We were talking about Snakes on a Plane in movies yesterday... but I'm posting this here, as this comic references several Buffisa touchstones....

[link]

I really don't know how to break it to him that the longer this goes on, the less the chances are that anyone would go. I suspect that I may be the only familial representative. Which, you know, flying to China by myself? Not so much with the enthusiasm.

Yes, I'm a wimp: I know my limits, and traveling alone in the Far East, without the language, is one of them.

And now off to my Buffista-less office. Bleargh.

Lulu Eightball on penguin movies.

Specific curses requested for the accountancy person at Casper's child care. Boils, or something. They took out too much in payroll deduction for this month (twice), but in fixing that, discovered they udnercharged us for December, so I'll only be seeing half of the Jan. overcharge (which I was eyeing cosily). AND they can't promise that the payroll deduction problem will be fixed for February.

Better than boils, let them hire a new person who is competent.

Regular sex reduces fear of public speaking:

New Scientist magazine reports that Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of Paisley, found having sex can help keep stress at bay.

However, only penetrative intercourse did the trick - other forms of sex had no impact on stress levels at all.

Professor Brody monitored how various forms of sex affected blood pressure levels in a stressful situation.

For a fortnight, 24 women and 22 men kept diaries of how often they engaged in various forms of sex.

Then they underwent a stress test involving public speaking and performing mental arithmetic out loud.

Volunteers who had had penetrative intercourse were found to be the least stressed, and their blood pressure returned to normal faster than those who had engaged in other forms of sexual activity such as masturbation.

Those who abstained from any form of sexual activity at all had the highest blood pressure response to stress.

Dr Brody found that the effect remained even after taking differences in personality and other health-related factors into account.

This sounds like a wonderful example of post hoc ergo propter hoc. I mean, who doesn't want to keep a sex diary for a psychologist? But, I'm thinking, the headline is a bit of an overstatement.

Msbelle, insent. Sorry for the delay!

I have the goof-offs something fierce today. Why today?? I need to get work done!

I, for one, do not want to keep a sex diary for a psychologist. The pay would have to be large to induce me to do so.

The stuff that Nilly does is/can be applied to epidemics, right?

Money-tracking web-game informs mathematical model of epidemics

The physicists were intrigued: Like viruses, money is transported by people from place to place. They found that the human movements follow what are known as universal scaling laws (from local to regional to long-distance scales). Using the game data, they developed a powerful mathematical theory that describes the observed movements of travelers amazingly well over distances from just a few kilometers to a few thousand. The study represents a major breakthrough for the mathematical modeling of the spread of epidemics.

The actual article: [link]

Well, I imagine feeling sexually attractive and/or loved does a lot to make a person feel good enough to face their fears and stuff, but...

I'm very distressed by that study.

Also distressed that my 8am was cancelled after I'd left for the office.