Jul
31

Dragonflies

Posted in blog, dragonfly, ewww gross, sleepy, sunburned | 1 Comment
Not much of a post today, I’m afraid. I spent about 5 hours tubing on the Shenandoah River. The water level was pretty low so it was slow going considering we only went about 19 miles. So…I’m sunburned and a bit cranky. Also? I spent most of that time on the river surrounded by beautiful blue dragonflies. They landed all over us and the tubes and the raft and all that other fun stuff. I could have left it at that and been quite happy. But no. *These* dragonflies were busy…getting busy. And there is nothing quite so surreal as floating down a river in an orange tube. Covered in copulating dragonflies. Have fun with that image. Imma gonna go watch TrueBlood now.… Read more
Jan
3

Science Smells

Posted in blog, ewww gross | 2 Comments
Connor got a Disgusting Science kit for Christmas this year. Much of it involves getting a good look at the overall grossness that is the human body. Always a treat, but the science major in me approves whole-heartedly, especially because the kit included materials to create and set up our own petri dishes. (It’s very easy to do, really, since agar is really  just gelatin and sugar and water). So there’s a nice set of four ready to go petri dishes ready to go now. Connor was quick to point out that agar kinda smells bad. (And yeah, it’s not the greatest thing ever when you’re boiling it on the stove, but it’s not that bad either.) Science is often messy and smelly. (Much like creativity, really.) In this case we’ve got our pristine substrate, ready for scoring with whatever nasty things we can find. We haven’t decided if Connor’s… Read more
Jun
4

TapeWorm WTFkery

Posted in ewww gross, wtf | 2 Comments
Okay. So you know, I stumbled across this old ad a little while back…and sure, I suppose I get it. I mean, it’s the old days and you want to lose weight, right? But instead of a magic pill or Dexatrim or whatever, the ladies of the day swallowed nice, fresh, sanitized tape worms. Because nothing says sexy like naked time with your man (or lady) and a big honking tapeworm coming out of your ass. (Keep in mind that tapeworms can grow up to 50 feet long in your intestine and can live there for 20 years. Yay, romance!) Historically it was probably pretty common – but think of the hygienics of the old world slaughter houses. Parasites ran pretty rampant back in the day – and ingesting them via uncooked meat or bad conditions was bound to happen. Hell, you’ve all seen the movie Seabiscuit, right? Remember Red, the guy played by… Read more