Metro to Install More Red Platform Edge Lights

I appreciate that they are using LED lights, which are more energy-efficient than incandescent, but I really hate that they are red. I find it vaguely sinister and threatening.

Paulagate!

WTF happened last night on IDOL? Paula was NOT reading Cook's review by mistake.

My Fellow Americans

How are you going to spend that rebate check? (assuming you are not so rich that you aren't getting one). A lot of the media is reporting that most people are not going to spend it at all, but instead put it in savings or pay off debt. WHich is what I am going to do.

Two Cool Science Stories

First, this one about how humans were nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago. We were down to like 2,000 people!

And this one about how Dinosaur soft tissue was DNA sequenced and found to be similar to chicken proteins tissue, hence reinforcing the theory that dinos are actually much closer to birds than lizards. I first heard this story on NPR's All Things Considered last week and I was sure at the end for their clever musical interlude they would play a clip from the Jurassic Park theme. I was disappointed. Too obvious?

Mars Update

The Phoenix is scheduled to land on Mars in one month! Meanwhile, both Rovers are still trundling along on the surface. Actually not so much trundling right now; Spirit is parked on a hill to get as much sunlight as possible during the Mars winter.

US to show evidence of Syria-North Korea nuke collaboration

Doesn't this just really smack of the 'Slam-dunk' of WMDs being in Iraq? After that fiasco, hopefully Congress has developed the healthy skepticism that the UN showed when Colin Powell did his unconvincing slideshow for them and didn't get much support. US 'intelligence' cried wolf before, and as we all know, if you cry wolf too often, people stop listening.

Or as Scotty used to say, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

Then again, I certainly wouldn't put it past the North Koreans to help the Syrians build a nucyular (sic) facility.

Grateful

I just found out that it is (probably) okay for me to wear shorts to work! No, nothing scandalous like George Michael's Wake me Up Before You Go Go hot pants, but just baggy cargo shorts. It's nice enough, I have to admit, that this is a very casual design studio where people often wear jeans, t-shirts and baseball caps, but shorts are a bonus for me. It gets horribly hot and muggy in Washington, and I have a mile-long uphill walk after work. Sure I could change after work, but I'm generally kind of warm in the office anyway, and I work with some heat-producing machinery sometimes.

This makes me grateful once again to be working where I am, at this small, liberal (gay-friendly) place downtown. Not at the pressure-cooker I was at last year, or the nightmarish consulting job on the other side of the city, or the poisonous place I was for many years before that.

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day. Though, frankly, with people like George "I don't like Kyoto" Herbert "Carbon Dioxide is not a Greenhouse Gas" Walker "Looky! I have a plan to fight Global Warming!" Bush in charge, I think civilization as we know it is screwed. Oh, the earth will get by, but there will be a lot of extinctions, and in the next hundred years I fear that there will be famines and massive death from starvation, flooding, storms, and war. People are going to start fighting over the limited resources (oh, wait. We already are). A lot of the equatorial areas will become uninhabitable for humans. It'll be a mess. I'm glad I won't be around.

One small thing you can do: Stop buying bottled water. You know where those plastic bottles come from, don't you? Petroleum products. And you know that most of that water is just tap water anyway. At the gym I use a cycling water bottle (not a regular 1-use plastic water bottle) I fill from the drinking fountain, which has a filter. At home I use a Brita. In the WP today I believe it said something like 23 million plastic water bottles are thrown away an hour. And don't get too smug just cause you recycle some of them. Plastic has limited recycling usefulness. Here's some info from This page:

Problem #1: it takes 3-5 times more water to create the plastic water bottle than will actually fit in the bottle. Considering each bottle should only be used once (to prevent the leeching of phthalates)- that is a lot of water that is wasted for each bottle we drink.

Problem #2: Plastic is made from petroleum, so we are depleting our non-renewable resources for a bottle that will be used once. The Pacific Institute calculates that the process of making the plastic bottles consumed in the U.S. uses approximately 17 million barrels of oil per year.

Problem #3: Plastic bottles aren’t recycled: only about 12% of plastic bottles were recycled in 2003. Recycling these bottles would ensure less petroleum was used in the production of more plastic bottles. Instead, these bottles pile up in the landfill, taking as long as 1000 years to decompose.

Problem #4: It may be just tap water. Bottled water seems to be more pure and safer because it comes out of a bottle that you had to buy. However, 25% of bottled water is just reprocessed tap water, meaning you’re not getting anything special. In fact, you could save yourself a lot of money (and the planet a lot of pollution) by buying a water filter.

In other News:

• I just love that Jimmy Carter is thumbing his nose at the Bush administration. I've always had a sneaking admiration for Carter, going back to the memory of him announcing a "Windfall Profits Tax" on the oil industry back in the 70s. The tax money would be used to research alternative energies. That was freakin' thirty years ago. Of course that went nowhere. And, here we are. There's enough solar energy coming down to earth to supply us with all the energy we would need hundreds of times over, with zero greenhouse gases or even heat waste. Duh. I want a house with solar panels.

• My legs are killing me, especially my glutes and hamstrings; it's a combination of stiffness and soreness. I was afraid I was going to die teaching class last night, but once I was warmed up I was fine. Today though, crouching or even sitting is painful. I haven't done weights since Thursday; what's up with this?

Oink

Well, after losing 5 pounds over the last few weeks on my reduced-carb diet, I pigged out over the weekend. The biggest sin was going to an Italian restaurant on Saturday with V. and a friend of his from NY. It was yummy though, especially the fried cheese in oil. I also kind of overdid it on Sunday with carby stuff. Back on the Wagon!

Archedorable

I only watched the last 15 minutes of last night's elimination show, and I haven't watched the last several years of Idol, so I didn't know they played the grouping trick before, but I thought it was still so darn cute that when Seacrest tried to make little David choose a group, he just kind of plopped down on the floor where he was.

Hilarious reviews here and here

Barack; and Pope Dreams

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
--Barack Obama

You know, as someone who used to live in central Virginia and surrounded by some pretty rural areas, I think he is totally right. It just wasn't the most prudent thing in the world to say out loud.

In other news, I had totally weird dreams about the Pope last night. I'll do the surreal details later if I have time.

And on Idol last night, what was up with tarting-up little David Archedorable? Isn't he a little young for those tight leather pants?

Virginia Tech Day of Remembrance - April 16, 2008

It was a year ago today that Seung-Hui Cho went on his rampage and killed 32 people. It's still hard to fathom.

Today in History!

Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452
The Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912
Just thought you'd like to know...

Zzzz

Actually I got to sleep at a reasonable hour--while I could have done without watching almost half of Dinotopia for the second time. (Though, that Wentworth Miller: yum.) So I'm not sure why I'm feeling draggy this morning. Need more coffee maybe. Though between spin class in the morning and a kind of active afternoon...

Walking through Rosslyn to the Metro, I really enjoyed the nice cool 'jacket weather.' Of course I'm rarely cold, so even though it was 38°F, I was pretty comfortable in a windbreaker. I hope the cooler weather holds for awhile; as usual, I am not looking forward to the sweltering DC summers. I wish I was in SF!

All the trees are starting to pop with their leaves; I love that spring-green color, with the slightly more yellow hue.

And I am so not looking forward to teaching Spin tonight. Not sure how long I'm going to keep up teaching four classes.

Not So Taxing

I finished my taxes! And unlike last year (though I filed an almost identical return as far as special stuff, like the Spin Instructing and the freelance business), I was able to file electronically again this year. Last year for some reason it said I had to file a paper return, which was a royal pain. Let's hope the resto of the process goes smoothly. Oh, and I am getting a tiny little refund--which is kind of the way I like it, rather than letting Uncle Sam have my money to play with for a year.

I'm taking a break from a cleanin blitz now. The place really is a pig sty and I need to dust and vaccuum and such. Then it's grocery shopping...

Ow, ow, ow

I did weights again yesterday afternoon, and for the first time in a long time I did the exercises that work the inside and outside of your legs... the adductors and abductors maybe? Anyway my hips and the insides of my thighs are sore! At least there was nice scenery at the gym, the little Latino boy who is the locker room housekeeper was working out. He has an amazing body. ;-)

I probably shouldn't have walked to work this morning (50 minutes!) but it was nice and cool, and I really need to ramp up the exercise (and cut my intake of course).

Disappointment

Well, my meeting with the old friend from 10 years ago was cancelled because of press schedules. But I've been told I'll get to go up there sometime soon.

So much to do this weekend! Taxes, work on the writing project... But there is some fun planned for Sunday. I'm looking forward to that.

From the past...

There's a guy I used to work with (and drink with) like 10 years ago; we were friends, and I had a little bit of a crush on him. He's half-Japanese (surprise) and had that unusual handsome look that half-asians sometimes have. He also did a hilarious 'Mr Burns' voice from Simpsons. As far as I know he's str8, though I always had my suspicions

Well I'm going to a press check this afternoon where he works now. I haven't seen him in over a decade. I've talked to him on the phone a couple of times, and I'm told by a mutual friend who sees him all the time that he looks just the same. She also says he asks about me. Still, I'm kind of nervous about this.

My new spin class went okay last night; not so many people, but it is just starting up. And whew, I had forgotten how crazy that club is on a weeknight, especially early in the week. There were a ton of cute 20 and 30-something Asian guys, all in nice shape, of just about every variation in appearance. I kept getting distracted because at this club, the back of the spin room is glass, and I can see right through to the free weights area.

I woke up this morning and had a half hour to just lie in bed and dose and enjoy that nice warm feeling...

Frack!

Ooog I was up too late last night. I got almost nothing done all weekend either, well, except watch about twenty episodes of Battlestar Galactica. At least I'm all caught up now!

Orange Scone

I am wracked by guilt every time I get one of these, and yet I do it almost once a week now. The calories almost exactly match how much I burn on my 30-minute ellipse workout in the afternoon. I think part of the reason I love them is the sugary topping reminds me of the stuff we used to smear on top of the Pillsbury Orange Danish we used to have when we were kids...

So Much to Do...

I have a lot of annoying maintenance stuff that has to get done in the next month or so: my taxes first of all. Then I need to take a CPR course to stay up to date (required for Spinning) and I need to renew my Spinning certification, which will require taking a few online courses and passing the tests. Not that difficult, but still, all time vortices. Plus I need to finish up the book. It's mostly just layout now, but the editor asked me (quite reasonably) to flesh out a couple sections. Whew.

It's Wednesday already?

All this sub-prime mortgage talk. I am grateful I bought my little condo 12 years ago with a fixed rate...

Olde Tyme TV

I remember a time when Bravo really was artsy TV, and there were no commercials. I guess I can't complain too much, because now it is the the gayest network on tv. (I want a Bronnie T-shirt!).

I remember when the Sci-fi Channel was much more cheesy (yes, really) but they had actual hosts. And on Sunday mornings they had shows produced by C|Net, including one called The Web, hosted by Justin Gunn and Sophie Formica (yes, really), and one called The New Edge, hosted by a younger, and slightly less str8-acting Ryan Seacrest.