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Reach out ...and bother me. All rights reserved, original material, et cetera.

Appropriate for a Medievalist?


What type of fantasy creature are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

You're a Unicorn!!! You love peace and tranquility..You value all of your friends very much and love them as much as family. You find the water rather beautiful.

Quite so, sayeth the wench.

posted by Bubonic Lou 5:23 PM

And Now, For Your Reading Displeasure, Some Poetry

Seven Hours

Infatuation is just 7 hours away.
Ahead or behind, it doesnít matter.
He works, I should be sleeping.
He chills, I should be studying.
Is it possible to love someone
to whom I have never spoken?
Is it possible to love someone
who has never seen my face?
How do I dream of a man
whose hands I have never felt?
How can I miss him
when Iíve never met him?
Worse
Is it possible for him
to love me?
miss me?
need me?
dream of me?
How would I even know?
How would he?
The clock ticks towards midnight.
To sleep, perchance to dream? No.
To stay awake, perchance to read his words.
Imperfect as they are, in structure and letter
the intent is all quite clear.
The feeling
Is it love?
or infatuation?
Even worse
could it just be lust?

There are two people who might read this blog who will 'get it'. You both know who you are.
To the one here, please forgive me the drama and weakness.
To the one there, well, hopefully you'll understand.

On the Up Side

I watched 'Soylent Green' tonight. It was everything I expected, and worse.

posted by Bubonic Lou 11:50 PM

Dumbstruck, Pt. 3?

A religious sect that contends that space travelers created the human race by cloning themselves declared today that the first cloned human had been born.

The announcement was made at a televised news conference in Hollywood, Fla., by Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, a chemist who directs a Bahamian company formed to clone humans and who is scientific director of the sect, the RaÎlians.

...

RaÎlians are followers of RaÎl, a French-born former race-car driver who has said he met a four-foot space alien atop a volcano in southern France in 1973 and went aboard his ship, where he was entertained by voluptuous female robots and learned that the first humans were created 25,000 years ago by space travelers called Elohim, who cloned themselves.

Um. And I thought Scientology was off the wall?

posted by Bubonic Lou 3:49 PM

And now, a Brooklyn Plague Weather Update

It snowed on Christmas! Woohoo!
...sniff....not in my whole childhood can I remember such an occurrence. It's just beautiful. It's really too bad I got swilled on White Zinfandel at dinner and slept it off through dessert.
And what's that? Yes! My blog is publishing again! Woohoohoo!
I didn't get a Pro subscription this morning, but I did get some neato books and a Simpsons Chess Set. What a lovely day.
Just a personal note: I was watching Run DMC's music video for 'Christmas in Hollis' and noticed that the 'ill reindeer' Santa's got (a dog with fake antlers on) looks just like my dog! Woohoohoohoo!

posted by Bubonic Lou 12:32 AM

Great.

So my blog's not showing up. Sure, it publishes, the changes are acknowledged in my own editing screen. But can you see it? No. Can I see it? No.
Maybe I should ask my parents to pay for Blogger Pro for Christmas. But, you know, what the hell. They're already chipping in on the iBook.
I can't wait to get my new computer. Especially since my mouse decided it was time to start quit working at least once a day for the last few days. Good timing, too. I can only imagine the nervous breakdown it would have caused me in the middle of writing my papers.

posted by Bubonic Lou 10:37 PM

Sigh

Are my archives back up yet?
You get what you pay for...you get what you pay for...you get what you pay for...this is my mantra

posted by Bubonic Lou 12:10 AM

Good Lord

I just noticed the Death Penalty counter on my page had gone up to 820 (executed since the Death Penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976), from 811 yesterday.
What the fuck!
NINE people executed in one day?
No, make that ten as of Wednesday...and in two weeks.
Courtesy of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty:

Linroy Bottoson
Dec. 6, 2002 7:00 AM EST Florida

Jerry McCracken
Dec. 10, 2002 6:00 PM CST Oklahoma

Jay Neill
Dec. 12, 2002 6:00 PM CST Oklahoma

Ernest Carter, Jr.
Dec. 17, 2002 6:00 PM CST Oklahoma

Anthony Johnson
Dec. 12, 2002 6:00 PM CST Alabama

Ernest Basden
Dec. 6, 2002 2:00 AM EST North Carolina

Desmond Carter
Dec. 10, 2002 2:00 AM EST North Carolina

Leonard Rojas
Dec. 4, 2002 7:00 CST Texas

James Collier
Dec. 11, 2002 6:00 CST Texas

Jessie Derrell Williams
Dec. 11, 2002 Mississippi

How appropriate. My radio is playing the Police's Murder By Numbers.
"Murder is the sport of the elected," they sing in my headphones.

People! Serbia and Montenegro (the Republics formerly known as Yugoslavia) just abolished the death penalty this year, to join the EU. These were places wracked by civil war for years and years, with disappearances and mass graves and (shudder) Slobodan Milosevic.
And they've abolished the death penalty.

Meanwhile, the US presents itself as a self-righteous beacon of hope to the downtrodden of the world, and we continue to kill prisoners out of nothing more complex than the human instinct for revenge. It makes me truly ashamed to be American. It really does.

posted by Bubonic Lou 11:40 PM

It's another Ancient Race of Skeleton People!

...no, it's just a really cool exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History starting next month, displaying a whole lot of fossils and artifacts from a very very very old site called Sima de los Huesos and another even older site called Gran Dolina, both from Atapuerca in Spain. Should be awesome!

This promotional message has been brought to you by Bubonic Lou, Your Source for Archaeological Geekdom.

posted by Bubonic Lou 10:55 PM

What a surprise!

It did. How 'bout that.

posted by Bubonic Lou 7:48 PM

Eeeyaaagh

Why do the screen dimensions change like this all the time? Can anyone help me? Grr....it'll probably change back as soon as I post this. Like an opposite Murphy's Law or something.

posted by Bubonic Lou 7:48 PM

I Need More Sleep

Strange things happen to the brain when you try to spend 27 straight hours writing a paper on the Middle/Upper Paleolithic (the late Ice Age, to all you non-archaeologists) and how Neandertals and modern humans adapted to it.
You see, in anthropology there are two predominant theories of how people dispersed from Africa. One is the 'Out of Africa' hypothesis, wherein there were some early migrations, of Homo erectus about 1-1.5 million years ago. The ones in East/Southeast Asia became 'Java Man', and the ones in Europe eventually became Neandertals. Then, about 100 000 years ago, modern Homo sapiens, which had been evolving from the Homo erectus that stayed in Africa that whole time, jumped into the fray and basically took over the world. Spread out, killed off or out-competed the earlier hominids.
Most genetic evidence supports this theory--mitochondrial DNA analysis shows a marked difference between humans and Neandertals, and within the human population it shows that all of us--me, you, yes you, the rest of the world, and unfortunately even the seemingly-sub-human populace of Capitol Hill--we all had a common ancestor about 150 000 years ago, in Africa. H. erectus spread out waaaaay before that, and H. neanderthalensis appeared around the same time sui generis up in Europe, from yet another hominid species that had been populating the area since about 500 000 years ago.
So it's pretty much a no-brainer, right? The logic works out, the fossil record works out, the genetics work out, the big differences in skeletons and brain capacities and skull types work out.
Well.
The other theory is what's called the multiregional hypothesis. It says that all those species I just listed are actually only one species, plain ol' Homo sapiens. And they each evolved, even with their big differences, into the one big interbreeding population that now covers the earth. Sure, there were different groups, and there was a second big migration at 100 000 years ago, when fully modern humans appeared out of Africa, but they just mixed with the earlier groups, they didn't kill them. So presumably I would have some Neandertal blood, and my Chinese ex-boyfriend has some 'Java Man' (or more likely, 'Peking Man') blood, and my roommate, well, she'd have pretty much all of the above. And supposedly these different mixtures explain the 'races.' Riiiiight.
Why did I write all of this? Well. It goes back to my first point, i.e. sleep deprivation does weird things to the mind.
I was reading some journal article during my paper research, and it was an old article, one that basically used the multiregional hypothesis, which used to be the predominant theory until genetic research came along and the fossil record became a bit clearer.
The primary proponent of the multiregional hypothesis is a professor at U of Michigan named Milford Wolpoff. I've seen pictures of him before, and I must say he's not the most fetching guy in the field of anthropology. But this particular thought came to me about 3 am Monday morning, about halfway through my writing marathon:

The guy looks just like a grown-up version of that geeky kid from the Simpsons. You know the one. With the dorky, nasal voice. His name is Database. That was his 'handle' in one techno-sabotage-plot episode. Otherwise he doesn't really have one. But--doesn't he look like if he had a real name, it would be Milford?
I think so.
And that's all I really had to say.
Plus I wanted to mock the outdated multiregional hypothesis and its supporters. I'm in a mean mood today.
Ah yes, I think this once again will be sufficient to keep me out of the AAA for life.

Please note: If you, dear reader, are actually in the field of anthropology, be aware I do know the story has more intricacies than I allowed here in this entry. The Stony Brook Anthropology Department has not shunned its job in educating me, far from it; I just didn't feel like detailing every little species and fossil and controversy. Thank you.

posted by Bubonic Lou 8:08 PM

Oh...No...Noooo...It's...the Return of Lott-o-mania! Run for your liiiiiives!

People are still stumbling upon my little petri dish of a website through their searches for political (mis)information--here are some more search requests:

trent lott
lott poll thurmond -tax
lott strom verbatim
political cartoon trent lott
audio of trent lott comments
trent lott cartoon
trent lott death penalty

Well. I've got a headache. No more computer for me tonight. No more beer either.

posted by Bubonic Lou 7:46 PM

It's Lott-o-mania

The last few days I've noticed a huge upsurge in my visitor log, and not just because I got a referral from August (not shockingly, he had even more vitriol than I on the Georgia legislation).
No, about half of it is being accounted for by search requests for various strings relating to Trent Lott's Fuss-in-der-Mund last week, and it makes me wonder--who's doing these searches? Are they not reading the newspapers? Have they not actually heard the comment? Is the media not doing their job (Horrors!), forcing the people to search for these things themselves in second-or-third-hand sites?
But really, why are they clicking on my link? Not that I mind, of course. But does Ye Olde Plague Blogge (with puppies) sound like Your Source for Reliable Newsmedia and Sound Commentary? I for one certainly...hope...so.
Forthwith a list, including an unintentionally humorous variance on The Liver-Spotted One's name. [with commentary]
Fun Fact: Senator, as in the governing body of the Roman Republic, comes from senex, meaning old. As in senile.

LOTT'S COMMENTS VERBATIM [twat did you say? I cunt here you]
trent lott female [???]
Trent Lott German [apparently someone on google.de thought as I did that he might be--I thereafter remembered the Lott House in Brooklyn is in fact, like most things of a historical nature in my beloved borough, Dutch.]
trent lott and stone thurmond [about as sharp as limestone, he is]
lott and thurmond
trent lott thurmond
political cartoons trent lott thurmond
political cartoon trent lott
council conservative citizens
lott thurmond
trent lott strom audio
trent lott remarks
Lott's remarks Strom Thurmond
audio of trent lott and thurmond
Trent Lott Thurmond problems

The last one says it all, I daresay.
Perhaps I should just be counting my blessings that so many folks are searching for something relevant, and in normal language, instead of some other people who stumble upon my electronic abode.

posted by Bubonic Lou 12:49 AM

More Presidential Mockery!

My mom submitted a couple captions for my poll--I've decided in the spirit of the Christmas season (what with all the poultry-eating--yesterday at work I was serving up Cornish Game Hens all night) to leave it up for another couple weeks. Really, I'm just kinda too lazy/legitimately busy to come up with a new poll. Plus as I said I have a new couple of entries.
Go! Vote! Mock the turkey(s)!

posted by Bubonic Lou 11:07 PM

Huzzah!

Back to the scribbling board again.

posted by Bubonic Lou 2:49 AM

grrr they're not. shit. stupid blogger, you get what you pay for i suppose.

posted by Bubonic Lou 2:44 AM

are the archives back on yet?

posted by Bubonic Lou 2:33 AM

Dumbstruck, Pt. 2

Another bad effect if that Georgia legislation goes through? Think about the young women under--what is it, 18?--who can't be taken across state lines, and have to notify their parents before getting an abortion if they get one in state. They'll now have to go to court and get a death warrant. This could get appealed, and before you know it--hey, presto!--9 months have gone by and whaddya know, it's a moot point. Sigh.
And what about conceptions from rapes? I wonder if the Georgia (state motto: "Really! We've changed! We took down the stars and bars last year!) courts will give higher precedence to fetus' defense cases in scheduling than they will to the trials of their 'fathers'. Sigh, again.

posted by Bubonic Lou 12:58 AM

Strangely enough I can't think of a clever title for this. I'm just too dumbstruck.

Georgia legislators will introduce a bill early next month that refers to abortion as an ''execution'' and will require any mother seeking an abortion to go to court to obtain a death warrant.

''A mother would have to argue why the child should die and why her rights would take priority over the rights of the child,'' said Rep. Bobby Franklin, R-Marietta, who sponsored the legislation.

Once a mother filed for a death warrant, a guardian would be appointed to protect the rights of the unborn child. That guardian would be authorized to demand a jury trial in which the rights of the unborn child would be balanced against the rights of the mother seeking to have the ''execution'' performed.

So how exactly are these 'jury trials' even going to work? Will the fetuses have court-appointed lawyers? I do hope they'll be of the same high caliber as those appointed to accused criminals. Because, in Georgia, every endangered life is equally sacred, isn't it?
Whole legislation story here.
Lots more on the Death Penalty in Georgia here.

posted by Bubonic Lou 12:19 AM

What did the bitch do this time?

Verbatim, an email I received from my mother today:

You may have heard about Ezzy's bad behavior from your father--I was out last night so only got it second hand. Apparently while he and Eugene were briefly out of the house, she managed to pull down a piece of London broil
(still in its package) from the counter by the sink and finish it before trying to hide. Poor impulse control.
Love, Mom

Aw, yeah. That's my dog.

posted by Bubonic Lou 10:33 PM

17 Days til Christmas

and what's the best way to celebrate? Satire!
One of my favorite shows on NPR is This American Life. David Sedaris is a frequent contributor, and he's done two episodes that are, as with his writing, just too funny for words. You have to listen for yourself. (Real Audio windows will open)

The Santaland Diaries, at 5:00 in "Christmas and Commerce" 12/20/96
and
Holidays on Ice, in "A Very Special Sedaris Christmas" 12/19/97

Go. Listen. Laugh!

posted by Bubonic Lou 3:56 AM

Update, Pt. 2

According to my dictionary, the proper term is Volksdeutsche.

posted by Bubonic Lou 3:53 PM

[Ick] Update

You know, that article was just so goddamned funny I couldn't wait til I even finished reading it to post it. But here's a couple last little bits:

Lott's office played down the significance of the senator's remarks. Spokesman Ron Bonjean issued a two-sentence statement: "Senator Lott's remarks were intended to pay tribute to a remarkable man who led a remarkable life. To read anything more into these comments is wrong."

Bonjean declined to explain what Lott meant when he said the country would not have had "all these problems" if the rest of the nation had followed Mississippi's lead and elected Thurmond in 1948.

Remarkably malicious, that is.

The gathering, which included many Thurmond family members and past and present staffers, applauded Lott when he said "we're proud" of the 1948 vote. But when he said "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years" if Thurmond had won, there was an audible gasp and general silence.

In 1998 and 1999, Lott was criticized after disclosures that he had been a speaker at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization formed to succeed the segregationist white Citizens' Councils of the 1960s. In a 1992 speech in Greenwood, Miss., Lott told CCC members: "The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy. Let's take it in the right direction, and our children will be the beneficiaries."

Asked to comment on Lott's remarks at the Thurmond celebration, Gordon Baum, CEO of the Council of Conservative Citizens, said "God bless Trent Lott."

Yes. And this godforsaken idiot will soon be the Senate Majority Leader....in 25 days. That's right, just 25 days before the country really starts going to hell in a handbasket.

On a brighter note, I found out the other day I can claim German citizenship through my 2 great-grandmothers, if I really feel like getting the hell out of this country. It's surprising but those krauts still have this fixation about 'national bloodlines' and such. They'll take anyone as long as they were proper Deutschvolk (I may have made that word up) once upon a time. On second thought, perhaps our national politics aren't so very different. Is Lott a German name by any chance?

posted by Bubonic Lou 3:52 PM

[Ick]

I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

This stomach-lurching time-trip in politics has been brought to you by Trent Lott.

(Link via August)

posted by Bubonic Lou 3:33 PM

[Grin]



What Was Your PastLife?

Well I suppose it's possible...except for the whole chastity bit...

posted by Bubonic Lou 1:35 PM

Meat or Accident?

Ah, the famous British wit. Is the picture meat or an accident? Take your guess!

posted by Bubonic Lou 10:10 PM

Editors Note

Re: the 3rd (newly-come-up-with) caption in my poll, 'Truthenne' is German for a female turkey. Vote!

posted by Bubonic Lou 6:17 PM

Bawdy Archaeological Limericks Lou Scrawls!

Yes, I actually did write these off the top of my head tonight. I'm really supposed to be writing a paper on human adaptations in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, but how can I ignore such creativity when it bubbles up like this?
This will definitely find its way onto Disturbing Search Requests, somehow or other...

There once was a Neandertal
whose bollocks were really quite small
looking a bit smug
he said with a shrug
"It is awfully cold after all"

But I couldn't leave the poor man alone. I had to go and get bawdy about his girlfriend too...

There was a Neandertal chick
with arms too short to do the trick
she said with a grunt
as she tickled her cunt
"I'll go extinct if I don't get some dick"

Yes, I think these will be sufficient to keep me out of the AAA for life.

posted by Bubonic Lou 12:56 AM

'USA Patriot Art' Update

An online gallery of the political cartoon exhibit I mentioned this morning can be found here.
Go. Read. Laugh. Think. Furrow your brow at the monument of stupidity that is our government.

posted by Bubonic Lou 11:59 PM

Mon Dieu! Egads! et cetera!

Who knew there were so many UFOs in medieval art?
(Link via Fark)

Maybe it was just the paint fumes.

posted by Bubonic Lou 10:59 PM

[Snicker]




Which Musketeer Are You?

Once again, they've got me.

posted by Bubonic Lou 9:08 PM

Here begins the real navel-gazing

(courtesy of Googlism)

Louisa is...
-approximately 1088
-an excellent dancer
-a 16" bear made of a luxuriously soft purple faux fur with burgundy ultrasuede© paws and nose
-conveniently located in the center of virginia with five interstate 64 exits
-still trying to get milton to be a little more sure of himself and wants to date him
-burning all the letters that she's hid beneath a stone from a man she thought had loved her
-bringing "the revelation of jesus christ" to ontario
-one of the most shallow in the chain of lakes
-hermionie and harry's daughter
-on her way into a world beyond her dreams
-on her way to coketown
-our secretary because she has a really huge vocabulary
-pregnant again
-diagnosed with tuberculosis
-finally ready to show you what she is made of

I resemble these remarks!

posted by Bubonic Lou 4:16 AM

Every dog has her story

And here's my bitch's.

posted by Bubonic Lou 4:00 AM

Patriotism at Stony Brook reaches a new...low...of...tackiness.

Yes. Well.
Every year 'round this time the school puts up a Holiday display in the Admin building. You know, nothing particularly denominational. A tree with miscellaneous decorations, a menorah, a Kwanzaa...labra? (Kinara, my roommate tells me). Certainly nothing so overt as, say, a nativity creche, as another friend pointed out.
That brings me to my reason for mentioning this:
Today the campus peaceniks held a show of political cartoons that have either been banned, or the artists fired/dropped from various newspapers, or that have simply caused a stir. Most of them were, of course, about September 11 or our approaching-like-a-Mack-truck war with Iraq, that sort of thing.
I went, and was talking to a couple guys from the SJA afterwards. One mentioned that our oh-so-lovely Administration, yes the very same one that came up with this year's Nightmare of a Homecoming Theme, has delightfully dispensed with the usual Holiday display in favor of....get ready....


A Patriot Tree.

Yes, a Patriot Tree, with...well, God only knows. I imagine it'll have red white and blue ribbons and tinsel all over. My friend mentioned something about tin soldier ornaments. Maybe he was being ironic? I fear not.

My proposition was to have a party to fold thousands of origami doves to hang on it, a la 'Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes'. But that was this afternoon. Now I'm feeling a bit more militant...should we storm the Admin building and burn the tree? Or maybe drape it in the national colors of Iraq? Ooh oooh oh I know...

I know. Heheheh. We can all just simply ignore it. After all, apathy is what the USB student populace excels at.
Nah, on second thought let's burn the bloody thing.

posted by Bubonic Lou 3:03 AM

And now it's time for the Oldest Polish Joke in the World!

...about 20 000 years old, in fact.
Didja hear the one about the boomerang made of mammoth bone?
My professor in Ice Age Europe mentioned it in class yesterday. It was found in Oblazowa Cave in Poland, and weighs, according to him anyway, about 10 pounds.
And you know what? The darn thing actually does work. It flies. Ha!
Well.
Maybe you have to be an archaeology student to laugh at that one. Sorry.

posted by Bubonic Lou 1:23 PM

I Admit It

...I'm a copycat. Scaryduck has posted his Launchcast Station, and so I think I will too. Because...you never know what I might be listening to. What insidious lyrics may be infiltrating my impressionable cerebrum?
As it happens, right now it's Bing Crosby's rendition of White Christmas.
But still, you never know.
Beware, though, of the occasional interruption of the rockin' by the likes of N*SUCK or the $2 ho's. I'm sorry! It's pop! I can't help meself.

posted by Bubonic Lou 2:23 AM

Vuelve a me