I've got instincts of my own

I decided to condense and express my thoughts on why I (as a gay man) exist

Most primates and early man socialize(d) in relatively small to mid-sized family groups, with hierarchies of male and female dominance. I've heard before that younger members of large families have a higher tendency to be gay. If you assume that developing children take stock of their situation (all unconsciously, of course) and somehow a sexuality is decided, it might actually be to the advantage of some of the children to not procreate. This is because in a limited-resource environment, too many members of a group trying to procreate will actually result in a reduced child survival rate because too many will starve, and any low-standing individuals trying to procreate will be injured by the dominant members of the group.

Since many of the members of the group share a certain portion of the same genes, it could still be evolutionarily advantageous for such individuals to concentrate their efforts on the other children of the group, rather than trying to have their own. The attraction to the same sex could just be a redirection of sexual energy.

This is all based on the idea that there is no such thing as a "gay gene," which I don't think could possibly exist anyway because it would be self-defeating, considering that any animal in which it expresses itself would not procreate.

And of course I could just be talking out of my ass and making this all up. But it makes sense to me. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to actually look for research backing any of this up.

4 minutes to save the world

Dear Madonna,

I understand that all the cool kids these days are collaborating with Timbaland.  Nelly Furtado did it, Justin Timberlake did it, hell, even Björk did it.  However, don't you think that you're a little bit behind the bandwagon?

Now, I understand that you're a chameleon that follows the current trends.  Hell, that's pretty much the driving force behind what's made you such a successful artist for the past 20-some years.  I have a lot of respect for you for keeping fresh and current when most of the popular recording artists of the day are less than half your age.

However, none of this excuses the steaming pile of shit that is "4 Minutes."  It's derivative, uninspired, and just plain boring.  There is not a single original melody, rhythm, or lyric in the entire song.  Piling on guest appearances by Justin Timberlake and Timbaland will not change the fact that your single is just plain bad.  Neither will the heavy-handed production that transforms the song into a monolithic wall of sound, drowning out the majority of your own vocals.

I'm really hoping that the rest of the new album redeems this misstep, or it grows on me, because right now I'm not too hopeful.

Here it comes again

Do you ever get deja vu?  I do, quite frequently.  And the weirdest thing is that I usually even remember feeling "whoa, deja vu" before.  I think that it's more than the fact that the events have happened before, I even remember what I was thinking.  Maybe I'm clairvoyant.  About completely inconsequential things, of course.

I wonder if it's just a neuron misfiring, or if there's actually some memory being triggered.  I guess there's no way to really know.

In other news, I think I'm getting a tattoo tomorrow!  A DNA helix, around my bicep.  Kind of my nerdy take on the barbed wire tattoo.  I'm also probably going to get another ear piercing as well.  Good times.

I'm too sexy for my love

Woo, back-to-back blog entries!

Anyway, I've been thinking about vanity. I'll admit, I'm kind of obsessed with my personal appearance. I work out about an hour every day, I carefully control what I eat, and I have a skin care regimen to rival most girls.

However, I don't think that it's just vanity. I think that I am obsessed with changing myself. I don't know if this stems from a deep-seated insecurity/dissatisfaction, or whether I just get bored easily and want to change stuff about how I look.

I think it all started in high school with the hair dye. I'd dye my hair a color (strawberry blonde, dark brown, blue, purple, to name a few) and then within a few weeks I'd be sick of it. Then in college I started working out, and I also changed my hair style with regularity. Now I'm steadily accumulating piercings and have a tattoo, soon to be joined by at least one more, and my newest scheme is to start stretching out my lobe piercings (not too far, though, cause giant plugs are ucky.) I'm also never happy with my body, I'm constantly either trying to lose weight or put on muscle. For example, 2 weeks ago, I decided I was fat so I reduced my calorie intake and lost about 5 pounds. Now I've decided that I'm done with that and I've already started on the mass-building shakes again.

I don't really see all of this as a bad thing, although taken to excess it could result in negative consequences. For the moment, I'm going to embrace change and have as much fun as possible making myself look like a musclebound, pierced freak.

This moment, how can it feel so wrong?

So it turns out that Portishead is releasing a new album, titled "Third" (wow, not so creative huh?). This is kind of a big deal, since they pretty much started the whole 'trip-hop' thing and they haven't released anything significant for the past 10 years or so.

I've been listening to it for the past two days now, and I think that it's gestated in my mind enough for me to give a valid opinion on it.

In one sentence: It's different from their previous work, but it's still Portishead. Clearly, it's been ten years, so they hopefully won't crank out the exact same stuff. That would be kind of sad (like the Red Hot Chili Peppers). However, I can't say that all of the changes are positive. My biggest complaint is that Beth Gibbon's voice sort of gets lost or buried in the instrumentals/sampling. Not to say that you can't hear it; it's just not what you remember after listening to the song. One of the things that I absolutely love about Dummy is that you have this great unique atmosphere created by the effects and instrumentals, but you still have songs that are approachable and memorable. The most obvious example of this is the 8th track of the new album, "Machine Gun." It starts with this really loud drum loop that continues through THE WHOLE TRACK. It overwhelms the entire track, and to a certain extent, then entire album.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love a good loud sample loop. However, Björk did it first, and she did a much better job. Take the song "Innocence" from her last album. That's got the same sort of overwhelming loop that continues from the song, but also, it's got a great melody that's powerful enough to coexist with the sound effects.

Another complaint that I have is that they tried to vary their sound, but I think that they did it in a very superficial way. They got rid of the turntables, which is good because that's a one-time thing. Nobody wants to hear an entire album more of that. They also tried to incorporate different instruments. I even heard ukulele and cowbell (not that cowbell is all that unique, I just never expected Portishead to use it). But I think that their aesthetic is so overpowering that anything that they try to do will sound very similar to their previous music, at least to the casual observer.

I guess this is coming off as very negative. I do really like this album, it's just that I had such high expectations that I couldn't help being let down. I was kind of hoping that they'd do what they did 10 years ago and change the face of music. I guess not.

Ran to the bus stop, never on time

So clearly my life is some sort of bad comedy movie.

This morning I was leaving my building and saw the bus pulling up to the stop so I went to run for it. Any time I do this is pretty harrowing, because I have to run across the street, which invariably has an oncoming cab to dodge, then I have to leap 2 2-foot high chain fences. It's seriously a sight to see.

So I'm doing my usual chase scene: I run across the street, luckily I have enough time to get across before the next vehicle. Then I jump the first fence: piece of cake. When I get to the second fence, I'm starting to run out of wind because I did a bunch of squats yesterday and my legs aren't in the best shape. Also, as it turns out, there's a tree right next to it. As I'm jumping up, a branch actually manages to catch my hat and rip it off of my head. Now keep in mind that by this time the bus has loaded all its passengers and the door is closing. So I jump back over the fence, grab my hat, and get to the bus just short of having to run alongside pounding on the door.

I'm sure that I was a total spectacle to the people on the bus. My hair was in disarray, I was clutching my hat and fumbling to open my ID holder to show the bus driver my UCID. Then, in true CTA fashion, the bus takes off at full speed as I'm still finding a seat. I hit a slippery spot about halfway down the bus and nearly fall on my ass. By this time I'm panting, wild-eyed, and laughing my ass off. Eventually I calm down and plop onto a seat.

Of course, all this drama did was to get me to work about 10 minutes earlier than otherwise, which I'm wasting anyway writing this blog.

Oh academia

My hopes were dashed yesterday.

So there's this grad student in the lab that we share a room with.  In a way, I kind of look up to her.  She's got nice hair, good makeup, chic clothes.  She's outgoing and sassy.  In short, she's pretty fabulous.  She's always kind of given me hope that there are actually people in science research that are outgoing and care about what they look like.

Cut to me, finding out that she hates doing research, and in general no longer even likes biology.  So much for my illusion that there are actually pretty nerds.