mindsquirt

howdie-ding-dong-dootily.

I have a bunch of hooie to report:

First and formost: good news, I am dropping that cellular physiology class that i spoke of earlier. The one where i was underprepared for the test, you know? I actually got a B on that test, but this new one was going to do me in. So that is pretty sweet. no more of that hell-on-earth.

I am almost done with formating my thesis and i should have it deposited by the end of the week. That will be great, b/c I can forget about school forever. I can kick back and wait for my diploma to arrive in the mail. boo-yaa. I should train cooper to get the mail. that way, i don't have to get out of my chair. that will show em'!

The end of my master's education is proving to be quite anticlimatic. When i dropped that class, I was left with: "now what?". I am used to pretty much working all day and weekend on school and work stuff. I guess i should get back to working on that pesky doomsday device. a harsh mistress, that.

seriously, I need to devote my full attention to finding a new job. some of my prospects did not work out. I would rather eat glass than look for jobs. it is sooooo tedious. does anyone want to hire me? I can brush a pup with the best of em'!

If anyone watched the episode of celebrity fit club 3, where that fat guy had his heart imaged, that is what my thesis was all about. it was the ability to image the perfusion of the heart, and split up different parts of the cardiac cycle. I normally don't watch that show, but cooper wanted to watch it because he needs to catch up on all his stars.

This will be the last time i talk about my thesis project now that it is almost gone forever.

Wife and I are on a diet. I started getting kinda doughy in the past 2 years. Cooper wants me too look fit so I don't embarrass him in front of his friends. It is what I like to call the water and lunchmeat diet. My refridgerator looks like a delicatessen. That is basically all I consume. I have to eat protein 6 times a day and drink 10 glasses of water a day. I work out 6 times a week and then saturday is my free day, where i can cheat on the diet and not workout. It is a easy diet and gets results. Last time I was on it, I got results in only 1 month. plus, last saturday, I had chick-fil-a, pasta and bread, sasauge cassorole, beer, and a big thing of ice cream. (i usually get pancake sandwiches from Mcdonalds).

on days like this though, i crave food like the dickens. I would kill you where you stand for a single sausage link.

derby time is coming up. everyone loves the derby. if you normally go with me, now is the time to start making plans. boo-ya!

I found 10 bucks on the ground today. This is probably the biggest denomination of money i have found on the ground. if i see you, I'll show it to you.

upp.... i already lost it.

lets all talk about the selling of 6 US ports to a UAE (United Arab Emirates) government-controlled company, called Dubai Ports World.

The obvious negative implication of this is that we will have 6 ports (which are targets for terrorist activity) under control of an Arab nation that has terrorist activity in and around it.

I don't have a lot of time, so I will list some more "for" and "against" points that I have found in newspapers, CNN, and online.

AGAINST:
as of now, less than 2% of incoming material in ports are checked for stuff like WMD. plus, A undercover terrorist port operator (from the UAE) could easily change manifests and records to slip bombs and other WMD material through the port. We can not control who these guys hire.

Even though Bush says that UAE plays by the rules, this country still has terrorist activity:
Some 9/11 hijackers used the UAE as an operational and financial base.

UAE was a transfer point for shipments of smuggled nuclear components to Iran, N. Korea, and Libya.

The late president (Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan) of the UAE is bad news. Here is some content from the following can be cfoundon the Zayed Center website to fulfill the vision of Sheikh Zayed:
promotes Holocaust denial,
anti-American conspiracy theories (they claim that US was responsible for the attacks on 9/11),
hate speech in its lectures, symposiums and publications:
a speaker called Umayma Jalahma, said: "The Jewish people must obtain human blood so that their clerics can prepare for holiday pastries."

Niel Bush(GW's brother) was also a speaker for this group.

and here is a surprise:
Neil Bush is in bed with the UEA government and companies and is over there all the time (he got married there). That stinks to high heaven.

Nepotism in the Bush administration? NO WAY!

no, seriously, there has been no direct link to him having part of this deal....yet.

The Carlyle group owns (or invests in, i forget) this company(Dubai Ports World), whom Bush Senior was a high paid advisor for.

Obvously, the Dems are against it, but Bush is catching some heat from his fellow party members for this. here are some republican (very) heavy-hitters that are floored:

Republican speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert
Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist
Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King

There are many more senators, representatives, and even the gov of NJ, who are fighting this thing. I also understand that the dept of national security is up in arms.

FOR:
Here is Bush's response:
"I think it sends a terrible signal to friends around the world that it's OK for a company from one country to manage the port, but not a country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record from another part of the world and can't manage the port. "

I think this is a decent point. and this whole scenario has the US looking more anti-Arab than ever. I guess what i have to say about this, is: we already have a 10-30% favorable opinion in that part of the world as of now. How could a move like this make it worse? Plus, the people who own our ports are people like Britain, who have been allys for decades and are a stable democracy and not next door neighbors with a country we are at war with and a breeding ground for terrorists. plus those are completely private companies.

and i think the ultimate argument is that American Citizens have nothing to gain from this transaction and everything to lose, including security and jobs. Can't the feds seed a American company to take these ports? Keep some American’s holding our own stuff, that would be great.

How many more mistakes, fowl-ups, examples of corruption and incompetence does the bush administration have to do before people realize that bush is not fit to run the local Walgreens, much less our country?

Howdie-lee-doodily,

lately I have been hating a lot of movies. I have recently stopped watching them in the middle which is the ultimate criticism.

I think that if I were to tell the director that I stopped watching their movies, they would spit out whatever drink they just sipped...

or take a sip of whatever is nearby, and then spit it out.

This reminds me of the time that me and my wife walked out of a bunch of movies in a row at a theater. We walked out of "the grudge" after staying for about 10 minutes, then directly into "Ladder 59", stayed for about 30 minutes, and then decided all movies sucked and went home.

here is that list of movies that I have recently stopped in the middle of:

Mr. And Mrs. Smith, this was the biggest piece of overhyped tripe I have laid my eyes on.

Kingdom of Heaven, I found it hard to stop disliking Orlando Bloom at all times.

Rob Roy, I liked this movie but my DVD player wouldn't play the last half-hour.

The Thin Red Line, Was this movie a war movie or a nature documentary? I couldn't figure out this movie because they kept cutting to scenes of trees and whatnot and playing fruity music.

I plan to keep renting movies and then stopping them in the middle. In fact, this starts a new era of me stopping things prematurely. Books, blogs, magazine articles, songs, that half-destroyed angry bee's nest on my porch, cooking raw meat, etc.

You should be careful to talk to me about something entertaining or I will turn my back on you and walk away.

Let that be a warning to you all.

**** UPDATE***** After reading this over, I realized that i didn't capture the true effect of what happend that night. enhanced this story a little, so you might re-read it if you have already.

Begin story time!

I went out last night, in to the dark cold with 3 goals. One, to get new wiper blades for me and wife’s car, two, to pick up a papa Murphy’s pizza, three, to pick up some prescription drugs for said wife.

I went to k-mart first because it was close to papa murphy’s. I went to their wiper-blade aisle and found out that they did not carry any refills to fit in my factory wiper blade (or wife’s). I also saw that they carried refills, but they wouldn’t fit their own wiperblades. The wiper blades are at least double the amount of a refill, so this is a big difference in price. I left and went to get my pizza. Before heading in there I went to Advanced-Auto Parts. Same senerio. I was beginning to think that there was a conspiercy where they doop you into always buying the more expensive blade assembly instead of the cheap refill. Not wanting to be suckered, I left there , got my pizza and went to Wal-Mart. It must have been “freaks get 10% off night ” b/c I witnessed multiple occurrences of low-brow hijinks on my way to the automotive section. That was mere forshadowing for what was to come.

I would like to wind up my wiper blade converstation at this time, b/c the story is now going in a totally different direction. But, to wrap that up, know that even wal-mart will not only not carry factory refills, but they don’t carry refills for their own blade assembly. Please help me expose this plot to overcharge consumers. Step one in the process is destroying your car.

Anyway, at this point in the story, I had a run-in with Indianpolis’s most maniacal wal-mart frequenter. I am standing there using the electronic thing that you look up the length and brand of wiper blade, and this girl about my age walks up looking like she found all the clothes she was wearing and then didn’t change for 2 months. She had on a sock-hat that was pulled down almost at eye-level. (you will see the irony in her resemblance to mushmouth shortly)

Honestly, I didn’t get a good look at her at that point because I was preoccupied with the electronic thing. But I saw her in my periphery and thought she would like to use the device, so I offered to let her use it and look for my first set of wipers. She said something incomprehensible and started to push buttons. I quickly realized I forgot what I needed to find, so I asked to look at it, just for a sec, hoping that she hadn’t navigated too far away. This apparently was her queue that we were friends and she should get to know me better. She said something else incomprehensible while staring up and above my face with a crazed look, but I think the message was that she didn’t know what she was doing when it came to this electronic thing. I took that as a sign that I should avoid her and moved a little to the left and found my first blade (which I remembered). Then, her common-law husband came up with a camo hat on sideways, 2-3 teeth in his mouth, and about a 10 year old kid in the basket part of the cart, and started to bitch at her about running off. I thought this was great because she would go away and I could use the electronic thing again. She turned to me and uttered a long story of words that don’t go together all while looking crazy up-and-over my shoulder. It honestly sounded like she picked words at random out of her vocabulary while slurring them all.

she may have or may not have said this: (say these outloud with an entire bananna in your mouth)

"come the slather-batter dismount charlie figure."
"All of the flip-flap 3-prong wishyness blabber-blink outside."
"Why bottle if the goop sounds ill on dolly wizz?"
"The starter is a blinky-blink and so does the huckle-buck"

I made out the words “3-prong” and “starter”. I stared at her aghast until she was done. I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to someone who has the diction of an infant? While the content was lost forever, her tone and mention of “3-prong” and “starter”suggested that she needed advice about her car. I mustered up a response and told her I didn’t work here (a good, safe response). Her toothless husband saved me and whined, “come-awn”.

She then told me: “Okay, because I got three uncles”, and turned around and went with her husband. I am very sure that is what she said.

I tried to get the rest of my wiper blades all while studying what had just transpired. I concluded that something happened to her car and she was looking to the electronic wiper-blade catalog for answers. when she couldn't use it, she asked me. when she saw the fear in my eyes and was nagged by her husband, she realized that she had some uncles that would help. that seems logical. I cannot explain her crazy-talk. maybe my ears were temporarly broken and rearranged words.

As I walked out of the wal-mart, a woman cried out in a desperate plea, “STOP, DANNY!”. I thought to myself : “Please be her”. I turned around. It was her. She then started running after a moving car. I never saw her again.

This concludes the story about that crazy lady from wal-mart.

If you are out there crazy lady,

I miss you.

I have successfully defended my thesis. I do have to make some changes to it, but 99% of the work is behind me. It is a big relief and thank you to all who have supported me and wished me well.

Now that I have that out there, wishing me a "congratulations!" would be a good opportunity for me to sort out who is my friend and who isn't. This would be a great benefit to me, because I have many enemies....

Anyway Alls I have to do now is finish my Phys-710 Cellular Physiology class. This class was decent until about 5 hours ago when I took the first test. It might have been the most difficult test of my lifetime (barring the GRE). It was scheduled to be 3 hours long, which I realized 5 minutes before class started. When I saw this, I turned to my fellow classmate in shock, as I didn’t know these kind of things happened in America.

The test was jammed packed full of grueling application questions where mere memorization left you perplexed, confusulated, discombobulated, and swissle-sticked. (say this out loud in ear-shot of co-employees for added affect!) I always thought biology-type classes just required memorization. I was a child then.

By the end of the test I was in a full sweat and I felt as though I had been thrown out of a moving car. I had a headache that would make you slap your mother. It was like if President Bush himself dropped “shock and awe” right on my forehead.

Anyway, this week will be devoted to finding a job and brushing Cooper’s silky coat. (his usual 2-times-a-day one hour long grooming, plus some extra time for doggy-massage.) I should be getting a call from a company I interned from, but who knows? Anyone know some places I can apply or a place in need of a Biomedical engineer who loves soft talk, walks on the beach, and pup-brushing?

Seriously. If you do, let me know.

I am defending my thesis tomorrow. Serious Business. Wish me luck.

For those of you not familiar with the way it works, I have to present my thesis to whoever shows up and to a committee who deems if it is worthy or not. They ask me a bunch of questions to see if I know my stuff. That is the part that makes me nervous. It is kind of like the Jedi Trials.

Academic-type people love to play devil's-advocate, and second guess everything you do. it is the way the academic sector works. It has it's uses by making sure no one is claiming something that is false. But, it is difficult to be under such scrutiny.

Here is a list of things NOT to do at your thesis defense:

148 THINGS (NOT) TO DO OR SAY AT OR FOR YOUR THESIS DEFENSE

Written by Master Peter Dutton
contributions by Jim Lalopoulos, Alison Berube, and Jeff
Cohen, Patricia Whitson and a few others.

1) "Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise for the singing of our
National Anthem..."
2) Charge 25 cents a cup for coffee.
3) "Charge the mound" when a professor beans you with a high
fast question.
4) Describe parts of your thesis using interpretive dance.
5) "Musical accompaniment provided by..."
6) Stage your own death/suicide.
7) Lead the specators in a Wave.
8) Have a sing-a-long.
9) "You call THAT a question? How the hell did they make you a
professor?"
10) "Ladies and Gentlemen, as I dim the lights, please hold hands
and concentrate so that we may channel the spirit of Lord
Kelvin..."
11) Have bodyguards outside the room to "discourage" certain
professors from sitting in.
12) Puppet show.
13) Group prayer.
14) Animal sacrifice to the god of the Underworld.
15) Sell T-shirts to recoup the cost of copying, binding, etc.
16) "I'm sorry, I can't hear you - there's a banana in my ear!"
17) Imitate Groucho Marx.
18) Mime.
19) Hold a Tupperware party.
20) Have a bikini-clad model be in charge of changing the
overheads.
21) "Everybody rhumba!!"
22) "And it would have worked if it weren't for those meddling
kids..."
23) Charge a cover and check for ID.
24) "In protest of our government's systematic and brutal
opression of minorities..."
25) "Anybody else as drunk as I am?"
26) Smoke machines, dramatic lighting, pyrotechnics...
27) Use a Super Soaker to point at people.
28) Surreptitioulsy fill the room with laughing gas.
29) Door prizes and a raffle.
30) "Please phrase your question in the form of an answer..."
31) "And now, a word from our sponsor..."
32) Present your entire talk in iambic pentameter.
33) Whine piteously, beg, cry...
34) Switch halfway through your talk to Pig Latin. Or Finnish Pig
Latin.
35) The Emperor's New Slides ("only fools can't see the
writing...")
36) Table dance (you or an exotic dancer).
37) Fashion show.
38) "Yo, a smooth shout out to my homies..."
39) "I'd like to thank the Academy..."
40) Minstrel show (blackface, etc.).
41) Previews, cartoons, and the Jimmy Fund.
42) Pass the collection basket.
43) Two-drink minimum.
44) Black tie only.
45) "Which reminds me of a story - A Black guy, a Chinese guy,
and a Jew walked into a bar..."
46) Incite a revolt.
47) Hire the Goodyear Blimp to circle the building.
48) Release a flock of doves.
49) Defense by proxy.
50) "And now a reading from the Book of Mormon..."
51) Leave Jehovah's Witness pamphlets scattered about.
52) "There will be a short quiz after my presentation..."
53) "Professor Robinson, will you marry me?"
54) Bring your pet boa.
55) Tell ghost stories.
56) Do a "show and tell".
57) Food fight.
58) Challenge a professor to a duel. Slapping him with a glove is
optional.
59) Halftime show.
60) "Duck, duck, duck, duck... GOOSE!"
61) "OK - which one of you farted?"
62) Rimshot.
63) Sell those big foam "We're number #1 (sic)" hands.
64) Pass out souvenier matchbooks.
65) 3-ring defense.
66) "Tag - you're it!"
67) Circulate a vicious rumor that the Dead will be opening,
making sure that it gets on the radio stations, and escape
during all the commotion.
68) Post signs: "Due to a computer error at the Registrar's
Office, the original room is not available, and the defense
has been relocated to (Made-up non-existent room number)"
69) Hang a pinata over the table and have a strolling mariachi
band.
70) Make each professor remove an item of clothing for each
question he asks.
71) Rent a billboard on the highway proclaiming "Thanks for
passing me Professors X,Y, and Z" - BEFORE your defense
happens.
72) Have a make-your-own-sundae table during the defense.
73) Make committee members wear silly hats.
74) Simulate your experiment with a virtual reality system for
the spectators.
75) Do a soft-shoe routine.
76) Throw a masquerade defense, complete with bobbing for apples
and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.
77) Use a Greek Chorus to highlight important points.
78) "The responsorial psalm can be found on page 124 of the
thesis..."
79) Tap dance.
80) Vaudeville.
81) "I'm sorry Professor Smith, I didn't say 'SIMON SAYS any
questions?'. You're out."
82) Flex and show off those massive pecs.
83) Dress in top hat and tails.
84) Hold a pre-defense pep rally, complete with cheerleaders, pep
band, and a bonfire.
85) Detonate a small nuclear device in the room. Or threaten to.
86) Shadow puppets.
87) Show slides of your last vacation.
88) Put your overheads on a film strip. Designate a professor to
be in charge of turning the strip when the tape recording
beeps.
89) Same as #88, but instead of a tape recorder, go around the
room making a different person read the pre-written text for
each picture.
90) "OK, everybody - heads down on the desk until you show me you
can behave."
91) Call your advisor "sweetie".
92) Have everyone pose for a group photo.
93) Instant replay.
94) Laugh maniacally.
95) Talk with your mouth full.
96) Start speaking in tongues.
97) Explode.
98) Implode.
99) Spontaneously combust.
100) Answer every question with a question.
101) Moon everyone in the room after you are done.
102) "Laugh, will you? Well, they laughed at Galileo, they
laughed at Einstein..."
103) Hand out 3-D glasses.
104) "I'm rubber, you're glue..."
105) Go into labor (especially for men).
106) Give your entire speech in a "Marvin Martian" accent.
107) "I don't know - I didn't write this."
108) Before your defense, build trapdoors underneath all the seats.
109) Swing in through the window, yelling a la Tarzan.
110) Lock the department head and his secretary out of the
defense room. And the coffee lounge, the department office,
the copy room, and the mail room. Heck, lock them out of the
building. And refuse to sell them stamps.
111) Roll credits at the end. Include a "key grip", and a "best
boy".
112) Hang a disco ball in the center of the room. John Travolta
pose optional.
113) Invite the homeless.
114) "I could answer that, but then I'd have to kill you"
115) Hide.
116) Get a friend to ask the first question. Draw a blank-loaded
gun and "shoot" him. Have him make a great scene of dying
(fake blood helps). Turn to the stunned audience and ask
"any other wise-ass remarks?"
117) Same as #116, except use real bullets.
118) "Well, I saw it on the internet, so I figured it might be a
good idea..."
119) Wear clown makeup, a clown wig, clown shoes, and a clown
none. And nothing else.
120) Use the words "marginalized", "empowerment", and
"patriarchy".
121) Play Thesis Mad Libs.
122) Try to use normal printed paper on the overhead projector.
123) Do your entire defense operatically.
124) Invite your parents. Especially if they are fond of fawning
over you. ("We always knew he was such an intelligent
child")
125) Flash "APPLAUSE" and "LAUGHTER" signs.
126) Mosh pit.
127) Have cheerleaders. ("Gimme an 'A'!!")
128) Bring Howard Cosell out of retirement to do color
commentary.
129) "I say Hallelujah, brothers and sisters!"
130) Claim political asylum.
131) Traffic reports every 10 minutes on the 1's.
132) Introduce the "Eyewitness Thesis Team". Near the end of your
talk, cut to Jim with sports and Alison with the weather.
133) Live radio and TV coverage.
134) Hang a sign that says "Thank you for not asking questions"
135) Bring a microphone. Point it at the questioner, talk-show
style.
136) Use a TelePromTer
137) "Take my wife - please!"
138) Refuse to answer questions unless they phrase the question
as a limerick.
139) Have everyone bring wine glasses. When they clink the
glasses with a spoon, you have to kiss your thesis. Or your
advisor.
140) Offer a toast.
141) Firewalk.
142) Start giving your presentation 15 minutes early.
143) Play drinking thesis games. Drink for each overhead. Drink
for each question. Chug for each awkward pause. This goes
for the audience as well.
144) Swoop in with a cape and tights, Superman style.
145) "By the power of Greyskull..."
146) Use any past or present Saturday Night Live
catchphrase. Not.
147) Stand on the table.
148) "You think this defense was bad? Let me read this list to
show you what I COULD have done..."