Best Picture Blitz 2015: Battle of the British Geniuses

I have a limited amount of time to summarize all eight nominees for the Best Picture Oscar, so today I'm going to combine two thematically similar contenders.

I'm talking, of course, about American Sniper and Whiplash.

You can't even tell which is which.

Ha ha! No, I'm joshing with you. The intense character-driven drama about music and passion and the hyper-American movie about the trained killer are not the two I'm talking about. Those are yet to come on our journey.

This year there are two Oscar-nominated films that are historical dramas about impaired British scientists and their groundbreaking work: The Theory of Everything, the story of physicist Stephen Hawking, and The Imitation Game, the gripping of tale of mathematician Alan Turing's quest to break the Nazi code with the world's first computer.

Also known as oh my God Eddie Redmayne and Benedict Cumberbatch are amazing.

Who knew science could be so adorable?

I've already written about The Theory of Everything a little bit. I enjoyed this movie more than Precocious Daughter, although we both agreed Mr. Redmayne gave a really excellent performance. It was a finely written movie, but I think it was a bit hampered by the lack of dramatic tension. After all, we all know that Professor Hawking formulated his breakthrough theory before succumbing to ALS. In fact, we all know that Professor Hawking didn't succumb to ALS at all, at least not as of this writing. He's still going strong at age 72.

And still sassy.

Of course, we also know that Alan Turing did in fact invent the machine that cracked the Nazi ENIGMA code. Hmm. Yeah. So there is kind of the problem with historical dramas.

Here's another problem: We have two movies that hinge on the main character's relationship with a strong, intelligent woman, and those parts are still way underwritten. Not that Keira Knightley and Felicity Jones don't give really excellent performances. They do. It's just that they're making the most of parts that simply don't have the depth and complexity of the male leads. Or even of the secondary male characters in their respective films.

Mark Strong as MI6 agent Stewart Menzies
especially blew me away.

I guess I shouldn't complain. I mean, great parts for women are hard to come by, so good parts should be appreciated, right?

I hate even having to rationalize it that way. And the most frustrating part of all is that Felicity Jones gave the stronger performance of the weaker character, and vice versa for Keira Knightley.

They're both too awesome to have to split hairs like that.

But enough venting. Both movies really are very, very good. I'm thinking, though, that being so similar in general subject matter, they may end up splitting the Academy's vote, both for Best Picture and Best Actor. Kind of a shame, but on the other hand, kind of an embarrassment of riches.

I recommend them both, but if you only see one, see The Imitation Game. The ensemble cast works better for my money, and the script is a smidge more artful.

Also...Benedict Cumberbatch.

I will not squee, I will not squee.

Squeeeee.

From an abundance of professional admiration, of course.

Whole Lotta Shakin'

Oh, Drunkards, if ever a post needed a musical backdrop, it's this one. So crank up your speakers and press "play" before you read on.





It was Earthquake Day in my corner of North Texas today.

Honestly, this meme never, ever stops being funny to me.

But big deal. The Dallas area has had something like 20 minor earthquakes in the last year or so. Yeah, earthquakes in Dallas are a thing. More on that in a minute.

But today was different. First, there were as many as four shakey-shakes today in the space of a few hours, ranging from 2.9 to 3.6 in magnitude.

Second, and far more important: I felt one of them.

It's 2015, gotta start weaving in those Back to the
Future II references whenever possible.

For the first time ever, I experienced an earthquake. It was small. It was brief. It felt sort of like driving over a particularly bumpy patch of of road, except I was sitting at my desk at work. Californians may feel free to laugh at the amazement we all felt when the ground shook a tiny bit for less than two seconds.

Still, the point is: Holy shit I was in an earthquake I actually felt the fucking Earth tremble beneath my feet as if maybe it was about to stop spinning in its orbit and just collapse into a pile of space-rubble.

So much for the Cowboys making the playoffs.

Earthquakes are weird, guys. Even itty-bitty ones. I feel confident in saying that I would lose several years' worth of lunch if I were ever in a major seismic event. The very idea of my planet rising up to damage or destroy my home is absolutely terrifying. The ground should not be able to do that.

Yet it can, and it does. And we all know how and why earthquakes happen. You know, uh, tectonic plates and physics and stuff. Yeah. Basic science.

As I understand it, the Earth is a series of tubes.

The thing is, until recently, earthquakes were exceedingly rare in Texas. Way rarer than the Cowboys fielding an effective defense, or a Democrat being elected to statewide office. Un-freaking-common, is what I'm saying.

There's a popular theory that says fracking - the process of injecting pressurized water and chemicals into subterranean rock to release natural gas deposits - has caused the ground beneath us to become unstable. Hence, the sudden recent onslaught of temblors. This is a pretty obvious conclusion, since the oil and gas industry is EVIL, EVIL, EVIL.

By the way, my car (Benedict Cumberhatch) runs on unicorn farts
and the dreams of fangirls everywhere.

I think the anti-frackers are on the right track, but I don't think they go far enough to explain just how fracking and Texas earthquakes are related. Fortunately, I have a theory that ties up all the loose ends.

Because of course I do.

Here's the thing. Everyone knows that once something is interred in the Earth, that ground becomes sacred. You don't mess with graves, man. We've all seen Poltergeist; we know what happens when you mess with an Indian burial ground.

Pretty soon you're desperately seeking a tiny badass woman to come and
cleanse your house of evil clowns.

You know what's buried beneath most of North Texas?

Goddamn dinosaurs, that's what.

Just another day in prehistoric Fort Worth.

Why are we having all these earthquakes in North Texas? Because we've pissed off the dinosaurs by dicking around with their graves, and they're stirring from their eternal slumber.

They've been dead a long time, so it's taking them a while to get good and riled up. That's why our earthquakes have been in the lower range of the Richter scale.

But how long do you think that's going to last, people?

Also, they know there's a new Jurassic Park movie coming out,
and dinosaurs are masters of public relations.

So people in California are always going to live with the threat of The Big One, because they decided to live on the ass-end of North America that's hanging on to the continent by one tiny, ever-eroding faultline. Enjoy those beaches before the West Coast relocates to Utah.

But here in Texas, we've brought our problems on ourselves. We've incurred the wrath of thousands, perhaps millions of ghostasauruses. Two dollar a gallon gas is great until you're bitten in half by a spectral T-Rex. And that day is coming, people.

Today was just a foretaste. The real apocalypse is coming.

As foretold in the Chronicles of Barney.

Y'all better be noivus.

This Post Is for Women Only. Seriously. You've Been Warned.

Male readers: Welcome, but you may regret it.

Yeah, right.

So, Precocious Daughter has, you know "become a woman." It happened a while back, actually.

When I got this package in the late 1970s,
it may have contained the word "groovy."

Well, now - perhaps inevitably - our cycles have synced.

It's a beautiful thing.

Every month, like clockwork, the trash can in our shared bathroom gets really full during the same five-day period. I totally said period, huh-huh.

This is known as the McClintock Effect. Take it away, Wikipedia:

Menstrual synchrony, also called the McClintock effect, is the alleged process whereby women who begin living together in close proximity experience their menstrual cycle onsets (i.e., the onset of menstruation or menses) becoming closer together in time than previously..... 

Martha McClintock's 1971 paper, published in Nature, says that menstrual cycle synchronization happens when the menstrual cycle onsets of two women or more women become closer together in time than they were several months earlier. Several mechanisms have been hypothesized to cause synchronization.^[4]

After the initial studies, several papers were published reporting methodological flaws in studies reporting menstrual synchrony including McClintock's study. In addition, other studies were published that failed to find synchrony. The proposed mechanisms have also received scientific criticism. A 2013 review of menstrual synchrony concluded that menstrual synchrony is doubtful.

Whatever, Wikipedia. All I know is that PDaughter had to back out of a swimming party today because menses, and then I went to the bathroom and...synchronicity, as Sting might say.

Gordon Sumner, noted songwriter and gynecologist.

My real point here is that I'm curiosity. Lady Drunkards, have you ever experienced the so-called McClintock effect? With a mother, a child, a roommate, a BFF?

Gentlemen Drunkards, do NOT respond to this question. Unless you have something truly awesome to say. Which many of you often do, so...go for it, I guess.

The floor is open.

Stupid Liberal Tricks

I do a fair bit of conservative-bashing in this space. Because I think the American conservative agenda (which includes demonizing anything you don't agree with by branding it an "agenda") is wrong-headed in many ways.

This leads some people to conclude I am a liberal.

Also, I am not left-handed. Oh, wait, I am.

Because the definition of "liberal" is "not conservative"...right?

I mean, left. I mean, as you're looking at it, it's left,
but it's right. Right? Skip it.

Actually, I consider myself pretty moderate. That means everyone can hate me. I'm a traitor to every belief system. I have no ideals. I can't be trusted to walk the party line, no matter which party you're talking about.

Not even if I'm sober.

So to prove my utter loathesomeness to anyone who still needs proof, today I'm going to present a pair of news stories from a "liberal" perspective that I find pretty damn stupid. Frankly, if you think being a liberal means agreeing with these pieces, I think you're nuttier than John Boehner with an Almond Joy up his wahoo. Feel free to agree or disagree with my views. Be aware that your core constituency, whatever it is, will probably lambaste you as a result. Because if there's one thing that unites both the left and the right, it's their fear and distrust of the center.

Here we go.

Kenneth Cooper: Pass a statewide smoke-free workplace law

Kenneth Cooper, MD is the father of jogging and aerobics. Yes, there actually is a single person to blame for Jane Fonda workout videos and people wearing track suits as if they were real clothing. Dr. Cooper is an unrepentant health nut who, at the age of 81, is still going strong right here in Dallas. And in a recent column for the Dallas Morning News, he supported the idea of a state law prohibiting smoking in any private or public workplace. Even though numerous employer- and city-specific policies already exist, a statewide ban is necessary, he argues, because significant portions of Texas remain Godless, lawless backwaters unincorporated rural areas needing the protection of a state statute.

Please understand that Dr. Cooper's opinions come from a public health perspective. I don't know what his politics are - in fact, I couldn't find a single piece about him in which he stopped babbling about cholesterol and treadmills long enough to discuss his political views. But the belief that government can and should act as an arbiter of people's choices is a classically liberal view: Businesses and individuals can't be trusted to make decisions that benefit the greater good, so the state should legislate those decisions.

Let's all say it together: Smoking is bad. Cigarettes are full of cancer-causing tar and chemicals and produce second-hand smoke that puts bystanders at risk, and many of the costs of smoking-related ailments end up being borne by taxpayers.

Vaping, on the other hand, is awesome, and
not just because Johnny Depp does it and anything
he does is hotter than butane.

I don't want to eat in a restaurant where people are smoking. I don't want to work in an office where people are smoking. Neither do a lot of other people, which is why so many bars, restaurants, office buildings, and employers have banned smoking on their premises. Let's face it, nonsmokers outnumber smokers, so their preferences are going to drive economic decisions for those businesses.

I would just as soon see cigarettes banned everywhere. Cigarettes, the physical product, not smoking, the human behavior. But that's not going to happen. Ever. Why?

Here's one reason.

Contributions to state legislatures by tobacco companies over 21 years.
I know it's hard to read, so see the data from FollowTheMoney.org here.

Here's another reason.

Source: TobaccoFreeKids.org.
Also read their fact sheet "Tobacco Tax Increases Are a Reliable Source of Substantial
New State Revenue." I couldn't have said it better myself.

I don't oppose Dr. Cooper's stand because I think it's government overreaching. I oppose it because the whole issue of whether and where people are allowed to light up is a - you should pardon the pun - smoke screen. Whether the right solution to the public health problems presented by smoking is more government intervention or less, regulation of the product or prohibition of the activity, is a moot point. State and federal legislators are completely hamstrung by their financial dependence on the tobacco industry. There will never be a meaningful or effective policy formulated beyond the local level as long as our elected officials' balls are in Big Tobacco's pocket.

Some of those balls belong to so-called liberals. And until they retrieve them, I don't want to hear any left-wing claptrap about "safeguarding our children" or "my right to clean air."

More Americans Believe Obama is Muslim Than in Theory of Evolution

A recent Gallup poll, titled "In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins," found that...uh, well, 46% of Americans hold Creationist views of human origins. Gallup gets points for straightforward poll titling. In a nutshell, those 46% said they believed God had created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years, which is the traditional Christian, Bible-based view of things. At the other end of the spectrum, 15% said they believed humans had evolved over millions of years and that there was no deity involved in the process. Finally, 32% of respondents believed that humans had evolved over millions of years, but that the entity they call God had guided the process in some form.

Interestingly, the poll found almost no difference among self-identified Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who believed in the evolution-guided-by-God theory: about one-third of each group held that belief. Full disclosure: This Independent also favors the Darwin-with-a-shot-of-God approach to life on Earth. Because I'm not taking any chances. What if it turns out we're all worm meat, but God is a worm?

Gallup put together a nice, unbiased little poll. It took snarky, hipper-than-thou website HyperVocal.com to conflate Gallup's results with those of a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, which found that 16% of Americans continue to believe that President Obama is a Muslim. Then they did a little fancy math - equating evolution-plus-God proponents with strict Creationists - and boom! Enlightened science is outgunned by religious nutjobs who see secret Muslims in the White House and (probably) Jesus on their French toast.

Blasphemous to eat, but not to sell on eBay.

It's a cute, tongue-in-cheek little article. But its tone drifts into that tiresome attitude adopted by a lot of too-cool-for-the-room liberals: "A lot of terrible things have been done throughout history in the name of religion. Therefore, people who believe in God are assholes." Because while humanistic liberalism may be awesome, understanding syllogisms and logical fallacies clearly is not.

I respect the right of anyone to believe in God, or not to believe in God. I just want you to stay out of my face with it. That goes for conservative Bible-thumpers who want to know if I've "met" Jesus yet (like, in the express checkout line?), and it goes for rabid secularists who can't be comfortable with their own skepticism unless I share it (please look up "integrity" before I beat you to death).

Yeah, it's a little ridiculous (to me) that nearly half of Americans think the story of Genesis is literally true. But who cares? I'm not voting the God vs. Darwin issue. I'm not voting the gay vs. straight issue. I'm not voting the Closet Muslim vs. Christless Mormon issue. Those are fringe issues. I'm going to the center, where the real problems facing this country live.

Join me. I'll be serving Jesus toast and electronic cigarettes.

Video Saturday: Bohemian Rhapsody by William F'ing Shatner!

William Shatner, in all his 80-year-old transcendant looniness, has made a new album called Seeking Major Tom, in which Himself sings 20 songs that have more or less or almost nothing to do with space and whatnot.

If someone doesn't buy me the deluxe vinyl box set
for Christmas, I'm going to kill myself.

We've just had a pretty awesome week here on planet Earth, what with Ghadafy being dragged out of a drainage pipe and having his ass capped by his own people, and Governor Dick Perry being endorsed by his dogs. But this? This is serious shit. William Shatner has released a cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." Make your peace, Israel and Palestine. The stars ain't gonna align any better than they are right this minute.

Like Shatner's landmark, definitive version of "Rocket Man," his "Bohemian Rhapsody" has got to be experienced in tandem with its video. BECAUSE IT DOES, THAT'S WHY. For reals, people. I hope to God he makes videos for some of the other tracks on the album, like "She Blinded Me with Science" and "Space Cowboy." Yes, I'm very interested in the Shat's artistic take on the Pompatus of Love.

But for now, please behold, experience, and be awed by "Bohemian Rhapsody," as interpreted by the most awesome man in show business, Mister Captain His Eminence William "Don't Call Me T.J. Hooker or I'll Kick You in the Balls" Shatner. I freakin' love you, Bill.

Celebri-chimps. Or Maybe Chimp-lebrities.

This is a chimpanzee.

Oh, my gosh, how beautiful is this animal? Look at those expressive eyes! Granted, he may be thinking about nothing more clever than flinging poo at the next photographer who comes along. Or he may be wondering when humans will finally learn to communicate with him so he and his primate brethren can share the wisdom they've accumulated over so many millennia. Or pondering the degrees of separation between him and Cheeta, which I'll bet is a popular chimp pastime.

Whatever he's doing, he's doing it with an intelligence that some say rivals our own. And with a DNA match between chimps and humans of somewhere between 95 and 98 percent, it's no wonder they sometimes act and, yes, look a lot like us. Or vice versa.

That 2-5% genetic difference supposedly accounts for the evolutionary gap between us. I don't think we're too far apart, actually, other than our superior looks and obviously more advanced behavior. In fact, let's take a look at some of the simple behaviors that separate the primitive chimp from the sophisticated human.

The ability to act with CGI anacondas, make bootylicious music videos, and judge bad singing on national television.

The ability to practice Scientology, maintain a wildly erratic Hollywood career, and act like a bouncing lunatic on talk-show couches.

The ability to adopt hundreds of children with a common-law wife and star in incomprehensible Terence Malick films.

The ability to run for President despite not knowing the difference between a cowboy and a serial killer, and having to compete against that other total flake MILF conservative politician.

The ability to indulge in massive quantities of drugs and whores, get fired from a $2 million a week job, and go on a national tour despite having little stage presence and no act.

The ability to somehow manage to be a gay Japanese beloved sci-fi hero talk-show guest spokesperson compulsive Tweeter. (Oh myyyy.)

The ability to star in three increasingly pointless Transformers movies and take up more or less permanent residence in the gossip columns for various exploits not related to acting.

The ability to cause a worldwide sensation by kissing in public on their wedding day and be the young, beautiful faces of an archaic and crumbling monarchy.

The ability to make millions by starring as a wholesome teen on the Disney Channel, then turn 18 and blow the whole wad on slutty stage costumes and fake weed.

You know what? I shouldn't be comparing humans to chimpanzees. It's not nice, it's not true, and it's certainly not fair to the chimps. And if you can't figure out who I used as my homo sapiens models of behavior, scroll past the vociferous chimp for the answers.

Jennifer Lopez, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Michele Bachmann, Charlie Sheen, George Takei, Shia Laboeuf, Prince William, Kate Middleton, Miley Cyrus. Of all these, I think George Takei compares pretty favorably to a chimp. The rest are a bunch of monkeys.

Booze Roundup for Science

Gather 'round, pardners, it's time to take a look at what science has to say about alcohol.  Scientists love to study booze.  I've known my share of scientists, and in my experience that's roughly equivalent to the fact that most therapists are in therapy and most hairdressers have terrible hair. 

(On the other hand, the high rate of alcoholism among priests is a sign that God loves us and totally wants us to drink to excess.  And that includes putting wine in the Communion cup and not grape juice, I'm looking at you, mainstream Protestant denominations.  Jesus says, lighten up.)

Anyway, here are a pair of recent studies about drink and drinking, as funded by your tax dollars and/or college tuition payments:

"Sleep Following Alcohol Intoxication in Healthy, Young Adults," published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 

In a nutshell, women experience more sleep disruption than men when they drink before bedtime. 

I found this study to be flawed in many important areas.  First, although the researchers adjusted for weight, drinking experience, and other variables, the article doesn't mention whether they took into account the fact that men will sleep through just about anything, drunk or sober.  Here are some actual things that have awakened me but not my Beloved Spouse sleeping beside me:  baby crying, hailstorm, neighbors arguing loudly in Spanish, cats mating outside bedroom window, sonic boom from space shuttle Columbia blowing up (yes, really).

Also, this study defined "drinking to intoxication" as a blood alcohol level of 0.11%.  Well, duh.  Who can fall asleep when there's only 0.11% alcohol in your blood?  That's about the time I start craving Doritos, and I don't know about you, but I just can't sleep soundly knowing there are unconsumed Doritos lurking about. 

Finally, researchers chose young, healthy women as their focus group.  Awww, did the poor widdle twenty-something have a couple of glasses of wine and lose an average of 20 minutes of sleep compared to the control group?  Please.  My goddamn mattress is older than you, and it causes me to lose a hell of a lot more sleep than that every single night.  I'd wager your serial sex partners, distorted self-image, and inflated sense of importance disrupt your golden slumbers more than those tequila shots you love.  If they don't, they should.

"Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index Scores at Age 18 Predict Alcohol Dependence Diagnoses 7 Years Later," also published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Eighteen-year-olds who exhibit problem drinking-related behavior are more likely to be problem drinkers at age 25.

If you're a Finnish twin (the population studied here), your teenage drinking patterns predict the likelihood of your becoming a 25-year-old alkie.  I'd call this a study with limited practical application outside the population of Nordic multiple births.  Johannes and Matti Korhonen of Helsinki, you're on notice. 

The finding that having a drinking problem in high school correlates with still having a drinking problem eight years later is actually kind of important, in that it demonstrates the consequences of early-onset stupidity.  It also bolsters my belief that teenagers can't be trusted to make important decisions about their lives, and neither can adults, and therefore we need to implement a system of robot-based social controls to regulate human behavior throughout the life cycle.  Reading between the lines of the abstract, I'm pretty sure that's the conclusion of the researchers, as well.

In any event, this well-meaning study fails in my opinion.  Predicting later results from early behavior is a well-established cornerstone of cognitive-behavioral psychology - nothing new there.  A better trick would be to predict excessive alcohol consumption in adults whose total high-school experience with alcohol was a single bottle of MD 20/20 at the cast party following the drama department's production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  What are the warning signs?  How can we predict the long-term effects?  Why did it have to be the guy I had a huge crush on who ended up driving me home while I cried and prayed I wouldn't throw up in his Porsche?

All I know is, when I was 25 I hardly touched alcohol, apart from a couple of beers at a ball game and a few shots on New Year's Eve.  I never even kept booze in the house until years later.  After Precocious Daughter was born, in fact.  After she learned to talk.

Now there's a correlation that would make a good scientific study.  I volunteer to be a subject.  I'll even bring my own materials.  In the name of science.

This Blog Does Not Recommend You Get Your Cat Drunk

For today's post, I've decided to conflate two topics that have piqued my interest of late:  Bailey's Irish Cream and cat tongues.  (You know those lists of "trending topics" that appear on Yahoo! and other websites?  Yeah, the stuff I think about rarely appears on those lists.)

Bailey's Irish Cream has been on my mind because I just polished off my annual Christmas bottle, which means it's now on my hips, as well.  And cat tongues actually have been in the news recently, thanks to a new study published in the journal Science.  Seems a group of scientists got tired of genetically modifying squash and searching for a cure for AIDS, so they decided to put their collective intellectual muscle behind the question of how cats drink.  I'm not being snarky; I actually think that's a great thing to study.  I think you could publish a journal called How the Hell Do Cats Do That? and easily fill several years' worth of issues.

Decades' worth, if you changed How to Why.



See, it's SCIENCE.

 In any event, these scientists (who I won't even suggest may have too much time on their hands) came up with some interesting findings on the mechanics of cat lapping, including its vast superiority over the way that dogs basically hurl their tongue at the nearest wet-looking thing and hope it comes back with something, well, wet.  CBS News posted a nice, not-too-sciency summary of the whole thing. 

But I became fascinated with one little detail of the study:  the discovery that cats drink about 0.1 mL of liquid per lap.  That's 0.034 fluid ounces, or about 1/5 of a teaspoon.  At a rate of four laps per second (that was one of the major published findings, I kid you not), that means Widdle Pookums needs about 7.4 seconds (or about 30 laps) to toss back an ounce of milk. 

Seven and a half seconds of constant drinking to take on about 15 calories' worth of milk.  Kitty won't be winning any chug-a-lug contests.  If the cat were drinking Bailey's (see how the conflation begins), at least it would get a satisfying 90 calories for its exertions.  Yes, believe it or not, a single ounce of Bailey's - two lousy tablespoons - has 90 calories.  They call this a "serving."  An ounce?  *snort* I spill that much just pouring it into a glass.  And it doesn't take seven seconds to lap it up, either. 

At this point it was perfectly natural that I start thinking about how many cat-laps it would take to ingest 90 calories' worth of other liquids.  (Do not blame me if your mind does not have a natural bent.)  And that required math, people.  Maybe you enjoy delving into abstruse numerical concepts, like multiplication, but this took a lot of discipline on my part, and moving decimal points and getting wrong answers with alarming frequency.  Math is not really my thing.  But I did it for the enlightenment of you, my loyal readers.  Also because I had nothing better to do.

So without further ado, I present the Highly Autonomous Inertial Response for Balancing and Lapping Liquid - or HAIRBALL - Scale.  This is where science meets kitties, and goes awwwww. 

(Please, dear readers, do not try this at home, and if you do, do not send me hilarious pictures or videos of your cats imbibing liquids they have no business imbibing.)



Not actual test subject

 Bailey's Irish Cream (baseline)
90 calories = 1 oz.
Cat-laps:  30

Captain Morgan Rum (100 proof)
90 calories = 1.1 oz.
Cat-laps: 33

Vodka (80 proof)
90 calories = 1.4 oz.
Cat-laps: 41



Do not try this at homez

 McDonald's Chcolate Shake

90 calories = 2.5 oz.

Cat-laps:  74

Margarita

90 calories = 3 oz.

Cat-laps:  89

Red Wine

90 calories = 3.6 oz.

Cat-laps: 107

Do NOT give your cat grapefruit juice

Campbell's Cream of Tomato Soup
90 calories = 5.2 oz.
Cat-laps: 154

A&W Cream Soda
90 calories = 6 oz.
Cat-laps: 178

Grapefruit Juice
90 calories = 7.5 oz.
Cat-laps: 222

Miller Lite
90 calories = 11.25 oz
Cat-laps: 333

Conclusion:  I can drink any pussy under the table when it comes to vodka or rum, but there's no way I'm going to choke down a glass of grapefruit juice in 30 seconds.  Well played, kitty, well played.

Gandhi's "Seven Blunders"

Shortly before he was assassinated, Mohandas Gandhi gave his grandson Arun a note that contained the following Seven Blunders That Lead to Violence and Wars:

Wealth without work,
Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,
Science without humanity,
Worship without sacrifice,
Politics without principles.

More on this tomorrow...

One from the Archives: Once Again, Reality Fails Science Fiction

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. - Anais Nin


If you're like me, you're bitterly disappointed that human society continues to lack food replicators, artificial gravity, and computers that take less than 10 minutes to boot up. You also like to have vodka and Doritos for dinner but almost always regret it later. What I'm trying to say is, if you're like me, I'm sorry.

The point is, the future as we see it today sure isn't what we thought it would be in the past. For decades, science fiction has conditioned us to expect a certain pace of technological evolution. The Russians sent up the first man-made satellite in 1957, and by the 23rd century Earthlings were supposed to be masters of interstellar travel and battling Gorn on rocky, Los Angeles-like planets in far-flung galaxies. Presumably the years in between would feature a linear progression of advancement in the field of...well, everything.

As it turns out, linear progression is not an area in which we humans excel. The whole of our history is characterized by periods of stunning accomplishment - by some, for some, in some ways. Inevitably we create such insupportable disparity in our path of progress that it all, or partly, or in some aspects, falls down around us and we have to start over. Like framing the Constitution as the blueprint of modern democracy but leaving women and non-whites out. Or creating the Internet and using it primarily for porn and Twitter. Enlightenment comes disappointingly in fits and starts. We proudly declare, "The future is here," then we look around and say, "Oh, shit, where's my jet pack?"

That was pretty much my reaction to the latest news from the world of science. The European Space Agency recently announced that it has discovered a new planet, CoRoT-7b, orbiting a star in the constellation Monoceros, about 500 light years from Earth. It's roughly twice the size of our planet, circumnavigates its sun at an extrememly fast rate, and has a rocky surface approximately the same as that of Earth. In fact, it's the first planet ever discovered outside our solar system with a so-called Earthlike composition.

Whoa. Wait a minute, there. Back up. Read that again. The first planet ever discovered outside our solar system with a rocky, Earthlike surface. Something like 350 "extrasolar" planets have been glimpsed around the cosmos since the very first one was discovered orbiting star 51 Pegasi back in 1995. (I knew that off the top of my head. OK, I didn't. Research is a good thing.) Until now, they've all been gaseous. As in, no one is going to be setting down a landing craft and planting a flag in their non-existent soil anytime soon. Or, more likely, ever.

So much for seeking out new life and new civilizations. We've been duped. We see scientists creating life in a petri dish and doctors creating new techniques to save lives and Steve Jobs creating whatever the hell exactly an iTouch is (I'm not an Apple person, I'm afraid), and we're awed by advances that most of us couldn't even imagine before they became realities before our eyes. And we've assumed that progress in an area that is intimately familiar to anyone who has read a book or watched a movie in the last hundred years - going forth into the universe to encounter alien civilizations perhaps more advanced than our own - has been proceeding apace.

And now we find out that, far from cataloging Class M planets right and left, astronomers are thrilled to discover a single world 500 light years away that potentially has a surface you could set a flat-screen TV on - that is, if it weren't so close to the sun that it would melt your remote before you could even program the DVR. There's no possibility that CoRoT-7b contains life, and even finding water on its dark side isn't a sure bet. Yet scientists all over the world are high-fiving as if they've just discovered the Pleasure Domes on Regulus IV. This is disappointing news for those of us who were saving up for our first interstellar vacation.

Fortunately, the 400 bucks I'd already set aside will probably grow to about three trillion dollars with interest in the time it will take to find an actual habitable planet outside our solar system. That may cover the cost of the trip for my great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren. If they fly economy and don't bring any extra bags. That whole evolving-beyond-money-in-the-future thing? I'm not going to count on that one, either.