Better, thanks

I've been taking Wellbutrin for about ten days now, and I'm feeling a lot happier.

And, well...

...happier.

Another Video Copout Excuse for a Blog Entry

This is Robert Moraine.  Tyson has posted him before, but he was back on So You Think You Can Dance last night.  Definitely made the million or so commercial breaks worth sitting through.  Seriously, Fox, how many commercial breaks need to go in a single hour of television?  Everybody knows the hipsters only buy stuff they see on the Internets these days.

How did I miss this??

Oh, man!  Can anybody spot me, like, 400 bucks?

The Amaz!ng Meeting is in town this weekend, featuring 2 of my favorite internet boyfriends:

Yes, that's Adam Savage and PZ Myers.

For those of you who don't know, the James Randi Educational Foundation (sponsors) is the one offering the million-dollar prize for verifiable evidence of any paranormal or supernatural event.  Thousands of hot, sexy rationalists are affiliated with the JREF, and they and their fans will be taking over the Flamingo for the weekend.  I'm sure all the dealers in the casino are thrilled to have a bunch of intellectuals roaming around, scoffing at all the rubes who bet red because it's "due" or yell at the guy next to them at the blackjack table for "taking" their cards.

Locals Penn and Teller will be there too, but their show has been vitriolic and sucky lately ("Lesbians on a blind date prove the 0-60 on the Prius is awful; therefore, alternative fuel is a left-wing lie."), so I won't be sorry to miss them.  [Interestingly enough, Penn used to visit my Starbucks pretty often.  Don't ask me how I remember these things, but he used to get a venti iced coffee with vanilla and lots of room.  And he is REALLY tall.  And his daughter's middle name is Crimefighter, he said on NPR.  Really, I am not a stalker, not even a fan (but I would still totally name my kid Moxie Crimefighter).]

As much as I really, REALLY want to go shamelessly throw myself at Adam from Mythbusters, registration is RIDICULOUS.  I guess real rationalists are supposed to be smart enough not to have student loans or multiple high-interest credit cards.

Off the couch, and out of the bathroom

You can tell just how unexciting my travel-free summer has been so far as soon as we start diving into the subject matter of today's post:

A bladder infection!!!

Yes, the biggest, most interesting thing to happen since I last posted was that I spent a total of about three hours in the can today, and about six more sitting at my computer or on the couch furiously jiggling my knee and repeating "I will not wet my pants I will not wet my pants."

It was seriously the worst one of these I have ever had.  You should have seen the chunks of bladder-flesh that left my body today.  But, thanks to the miracle in a box that is phenazopyridine hydrochloride, I actually sat through a whole movie without a trip to the bathroom (plus, my pee is a psychedelic red-orange--fun, huh?).

So I haven't actually left the house since Friday, and I am looking forward to getting up early and dashing up to school to get some stuff to work on while we host a national debate tournament and I'll be toiling away off-campus all week, although I freely admit the reason I didn't go anywhere yesterday was that I just felt like being a total scrub, not that I couldn't risk being 30 seconds from a bathroom.

I hope everyone else is finishing up a much more productive (and less painful in the pants area) weekend.  Happy Fathers' Day to my dad, Tyson, Bob, John, Brannon, J, DBB, Michael, and anyone else I've forgotten!

My Secret Internet Crush--EXPOSED!

Oh, man. I have had a mild internet crush on a certain self-described "nerdy libertarian lawyer" for about the past year now, and I have just today discovered that HE RUNS A D&D GAME AT HIS HOUSE. That, people who don't know me in person, is as close to a fetish as I think I have. It actually makes me feel sort of giddy, like I have suddenly become a teenager again and am unable to make eye contact--with anyone--when that boy is in the room. (Or in the next room. Or even at school that day. In fact, I seem to remember spending the entire three years of high school a sweaty-palmed, stammering mess. So I was never Captain Cool when it came to the boys, big deal.)

Anyway, consider this post my best blogger-geek attempt at a wink and a smile from across the bar.

"I thought it would boost my social status!"

Two researchers at the University of Texas have apparently spent a great deal of time and money in an attempt to figure out why people have sex. The results are interesting.

Out of the 237 reasons given by more than 1500 respondents (ages 17-52), the top answer was "I was attracted to the person." The bottom answer?

To give someone an STD.

And that's the only bottom answer I believe. The top 50 are pretty predictable: "It feels good", "I was horny", and "The opportunity presented itself" are all ones I would have guessed. Take a look at the bottom list, though, and let's try to figure out how many of these people were being honest, while the Top 50 people lied through their teeth:


Someone offered me money to do it
I wanted to get a raise
It was an initiation rite to a club or organization
I wanted to get a job/promotion
The person offered to give me drugs for doing it
I wanted to punish myself
I wanted to hurt/humiliate the person
I wanted to breakup my relationship
I wanted to breakup another’s relationship
I wanted to be used or degraded
I wanted to gain access to that person’s friend
I wanted to get a favor from someone
I wanted to enhance my reputation
It would get me gifts
I wanted to make money
I wanted to hurt an enemy
Because of a bet
It was a favor to someone
I wanted to end the relationship
I wanted to break up a rival’s relationship by having sex with his/
her partner
It would damage my reputation if I said ‘‘no’’
The person had a lot of money
Someone dared me
I wanted to have more sex than my friends
I wanted to even the score with a cheating partner
I thought it would boost my social status
I wanted to be popular
I wanted to get a special favor from someone
I was afraid to say ‘‘no’’ due to the possibility of physical harm
I wanted to relieve menstrual cramps
My friends pressured me into it
I felt sorry for the person
I felt jealous
My regular partner is boring, so I had sex with someone else
I wanted to get rid of a headache
I wanted to change the topic of conversation
The person had too much to drink and I was able to take
advantage of them
I wanted to impress friends
The person was famous and I wanted to be able to say I had sex
with him/her
I wanted to get out of doing something
I wanted to get even with someone (i.e., revenge)
I wanted to make someone else jealous
I was competing with someone else to ‘‘get the person’’
I thought it would help ‘‘trap’’ a new partner
I was slumming
I wanted to brag to friends about my conquests
The person demanded that I have sex with him/her
I wanted to stop my partner’s nagging
I felt guilty
The person bought me jewelry

There are several reasons I can think of for these surprising results:

1. People lie about why they have sex.
2. I am too jaded.
3. The only people I talk to about our sex lives are under 36.
4. Too many reasons were closely worded and bumped other, more frequently-occurring reasons down in the lists.
5. Soap operas, movies, and TV do not accurately present reality.

Do you have any theories?

"Man Crushes"

Bad Astronomy has lately taken up the topic of man crushes, and, as a woman, I feel sort of left out of the loop, here.

I think the point of a man crush is that it is a strictly platonic male-bonding thing, and I'm sort of jealous that women don't have its equivalent. I think that women, even women who are very close friends, are constantly comparing themselves to one another. Then again, I'm just going off my own experience and 26 years of media exposure.

Plus, I'm worried about my legitimate girl crushes on Adam Savage and Nathan Fillion being that much more competitive, now that there are straight men in the running, as well. I mean, it's difficult enough thinking about all the women and gay men I'd have to beat down for a chance at running my fingers through Adam's short red hair, but the situation begins to look truly hopeless when I then add in all the straight men who "just want to be friends."

Who are your celebrity crushes (platonic or otherwise)? Why?

Happy Birthday, Tyson!

Tyson's birthday is today, which marks the day he is officially closer to 40 than to 30 and I am married to an old man.

Stop by his blog and leave a comment, or call him if you haven't already. He'd love to hear from you.

Motivational Poster Contest announced

Erin's Blog announced today it will sponsor a motivational poster contest for its flagging readership demographic. Recent statistics indicate that no one is bothering to contribute their ideas to the once-popular Internet site, and staff morale is suffering as a result.

Interested participants should follow this link and create their posters using the web-based application. Completed entries should be emailed directly to Erin for posting. Remember to right-click and copy your poster to your hard drive, then attach to your message.

Entries for the First Annual Erin's Blog Motivational Poster Contest must be received by no later than September 30, 2006, to be eligible for the grand prize, awarded the first week of October and probably consisting of an email or possibly a phone call telling you what a great job you did, or if the winner is Tyson I will take you out to dinner or something. (Just a note to other non-Tyson entrants: I will probably do this anyway one night when I am too lazy to cook anything, so, please, no emails re: apparent favoritism or biased judging or anything.)

I am looking forward to seeing your efforts!

I love dorks!

I'll admit it. I get all weak-kneed around science-y boys. Show me a guy who knows as much about random stuff as I do, and I start to feel all mushy inside.

Let's start off with some pertinent examples:

This goober standing in my kitchen teaches science to 4th-graders. He and I are going to open a K-12 private school where we turn gifted, driven kids into dorks like us by teaching them critical reasoning skills so they can wade through the mire of misinformation dissemenated by the media and learn to be active participants in our democratic society. This is probably not the picture we'll put on the prospectus.

Then there's this guy. Aside from the heart-stopping combination of nerdy glasses, receding hairline, and pirate-style earring (doesn't it just scream, "danger!"?), Adam Savage thinks logically about stuff and then blows things up, usually proving in the process that most people are dumb. Adam, I love your intellectual elitism almost as much as your bubble-clad pecs.

I found this link over the weekend, and, despite the grainy photo, I have a total girl-hard-on for this PZ guy. Where he finds the time to make four or five posts a day, I have no idea, but they are all good stuff. I do find I get a little stab of jealousy when I read his oodles and oodles of comments every day, though. I mean, what's his blog got that mine doesn't? Besides focus....and research.....and readers.

Speaking of science-type internet stuff, there is a video here detailing what happens when you mix Mentos and Diet Pepsi, with the accompanying scientific explanation. Contrary to popular opinion, knowing why phenomena operate as they do makes them better, not more boring. Then you can watch this cute British girl try the same thing, with differently entertaining results. I am trying my best to imbed the source code, but my mastery of HTML happened in about the eighth grade when geocities was in its heydey. If all else fails, you can just click here and wait a minute or so.

Interestingly enough, I just caught the very end of a Mythbusters just the other night where they were testing the myth that if you eat poprocks and drink soda your stomach can explode. They figured out it took, like, 2 liters of soda and about 8 tablespoons of baking soda.

That's all I really have for now. In the meantime, try this fun gadget.

My spammer name is Entrant T. Accuracy.

Enter your name to get yours:

It's from The Surrealist, if you want to see more.