On account of LJ wanting everyone to completely switch over to Twitter/Facebook/Dreamwidth (I guess). I wondered what the virtual tumbleweeds (virtual crickets at night) were about. No offense, but you folks who repost all of your tweets don't make sticking around here any more attractive.

Sorry about the "preemptive flounce" tone to this post. Sorry also to my dad who didn't understand any of this gibberish.

Is the United States the only nation where large numbers of literate people don't believe in man-made climate change? I believe in man-made disbelief of science, which is almost as scary as large-scale famine caused by droughts and floods. I did meet a nice Australian lady on my trip to Greenland who had her doubts about man-made climate change, and I wondered if the fact that her husband worked for the mining industry had informed those doubts.

If we are the only country that has a large influential population of climate change deniers, I think a little national shame is in order.

Speaking of which, human rights watchers may raise an eyebrow at Denmark, which has passed laws essentially allowing the arrest and detention of protesters who LOOK like they might start trouble.

Yup, it was snowy out there. It was easy to take a lot of pictures. I edited myself down a bit, but there are still probably too many, too much the same. We did make a fun animal discovery, so click to continue if you love collembolans. ( Read more... )

We're dogsitting Jim while Alex is visiting her family. It's clearly a hardship.

First snowfall that stuck this year. Very pretty light snow as seen from the window, and I'm actually very excited to get out and experience it in person. I know I'm the first to complain about snow but I don't have to drive anywhere, and it's not going to require any (or much) shoveling, and it will probably mostly melt today. I'm kind of anxious to get outside because I want to photograph it while it's still stuck to the trees and stuff.

I was going to post about where we are with deciding to move but I think I'll wait so I can use my "not complaining about the weather for once" tag.

Here's Alexis navigating a slippery puddingstone ledge.

( Mostly lichens, moss, and rocks. )

I know from previous posts and comments here that many of you are fans of novelty music. I'm here to report that the video game world has not forgotten you. While there is not yet a Doctor Demento expansion to the Rock Band game (if anything, the game is heavily weighted toward being a Dave Grohl simulator) there might as well be.

Jonathan Coulton got a toe in the door by writing "Still Alive" (for the game Portal), which was then offered for a free download to Rock Band. Since then, two more JoCo songs have become available, with more promised. His long standing opening band Paul and Storm has joined the game with their song "Opening Band," naturally. In addition, there are nearly a dozen Spinal Tap songs you can buy, as well as a few Tenacious D songs. I'm not here to judge the relative merits of heavy metal parody acts, I'm just reporting how it is. It's up to you to decide whether Megasus and White Zombie (and Alice Cooper for that matter) count in this category, but they both (all) have songs in the game.

Meanwhile, there are no fewer than 6 songs from Spongebob Squarepants available, and even one from an outfit called "Stephen and the Colberts." Add in borderline novelty new wave acts Talking Heads and Devo and you're starting to get a bunch of music loving dweebs very happy. We dweebs are anxiously awaiting some They Might be Giants, also.

Now, I hasten to add that, as the time of this blog post, the reigning king of novelty music "Weird Al" Yankovic does not have any songs for the game. However there's nothing to stop you from singing the words to "The Rye or the Kaiser," "My Bologna," or "Smells Like Nirvana" instead of those that scroll across the screen.


I haven't played Guitar Hero World Tour or Band Hero, so I can't speak about the appeal of those games to the novelty music fan.

Trying to get out of Christmas by saying you aren't Christian is like trying to get out of prison rape by saying you aren't gay.

November this year was more pleasant than June, by a long shot. December's started out pretty nicely as well. Today was almost 70 in Boston, way above that in the Berkshires, according to one friend. Meanwhile, it's about to snow for the second time this week in Austin. Does it really matter where we move? Saturday there is wintry mix in the forecast, so maybe I'll start feeling angry about the winter here again.

6 hours before:

Trying out my new monopod. I need an actual tripod. This second one would have been my pic for the day but you can't actually see the river. I think I know my 2010 project.

Rather nice sunrise this morning. I wish I was the kind of person that would wait for it (and be late to work) in order to get the right photo for my project. Alas. Luckily my camera was on my passenger seat when I topped the Forest Hills Overpass.