The Chronicles of the Angry Geologist

Someone please explain to me exactly how nuclear power is supposed to solve the problem of carbon emissions. Seriously.

Okay, I realize that the actual reaction that boils the water that drives the turbine is carbon neutral. That's gravy. But where do you think they get the stuff that causes the reaction? Uranium ore is, unsurprisingly, a mineral. And minerals have to be mined- usually with explosives and machinery bigger than your house.

I'd really like to know what the nukes-will-save-us crowd thinks these machines run on- rainbows and kitten farts?

If you don't want to hear it, here's a video featuring a very sleepy beagle.



( And now, on with the rant! )

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a pet person. I am always more "myself" when I own and care for some sort of animal. That's the way I am, I've accepted that, and so have my friends.

My parents, on the other hand... well, there's a reason why I put off telling them about Roland.

Case in point: yesterday, I was walking by a yard sale, and I found a 30 gallon fish tank and stand with all the accoutrement for $10. Yes- ten dollars. The stand needed a fresh coat of paint, but I mean... that's giving the damn thing away! It's all glass, very sturdy, the filter even has a built in foamer chamber! Of course, after I got a verbal assurance from my neighbor that everything worked, I paid her the ten dollars and picked up the thing right away.

The stand is mostly repainted. There's a few little things I would like to add, but those can be done later- besides, I need some balsa wood for that (and there will be pictures, so keep your pants on). Today, I added the gravel, the water, the Java Ferns from my old betta bowl (RIP Levi- sorry I didn't catch your swimbladder problem in time), doused it with stress-zyme, and started up the filter. I'm going to let it stabilize for a few days, and maybe start adding fish on Tuesday or Wednesday.

While I'm not an advanced fishkeeper yet, I am not a novice aquarist. To some extent, I know what I'm doing, and if I ever think I'm getting myself into trouble, you can bet I will spam the fora with my issues.

And, like most things in my adult life, my parents seem to think I'm going to be incompetent at this. My bettas have lived at least three years per fish, including the ones that were sick when I got them, and I was working under adverse conditions (very limited space). I didn't tell them about the saltwater tank I had in grad school, because I knew they'd run with this again, though when they saw it, they didn't seem to knock my roommate for taking poor care of "his" fish. The last time that they know that I had a fish tank was when I was a kid- there were two goldfish in a 10 gallon tank- okay, okay, I was a stupid pet owner, but in my defense I WAS EIGHT and I think that at a quarter century I can do a LITTLE FRACKING BETTER THIS TIME.

*huff*

It's okay, though. They've always been way too overprotective of me. I just have to wait them out, and prove to them and myself that I am a responsible adult. They'll come around. Eventually. I can be patient.

Besides, a school of neon tetras are going to look great under that blue light.

This is a poorly-planned post for Blog for Choice day. If you don't want to hear it, go to the next entry and watch the clip from the Futurama episode, "Hell is Other Robots." Thank you.





( We now return you to our regularly scheduled rant )

I really hate this time of year. Really. Hate.

It's cold, and it hasn't been that long since it was warm so that those nice sunny days that you could run around outside without dressing for Antarctica are still fresh in your memory and taunting you like football jocks rag on the fat computer geek. More so, it's dark. It gets dark ridiculously early, and stays dark until well after you've got out of bed in the morning. Your sleep cycles get marvelously screwed, and you start to wonder if bears don't have the right idea by sleeping through the winter. Then you briefly consider becoming a migratory bird, but remember that you have a job (not complaining about the job- might not have to go back down to Baltimore, so really happy about that). And between the cold (which, somehow is ENTIRELY WITHOUT SNOW!) and the dark, there's not much you can do except sit in your house and knit and try and battle the thermal curtains and watch your gas bill rise and slowly go completely frakking INSANE!

Gragh... roll on January.

Dear whiny baby.

I understand that you have to leave your house at 3:30 to get to work by 4 AM so that we can drive another 2 hours to Baltimore and sample a truck stop. This sucks. I did not plan this, or we'd be leaving at a decent time. However, the truck stop owner wants us to come this early, so this early we shall come. And my evil boss won't pay for a hotel room for me, so we're stuck. I feel for you having plans to leave early and go kill defenseless animals today, but you know, I had plans too, and they're frakked as well.

This is not the ideal situation. However, if you continue to bitch and moan all the way down like you've been doing so far this week, I will leave you in Baltimore and make you walk home.

STFU,

The Angry Geologist

I am a geek. Therefore, I am probably one of the... well, one... people in high school that enjoyed reading Beowulf.

I mean, it was pretty cool for someone with an imagination who was able to look past all the old language and bits the monks added in. You had the big hero, the big monster (which was nasty), and the big monster's even nastier momma, who as I understand looked something like a cross between an octopus and a city bus. And the hero kicked the asses of the monsters and came back to a party given by a Viking queen. With much more imagery.

And then we get this Beowulf movie...

First off, Grendel's mom? Not hot. Octopus and city bus not hot. She didn't have feet molded into stilleto heels either (well maybe she did, but they'd have been covered by the chitin). Beowulf would not have wanted to do her. And where did they dig up these actors, SciFi Original Movie Casting rejects?

I am not going to this. I am that much dumber for having seen the previews. I think I can safely say that this movie is going to look like a cross between an octopus and a city bus.

Parades. Flowers. Yellow magnetic ribbons. Full page splash ads in the Sunday paper. This is how a lot of people celebrate Veteran's Day. Me? Not so much. I tend to treat Veteran's day as any other day in terms of how I act and what I do.

Now, before you get out the pitchforks and torches, let me explain why:

My grandfather fought in World War II. He was a flight mechanic on a Liberator that flew patrols down in the Bahamas looking for U-boats. Since he was based in Florida the whole time, he's not elligble to join the VFW (which is ANOTHER gripe that I have because he was on the wire as much as anyone else doing the same thing at the time but anyway). Joining the army was really the first time he had been out of the coal mining company town that he was born in, and at first, I'm sure it was a grand adventure. Right up until the point where his friends started not coming back.

He has had some... issues since then. There are some things that he associates with the war that shouldn't be. One example: when my brother and I were kids, we used to take massive family vacations to the beach. When he came with us, he would always make us kids play in the sand way back beyond the berm, before the sand even got wet, almost to the dunes. I asked my mom why he did that, why he was so scared for us, and I guess she felt that I was old enough to know: the first time he had ever seen the sea, he was in the war.

Do I ask him about it? Let me ask another question- do I ask him about the rock fall in the mine that killed his best friend as he was standing next to him? The correct answer would be hell no. I don't ask. I don't make 80 year old men that I care about sad just to satisfy my curiosity. I let him go, and let him feel what he needs to feel, talk if he needs to talk, and then we move on when he's feeling better.

And that's pretty much the same reason why I don't do anything major on Veteran's day. These people were shot at, lost friends, lost bits of themselves. Some of them want to forget. Do I really want to make them remember so that I can feel better about myself?

It's a funny world: if all those full page ads and magnetic ribbon buyers would pay the same amount in taxes or donations each year, we would never have to worry about the VA going south again. That's how I prefer to celebrate Veteran's Day, by voting for social services, or giving money or blood, or even just something as simple as helping someone who is having trouble getting through the checkout line. Wear the poppies if you like- just for the love of God, do those other things too!

That's what happened to poor Mariya Fatima of Jamaica High School in New York.

It shouldn't- I don't want anything that killed my paternal grandfather and dropped my maternal grandmother to happen to anyone. Ever. No one deserves to lose their brain like that, and I don't care what you did.

But this makes it infinitely worse!

To summarize:

The school was having too many fights. So the principal, Guy Venezia, ordered teachers not to call 911 for any circumstances. Now, I don't know how he made the incredible leap of logic that not having cops available would prevent fights. Maybe it was an NCLB thing where if the cops were always in the building you'd lose funding, and that's another reason why I hate that monstrosity but that's another blog entry for another time.

However, not calling 911 because a little girl- no dummy either, not that that would make a difference- an honors student collapsed because her brain was either bleeding or had a vessel blocked, was apparently encouraged. Medical treatment was delayed for an hour, when minutes count in a stroke.

She is reading at a fifth grade level now. She wants to go back to school, but because her brain was damaged so much during that ordeal, it'll be years before she's back up to speed. I'm not saying never, because the human brain is so bloody amazing that it can rewire itself practically on the fly. But she's got a hell of a row to hoe in front of her.

As for the inhuman troglodytes that made up this policy, they are working elsewhere in the district, and "may face disciplinary action."

If that disciplinary action includes liquidation of all their assets to pay for this girl's treatment and ten years in pound-you-in-the-ass prison for gross criminal negligence, I'll consider it a start.

Hat tip: kobold

Just using common sense would have saved a world of trouble for college students:

People are lazy. If you give someone money to do something, they will find a way to do as little of that thing as possible while still making money. And if you don't supervise them to catch them slacking off, they will slack off to the point where the thing isn't getting done. This applies to mechanics, lawyers, scientists and most importantly, bankers.

And that's why I'm so thankful that Congress has just got their act together on it.

Seriously- if you're giving a bank money to give to students, they're going to skim some off the top. It's not dishonesty (mostly)- it's just that there's so much needless bureacracy that comes with running a bank that everyone needs paid. You're much better off giving the student a Pell grant to reduce government waste. Of course, the last bunch wasn't as concerned with reducing waste as they were with lining their pockets- we'll see if this crop is any different.

Dear Sirs,

Especially, you, Library Guy.

I'm not really sure what kind of signals I'm giving off here, sitting at my laptop in a study carrell, facing the wall. I look up every now and then to give my eyes a break from the screen, and I'm smiling because I'm almost done with this monstrosity, but it doesn't mean that I'm looking and smiling at you. Even if you happen to walk in while I'm doing it.

If you say 'hi', I will say 'hi' back. However, if it goes any further than that, I will look at you like you've asked me for a naked mole rat. I'm busy, and I don't want to talk to anyone right now. I will make exception for cute little kids, because chances are they're into dinosaurs or pyramids or something else cool.

If you continue to pester me, I will look at you like you've asked me for a lightly grilled naked mole rat on a bun with chipotle mayo. I. Am. Busy. And. I. Do. Not. Want. To. Flirt. With. You.

If you ask me what I'm working on, I will look at you like you have strings of lightly grilled naked mole rat hanging out of your teeth, and say that I'm trying to finish my thesis. I will not be nice, because you are bothering me. I am not here for your frakking entertainment. I am here to work. You are in a library- go find a frakin' book, and leave me the frak alone!

No love until I get some respect,

The Angry Geologist

As many of you who have known me for over five minutes will attest to, I absolutely despise plagiarism. I deal with it enought that I've come to believe that if a student is caught copying a homework assignment off of a webpage, he or she should fail that assignment. If he or she is caught twice, he or she should be kicked out of college and be forced to take that minimum wage job at McDonalds.

I value intellectual property very seriously, and if you're profiting off of something that isn't yours without giving the guy that actually did the work a cut, you should face consequences.

( Which is exactly why I'm pissed off about this! )