An octet of vignettes

Dang. Tagged. Can’t you people leave me alone?

All right, here are the rules.

  1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
  2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
  3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
  4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
  5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog

I suppose I could list what I had for dinner over the last 8 days, you guys don’t know that, but then I’d have to confess about those lazy days when I ate microwaved leftovers over the sink, and there’d go my suave image as a debonair man of culture. So instead you get eight random recollections.

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Portrait of my alter ego

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(click for larger image)

Uh-oh. My actual identity has been exposed, and one of my true forms has actually been published in a publication of the American popular press. Now people are going to understand why I am so pro-choice: “I AM PHARYNGULA, THE HARVESTER OF STILLBORN SOULS!”

About the English thing—I’ve been working on it, ‘k? And I have no idea who the cheerleader chick is.

Otherwise, though, sure, that’s exactly what I look like. Horns, red glowing eyes, muscles like boulders stuck under my skin, armful of squirming babi…hey, wait a minute. What’s with the babies? “I’m a fierce demon and I’m gonna kick your ass…right after I change little Phillipe’s diaper and settle Brittany with a bottle. Hey, know any lullabyes?” What kind of demon is all motherly? And where are the tentacles? They left off the tentacles and drew me with freaking RUG RATS?

All I’ve got is this one panel from DC’s “Countdown” series (thanks for sending it, Marc!). I hope he at least has the power to stun his opponents with boring lectures on development, genetics, and molecular biology. And that he puts the babies down now and then. Maybe he runs a daycare?

P.S. I just got a note from Jim Kakalios: the cheerleader is Mary Marvel, and he’s wearing dead babies. At least that minimizes the fuss of taking care of them, and opens the door to dead baby jokes. Hmmm…I wonder if he’d get offended at dead baby jokes? He might take them very personally, you know.

Dubito Ergo Sum has a scan of the full page. Pharyngula has some unpleasant dietary preferences, it seems.

Does Steve Jobs read this blog or something?

My family of five has precisely four cell phones between them. Guess who’s the odd man out? I think Apple knows this, and have specifically targeted one of the ads for their new iPhone at me. This is horribly cruel. Not only is the ad focused on calamari, but wow, that gadget is sweet and elegant and had me thinking that I must own one, now. Hitting me with techno- and cephalo-lust at the same is no fair.

Fortunately, I have also seen the price, and I have seen my bank account, and I have seen my income, and that particular work of artfully hewn technology is squarely in the domain of economically impossible. But if I ever see someone with them, I’m going to ask them to find the nearest seafood restaurant for me, just because.

Students and schools behaving badly

This is an ugly story, and it’s ugly on both sides. First, rude students make a nasty, mocking video of one of their teachers and post it to YouTube, which is bad enough; these are kids who definitely need some discipline. But then the school district suspends the students for 40 days in punishment. Forty days is almost a quarter of the school year. They deserved a harsh response, but kicking them out of school just deprives them of the education they need, and they’re probably going to regard it as a vacation.

I must confess, though, that what first caught my eye about the story is that it’s from Kent, Washington — where I grew up. I read it wondering if it was my alma mater, Kent-Meridian High School, that was going to be the scene of the crime…and no, it wasn’t. It was Kentridge, our hated cross-town rivals, the school that was even more despised than Auburn. I felt relief.

It’s funny how those silly scholastic enmities can come back to you after 30 years…

Two-fisted drinking

That weird guy Dave Ng put out a call for bloggers to flaunt their drinking containers. That’s easy, at least.

1. Can you show us your coffee cup?

As if there were just one…

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2. Can you comment on it? Do you think it reflects on your personality?

From left to right:

None of those reflect anything about my personality.

3. Do you have any interesting anecdotes resulting from coffee cup commentary?

No. Drinking coffee is serious business.

3. Can you try to get others to comment on it?

I doubt it. Now everyone will refuse to comment, just to be contrary.

Any Ann Arborites want to meet up?

I’ve got a better idea of what my schedule is like, and even have a recommendation for a hangout tonight — would anyone care to join me at the Arbor Brewing Company tonight (Thursday) around 7 or 8pm? I’m going whether anyone shows up or not, and if nobody joins me, I’ll be drinking alone…and how pathetic would that be?

Look for the bearded fellow with a copy of that book with a bright yellow cover titled “God is Not Great” — I’ll be working on my Hitchens impersonation.

No rest for the wicked

Didn’t I just say “Woo hoo” yesterday? False alarm. Scarcely do I clear one set of major tasks away than another set rise up. I already mentioned that I was going to be the speaker at the Humanists of Minnesota banquet on Saturday evening. I neglected to tell you all that I’m leaving for the University of Michigan tomorrow to give the keynote at the Genetic Programming Theory and Practice Workshop.

I know virtually nothing about genetic programming, so this is a wonderful opportunity to learn something about it.

Since I’m certainly not going to be able to tell them a thing about genetic programming, I’m planning to tell them a little about my own skewed perspective as one of those metazoan-centric fans of developmental processes. I’m hoping they might learn a little something from me, and that we’ll all have some fun with ideas about embryos. Here’s my very brief abstract:

A developmental biologist’s view of evolution

The ongoing integration of molecular genetics, developmental biology, and evolution (the field of evo-devo) is stirring up new ideas and new questions. I will tell a few stories from the evo-devo literature that illustrate the importance of the principles of developmental plasticity and developmental constraint on evolutionary trajectories — showing that these are two competing and complementary forces operating on multicellular organisms. My argument is that the contingencies of developmental architectures may well be as significant a force on evolutionary histories as selection.

Next week I get to slack off. No, wait, there’s also…

Mom did good work

On the old site, I had a little tradition of occasionally showing off embarrassing baby pictures of the kids (here’s Alaric, Connlann, and Skatje, for instance). Today is Mother’s Day, and it would be cool to show off old pictures of Mom, but wouldn’t you know it — mothers are much too clever for that. She just sent me a collection of baby pictures of Little PZ, so I’ll turn the magic time-machine on myself, instead.

This is pure treacle, self-obsession, vanity, and nostalgia. Don’t look below the fold.

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