Mighty Odinn

The Dinosauricon is Dead.

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:13:06 GMT

I wrote a eulogy.

Blogoggen

Fri, 30 May 2008 21:38:01 GMT

Haven't been writing here much lately. Eh.

Some posts from my other blogs:

A Three-Pound Monkey Brain: Thoughts on 2001: A Space Odyssey
A Three-Pound Monkey Brain: Names, Nodes, and CRUD
Dragabok: One-Armed
Dragabok: Apes and Locations
Dragabok: Therizinosaurids and Whiskered Tyrannosauroid
Dragabok: So, Evolution of Alien Life
Dragabok: Evolution of Trees, Mushrooms, Jellyfish, Dragonflies, Birds, Ceratopsids, Elephants, Manatees, and Humans

Also: never help four people move within two consecutive days.

Pics

Tue, 13 May 2008 05:04:43 GMT

Finally uploaded some pics of our wacky new house. Also: Shaving Week 2008.

Finally, last Saturday's DRAGABOK post is one of my better ones so far, I think.

Don't ask, just click on the link.

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:04:04 GMT

Green Porno by Isabella Rossellini

(Don't worry, it's safe for work.)

DRAGABOK

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:30:13 GMT

Over the years I've accumulated quite a lot of doodles, sketches, etc. They're filling up some boxes in my office closet. So I thought I'd start scanning them and posting one per day to a new blog.

I give you:

Dragabok

(The title is Old Norse for "drawing book"—or close enough, anyway.)

Enjoy!

Death Valley Camping Trip

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:01:38 GMT

Highlights:

Mike caught a small chuckwalla! Very cute. There was an even smaller one with it. Even small ones are pretty big for lizards, though.
One of the best night skies I've ever seen.
Climbing to the top of the tallest dune of the Stovepipe Wells Dunes and then running down it.
The colors of "Artist's Palette", an erosional area.
Seeing vast alkali flats that look like snow in the desert.
The views.
The daytime weather, a very dry 80°.

Lowlights:

Developing a sore throat just before leaving. (The hot, dry desert air seems to have cured it, though.)
Gas prices in Death Valley make normal prices seem cheap.
The nighttime weather was a tad cold. (Also, next time I'm definitely bringing a sleeping pad.)

Pics as soon as Mike uploads them.

Bulletin

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:29:00 GMT

Shaving Week 2008 is over! Man is my face cold!
Heading up to Death Valley this weekend. Never been backcountry camping before.
Changed Names on NEXUS to Names on Nodes, since it'll do more than just NEXUS files.

Housewarming Party

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:00:57 GMT

In case I missed emailing anyone:

Contact me for the address.

Shaving Week Begins

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:01:57 GMT

Pictures up sometime next week, probably.

It makes sense, really.

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:09:54 GMT

Who got the vote first, women or black men?

Black men.

Who's going to be president first, a woman or a black man?

Um, probably a black man?

Probably.

Happy V-Day from Exopolis

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:59:51 GMT

We whipped up another Valentine's mix tape just for you:

mixtape08.exopolis.com

Enjoy!

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:32:09 GMT

Well, the move went amazingly well. Big cheer to everyone who helped!

We still have to dump some of the crap off at Goodwill or something, but we've pretty much cleaned out the old place. No more horrendous parking situation! No more carting groceries ten bags at a time up two flights of stairs!

The new place is RAD—although also kind of weird. It's quite large, and looks like it was heavily remodeled by an elderly person (or a middle-aged person in the late '70s, or both). A few of the interesting features:

One of the toilet rolls has an AM radio.
The (sizeable) kitchen has saloon doors.
There's a holder for a knife set set in the wall next to the kitchen door.
There's an extra "bathroom" that just has a toilet. No sink, just a toilet.
Everywhere there are inset holes filled with fake plants.

And I'm sure there's more we haven't even discovered yet.

And it has a patio and a front porch. And it's right near two highways. And there's a Trader Joe's in walking distance. Yeah!

Once we get unpacked we'll throw a housewarming party and you can see for yourselves. (Those of you in L.A., anyway.)

Big News

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:57:49 GMT

(If you don't know who that is, go watch A Hard Day's Night first and then congratulate me.)

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:05:26 GMT

Susan and I might be moving away from Los Angeles soon....

(Relax, it's just to Glendale.)

News as it develops.

Poli-Quiz

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 21:18:21 GMT

I got this link from meleah. Tried it a couple of times with slightly different answers and got the same results.

85% Chris Dodd
80% Dennis Kucinich
79% Mike Gravel
78% Barack Obama
78% Bill Richardson
76% Hillary Clinton
75% John Edwards
74% Joe Biden
48% Rudy Giuliani
38% John McCain
33% Ron Paul
31% Mike Huckabee
26% Mitt Romney
21% Tom Tancredo
15% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Didn't my top guys there already drop out?

Huckabee over Romney ... weird. I can't fucking stand Huckabee, but Romney I can barely tolerate (if I don't think about it too much).

Merry Solsticetime!

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 07:28:29 GMT

We just launched the Exopolis holiday card:

EXOBOTICS

I swear, it is probably the most fun thing I have ever had a hand in making. I spent about an hour the other night just making robots dance.

More on Exobotics at A Three-Pound Monkey Brain.

Enjoy!

Great Apes/

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:26:36 GMT

Went to the zoo last weekend to do some sketches for March of Man. The gorillas are finally back! Of course, March of Man doesn't extend to gorillas, but they're not too far off. (And Paranthropus has a few convergences with gorillins.)

Jamion got some excellent pics of the great apes at the L.A. zoo, including a pic of a heavily bearded ape. Some of these will be appearing (in modified form) on March of Man. May post sketches later, too.

Got back from San Fran last night. Short trip: half business, half pleasure. Walked around Haight-Ashbury and Golden Gate Park, got dinner and drinks with spe_edie, and met up with some folks at Adobe the next day.

San Fran's such a great city. Sometimes I feel a bit trapped in L.A. It's nice and all, but it's too goddamn sunny and too goddamn spread out. And it's never ever cold. What they call "cold" here is "cool" or even "lukewarm" elsewhere.

Well, I won't be moving to San Fran, though—the rent is simply insane.

Eh.

Been a while since I did one of these things.

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:19:09 GMT

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far)

Neutral

You're not Northern, Southern, or Western, you're just plain -American-. Your national identity is more important than your local identity, because you don't really have a local identity. You might be from the region in that map, which is defined by this kind of accent, but you could easily not be. Or maybe you just moved around a lot growing up.

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Looks like they're off by about a half hour's drive. Well, not bad.

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:56:10 GMT

Still a bit sore from the Festivus Feats of Strength. I'm three for four, though! And Jorge cheated! (Although, honestly, he would have won, anyway—it was all I could do to stay alive.)

Finished up another piece for March of Man:

Working on his ancient mother next. (Right after I'm done working on your ancient mother ... BAM!)

Odds and Ends

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:59:06 GMT

Earlier today in the Havens/Keesey household:

"Is Tina Fey striking?"
"Well, I dunno if I'd use that term. I mean, she's attractive, but...."
"Is she part of the writers' strike?"
"Oh."

Party this weekend, everyone! Not just my birthday, but I've decided that we will also be celebrating Festivus. I've already got the mat set out for the Feats of Strength. Now to find an aluminum pole....

Some of the topics from my new blog:

Two News Items

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:41:25 GMT

First of all, in case I missed sending the invite to anyone (in or near L.A., that is), BIRTHDAY PARTY AT OUR PLACE THIS SATURDAY! I will be one and thirty.

Second, I just started another blog: A Three-Pound Monkey Brain. Basically, I'll be posting all my long-winded hoo-ha on systematics, linguistics, programming, etc. there and reserving this blog for personal posts, observations, etc.

DOT ISS ALL!

March of Man images, so far

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:38:26 GMT

Just my stuff so far, after the "fold" (not to scale):

March of Man

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 03:29:26 GMT

I've mentioned this project before. Here she be: March of Man.

It's still in alpha phase, so there may be some quirks. Hopefully people start submitting work....

Bulletin

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:34:12 GMT

Last week was an exceptionally good SVP meeting in Austin, Texas. Austin's quite a fun town. Some highlights:

Checking out the largest North American urban bat colony at the Congress St. Bridge.
Imbibing $2 drink specials.
Catching a gecko at dinner one night. (Great dinner, too.)
Seeing photos of the first Triceratops fossil with skin impressions, including rectangular belly scales and back scales with "nipples".
Dragging a compatriot home at 3AM (very rough estimate) while barely being sober enough to walk, myself. (After that night we took it much easier.)
Attending a talk on a new stem-bat fossil, the most primitive one known, with claws on all its fingers and (apparently) no ability to echolocate.
Encountering a bar called "Darwin's Pub" in Texas, of all places.
Learning of a new porpoise fossil whose lower jaw was twice as long as its upper jaw.
Passing a man who held up a T-shirt with a picture of Tupac Shakur and ranted about what a big piece of shit the late rapper was. "I wouldn't even bother to burn this, 'cause he's not worth it!" (Okay, but he is worth you spending your evening at a sparsely-populated street corner, shouting at the top of your lungs?)
Sneaking mead into the banquet dinner (which I attended with moustache fully waxed).
My professor from College Park dropping a joke about dinosaurian supertrees, osteoderms, and lateral transfer during his talk, and the audience actually getting it.
Losing game after game of air hockey at the first SVP reception in recent memory to be housed elsewhere than the local paleontology/natural history museum.

I had been going to take a road trip to Austin, checking out Saguaro National Forest, Big Bend National Park, etc. on the way. But I got the weeks mixed up! I thought it was going to be this week and didn't realize my mistake until I got into work last Monday and saw an Outlook alert telling me I had the day off. Argh!

Should be announcing a new site launch very soon....

Home sick today. Bleargh.

I leave you with this, a photo of my paternal grandparents (left) meeting Charles Laughton (and Joe Carvajal, at right):

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:31:28 GMT

In other news, my beard is getting pretty full.

Jorge, German, me, Lou

Lou, Jorge, me looking like a serial killer, Frank, and a hammy German

(Before you ask about the paisley, yes, it was a themed party.)