Ladies Holloween Costume Ideas

You can use these if you want, but I want photographic proof of the costume so I can link to it.

Sexy William Shatner
Sexy Cabbage Patch Kid
Sexy Burt/Ernie
Sexy Museum Docent
Sexy Sanitation Worker
Sexy Governor Jan Brewer
Sexy Predator
Sexy Coma Patient
Sexy Buddhist Monk
Sexy Exterminator
Sexy LOL cat

I will add more if I can think of 'em!!

Seafood Watch

Click this link to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's page for Seafood Recommendation guides.

Fish and other seafood will be listed in these categories:


Best Choices: Seafood in this category is abundant, well-managed and caught or farmed in environmentally friendly ways.

Good Alternatives: These items are an option, but there are concerns with how they're caught or farmed-or with the health of their habitat due to other human impacts.

Avoid: Take a pass on these items for now. They are caught or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment.

The Super Green List: A list of wild and farmed seafood that’s healthy for people and the oceans.

From the Seafood Watch site, you can download regional or nation guides for seafood choices or download applications for your mobile device.


Canadians!!  Check here!!   Sustainable Seafood.

International guides:
WWF Sustainable Seafood:  Consumer guides.

• Belgium seafood guide
  (French PDF)
• Belgium seafood guide
  (Dutch, PDF)
• Denmark seafood guide
  (Danish, PDF; Danish, website)
• Finland seafood guide
  (Finnish, PDF)
• France seafood guide
  (French, PDF)
• Germany seafood guide
  (German, PDF)
• Hong Kong seafood guide 
  (English & Chinese, PDF)
• Indonesia
  Seafood guide
• Italian seafood guide
  (Italian, PDF)
• Netherlands seafood guide
  (Dutch, PDF)
• Norway seafood guide
  (Norwegian, PDF)
• Poland seafood guide
  (Polish, PDF)
• Singapore seafood guide
• Spain seafood guide
  (Catalan, PDF and Spanish, PDF and website: Guía de consumo responsable de pescado)
• South Africa
  Sustainable seafood initiative
• Sweden seafood guide
  (Swedish, PDF)
• Switzerland seafood guide
  German online version or PDF version
  French online version or PDF version
  Italian online version or PDF version

Poor little guys...

Bunny Emergency.

Please visit the Tranquility Trail Animal Sanctuary website and help them with a donation if you can!!!
http://www.tranquilitytrail.org/Emergency_Bunny_Rescue.html

From their website:

TTAS was contacted about a backyard situation out of control in Phoenix. We have spent the last two days catching, sexing and separating the bunnies. We are up to 100 bunnies with many still in burrows and numerous pregnant females. Our detailed plan to get the situation under control and what supplies/volunteers will follow. We have set-up an Emergency Rescue Fund that will be used exclusively for this rescue operation. Funds will be used for medical treatment and spay/neuters. We estimate the cost for this portion of the operation to be $5000-$7000. If you would like to make a donation, please visit http://www.tranquilitytrail.org/Donation_Center.html and note Emergency Rescue Fund.

We've also compiled a list of things that we need to make this rescue a success.  Items can be dropped off at the sanctuary at any time during business hours.  Feel free to call us if you come across anything that may be useful to our rescue mission.

Emergency Rescue List of Needed Supplies
 
Paper towels

White vinegar

Syringes for medication

Disposable surgical gowns and booties

Mobile Air Conditioning Units and Fans

X-pens

Litter – Carefresh, Yesterday’s News or Wood Stove Pellets

Hay/Food

Chicken wire

Pavers or bricks

Vegetables for nursing mothers

Gift card for hardware stores, grocery stores, Costco, Staples, gas stations

Copy paper

Space – empty offices, warehouses, houses for temporary housing

Spay/neuter services

Towels and blankets

Toys for the bunnies

Monetary donations

Photo printer

Camcorder for documentation

Large Rubbermaid type storage containers

Large storage shed or container for bales of hay

Spray bottles


Please feel free to contact us at: (480) 406-7301 or email: info@tranquilitytrail.org with any questions.

International Wildlife Museum in Tucson

Hooray stuffed and mounted dead things!

We just got back from the International Wildlife Museum in Tucson, as mentioned in the title, and it was even better than I remembered it as a child.  I was only about eight or nine years old when we went, but twenty some years later I wanted to go again.

Mostly, I just remembered "Goat Mountain"...

There's also a very horrifying room filled with heads.  Hundreds of heads.

(Note broken tail on the lioness in foreground.  At least she hasn't just been tossed away.  I think she's out in front for the kids to pet.)

I just can't resist these places.

Here's some more pictures!!

Demon Deer!!!! ( or elk,  I wasn't paying attention.)

Birds of Paradise.

It's only $7 per adult!  There are also many beautiful insect displays with mounted butterflies, moths, beetles and stick bugs.

So, if for some reason you ever end up in Tucson, you have to go.  That's an order.

Nova Musical Minds on PBS

If you have any interest in music or the human mind you HAVE to see this episode of Nova.  Nova is an amazing science show on PBS, and I hope you already know about it.

This episode deals with how music effects the brain.  Some of the stories featured include an autistic man who can play back any piece of music he's heard only once, how drumming helps give one man relief from the tics of his Tourette's syndrome temporarily, and how one man developed the urge to take up classical piano after being struck by lightning.

There is also a segment devoted to the Beth Abraham hospital's musical treatments.  Music sessions have shown that some people in a catatonic state can dance and play musical instruments even though they can't walk or talk.  Moby is now directly involved in their therapy program.

Also in the program, fMRI images of people listening to music compared to images of them imagining the music.   The host also climbs into the maching to listen to two pieces of music including Bach (that he loves) and Beethoven (that he does not care for) to let the doctors see how his brain reacts. 

Anyway, here's the link to the show.  Musical Minds.

Musical Minds homepage.

Make sure you check out the books he's authored.

Book recommendation number two

Two of my favorite things are history books and natural history museums.  I like creepy, old dead things with informative placards and bad lighting.  If you can kinda smell the weirdness, that's even better.  I finally got to go to The Field Museum in Chicago a few years back.  Awesome.

(Photos are from The Field Museum Website)

My want to visit was sparked by the great book Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums, by Stephen T. Asma.

From back cover:  "Asma takes us on a wide-ranging tour of natural history museums in New York and Chicago, London and Paris, interviewing curators, scientists, and exhibit designers, and providing a wealth of fascinating observations. We learn how the first museums were little more than high-toned side shows, with such garish exhibits as the pickled head of Peter the Great's lover. In contrast, today's museums are hot-beds of serious science, funding major research in such fields as anthropology and archaeology."

 The title of the first chapter is "Flesh-eating Beetles and Secret Art of Taxidermy" and in it he describes how pieces are prepared for storage and exhibition by letting beetles eat all the leftover meat, etc. from the bones of animals.  And who doesn't want to read about taxidermy?

(Photo taken in Hunterian Museum in London from Atlas Obscura website.  Click on the link if you love this kind of stuff)

Other chapters describe the evolution of taxonomy.  When "cabinets of curiosity" (similar to above, but creepier) ruled the scene, specimens were organized by completely different categories than they are now.  So, all the livers were together in one cabinet, all the beaks in another. And, yes, there were penis cabinets and eyeball cabinets, too.

A few other museums mentioned in the book:

American Museum of Natural History

Britains Museum of Natural History

Franklin Institute Science Museum
Grande Galerie de l’Evolution at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to visit the Galerie d'anatomie comparee in Paris anytime soon.

(Infant skeletons.  Photo from above link)

I like my new cup...

It all started when our coffee shop closed.  We didn't own it, so not that kind of "our," but we frequented the establishment almost every day.  So, anyway...

The coffee shop closes, leaving me addicted to my iced mochas with nobody around to sell me their caffeine.  Well, there was a Starbucks, but I ain't made of money.

So we gave in, and got an espresso machine like a couple of fancy pants rich folk.

Now, years later, I finally found a reusable cup I like. 

Copco Eco-First Sierra Tumbler

It's easy to clean, dishwasher safe (thank you), BPA free (if you're into that), has a neato straw thingy that you can stir your drinks with when you're making them, and it's 24 ounces.  Take that stupid other cups that aren't 24 ounces!

The only thing I don't like about them, is that you have to make sure the lid is screwed on just right.  Which seems obvious, but if you're in a hurry and don't do it quite right, your drink will dribble out the threads and get you.  Other than that, the lid seems to have a great seal.

I got mine at BBandB so I could use that coupon they always send out.  The were $7.99 each, which is cheaper than most I've found, but I haven't done a thorough nationwide search.

p.s.--If you aren't into coffee, get yourself some Oregon Chai concentrate, chocolate syrup and milk.   

I figure you don't need pictures of the milk and syrup.  You probably don't need a picture of this either, but it looks good, doesn't it?

Follow the chai instructions, but add a nice glob of chocolate to the cup first thing.  And I mean a glob.  Like keep going 'till it's about a half and inch tall.  Then add the chai and stir.  Then add the milk and stir again.  And then ice.  You need ice, too.  I forgot about that.

Identity Theft Prevention

They're having a big 'shred-a-thon' downtown today to help prevent identity theft.  I guess you bring down all your super personal information and bank statements, etc and they take care of it all for you.

We don't have a shredder.  

We have gerbils.

  Would you go digging through gerbil pee soaked bank statements?  Yeah, me neither.  Plus, it's 'green.'  No electricity required.

Shredding rules and gerbil rules are almost exactly the same:

-no staples or paper clips

-no plastic or metal

-no cd's or other disks

-no ink cartridges

-no toxic materials

-no biological matter

Now, I don't want any little gerbils getting hurt here.  Please use common sense if you decide to employ your rodents as soldiers in the war against identity theft.  Inks can be toxic, especially in large quantities!  Give them a rest between jobs...

As you can see, my little guys don't eat the paper.  They just tear it apart to make a fancy mattress with the bits.

(By the way, they are not devouring each other in this picture.  They just snuggle weird.)

Phoenix finally wins.

http://www.themim.org/


The World's First Global Musical Instrument Museum.

We were there for 2 hours, and only got through parts of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. My back started hurting from being on my feet for so long because it's HUGE.

They have audio headsets that sync up to the displays as you get near them. All you have to do is adjust the volume if you need to. I now know that I enjoy the music of Madagascar.

I met some people at work who said the spent the whole day there. Started at one area, went down and had lunch in the cafe midday, then headed back up for the rest of the world.

Gotta look into a membership because it's awesome and they're not even done with it yet!!

Favorite Breakfast Book

I can't sit without reading something.  Sometimes I want to read while I'm watching TV.  I even like to read while I'm eating.  Right now, my breakfast table book is Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities by Alex Marshall.

It's about the subways, sewers, catacombs, shopping malls and everything else we put underground. You get to visit 12 major cities around the world like:

Moscow (subway, secret subway, tunnels, secret tunnels)
Tokyo (subway, rubble from firebombing)
San Francisco ("Muni" trains, earthquake rubble, ships abandoned during goldrush)
Mexico City (subway, Aztec ruins, depleted aquifer causing city to sink).

Strangely, although the Chicago chapter mentions abandoned freight tunnels (and, yes, the subway), there is no mention of what I imagined to be a fairly extensive system of "pork tubes" servicing the region.

It's an easy and fascinating read, so I recommend you hunt it down for yourself. I found it at a used bookstore, so it won't cost you a bazillion dollars.