Logical or touchy-feely?
Which one are you? I totally thought I was logical. Apparently I'm touchy-feely. Even after staring at it and willing myself to see her counter-clockwise. I think I'm becoming less analytical and more "in touch with my feelings" the older I get. I used to be an ESTJ. I'm absolutely an ESFJ now. Evolving is fun. Though I'm a little disturbed at being lumped in the same category with Desi Arnaz, Sally Struthers and Barney Fife. (Take the test yourself.)
Oh and by the way, I found it in my pretty new firefox happy "better gmail" with embedded google reader. Now I can get all my crack in one place. They also have skins, most of which are heinous, but the clean one is nice.
Funny Cambridge moment
I saw the most excellent movie Bourne Ultimatum this week and it completely lived up to the hype. After the second movie, I was a little nervous, but I was grinning ear to ear with all the action. That's not what this post is about, though.
I saw the movie at Harvard Square, the very heart of the People's Republic. One of the previews was for National Treasure: Book of Secrets. A classic theater-going experience for me was when the audience burst out laughing at the ridiculous premise of the movie. You can read more about the silliness on . Okay, so fine, it's preposterous (it is a Disney movie, after all). But I don't think I've ever seen a crowd laugh AT a movie trailer before. Such a classic Cambridge moment.
Women who fast talk less… nu?
According to the Discovery Channel,
"Whether or not women really talk more than men, there may be one sure way to level the verbal playing field — fasting. The longer a woman fasts, the lower her voice gets and the less she uses it, according to Lebanese speech researchers who made use of Ramadan fasts to study how voices changed in 28 healthy women."
Why doesn't it say that it's different for men if they fast? Tt basically said that women are talking less and more softly because they didn't drink enough water. Kind of obvious, right? Well, the title made me click on it, so I guess it did its job. I wish I felt I'd learned something though. I mean come on... the thesis is if you starve and dehydrate a woman, she'll talk less. I guess if you do it long enough, she'll *really* stop talking? Weird article.
What’s up with the weather?
So, I live in the northeast, where weather isn't known to be wonderful. But this is ridiculous. April snow showers will not bring May flowers, now will they? Not with a Nor'easter. I think not. Well, at least I didn't have to run in it. But when will it end? Not this week, apparently.
My favorite Seth post ever
This is a great post about a non-blog topic and it's what I say *all the time*. I think Seth is right on about sifting through the din of our daily lives. Granted, New York City is an extreme, but I am certain it happens everywhere. Whether we get caught up in our 24-7 multimedia fixes or in the minutia of our lives, the problem is still the same. We forget to experience life. Okay, it's not the easiest thing to do, and all the noise thrown at us coupled with the noise we throw at ourselves and others isn't helping, but it's worth noting that we not only should, but we really can, stop and observe life once in a while... it's just too short not to.
Okay, so enough with the stop and smell the roses speech. Let's move onto another platitude. Here's what I think would help. Let's figure out what's worth stopping for. This means that instead of closing ourselves off to the parts of life we're not comfortable with, we can take a chance and experience something new, even if we think it will suck. It might suck. But that's part of the experience. Sucking is just as much a part of life as not sucking... so we may as well try and find some joy in everything.
A classic Boston experience
Today was an incredibly cold and rainy day. I decided to try the new Starbucks pumpkin spice latte (with soy, of course). I don't know why I had it in my head that the "spice" would be anything other than syrup. Did I think they'd find some way to manipulate the bean to have actual pumpkin + spice brewed in there, a la Dunkin Donuts vanilla cinnamon? It's a weird concept that frankly kinda freaks me out anyway, so maybe the syrup is for the best. But I still didn't like it very much.
Today's fun fact. Starbucks bagels have like a bajillion calories. Don't get me started on the muffins. What's up with that? You can check it out right on starbucks.com.
Okay, so I'm sitting there, drinking my weird latte, trying to look somewhat erudite while reading Ambient Findability (which so far is a great book). This guy is having a very loud conversation with some other folks, which goes everywhere from the merits of legalizing torture to the right wing's obsession with gay marriage. Ahhhh, Cambridge! I immediately switched to my more pompous reading material -- a printout of a thread on the quantitative social science blog.
It was actually really interesting. In truth, I may not have ever read it, so I guess it was a good thing loud guy was there. While the subject matter was somewhat interesting to me, parts were a bit over my head. What really got me excited was the way academia seems to be really embracing this latest version of open dialog, particularly with regard to discussion about methodology. I'd just had a conversation with a student about the very powerful tendency for academics to keep a tight lid on how they analyze data, so it was nice to see that this may not be the case after all. It seems to me, in fact, that so far, academics can't help but share information. Whether it's loud guy or a stodgy old professor. By the way, loud guy could not have been any more than 23, and from what I heard, while he may be a bit enthusiastic, he's clearly very intelligent. He just wants to share it... with his loud voice. I'll chalk it up to youth. But my suggestion is that he gets some t-shirts made up with his web address on there of his blog, because if this boy don't blog, i'm a monkey's uncle... er, or, well at least he should blog. There, that's a bit safer.