Caffeine is pretty cool.

In general, each of the following contains approximately 200 milligrams of caffeine:

• One 200 milligram caffeine pill
• One 12 oz cup of regular Starbucks coffee
• One and one quarter 16 fluid ounce cans of Monster Energy (590 millilitres)
• One and a half pounds of milk chocolate (680 grams)
• Two 8 fluid ounce containers of regular coffee (470 millilitres)
• 1/2 tube of Spazzstick Caffeinated Lip Balm
• Two Foosh Energy Mints
• Two Buzz Bites Chocolate Energy Chews
• Two and a half 10 oz. bottles of Bawls caffeinated drink (740 millilitres)
• Three standard Excedrin pills
• Three 8 fluid ounce cups of Red Bull energy drink (710 millilitres)
• Four 8 fluid ounce cups of Vault energy drink (1.0 litre)
• Five 1 fluid ounce shots of espresso from robusta beans (150 millilitres)
• Five 8 fluid ounce cups of black tea (1.2 litres)
• Five 8 fluid ounce cups of Mountain Dew (1.2 litres)
• Five 12 fluid ounce cans of typical soda pop (1.8 litres) (variable)
• Eight and a half 8 fluid ounce cups of Coca-Cola Classic (2.0 litres)
• Ten 8 fluid ounce cups of green tea (2.4 litres)
• Fifty 8 fluid ounce cups of decaffeinated coffee (12 litres)

erf day

The Jolly Green giant and Sprout
at the earth day fair on Huguenot St.











Weirdest mascot ever. It's a cat for UCAT
(Ulster County Area Transit). Get it? CAT for U-CAT? Oh ho, so catchy and clever. And a bit frightening.

More flood pics

Taken from the Jacobsen Faculty Tower
at SUNY New Paltz. All that water isn't supposed
to be there-- that's a flood plain.













Note the poles with powerlines,
curving off to the left-- that's Rte. 32.
If you follow it back, you can just barely see the bridge (greenish) on the right.











The red brick building in the lower right is
my complex-- you can see the freestanding
treeline behind there, half under water.




Further along Rte.32.

skunky skunkster skunkerd

Our night-visitor, the Skunk. S/He likes to waddle around and eat worms. S/He's beautiful and s/he dances around her/his own tail.

There is another skunk that I'd love to get a picture of, we saw her/him last summer, and her/his colors are reversed! Mostly white with a black shock running down his back, I've never seen anything like him/her.

This double-pronoun thing is exhausting. Anyone know how to sex a skunk from afar?

Wallkill River Flood

The road is out, the Flats are completely underwater.
The river crests at ~13' and it must be closer to 15' now.
I'm not sure whether it's still rising.






I considered moving into one of these apartments; the landlord said "of course, you'll have to have flood insurance, as we live on a 100-year flood plain."

Needless to say, we didn't take it. A good thing, too, as there have been two major floods in as many years.
It's terrible though--all the folks that live in that entire building have been evacuated at least until Thursday.

Grocer's Apostrophe's

and a sampling here, on flickr.

Thank's for looking.

Sunday, and I can breathe for a minute...

This weekend, I presented my paper, "Apocalyptic Alchemy and the Transformative Path of the Shaman: The Modern Mythopoeia of Can't Get No," at the New York College English Association conference.
(pdf of the program is here)

It was received pretty well, I think, although the text itself isn't so well-known outside of those familiar with the graphic novel genre.

Now I can concentrate on all the other things, seminar presentations and papers, all due within a couple weeks.

Today was spent mostly in bed, between sleeping and listening to the rain fall outside the window, clearing my head.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., 1922 — 2007

excellent MetaFilter Obituary Thread here.

Don't use However to start a sentence: use But instead

via Language Log

RUNNING TURKEY

A spooked turkey, running into the bushes. (for Mal)
He saw me and ran for his life.

moon

it's a face, alright.

four (and twenty) blackbirds

a murder of crows.








this guy was running the show.

nacht-kirche