All The Kids Are Doing It

Since Kate has become my blog mentor, did you know that Kate? You're my blog mentor! (We should plan a reception or something to celebrate.) Since she is my blog mentor, that pretty much means everything she does blog-wise, I am liable to copy. So there's this new thing going around that I discovered in Kate's blog where you're supposed to post the fifth sentence from the 23rd page of the nearest book. Can do. My nearest book at the moment is one I'm using for my research paper on the history of medicine so here goes:

"With almost everybody slain or immune, the pestilences would withdraw, victims of their own success, moving on to storm other virgin populations, like raiders seeking fresh spoils." -- The Greatest Benefit to Mankind

Why thank you medical history for that optimistic tidbit on the human predicament.

It's Possible That I've Taken This Too Far

So today Kate, who is sitting-in on a J.R.R Tolkien class, came into my room and told me that she and her fellow "Tolkieners" had come up with the idea that at her party tomorrow night everyone should come dressed as a different Tolkien character. This makes her a geek. We have all been relatively understanding that she is in this class in the first place ("intelligent curiosity" says she) but the dress-up idea crosses some sort of line. Yes, she was kidding, which only makes her a facetious geek, but a geek nonetheless. So I made the joke that if she had a Tolkien-themed party that it would be just as geeky as if I suggested that we tell everyone to dress up like a chemical element. She just stared at me disapprovingly (I'm sure you all know exactly the look I'm referring to). And while both ideas are geeky, the more I thought about it (and maybe this is just my newly-approved Chemistry minor talking here), I kept thinking of ideas for costumes which I have decided (against Kate's better judgment...hey we're all friends here right?) to share with you. I've also taken the liberty of listing the atomic number for those of you that care and/or don't believe these are actual names of elements. I must say, there are some I'm more proud of than others and I'm apologizing in advance for most of them. I seem to have gained momentum towards the end there, maybe because those have more creative names in the first place. So here goes nothing:

Hydrogen (1) - best for the smallest person
Lithium/Arsenic (3/33) - look sick/poisoned
Oxygen (8) - walk around with an oxygen tank
Fluorine (9) - dress up as a tube of toothpaste
Neon (10) - think "day-glo"
Aluminum (13) - all you need is a big roll of foil
Silicon (14) - stuff your bra (yeah I know its not quite the same thing, but everybody thinks it is anyway)
Sulfur (16) - wear yellow and eat as many cans of beans as possible
Calcium (20) - dress up as a bone, or a tooth
Scandium (21) - a con-artist maybe?
Nickel (28) - glue as many nickels as possible to your body
Copper (29) - see above, substituting pennies for nickels
Selenium (34) - dress up as the late songstress Selena
Krypton (36) - Superman costume
Zirconium (40) - dress cheap and say you wanted to be a diamond
Ruthenium (44) - really easy if your name happens to be Ruth
Silver/Gold (47/79) - easy enough
Antimony (51) - dress as a rich ex-wife and say you thought it was "Alimony"
Hafnium (72) - only wear half a costume...
Tantalum (73) - a great reason to be slutty and "tantalizing"
Mercury (80) - wear wings on your hat and sandals
Radon (86) - periodically throw things at people and say you're "particle emitting"
Neptunium (93) - all you need are hula hoops, and lots of 'em
Plutonium (94) - be small and distant
Berkelium (97) - wear a Berkeley sweatshirt and decide you're smarter than everybody else
Californium (98) - bikini
Einsteinium (99) - easiest one of all, just concentrate on getting the hair right
Unununium (111) - I can't really think of anything for this one, but its fun to say...maybe you could go around mumbling unintelligibly, think Milford from "Office Space"

Group Costume Ideas
Europium & Americium (63 & 95) - be patriotic and secretly hate each other
The Noble Gases - go in a group of six and only talk to each other
The Big 7 - take 14 people and tie them together in groups of two (not everybody will get that)
Transition Metals - great for anyone who's "between jobs"
Alkali Metals - every time you touch anything water-based, just explode (ok I'm stopping now)

If anybody out there actually HOLDS a chemical element themed get-together, you must must must take pictures and send them to me. If it goes well, you must also give me full credit. Thanks for humoring me. :)

They're Not Cool Yet

I saw the guy at school who rides around on a Segway today. I think he is officially known as "The Guy At School Who Rides Around On A Segway." What's worse, that is probably exactly how he wants to be known. Those things, cloaked in secrecy during development and currently costing $5,000 are, at the moment, only owned by rich people and very few at that. I realize that in order for Segways to enter the mainstream, somebody has to buy them. Ok, a lot of people actually, but I still think that the people that do are, for now, just showing off. It's the ultimate status symbol because as it turns out, humans can walk. It's not that hard, it is a skill possessed by most 1 year-olds worldwide. But people would rather pay exorbitant amounts of money to show that they are no longer constrained by inferior human capability. People complain constantly about the growing obesity of the American population and somebody then decided that standing still on a "human transporter" would greatly improve our lives. I could be wrong, but wouldn't exercise even more greatly improve our lives? We already go from home to a car to work to car to home, seated most of the way. Are they going to take the act of walking away from us too? At least for now, it will only be the rich people faced with this problem, and the show-off ones at that.

Speaking of show-offs and Segways, I saw a car dealership commercial the other day with both owners of the dealership filming the commercial on Segways. Were they trying to be cool? I don't understand how that would help increase car sales (I'm assuming that was the motivation behind making the commercial, it seems to be that motivation which lies behind ALL OTHER commercials) The only message that was getting across to me is that these guys must charge WAAAAY too much for their cars to have enough money to buy TWO (count 'em two) Segways (yes kids, that's $10,000) to zip around on. Either that or their life of car selling has led them to drive so many cars that they have lost the ability to put one leg in front of the other. Oh, and that they are lame show-offs. Especially because I SUPPOSE there is a slight advantage to using a Segway every once in awhile since they are faster than walking but there is no excuse for being on one in a car commercial. There is no walking required in those. Have they lost the ability to stand up without their hands on handlebars as well? Not to mention, if you have a Segway, doesn't that slightly reduce your need for a car? It only goes as fast as 12.5 miles/hour but if you live close to work you could commute on one of those.... ok maybe not in California, but still. So my conclusion is that it was purely a way of saying, "Hey we're cool cause not only are we on TV, but we're on Segways on TV." Grrr to them.