Who Pooped the Bed?

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Yesterday had a little packing, then I went to spend a few hours with Filly to make a Halloween costume, then we ran some errands for her, lots of fun. After that, my mom arrived back from Minot and they wanted to have dinner...so they picked the Market Street Grill. Now, the first time that I was invited to dinner there was about four years ago...and with a name like Market Street Grill, I was thinking that it was a barbecue pit or something where I can get some pulled pork and a beer or something. I also thought that the lady that invited me to dinner there was just bored and wanted to get something to eat. Little did I know that she thought it was going to be a big deal kind of a date (new outfit, got her hair did, etc.) and that the restaurant was a fancy pantsy seafood place. The situation was awkward the first time...but still fun. My T-shirt & jeans just didn't fit too well. This time, my mom & stepdad went with me...but yeah, because it was decided about an hour ahead of time and I was already downtown, I was once again in a (Dee's Nuts) T-shirt and jeans...but whatever. The Ahi Tuna was delicious...and the clam chowder's pretty damn good too. Gentlemen, if you're looking to impress your lady with some good seafood, this is the place...at least in Slick City.

After that, I basically went home, did some packing, checked some email, started Season 2 of Heroes, and JL Clyde & I watched some "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" before I went to bed, woke up, and am back to packing. I know...boring to read...so here's some news...

Bacon Update - So the other night I was reminded about a little thing...and a few months ago I told y'all about this Abraham Lincoln movie being made where Liam Neeson plays Honest Abe and Harrison Ford plays his vice president Andrew "Han Solo" Johnson. Then I stumbled upon this thing the other day where Mr. Footloose himself Kevin "Hickory Smoked" Bacon is preparing a Showtime TV series about Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth. The Booths" will revolve around actor-brothers Edwin, Junius Brutus Jr. and John Wilkes Booth and their dysfunctional relationship in the years prior to Lincoln's assassination. Son of British Shakespearean actor Junius Brutus Booth and actress Mary Ann Holmes, John Wilkes Booth eventually became a rabid defender of the South and clashed with his brother Edwin. The three brothers performed together just once, in a New York showing of "Julius Caesar" in 1864. Booth shot Lincoln at Ford's Theatre while the President was watching the play "Our American Cousin" on April 14th 1865. It's still unclear who and even if Kevin Bacon will play...but just giving you a heads up on that...since I was kind of blindsided by the whole Paul Giamatti playing John Adams series. Should be interesting...but I probably won't watch it...but it does have Bacon...and that is one of my key words to watching your movie.

Hard Time of Easy Listening? - 24-year old Andrew Vactor was facing a $150 fine for playing rap music too loudly on his car stereo in July but a judge offered to reduce that to $35 if Vactor spent 20 hours listening to classical music by the likes of Bach, Beethoven and Chopin. Vactor lasted only about 15 minutes, a probation officer said. It wasn't the music, Vactor said, he just needed to be at practice with the rest of the Urbana University basketball team. "I didn't have the time to deal with that. I just decided to pay the fine." Champaign County (OH) Municipal Court Judge Susan Fornof-Lippencott says the idea was to force Vactor to listen to something he might not prefer, just as other people had no choice but to listen to his loud rap music. "I think a lot of people don't like to be forced to listen to music," she said. She's also taped TV shows for defendants in other cases to watch on topics such as financial responsibility. As she sees it, they get the chance to have their fine reduced "and at the same time broaden their horizons." That's great and all...and I admire the unique, nonviolent way of...well, I'm not sure what the problem is with loud rap music...but still, she could run for Vice President some day with ideas like that. Honestly, I probably couldn't do that either. Think about it, you're talking about a reduction of $115 in the fine for sitting for 20 hours, that's about $5.75 per hour (now less than minimum wage) and unless I have the next 20 hours off, that's gonna be a problem. I mean, is there some kind of program where I can go in for a few hours a day, like community service...or listen to it while I study and have an adult sign a form...oh wait, he's 24 years old!!! Yay justice system.

Mice & Natural Prozac - Scientists reported on Wednesday that the brain can produce antidepressants with the right signal, a finding that suggests that meditating, or going to your "happy place" truly works. Mice forced to swim endlessly until they surrendered and just floated, waiting to drown, could be conditioned to regain their will to live when a tone they associated with safety was played. The experiment suggests that there are good ways to teach people this skill, and points to new routes for developing better antidepressants, said Dr. Eric Kandel of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Columbia University in New York, who led the research. "The happy place works. This is like going to the country," Kandel said in a telephone interview. Writing in the journal Neuron, Kandel's team said they used classical conditioning to train mice. They had already conditioned some mice to fear a neutral tone by playing the sound when they shocked the animals' paws. After a while, the tone itself creates fear. "It scares the hell out of the animal," Kandel said. They decided to reverse the study -- they played the tone when they were not shocking the mice. "It learned that the only time it was really safe is when the tone comes on," Kandel said. To make a mouse depressed, they used a method favored by drug companies called learned helplessness. "You put an animal into a pool of water and it can't get out. It gives up and it stops swimming and it just floats. When you give the animal an antidepressant, it starts swimming again. When we played the tone, it started to swim again just as it did with the antidepressant." That's not waterboarding. That's not torture. That's experimentation, baby!!! Oh...and don't worry, those rat bastards told us where the others were...and they really WERE in those holes in the wall.

So after this completely humane and ethically sound study, the scientists looked at the brains of their mice and saw them using the conditioned "safety" tone activated a different pathway than the drugs did. It affected dopamine, while antidepressants work on serotonin. Both are message-carrying molecules called neurotransmitters. The conditioning also affected a compound called brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF -- which helps nourish and encourages the growth of brain cells. Apparently this meditation stuff really works. Now, I've been saying that for a while...but now a team of other doctors agree with me...and have that pesky evidence stuff going for them too. So my suggestion is just to relax, take a deep breath, think happy thoughts, find that happy place with your mom winning the slot machine, a beautiful woman in lingerie with a pitcher of beer in each hand, and the bicycling midget, and let your mind at ease.

Oh, I also did this Quiz thing about me. See if you can beat the the top score currently of 60% held by Nikki, Lilie, and JL Clyde. It's a quiz to see if you know me...but then again, if you really know me, you know that I like to mess with people...so don't feel bad if you don't get 100%. I'm a very complex person. Have a great day everybody!!!