I've got the gronk, the grumps, and the sore throat to go with.

The hell?

Apparently, I am sucking the life out of everyone!

This will make your gronk better. Or worse. Or maybe it won't do anything for your gronk.

Autotune the Cats!

Various cat videos edited into a music video, with Autotune on the meows....

I was about to get mad at my boss for weirdly re-writing something I had done when I realized it's actually a philosophical difference, not just about one word. Of course I'm right, but I will let it go.

Huh.

Science: Depression May Provide Cognitive Advantages

"Paul W. Andrews and J. Anderson Thomson, Jr. argue in Scientific American that although depression is considered a mental disorder, depression may in fact be a mental adaptation which provides real benefits. This is not to say that depression is not a problem. Depressed people often have trouble performing everyday activities, they can't concentrate on their work, they tend to socially isolate themselves, they are lethargic, and they often lose the ability to take pleasure from such activities such as eating and sex. So what could be so useful about depression? "Depressed people often think intensely about their problems," write the authors. "These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time." Various studies have found that people in depressed mood states are better at solving social dilemmas and there is evidence that people who get more depressed while they are working on complex problems in an intelligence test tend to score higher on the test (PDF). "When one considers all the evidence, depression seems less like a disorder where the brain is operating in a haphazard way, or malfunctioning. Instead, depression seems more like the vertebrate eye--an intricate, highly organized piece of machinery that performs a specific function.""

I see your gronk.

Last night I ended up with some broken glass in my foot (darned cat). I thought I had it all out and cleaned up until I was at the dojo and discovered a piece in my big toe. I had to do 20 push-ups because said discovery was accompanied by a non-ninja like word.

Depressed people often think intensely about their problems

That was a theory that one of Cantor's biographer's had, that he was depressed and when would get bad he would withdraw from the world, stay by himself in a remote place, and think about math and so his depression, in an odd way, helped his career.

Moon Base Baseball? Why Not!

A short animation of what baseball on the Moon might look like. I kept on thinking that a line-drive to a spacesuit faceplate would be very bad....

dad and I were moving furniture and cleaning up for pest control until after midnight. cats had me up at 4:30 and again at 5:30. mac was refusing to leave when pest control should up an hour before I expected him, and now he is refusing to go with his uncle. mac and dad are with me at my office and I am trying to do work while ignoring them 2 cubes away. my brother is on the way over and hopefully once mac sees that he will not be rejected by said uncle then he will go with them and I can begin the ritual crying. gnashing of teeth, and cursing...before my noon session with mac's therapist.

at least I did get my coffee this morning.

I've seen a few blog posts about this, so....

What Not to Order at Fancy Restaurants

New York Times Restaurant critic Frank Bruni has done a lot of thinking about whether New York City's fanciest dishes were worth their sticker price. He boils down his best menu reading advice into a few snarky-but-true lines.

Bruni is noted among the Times' food critics for having a keen eye, and a sharp word, toward restaurants that stuff dining experiences with artificial finery to justify ridiculous bills. His final piece for the Times answers a bunch of often-asked questions he received (or wished he'd received) during his tenure, including this revelation about what to avoid on any menu:

Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you've seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef's heart isn't in them.

Scratch off the dishes that look the most aggressively fanciful. The chef's vanity - possibly too much of it - spawned these.

Then scratch off anything that mentions truffle oil.

Choose among the remaining dishes.

What's wrong with truffle oil?