must have been a good one! I giggled and looked at myself in the mirror and said, "I'm good enough, I'm funny enough, and dogonnit, people like my ideas!"

Then my sister (who incidentally encouraged me to bust the idea-stealin' blogger's ass) pointed out that her post actually said "Here are MORE search engine hits"... Hmmm. "More" infers that she's posted this sort of thing before.

"WHEN? WHEN!!!" I screamed... not into the heavens, but at my computer while typing "WHEN? WHEN!!!" to my sister. She didn't know. I had to investigate for myself. Turns out that little Miss Samantha Burns posted about search words about a YEAR AGO. A YEAR ago.!!!

Oops, my bad.

Looks like my original thought wasn't as original as I thought. I hope she doesn't think that I stole HER idea. Because I didn't!!! Alas, if she wants to scream at her computer, let her. And I lack the proof to clear my muddied name.

On the flipside, it's nice to know that more weirdos end up on her site than mine. She's got the freak-market covered. I can enjoy my normalcy (?) for a little while longer.

Very very short stories

A friend pointed out this article on six word short stories in Wired Magazine. Authors were challenged to write a story in only six words… here are a few I liked:

Failed SAT. Lost scholarship. Invented rocket. - William Shatner

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so. - Joss Whedon

Automobile warranty expires. So does engine. - Stan Lee

Longed for him. Got him. Shit. - Margaret Atwood

Thought I was right. I wasn't. - Graeme Gibson

I thought they were neat, so I tried my hand at some:

Alarm ignored. Residents ok. This time.

Man asks. Woman answers. No? Maybe.

Virgin finally has sex, joins nunnery.

Life’s tough. She enjoys it anyways.

Dream comes true! Girl wakes up.

Boy eats chili. Date ends badly.

Buy now, pay later. Bankruptcy. Repeat.

Booze helps bed her, kills moment.

Entered contest. Lost. Guess I suck.

Driver sneezes. Car crashes. Bless you.

PhD within reach. Candidate quits anyways.

Snowstorm hits. Car in ditch. Help!

Tried standup comedy. Booed. Not funny.

Loser wins. Adopts new self-image.

Unplanned pregnancy. Planned marriage. Miscarriage. Divorce.

Pedestrian trips. Killed by clutziness.

Reality series ends. Reality sets in.

Wedding wonderful. Honeymoon awesome. Marriage sucks.

Got drunk. Got lucky. Got STD.

Laughed, peed, ran, fell. Bad day.

Look up! Falling piano!!! Too late.


Wrote short stories. Work postponed temporarily.

VOTE FOR ME... please?

The first round of voting has begun!!! Procrastinatrix has nominated me for a Canadian blog award!


Check it out... if you want to... have time... are totally bored... or just maybe, MAYBE you like my blog!!! (C'mon, there's a small chance that you kinda like it. You're here aren't you? Ah thanks, that gives me hope...)



You'll find me listed under 'Best Humour Blog'... PSHAW!

You can vote once a day!

Also check out and vote for my dad's blog... What's Wrong With Healthcare?... He's nominated under the 'Best New Blog' category.

Amazing Talent

This wonderful picture was painted by a mouth artist! (Mariusz Maczka)

I was looking at a whole calendar of paintings done by mouth, and it never even crossed my mind that they weren't painted by hand. The detail. The precision. That's amazing talent!

That's it, my next boyfriend is going to be a mouth artist. (Oops, did I just say that outloud?)

Cranial Forecast: Sunny with foggy patches

We all have days when our head is in a fog that won’t dissipate: distraction, exhaustion or just a complete inability to clearly predict the consequences of our actions. No amount of caffeine cuts the fog some days, it just turns you into a shakey foghead.

The fog is annoying at best, and downright embarrassing at worst. Ok, there are worse things than a little embarrassment... but embarrassing moments can be bad enough. The embarrassment factor increases substantially depending on how dumb you think you looked and how many witnesses there were (and who the witnesses were in some cases). The dumb factor really embarrasses me. I hate those "Doh!" moments.

Case in point, once as a child on a camping field trip, I spit my gum out the bus window and the wind blew it back into my hair. I had to ride the rest of the way on the bus with gum in my hair as advertising of my dumb move! I was totally mortified and will never forget how dumb I felt.

Growing up didn’t spare me, in fact it got even worse. In this blog I've often referred my early twentyhood fog, and I wasn't kidding. One example? I used to set things on the roof of my car and forget it and drive off. Talk about advertising my own stupidity. I’ve set shoes, rental videos and a subway sandwich up there at one time or another. It wasn’t just me that noticed lettuce and luncheon meat tumbling down my back window! I also had to go into the video store and ask the clerk if anyone had turned in the videos I’d JUST rented. He gave me a puzzled look and asked, "Videos found in the parking lot? Yeah. How did they get there?" He was so obviously rubbing it in!

Over the years the fog has lifted somewhat... I went from "poor visibility" to "mostly sunny with foggy patches." I'm not 100% sure why either. Do I pay attention more, less wallowing in self-focusedness? Better diet? More exercise; for the body and the brain? Or maybe I've just learned the art of damage control.

So here's my theory... You can do your best to prevent or avoid stupid embarrassing moments, but they WILL happen. We’re all human and people aren’t judging us as harshly as we may think for it. Isn’t embarrassment really due to our preconceived notion of how life should go? All you can do is be as aware as your brain will let you be that day and then go with the flow. If you laugh at yourself, people will laugh at you too! I have trouble laughing at myself when I'm not trying to be funny, but I've definitely had a lot of practice and now it's easier. Just think, your friends will have entertaining stories to tell! As an added bonus, it develops character. (I could use a little less character, thanks.) ... But that old addage works, practice makes perfect. With each of these episodes you’ll get better at the damage control.

I challenge you to go out and practice being embarrassed, spill food on yourself at lunch, fall down in front of a crowd, chat with and accidentally spit on your boss today!!!

One more thing... Can I follow you around with a camera? Please?

Communication is key to harmonious relationships

My supervisor is like the boss in this Dilbert comic. Not that he knows us all that well, but he does close his eyes during my presentations. The first time it happened, he said he had a migraine and couldn't look at my slides for more than a few seconds at a time. Pffft! Riiight!!! Ok, I might believe that since I put a bright yellow background on the slides. Oops. Ah, the things you don't realize when you start out...

I recently gave a presentation about my research in a class that my boss teaches every year, and I give this same presentation every year. Normally, he's in the back of the class snoozing. This time he was away, so I was a bit relieved that I wouldn't see him catnap while trying to talk about my research to the class. It can be really disheartening.

That's why I was extremely taken aback when I noticed one of the TAs in the back of the class with her eyes closed!!! I couldn't believe it. To add insult to injury, she offered no apology or even any excuses for her behaviour afterwards. Nuthin.

So now every time I see her, I give her the finger. I don't think she's made the connection.

It was suggested that I could come to her presentation in that class next week and sleep loudly through it. However, I think the finger thing is workin' for me as she says hi to me EVEN LESS than she did before (she's a serial non-hi-sayer in the first place). So I figure she's pickin' up what I'm throwin' down here. She must be feeling the Mich-wrath.

But maybe the sleeping during her presentation idea has some merit after all. If I brought a pillow to class next week, it will come full circle on her. She'll have an 'ah ha' moment in front of the whole class when she looks up and sees my little head atop my pillow; happily napping away.

Then when she mentions it after class, I'll lose it on her. That will open the door to reparations. Then we could have a real sit-down chat about it. Because after all, I believe in being honest and straightforward about these things. It saves a lot of anxiety between people.

LET'S DANCE!!!

Check out the video I just made of us dancing (click on 'LET'S DANCE!!!' link above).

The picture quality sucks, but it's still fun to watch! I would have done a better job except my computer can't handle it. That is, it can't handle our dancing... Have a looksie yourself and find out how baad we are!

Ramblings on Research: Human Experimentation.

I don’t do animals... Human studies are (quite frankly) a pain in the arse... err, I mean long and complicated, but that’s what I enlisted for.

People ask me what it involved for my human guinea pigs... After my rambling explanation, their reaction is always: "How did you get people to sign up for THAT?" As if I was torturing them or something… Ok, it probably was somewhat torturous. Yep, I torture people for a living. But at least it's torture with informed consent... (Uh yeah, that sounded weird.)

When I'm asked what I do, I like to phrase it: "Human experimentation."

So back to how I get people to sign up for torture... I have no flippin' idea!!! But thank God they did because I wasn’t ethically allowed to pay them! That left me with little bribing power on my side.

Quite a few dropped out. It was bad news for me when that happened, especially if they quit after going through part of the study already. I wanted scream through the phone at a lady who, when she was apologizing for pulling a no-show twice already, told me that the fact she'd missed two appointments must mean it was "a sign" that she shouldn't be in the study. Everyone near me at that moment must have heard a THUD (my jaw hitting the floor). Seriously, how do you counter that one?

You’ve NEVER seen me be so sickeningly nice to people as I was to those who volunteered for my study. Sure, of course I was beyond appreciative of their time and effort, but I also REALLY needed them to tolerate the torture until the bitter end! I would've done cartwheels, backflips and even taken a pie in the face (or several, if that’s what it took... just let it cool a little first) in order to keep my participants participating! Hell, I would have stripped naked and streaked across QUAD in trade for their cooperation. Maybe not. I would’ve done a lot of things, but streaking...? Well ok, I'd do it, but only as a last resort. And only if I could wear body hose so it looked like I was naked, but with maximal minimization of the jiggle-age (kind of like Kirstie Alley in a bikini on Oprah the other day. Shit, I’d even go on Oprah in a bikini if I was allowed wear boob to toe blubber-taming hose… Um, but I'll need a few months notice too. Ha... ha... ha ha ha. Ahem).

Funny thing though, when we said good-bye after completing the last day of the study, they thanked me.

Wait. What the? Let me get this straight-- I just made you write down every single thing you ate for 2 weeks, eat my food for 6 days, hooked an I.V. to your arm and took blood every 2 hours for 6 hours while missing out on what you could've been doing instead on a Saturday…

... and YOU are thanking ME?

Oh no no NO people. THANK YOU.

Now if I could only just turn all that effort into three little letters... PhD. Lord this is taking a long time.

Ramblings on Research: Coping with data and spreadsheets

I have posted about statistics before (see Statistics Course from Hell). So I won't ramble on too much about that. However, I've just spent most of the day today on spreadsheets of data AGAIN. This time I was calculating AUC (area under the curve). This is about as spellbinding as it gets around here folks!!! My ass is as about as numb as my brain is getting here... Luckily I've got a new CD and the fridge to keep me from dying of boredom. Yeah ok, my ass isn't doing well in this situation at all...

So you take a person, you take their blood every two hours for 8 hours and then plot some of their clinical data results over time (i.e. cholesterol levels). From this you can calculate AUC, then I take that AUC and plug it into our stats program and voila! You can see if the computer validates your whole existence over the past few years or not.

Honk shew.

Then you can go out and get trashed on vino and dance to hip hop all night!!!! Yay! Some call it "stress management." (Yeah, I know you're probably thinking that I've developed quite the set of stellar coping skills...)

Ahem... Then the next day you meet with your supervisor and hope he doesn't detect the tired eyes, alky breath and of course that ultimate hangover hallmark- the always lovely 50 point drop in I.Q. It usually goes something like this:

Supervisor: Why were we meeting today?
You: Uh...
Supervisor: What have you been up to lately?
You: Uh... things.
Supervisor: How does the program calculate AUC?
You: Uh... I dunno.

You: Can I go now?

Ramblings on Research: If I was a Lab Rat

At a recent conference I learned that “rats don’t like the drink.” The speaker said that if you want to get rats to drink ethanol-laced water, you need to “convince them to drink it” by sweetening it. What, do they throw in a little grenadine? Perhaps a splash of cran?

Lord, if I were a poor little lab rat, I’d definitely prefer to be used for alcohol research and therefore hopefully wasted all the time. Marijuana research would be even better (cage a la hot box...). Although it better be one of those studies where the rats get as much yummy fattening food as possible too, because rats don’t have a 7-11 across from their cage.

You see, life might be somewhat tolerable in a cage getting poked, prodded and experimented on if at least I was completely plowed or half-baked...

Then, as I lay there sobering up from the alcohol testing the night before, my head about to explode and wishing I would DIE, perhaps that’s the day I’d actually get what I wished for.

Research on Alcohol Consumption

Click on image to enlarge.

This just in... The video footage from this study will be used in a new realty series called Canadian UPI. Stayed to tuned to your local listings...

The many paths to my ramblings...

Through my sitemeter, I can find out what people googled to end up at my blog. Most days I get quite the chuckle. Who are you people? Whatever, chances are if you were looking for these things, you probably didn't quite get what you want... but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need. (Oops, that was quite the cheese sandwich, dipped in cheese fondue and then smothered in cheese whiz.)

Anyways, here are a few examples from the last 100 hits:

paunch sexy

short hair "hitting on me" blue eyes

quasi-god

f snow pants enema

oprah's advice on men and relationship

garner andrews spence diamonds (must have been looking for: Garner vs. Sean)

"dating morals"

project awry

marathon pee squat

a vegetarian's poop

what happens at a stagette + blowjob

can i use preparation h suppositories continually

picture of a gunt

LONG SCHLONGS

"whiner"

"victor henao" -gaviria

PAP whiner

yeast "scratching myself"

footsies on crotch

smoking smells

Hair mullet jokes

dads rant

PhD Comics

10 Signs your Girlfriend has PMS

10. She comes home from the grocery store with an assortment of high fat/high sugar treats for herself. NONE for you. Touch her goodies and YOU DIE mothafocka.

9. Making any kind of decision about ANYTHING is impossible for her, and this incessant indecisiveness is bloody annoying to everyone involved... especially her. Ok maybe it annoys you more. No, it's really more aggravating to her. Or you. Oh GEEZ I have no idea WHO THE F IT'S WORSE FOR (and I don't give a crap either)!!!!!

8. She cries at what may seem TO YOU like nothing, but don't you dare infer that it's nothing! That old song, her nail breaking, the Oprah show... it's not nothing and it's not the PMS either dammit!

7. She has zits in sizes, shapes, numbers and/or places you never knew was humanly possible.

6. She's bloated up so much that she resembles a blow-up Buddha doll, and has to complain about and/or show you how big her belly is intermittently throughout the day. Then she heads back to the couch... with her giant-sized chocolate bar, bowl of ice cream topped with a brownie and chocolate sauce and her cup of hot chocolate.

5. She lies awake with a head full of lists. "To do." "Wish I'd done." "Why the hell did I do that?"

4. One minute she wants to rip your head off and the next she wants to rip your clothes off.

3. You get nasty texts/emails/phone calls from her, perhaps even death threats. She has to freak out on you about some (or every) aspect of the relationship (and her memory becomes incredibly long for these things as well, but you must have 'set it off' with something you did recently). The translation is actually very simple boys: I need some attention from you! (And it should be attention in the way she wants it, when she wants it, exactly as it plays out in her head or you're dead buddy. You just are.)

2. You notice her constantly swearing at or throwing inanimate objects. Tolerance level has become negative NIL. Her motto for dealing with most "situations" with objects has become: If it's stuck, force it. If it breaks, it needed fixing anyways. (Strangely enough, Murphy's Law tends to rear it's ugly head A LOT during this special time of month.)

1. Happy Bunny becomes a personal mission statement... Now go suck someplace else you moron.