Funnniest video ever!

More lame science jokes

quote: "What element describes the actions of a good doctor? Curium. Or how about Helium."

quote: "What elements describe the actions of a bad doctor? Barium"

quote: "What element describes the actions of a cowboy? Europium."

quote: "What element describes what a poker player does with his cards? Palladium."

quote: "Why did Le Chatelier's chicken cross the road? There were too few chickens on the other side."

quote: "Notice that the alkyl substituents are on C2 and C4, not C3PO."

Lame jokes made by my chem teacher (she admitted it so this is not mean)

quote: "How many atoms are in guacamole? Avocado's number."

quote: "Don't worry, I will continue to punish you with puns for the rest of the semester."

quote: "A neutron walked into a bar and got a drink. When he asked the bartender how much it cost, the bartender replied "For you, no charge.""

quote: "2s electrons and 2p electrons are all valence electrons. I don't mean valence as in what you do to cover a window or a city in Spain. Valencia is a city in Spain."

quote: "Organic chemistry is very important to the pharmaceutical industry. You may have taken Aspirin or Tylenol before." She points to the screen. "Of course, you are probably too young to have taken the little blue pill (viagra)"

quote: "Chocolate is like cocaine for dogs" She said this in all seriousness but it got the biggest laughs.

quote: "My best classes are when I hear groans coming from my students."

The following needs you to visualize the situation. She takes a methane molecule model and places it in front of her face. She then proceeds to place the model on her forehead and says. "Methane, apply directly to the forehead."

quote: "Success tip number 1, laugh at my jokes"

In all seriousness, she seems pretty enthusiastic in her teaching methods. I will update you with new jokes as they come up. By the way, all the above came from the first lecture.

Oscars

First, sorry about the lack of posts recently. It was reading break after all and I literally read the entire week (4 midterms this week). Second, I watched the Academy Awards last night. Some of my thoughts:

• Why is it so long? Over 3 hours again. Why not split the awards show into 2 parts. Part 1 can be the technical awards i.e. editing, sound mixing etc and part 2 can be the part people actually watch (best actor, best director, best film etc.). To shorten the length for the viewer, just don't air the first part (maybe the networks could stream it online for hard core people). The minor awards would still have the same recognition in front of their peers and these people are probably just made more nervous by knowing there are millions of people watching them anyways.
• Everyone who was expected to win, won. The moment of the night was when Heath Ledger won for the Dark Knight. Everyone stood up and gave his family a standing ovation as they went up to accept the award. It was amazing that every person they put the camera on was tearing up. I wonder if the camera guys gave them some heads up so that they could prepare to be on camera (they are actors after all. I bet some of them used pepper or some other old actor trick)
• Ben Stiller' parody of Joaquin Phoenix was pretty funny (seriously though, what was that guy thinking? From actor to rapper? He should leave the white man pretending to be black thing to the serious actors)
• What happened to the funny bit at the beginning? That is what I always liked to watch. This year, they tried to be more serious with a musical theme. I don't like musicals. Most men don't like musicals. In fact, I'm starting to get the impression that this show is skewed to women. The host was voted the sexiest man alive, there were musical numbers throughout, almost every commercial break had a soap or shampoo commercial, during the red carpet there were a lot of gay men talking about fashion. Just saying.
  
• I thought the Oscars were only about movies. Turns out I'm wrong because a lot of non-movie people showed up. It's fine when the singers are part of performances in the show but people like Miley Cyrus or even TVactors shouldn't be there because they are not part of the industry.
  

Rules for choosing a pet

I am writing this after hearing about that chimpanzee attack that resulted in the death of a woman in Connecticut. You might think that it probably escaped from a zoo, but you are wrong. It was actually the pet chimpanzee of her friend that killed the woman. Apparently, there are 15000 families in the US with primates as house pets. If these people would just read the checklist below, they wouldn't have any problems with their pets.

1) Is the pet bigger than you? If so, you probably shouldn't have it as a pet because animals generally regard smaller animals as prey. Also, imagine how much you would have to feed it everyday.

2) Could the pet survive without you? If the answer is yes, then it probably a wild animal and won't warm to you anyways.

3) Is the animal capable of showing affection? See, cats and dogs are perfect for this because they are soft and cuddly (to humans) and have expressions recognizable by humans. Parrots are also good because they can tell you they love you etc. Reptiles are generally bad for this because no matter how much a snake sprays its love pheromones, you are not going to pick up on them.

4) Would a predator bother eating your pet? If the answer is no, then it probably has some defense mechanism you don't want to get on the wrong end of. Why bother with a turtle? Every time you get close, it's going to hide in its shell. (Sorry, I had a bad experience with turtles)

5) If the animal escaped, would they ruin the local ecosystem? If yes, the animal is too exotic and probably expensive as well.

6) Do Asian people eat this animal? Sorry, just had to throw that one in. Seriously though, its not going to narrow down the list for you so move on to the next one.

7) How does the animal reproduce? If you are getting a pet rabbit, make sure you only get one because those things increase exponentially. Money however, does not. If your animal reproduces asexually, you've probably just killed it right now by looking at it through a microscope.

In conclusion, humans have bred dogs and cats to be good pets throughout our history. Leave the chimpanzees in their natural habitat and adopt a dog or cat instead. Besides, dogs and cats don't have to wear diapers.

So what are you going to do for the rest of your life?

As you all know, I am planning on becoming a pharmacist (as long as I get in). However, if that doesn't work out, I'm really not sure what I want to get a degree in. I'm pretty sure most of you are in the same boat. So I have researched some "good" jobs according to some magazines :

From US World and News report:

• Audiologist
• Biomedical equipment technician
• Clergy
• Curriculum/training specialist
• Engineer
• Firefighter
• Fundraiser
• Genetic counselor
• Ghostwriter
  
• Government manager
• Hairstylist/Cosmetologist
• Health policy specialist
• Higher education administrator
• Landscape architect
• Librarian
• Locksmith/Security system technician
• Management consultant
• Mediator
• Occupational therapist
• Optometrist
• Pharmacist
• Physical therapist
• Physician assistant
• Politician/Elected official
• Registered nurse
• School psychologist
• Systems analyst
• Urban planner
• Usability/User experience specialist
• Veterinarian

A few notes on the above list:

• I was surprised at clergy made it on the list. I guess God is a pretty cool boss. I'd have thought the celibacy as a job responsibility thing would have knocked it down a couple pegs
  
• Glad fundraiser was on the list since I'm already doing a little bit of it
• Ghostwriter seemed promising but it turns out its just bascially a speech writer
• notice how locksmith was followed by security system technician. How politically correct of them
• how much training do you need to be a usability/user experience specialist?
• I don't think librarian should be on this list. Maybe it's just from some bad experiences in high school
• School psychologist should get paid more. Just think about how many Columbine-esque tragedies they have prevented without recognition
  

From Boston.com:

10. psychologist
9. pharmacist
8. real estate appraiser
7. computer/IT analyst
6. market research analyst
5. physicians assistant
4. HR manager
3. financial advisor
2. college professor (although they were a bit deceiving on this on. They mentioned that the median salary is $351, 542 for the DEAN OF MEDICINE! That's not the same as college professor)
1. software engineer

Notes:

• I'm seeing some recurring careers here as the following are on both lists: pharmacist, physicians assistant, psychologist, higher education staff, engineer

By the way, for those of you going into science related jobs, here is a hint for you. Don't go into any of the following as they are the worst science jobs according to Popular Science magazine:

10. Whale feces researcher (pretty obvious)
9. forensic entomologist (you study dead things and maggots)
8. olympic drug tester (you anger a nation is you get one, you look incompetent if you miss one)
7. gravity research subject (you lie in bed for 21 days straight to test the effects of lack of gravity)
6. microsoft security grunt (apparently, windows explorer is like the death star to hackers out there)
5. coursework carcass preparer (pretty obvious)
4. garbologist (think Indiana Jones, in a dumpster)
3. elephant vasectomist (guess what you will be looking at all day?)
2. oceanographer (not very obvious but apparently the oceans are slowly becoming inhospitable and there is nothing they can do about it)
1. hazmat driver (dive into sewage. Sounds like fun)

The seventh sense: I see chemistry, everywhere

When a recently filled out a questionnaire asking whether I thought about chemistry in my daily life, I said no. Well boy was I wrong. The following moments all happened today:

1) I noticed a social phenomenon that reminded me of nucleophilic substitution. We were sitting in a group and another friend approached us. There were no seats in the vicinity except for one occupied by a stranger to our group and his backpack. The friend who arrived clearly wanted to associate with the positive social nature of our group (i.e. he was the nucleophile). The nucleophile then asked the stranger if he could move his bag so that the nucleophile would have a space to sit. Since the substitution was now complete, the stranger had no attraction to our group and left as a lone anion (he clearly felt a little negative about the whole situation).

2) When I read the ingredients on my flavored drink, I noticed glucose-fructose followed by sucrose. From biochem, I know that when glucose and fructose are joined by dehydration synthesis, they form sucrose. So doesn`t that mean that the company listed sucrose twice in their ingredients list. What`s more frightening is that these were the two most abundent ingredients after water.

3) Lastly, while doing my chemistry tutorial for a lab I have this week, I thought of an interesting mnemonic for electrochemistry (especially if you are an animal lover). It goes as the following: an ox, red cat. See, this mnemonic reminds you that OXidation occurs in the ANode and REDuction occurs at the CAThode. I hope this wasn`t thought of before. It probably has been though.

2 popular athletes, 2 drugs and 2 different reactions

By now, you have probably all heard about the photo of Michael Phelps smoking marijuana. This has landed Phelps in some major trouble including a 3 month ban from swim competition by USA swimming as well as the dropping of some sponsors such as Kellogg (Ouch, that has to hurt. It must feel like Tony the Tiger just punched him in the ...). While everyone is very disappointed that Michael did such a thing, especially when he is a role model for young kids, he technically didn't do anything illegal in terms of prohibited performance enhancing drugs. In fact, pot should probably be considered a performance decreasing drug and Michael should get more praise for winning 8 golds while high (of course this is only speculative. Could you imagine how pissed off the other athletes would feel if they found out he was high while owning them in the pool?) Anyway, news just broke today that in 2003, Alex Rodriguez tested positive for anabolic steroids (that's not to say A-Rod doesn't smoke marijuana as well. In fact, this would probably explain his dating Madonna). You'd think this would be a lot more serious since it actually involves a banned substance but MLB is doing everything to protect him. When asked, the league mentioned that in 2003 there was no penalty for using performance enhancing drugs. Also, the report was supposed to remain confidential and due to this, they could not confirm whether he was or was not in it. I'm not mentioning this to criticize either of these scenarios. It just looks like the theoretically less serious offense is going to get the practically more serious punishment.

I just saw squirrels getting it on

Speechless. Not really. I was carrying stuff from my dorm to the car when I walked through a little forested area. There they were, in all their fervent glory, a pair of squirrels (one grey and one black) doing what Darwin would call "natural selection" (I just made a scientific theory into a dirty word). Before I could contemplate what fraction of their offspring would have a grey phenotype, they noticed me. They stopped, looked up at me and then just kept on going. It was an awkward moment for all involved. I will say that squirrel sex is not as interesting as a squirrel fight to the death. Besides, they weren't even naked (because they had fur, and not because I would like to see a pair of naked squirrels getting it on. shiver).

I don't know what is real any more

I think it is great that the special effects these days are so advanced that I have trouble distinguishing what is real and what is fake. You may think, "Well I knew that King Kong in the new Peter Jackson movie was not real." Well, what about the Skull island or the 1930s New York skyline? Certainly not all of it could be real, but can you really distinguish reality from special effects, especially when everything is moving so quickly? I bring this up because I saw some Superbowl commercials (I didn't watch the actual game because I was working and I didn't have a vested interest in either team). One of the better commercials is shown below:

Hulu's Superbowl Commercial - Ma-Tvideo France2
Découvrez les meilleures pubs du Superbowl 2009 !

Mots-clés : superbowl publicité 2009 advertising usa

Video de humantarget

At first you may think that this is quirky, unexpected and funny (situational irony as you might call it in English). But don't you think that its kind of scary how quickly people just shrug it off and assume its fake. Remember when they first read the War of the Worlds over the radio and everyone thought aliens were attacking. Well, even if aliens were attacking today, I don't think anyone would believe them anymore. I could imagine the following situation happening:

person A: Dude, what the hell is that on TV?

person B: Looks like an alien, man.

Alien: My name is !!aaarchnoo (waves arms up in a sweeping motion) and I come from Uranus. Who is your leader? We will not harm you is you comply with our demands.

person A and B: Did the alien just say he came from Uranus? Hahaha!

person A: This commercial is going on way too long. Change the channel.

person B: Oh, that's right. American Idol is on tonight (switches channels).

See, in my imagined but not so unlikely situation, no one would actually believe aliens were invading. Even if the aliens were able to convince us, they would have a hard time intimidating us. I mean, think of all the movies of us kicking alien ass (the Alien movies, Independence Day, Signs, War of the Worlds etc.). In this situation, I'm pretty sure most North American's wouldn't even sweat about it because they assume that when the time comes, Barrack Obama will just happen to know how to fly a fighter jet and that he will blow the alien mothership to kingdom come.

Colds and Night Midterms don't mix

So I am feeling a bit under the weather recently. Don't worry about catching it as this cold is probably due more to my weak immune system (since I don't do any physical activity) than to some virulent form of a virus. As you guessed, I just finished a midterm tonight in one of my night courses. I thought it was relatively straight forward although some of the questions were quite precise and specific. I also noticed that the multiple choice portion of the exam had many possible answers as in a, b, c...i, j, k etc. The number of choices for each question were also quite different. I could definitely imagine my professor haphazardly typing these up the night before. Maybe they just don't try as hard for night courses. Maybe they are justified in doing this because they are paid less. I don't know how it works. I don't care, as long as I do well on the exam. On a side note, I noticed a poster in the hallway as I was leaving. It read : The AMS is the highest-elected council in the AMS." Is there something I'm missing here or is it just the cold medicine?

The "amputation" diet

While I was googling how much a heart weighs, I found this website about the amputation diet. The word amputation caught my eye so I read it. At first, they were taking about cutting your hair and peeing more to get rid of some extra weight. At this point I thought, okay, it's not as bad as I thought. Then I read the next paragraph. Turns out, the amputation diet actually recommends it's followers to donate body organs, get breast reductions and in some instances actually cut off limbs to shed extra weight.

I could imagine two amputation diet followers having a conversation:
person A: Hey, you look great! What did you cut off today?

person B: Thank you. I finally found a way to get rid of that pesky kidney weight. It feels like that thing has been weighing me down my entire life. Now its finally gone and I feel great.

I just have a little advice for people who are planning to cut off their limbs. If you are not totally insane, you will still want to function in life. This means you will probably require a prostesis or a wheelchair to get around. Realize that these things are often made of METAL and are HEAVY.

Something is going to explode besides that bacon

So I saw this article on the New York Times the other day: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/dining/28bacon.html

It seems like some people in Kansas have come up with a BBQ dish that is becoming quite popular in the US. It is called the bacon explosion. Once you see the pictures, you'll know why. With at least 5000 calories and 500 grams of fat, this monstrosity could feed an entire village in Africa. However, for people who have regular diets eating this thing could lead to a whole host of bad things happening. First of all, you'll definitely be gaining a pound of fat, pork fat. That weighs more than your heart and guess where it is going to first. If fluid dynamics in physics has taught me anything, it is that a partially blocked artery is a bad thing (If someone where to cut that artery, I could predict how much blockage would be necessary to squirt a little boy 10 m away. Thanks, physics!). Secondly, by eating the bacon explosion, pigs will never look at you the same way. Lastly, I would like to see that "Supersize Me" guy document himself trying to eat this thing in one sitting. I would definitely watch that, right after I made sure no pigs were in the room.