Twitter

I don't really get it. I mean I do- but really? This is like the 21st century Version of IM. Been there- why would I want the whole world to know what I am doing at any hour of the day. Do I want everyone to know I am playing solitaire at work, or worse...

It is like an open forum IM post with the world. It's an insta-blog. An insta-blog with shitty servers that constantly crash. Granted I do like reading Rainn Wilson's posts- man that guy has nothing but time it seems to come up with hilarity. And Dr.tiki. If you don't know who either of those individuals are. Shame.... SHAME ON YOU.

This, however, has not stopped me from opening up an account, and one for the MuShoe- so the whole world can read our tweets about shoes.

Levar Burton is in on the action. AKA awesomeness. And I thought about following Brent Spiner's tweets- but after reading a few, I decided that is a mentality I don't want to contaminate my bright sunny days. I can't tell if he is joking. If you don't know who that is, don't bother, it'll just embarrass me.

Man I do love their graphics however- genius- my favorite of the server crap out ones is a bunch of blue birds helping a whale fly. too cute- I want a t-shirt of it.

This is what I got when I tried to Follow Jermain Clement of Flight of the Conchords. If you don't know there stuff- I highly suggest you youtube it. I'll post a few of my faves of theirs soon.

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For the Love of Dogs

Because I love doggies.....

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/30088069?GT1=43001

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It's that time of the year again

And what time of the year is that?

The "almost" summertime which means Summer of Alana is about to begin again.

The time of the year that when I have down time and try to post here about the hilarity of things going on in my neck of the woods- wherever that may happen to be at the moment. I will actually make a goal of trying to post every day to keep all you actual working stiffs entertained.

So Welcome!

We'll see what gets my attention later to write about!

currently I am eating grapes that were much too close to the freezer part of the mini fridge in the back of the store, and wondering if it should be a "champagne friday"?

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Lions and Bears, and Killer Whales! oh my!

It's been months, I know. I have been busy at the store, but I will try to get this up and going again, so I can tell you all kinds of fantastical things that are going on in my life, and hilarity that surrounds me on a daily basis.

Plans for the weekend:

80's Party, God my getup is good, get ready for pictures next week.

But this I found interesting today as I was driving the 5 minutes to work and listening to NPR:

K7, aka Lummi, the Oldest Killer whale (probably in existance) is reparorted missing from K pod. She is the Matriarch. Orcas are kind of like Elephants in that way, the Alpha Female basically is their wealth of collected knowledge. Orcas aren't technically reported as dead until they have been missing a year, but for a matriarch to be missing is unusual. What is CRAZY about this particular whale is how old she was.

Take a guess.

98. You heard me. A 98 year old gammy whale. DAMN. She saw WWI subs- now that's old. I had no idea they lived that long. According to the Friday Harbor Whale research Center, old is usually 50, but I guess a lot of calves die early so that brings the ratio down.

Another fun factiod about our whales. The local Puget Sound pods only eat salmon and fish... not so killer. But those crazies who come up from Cali, they will eat your babies, provided you dress your baby up like a seal and flap around in freezing waters. We all know babies are delicious, but they take it to a new level.

I found this article in the Vancouver Sun about Lummi

They like to hang out by San Juan. Who can blame 'em? They are cute too.

We were up there looking for them on this day, and almost went to Pender, buy they were just out of reach ://www.whaleresearch.com/thecenter/2008_Encounter_028.html

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Italian Cars

It's been awhile, sorry about that. actually its been a whole season- but hey, whatareyagonna do. I am in love with italy, and that is why the background of my header, atleast for the next few days, til i find something more inspiring is the Lamborghini Murcielago. I love this car. granted it probably only gets 11 miles to the gallon- but man, like most things italian, it is real good looking and has a personality.

that's it for now. But check out some new links I am adding, like Slow Food. Good stuff.

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When Elephants Fly

For those of you who haven't seen this already. It is pretty awesome. I can't draw an elephant or myself that well. Here's to Dumbo!!!!
In tribute as sung by Three Crows (Disney was aweful with racial slurs in the early 20th Cen.- don't get me started):

I saw a peanut stand, heard a rubber band,
I saw a needle that winked its eye.
But I think I will have seen everything....

When I see an elephant fly.

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More Science and Technology

As a note to yesterday's post, apparently it takes much more energy to create radio waves than the energy produced by the output of breaking apart the molecules. Tim did some research on this the other day and it seems that ever five to ten years or so, this idea comes up, as a means to get people excited about the prospect of clean energy but in actuality it is very very far from anything useful. Too bad- I was excited.

Okay So I am actually watching it right now on the Sundance channel but this is also an interesting hypothesis. Apparently this is relatively known about in the scientific community, but I had absolutely no idea- and because I didn't know, maybe you don't either- so let enlightenment ensue.

There are several theories as to the emergence of HIV/AIDS in Africa- this is one I have never heard, but the evidence put forward is fairly substantial if not conclusive. I don't think it is fair to blame the people about which I am going to write about for the emergence of HIV/AIDS, but it seems a much more plausible conclusion as to HIV emergence than the cut Hunter theory (which i believe is that a hunter had an open wound and killed an infected chimp this contracting the virus).

This documentary called The Origin of AIDS, and a book by the title of RIVER- by Edward Hooper (a journalist) and Bill Hamilton (one of the leading evolutionary scientists since Darwin) claims that HIV/AIDS basically was introduced to human populations through the creation of live-virus oral Polio Vaccines administered in the Belgian Congo circa 1956-1960.

The virus was created by creating tissue cultures from chimpanzee organs (don't get me started on the animal rights abuses shown in the lab videos- i understand medical research requires these types of experiments, but hey- at least kill them before you dissect the poor bastards), mainly kidneys. Now normally and it is claimed that Chimps do nothing in terms of telling scientists about polio vaccine effectiveness (no idea why), normally they use Macacs and Rhesus monkeys- but these Belgian scientists used Chimp tissue because it regenerates faster than that of the lower monkey orders.

Okay basically what happened is in the creation of the Live oral polio vaccine there were 'several', repeat several unknown things (don't remember the word they used- but basically there were other present viruses in the vaccination- like a Macac encephalitis or something)-- My mom by the way was watching this with me and remembers have to take this oral vaccine-- creepy. One of those unknown strains seems to have been HIV-1 (the monkey type) and the first documented outbreaks of HIV/AIDS in the Congo correspond to where this specific (there were several varieties) vaccine was administered. really really creepy.

No samples of the live virus are currently around because they were all used at the time so there is no recourse to back track and test said oral live virus- and even if there was one sample stashed away at the Swedish Virus Lab place that keeps a medical library of these things- perhaps not all samples would have been contaminated. Nonetheless, it is an interesting notion- and to me seems much more probably that HIV/AIDS was introduced to human population by human error and bad medical research practices than other avenues--- many other things have also come into existence this way.

This theory was openly challenged by the Royal Society in 2000, but what struck me most about that discourse was the royal society's unwillingness to be fair about open ideas. It shouldn't be guilty until proven innocent, it should be a hypothesis until ABSOLUTELY proven otherwise- until it can be full-proof this is a theory that must remain in the public sphere.

Depressing, I know, but interesting. I had no idea this was even something that was debated about in the Scientific community. now you know.

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