callous disregard

i'm gradually waking up from my thesis-induced coma. one of the first steps was googling myself, to make sure that i haven't been reported dead or missing. it reminded me of the period in my life before i started writing about invisible particles 24 hours a day. what a strange and different time that was. the best result? unequivically this review of my 'pygmalion' performance:

"ryan m---- as phonetics expert professor henry higgins brings a light and comic breeziness to his callous disregard for the condition of womanhood. he struts, brags, complains, and bemoans with conviction, all the while keeping his own focused concerns high above most of the life surrounding him..."

i've fogotten how funny that review was. the same callous disregard i reserve for actual women? "brags, complains, and bemoans"? wow, what a stretch for me...what tremendous range i had as an actor! comparisons to my actual personality are purely coincidental.

it made me think about the other fine performances in that accomplished acting career of mine. there was this shout-out i got for 'a funny thing happened on the way to the forum', wherin my "lust was thwarted by old age and shrewish wife." how flattering. i couldn't find a link for it, but when i was in 'the elephant man' i remember that the part of the article that was printed on the front page ended with "in one scene however, m---- stopped acting..." essentially giving me a heart attack. then there was a 30 second pause where i was frantically flipping through the newspaper, trying to find the rest of the piece. "stopped acting...because the play was over. thank god, what a terrible performance." or "stopped acting...and dropped his pants. it was weird." it ended up being something like "...and fell into the role of dr. treves* so that for a moment there were no longer actors and a stage." which sounds nice at first, until you realize that it's just a backhanded insult. i was good for a "moment"? how long did i "stop acting for"? a minute? an act? what that comment was really saying was "hey, really great job during that brief interval where you didn't stink!" how would he like it if i came down to where he worked and knocked the pen out of his mouth? it'll only take a moment.

*treves lived down the street from higgins. talk about typecasting, they had me down to characters on one london street. maybe that range wasn't so great after all.

the papelbon defense

far be it for me to make suggestions for the esteemed red sox brain trust, but i don't think they have adequately prepared for the contingency of a jonathan papelbon-like player. sure, it might seem unnessasary to improve upon the 7-pitch, 3-strike-out, mathematically impossible saves he so ruthlessly imposes. but of course they haven't considered the advantages of resting the defense for the last inning of every win. i think this stratagy should be more than sufficient.

huygens: not just for diffraction anymore

this has been a good week for nasa, as far as dazzling graphics go (actually, i guess a lot of weeks are like that at nasa). this is a nifty little movie that glombs together a bunch of mission data collected as the huygens' probe of the cassini mission was decending to the surface of titan, saturn's most obstreperous moon. they also went through the touble of adding in sciencey beeps, whistles, and windchime noises (there might be a casio keyboard in there too), so that we know that its for real. captivating.

things that jiggle

this is a fantastic melange of old-timey cartoons with dramatic music and physics action footage. you know those crazy dreams you have when you've got a fever? well i think i've had this one...

thankfully, there does not seem to be any kind of underlying message besides the fact that 1950's public education films are, and always have been, the finest medium of communication.

black hole mergers

a nasa supercomputer simulation has produced some incredible images, such as the one above, as well as an animation of the gravity waves given off by the merger of two black holes. it is a common belief in relativity circles that the gravitational waves of black holes are yellow, hopefully ligo will be able to give us confirmation of this in the near future.
link

meow-mix meow-mix uber alles

a few weeks ago i was humming the german national anthem (don't ask me why, i think i must have heard it somewhere, and it is catchy...) and my friend, not recognizing it, asked me what it was. i mumbled the few words i could remember...still, she couldn't tell. i said "deutchland?"

nothing but, "is that some world war 2 song?"

so i told her, and after pausing momentarily in contemplation, she fired back, genuinely at a loss: "what is our national anthem?"

once i regained consciousness, and made sure she was serious, i started humming the meow mix song.

how could i resist?

i am worth $2,814,352.

now if only I could take out a morgage on myself...

it's about time

my photography career has finally taken off. back in january i submitted some pictures to the prestigious (?) college art journal on a whim. surprisingly, they actually took one, and far more surprisingly, they put it on the cover. not bad for someone who has almost no interest in anything remotely artistic and hasn't participated in any sort of creative group or class at this school. i would consider it more of an accomplishment if it didn't seem like they passed over work that was actually the result of many long hours (by people who are actually, you know, trying) to stick a photo from a talentless sham like myself on the front.

the picture was from a series i took back in september. i even had to write them an "artist's statement" about the "inspiration, influence, meaning, process, etc." just a paragraph? but i have so many phony explainations to give them! here is what i made up:

after consuming an immodest quantity of french fries, i found myself nauseous and miserable at connecticut's fabled "woodstock fair." while my girlfriend happily flitted about the rides i looked for things to photograph... the fact that you cannot see the expressions of the ride-goers makes this apparatus, designed for unthinking glee, seem somewhat mechanical and contrived, which was the way i tend to view overblown fairs like this one when i get sick on their greasy food.

oh, what profundity.

the power of christ compels you

there are occasions when i am very proud of the architecture of my institution. this is one of those occasions.

got a beef with the iraq war

cows that vote democrat.

i'm afraid i just blue myself.

there is a blue handprint on the piller outside the door of the library. fans of the prematurely cancelled arrested development will acknowledge that we may have an analrapist on the loose.

so i got a parking ticket from the college yesterday. i was there for 5 minutes and when i got back to my car the bastard was leaving it on the eagle. they are only allowed to do this if you're been parked for more than 15 minutes, so naturally, i wasn't ok with it. i went down to the parking office and started filling out an appeal, and then noticed that on the ticket they had gotten my license plate number wrong. that is when i had this exchange,

me: this isn't my license plate number, can you really make me pay this?
secretary: [taking out a pad of paper] what's your real number?
me: i'm not telling you that now!

Truer words...

Today, i got back a field theory homework. But instead of any specific criticism of what I did wrong on Problem #4, i got this vague profundity, certainly the most discouraging thing I have ever been told by a problem set:


Too small? Here's a close up,


Rarely has a returned homework seen into the very depths of my tormented soul.