There but for the grace of god…

If moses were Canadian

It’s true: if Moses were Canadian, this would be what the Exodus from Michigan would have looked like.

Pic from this awesome roundup of Russian winter ice pix found via this Japanese blog.

And it reminds me of my music nerd friend Stephen. No matter what music nerd story you have, he can one-up it. No, trust me, he can. I don’t care about your “the time I slept with Mick Jagger” story; thousands of people can say the same (perhaps even tens of thousands?). He can top it with the “time Elvis Costello played an acoustic set in my flat.” He’s from London, and he has many friends who still haven’t left the small ville they called home way back when. Many of them are music nerds as well, and to them he was, one day, attempting to explain the difference between the Canadian music scene and the British music scene. He finally said, “This year, I’ve bought not one but two albums featuring songs where horses go through the ice.”

That about sums it up, no?

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Clear Skies

While that uppity Icelandic volcano is spewing hot ash into the atmosphere like an enormous, thoughtless smoker, you can watch the impact on European flights in realtime on the site FlightRadar24.

FlightRadar

When I saw it, eloquence deserted me entirely. My words:

NEAT! FRIKKIN NEATO!!!

Yes, not only will this site show you flight data in realtime, but it will also turn you into an eight-year-old tomboy.

You’re welcome?

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Back to the Return of the Future!

How Grad School is just like Kindergarten

Good to know, good to know. Particularly as I’m spending a significant amount of my not-free time looking up and applying to radically progressive grad programs in social media for social change, which leaves me approximately three choices on Planet Earth as far as I can see: Leeds (which I cannot afford), Stanford (which I cannot afford), or SFU’s new school of Technology, Communication and Arts which I also can’t afford but which is about a half a mile from my apartment and where I’d have the inside line on scholarships, bursaries, research dollars, and have pre-existing connections up the wazoo in the community that I’ll need when it comes time to do research, which is kinda the whole point of doing the degree in the first place. Then again, I may be teaching at UBC later on this year, and that generally comes with free tuition, so that’s something. Still, they have nothing like what I’m looking for.

But aside from what I’m looking for (for what I’m looking? Don’t try to tell me that’s correcter; do I look like I was borned yesterday? Hell no, and particularly not before I’ve had my coffee) what I’m actually expecting is something like this, only with chubby, pasty nerds instead of princes:

And, in case I get into a UK university and figure out a way to pay for it, I’m way ahead. After all, I’ve already got the socialization manual:

How to approach a stranger in London

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Nutt Sacked!

www.superpoop.com

This actually happened back in October, but somehow I missed it. Me, missing an opportunity for a filthy, misleading headline! I musta been drunk!

That’s right, UK government advisor David Nutt has lost his job after making controversial remarks characterizing alcohol and tobacco as more dangerous drugs than E, pot or LSD (from which the government derives no taxes).

According to the Guardian:

drug ranking

Nutt had criticised politicians for “distorting” and “devaluing” the research evidence in the debate over illicit drugs.

Arguing that some “top” scientific journals had published “horrific examples” of poor quality research on the alleged harm caused by some illicit drugs, the Imperial College professor called for a new way of classifying the harm caused by both legal and illegal drugs.

“Alcohol ranks as the fifth most harmful drug after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco is ranked ninth,” he wrote in the paper from the centre for crime and justice studies at King’s College, London, published yesterday.

“Cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, while harmful, are ranked lower at 11, 14 and 18 respectively.”

While the impulse to speak truth to power is, as always, the single MOST dangerous intoxicating substance known.

On the upside, I bet it was a wicked going-away party at Jocelyn Elders‘ house!

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