Things I Learned Reading SciBlogs

1) If you’re not a physicist, don’t use the word "quantum." You can’t just spang down a “quantum” in front of something roundly disproved and thereby render it scientific; I don’t care what Deepak Chopra says.

2) Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle very probably does not mean what you think it means.

3) Your rejection of the evidence does not necessarily constitute a “paradigm shift.”

4) There’s a word for “complimentary” or “alternative” medicine that has been proven to work. That word is “medicine.”

5) There are not always two equally valid sides to an argument. Sometimes one side is wrong. Sometimes the majority is wrong. Sometimes it isn't. You may never know if you don't check your source's sources.

6) The fact that someone is rude to you or gets angry at you doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong, or even that they suspect that, somewhere deep inside, they might be wrong. Sometimes they're just pissed at you because you're arguing poorly.

7) Vaccines do not cause autism. The fact that we are not yet sure what does cause autism in no way invalidates this fact.

Ten Favorite Anagrams of My Name

(What do we want?) Cleaner, junkier owls!
(Is this a Ren Faire?) Ace jerkins we unroll
(How can I help Batman?) Arsenic: Joker unwell
(Why am I so afraid of them?) A clown: sleek injurer
(Would I make a good pirate?) A crew jollier sunken
(Should I contact my first mother again?) A wreck reunion jells 
(How can I save the whales?) A jounce renews krill
(Who was that lady I saw you with last night?) A conjurer Lisle knew
(What do I need to survive the magical lagoon?) A runic jewel snorkel
(Who knew what went wrong in the orchestra pit?) A cello's injurer knew

Got'em here:

http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html


Avatar-matching bonus anagram:
(MY GLASSES!! I can't tat a thing without them. [crunch]) Lacework injure lens

Cool Things I Found Because I Look Down When I Walk

1) An eight-pound chunk of quartz rock
2) Thirty bucks
3) A purple-throated fruit crow’s feather
4) A purse I was able to return to its owner
5) A wallet ditto
6) A near-complete dog skeleton
7) A big red fake flower I wore on my motorcycle jacket for years
8) A dawn snake shed, soaked with dew, that still reeked of snake
9) Bout a dozen empty songbird semi-eggshells
10) Several live copperheads, which is part of the reason I look down.

There is also something to be said for looking up when one walks, or so I hear. 

Ten Very Bad Movies I Love

(chosen at whim and presented in no particular order)

The Alligator People
El Topo
Untamed Youth
The Dragon Lives Again
She-Devils On Wheels
Battlefield Earth
The Giant Claw
Night of the Lepus
Zardoz
The Devil's Rain

If someone added an item or items in the comments, I would be able to see more entertaining but bad movies. This would make me very happy.

Answering a stupid question

The question, found on a site about creating characters for fiction, is "Does he or she like to laugh?"

I....Why would anyone not like to laugh?

• "My ribs are fucking broken! Ow. Shit. Ow."
• "I don’t like how it makes me look. Someone took a picture once where I was laughing and my mouth was wide open and I had all these wrinkles. Nothing’s that funny."
• "My gods forbid it."
• "It’s not done in my family. I was ten before I knew other people don’t think it's the equivalent of pissing on the carpet."
• "The doctors say if I ever laugh even once I shall probably die."
• "The last time I laughed something happened. There was a small child involved. I don’t want to talk about it. Right now I’m not even allowed to."
• "My father was a clown. He drank and he was always 'practicing his material.' He’s been gone ten years and I can still hear him: C’mon! That was funny, Boy, laugh!"

"Seven Things that Make a Library Good"

(don't remember where I got this prompt)

• The smell
• The secret room in back where, if you know somebody, they let you stash other peoples’ horrid children.
• The ghostly procession of Civil War soldiers that rides through every public library east of the Mississippi each Wednesday at 2 a.m.
• They let me sleep there.
• They way the poetry books swoon out of the cases if they think you might pick them up and read them.
• The basement. If you joined your local Friends of the Library you might find out what I’m talking about.
• An adult-sized ball pit helps.

"Ten Things I've Done That I Wish I Hadn't"

(prompt from Creativity Portal's Imagination Prompt Generator)

--Invaded Paraguay. I don’t have an army! What was I thinking? Stupid, stupid.
--Crystal meth
--Let myself be crowned Queen of the Gypsies. Ah, but it was sweet while it lasted.
--Robbed the Danville train
--That bukkake film. I was neither young nor hungry.
--Joined MENSA. We are such a pack of insufferable jerks.
--Eaten two yards of plow rein on a bet. The doctors are sure I’ll never pass the buckle, but they take a series of unpleasant X-rays every year to be sure, and air travel isn’t worth the trouble anymore.
--Watched Eraserhead on acid
--Dropped a goat off the frathouse roof. Nobody will believe it was already dead.
--Gotten tattooed. 4-EVAH is a lot longer than I thought.