Science made fun by Bobby McFerrin

This little snippet is so incredibly cool! Bobby McFerrin demonstrates how the human mind intrinsically recognizes the pentatonic scale.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

YouTube has lots of fun Bobby McFerrin videos. Check 'em out!!

25 Things

This is adapted from Facebook and inspired by Fay

Rules: you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

1. I like to think that I could survive on sugar confections alone - particularly cake, pie, pudding, real Pepsi (the kind you get in Europe or Mexico), and newly acquired passion -- red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting from Sprinkles.

2. I hate acting my age.

3. I could watch kids' movies all day, every day. "The Brave Little Toaster" comes to mind... also the original "Parent Trap," any and all Pixar movies ever made, "My Robot;" seriously, the list can go on for days.

4. I must have listened to Matchbox 20's "Yourself or Somebody Like You" at least 1000 times in high school.

5. I think women are far sexier than men.

6. I hate running - hate it - but when I have an occasional "good day" I get such an endorphin rage that I tell myself I will run again tomorrow, which inevitably is never as satisfying.

7. I too (Fay) still have to recite the alphabet to remember the order when I’m looking things up in a reference book. I also count on my fingers.

8. I take candy - especially the peach gummy Os - out of the open plastic buckets in the grocery store. Some people call it stealing; I call it a tasty snack.

9. I despise Pomeranians.

10. Britney will forever be my favorite pop star.

11. I have eaten ostrich meat (it was not good).

12. I read every Anne Rice book I can get my hands on, even though everything after Witching Hour has been a huge disappointment.

13. One of my pet peeves is bad spelling.

14. I eat boiled pasta with nothing on it but ketchup, and it is delicious.

15. I would rather suffer from a cold or the flu than take cough syrup or NyQuil. Just the thought of it is making me want to throw up a little.

16. I wish I did not have to think about whether I want kids or not until at least my 40s.

17. I watch cooking shows while running on the treadmill.

18. I used to think I was going to marry Zach Braff.

19. I think the sexiest instrument to listen to is the cello, and the prettiest language is Farsi.

20. I am getting an IPhone this weekend; and I'm pretty sure my next computer will be a Mac.

21. One day, I will write a book, and it will be awesome. The subject and/or genre is yet to be decided upon.

22. The funniest person I know is my bf's six-year old niece.

23. My favorite male character from literature is Francisco D'Anconia from Atlas Shrugged.

24. I want to travel to all fifty states. So far I have been to CA, AZ, NV, HI, NE, and most of the New England states, though I would love to go to all of them again.

25. Today is my four-month anniversary of working at Stanford.

'Tis the Season

Winter is finally upon us. I know this because today it was cold. Not Wisconsin-freeze-your-eye-balls cold, but definitely cold for an Orange County girl. The high today was 56 degrees in Palo Alto - definitely fuzzy scarf weather.

Another reason I know it is really winter is because Christmas is now around the corner, and I can get into the holiday spirit. The Christmas songs on the radio and in stores began a few weeks ago, which really bugs me because by the time Christmas rolls around, I'm sick of Rudolf and his red nose. But now, with December in full swing, it is time to deck the halls and be merry!

Yesterday, M and I bought "our" first Christmas tree! It was very exciting. We went to Target and scoped out the fake trees they had there. I was highly impressed with Target's selection! We picked a little four foot tall one, kind of fuzzy, not the typical wintergreen kind of fake tree. I originally had wanted a real tree, but with us not being home the two weeks before and after Christmas, I did not want a real tree to have died without getting the chance to bring joy on Christmas morning. The tree was actually really cute, though it was pretty scraggly when it came out of the box. We had to fluff it up a bit, and by the end, it was nice and bushy. I found a really cute Penguin ornament at Target, and some new ball ornaments, but most of the stuff in the tree came from my Christmas box that I've had for years. We also strung up blue lights in our little tree, because blue lights are my favorite. If I do say so myself, our little tree is not too shabby!

While I decked out our tree, M put up lights outside on our balcony, and inside around the living room's big window/door. We even decorated our little bamboo tree - no reason exotic trees can't get dressed up and join the party! And, our little Wilbur got his very own Christmas bell around his fat little neck. He is too cute not to share, so he got top billing in this entry. Some people have kids, others have pets; we have our Wilbur the Pig, and he is a great apartment pig. He is also a very politically involved lil' pig, and if you squint, you can see his Obama pin on his right ear.

It was really nice decorating our apartment and getting into the holiday spirit. We played Kenny Chesney's Christmas album, "All I Want for Chirstmas is a Real Good Tan" (how country of us!) while we put decorations up, and hummed along to visions of a white Christmas - white sand, that is! Domestic little things like Christmas decorating really make one feel like half a couple. It's still strange sometimes to think, Wow, I live with this person; this tree belongs to both of us. Strange, but warm and fuzzy, and isn't warm and fuzzy what the holidays are all about?

The Week That Was (Oh, what a week!)

Last week around this time I was feeling a strange combination of elation and crapdom (yes, that is an emotion, the one you feel when your body decides to betray you temporarily by being sick on the happiest day of the year). I was in the middle of an Oracle Financials Training Session, and my body was quickly letting me know that I in fact was about to be sicker than I've been in as long as I can remember. As the lady droned on and on and on about iProcurement, I could not get "Proud to be an American" out of my head despite my abhorrence of overly-indulgent patriotic songs, and kept thinking that instead of wasting my time in class, I wanted to jump around Stanford hugging every person I met.

Last year, I watched "American Idol" with my parents, and every time Kristy Lee Cook came on and butchered the hell out of every "Proud to be an American/America the Beautiful/Yankee Doodle Dandy" rendition possible, I nearly puked. And now, this was me; cynic and critic, belting out this propaganda anthem full blast in my own head, even letting it escape out loud every now and then, and giggling to myself like a crazy person. I would have felt embarrassed if everyone coming into and out of the office was not also having similar issues, keeping Joker-sized grins plastered on their faces, and spontaneously breaking out in conversation that had clearly started in their head and was being voiced mid-thought.

The country had a new President-Elect, and the excitement was palpable. When our Director called us in for an emergency meeting and broke down in front of his staff when he confessed that he in fact had never felt more proud to be an American, I couldn't believe that someone who's had such a long career at the forefront of political thought was compelled to spontaneously share these feelings. I was also reassured, as young people need be by their wiser elders, that California and the United States will one day, and one day soon, do right by all - so that all of the boys, girls, men, and women living under this great American umbrella can share the same rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution. James Baldwin once wrote, "Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality." Prop 8 passing definitely says more about the people who voted for it than about the people whom it immediately effects. At this moment in time, I feel both disheartened that Prop 8 passed, but also hopeful because I know it won't last long until my friends won't have to feel like their own state sees them as second class citizens.

Last Tuesday night, having the experience of the last two presidential elections behind me, I thought the counting would go on all night. So, M and I went grocery shopping. Shocker! We came back and within minutes, Barack Obama had officially and by a huge margin gained enough electoral votes to cast no doubt that he would indeed be the next President of the United States of America. John McCain's speech that followed was the first time in months that I heard McCain's own voice. It did not surprise me when the crowd boo'ed at Obama's name (it also did not surprise me that the folks in Chicago cheered and clapped when Obama mentioned McCain), and it kind of freaked me out that most of the people in the Phoenix crowd were middle-aged white folk. I mean, seriously-- almost everyone was over 45 and white. Meanwhile, in Chicago, the hundreds of thousands of people huddled together, laughing, crying, chanting, were children, teenagers, college kids, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, middle aged, elderly, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, mixed, all colors and ages and creeds, which encapsulates what America is and has prided itself in being - the cultural, racial, ethnic, religious melting pot of this world.

The images of Jesse Jackson crying I have to say were pretty priceless, and I remember thinking, I wish James Baldwin was alive to see this! I wish DuBois could see this! I do think that John McCain made too much of the "African-American" issue when talking about Barack Obama in his concession speech, but at the same time, he reminded us that people whom we know remember a time when they could not go to the same school, or eat at the same restaurants, or walk on the same piece of street, as white kids. The fact that these memories are not historic memories but actual memories makes this election monumental, but I think that the nation and the world agrees that Obama being black is not the sole or even the main reason why he is perceived with such enthusiasm and anticipation.

My entire adult life has been spent with George W. Bush being the President of the U.S. The 2004 election was the first one in which I could legally vote after becoming a citizen. I remember when my roommates and I volunteered to cater a John Kerry fundraiser in L.A. (note to self- where IS that shirt?!) we all whole-heartedly believed Kerry would win over Bush, no doubt about it. I cast my vote and thought, "Now I am truly an American citizen." Four years later, I am feeling an interesting and hard to explain emotion. I was not born here, and thus will always harbor patriotic love for my home country. And for as long as I've lived here, I've always been happy to live here, and proud. Every time I drove through a particular part of the 5S Fwy in Anaheim, I got an irrational feeling of love and pride for California, and as the plane was about to touch down at LAX, each time I nearly teared up with excitement to be "home." But over the last 8 eight years, it really has become "uncool" to be an American in many parts of the world, because we are seen as bullies instead of liberators, as arrogant instead of accomplished, as ignorant instead of leaders in science. Last week, I actually felt like I was an American, part of the millions of people who went out and voted however they felt was best. But there is always that "adopted" American feeling to it. It's almost like I can see it from both sides - judging the U.S. from a foreigner's point of view, and defending the country from the insider perspective. Again I turn to James Baldwin, who once wrote, "I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually." I think he was completely right in this, and this is the sentiment that I think so many Americans ignore in their blind patriotism. To truly be proud of your country, I think you should judge it with high standards, because you expect great things from it. If you take everything a country does blindly, you face a great risk of allowing that country to become an oppressor without boundaries. That is why I think all those Republican allegations that "they" are the "real" America and that Obama and the Democratic party aren't proud of America were so ludicrous. Don't parents chide their children so that the kids might learn to be better people? Anyways, now I am going off topic, which was initially this strange feeling of being an American, and an outsider, and feeling optimistic that in the next few years the U.S. can make its citizens even more proud to call themselves American than they have been in recent years.

***

Moving on from the elections, last week also brought more ups and downs in the Stockmarket, which has people all on edge. I can't believe that literally in a few days, people's entire retirement 401k money is gone!! I guess I am really lucky to have a looo-ooo-oong time to go until I retire!!! But on a positive side, gas is down to under $2.40, which is unbelievable considering it was nearly double just a few weeks ago!!

On a more personal note, M's parents came up for a weekend visit, and M and I had a movie date ("Changeling," which I give 4 stars, but don't recommend to anyone with small children because it will make you SO SO SAD and paranoid). I also bought a really fun hat! Having headed to the mall in search of black, flat shoes with an ankle strap, I returned home sans shoes, but with a super cute brown bowl hat. And yes, I did finish Taltos, a remarkable letdown by Anne Rice. I am now onto George Eliot's Middlemarch because I need to clean my mental palate, so to speak, after Taltos, but I think I might put that aside for some McEwan.

As for the moment at hand, tonight I am very excited about the Country Music Awards!! I think Kenny Chesney and Sugarland will perform, so I am very happy. A few weeks ago, when the VMA's aired on MTV, I had a quarter-life crisis when I realized that besides Britney Spears and Mariah Carey, I had no idea who the majority of the performers were. I didn't know the songs, I didn't know the singers' names, I felt like an old biddy!! That was when I started listening to more hip hop in the car to make up for my exclusive country habits, and now I feel more confident about my contemporary culture knowledge, but I'm still 100% sure that I will know most of the people at the CMA's, because that's just the country bumpkin I've become.

A Lot of Things Different

There is nothing better (or worse) for nostalgia than being up in the middle of the night and listening to Kenny Chesney's ballads. I was originally going to put up "Old Blue Chair" but this one is even worse (or better).

I'd spend a lot more time in the pouring rain without an umbrella
Covering my head
And I'd stood up to that bully when he pushed and called me names
But I was too afraid
And I'd a gone on and saw Elvis that night he came to town
But mama said I couldn't
And I'd a went skinny dipping with Jenny Carson that time she dared me to
But I didn't

Oh I, I'd done a lot of things different

I wished I'd a spent more time with my dad when he was alive
Now I don't have the chance
I wish I had told my brother how much I loved him before he went off to war
But I just shook his hand
And I wish I had gone to church on Sunday morning when my grandma begged me too
But I was afraid of God
And I wish I would've listened when they said Boy, you're gonna wish you hadn't
But I wouldn't

Oh I, I'd done a lot of things different

People say they wouldn't change a thing, even if they could
Oh but I would

There was this red dress she wanted one time so bad she could taste it
And I should've bought it, but I didn't
She wanted to paint our bedroom yellow and trim it blues and greens
But I wouldn't let her, wouldn't a hurt nuthin
She loved to be held and kissed and touched but I didn't do it
Not nearly enough
And if I'd a known that dance was going to be our last dance
I'd a asked that band to play on and on on and on

Oh I, I'd done a lot of things different

People say they wouldn't change a thing, even if they could
Oh but I would
Oh whoa Oh I, I'd done a lot of things different
Oh I, I'd done a lot of things
I think we've all do a lot of things different

****************

I don't know how this is productive for my Keats paper; but it definitely got me into a big ol' ball of emotional. Which, I suppose, is good when studying the romantics.

Analysis of Contemporary Romantic Poetry

I know that we are all modern and have become almost completely desensitized to the old-world concepts of romance, chivalry, mystique, and courtship, but sometimes one has to step back in wonder at the poetic lyrics that some of our finest young musical sensations are putting out there. Last night, because I am an insomniac and was still awake at 2, I tried to come up with a list of my favorite really bad, crude lyrics. Since I apparently have nothing better to do before 10 in the morning, since the Copy Center is sloooooow at this time (college students aren't up yet, duh), I was going to proceed to make up a little list of my favorite summer lewdness that assaulted my dainty virginal ears this summer. All were songs that to a degree I enjoyed and "bumped" to, so these were not going to songs that I was to criticize, merely comment on their combined effort to kill romance. After starting to make up the list, however, I decided a far more rewarding experience would be a close analytical look at what was going to be in the number one song for least romantic and most lewd (and therefore most fun to write about).

This great honor I am bestowing upon none other than E-40's "U and Dat". To begin with, E-40, what exactly does this mean? "Girl, I been shaking and acting a donkey tryna to get you and that monkey"? What does "acting a donkey" mean? I mean, it means you're acting like an ass (literally), but WHY are you acting like an ass in order to get to a girl's... monkey? I can only speculate what he means by "monkey," aided by a vivid imagination and word association games that link monkey to banana and banana to a man's organ. I find it slightly disturbing that instead of being won over and seduced by a man's chivalry, girls have come to give it up to asses. Long gone are the days of sonnets under the moonlight, flowers, love songs and whispered sweet nothings. Maybe those days were full of sugarcoated hypocrisy, but at least you went to sleep sighing, thinking you were special, instead of going to bed knowing that if it wasn't you, it was some other ho and that to him you aren't even a woman, but merely a body that comes equipped with... a monkey.

Moving on with the lyrics. E-40 proceeds to tell us about how he propses to win the fair maiden's monkey. "I walk up in the club with a limpin (Limpin) God listen, what you gonna do, with this pimpin." What am I going to do, E-40? Get you a walking stick, some crutches? Why are you limping? What happened to the days when physical appearance was attractive because it was exactly that-- attractive? When men dressed in clothes that fit them, walked with correct posture, opened their eyes when looking at a woman instead squinting through beady little eyes?

Just when we thought everything was going so well (he's limpin' along, twisting and shaking and being a donkey), E-40 steps up his game by apparently approaching the girl and telling her more precisely what is on his mind: "Oooh, your ass is right I aint tryna let that pass me tonight I'm a put my bid in and tell you something slick Whisper in your ear while I'm holding my dick I don't mean no harm, it's the hood in me." Oh, you don't mean no harm? But you are approaching a woman who you are trying to seduce while holding on to your what? Ok, now this is where I start to feel just a little bit offended. Fine, you need to do your little shake-n-bake dance, and limp along because you think it makes you look bad-ass. I will understand that there are some mating rituals that you may feel the need to perform, but fellas, under no circumstances is it all right to approach a woman and make advances towards her while holding on to ANY part of your body. Unless you cover your heart and tell her you have been struck by love at the sight of her beauty which surely is a shell hiding an angel. (HA)

After a short interchange between the object of his affection (sic), we are let to understand that this woman is apparently his soul mate, because she is digging his rough attitude and strong pimp-ness! To her positive reply, E-40 then follows with the summer's absolute best lewd lyric: "You looking like you got that good gooshy, gooshy Fucking round with me, I beat the brakes off that pussy Have your ass cumming like a porn star movie Tell your friends and I bet they all wanna do me." Let's ignore the "gooshy gooshy" (after all, this is the closest we've come to those whispered sweet nothings) and the fact that I have no idea what "beat the breaks off that pussy" means (I wasn't aware we women come equiped with breakes down there. Apparently this girl is not lacking an accelerator though). I find fascinating that he (and more disturbingly, that she) is comfortable with the fact that he tells her he wants to have her ass cumming like a porn star movie. That has to be the most vivid image of raunchy, hot, dirty sex I have heard in a very long time. Not that I am arguing against such lovely activities, I am only saying that the boundaries of chivalry here are completely erased, the border between the land of romance and the land of sex have so completely been obliterated that our standards of courtship are now set by pornography and acts that to this day remain illegal (unfortunately) in some states of our great Union.

To top off the demise of romance, which has traditionally been a monogamous (at least in name) practice, E-40 then beats the final nail in the coffin of sentimentality, by promising the girl that not only will he have her ass cumming like a porn star movie, but that he will make her want to share him with all of her friends. We are now free to whip out our handkerchief and wave goodbye to the Love Boat, as it has clearly sailed away.

Thank God we still have the Nick Lacheys of this world to remind us what real love is.

Original post date: September 22, 2006