3 stages of scientific discovery

1st, people deny that it is true
2nd, they deny that it is important
3rd, they credit the wrong person


From A Short History of Nearly Everything

sobering thought

Making a host unwell has certain benefits for the microbe. The symptoms of an illness often help to spread the disease. Vomiting, sneezing, and diarrhea are excellent methods of getting out of one host and into position for another. The most effective strategy of all is to enlist the help of a mobile third party. Infectious organisms love mosquitoes because the mosquito's sting delivers them directly to a bloodstream where they can get straight to work before the victim's defense mechanisms can figure out what's hit them. This is why so many grade-A diseases-malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, encephalitis, and a hundred or so other less celebrated but often rapacious maladies-begin with a mosquito bite. It is a fortunate fluke for us that HIV, the AIDS agent, isn't among them-at least not yet. Any HIV the mosquito sucks up on its travels is dissolved by the mosquito's own metabolism. When the day comes that the virus mutates its way around this, we may be in real trouble.

Bummer.

"splendidly operatic name"

Romano Amadeo Carlo Avogadro, Count of Quarequa and Cerreto


He was the dude that found out two equal volumes of gases of any type, if kept at the same pressure and temperature, will contain identical numbers of molecules.

Thanks Bill Bryson. I never knew Avogadro had such an unwarranted name.

I bought the Once soundtrack

Okay so this weekend, Im going to Savannah. I wasnt going to go but now I am because I always said I wanted to travel more and what better way to start off than to go to Georgia from Georgia? It kinda sucks because I REALLY wanted to go to The High. But Josh can take me later or I can go with Sarah Beth. I am not particularly fond of Georgia O'Keefe and that would be the exhibit I'd miss. Also there was that GA Force game but I still dont know too many cats at Church and I didnt want to be the person someone had to sit next to.
Well anyways, in Savannah we are going stay at the Hilton. Should be fun?! I am obsessed with trees (not really obsessed, I just think they look pretty) so I should definitely see some new crazy trees in Savannah. My mom, bless her heart, has asked me to go camping with her. Then I told her I couldnt because I was going to Savannah. She responds by encouraging me to go to the strip club to see that transsexual who was in The Midnight of Garden and Evil. My stepdad seconded that motion. I dont care what my aunt says, my mom is awesome.

Last week, Ashley and I ate at Mellow Mushroom and watched Once. Okay can I just say Mellow Mushroom was FABULOUSSS. Even the leftovers were lower case fabulous. Then we watched Once and I just really really liked that movie for some reason. It is most definitely a Just Have Sex Already movie. Definitely. I think I already mentioned that in a previous blog so I'll just stfu now. O wait, I just got an email from Ashley saying "just do it already? pshht more like just kiss already."

Last night Leo came over before Tim got home. Im the worst host ever. I let him in and then sat down and continued watching Alias. I did eventually talk to him though. And he said something about Jennifer Garner being hot.
Real deep conversationalists.

Speaking of real deep conversationalists, I was reading A Short History of Nearly Everything and Im in the dinosaur part (more like the part where they excavated the dinosaurs). So not only did I learn that Isaac Newton was weird but that surveyors and geologists were seriously cutthroat.

Dear grammar nazis, my verb tenses dont match. I know this. And I didnt capitalize Grammar Nazi. Now what?

Forgiveness via Cobb County Government

I owed like $30 and some change for not returning an encyclopedia of philosophy to my local library branch.
Apparently $0.15 a day racks up. Literally and figuratively.
So I asked to speak to the head of the library to talk about this fine. And I got this guy with a speech impediment. He gave me a mild tongue lashing and I smiled and nodded and took his rebuking with the puppy dog eyes the good Lord gave me. And then he kept talking some more and I thought, "well Im certainly paying back the universe because this guy is apparently lonely and this good deed alone is worth 50 in nice dollars." Yeah, something like that.
So 5 minutes spent with this guy saved me $30. Over an hour, that would have been a saving of $360.
The establishment cant bring me down. The Man aint got nothing over Cobb County Central Library.

Well, I took out two books and put an alarm in my phone for when I need to return them so I wont rack up a library fine of 5 bazillion dollars.

I got Lucky Jim and A Short History of Nearly Everything.

I got Lucky Jim because of these two parts

Dixon pretended to himself that he'd pick up his professor round the waist, squeeze the furry grey-blue waistcoat against him to expel the breath, run heavily with him up the steps, along the corridor to the Staff Cloakroom, and plunge the too-small feet in their capless shoes into a lavatory basin, pulling the plug once, twice, and again, stuffing the mouth with toilet paper.

Amis detailing a hangover

Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again.

A Short History of Nearly Everything is exceptionally hard to put down. I only planned on reading one chapter last night and I ended up reading four. I mean, why stop at singularity when you can read about supernovas! Its really easy to read layman wise because theres no calculus in it. Calculus will definitely make a book go from hey this doesnt suck to hey this kinda sucks in 2.0 * 10^-34 seconds.

Y'herd?