Allegra – Page 404 – Allegra Sloman's blog

So I have a gig with Orange You Glad on Sunday at 2, and we practiced (involved me covering my eyes while attempting to remember all the words and chords of Orphan Girl, but I still am nowhere near having Bird on a Wire down).

Finally caught up with NCIS; Ho lee cow.

Something really weird happened on the computer last night. For reasons best known to science, but completely obscure to me, my computer made the youtube video for the Lords of Acid’s “I like it” start playing. Not only did I not click on it… IT DIDN’T APPEAR IN MY HISTORY. When it stopped playing it dropped off the screen and it took me until this morning to figure out what the hell it was and where I could find it. No link…. NSFW lyrics as it involves bisexuality, crossdressing and promiscuity. It’s also hella catchy.

Oh gosh, look at the time. I actually got a good night’s sleep last night!

Briefly

Ziva is running on six but hesitating. Fuel filter? Spark plugs? Check engine light comes on within about a two block stretch of 10th Ave and goes off about halfway up Gaglardi hill.

I had a lovely long talk with my mum last night.

Jeff sent me flowers at work, by which one might infer what a joy to be around I’ve been over the last little while. I don’t care, and my coworkers sure appreciated it, and Jeff is defending his title of World’s Most Awesome Roommate with considerable aplomb.

Tom M at work photoshopped his two tortie cats into Borg costumes. Unbelievably cute and I’ll post the link to his flickr stream if I can find it.

Betelgeuse ISN’T going to blow up. Sad face.

I’ve been playing “Mama Got Skills”, my 6 song EP, in the car, and I’m enjoying it past the point that makes sense. Oh, to have such a very loud sound system!

Briefly

Saw Paul briefly last night as I wanted him to listen to the engine and help with diagnosis. While I was there his sister Ruth called and I got to talk to her, which was lovely. Her houseful of girls is doing great and the news (apart from work, and I’ll spare the details) was all very good to hear. Also saw Keith when he came over. Although we started out thinking we wanted an action movie we ended up watching McLintock! A great film, although the public display of deshabille and domestic abuse / BDSM at the end is a bit of a corker. I laughed my ass off about half a dozen times. OMG, Maureen O’Hara’s costumes. John Wayne as a comedic lead, who knew.

Sad face, to have missed the last two episodes of NCIS. I’ll have to wait for reruns.

superdupernova

Betelgeuse is gonna blow. Or has done did blow about 550 years ago. Let the millennial bullshit begin!!!!

WOW Moose heroism

Young people, they are not all bad.

Asparagus pee… is it real?

Science to the rescue.

In other news, I planted some things that will be (with luck) food later on this year.

Ziva does not like wet weather. Winter should be interesting. She also decided to stop her sunroof from working when I showed her off to Tom & Peggy, the little bugger; it’s fine now.

I watched the CEO do something very difficult very well yesterday, and I still can’t believe what has happened to the company I work for…. namely, that the bunch of sociopaths and psychophants (misspelling deliberate) running the company previously have been replaced by sane people. I was so impressed I thanked him.

I have a gig on Sunday; still not entirely sure how that happened, but I’m not complaining.

Watched Adaptation and loved it.

How to be a denialist

How to be a denialist
Martin McKee, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who also studies denial, has identified six tactics that all denialist movements use. “I’m not suggesting there is a manual somewhere, but one can see these elements, to varying degrees, in many settings,” he says (The European Journal of Public Health, vol 19, p 2).

â– 1. Allege that there’s a conspiracy. Claim that scientific consensus has arisen through collusion rather than the accumulation of evidence.
â– 2. Use fake experts to support your story. “Denial always starts with a cadre of pseudo-experts with some credentials that create a facade of credibility,” says Seth Kalichman of the University of Connecticut.
â– 3. Cherry-pick the evidence: trumpet whatever appears to support your case and ignore or rubbish the rest. Carry on trotting out supportive evidence even after it has been discredited.
â– 4. Create impossible standards for your opponents. Claim that the existing evidence is not good enough and demand more. If your opponent comes up with evidence you have demanded, move the goalposts.
â– 5. Use logical fallacies. Hitler opposed smoking, so anti-smoking measures are Nazi. Deliberately misrepresent the scientific consensus and then knock down your straw man.
â– 6. Manufacture doubt. Falsely portray scientists as so divided that basing policy on their advice would be premature. Insist “both sides” must be heard and cry censorship when “dissenting” arguments or experts are rejected.

Short thought on the Fraser Institute

You know, if the Yellowstone supervolcano let go tomorrow, the first statement out of the Fraser Institute would be that the market will take care of the problem.

Lightning gets weirder every time we study it

Antimatter for the dilithium crystals, piping hot.

No pantses

Yesterday at the mall, I watched with goggling eyes as a super hot Asian woman in her early twenties wearing a floaty black dress strode by. I noticed that she was wearing something sheer, and as I watched her bum disappear into the SaveOn, I realized that my inability to see so much as a thong had something to do with her not wearing any underwear at all. I rubbed my eyes.

Then I looked around.

I was the only person who had noticed.

I have come to the conclusion that Vancouver IS the best place in the world to live. Although I’d like to find the putz that bent Ziva’s antenna and chide him.