Mickey D's Loves to See Me Smile- What About You?

Knowing what makes Angie happy is an indispensible skill to have if you wish to succeed in life. So here are three of the top ten things that gets my endorphins kicking:

(1) The smell of coffee. You might catch me lingering in the coffee aisle at frogro. What, doesn't everyone have a favorite aisle at the grocery store?

(2) People playing with my hair. Totally puts me to sleep, it's better than yoga or a good bedtime story.

(3) Jazz music: Ella Fitzgerald, Norah Jones, etc. Ella's voice makes me feel like I'm relaxing at a bar during the Roaring Twenties, even if I'm actually in a neuro lab sectioning spinal chord tissue from a mouse.

The Genitive

Okay, this is for the benefit of J:

The rules for writing the possessive are pretty well known: add an 's to the end (ex: Angie's house), and just add ' if the possessor is plural (ex: friends' house).

But two questions that pop up regularly are:

1) Is friends' pronounced "friends-iz" or "friends"?

2) What is the deal when the possessor is singular (regular or proper noun) and ends with an s?

Here is the lowdown:

1) friends' is pronounced "friends". Likewise, parents' is pronounced "parents", and so on. In general, when the possessor is plural with an s at the end, the possessive is pronounced as if there were no apostrophe.

2) (a) In writing: In most cases, we add an 's at the end (ex: James's house, the hostess's house), even though they end with an s. However, classical names that end with "-uhs" or "eez" take only an apostrophe, no s (ex: Jesus', Moses', Archimedes').

(b) In pronunciation: If it is written 's, say the s; if it is written ' (no s), don't say the s. The exception to the rule is with the classical names (Jesus', Moses', Archimedes'): here we have a choice of either saying the s or not, even though there is no s written.

It's important to remember that language evolves, so the rules are always changing. For example, the possessive of James used to be written with ', no s. This is why, for example, it is acceptable to say either "St. James' Cathedral" or "St. James's Cathedral".

Makes sense?

ARRRRRRRRRGH!

Didn't Garfield used to say that a lot? I don't like a lot of things: guys who listen to Yanni, the whole Arthropoda phylum, cauliflower, Audioslave. But above all, I really really really hate the state of confusion, where things don't make sense, where logic seems to have lost its mojo, where...I just want to go to bed and forget that I have a massive homework assignment due on Thursday.

Hence, the ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!

Satan's True Identity

I can now say with all honesty that I've stayed up until 3 am reading about orthogonal transformations, wallpaper groups and point groups on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the devil, you realize, because everything is connected, and so once you pop, you can't stop. It's just link after link after link...

Ah, the first snow of the winter season is upon us- Woohoo!

Riddle Time

Three men are captured by a band of pirates: Patrick Henry, Nathaniel Hale, and Max. The pirates hold a conference in order to figure out what to do with their hostages. Finally, after much deliberation, the pirates decide to execute them in three different ways: one, they will hang, another, they will feed to the crocodiles, and the last, they will make him walk the plank.

Meanwhile, the hostages stand with their hands tied, patiently awaiting their fates. The pirate leader says, "let's do the one with the two first names first. That's always been my biggest pet peeve: people with two first names- Yarrr!"

So the pirates approach Patrick Henry, and the pirate leader asks him, "Yarrr, any last words, any regrets?" Patrick Henry replies, "I have no regrets! Give me liberty, or give me death!" So they gave him death by hanging.

Next the pirates approach Nathaniel Hale, and again, the pirate leader asks him, "Yarrr, any last words, any regrets?" Nathaniel Hale replies, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Then he was promptly fed to the crocodiles.

Finally, the pirates approach Max, and again, the pirate leader asks him, "Yarrr, any last words, any regrets?"

Can you guess what Max's greatest regret was?

Answer: That the plan(c)k was so short! 10^-33 centimeters, to be exact.

Yes folks, this is what I do with my time. I'm the Riddler!

Chance of Snow!

Snow-flakes

Out of the bosom of the air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

In the white countenance confession,

The troubled sky reveals

The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

Now whispered and revealed

To wood and field.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow