My wife's reading A Confederacy of Dunces and I'm reading Memoir From Antproof Case. Both books feature cranky, anti-social, somewhat eccentric (ahem) protagonists who never tire of making hilariously over-the-top and stinging criticisms of people around them and humanity in general.

Well, thanks to the little "visitors in the last 24 hours" stuff at the bottom of this page, I just happened upon Another Dadgum Stinking Blog, and I found a post entitled "Please Get Your Huge Butt Out Of My Face" . Here's an excerpt:

Today's lunch was yet another case in point. The selection of humans that sat at this table was a group of loud-mouthed females, cackling and carrying on like a pack of hens. One reeked of perfume and one had a persistent cough - and one couldn't decide if she wanted to sit or stand. This female human was, of course, sitting (or, supposed to be sitting) in the chair closest to me. This meant that every time she stood up, her massive buttocks were just a couple dozen inches from my face and my food.

How can a person be expected to eat with such flagrant displacement of one's personal space? Anything could have happened while she stood there, portly cheeks facing my head. Anything! The Lord in Heaven only knows where her butt has been all day, when is was last lathered-up, and how badly it needs some Bactine or other medicinal disinfectant. And come on: a couple of layers of clothing (Lord, please let there have been at least two layers) is no protection for non-solid emissions, we all know that.

Which is not to say Maury (who wrote the above passage and whom I don't know but am sure is a fine person) is personally in any way like the ridiculous Ignatius Reilly or the nameless coffee-phobic narrator of Memoir..., only that the passage above wouldn't be out of place in either book (both of which you should run out and buy, this very instant!).

When you're in the mood to hear how all your favorite bands suck, would you rather hear it like this:

• Albini, Steve. Self-consciously difficult ...
• Alt.country. Self-righteous rock-country ...
• Axe. .Imbecilic term ...
• Axelrod, David.. Snob-exhumed purveyor ...
• Bacharach, Burt.. Rehabilitated songwriter ...
• Bambaataa, Afrika.. Zulu-centric OLD-SCHOOL Bronx DJ ...
• Big Star.. Anglophilic early-'70s American combo ...
• Bingenheimer, Rodney.. Gnomish L.A. scenester...
• etc...

Or like this:

• Enya reminds me of the feeling of pissing in your pants. Its all warm and nice, but at the same time it's fucking disgusting on so many levels.
• If you're a fan of getting into fat girls' pants, Dave Matthews Band CDs are the greatest invention since a ham on a fishing pole.
• (Bjork) I don't even think she's a human. People (99% girls, the occasional effeminate man) like to insist that she's cute, but if you ask me she's s freaky little elf who should be dissected in some government laboratory.
• Cocteau Twins: writing lyrics is easier when you just fucking make up words, huh? Oh and writing music is a LOT easier when all of your songs sound exactly fucking the same. This band had it made, they could just sit back and relax. Too bad nobody liked them, or their plan would have been perfect.

?

I prefer the latter.

Thanks to my new friend, Mr Plantar Fasciitis, I haven't been running since July. I went to a doctor in August and she gave me some monster anti-inflammatory pills. I took them and nothing changed. So, I started going to a physical therapist; he gave me some foam shoe inserts to try to rebalance my right foot, and gave me a bunch of stretches to do. Still not better. All in all, I'd say negative progress. While it never hurt all the time, it hurts more often, and worse, now than it did when I stopped running.

I question the Intelligence of the Designer.

In an article discussing the origin and spread of Ebola, Tara Smith at Aetiology drops some numbers:

Overall, less than 2000 known human infections and 1100 deaths have resulted from Ebola since its discovery in 1976. That's an average of 38 deaths worldwide per year over the last 29 years. Compare that to a virus such as influenza, which kills 36,000 every year in the United States alone. Or even a fairly common microbe like E. coli, which causes thousands of deaths each year due to bacterial sepsis. Worse, none of these even come close to malaria, which causes over 200 deaths worldwide every hour.

That's not to say Ebola is something we should ignore, since it appears Ebola is just starting to spread, and the way it kills is pretty awful. So, it's worth paying attention to. But it did make me think "Wow, malaria sounds like something that we should get to work on."

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So, i'm munching on a piece of Orbit spearmint gum, and I think to myself, "hey, what's this unusual flavor I'm tasting ?" It wasn't just spearmint, it was something a little exotic, a little unusual, but something I know I've had before - and very distinct. Then it hit me... tumeric. Bitter, astringent, somewhat minty, a primary ingredient in curry, tumeric makes curries yellow, too.

I assume it's a trick of two or more other flavors combining to resemble tumeric, because I couldn't find many references to tumeric being used as a flavoring in candy, though it's widely used as a coloring (probably not in this white gum). The only tumeric-flavored candy I found was in this blog post about a brown sugar and turmeric candy called "Ucon Kuro Tou".

Maybe I'm imagining things.

Thag confronts a dilemma: Thag not want get tattoo!

Here's a simple and attractive answer, from Circadiana:

...sleep makes you sit still and be quiet at times when it is dangerous to move around and there is nothing else important to do.

None of that recharging mental batteries stuff (insects, which have "the mentative power of a flashlight", sleep); none of that recharging physical batteries stuff (lazy people need as much sleep as atheltic people). Nope, sleep might have developed as nature's way of telling our ancestors to sit (lie) down and shut up. For an extreme example, think of hibernation - no need for bears to be out running around all winter long - just sleep through it! The fact that critters now do all kinds of other things during sleep is just because nature took advantage of the down time sleep brought to perform a little maintenance.

Hooray for biology.