My Predictions for 2008

In 2008:

A new president will be elected, then quickly whisked out of office when it is discovered that he/she isn’t a human at all, but a reptilian-humanoid!

We will find the "missing" weapons of mass destruction that were supposed to be in Iraq, in a
7-11 just outside of Little Rock.

Holly Hunter’s show, "Saving Grace," will be the highest rated show on television for the month of February, when the writer’s strike stand-off will be at a climax, because it will be the only non-reality show that won’t be a re-run.

A new, non-culinary use for mayonnaise will be discovered.

The Myspace empire will collapse on itself, much like the Roman Empire did, with over taxation and a weaken defense system.

The Writer’s Strike will end in March ... badly.

DEATH ALERT! One or more of the following people will die: Dick Clark (preferably live on the air, right after the ball drops tonight), Britney Spears (easy, I know), Sean Hannity, and several "American Idol" winners.

Happy New Year Y'all!

Merry Christmas Y'all

Hope everyone gets everything they wanted! Happy Holidays!

A Festivus For The Rest of Us!

I finished my Christmas shopping today. This Christmas has taken on a "Gift Card" theme. It's much easier to get people gift cards rather than trying to pick out something that they won't throw away.

The warm weather today has the birds on the move. I saw seven hawks today! Five Red-tailed and two Sharpies. One of the Sharpies was hunting around my feeders. It then landed on my roof and proceeded to poop on it. Exciting! Also, had at least three or four Common Redpolls at my feeders today.

Remember tomorrow's the Winter Solstice, so remember to chant a mantra and sacrifice a chicken on a wooden altar!

I'll leave you all with a few hilarious videos from three of my favorite comedians.

Ode To Joy

Today was my very last day as an undergrad! Now what do I do?

Christmas Bird Count

Here's the collective list from yesterday's Christmas Bird Count. Our entire territory covered most of Richfield Township, but my group spent the most time at Richifield Park and Holloway Reservior.

Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
American Black Duck
Mallard
Wood Duck
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Northern Harrier
Merlin
Ring-billed Gull
Mourning Dove
Rock Pigeon
Snowy Owl
Belted Kingfisher
Pileated Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Eastern Bluebird
Hermit Thrush
Blue Jay
American Crow
Northern Cardinal
American Goldfinch
Common Redpoll
House Finch
American Tree Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
European Starling
House Sparrow

My Brain Feels Like Mush

It's pretty sad when on your take-home botany final, you find the scientific names you come up with to be amusing. Here are some made up names. BTW, if you don't know what these names mean, I envy you. If you really want to know, go to this site:
http://www.translation-guide.com/free_online_translators.php?from=English&to=Latin

Mortuus canis
Turpis matris
Turpis infatia
Fames vir
Semper fudge
Semper sitting
Semper sex
Minimus manus
Immunda induviae
Immunda pecunia

In case you're wondering, yes I am losing it!

Big Butter Jesus

I needed a break from studying so here's a very funny video of comedian Heywood Banks singing his Big Butter Jesus song. Warning: this song will get stuck in your head, but it's worth it!

I'm a real biologist now!

I got graduated today it seems. Too bad I'll be starting graduate classes in less than a month. Oh well.

Two new life birds today. I had both a Pine Siskin and a Common Redpoll at my feeders today. I was actually more excited about seeing the new birds than I was about graduating. Is that normal?

Talk to ya later, blog. I'll miss you.

Go ye forth ...

I had a welcomed distraction from writing my evolution paper a few minutes ago. My first American Tree Sparrow visited the feeders. This truly is an amazing event. Go and tell everyone you see of the Tree Sparrow and you shall be greatly rewarded!

Waiting is rarely fun

I'm stuck in the computer lab waiting to hear from some people so we can go out tonight. In the meantime I decided to pass the time by writing a blog. The problem is, when I'm done writing this, then I'll have to find something else to do. So I think I'll just pass the time writing whatever comes to my mind.

- boy, I wish the writer's strike would come to an end. I'm tire of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report reruns.
- I'll be glad when Christmas is over. I'm just not in the Christmas spirit this year. Maybe it's because I'm too busy to care at the moment.
- I'm hungry, I wish they'd hurry!
- What am I going to do with my research? I spent the majority of the day brainstorming and discussing possible ways to do my research, but I'm still at an impasse. I need to find a published article or thesis that I can model my methods after. The way I want to do it and the way I'll be able to do it are two different things, unless we get enough people suckered in, uh, I mean volunteered to help. I have about six more months to make final decisions, so I think I'll just procrastinate until then.
- I wonder if South Park will be another rerun tonight? Cursed writer's strike!
- OK, five minutes have passed. It's 7:09, I have until 7:30. Maybe I'll wander around campus until I run into someone I know.
- Maybe I won't.
- Where am I?
- What am I doing here?
- Someone please, send help!
- It's dark in here, and I hear laughter!
- I've heard that line before somewhere. But where?
- I guess I could take my evolution paper up to the "Write-o-Rama" thingy they're having tonight. My only problem with doing that is this is a scientific paper and the english queers up in the writing center are usually of no help to me. I guess I'll go up there anyways. I'll let you know how it goes

Thank you for wasting your time! Like me!

My stomach hurts!

So, this is my last full week as an undergrad! I’m extremely excited to be graduating, but that excitement will be short-lived as I will be starting graduate school in only a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I will be losing all touch of reality this week as I have to study for three exams, finish my evolution paper, and finish keying out my plants. I’ll try to update the blog on a semi-regular basis to keep everyone informed of my mental state.

Cheers!

Quivering With Anticipation

Tomorrow's Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving just might be my favorite holiday. ALL THAT FOOD!! It's incredible. Speaking of food and gluttony, I'm reminded of a bit by Patton Oswalt on Black Angus Steakhouses:

"At Black Angus, we'll start you off with our appetizer platter, featuring five jumbo deep-fried gulf shrimp, served on a disk of salted butter, with our cheese-and-butter dippin' sauce, pork cracklins, and 15 of our potato-bacon-bombs! Then we'll take you to our mile-long "Soup and Salad Bar" featuring bacon-and-cheese-cream soup and our five-head of iceberg lettuce HE-MAN SALAD, served in a punch-bowl, with 18 pounds of ranch dressin', pork-stuffed-deep-fried croutons, and what the hell a couple of corndogs! Then we'll wheel out our bottomless trough of FRIED DOUGH! Cause then we'll bring out our 55-oz Las Masa HE-MAN steak-slab, served with a deep-fried pumpkin stuffed with buttered scallops, and 39 of our potato-bacon-bombs. And then bend-over Abigail Mae, cause here comes the GRAVY PIPE!

BLACK ANGUS, DOORS LOCK FROM THE OUTSIDE FAGGOT!

At Black Angus, you're name is Peaches."

Things To Do Before I Die

Most people at some point make a list of things to do before they die. I have not ... until now. Here’s my list of things I want to do and/or experience before I die. Albeit a bit unconventional, it’s still my list nonetheless.

1) Eat an entire chocolate cake by myself

2) Write a screenplay roughly based on my life experiences

3) Create a new language that doesn’t use any verbs

4) Experience the exhilaration of police brutality

5) Knee Dane Cook in the groin

6) Feed my grandmother pot-brownies

7) KILL THAT CAT!! That cat is constantly plotting against me. I MUST destroy him before he destroys me!

8) Set a car on fire

9) Run for president, become elected, and then take the nation to war based on faulty intelligence and a vendetta against the man whom my father could not defeat; declare the mission "accomplished" several years/decades before it actually is; and then be hated by everyone in the nation for the rest of my presidency.

10) Discover a cure for hemorrhoids and not tell anyone what it is.

11) Read a book

12) Have my own television talk show on which I have complete creative control over and would be able to humiliate pretentious celebrities on.

13) Go on a bizarre foods trip to southeast Asia with Andrew Zimmern

14) Pay a child at a lemonade stand $20 for a single glass ... then upon drinking it, call the Health Department saying that the child was charging for the lemonade while making it in less than satisfactory sanitary conditions. I then would claim the lemonade gave me entamoebic dysentery and sue the child’s parents for everything they’re worth.

15) Open my own live bait shop.

16) Go whaling

17) Get lost in the desert on a horse with no name

18) Become a famous pop star even though I couldn’t sing or dance, get hooked on drugs and alcohol, have a couple kids with a retarded person, shave my head, be forced to go into rehab, refuse to quit using drugs, get booed on a pseudo award show on MTV, have my kids taken away from me and given the to retarded person, go back into rehab, and end up being found dead in my bathroom with a bathtub filled with maple syrup and a Mexican midget wearing a clown costume.

19) Coin the phrase "SEMPER FUDGE!"

20) Read a book to an underprivileged child


Onto a totally unrelated topic, today at the Dauner-Martin trails in Fenton I saw a bunch of Golden-crowned Kinglets and a Hairy Woodpecker.

Talk to ya later!

Life Bird!

I stopped by the Dauner-Martin trails in Fenton this afternoon. I came across a mixed flock of sparrows that included White-throated Sparrows, a Chipping Sparrow, and many American Tree Sparrows. Yes, the Tree Sparrows were a life bird for me, so I was pretty excited. Also saw Northern Flickers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpecker, White-breasted Nuthatches, Robins, Blue Jays, lots of B-c Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, crows, and a few cardinals.

I'M LOSING MY MIND!

I’ve got so much going on at the moment, I’m literally starting to lose it. It seems working on graduation audits, applying to grad schools, looking for jobs, lab work, bird research, tutoring, and having five classes has sent me into a spiral of sleeplessness and borderline depression. Luckily, I’ve only got about three or four more weeks of this and I’m done ... until January when I start grad school. Can’t wait!

We'll Leave The Light On For Ya

Events for the day:
1) Slept in (it's sad when you equate 9:00am to sleeping in)
2) Did nothing for three hours
3) Help the bio sci club at the UM Homecoming thingy
4) Sat around until the game started
5) Watched the game until halftime, then went home
6) Finished watching the game at home
7) Watched TV
8) Started typing this

Also, counted 14 Hooded Mergansers at Genesys this evening.

Don't forget to set your clocks back!

Hooded Mergansers Make Me Happy

I stopped by Genesys Hospital this afternoon to go around their nature trails. In the wooded pond across from the Conference Center there were five Hooded Mergansers. Apparently they've been hanging around for a couple of weeks. There also were two Mallards, a Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, and the ubiquitous Canada Geese and Ring-billed Gulls.

Also, it's just over a month until I graduate!! I'm getting a racing heart and a bleeding anus just thinking about it!

Good day!

TEAM DISCOVERY CHANNEL!

I saw a Northern Harrier this afternoon along the Genesee/Oakland County border. It was hunting in a field by the gamebird farm along E. Thompson Road between Halsey Rd. and Baldwin Rd. This is the first time I've seen this species in our area. I almost crashed into the embankment when I first saw it. Luckily I had my bins in the car and so could get a good look at it.

Happy Birding!

P.S. Oh yeah, I got a good look at a perching Red-tailed too.

Whachity-schmackity doo!

My brain hurts from studying physics. Someone help me!

Worlds Colliding

Have you ever tried doing something together with two different groups of friends? I’d say that I have at least ten distinct groups of friends. Friends from high school, work, college, chemistry friends, biology friends, wildlife biology friends, micro friends, etc. While I write about this I’m reminded of that Seinfeld episode when George’s complaining about mixing different groups of friends together: "A George divided cannot stand!"

In my mind, it always starts out the same way: "Well, I have fun with this group of friends, and I have fun with this other groups of friends, so therefore I’ll have even more fun with both these groups combined!" Uh, no. What always happened is I end up having to divide my time up between the two groups. The same thing happens on the first day of class when you see several different friends who are in the class too. "OK, who should I sit next to?" If they are true friends, they won’t really care who you sit with, but often enough, someone does get angry.

It's impossible to be all things, to all people. I wish they'd hurry up and start making human clones. That would make things a lot easier I think.

Just an observation ...

Internation Code for Botanical Nomenclature

I'm tired, my brain hurts from having to think all day and from the botany exam, and my stomach hates me for some reason. I'm done for the night.

We Ain't Got No Pancake Mix!

So I'm wondering what I should dress up as this weekend for the Halloween "celebration." I'm thinking something to do with Dane Cook and death. Maybe go as Dane Cook with a railroad spike stuck in my head or something. We'll see...

I'm skipping evolution tonight as we are watching a movie again. That class is a enormous waste of time. I'd not go at all this week except we have an exam Wednesday... a take-home test, so I theoretically only need to show up and get the test and then leave, but that would just be rude.

Till next time,
Buy war bonds!

Murphy Lake SGA - 10/20/07

Mary Beth and I were back out at Murphy Lake again today. While we were out there we got turned around came across an old man in a deer blind hunting. He was really nice and didn't get mad at us, but he was really creepy. Like the kind of person who would kidnap you and put you in a pit in the bottom of his basement. He showed us how to get back to our cars and then went back to his blind ... or so we thought. After we got a little ways ahead, he started to follow us. If you've ever been stalked by a back-woods hick carrying a bow-and-arrow, then you'd know it's not a very good feeling. Luckily he turned around and DIDN'T shoot us in the back.

Birds seen/heard include: Robins, House Finch, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Hermit Thrushes, several Aythya sp., Canada Geese, Great Blue Heron, White-throated Sparrows, Cedar Waxwings, and a Hairy Woodpecker.

No hawks, although there was a Sharpie at my feeders this morning hunting for some breakfast.

How I'm Spending My Weekend

Saturday: Working, physics homework.

Sunday: Stress Management and bioethics homework, studying for botany exam.

If I’m lucky, maybe the world will come to an end and I won’t have to do anything. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed.

Colbert In '08?

It seems Stephen Colbert is running for president, but only in South Carolina. I doubt he will actually try to run for office, (he'd have to take a major pay-cut I'm sure) but I'd vote for him!

Politics & Religion - Minus The Religion

It’s REALLY crappy outside today. Good napping weather.
The gloomy weather and the relatively little work I had to do today gave me time to nap and think about the absence of a presidential candidate worth voting for. Let’s see, our choices at the moment are:

1) Mitt Romney- what kind of name is Mitt? He’s a Mormon, so he’s probably crazy. I know nothing about him. He’s out.
2) Barack Obama- first of all, he doesn’t even have a campaign slogan. Again, I don’t know what he stands for or what he plans to accomplish. He’s out.
3) Rudy Giuliani- a little more socially liberal than his republican competitors. Good. Strong on terrorism. Alright. Started an opera club in high school. Oh, so close, but no.
4) Hillary Clinton- ah, no. Maybe if she tried to make healthcare more universal, but otherwise, no way.
5) John Edwards- lost in 2004, his neighbors hate him, pays $400 for haircuts. NO!
6) John McCain- used to like him, but he crossed over to the dark side when he started to change his position and supported Bush. No.
7) Fred Thompson- not even close.

There’s not one candidate that stands out from the others as being THE candidate. I try to be as independent as I can. I don’t care if the person is a democrat or republican, conservative or liberal. I’m conservative on some issues but liberal on others. I just want someone’s who’s honest and who will distance themselves from the Bush administration without going off the deep-end and say we need to become friends with countries like Iran.

If the election were held today, I could not bring myself to vote for any of the candidates. I would probably hand in a blank ballot so it would at least be counted as a dissatisfied voter.

Oh well, looks like we’re screwed for at least another 4 years.

Will the torture of bioethics ever end???

What do you do after spending 5 hours at school working on a bioethics exam? You go home and spend another 2 hours working on bioethics assignments.

Nothing exciting happened today. The only thing that could be considered even slightly eventful was when I had left over Chinese for lunch. I'm done. Goodnight.

My First REAL Blog

Alright, I’ll probably be the only person who actually reads this thing on a regular basis, but I’ve wanted to have my own blog for a while. I’ve always heard about the glamorous lifestyle of the blogger, with all the typing, and the take-out-ordering, and the lie-telling, it’s got to be an amazing life. So, what can you expect from this blog? Well, a lot of venting, but mostly nothing. A majority of the things I post will probably have to do with nothing: mindless bloviating designed to create a false sense of importance and relevance. Topics may include the events of the day, what’s bothering me at the time, updates on bird sightings and research progress, good restaurants, TV shows, and movies, basically meaningless drivel. So enjoy and don’t take anything I write too seriously as I have a habit of over-exaggeration and hyperbole. Here we go:

Since school started I’ve had all of 4 days where I didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything. I sat down today and came up with a detailed schedule for everyday of the week. When I say detailed schedule, I mean a structured plan for every hour and half hour of the day. It turns out that due to the fact that I’m taking 5 classes and I have three jobs plus I’m one of only two biology tutors, that I’m about 3 hours and 16 minutes away from complete insanity. Luckily, one of my online classes ends next week, freeing up all of 4 hours in my week. Let’s see, what can I do with that 4 hours? I could do more homework or studying, or I could work more, or I could waste time and watch TV or write another blog. Hmm ...

On a completely unrelated note I finally set out my bird feeders this past week. I’ve had about 10 species so far, some of which I’ve never had at the feeders before: Red-breasted Nuthatches (I know, kinda weird that I’ve never had them before), Yellow-rumped Warblers, and White-crowned Sparrows. Also, the DE Juncos have returned. The only real problem I’m having is with all the House Sparrows. This is why I don’t feed in the summer, all the feed gets eaten by the h. sparrows and blackbirds. Oh well, hopefully old man winter will "remove" some of the problem birds for me.

I’m helping Ernie (one of my professors) and Mary Beth (grad student) with starting point bird surveys and breeding bird surveys at Murphy Lake State Game Area located in southern Tuscola Co. We’ve only been scouting that area out so far: locating trails, noting habitat information. We’ve not really done a lot of birding, but we have seen/heard a couple species of note so far including Red-shouldered Hawks and a Northern Goshawk. It’s possible that both species breed there.

That’s enough for now. Hey, I actually do get to sleep-in tomorrow. I don’t have to tutor anyone until 11am. Whoohoo!