Author: Aaron Weber

She Blinded me with Science

Today I went to work early so I could finish things up by five, so I could get out to Charlestown by six for the exciting evening I had planned: participating in an EEG/MEG scanning study. Yes, the whole mad scientist electrode cap and all.

It actually was like some sort of erotic sci-fi nightmare: after hours on a weekend at a huge medical research lab, uncomfortable equipment, two incredibly beautiful female scientists, one American and one Russian. Sadly, we all conducted ourselves very professionally.

For the experiment, I was supposed to look at words that flashed on a screen in pairs, and tell if they sounded the same by pushing two buttons. The idea was to understand brain wave activity in children and adults with and without learning disabilities. I was supposed to be in the non-disabled group, but for the first group of questions, I had the buttons backwards, and so I got nearly every one wrong. It reminded me of the time I was in the fifth grade, and I messed up on one of those test forms where you have to fill in all those little bubbles. I filled in the wrong section or was off by one row, and was crushed to find that I had scored in the fourth percentile.

By the end of it, my back and neck hurt and my hair was full of gritty electrode goop, and I was hungry because I’d skipped dinner. Still, I was kinda reluctant to leave. Maybe it’s the weather, but my experimentors had this completely mesmerizing combination of brains, beauty, and complicated electronic equipment that requires the application of conductive gel.

Clever Title

Been very busy preparing slides for Zee Germans. But here is some arbitrary linkage to tide you over:
The Guardian, ever the right-thinking editorialist, has two articles on the decline and fall of the West: Scientific Illiteracy is widespread, and of course superstition and mumbo-jumbo are encroaching. The next thing you know, we’ll have faith-healer MDs.

Fortunately, we can laugh: at other people’s fashion and of course at their drunken shenanigans.

Two other neat things: Guardian Media is just media news. And a study on depression and biology which I haven’t read all the way through but which looks interesting.

Today’s Word is Peevish

Media Stupidity: A new study released today confirmed viewing of hardcore pornography was widespread among teenagers and regarded as normal behaviour, especially by boys. I am peeved by alarmism at the fact that lots of boys like to ogle naked ladies. Also, I get shirty whenever I see the word “normal” used to mean “healthy” or “acceptable.”

I am petulant this evening as I have discovered, yet again, that I am not actually a home-decor whiz. I tried to nail a shelf to the wall, but that didn’t work very well. So I reinforced the nails with glue. Result: lots of glue and nails on my wall. Not a lot of shelf.

Oh yes

I have rediscovered In Passing…, the diary of overheard tidbits.

Who has twins and gives them both the same name?”
“Well, we were put up for adoption separately.”
“Oh. I. Oh. I’m sorry — I didn’t mean — Oh.”

But mostly I’m drunk and shopping for furniture online. I found the perfect couch. It’s thousands of dollars and will require the purchase of a new house and the acquisition of a new personality but it’s perfect. The appreciation for things really improves when my mind is degraded. My mother told me, while I was home for easter, about her post-surgery morphine literature experience. Dad brought her books and she read them and each one was the Greatest Novel Ever. She has no recollection of the titles, authors, or subjects, but let me tell you, it was beautiful.

And so, the sweet, sweet oblivion before waking up and doing it all over again.

Rock Land

Went to see The Pilot Light over at The Middle East nightclub tonight. I showed up at a quarter to nine, since they went on around nine-ish, and there was a line to get in. Someone asked me where the will-call ticketing booth was. The crowd was for The Anniversary, which went on at eleven thirty-ish. They had a southern kind of feel, like an ironic Skynyrd cover. The drummer had a mullet and a handlebar mustache. They went on at eleven thirty and amused me for all of twenty minutes, at which point I decided to take out my ear plugs and go home.

During the show, I was gratified to catch some guy in a Get Your War On shirt checking me out. Not as gratifying as it would have been had I managed to catch the eye of any of the well-coiffed indie-rock girls in the audience, who were for the most part way way way out of my league. Or undergraduates. Or both.

But hey, I take what I can get. It’s only Monday and it’s been a long week already, and hearing some loud music and drinking cheap whiskey from a plastic cup was just what I needed. It’s been a long night, too, and I’m sitting at home eating chocolate-covered almonds and hoping that this girl I know will come on AIM and talk to me, but that’s not likely to happen any before my battery runs out, figuratively or literally.

And so to bed.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

We’ve got a world of obvious stupidity and blunders today. First up, a new study reveals that… a if kids think their ability is innate, they won’t try as hard. As Jack Handey says, “When you ask a kid a question, and they get the right answer, I think you should tell them it was a lucky guess. That way, they get a good, lucky feeling.”

From the industry that brought you the crispy snacks with an incredibly boring toy surprise inside, the unsurprising news that sugar and corn syrup manufacturers think sugar is not bad for you. Of course they do. Now to see if the WHO can stand up to them and state the obvious fact that the sugar industry ought not to meddle in the affairs of international health organizations.

My comment on sugar is always that price of sugar in the US is artificially high, partly because of the longstanding foolishness that is the Cuba embargo, but mostly due to market-distorting corn subsidies. Once we implement some free trade in this country, we’ll move from high-fructose corn syrup back to sugar. Some argue that corn syrup is worse for you, but it’s a dubious, small, and off-topic distinction.

To round out a newsday of blaring inevitabilities, Our Leader is up to his old strategery, quietly ignoring or crushing the will of the vast majority of US citizens: putting toxins in our water, and of course making sure those hop-head cancer victims keep on suffering.

What kind of person wants to stop a cancer victim from easing nausea and cramps, or even god forbid getting a little high? Ashcroft, of course, who has a sort of puritanical zeal I haven’t seen since I went to see a high school production of The Crucible. He really does fit the cookie-cutter definition of puritan: “terrified by the idea that someone, somewhere, is having fun.” Besides, illness is punishment from Gawd! You know what causes cancer and AIDS, right? SIN! I can’t wait for the old fuck to get bowel cancer. I can’t wait to hear that the chemotherapy made him vomit until he ruptured his diaphragm and tore his esophagus, that he died from massive internal bleeding and suffocation as the necrotic growth from his bedsores spread, suppurating, across his atrophied pudenda.

That was kind of mean. On the other hand, it consists of statements of opinion and/or true fact, so although it violates the rules of taste and prudence, it is not actually libel.

Home Again

Spent the weekend back home in Charlottesville, VA. The trees and grass and flowers had budded but most were still tinged with the gold of immature shoots. The clouds seemed to filter out all the blue light, as well, and the entire world was preternaturally green. I’d forgotten how much concrete and asphalt surrounds me up here.

We went out to visit my uncle and his new litter of puppies. Got one, two good pix of Mom with them, and one in which I manage to avoid looking too goofy. Plus a rival for the throne of silly captioning currently occupied by Melvin the Beagle. And of course one plain old incredibly cute puppy on incredibly green grass.

I should also note that David, shown here manicuring the dogs, has had significant success as both breeder and judge of bull terriers, and in addition runs a successful small business. He drives a Mini Cooper S, and is a charming and erudite conversationalist. Also, despite his shocking resemblance to the Molson Man, he is single.