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I’m back from my vacation, so expect some updates to thebarproject soon, and thanks to Julie for holding down the fort while I was away hurtling down mountains trying to avoid trees. I wasn’t always successful. No joke. Now if only 3D would get off his ass and give me a review. I’m not going to hold my breath though, I’ve been watching his progress on his site with less than bated breath =).

Yo Pope yo Pope!

In an unusual spectacle at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II presided over a performance of break-dancers who leaped, flipped and spun their bodies to beats from a tinny boom box.

“For this creative hard work I bless you from my heart,” he said.

Captain Kangaroo Dead!

In the 1970′s a semi-famous Worcester musician wrote the song (Gotta Get) Out of Worcester and I figured you might all enjoy a listen — will help you sympathize with 3D. He is so taken with the sentiments that he’s transcribed the lyrics:

(lyrics in comments)

have you ever seen a street so bumpy
just a young man and i feel so funny
love, gotta get outta here
it’s the same old college and the same old stuff
same old building and they’re building more
help me get myself outta here

oh, i gotta get outta worcester
gotta get outta worcester
move on down the road

frisco’s got hills and we all give thanks
boston’s got schools and worcester’s got banks
oh the city’s just bound to grow
but it’s not too big and it’s not too small
it’s not too much of anything at all
help me, what a vicious mood i’m in tonight

oh, i gotta get outta worcester
gotta get outta worcester
move on down the road

well i’m not sure just what it could be
might be worcester and it might be, it just might be me

oh, i gotta get outta worcester
gotta get outta worcester
move on down the road

i’ll move to boston, northampton, provincetown for the summer
anyplace is better because this place is a bum
yeah, every time i come to worcester i get sick!
i guess it’s not too bad, the rolling stones loved it
no place to commit suicide in, i’ll tell you that it’d be redundant!
baby i got an idea – how about we tear down mechanic’s hall and put up a roller rink – that’s what we need, a big roller rink!

Here‘s a fun little site.. the buttons along the bottom take you to different gizmo’s.. my personal favorite is the Enron one.. I’ve been out of it for a while so if this one has already made the rounds you can punish me by signing me up for the hockey fighting contest. I can turtle like no man.

SlantyG:

Since you were wondering about the drunk guy who gets arrested many, many times; the website is back up. He hasn’t been as active the last little while since he has been in jail for a while. Think this is around 800+ arrests.

Submitted by Julie of macadamiaranch.com

If ever you’re in the mood for cold Old Style and polka tunes, have I got the place for you.

Midway airport, The Baby Doll Polka Club serves up spirits and polka music every night. There is a dance floor, mirrored walls, and a small stage where bands like the Polkaholics and the bar owner’s Eddie Korosa Jr and His Boys From Illinois (that’s Illinoize, youse guys) churn out the oompah hits. On holidays, or when she’s in the mood, Eddie’s mom (who tends bar) will sometimes bring in homemade potato salad.

Was doing some light reading on /. and came to this article on aerogels. Seems the stuff is:

-only 3 times the density of air ( 0.1 g per cu. cm or 0.00011 lbs. per cu. in for our american readers)
-high in thermoinsulation properties (“Though it would be very expensive, you could take a two- or three-bedroom house, insulate it with aerogel, and you could heat the house with a candle.”)
-bluish like the sky because of the light diffraction or smokey depending on what impurities it has
-being used on spacecraft including the rovers (insulation) and comet captures (sampling)

Getting excited by this wasn’t too hard cause of my biochem background. I decided to look at more aerogel stuff and found some really cool pics, saw that it was named one of TIME’s best inventions of 2002 (even though it had been invented in 1931), and instructions for making it (some basics in chemistry are helpfull to understand the article).

I was so excited and had the brief thought of getting 24601 to help me make this stuff for fun in the wee hours of darkness(well, we did all our best lab work in the the wee hours with beer, doom I, and radioactive ice-cream) until I realized that I wouldn’t be able to do the autoclave step properly since the autoclave at the hospital doesn’t have the required technology in regards to CO2 flushing of the supercritical drying of the alcogel.

There are a further wealth of links here.

Editor’s note: Does anybody have an autoclave that will meet the spec? -plz contact 24601

Elephants are an endangered species as is. Man is encroaching on their habitat, and its got some pretty bad consequences. Its a tragedy when one dies.

But its a special tragedy for these elephants, because they’re OUR kind of elephant.

FOUR wild elephants who ran amok after getting drunk on rice beer were electrocuted in India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya when they brought down power lines, an official said Tuesday.

(sniff)