hormones or something else

It's been a shit week. It feels like I'm paralyzed. Can't accomplish anything. Haven't done anything. As usual many projects float around not started or partially completed. Physically I feel bloated and gross. Giant sore breasts. Puffy tummy.

Sure, it's just a particularly bad bout of PMS. Happens 3 or 4 times a year. But every time it brings back the memory of a time when it wasn't PMS. When leaving the apartment became nearly impossible. People unbearable. Barely employable on the graveyard shift. Then the medication to "fix" everything. Why isn't there a "WARNING: may cause apathy" on the label? There's a warning for everything else. I suppose that's not important as long as you do your job and pay your taxes.

Six years I've been free of those mind-numbing pills. But at times like these I have to wonder if I will end up there again.

wide open beavers

For some reason, my curiousity about the origin of calling female genitalia "beaver" stuck in my head long enough for me to google it. I mean, not all kitties are brown. And they sure don't have giant teeth. Although I suppose they do chew on wood. But where does the big, flappy tail fit in? Anyway, here's what I came up with:

beaver - O.E. beofor (earlier bebr ), from P.Gmc. *bebruz (cf. Low Ger. bever, O.H.G. bibar ), from PIE *bhebhrus, reduplication of base *bhru- "brown" (cf. Lith. bebrus, Czech bobr, Welsh befer, see bear (n.) for reason for this). Gynecological sense ("female genitals, especially with a display of pubic hair") is 1927 British slang, transferred from earlier meaning "a bearded man" (1910), from the appearance of split beaver pelts.

There were a couple of notable links though.

• Beaver pelt art: and other dead things too


• Old photo, man with beaver pelts: holy shit, do beavers really get that big?


• Rabid beaver attacks girl: this story is all of a sudden more frightening after seeing that giant pelt

der, die, das

Today started with the Sesame Strasse (German Sesame Street) theme song entering my head while I'm in the shower. And it's continuing to pop in every now and then throughout the day. Serves me right for downloading that bastard.

This morning at work, I noticed our audio player was throwing a pop-up with an installer dialog. I took a screenshot and sent it over to our back end people to investigate. Sure enough, if you moused over a banner on the audio player this bastard would pop-up. And try to install spyware. And pretty nasty spyware at that. Luckily I was already on it by the time I received a listener email about it. I sure hope no one clicked on it. Doesn't look so good for a news/talk to have this sort of thing happening.

us terror market

To collect information on terror and terrorist acts, the Pentagon is essentially setting up a betting parlor. It's a market of sorts where investors buy futures based on what they think will happen. For example, when biological weapons will be used against Israel or the likelihood that Yassar Arafat will be overthrown. The Pentagon will use this as a research tool to predict help predict threats. Is it just me, or is the real news getting harder and harder to distinguish from the Onion?

new gallery

Until I get up off my ass and redesign this site, Eric set me up with Gallery. More pictures from Copenhagen have been added. I'll post when more pics have been added. And one of these days I'll throw a link on the side bar. (Whoops, had to fix the link!)

under a snow blanket

click to enlarge

some brands of cigarettes more addictive

New research out of Portland, Oregon shows that some brands of cigarettes may be more addictive than others. Scientists measured the amount of freebase nicotine delivered to the smoker and found different brands varied greatly. Camel was one of the lowest while American Spirit was one of the highest. I wonder if American Spirit is lying about no additives or all-natural tobacco simply contains more freebase nicotine. I also wonder if different lots of the same brand test the same or also vary. And again I think it's damn good not to be a smoker.

green goddess with snow hat

There are bunches and bunches of pictures I took winter 2001/02 that I'd like to post, even though I still find them difficult to look at sometimes. So many came out so well. I'm not sure how I managed that. When I look at them it makes me think I should think about spending more time on photography. More time than the zero I spend now, certainly. I mean, if I can manage this with my silly autofocus camera and just intuition as a guide, what could I do if i put some real effort into it?

blogathon is off and running!

The Blogathon is underway! I'll be watching the inimitable Jett Superior (you know, I can't help but think of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence when I type that name. I suspect Jett will enjoy that.) as she blogs in support of the Tourette Syndrome Association. In addition to her usual stylings, check out the blogger body parts that will be served up regularly. Yep, I've offered a submission, but I give no hints. None!

humans are sick puppies

I knew what the results would be when the news department had me post the pictures of Uday and Qusay's corpses on our website. Yep, our page views more than tripled for yesterday.