9.30.2008

Camera's in hotel rooms?

So, i'm up and paranoid, wondering if the smoke alarm, digital clock, wall picture or coffee maker are rigged with a hidden camera. i'm afraid the person watching would be grossly upset with the lack of action during my stay here, but i can't stop thinking about it when it's shower time or when nature calls. not that i don't want to sleep...i just finished working a 13.5 hour day and would love to be knocked out about now....anyway...
After having that nastiness on the sheets upon arrival, and this being a cheaper, but still catering to the working professional hotel chain, i'm not sure what to think. perhaps the free plane ticket i will get after staying here b/c i've been a recurring guest with this chain isn't worth this quality and will try a new chain w/another rewards card next trip.

sorry, i wasn't going to post that, but...hehehe...i actuall really like the pic, color and composition even though it's got the nastiness on the left and the towel i slept on so it wouldn't touch me in the middle, with the glorius glow of the MAC to the right. long story, but i have new sheets tonight!
Soooo, here are the suspcious objects in question:
Here is the alarm clock with a huge face
smoke detector with a huge hole...i got up on a chair and it is shiny like a lens. some articles said they can stuff up to 5 cameras up there to get a 360 view...
the hole in the framed wall art...like who framed roger rabbit, but no eyes will come out and knock a bottle over - hahaha!!! that scene cracked me up when that movie came out!
the innocent looking coffee maker!
and last, but certainly not least...the inocent mood lighting wall light. i haven't used it yet and i don't plan on it out of laziness. it would require getting out of bed to turn it off....and it's not a clapper (i just tried)...so, i have to live with the harsh Fluorescent glow...ugh.
well...that's that.

9.28.2008

Vikings Pillaged for Wives?


After hearing this on a radio game show, it hit me deep inside and made me feel a strange compassion for these men, who were deemed as some of the most horrible people ever. However, it makes sense when you think about all of our needs collectively, as human beings...which disregards culture/perspective/location...etc. the desire for a family/companionship/status. All i can think of is...how strong was that testosterone?! They sound like they were a very passionate people with such a determination and display of eagerness to be suitably acceptable for a woman. It was said that the vikings held up women with much esteem, besides the fact that men had free reign and could do whatever he pleased. In our day and age, men use such things as fancy cars, impressive jobs or portfolios, talents, even cooking or domestic skills. a much more civilized way of setting up a love nest than taking human life, but are we still seeing the same marks of the viking culture in our men (and some women) today with regards to faithfulness/monogamy? However, is this all for personal gain....to say, i have a woman! and not for love? If this is true, then it's no wonder why we have so many divorces, as the marriage begins and ends on a selfish note, even though there was the beginnings of what could have been so beautiful.
The responsibility of the man is quite a heavy one, but when it all comes down to it, if you're truly in love, none of that stuff matters if you truly commit to stick it out to the end, no matter how you may or may not feel from day to day, your financial situation or your talents. i'd still rather be "happily" married to a poor penniless sitar player than a great big rich maharajah! [Moulin Rouge]
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During the Viking Age from the late eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries, Scandinavians tore across Europe attacking, robbing and terrorizing locals. According to a new study, the young warriors were driven to seek their fortunes to better their chances of finding wives.
The odd twist to the story, said researcher James Barrett, is that it was the selective killing of female newborns that led to a shortage of Scandinavian women in the first place, resulting later in intense competition over eligible women.Barrett's analysis of Nordic historical records found that Scandinavian men often served as warriors, frequently forming "military brotherhoods," until they were able to marry and establish their own households, which were key to prestige and power.
Full article

According to Barrett, honor and religious fatalism — the idea that the time and manner of death is predestined — also fueled the Vikings, helping explain why men were willing to risk death in violent battles and risky seafaring. The Viking religion held that "the cosmos began in the frozen emptiness ... and will end in fire with the last battle," said Barrett.

Despite the infanticide, he still believes the Vikings "highly valued" women. Aside from lavishing bridal prospects with plundered goods, they held solemn burials at sea for women. In fact, one of the most important known Viking Age burials, involved numerous goods and two female skseltons encased in a ship called the Oseberg.

Soren Sindbaek, assistant professor of medieval and Renaissance archaeology at Denmark's University of Aarhus, told Discovery News that the new paper "is very right in pointing out the inadequacy" of former explanations for the Viking Age.


For the full article click here.

Solar Cycle 24 - signs of a coming ice age?

This is the new sunspot officially marking the beginning of Solar Cycle 24.



Below is part of an article that talks about the technological effects that Cycle 24 can have on us, not to mention another mini ice age. When i first heard about 1 man fighting the world saying that we don't have to worry about global warming b/c an ice age is coming soon, it piqued my interest to investigate...which i put off until seeing this image on (shhhh) yahoo! So, if things are as they appear to be, perhaps switching to solar energy would be a smart move. [personally - If it continues to get colder and BGE (or soon to be Constellation - which i am slightly happy about being that this months BGE bill was $0! but who knows their plans once they take over), our heating bills are going to go through the roof!]
So, i'm interested in seeing how our modernized world will deal with this issue and how/if life as usual will be affected and how long it will take for it to become known. will a debate break off into global warming vs ice age groups? what about Al Gores efforts with An Inconvenient Truth: Global Warming Effect?
Anyway...

Here's part of the article:
The onset of a new solar cycle is significant because of our increasingly space-based technological society.

"Solar storms can disable satellites that we depend on for weather forecasts and GPS navigation," says Hathaway. Radio bursts from solar flares can directly interfere with cell phone reception while coronal mass ejections (CMEs) hitting Earth can cause electrical power outages. "The most famous example is the Quebec outage of 1989, which left some Canadians without power for as much as six days."

Air travel can be affected, too.[warfi!]

Every year, intercontinental flights carry thousands of passengers over Earth’s poles. It's the shortest distance between, say, New York and Tokyo or Beijing and Chicago. In 1999, United Airlines made just twelve trips over the Arctic. By 2005, the number of flights had ballooned to 1,402. Other airlines report similar growth.

"Solar storms have a big effect on polar regions of our planet," says Steve Hill of the Space Weather Prediction Center. "When airplanes fly over the poles during solar storms, they can experience radio blackouts, navigation errors and computer reboots all caused by space radiation." Avoiding the poles during solar storms solves the problem, but it costs extra time, money and fuel to "take the long way around."

Now for the good news: More solar storms also means more auroras—"the greatest show on Earth." During the last solar maximum, Northern Lights were spotted as far south as Arizona, Florida and California. Not so long ago, only visitors to the Arctic regularly enjoyed auroras, but with increasing attention to space weather and constantly improving forecasts, millions of people at all latitudes will know when to go out and look.

Here are a few good links:
Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States
The Deniers: Our spotless sun this article has pretty cool information about how art and literature was effected in previous cycles that brought on mini ice ages.

9.27.2008

9.06.2008

Bugs!

it's 3am and my roomate and i are preparing for the pigtown fest tomorrow....in a few hours.
i finally finished and am ready to crash, but then, as i went to turn out the light.....
zzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the dark blotch that i thought was my hairball darted acrossed the floor......
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
being that it was really big, i had to get rid of it before sleeping.
i tried to crush it with a glass bowl - my poor sleeping roomate under me - and it ran into my victoria's secret minibag.
as scared as i was, i quickly closed it with the weight of my entire body, holding a slipper as to make sure i wouldn't be too close to touching it. once i felt safe that it was trapped, i folded the opening like a present and sealed that bad boy with a wad of duct tape!
i could hear the lil guy runnin around in there. i'm hoping it will die so i can have my underwear.
i'm actually a little too excited to go to sleep after that action...knowing that i shouldn't yell at 3am....ECHO helped with that. atleast it wasn't a spider the size of a tarantua! that was WACK!
anyway...baltimore is jumpin with sirens tonight.
i hope that tomorrow will go well.
i hope to see some familiar faces tomorrow.
i hope everything sells!
here goes, the 1st show!