It's that time of year again. Everybody needs extreme pumpkins. Everybody.

Also spied yesterday (on the way to said 80th birthday party)... the 38th Church of Christ, Scientist. That might be a good band name, too!

A good band name heard last night at the 80th birthday party of Susan's grandma:

One Chicken Taco

What I hate about the television show "Friends"

Ross is supposedly a Ph.D. paleontologist, but is portrayed as a simpering idiot. I know a fair number of grad students who simper, but getting a Ph.D. is hard! Mostly, idiots find it even more difficult to manage than competent people.

From a review by Justice Antonin Scalia of some crazy book, a nifty phrase:
deus ex hypothesi
A funny twist on the old favorite literary device, deus ex machina.

Via geekpress, Top 10 Things Likely to be Overheard by Klingon Programmers. My favorite is #7:

What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.

Steve Jobs looks to be throwing a gang sign.

Can anybody explain why multi-millionaires even bother playing the lottery?

Further proof that Tom DeLay is creepy. What, did someone tell him to say "cheese"?

My talk went good! I don't think that I put my foot too deeply into my gullet, and people actually showed up for my talk, rather than leaving in disgust when they heard my name. Folks were interested, and asked questions and everything.

Bonus crazy-town? John L. Hall, one of the winners of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics, came in just before my talk- the one before mine- and stayed to listen to me!!!

Everybody think good thoughts for Tom today around 5:30pm, when he'll be giving his presentation at the Optical Society of America conference. I know he'll be awesome, but additional good vibes never hurt!

So, um, our prom was at the Merlin Armory my junior year and the Flower Building at the fairgrounds my senior year. This sort of extravagance (not to mention the accompanying debauchery) is insane. And at a Roman Catholic school, no less!

Whoa. This is really crazy and cool. Some guy (apparently one with waaaaaaay too much time on his hands) built a replica of the Sears Tower out of Jenga blocks.

THIRTY-NINE QUESTIONS FOR CHARLIE DANIELS UPON HEARING "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" for the First Time in 25 Years.

Whoa! Tiny pictures on microchips. Some of these are really crazy. (via geekpress)

Mrrrrehhgh!

Oh good gravy. If I ever decide that becoming a broodmare sounds like a good idea, somebody promise they will shoot me. Please?

So I normally don't respond to these weird little survey thingies. However, Susan decided to make me thought I'd have fun with it, so I guess I'd better... Here's the deal: go to Google's image search, and search for the name of the town you grew up in, the town you live in now, your name, your maternal grandmother's name, your favorite food, favorite drink, favorite smell, and favorite song, posting the results.

Here we go

So, Middle Earth (or at least the Shire) was really in Indonesia? Well go figure.

Oh my god! A substitute teacher mistook a low-insulin alarm on an insulin pump for a cell phone and tore it out of a student!

Gmail addresses untaken (as of this writing):
man.from.nantuckett@gmail.com
williamshakespearester@gmail.com
young.goodman.brown@gmail.com
necrophiliac.4.ever@gmail.com
sex.lube@gmail.com
down.the.eustacian.tubes@gmail.com
molester.stache@gmail.com
numbed.nuts@gmail.com
loop.of.henle@gmail.com
nutria.madness@gmail.com
droll.diatom.mover@gmail.com (an anagram for I am Lord Voldemort)

Ahh... the city:

Who in their right mind would want to live here? Granted, some of this is smoke from those fires, but still...yech.

Also from over the pond - Welsh Scrabble. 'n fawr cellwair!

Rolicking good fun at the Last Supper? Those wacky Irish...

Those crazy kids nowadays with their crazy leetspeak. This "language" has become pervasive enough now that I originally thought this billboard was either advertising Alaskan beauty or suggesting Alaska was a bawdy state. But no, not so much...

Joining the ranks of celebs who give their children strange names: Nick Cage

So I got in my first car accident. A mean old SUV(of course) went to change lanes, and whoops! I was there. I had to slam on my brakes and I swerved out of control and hit the curb. I came out of it all with a flat tire, and no licensce plate of the jack ass that wasn't paying attention. It's all right, we needed new tires anyway.

I was sitting around watching TV for a while today. On the Discovery channel they were playing a program called something like "When Surgical Tools Get Left Behind," and it was HORRIFYING!!! People with 14" x 2" stainless steel retractors left. In. Their. Abdomen. Gah. I have to go wash my eyes.

Check out the Perry Bible Fellowship. It is freaking hilarious:

A fun article likening NYC to ancient Rome.