Badlands.

Went to the Zoo today.

Took over 100 photos with the new camera, and kept twenty. I have uploaded seventeen for your perusal over on Flickr. Click the adorable Burrowing Owl to go see the rest. Comment here, or there. Or both. Both is good.

My favorites are the owl, the python, and the angry tortoise.

Flood of cute

I am hopped up on Vicodin and sorting through my photos! Here is a visual representation of how I feel. (HINT: WARM AND FUZZY.)













:D I sleep now.

I can has grape now pls?

Tweaker and the Brick went on their first full on playtime excursion today. For those of you who don't know much about them, let me in brief impress upon you what a momumentous occurance this was. when I got them, they had never been outside of the cage, and had never been handled outside of experimentation in class. They had several very bad quirks, such as absolutely refusing to leave the cage voluntarily, obsessing over water, and refusing to eat treats. Because of this, it was impossible to ever interact with them.

I've been trying though. Recently, I've gotten them to enter and leave the cage voluntarily, and since they've learned what treats are positive reinforcement has gotten a lot easier.I decided it was probably time for them to have an official rats play time, so spent about 45 minutes rat proofing my room. This involves removing bad things that they would like to chew on, such as electrical wires or some of my more precious books. I also sealed off of the places under my desk that lead to the back of my computer.

Here are the results of playtime. The toilet paper tube contains red grapes, which they had just been introduced to earlier that day.


"Yo, bro, check out over here!"


"I wuv oo!"


Unfortunately, I didn't think about the trash can when I rat-proofed the room.


And then they found the grapes. Note how the tube moves across the bed-- they kept trying to steal it from each other.


Note where the grape is... (This is The Brick.)


I love his little ratty arms. (Still The Brick.)


"Victolly!"


Here is Tweaker with a sympathy grape.

okay, so camera phones can be occasionally useful...

...such as when you decide your friends need to get a sneak preview of the interior of the new science building. Let us off on a virtual tour of some of the oddities and wonders I came across when we decided it was time to get out of the pouring rain and have some fun.

But first! When we were locking down Thompson, we came across a rather shocking sight. Bossman Prime opened a door to our largest two-story lecture hall, pauses, and goes "Oh my fucking God." (only slightly less amusing than when Partnerman shrieked "CHRIST ON A CRUTCH!" when all five lines of our phone were ringing at him.)

I amble over. "Did they tear shit up?"
"That is a bit of an understatement."

So I enter the room. Behold.


Let's get a replay of that for the fans, shall we?

It was like the construction crew got royally pissed and started flinging the chairs at the lab bench in a rage. (Clearly I have missed my calling.) That pile is as tall as I am, dearies.

Next Bossman Prime figured out why it has been taking so long to get things moved. Apparently the crew is working with a dolly that was formed piecemeal from a seventeenth-century HANDPLOW.


Coincidence? I THINK NOT.


Nice corn pipe, by the way.

Moving on. Next I discovered why some of the biology students chose the major they did:

I honestly believe that the person responsible for that little gem would be escorted out at gunpoint if he ever stepped foot into a Humanities course.

Then we moved on into the new science building, and I started peeking around in all the labs. It's incredible. There's enough lab space in there to have a dedicated and customized lab room for each course. Even the more obscure ones, like Geochemistry. The Animal Phys lab has overhead lamps on tracks that can be moved and directed to provide ultrabright light wherever you need it on the lab bench, which I'm sure will make dissection less difficult on the eyes. Here's a shot of a basic chem lab:

It's got lovely new benches, and look at all that floorspace. We have room to move now! The ringstand poles are built-in, and the new hoods (see back) are LOVELY. I can fit in them. >> There's a ton of shelving for storage, and I believe a dedicated area for everyone to toss their backpacks.

In the human anatomy lab, we came across a lot of hanging models. There's a pun here, but I shall refrain (OR DID I?).

That's Partnerman and Bossman Extreme, by the way.

Here is the spiral staircase that resides in the main entrance of Harned hall. It's, erm...a suspension staircase, and it gives me terrible vertigo.

That disc at the bottom is where the three-story pendulum will be centered. It's so large it takes 16 seconds to do a full "tick."

Hanging in the atrium from the roof is our whale skeleton. My chem lab partner actually hung that himself. How, I wonder to this day, but there it is. You can see the cables for the staircase, too.


In closing, I should like to leave you with two pictures that cause me to question the sanity of every member of the Biology Department.

The label says "200 Proof EtOh- For gun." And it's sitting next to a scanning electron microscope image of a spider's anus and spinnarets.


Those doors are made of wood. Behind it is a two-gallon jug of every common alcohol used in Organic Chemistry.

And there we have it.

Black Hole Sun

Two days ago we left the house to head for the SUB for dinner, only to discover that a storm was moving in quickly. I mean, seriously. We looked behind the house, and there was this black wall of clouds reaching out and devouring the sky. Behind is, it was still blue, but in the time it took me to take this picture the entire parking lot had been covered by the clouds.



"We'd better hurry," Maddo said. And we all agreed, and fled for shelter and food.

Unfortunately, we can't really outrun the wind. By the time we get to Lawrence, the clouds have us surrounded, and are closing in ominously on all sides.



Once we get to the doors of the SUB, it's black as far as the eye can see, except for some light that's shining through on the horizon.



And, randomly, one area of sky that refused to be eaten. Maddo and I saw that, decided we'd seen God, and that He was blue.



We made it in before the rain, but people coming to dinner thirty seconds after us were not so lucky. Everyone else was soaked to the bone.

Shields up!

We had so much fun at Uwajimaya yesterday. I got some wonton wrappers, some red bean curd buns, chicken gyoza, some udon, pocky, gummi, green tea ice cream and candy, and some apple sencha (type of tea). Baron got some spicy tuna sushi but has yet to try it, and Eri got some gummi which, if the living room floor is any indicator, is mostly gone now.

We also had fun in the drink aisle. I got my lychee glass-ball-scary-opening device drink I always like, Eri got a scary melon soda, and Baron got some clear liquid called Pocari Sweat- ion supply drink.

"Maybe if I drink enough ions I'll develop some sort of shield!"- Baron, at 11:50 last night.

But does it WORK? We had to know.

Here's the experimental setup: one glass, one bottle of Pocari Sweat, and one test subject.


And the procedure? Take cup, pour out the strange, clear liquid, and taste it.


"Hmmm, grapefruit," he said. And did not die. I had to know for myself.


I didn't feel all that shielded. If fruit could sweat, tho, holy fuck would it taste like that crap.


Then we made quesadillas, watched Road to El Dorado ("You know that little voice that tells you to quit when you're ahead, Eri? YOU DON'T HAVE ONE."), scared Eri's housemates, watched Heat, and fell asleep far too late.

I fail to see what all the hype about Heat is. It's entertaining, but easily could have been much shorter.

Today we're headed into Seattle with Himi to play around on the waterfront. Wish me luck, because I do have a little voice, and it's telling me I'm going to die.

The Last Two Days: the shortest photo essay ever

Yesterday:
I cut up a lot of peppers. Cohorts found one that looked a bit...satanic. *click for full images*



If that doesn't look like an angry mouth into hell....the angle was a bit bad, but it's gone now, so this is all I got.

Today I received a lovely blood blister while working. Yaaay.


A close-up because I hate you and this has made it sucky to type.

Botanical Gardens: now with 100% more peektures

Here are a few choice shots for your viewing pleasure. (bigger pictures appear on click.)


The Players:

This is me in the English Woodland Garden.


Ian in the Temperate Garden at the Climatron (tm).


I need a tan. >.<;;; Oh, and here's something fun in the Classical French garden. Check out this fountain.





So it was, of course, a perfect photo opportunity.




DC road trip begins tomorrow. Wish us luck. I'll be back in teh intarweb worlddddddjfnfeffk (fuck you, Ian) on Saturdayish.

I should have been studying today

But instead I went to the zoo. Here are a smattering of pics for your viewing pleasure.

Here's everyone who went. From the left: Jasper, Kei, Kashi, Daryl, Sarah, Matt.

(a bigger version is here.)

Sarah didn't like me when I had the camera. But I still managed to get a cute shot of her wandering.


...Which, of course, made her ever more vigilant in her evasion of me.


Matt, however, was his usual cam whore self. Here we see Matt vs. Peacock.

Matt won...

...Though the peacock tried his best to steal Matt's soul.


The polar bear was active and playing again, so I got some cute pics. I like this one a lot, though I also have one of his face while he's exhaling.


Finally...I want these girls for bookends.