The Daily Procrastinator

Students, teachers, parents, professors, and procrastinators rejoice! Summer has arrived! I’m trying to keep thoughts of oppressive heat and suffocating humidity by focusing my mind on fishing, swimming, and sitting up late into the night chatting with friends. I sincerely hope your plans are the same. Before we drift off into reverie, though, let’s take a look back at this week’s offerings on The Daily Procrastinator. Even in the summer, you don’t want to miss a thing.

The week began as BigRedPoet assigned you some simple Memorial Day homework. Admittedly, I only completed two of the three sections of the assignment, but Magnus only did one. Go double-check, and gloat if you did all three.

On Tuesday, FlashCap drew a fine line between what’s believable and what’s not. A guy with adamantium in his skeleton and huge claws that sprout out of his forearms? Of course that’s believable. A guy with adamantium in his skeleton and huge claws that sprout out of his forearms who’s pretty much indestructible? That’s ludicrous.

Yes, that's a spider eating a bird. Run fast. Run far. Run now.

Midweek, TallGirl spoke up in the face of Jon & Kate hysteria. While many Americans are obsessed with this pseudo-celebrity couple, TallGirl is having none of it. I couldn’t agree with her more whole-heartedly. See the comments…

On Thursday, BigRedPoet went just a little bit nuts. After attending an Astros game and sitting behind the un-fans from hell, BRP went off on a rant that just might peel the paint off the walls…or at least cause you to chuckle and shake your head.

The week ended as FlashCap found a way to use brownies, literature, and manure to make a brilliant point about the way people think and encounter their world. It’s almost like he was on one of those improv comedy shows and had to find a way to link three unrelated objects on one routine. The result will enlighten you.

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The Daily Procrastinator: Contributing to the Dramatic Reduction of Your Personal

Careful! These brownies are special, and not in a good way.

There’s an email being forwarded around quite a bit that tells the story of a couple kids who want to go see a popular and critically successful movie that has material that some people might find objectionable, perhaps a sex scene, perhaps some language. The father of these two boys, who believes they should not go see the movie, attempts to teach them a lesson about the dangers of such entertainment by baking a batch of brownies and telling his sons that he’s used the highest quality ingredients, but added only a smidgen of horse manure to the batter. He then asks his sons if they feel “only a smidgen” of manure matters in the brownies, which otherwise are perfectly edible and tantalizing. The lesson, of course, is that the little bit of objectionable material ruins the entire thing, whether it be a film, a television show or a book, and is even potentially harmful.

This parable irritates me because the analogy it makes is patently false; viewing a movie or reading a novel containing some objectionable material and digesting manure-tainted brownies are two completely different processes. Most people, by using their brains (though I might be already assuming too much), can differentiate between what is “good” and what is “bad.” I’ve even heard that parents can teach their children to do so, and not be subject to the corruptive influence of the media (cue ominous music). The stomach, however, cannot differentiate between brownie batter and manure, and will attempt to digest everything that enters it. Yes, garbage-in/garbage-out works in the case of the stomach, but it’s not quite so easy when considering the brain.

For example, I teach Huckleberry Finn every year. The novel uses the word “nigger” a little over 200 times, and, if the above parable and its adherents are to be believed, after reading it, a reader should be more likely to actually use the word. But of course that’s ridiculous – it doesn’t happen. My students recognize the context of the word’s use and know that it is a word they neither want to use nor will use.

This modern-day parable is also refuted by the Bible, both in verse and as a work. There are any number of risque passages in the Old and New Testaments; a particular passage about a former prostitute and her longings for the old days comes to mind (Ezekial 23:19-20). There are many more like this one that you won’t hear on Sunday mornings, but were considered crucial by those compiling the books of the Bible. But no one’s calling to purge these verses from the work; in fact, my church gives copies of an unedited Bible to our fourth graders (gasp!). But we’re Lutheran, so we’ve historically been rebels.

The point? Every one of us has been blessed with a brain, and I’m troubled by how many people choose not to use it. As I’ve stated time and time again in my classes, context counts. And there’s a vast difference in reading the word “nigger” in Huck Finn and reading it in Klan propaganda, or between nudity seen when watching Schindler’s List and some late night Cinemax flick. If you suggest otherwise, you’re shoveling your special brownie ingredient.

Recently, I had the good fortune to be invited to watch the Astros play in Minute Maid Park. A friend of mine had some really great second-row seats she wasn’t going to be able to use, so J-Roy and I got the nod. Whether or not the Astros won (which they didn’t, of course) is immaterial to this post. The thing that deserves my scornful eye (and yours, procrastinators) is the group of “fans” who sat in front of me at the game.

If you’ve been paying attention, you must realize that anyone who sat in front of me was in the FRONT ROW. These people were just a few feet from the grass at field level about two-thirds of the way down the right-field line. The right fielder was so close I could smell his bubble gum. Was this fantastic view of the game enough to keep my neighbors interested? Of course not! Of the four “fans” (one guy and three women, all in their early twenties), only the guy, who sat on the far right, and a girl in a purple shirt, who sat on the far left, paid any attention whatsoever. The two girls who sat in the middle, YellowShirt and TankTop, literally didn’t watch the game for a single moment.

That guy in the background is neither J-Roy nor I, but this should give you some idea of what we were trying to accomplish.

As soon as the gang sat down, YellowShirt and TankTop both busted out their cameras and began holding them at arm’s length and snapping pictures of their group. I don’t know when this practice of digital onanism began, but the girls seemed intent upon taking the perfect picture of their group at the game. They fussed with timers and flashes, balanced their cameras on the railing (which divided their seats from the FIELD OF PLAY), tried several different poses, and generally wasted about an inning and a half trying to get some nice shots for their FaceBook pages. J-Roy and I joined the fun by occasionally leaning down and making distasteful faces in the backgrounds of their pictures. We’re kind of hoping to show up on ruinedphotos.com.

Once the exercise in narcissism was complete, TankTop embraced the opportunity to complain loudly about her employment situation. Allow me to quote: “I don’t know why I can’t find a job. I have an eighty-thousand dollar degree hanging on my wall. I mean, I majored in communications and took a minor in business (imagine an eyeroll and finger-quotes as she said “business”). I should totally be able to get a job. Maybe it’s because I’m only applying in Austin, but that’s, like, the only place I want to work.” She continued in this vein at great length. As she spoke, her designer sunglasses, used not for (gasp!) blocking sunlight, but instead as a hair accessory, bobbed in time with her incompetence.

J-Roy and I immediately launched into a loud conversation about what a pain it is to be a member of an interview committee. You just have to interview so many idiots before you find a few good candidates, ya know? Of course, TankTop didn’t hear us. Or if she did, she wasn’t able to make the tremendous cognitive leap that would have lead her to understand that she was being mocked. Meanwhile, YellowShirt used her iPhone to compose a long, sappy, badly-punctuated letter to someone named Piper. We read it over her shoulder. Apparently, Piper is way behind on what’s happening in YellowShirt’s life, because it took her two full innings of pecking away at her touch-screen and nodding in response to TankTop’s incoherent babble before she could finish her manifesto.

By this point, J-Roy and I were sincerely hoping that they’d all have to get up and pee soon. Apparently, though, while this pair had the mental capacity of field mice, they had the bladders of grizzly bears. They didn’t leave their seats once during the whole game. Not. One. Time. Just when we thought this was a bad thing, a trivia game sponsored by a travel company came on the JumboTron. A kindly-looking woman with a microphone appeared on the screen, standing next to an excited fan. In order to win a round-trip airline ticket, all the fan had to do was listen to these three clues and then name the city they described:

• The Imperial Palace is located here.
• This city is home to the world’s largest sushi market.
• This city was formerly known as Edo.

Upon reading the clues, TankTop loudly offered this sage bit of wisdom: “Oh, that’s gotta be someplace in California.” YellowShirt responded, “Could be.” My God. Even if you don’t know that the city being described is Tokyo, you’ve GOT to know it’s in Japan. Imperial Palace!?! It took every bit of willpower I could summon not to reach down and knock their heads together. Wow. I wonder why she can’t find a job.

After the trivia debacle, the dynamic duo grew quiet. They weren’t watching the game, though. They were wiling away the oh-so-boring final hour in the front row at the ballpark by playing games on their cellphones. Remember the game where you draw a huge grid of dots and then take turns connecting two of the dots? The one where the object is to draw the line that will close in a box, then put your initial in that box, thus scoring a point? YellowShirt’s iPhone crushed her at that game. Three times in a row. I had to stop watching for fear that I’d actually burst out in hysterical laughter.

Oh, well. At least they were quiet for the last couple innings.

I learned a few new things at Minute Maid park the other day, and some things I’ve known for a while were confirmed. Let’s review them:

• The Astros cannot hit with men on base.
• The Astros’ bullpen is awful.
• Piper is, like, totally out of the loop.
• California is the only logical place for the Imperial Palace.
• iPhones are surprisingly skilled at games of wit.
• Dressing, talking, and acting like a spoiled teenager will NOT get you a job, even if you have an eighty-thousand dollar degree.

I don’t watch Jon & Kate Plus 8. I have no interest in the show, and thought that the rest of the sane world felt the same way. Yet every day of this holiday weekend I found myself at a gathering discussing these people. They’re the talk of the town.

Even more strangely, people seem to feel like their privacy is being violated because both are reportedly having affairs.

Privacy?

Let me see if I’ve got this straight: these people aren’t celebrities in the standard sense. They didn’t choose a profession, like musician or actor or athlete, that comes with the side effect of paparazzi. Instead, they had a boatload of kids and willingly signed away the rights to have their private lives filmed. Right?

Sorry folks, but once you invite cameras into your home, once you allow your children to be videotaped 24/7 and broadcast on national TV, you have no claim to privacy anymore. Period. You asked for the spotlight on your private lives. You can’t complain when that bright light reveals things that you don’t want people to see. This was your choice. Now you live with the consequences.

Thus endeth my rant.

You know, back when he was just a mutant, Wolverine kicked all kinds of ass. Here was a guy with heightened senses and a healing factor that allowed him to wade into a horde of Hand ninjas and start doling out as much punishment as he was taking with those awesome adamantium claws.

And the thing was, those wounds he was taking took a toll on him – it actually took him time to heal, to mend, and, if you were to inflict enough punishment on the runt, the fight could be won. At least for a time. Then Wolverine would go berserker on your ass and woe be to anyone who got in his path.

I liked the fact that his past was a mystery. I liked the fact that the adamantium was grafted onto his bones by a mysterious government entity, and that those claws were not natural. They just made him more deadly. That’s all I really needed to know. (Now, I should note that I don’t mind the relatively recent developments with House of M, giving Wolverine total recall of his past. It opens up so many more story possibilities that could enrich the character even further. Whether this bombshell is being pulled off effectively is another opinion).

But back in 1993, the inevitable happened. Because when a major X-Men villain has the capability to control the forces of magnetism, thus being able to manipulate all forms of metal, it really should have been no surprise when Magneto ripped the adamantium from Wolverine’s body.

The character of Wolverine has never been quite the same since then.

One, the loss of the adamantium led to the “discovery” that Wolverine’s claws were actually bone structures, and thus a part of his original mutation. So not only did Wolverine have heightened senses and a healing factor, but he also had claws, to boot. Quick, name another mutant with so many beneficial mutations. The idea of bone claws popping out of his wrists is, as far as intuitive mutations, pretty much a stretch (yes, we’re talking about a realm in which some mutants teleport, others shoot concussive blasts out of their eyes, and others control the weather, but at least those mutations are suggested by design characteristics or Darwinistic necessity. Name an animal that ejects its claws from sheaths in its legs).

Two, Wolverine has become something of a samurai. Historically he’s been characterized as a brawler, someone who overpowers opponents through ferocity and will. Now, he’s portrayed as a skilled fighter, knowledgeable in various forms of combat, martial arts, and swordplay. I guess this is a bit of a nitpick since he’s lived for over 100 years, and it makes sense that he might have picked up some skills in that time, but, again, these depictions run counter to who he was, originally.

Yeah, Wolverine carrying a sword doesn’t make much sense to me, either (yes, I know the story behind the blade).

Third, and this is the biggest issue I have, the dude seems damn near immortal now. Wolverine’s healing ability has been increasing steadily since the mid-90s, and it’s culminated in the idea that nothing short of cutting off his head will kill him. And even that is up to debate. I read an issue of Wolverine a while back where he was chasing the villain Nitro after Nitro blew up the town of Stamford, Connecticut. He caught up with him in a remote wooded area, but Nitro exploded himself again:

Note that the explosion reduces Wolverine to his adamantium laced skeleton (reacquired sometime during the 90s). But on the next page, Wolverine’s body has already regenerated itself (appparently, some brain matter survived the flames) and he proceeds to take on Nitro again, who is spent from that explosion.

Really? This is the same Wolverine who barely survived ninjas and samurai in Chris Claremont’s seminal limited series, which gave fans their first real glimpse into the mysterious Logan. Here’s a nice site that gives an overview of the work. Otherwise, buy it. But now, 25 or so years later, this story wouldn’t play out as none of the heavies in Claremont’s story would be able to overcome Wolverine’s healing abilities, which are now godlike.

I understand characters evolve (particularly mutants), but these evolutions in Logan have made him, in my opinion, less entertaining, particularly the accelerated healing factor. It now takes a god-like opponent to threaten Wolverine, and that’s the real problem with his portrayal today: Wolverine’s claws suggest he should be taking on mortals – the adamantium blades are a very real threat to anyone who can bleed. His healing factor, though, allows him to take on anything else with very little risk.

And that rarely makes for interesting story-telling.

Eat...

...drink...

...and relax.

Here’s hoping you did all three.

*runs, gasping, to the keyboard*

Hello, procrastinators! I hope you’ll forgive my labored breathing and flushed cheeks. I’ve been off procrastinating. It takes a lot of work not to do my work! Now that we’re all here together, though, let’s look back over the last two weeks’ editions of The Daily Procrastinator and make sure that nothing escaped your notice.

TDP served up a healthy portion of technology posts, beginning with TallGirl’s reminiscences about the space shuttle we have all come to know and love. Somehow, replacing it with a capsule just doesn’t seem right. Speaking of technological advances with which TallGirl is not 100% comfortable, she also pointed out that two recently revealed “innovative” cars share an uncanny resemblance. BigRedPoet contributed to the technological frenzy by offering his opinion on a soon-to-be-released technology from XBox360 that will revolutionize video gaming. TallGirl addressed technology once more as she lamented the absence of old-fashioned customer service and human contact in the modern business world.

FlashCap directed a post toward collectors and hobbyists as he revealed his collection of Marvel Universe action figures. Simultaneously, he called down a pox upon Hasbro for luring him into collecting yet another series of tiny plastic superheroes. The pictures are pretty astonishing.

I've heard of unreceptive women, but this is ridiculous.

The subject of good ol’ everyday life got some attention on TDP in the past two weeks. TallGirl discussed her recent “opportunity” to serve on a jury and also provided some enlightening tips for avoiding your civic duty. My inner procrastinator is smiling. Next, TallGirl revealed that there may or may not be an undead creature in her rose garden. Is it possible for plants to return, rotted and shambling, from the grave? Finally, BigRedPoet saw a product this week that he simply could not resist writing about. It’s difficult to explain. Just go check it out…

In what’s beginning to look like a pattern, BigRedPoet posted a concert and album review this week. This time, his attention is turned toward a young singer and songwriter who hasn’t yet made the bigtime, but who is destined for great success. Long live old-time music!

Finally, BigRedPoet addressed the topic of physical anthropology. A new fossil, nicknamed “Ida,” has recently been discovered in Germany, and she promises to open many doors of insight into humanity’s earliest ancestors. In this post, you can check out pictures of the discovery, read BRP’s reactions, and find out about the recently published book about Ida.

Visit The Daily Procrastinator at any of the links above and sign up to receive daily email updates so you never miss an article!

The Daily Procrastinator: Contributing to the Dramatic Reduction of Your Personal Productivity

In my life, it seems like Saturday is all business — errands and responsibilities — but Sunday is the day for fun. That’s the day I head out for a hike or day trip to the beach, activities made easier by packing a picnic lunch.

I have a local gourmet grocery store that makes fantastic sandwiches, but they don’t open until 9:00, and we’re often on the road by then. This leaves my Sunday lunch in the hands of the Safeway deli.

Now, I have to say that Safeway has some really great selections at their deli. A particular favorite is the Hollywood Cobb. It has grilled chicken, bacon (hey, nobody said it was healthy) and blue cheese crumbles.

When you go to Safeway, there is a touch-screen ordering system. You pick the sandwich that you like, choose your size, customize your condiments and pay with a swipe of the credit card. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. So far, in five attempts, they’ve only gotten the order right one time.

Now, keep in mind the parameters that we’re working with here. It’s usually 8:30 AM. Mine is the only sandwich being made. I ask for only one customization: no vinaigrette, because it makes the roll soggy by lunchtime. It’s very simple. Yet I’ve had it made with extra vinaigrette, no blue cheese (twice!) and no lettuce/tomato. I can understand forgetting a single ingredient during a hectic lunch rush, but not in the early morning. The worst part is that I never know it until hours have passed and I’m miles away.

The errors blow my mind. After all, the sandwich info pops out on a little slip of paper. You’re not subject to poor handwriting or a verbal miscommunication. I know exactly what I ask for. So I’ve learned my lesson (or so I thought). Today, when I picked up my completed sandwich, I compared their little slip of paper with what I input on the screen. Ah, a perfect match. I thought that all of the problems had been resolved.

But this sandwich took the cake. Today I sat down for lunch and opened the sandwich to discover, to my horror, that instead of grilled chicken breast with blue cheese, I had deli turkey with avocado, half a quart of mayo and bacon that appeared to be uncooked. I fail to understand how this can happen. One missing ingredient? Weird, but maybe understandable. An entirely different sandwich? Mind-blowing.

So short of finding a new sandwich shop that’s open before 9:00 AM, I have to resort to the old-fashioned method of leaning over the counter and scrutinizing their every move. Because as this experience has taught me, sometimes even the best technology ideas can’t trump plain old human contact.

Of course, there’s a business parallel in this story. So often we rely on technology to do our communicating: email, IM, text. When was the last time we picked up the phone? Perhaps more importantly, when was the last time you saw that contact in person?

The fact is that sometimes all of the whiz-bang communication tools that we have at our disposal can’t trump a face-to-face meeting. I’m as guilty as everyone else, and possibly even more so. I’m a writer. I do my best communicating in writing. I like to be able to look back and have a record of the conversation for my project file. But when I meet someone for coffee, I get all of that and more. I get to see the nuance of the project and the client. I get to hear about challenges that they face, challenges that I can sometimes help them to address.

Of course, it’s easy to say that I’m too busy to do it. It’s easy to fire off an email and wait for a reply. But sometimes, there’s just no replacement for the human touch.

A recently revealed 47-million year old fossil of the species Darwinius masillae could be the oldest known ancestor of human beings ever discovered. The specimen, a roughly two-foot long skeleton nicknamed “Ida,” appears to be an ancestor to early anthropoids, from which humans are evolved.

Ida is preserved almost completely, including the contents of her stomach.

The many similarities between Ida and modern humans begin with her fingers and toes, which feature fingernails and toenails. Her hands feature opposable thumbs. Her limbs are proportioned like ours, with her legs considerably longer than her arms. Ida’s eye sockets face forward. Her blunt teeth suggest a diet that consisted mainly of fruit. With the exception of her tail, which she probably used for balance while traveling through the trees, she looks strikingly human.

The truly remarkable thing about Ida is her age. Prior to this discovery, the oldest human ancestor ever discovered was Lucy, a 40% complete skeleton of the species Australopithecus afarensis. Discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, Lucy is estimated to be 3.2 million years old. Ida is 95% complete and lived a full 40-plus-million years before Lucy.

The nearly perfect preservation of Ida’s remains for such a tremendously long time is due to a very specific set of circumstances. The fossil was discovered in the Messel pit, near Frankfurt, Germany. This pit has been a goldmine for fossil hunters since its discovery. 47 million years ago, the pit was a crater that resulted from an underground steam blast. As this crater filled with water, it created an immensely deep lake. The bottom of the lake was so far removed from sunlight that almost no living thing could exist in the depths, not even the bacteria necessary for decomposition. Because no rivers flowed into or out of the lake, the waters lay very still, making oxygen exchange between the surface and the depths almost nonexistent. Any plant or animal which sank to the bottom of the lake would rest relatively undisturbed until sinking dead algae and sediment covered it. Thus, Ida’s remains were not decomposed before her fossilization began. The fossilization is so complete that the outline of her fur can be seen in the surrounding rock and the contents of her stomach are still visible.

The contributions this discovery could make to modern evolutionary science are staggering. As a paleoanthropology enthusiast, I rushed to the bookstore yesterday and bought The Link, the story of Ida’s discovery and scientific examination. Although I think the title is chosen poorly, since it only reinforces the misconception that there is a “missing link” between monkey and humans and therefore implies that humans evolved from monkes, what I’ve read of the book so far is immensely interesting.

The world is a beautiful and amazing place, procrastinators, and the discovery of Ida proves once again that we are only beginning to understand natural history and the role of our species within it.

Note: While I subscribe to evolutionary theory as the most likely explanation for modern life forms, my fellow Procrastinators may or may not agree. In fact, you yourself may or may not agree. I intend no offense to anyone’s sensibilities.

Growing up in the northeast, my grandmother had two rose bushes: one red, one yellow. On average, they produced a total of five blooms between them over the course of the entire summer. Instead of convincing me that these were poor, pathetic little rose bushes, I thought that they were the most magical things ever. I also thought that it took an entire field of rose bushes to create enough yield for a decent bouquet.

This one starts out a deep salmon color, then fades to yellow with pink accents.

As an adult, I relocated to California. Out here, roses grow big, bushy and with vigor that rivals backyard weeds. It’s a stunning contrast. But I quickly realized that allowing roses to grow on your property was not the same thing as properly tending to roses. When I moved into a house with no fewer than two dozen different varieties of roses, I was thrilled. Look at the beautiful flowers! There are red, pink, yellow, white and a combination yellow/coral that just stuns me every time. I had visions of beautiful bouquets of roses adorning my kitchen table.

And then I found the aphids.

These little brutes are eating my roses alive.

To say that I’m traumatized by the aphids is an understatement. They cover the poor rose blooms, rendering them unable to be brought inside.

I have tried all of the conventional methods for dealing with them. I’ve used chemical bug killers/fertilizers. I’ve blasted the roses with jets of water only to have wet plants still covered in aphids. I’ve released hundreds of ladybugs that look oh-so-lovely right before they fly away. Yet the aphids remain, sucking the life out of my beautiful flowers.

This website explains it as clearly as any: “They puncture the soft tissues and suck out the juices from the plant. Severe aphid invasion will cause leaves to curl up and die.”

So I’m trying to look on the bright side: rather than lament the presence of aphids, I have something far more interesting: zombie roses, with the juices sucked out of them.