The Life Experience ~ Summer '11

[bloodyrosemccoy]

What I Learned Since The Summer Solstice:

• The favorite architect I never knew I had is the awesomely named Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser. This is what the buildings inside my head look like.
• So one of the latest theories on the proliferation of autoimmune disorders is that in a sanitary ablutomaniacal society, there are not enough germs to keep our immune systems occupied, so they start attacking us. That’s right: they think we have allergies because our immune systems are fucking BORED.
• Which means that a (gross) experimental treatment for everything from hayfever to goddamn Crohn’s disease is to infect the sufferer with hookworms.
• There are two main types of sail plans in ships: square rig and fore-and-aft rig.
• Bill Nye the Science Guy is as awesome as I have always heard.*
• Team-building is a scam.
• Those obnoxious self-righteous hippies are right: things do taste better straight from the garden.
• Especially strawberries. I finally understand what all the damn fuss is about.
• Pumpkin vines are really prickly, yo.
• Gourd leaves, however, can be like velvet.
• You should always check the labels on the tomatoes you buy. Or maybe not, since what I grabbed thinking it was a cherry tomato plant turned out to be the most amazingly crazy heirloom tomatoes I’ve ever seen.
• That stupidly accented “Oh, hi, ___” people keep referencing is an impression of Tommy Wiseau in The Room.
• The Room is worse than hyperbolic people are making out to be. AND NOT IN AN ENTERTAINING WAY.
• The Crazy Pit of politics does not appear to have a bottom.
• Great horned owls are surprisingly adorable.
• The X-Files is a really boring show.
• But its not!spinoff, Millennium, is pretty good.
• I am not the only grownup in the world who still fails to see the value of homework.
• Peasant blouses are a blast to make.
• The constellation Aquila is right where my uncle swears it is not.
• Sometimes your gallbladder can act up even if there are no gallstones anywhere near you, because your body hates you.
• Apparently Science can predict whether you will shop in a clockwise or counterclockwise pattern in a store—and it seems to correlate with which side of the road your country’s traffic rules say you drive on.
• The subject of "You're So Vain" is apparently a big old secret.  Seriously, knowing it is apparently worth $50,000.
• Dead laptop screens can actually be replaced!

*Somehow I missed the glorious age of Bill Nye, despite being smack in the middle of it. I was too busy watching Ghostwriter, and dammit with the advent of the information superhighway pretty much everything I learned on that show is now about as useful as knowing how to juggle.

Comments

[daiq.livejournal.com]

I am a teacher (and therefore an adult ;) ) and I think the whole homework concept is crap!

[evilcresyluna.livejournal.com]

The Room is so very dreadful! Have you seen Birdemic yet? Once again, only the Rifftrax makes it kind of bearable, but only barely! Blah so boring!

And completely agreed about the vegetables. Mmm. Vegetables.

[broken-moons.livejournal.com]

they think we have allergies because our immune systems are fucking BORED

This makes total sense to me. I've never understood our modern society's anti-germ obsession. I mean, it starts with wipes and special immune-system boosting drinks for toddlers because (gasp) they stick stuff in their mouth and that will surely kill them unless you take precautions.

Of course, sometimes it's genetic, though that probably means it has been going on for longer than we think; my husband developed hay fever mid-20's, just like his father before him, and his father before him. If we ever have a son he's just going to love his genes...

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

If you like Hundertwasser, have you seen Gaudi's work? Very similar. I dream of one day being rich enough to own one of Gaudi's houses.
Also, because I know you like sparkly things, while I was in Germany they had jewellery made to Hundertwasser's designs.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

So one of the latest theories on the proliferation of autoimmune disorders is that in a sanitary ablutomaniacal society, there are not enough germs to keep our immune systems occupied, so they start attacking us. That’s right: they think we have allergies because our immune systems are fucking BORED.
Which means that a (gross) experimental treatment for everything from hayfever to goddamn Crohn’s disease is to infect the sufferer with hookworms.

Those are two big pet peeves of mine. The "KILL ALL GERMS" attitude, and the idea that infecting yourself with parasites that give you anemia and nasty bloody diarrhea is a good thing. Good way to boost your eosinophils, and probably the neutrophils as well, I'll give you that, but I'm pretty sure there's less invasive and potentially dangerous natural ways to strengthen your overall immune system.

Like stop killing every germ you think exists in your vicinity.

And Bill Nye is indeed awesome.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

Alton Brown is the Bill Nye of food. Which makes Bill Nye the Alton Brown of everything else.

[prodigal.livejournal.com]

X-Files had some amazingly good individual episodes (usually ones where they made Mulder the sceptic and Scully the believer), but on balance, Milennium was so much better.

There are three XF I think you should see if you haven't already: there's an episode where they investigate a series of murders of circus freaks; "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" the episode that made them bring (Charles Nelson Reilly back on Millenium for); and the Milennium crossover episode.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

The "Bored Immune System" Theory of autoimmune disorders isn't actually all that new. I remember reading an article about it in Science News back in the 90s sometime.

Also: Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser=PeaceEmpire RainDay DarkColourScheme HundredWater

German is awesome. And I only had to look two of those up.

[piccolo-pirate.livejournal.com]

Bill Nye was the babysitter of all of my science classes up through high school. Seriously. I swear my school district had the entire series on laser disc (YES) and whenever our science teachers got bored, it was like "oh hey, here's a skinny dude in a lab coat to teach you science do our jobs for us while we fuck around at our desks".

I still love him, though. Clearly those were the best science classes ever (and there was such quality science instruction to compete with!).

I now want to name my kid Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser [Mylastname]. Except he'd probably grow up to hate me.

My gf snuck me fresh strawberries from Guatemala once and they were to die for. (I hope none of your readers work for USDA because it was also totally illegal. But so tasty.)

[beccastareyes]

Bill Nye's lectures are just as awesome live. He's a Cornell alum so he occasionally visits campus and is a good enough sport to come talk to our Astro 10x classes. Bit of a pain if you're teaching, because you'll have to shift things around in the lectures to make sure everything still gets covered, but it does boost enthusiasm.

(Last time he got one of the Cornell choirs to sing a song about Venus* to the tune of the school song.)

* I don't remember all the words, but the chorus ended with 'Venus is like Hell'.

[shadesofmauve]

The Crazy Pit of politics does not appear to have a bottom.

I feel like I've been relearning this every couple of months for the last several years...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Hooray! That is good news for your students!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Haven't gotten that far yet. Need a break after The Room.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, it's not the only reason ... I think they're looking at the prevalence of the problem and wondering why it'so MANY people have it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I have! It's lovely, but Hundertwasser remains my favorite.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Well, the idea is that we evolved next to parasites for quite a long time, so we've formed an interesting bit of symbiosis with them. I can actually see that. It's a fascinating idea, but you're right, I'd want to know the pros and cons--are the worms supposed to stay in your body? If not, how do the doctors get them back OUT? How do they control the parasites? And what are the side effects? We did get rid of them because they were a nuisance--the question is which is more of a nuisance. (Like, if I had multiple sclerosis, I'd probably be cool with worms that halted the disease's progress. But hayfever? Hmm ...)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*grin* You're recommending a couple of the only episodes I liked, largely because they were written by the same twisted mind. I liked the four episodes written by Darin Morgan way better than the rest of the show.

I have yet to see the Millennium one because I have yet to finish Millennium, but I hear it's kind of a letdown as a series wrapup. I found a site that has an entire fan-written fourth season that I'm intensely curious about, though.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I'd heard it before, but not quite in the context of co-evolution with parasites. And I admit I never really thought about the autoimmune side; I was always hearing about it from the "Your immune system can't fight off disease because it hasn't had enough exercise" perspective.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

"An anecdote of illegally smuggled strawberries posted somewhere on the internet by an anonymous someone! TRACK HER DOWN, BOYS!"

Somehow Bill Nye never happened in my science classes. Fortunately, I did get to see the wonderful "Donald in MathMagic Land," which I feel everyone should see.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That WOULD be awesome! Now I want to go to Cornell just on the off chance he'd show up.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Me too. It's really disheartening.

[piccolo-pirate.livejournal.com]

Donald in MathMagic Land! The fabulosity! I had the privilege of viewing it twice in my public school career - one of those in Spanish. Because watching Donald explain the golden mean in Spanish is sort of like having a Spanish lesson?

(My school district had a very short list of approved films and they circulated between schools - not hard, seeing as elementary, middle and high school are all on the same stretch of road. I have also seen Stand and Deliver three times - once in Spanish class (in Spanish) once in calculus (in English) and once in English class, just for shits and giggles.)

In retrospect, I'm not sure exactly what I did learn in public school. But we sure watched a lot of movies and television.

[acrossthelake.livejournal.com]

Oh man, you finally saw The Room? I'm so, so sorry. The unintentional hilarity is eclipsed, in my mind, by the sheer badness. Even the Rifftrax dudes have a hard time redeeming it, especially during those bloody sex scenes.

I want to visit your head. It looks very pretty in there.

[nixve.livejournal.com]

Do you have the link/source to the shopping clockwise/counterclockwise thing? I'd love to read more on that!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I did think their attempts to make it entertaining were inspired--the movie ruining life after life with its miserable sex scenes was a nice touch. (Also, it was fun being able to guess who was voicing each Baudio. Kevin and Mike were easy.) But in retrospect, watching it during try after try of a ridiculously impossible Mario Galaxy level probably made it that much more painful.

I want to live in places like that on the outside of my head!

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

The control thing is one of the major issues imho. Not so much for the person who wants the worms, but for everyone else who doesn't. Kinda the same idea as someone coming to work with the flu and getting everyone else sick.

[tsita.livejournal.com]

You are so not alone with the homework front. I dislike it, too. I still do it, though.

I agree with an amazing amount of your statements

[hrhleia.livejournal.com]

That architect has an awesome name, though I bet he didn't think so in kindergarten - I probably would have gone by 'Fred' at that point. The buildings are also really cool, though many of them are very similar, and that kind of design for a waste treatment plant seems excessive.

I agree that over-sanitizing everything is detrimental to the development of immune systems - you've got you eat your peck of dirt or howevermuch it is in a lifetime - but I think it's the kind of thing that has to happen over a long period of time, preferably from birth. Infecting people without the background who already have problems seems to me like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped, or more like starting to build the barn.

Bill Nye the Science guy is awesome - I learned way more from him than in school.

Team building you pay to have people go off to a resort to do is a scam. Team building you do with your coworkers at work by playing 'Evolution' using Rock/Paper/Scissors to go from amoeba to velociraptor to Elvis to Buddha is awesome.

Things do taste better straight from the garden, as long as they are not fertilized with manure and washed.

Bad movies are only worth watching if they are bad enough to be entertaining. The best bad movie I have ever seen is 'Sinbad of the Seven Seas' starring Lou Ferrigno, aka the Hulk. It is hilarious. There is a whole website reviewing bad movies for their entertainment value on rinkworks.com - check it out!

I avoid politics as much as possible for exactly that reason.

I see no value in busywork and 95% of the homework I've ever done, but there are some skills I was only able to learn by doing it out for myself and practicing, and that kind of homework had value.

The scientific and psychological analysis that goes into marketing and store design is pretty amazing.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Okay, I admit I first found out about shopping patterns from a Cracked article, but I was interested enough that I decided to check their claims and found this. Who knew?

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I never even thought of separating those two aspects, it seemed to me like either would follow more or less naturally from the other.

I read a book about evolution and symbiosis a little while ago that had some pretty interesting stuff in it. One big point was that a lot of the relationships that had long been assumed to be Parasitic actually ended up being Mutualistic once someone really looked at them. Most of the time, if something is truly parasitic and just harmful, organisms do manage to get rid of it, and the ones that really stick around tend to offer some benefits to their host. If only by training up their immune system properly.

I really do love these quarterly recap posts of yours. There's always interesting stuff in here.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Those were the best episodes, because he couldn't resist poking fun at Mulder at every opportunity. "Could you imagine, going through life, looking like that?" *Mulder GQ pose*

And I liked the monster-of-the-week stuff. The Big Bad Conspiracy, though, I found pretty boring, and by the end it was clear that the creators had no Great Overarching Plan like they'd claimed.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

You know, for a kid who was fascinated by science, I never actually saw any episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy. I only ever saw him, fairly late, doing the science demos at the end of each episode of the Back To The Future cartoon (hosted by Christopher Lloyd!), and at the time I had no idea who he was.

[nixve.livejournal.com]

Huh, wow, that is really neat! :)

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

"They're going to make this look good in post, right?"
"What's post? Keep flailing!"

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

"He's just reenacted Lisa's ENTIRE DAY!"

[daiq.livejournal.com]

This is not to say they don't have stuff they get to do at home, but it certainly isn't time filling busywork (my particular subject area has a compulsory logbook if you study it in the final year of high school, so all my elective kids keep a log to practice).