Mmmm, a Nilly-riffic morning, Very nice.

Not-so-nice news about London, though. Stupid terroristic buggers.

He's, just, well, having a very fluid notion of time. Which, as a physics professor who just finished teaching a class on special relativity, is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you.

This cracks me up.

I swear, this whole waiting for the layoffs to be implemented is tortuous, even for those staying on. Someone teared up in my office the other day. Which, I mean, I get. I sniffled my way home the day I found out about coworker. But...NO CRYING AT WORK PEOPLE. I can be a sympathy crier. STOP THAT.

Plus, with the heat and some other things, I've been running a couple degrees warmer than usual (which mean I actually have the "normal" 98.6) but it is making me feel all yicky. And the cooling at work is all erratic. Which isn't helping.

the entire US is a battlefield in the War on Terra Terror.

Love is a battlefield.

There's a new version of the periodic table of the elements that's gaining popularity: [link]

It's pretty. I want a poster of it.

As Oliver Sacks has written, the periodic table reflects "a deep order in nature [and] the transcendent power of the human mind … to discover or decipher the deepest secrets of nature, to read the mind of God."

Panda baby boom(let)! [link]

WASHINGTON - Zookeepers in Atlanta and San Diego are hopeful their giant pandas are pregnant, which would create a record U.S. baby boomlet of the rare species that began this month with the birth of a cub at the National Zoo.

The possibility of three U.S.-born cubs in the same year reflects the coming of age of the giant pandas on loan from China in the past several years as well as a burst of scientific knowledge on producing and caring for their offspring. Artificial insemination techniques are more precise; pregnancy tests are more accurate; and the odds of a fragile newborn surviving are improving dramatically.

Do you still have to mark Air Mail on international mail? Does anything still go by boat?

Also, is there a French equivalent of Ms.? Or is it just Mme/Mlle?

Do Gale Harold and Nathon Fillion resemble each other in a weird way? I am attracted to Gale Harold (or rather Brian Kinney), but not so much to Mal, but in my head they look so similar!

Sophia, I never noticied it, but I have a friend who pinged it as soon as she started watching Firefly.

In other news, I will simply reproduce this email I just got from a friend:

Stuff + Cats = Awesome (per this website)

[link]

Even though I am very kind and have lived with both of my cats for most of their lives -- they STILL would never let me put anything on them while they slept.

They would wake up.