I was just watching Aliens last night and thinking, "Huh. That ship looks a lot like the design of their guns. Nifty."

I'm reading a book on this subject right now. Well, sort of on this subject. It's more about the history of scientific study of sex. (Bonk by Mary Roach, for the curious. It's interesting, but so far not as amusing as her last two.) I've learned a little bit, but mostly I've just come to the conclusion that people who participate in these sorts of studies are much more secure in themselves than I am. Also, less claustrophobic.

But there can be no doubt that such art deeply impoverishes us as a society. It enervates our creativity, and creates a world without beauty or virtue.

Right, because a few people making scat porn means no one else is making beautiful art or exercising their creativity at all.

...wait, what?

I certainly hope you're alone, loopfiend. I loathe scat porn, but I loathe obscenity trials a lot more. People shouldn't be thrown in prison for making things that you think are gross, when you don't have to look.

Though, if they want to indict him for animal cruelty (the bestiality films), I'm okay with that.

Hmph. When I registered for the NMDP, I had to have blood drawn. These kids and their cheek swabs...

Aww. Here I was looking at a cute puppy slobbering up a silly fence window and then you had to go put a picture of Laika at the bottom of the post and make me all sad. Poor Laika.

My dog, if I had a fenced yard, would probably be too busy sniffing every blade of grass we have to even notice that we'd gotten him a little window. Which is just as well, because we'd have to deslobber it six times a day. My dog's quite a drooler.

I would definitely buy one of those, if I had $4,500 to spare. Is that weird?

Aw, happy birthday to her! That's awesome.

I have no living grandparents--they all died in their 80s or younger--but my great-grandmother lived to be 103 and died when I was 10 or 11. Feisty old lady, too. She hated one of her nurses and once knocked her out with one punch. She was 100 then.

...Nana was kind of a horrible person, actually.

But she was my age (25) in 1915 or so and lived 'til 1993, lucid to the end, so that's pretty nifty.

I think I kind of love you. I just thought you should know.

Well, yes, and yet that's exactly what my school district does. They call it fighting even if you're only trying to avoid being beaten unconscious. I'd assumed it was SOP for schools, despite being a particularly nasty bit of institutionalized victimization. Or, perhaps, because it is.

Takuan @48: You mean it isn't like that in all schools? Because I know in all the schools I attended growing up, defending yourself when you were assaulted still got you suspended for "fighting". But then, in the schools I attended, you could also get suspended for things that happened away from school grounds. (Get into a fight at the mall? Suspension.) So maybe my school district is abnormally stupid.

Trimeta @36: I'm not really sure why hugging would fall into the category of excessive PDA to begin with. Groping and making out in the hallways? Sure, ban it. Hugging? Seriously? That's a problem for someone?

I never really understood why it was supposed to be so funny in the first place, Palindromic, so it's not just you.

Well, now I can get the sound to work, but the game won't finish loading. This makes me sad.

I can't get it to function properly at all. The sound won't work, and when it gets past the introduction, the game screen goes black and I can't do anything. Alas. I was looking forward to playing.

Saw this on YouTube earlier today. I figured you guys would pick it up soon.

I've seen comments here and elsewhere about how this kid is a smartass. I don't see the kid being a smartass here at all. All I see is a cop going insane because a 14-year-old called him 'dude' and didn't hear his first order to stop skateboarding. How that qualifies as smartass behavior, I don't know. The kid seems to me to be pretty meek and well-behaved about the whole thing, in the face of what must be an awfully scary incident. Did I miss something?

At any rate, I'm glad this SOB's been suspended, but I'm not pleased that it's a paid suspension.

I went with Fragile Things, for the same reasons as Jennee and Nunks, and also because I think short stories are easier to read on a computer screen. You read one in its entirety and then you can stop reading for a long while and not have to worry about forgetting what happened last.

I find it odd that the percentages don't seem to change much, no matter when I look at the results. The number of votes do, but people seem to have been voting in pretty much the same proportions. Neverwhere has climbed a bit, but that's it, really. I'll have to check again tonight.

Congratulations to the new parents! Quite a collection of names. I'm particularly fond of Emmeline, though my inner geek is jumping for joy at "Fibonacci Nautilus".

Same here, OneSwellFoop. I had both my dogs put down due to age-related illness in 2006 (April 28 and October 27) and I still can't think about it too much without crying.

Oh. There I go.

Yeah, no reading this one for me. I like the idea, though.

Here's where I get hung up on this thing: If they don't stop for stop signs, what in the hell makes him think they'll stop for a crosswalk?

I'm with Hassan on this one, though I see the reason for the disemvoweling. As far as I'm concerned, it's no better than if he chucked a baby into the pool to see if it could swim. And the fact that the article specifies that the puppy was purebred also makes me feel a bit stabby. Because, y'know, it would have been totally fine if it had been a mutt. They aren't expensive.

He sounds an interesting fellow, but I can't get past the drowning puppy. Anyone who would do that deserves worse than a ruined suit.

I do watch Mythbusters--though I liked it better before they added the second team; something about those three gets on my nerves (The tokenism?)--but I made it all of 7 or 8 minutes into Smash Lab last night before giving up. I was bored to tears.

Still have yet to see Top Gear, though. My cable provider doesn't carry BBC America.

Chrome Albion @24:
I think experimental aircraft testing and training by the Air Force is a much better explanation.

Well. That's fucking devastating. My grandmother died of early-onset Alzheimer's, but here's hoping he's not in quite the same boat, because she went from pretty much fine to nonverbal in about 6 months. Of course, that was more than 30 years ago. I'd like to think some major advancements have been made since then.

I get that there are potential feminist issues with this, depending upon the giver's attitude. It's been examined in depth at a few feminist blogs I read already. And the article obviously focuses exclusively on people who come across as ostentatiously well off. But I do have to point out one thing:

It's not a bad thing to give a woman something that's just for her, after she's gone through an exhausting and painful (and, yes, usually exceptionally joyful) experience, when everything and everyone else is focused solely on the baby. It's just not. It's not going to be something everyone's comfortable with, and calling it a "push present" is cutesy and condescending, but there's nothing at all wrong with the idea itself.

It's also hardly some sort of new trend. But that's the Times style section for you.

Oh god. I want one so bad. So, so bad. It would be my best friend.