Luck organs

Adam Felber at Fanatical Apathy just wrote a post suggesting that if "Intelligent Design" is a serious argument, then one must recognize that the "design" of human beings - with their fragile knees and spines and appendices, big heads and small birth canals - falls a little short of most definitions of "intelligent".

I've written in the past about what I call "biological practical jokes", situations in human physiology that are so perversely ironic that they could be held as evidence of malicious intent on the part of any purported "designer." (I do not believe in a "malicious designer", by the way.)

There is another aspect of human life that I have always wondered about. We humans are prone to defects and aberrations: bad eyesight, bad teeth, poor ability to regulate blood sugar, etc. In the dim dark ancient days of, say, three hundred years or more ago, I cannot imagine that many people with crappy eyesight, a mouthful of rotting teeeth, or lying on the ground in a diabetic coma had much opportunity to reproduce. Not that some of them didn't manage to get laid, but I imagine people with good eyes and decent teeth and an ability to eat whatever whenever without worrying about dying probably did a lot better in that arena.

But then we humans compensated for our frailties with technology. Bad eyesight? Here's some glasses / contact lenses / radial keratonomy / laser surgery to correct your vision. Bad teeth? Go to the doctor to have them pulled / filled / resurfaced / straightened / replaced - and here's some toothpaste and dental floss and instructions on how to use them. Can't control blood sugar? Here's some insulin and a list of dietary recommendations, and maybe some medication to keep you in balance.

So we go around with our defects compensated for (but not corrected or eliminated) by technology, and we go on happily copulating and squeezing out little ones who carry our genes. And that's all well and good, as long as the plug doesn't get pulled on technology.

But there are some other things in human physiology that make you scratch your head. In a pre-technological (or at least pre-surgical) society damage to them would have almost certainly resulted in death. Things like the appendix, whose proper biological function is uncertain and possibly nonexistent, but whose malfunction can result in death; or the spleen, which does perform a known biological function but is not absolutely necessary to life, yet is so susceptible to damage through injury or disease that it is frequently removed as a result because its malfunction is a threat to life.

So why do we have an appendix or a spleen? Let's ignore (or dismiss) any arguments about the "mysterious ways" of an intelligent designer and look at it purely from an evolutionary point of view. Why do we humans still cart around genes for these fragile, dangerous things that we could probably just as easily do without?

I propose that these organs are a biological indicator of difficult-to-measure factor: luck.

Granted, there's a lot of luck involved in evolution overall. Only organisms that are strong enough, or clever enough, or sneaky enough, or persistent enough, or lucky enough get to pass on their genes to the next generation. If you were the sort of kid who tended to wander into the middle of busy street, odds are you never made it to adolescence with a fully functioning reproductive system. Or maybe you did, but you got banged up a little. Maybe a lot. And maybe you had to make a trip or two to the hospital for a little life-saving emergency surgery.

Once upon a time there wouldn't have been that sort of emergency surgery available for pre-adolescents who got gored by a Woolly Rhinoceros or an Irish Deer and had their appendices or spleens ruptured. They would have died, slowly and painfully, and their genes would have died with them. Meanwhile their companions, who were quick enough or clever enough or lucky enough to avoid getting gored in the first place, would have gotten the opportunity to grow to sexual maturity and pass on their genes to a new generation - including the genes for their spleens and appendices.

It's not a strong argument for why we carry around vestigial or semi-vestigial organs that amount to little packets of unstable explosives stored here and there in our bodies. It doesn't explain why those individuals born without an appendix or a spleen don't have a strong reproductive advantage over those of us born with all our organs intact. Still, it is an interesting avenue of thought to explore: the possibility that the presence of organs that are non-essential in their function, fragile and easily damaged, and lethal in their damaged state may actually be an aspect of natural selection for a characteristic as intangible as "luck."

Where's MY Thanksgiving dinner?

Nikki the cat was afraid he'd be left out of the Thanksgiving dinner, so he grabbed a seat at the table. Note the Tofurkey on the left.

The Littlest Turkey compendium

Special for Thanksgiving: The Littlest Turkey, complete in one post.

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
by
D.B. Echo

Once upon a time there was a farm where turkeys lived. All of them were young and plump, big and strong and proud. All of them except one. He was smaller than all the other turkeys. He was called the Littlest Turkey.
The Littlest Turkey wanted to run and play with the other turkeys, but they didn't want to play with him. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," they would say. "Come back when you've gotten bigger."

But the Littlest Turkey was sure he was as big as he was going to get. He tried to eat as much as he could, but he never seemed to get as big and plump as the other turkeys. And he knew that unless he got big and plump like the other turkeys, he would never get to go to the Laughter House.

The Laughter House was a wonderful place. The Littlest Turkey had never been in there. He knew that only the big and plump turkeys would get to go inside the Laughter House. He had seen them go in once, and had heard their squawks and gobbles of laughter for a little while. It must be wonderful in there, the Littlest Turkey thought. All those turkeys go in to laugh, and none of them had ever come out again. How much fun they must be having!

The Littlest Turkey decided that, big and plump or not, he would get into the Laughter House the next time they let the turkeys in.

*********

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
Part 2
by
D.B. Echo

The weather started getting cooler, and the leaves on the trees started to change colors. All the turkeys knew that soon it would be time for the biggest holiday of the year, Turkey Day.
"Just before Turkey Day is when they take the big and plump turkeys into the Laughter House," thought the Littlest Turkey. "But this time I'm going to get in there, too!"

It wasn't long before the big day came. All of the big and plump turkeys lined up to go into the Laughter House. The Littlest Turkey waited near the entrance of the Laughter House, then squeezed in between two very big and plump turkeys. No one noticed him because he was so little.

The Laughter House was dark inside, and there was a sort of moving sidewalk there that was taking turkeys into another room, where he could hear gobbles and squawks of laughter. One by one the turkeys hopped up to ride the sidewalk. The Littlest Turkey hopped up, too.
The turkey in front of him, whose name was Tom, turned around. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," he said. "Come back when you are bigger."

"Yes, go away," said the turkey behind him, whose name was also Tom. "They do not want little turkeys at the Market. Only big and plump ones."

"No," said the Littlest Turkey. "I want to go to the Market with you." He had never heard of the Market, but he realized that it must be even better than the Laughter House.

A Man spotted the Littlest Turkey. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," he said. "Come back when you are bigger."

"Oh, please, Mr. Man," said the Littlest Turkey. "I do so want to go to the Market with the other turkeys."

"Very well," said the Man. "We've got a quota to meet, anyway."

The Littlest Turkey rode the sidewalk into the other room. He wondered what things would be like at the Market.

*********

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
Conclusion
by
D.B. Echo

The Littlest Turkey was cold. He was colder than he ever remembered being before. But then again, it was hard to remember much since they had chopped his head off.

He was in a case with the other turkeys, the big and plump turkeys. Turkey Day was coming soon, and people were coming to the Market to pick turkeys to take home.

They always seemed to want the big and plump turkeys. One time a little girl had seen him in the case. "Mommy, mommy, look at the little turkey," she said. "I want to take home the littlest turkey."

"No, dear," her mother said. "We are having many people over for Thanksgiving. We need a big, plump turkey."

One by one the other turkeys left the Market to go home with people. Turkey Day was coming soon, and people were taking away more and more of the big and plump turkeys. But no one wanted the Littlest Turkey.
Finally, the day before Turkey Day came, and the Littlest Turkey found himself all alone in the case.

"How sad," he thought. "No one wants to take me home."

It was late in the day, and the Manager was about to close down the Market for the night. Suddenly a Man came into the store.

"I have a coupon," he said, "for a free turkey. Do you have any left?"

"You're in luck," said the Manager. "I have one left." He showed the Man the Littlest Turkey, all alone in the case.

"It's a little small," the Man said. "But I guess beggars can't be choosers. Besides, it's just me and my wife this year. A little turkey might be just what we need."

The Manager took the Littlest Turkey out of the case and traded him to the Man for the coupon he was holding. "Happy Thanksgiving!", he said to the Man.

"I'm not going to be left behind for Turkey Day," thought the Littlest Turkey happily as the Man put him in the trunk of his car. "I'm so happy. But I'm so cold." He rolled around a little as the car pulled out of the parking lot. "I sure hope I'm going someplace warm."

THE END

Talking turkey

The President pardoned the National Thanksgiving Turkey yesterday. Two of them, actually, named Marshmallow and Yam.

But why? Is this ceremony implying that it s somehow un-American to kill, cook, and eat turkeys? Just once I'd like to see the President - any President - say "We are gathered here to pardon the National Thanksgiving Turkey, as is our annual tradition. But, goddamn, that's one fine-lookin' bird, all big and plump and juicy. Pierre, fire up the oven. Bob, get my axe - it's in the Oval Office, behind the chair, next to my baseball bat."

Thanksgiving is a celebration of carnivorosity and gluttony as Americans stuff themselves silly and then plop down to watch some football. We then proceed to slowly consume the leftovers and eventually declare that we are all feeling sick from eating so much turkey. Sick from the turkey? Well, it's probably food poisoning resulting from eating improperly preserved leftovers. If you get a "stomach virus" in the next week or so, it might not be a virus at all.

I know someone who insists on a Tofurkey every year. I've tried it. It's horrid. Not just the taste, but the texture as well. Tofurkey is covered with cheesecloth-like bumps to try to simulate the texture of plucked turkey skin. This is one aspect of vegetarianism I've never understood: why, if eating meat is so evil, do so many vegetarians try their best to recreate the taste and texture of meat with their non-meat meals? It's intellectually and ethically dishonest. I'm not a vegetarian, but I could live on lentils and barley for a good long time. The combination has a texture and flavor and mouth-feel that is delicious and uniquely its own without having to be dressed up as simulated meat.

I've been looking around at children's books about Thanksgiving lately, and any of them that feature turkeys as main characters seem to be about the turkey trying to save itself or its family from the chopping block. Why? Are we trying to teach our kids that omnivorosity is wrong? Maybe create a little family conflict at the Thanksgiving dinner table? I really think my Littlest Turkey is a more appropriate sort of holiday fable. At least there the turkey winds up in the freezer case and eventually the oven, as do millions of real turkeys each year.

But not Marshmallow and Yam. Nope, they're doing to Disneyland!

Xbox 360: How's your Nintendo?

I was out doing more pre-Black Friday Christmas shopping last night. I picked up a major gift for my mom and most of the accessories that go with it. (I won't say what it was just yet - there's a teenie tiny chance that she might read this before Christmas.) While walking into the store of national electronics retailer Best Buy I noticed a line of people off to one side of the entrance. Some were in camp chairs, some were sitting on blankets, some were standing, some were using cell phones. They all looked about college age. It looked like the line waiting for the opening of a new Star Wars installment.

Hmm, I thought. The store is open, so I don't see why they're not in there. Are they protestors? Nobody has a sign, and nobody is accosting me, yelling "Just say no to Coltan!" Maybe they're job applicants? Best Buy can't be hiring that much seasonal help! Has the economy really gone that far downhill that people are willing to line up in the cold for a handful of seasonal retail jobs?

I went into the store in guided missile mode. I quickly found the thing I was looking for - a saunterer was standing directly in front of the display for it, wobbling from side to side, so I had to keep ducking around him, first to the right, then to the left, then back again, just to read the card under the display model. Finally I caught the eye of a clerk - he wasn't really the clerk there, he was just a substitute clerk, and I think he was relieved to meet a customer who knew exactly what he wanted and didn't have any questions. He managed to talk me into a two-year service plan for $20 - hey, this is for my mom, and if something goes wrong with it, I'd like her to be able to get it fixed.

I went to the checkout and struck up a trivial conversation with the generation-Y girl who was ringing up my purchase. "Why are all those people lined up out there?", I wanted to know. "Oh, you silly old man," she replied*, "they're waiting for the Xbox 360 to come out."

Oh, I thought. Well, that's certainly worth standing in line in the cold for hours.

I flashed back to a time years ago when the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was all the rage. This was 15 years ago when I was living in Delaware. I was getting a ride back to Pennsylvania with my sister. We had stopped along the way at a McDonald's to grab something to eat and I was browsing through a newspaper that someone had left lying around. There was a small side article that stated that apparently imports of the NES system at that time constituted a significant portion of the U.S. trade deficit with Japan.

Back then, "Nintendo" was synonymous with "video game". And now? Nintendo is still in the game with the GameCube, but I think it's a distant third behind the PS2 and Xbox. And who uses the old NES anymore? Maybe some retro-gamers, but otherwise it's just a museum piece. Today's hot technology will be obsolete in a year and nearly forgotten in five, and the people who were standing in line in front of Best Buy will wonder what they were thinking. Years from now I suppose at least they'll have memories of a night spent in the rain and the cold with a bunch of other gamers, waiting for a chance to buy a game that now sits in the back of a closet collecting dust.

*No she didn't. But she was probably thinking it.

Christmas lists

My family and friends have been pressuring me for Christmas lists.

Let me make it clear that I neither need nor want anything for Christmas; I am in a financial state where anything I need, I can buy for myself, and anything I want, I can also buy for myself or can talk myself out of buying. I don't want to make Christmas lists, but I do, just to make them happy and to try to avoid getting too much stuff that I neither need nor want and would never have bought for myself.

I have been making two Christmas lists these past few years. One is for my family and consists of things that lean more towards the "needs" column - socks, underwear, shampoo, toothpaste - all things that I have gotten from my family in the past and could just as easily buy for myself. This year I may add on a few fancy items - a new Timex watch to replace the one that gave up the ghost earlier this year (20% off on Timex watches this week at Kmart), or a shaving mug/brush/soap set, to take the place of the environmentally-hostile cans of shaving cream I use throughout the year. Maybe some gloves, too, to tide me over until some of the 5000 pairs of gloves that I already own decide to reveal themselves.

The other list is for my friends. Well, specifically for my cousin and our friend Darren. The three of us decided a few years ago to reserve the big-ticket "wants" lists for each other. This takes the financial pressure off our gradually-dwindling families (all three of us are now members of the single-parent club, having lost the other parent to death) and means that we won't be disappointed by asking our families for the latest CD's or DVD's and getting socks instead. My list consists entirely of things I would probably buy for myself in the next few weeks, or could just as easily do without. (Do I really need or want a copy of the new DVD special edition of Death Race 2000?) We've started making things even easier for each other by pointing out the best possible prices for the items. (The first season DVD boxed set of War Of The Worlds [The Series] is available at Best Buy for half the price that Amazon is asking, but only through Wednesday, and if either of them decides to get me the DVD of War Of The Worlds [2005, with Tom Cruise], I've alerted them to the fact that my mom has a $3 off coupon in this week's People magazine, and they should see her before making the purchase.)

So the deed is done, the lists are made, and I can move the crass materialistic focus of holiday shopping off of myself - and back onto my friends' and family's Christmas lists.

Some rules for shopping this holiday season, Part 1

I was out doing a little early Christmas shopping yesterday and tonight, and I noticed I wasn't the only one. The Christmas shopping season has definitely begun. To make the Christmas shopping experience a little more pleasant*, here are a few rules I've derived over the years:

1. Please control your children. The time to take care of this one is well before you go out to the Mall. Teaching your children how to behave in public is something that you should have been working on from the day they were born. Once you're out there, don't think you can figure out on the spot how to rein in your children when they have decided to play "tag" through an entire store. And there is a corollary to this one:

2. Please discipline your children, but not here. Yes, it is important that your children know how to behave, but again, the time to instruct them in this is long before you ever set foot in the store. Do not decide to discipline them in the middle of a store or the middle of a crowded Mall walkway. If you are having a problem with your kids, remove them from the store, take them home, and sort it out there.

3. Don't be rude. Few things piss me off more than rudeness in public to total strangers. This includes the use of obscene language in front of kids. Don't piss me off. (That should probably be rule #1, and actually summarizes all the other rules.)

4. Please do not have joyous reunions with long-lost friends in the middle of a walkway. So you haven't seen so-and-so in years? Great! So they're looking good? Fantastic! So you really need to get together sometime and catch up with each other? Super! Now, would you mind stepping off to the side? I'm trying to shop.

5. Please do not engage in conversation circles. A conversation circle is a fascinating human geometric structure created when three or more people meet in the middle of a walkway and decide to talk. If it's just two people, they tend to stand face to face, about 24 to 36 inches apart. (This is true in the U.S.; there was a study a while back that shows that this distance, and the likelihood of physical contact, varies from country to country.) Three people will form a triangle with each person about 18 - 24 inches apart, shoulder to shoulder. Four people will form a diamond, five people a pentagon, with the shoulder-to-shoulder distance decreasing but the diameter of the construct always increasing. I once saw a conversation circle made of about 12 people, all standing shoulder to shoulder, forming an impenetrable circle about ten feet across in the middle of a walkway. People going in every direction had to squeeze around the people in the conversation circle, who were blissfully unaware of the existence of anyone other than themselves. Which brings us to the next rule:

6. You are not the only person in the world. Some people slip into solipsism while shopping. They will stand in the middle of an aisle, oblivious to the fact that other people are trying to navigate the aisle with their shopping carts. You are not the only shopper in the store, nor even the most important shopper. I am. Which brings us to the next rule:

7. Get out of my way. There are many different types of shoppers. The two extremes are the Saunterers and the Guided Missiles. These roughly correspond to "gatherers" and "hunters". In a Mall, Saunterers will move slowly and aimlessly, apparently waiting for inspiration to strike them, or perhaps waiting for the drugs to wear off. Guided Missiles know exactly what they want and where they have to go to get it. They move with determination and speed, which doesn't always work well in a Mall walkway jammed with Saunterers. The Guided Missiles will weave in and out of the Saunterers, who are often known to come to complete stops for no readily apparent reason. I am a Guided Missile, and a big one at that. Get out of my way, and we'll all be happier. And finally...

Special rule for retailers: Baby, it's cold outside. This is especially true in regions like Northeastern Pennsylvania where temperatures can get painfully cold during the Christmas shopping season. People shopping indoors need to dress for the weather outdoors. That means hats and scarves and heavy coats. So unless your store has a heated indoor parking lot, or offers changing rooms and lockers or a coat check room, please do not heat your establishment to make everybody toasty and warm. This may be great for employees, but it will tend to make shoppers grouchy and overheated. And sweaty. And smelly. I can smell them. If your store or Mall is full of smelly sweaty people, I'm gettin' out of there. And I don't want to walk out of your sweltering hot store into the freezing cold air. That will also piss me off.

So, see? Very simple rules that, if we all follow them, will make me happy this holiday shopping season. And when I'm happy, it's a better shopping experience all around.

*More pleasant for me, that is. But trust me, you want me to be happy when I'm out amongst the crowds.

Adding still yet even more blogs

Just two blogs getting added today. I've been visiting both of these blogs for a while now, and it's high time I make things easy on myself by giving them links.

The first is Melanie's Hyperextended Joints. Melanie is young, pretty, funny, has eight joints that hyperextend, and lives in Boston. And she's a lesbian, and doesn't have a problem letting you know that. Go check out her site!

The other is Gort's Gort42. Gort is from Wilkes-Barre, which is very close to Nanticoke. Gort's been coming by since my little photographic ramble through Wilkes-Barre a few weeks ago. Click on over and see what Gort has to say!

In addition to adding two new blogs, I've changed the status on an old favorite. In celebration of SuperG's recent posts to his old site, I have brought his My Distractions In This Modern Age out of the graveyard of "Gone but not forgotten" and have granted it "on semi-hiatus" status! Welcome back, political SuperG!

The Littlest Turkey, Conclusion

Click here for Part 1, in which the Littlest Turkey makes up his mind to get into the Laughter House along with all the big and plump turkeys.

Click here for Part 2, in which the Littlest Turkey manages to get into the Laughter House and learns that there is an even more mysterious and exciting place where the big and plump turkeys go: the Market!

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
Conclusion
by
D.B. Echo

The Littlest Turkey was cold. He was colder than he ever remembered being before. But then again, it was hard to remember much since they had chopped his head off.

He was in a case with the other turkeys, the big and plump turkeys. Turkey Day was coming soon, and people were coming to the Market to pick turkeys to take home.

They always seemed to want the big and plump turkeys. One time a little girl had seen him in the case. "Mommy, mommy, look at the little turkey," she said. "I want to take home the littlest turkey."

"No, dear," her mother said. "We are having many people over for Thanksgiving. We need a big, plump turkey."

One by one the other turkeys left the Market to go home with people. Turkey Day was coming soon, and people were taking away more and more of the big and plump turkeys. But no one wanted the Littlest Turkey.
Finally, the day before Turkey Day came, and the Littlest Turkey found himself all alone in the case.

"How sad," he thought. "No one wants to take me home."

It was late in the day, and the Manager was about to close down the Market for the night. Suddenly a Man came into the store.

"I have a coupon," he said, "for a free turkey. Do you have any left?"

"You're in luck," said the Manager. "I have one left." He showed the Man the Littlest Turkey, all alone in the case.

"It's a little small," the Man said. "But I guess beggars can't be choosers. Besides, it's just me and my wife this year. A little turkey might be just what we need."

The Manager took the Littlest Turkey out of the case and traded him to the Man for the coupon he was holding. "Happy Thanksgiving!", he said to the Man.

"I'm not going to be left behind for Turkey Day," thought the Littlest Turkey happily as the Man put him in the trunk of his car. "I'm so happy. But I'm so cold." He rolled around a little as the car pulled out of the parking lot. "I sure hope I'm going someplace warm."

THE END

The Littlest Turkey, Part 2

Click here for Part 1, in which the Littlest Turkey makes up his mind to get inside the Laughter House.

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
Part 2
by
D.B. Echo

The weather started getting cooler, and the leaves on the trees started to change colors. All the turkeys knew that soon it would be time for the biggest holiday of the year, Turkey Day.
"Just before Turkey Day is when they take the big and plump turkeys into the Laughter House," thought the Littlest Turkey. "But this time I'm going to get in there, too!"

It wasn't long before the big day came. All of the big and plump turkeys lined up to go into the Laughter House. The Littlest Turkey waited near the entrance of the Laughter House, then squeezed in between two very big and plump turkeys. No one noticed him because he was so little.

The Laughter House was dark inside, and there was a sort of moving sidewalk there that was taking turkeys into another room, where he could hear gobbles and squawks of laughter. One by one the turkeys hopped up to ride the sidewalk. The Littlest Turkey hopped up, too.
The turkey in front of him, whose name was Tom, turned around. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," he said. "Come back when you are bigger."

"Yes, go away," said the turkey behind him, whose name was also Tom. "They do not want little turkeys at the Market. Only big and plump ones."

"No," said the Littlest Turkey. "I want to go to the Market with you." He had never heard of the Market, but he realized that it must be even better than the Laughter House.

A Man spotted the Littlest Turkey. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," he said. "Come back when you are bigger."

"Oh, please, Mr. Man," said the Littlest Turkey. "I do so want to go to the Market with the other turkeys."

"Very well," said the Man. "We've got a quota to meet, anyway."

The Littlest Turkey rode the sidewalk into the other room. He wondered what things would be like at the Market.

(To be concluded.)

Click here for the thrilling conclusion, as the Littlest Turkey learns what things are like at the Market!

The Littlest Turkey, Part 1

Something special for Thanksgiving. This story is based on actual events. Sort of.

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
by
D.B. Echo

Once upon a time there was a farm where turkeys lived. All of them were young and plump, big and strong and proud. All of them except one. He was smaller than all the other turkeys. He was called the Littlest Turkey.
The Littlest Turkey wanted to run and play with the other turkeys, but they didn't want to play with him. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," they would say. "Come back when you've gotten bigger."

But the Littlest Turkey was sure he was as big as he was going to get. He tried to eat as much as he could, but he never seemed to get as big and plump as the other turkeys. And he knew that unless he got big and plump like the other turkeys, he would never get to go to the Laughter House.

The Laughter House was a wonderful place. The Littlest Turkey had never been in there. He knew that only the big and plump turkeys would get to go inside the Laughter House. He had seen them go in once, and had heard their squawks and gobbles of laughter for a little while. It must be wonderful in there, the Littlest Turkey thought. All those turkeys go in to laugh, and none of them had ever come out again. How much fun they must be having!

The Littlest Turkey decided that, big and plump or not, he would get into the Laughter House the next time they let the turkeys in.

(To be continued.)

Click here for Part 2, in which the Littlest Turkey finds a way to get into the Laughter House.

Click here for the conclusion, in which the Littlest Turkey learns there is someplace beyond the Laughter House: the Market!

Hyperblogia

Anyone familiar with blogs has probably witnessed the condition known as blogorrhea, the tendency of some (and, at times, possibly most) bloggers to go on and on and on and on about a subject. I've done it. Half the bloggers I link to have done it. The good ones only do it some of the time; for some bloggers, almost every entry is a marathon of words nearly devoid of content.

Surprisingly, the word blogorrhea is not derived from the word diarrhea, but is in fact a variation of the mental condition known as logorrhea. The application of the term to blogging is usually not a suggestion that an actual underlying mental illness exists but is more often a stylistic criticism equivalent to "Dude, if you don't have anything to say then shut up already!"

There is another condition known as hypergraphia, a compulsion to write excessively. It is possible that some of the better and more respected authors throughout history have had this, but the writing generated in a state of hypergraphia is not necessarily good or even coherent. Hypergraphia can also alternate with periods of severe writer's block, and may be a sort of bipolar disorder, similar the more familiar "manic-depression".

I am wondering if maybe there's a blogger's version of this, hyperblogia. (I just discovered I'm not the first to suggest this - but maybe I'm the second!) For a while I've been keeping up a two-posts-a-day schedule...not because (or, not just because) I'm a stats whore who wants to see my "visits" and "page views" stats go higher each month than the previous month, but also because (I think) I had something to say, or pictures to share.

But now I feel like I've sailed off a cliff. I don't feel a pressing need to post, and I don't have many pictures that I'm inspired to post. Is this just the "depressive" side of a hypergraphia cycle?

I'm wondering if it's something else entirely. Something has changed in this room, at this computer. Something in the air - literally. I think that some component of my computer has begun to churn out quantities of ozone. I can smell something that I don't think was here before. After sitting here for a while, I begin to feel headachey and dizzy, with a ringing in my ears, a metallic taste in my mouth, and sometimes even an increased heart rate. I have a window open with a fan pumping in fresh air, but that doesn't do enough to keep the headaches away. (I bought a Carbon Monoxide monitor just in case, but that's reading a steady zero ppm CO level.)

As I mentioned yesterday, this whole computer setup is more than five years old. Maybe my 19" CRT monitor is beginning to give up the ghost. Maybe something else is starting to overheat. I'm keeping everything powered off and unplugged while it's not in use. Maybe that will help.

The leaves of yesteryear

In October 2000 we were all much, much younger. September 11th was just another day, this computer was still relatively new, and my scanner worked with a minimum of cajoling. I was out raking leaves at the end of October - leaffall must have happened two weeks earlier than it did this year. I had raked up a big pile of leaves from my trees and from other people's trees that had blown into my yard. I was looking at the pile and admiring the colors when an idea struck me.

I picked out a few of the nicest, most colorful leaves, dropped them onto my scanner bed, and scanned them. This is the resulting image. I'm pretty sure I didn't process the colors at all; I think this is what they actually looked like. The leaves are long gone, digested in my compost pile and recycled through my gardens, but this image is a memento of what the leaves looked like one Autumn long, long ago.

Shooting the moon, again

I am still amazed at the fact that I can point my digital camera at the Moon and take a picture. I took this picture yesterday, after sunset had brought my leaf-raking to an end. Unlike the photo I took last April, I used the 4x digital zoom on this one in addition to the 3x optical zoom. I used the 10-second delay timer to minimize camera shake, and kept my hands very, very steady.

Even after further magnification, many lunar features are easily recognizable.

Pinwheel weeds

I came across these weeds yesterday as I was raking leaves in the back yard. I was about to put away the ladder in the background when I noticed the pinwheel whorls growing on and around it.

They look like an illustration out of an eighteenth-century book of fantastic plants. I have no idea what they are. I have never seen them before.

Angel of the Front Steps

Angel of the Front Steps
November 12, 2005

The bottom step leading to our front door cracked apart last Winter. There isn't much you can do about this in the Winter other than try to warn people away from it. I did this by placing a plastic statue of an angel in repose on top of the broken piece, hoping that the mailman or paper boy (or girl) wouldn't step in that spot and break his or her respective neck.

As soon as the weather got warm enough to use mortar this past April I made an attempt to repair the stone step. It was my first time working with mortar and I was surprised at how solid the resulting joint was. Aside from not using enough colorant I think I did a passable job. But by now the angel had become a fixture on our steps, and I figured it would be wise to steer visitors away from the repaired piece until we know the joint is going to hold in the long term. This Winter will provide a real test.

Extension cord at sunset

I was raking, shredding, and bagging leaves today. More than a few of my Oak leaves had blown across the street and onto the tree lawn in front of my neighbor's shrubs. (These are the same shrubs seen in this photo from 30-some years ago...just a few feet taller.) I decided to rake, shred, and bag those leaves too - not just because I'm a nice guy and these are nice, elderly neighbors, but also because these are Oak leaves, some of the most valuable carbon sources for my compost pile, and I don't want to see them get scoffed up by some landscaping service.

So there I was with my electric lawnmower powered by an extension cord stretching across the street to my garage. I had my camera with me (of course) and I realized that the setting sun meant I had better hurry if I didn't want to be working in the dark. I tried to get a few pictures of leaves casting shadows on other leaves, but wasn't too happy with the results. Then I turned around and looked at the street.

My extension cord is heavy-gauge but a few years old, and has been coiled and uncoiled many times until now it is full of permanent bends. The pattern the shadow of the cord cast on the road was beautiful.

And fleeting. Shadows at sunset quickly lengthen until the whole world is in shadow. I took this picture, put the camera away, and returned to my leaf gathering.

Yellow Brick Road, November 12th 2005

Yellow Brick Road
Nanticoke, PA
November 12, 2005

I missed a great opportunity with the Yellow Brick Road last Sunday. As we were driving to the Fall Festival I glanced up the alley between the cemeteries and saw that it was completely filled with lemon-yellow Maple leaves. Unfortunately by the time I got back to that spot later in the day the wind had picked up and the sun had set.

Today I gave my 72nd pint of blood and treated myself afterwards to Chinese food (Singapore Mei Fun and Won Ton soup.) On the way home I drove past the cemeteries on Washington Street and saw that there were still some leaves in the alley. The blue sky and bright sunshine made a nicer backdrop than the pinkish overcast sky in last February's photo. There was little traffic on Washington Street today, which was good, since most of the photos required that I be standing in the middle of an intersection.

As a parting shot I took a series of close-ups of the bricks themselves. This is the closest of the series. Against the browning Maple leaves the alley's bricks look more pinkish than yellow.

Sammie as The Crow

A while back (a year or more ago) Sammie from sdfsdf.wox.org posted a picture of herself with cold cream covering her face, creating a perfect canvas for some industrious fan to Photoshop KISS makeup onto her. Nearly a month ago she posted a similar photo with a challenge for someone to repeat the trick. Two days ago one of the regulars at her site finally posted a completed image. (It is, unfortunately, no longer accessible.)

I took the liberty of going in a slightly different direction and used Sammie's white face as the basis for a version of the makeup from The Crow. I smeared the white around to make the coverage a little more complete, and then dyed her blonde hair black. I think my completed image looks a lot more cheerful than the tragically late Brandon Lee's Eric Draven. I'm posting it here because I have no easy way of delivering images to Sammie's site. I hope she gets a kick out of it!

For anyone who thinks "Intelligent Design" ISN'T religion in disguise...

...Pat Robertson says you're wrong.

This from the Christian Communication Network:

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., Nov. 10 /Christian Wire Service/ -- Pat Robertson's initial comments made on "The 700 Club" on November 10, 2005 regarding Dover residents voting area school board members out of office for supporting "Intelligent Design".

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there."

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Pat Robertson responds to media requests regarding previous statements made.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., Nov. 10, -- "I was simply stating that our spiritual actions have consequences and it's high time we started recognizing it. God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in His eye forever. If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin…maybe he can help them."