Hello I Love Cameos on Big Bang Theory!

Neil Degrasse Tyson, author of my favorite popular science book Death By Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandries, real life Galactus*, and astrophysicist extraordinaire , has a cameo on The Big Bang Theory!

All the clips in YouTube didn't allow embedding, so let's settle for a picture:

*Because he's a Destroyer of Worlds!!... You know.. because of Pluto??.. okay fine, the analogy isn't as clever as I thought it was...

Hello I Love Ringside Camp!

After two years of burning curiosity about the place, I finally made it to Ringside along P. Burgos, Makati (after our Adonis fiasco, where me and Chris thought it was a good idea to go just the two of us at 9 PM on a Monday night, I’ve been wary of going to girly and boyie [?] bars). Two Fridays ago, some ex-classmates from Taiwan paid us a visit and the opportunity finally presented itself to visit the place with a big-enough group of people who were game enough to hit the red light district.

And I really loved it! It was so delightfully campy!! We came in time to watch the midget boxing match (this is the name the bar gave to the event, so sorry if it isn’t exactly PC. Plus I can’t keep up with all the PC terms for midgets these days. Maybe I’ll just refer to them as “the a[dorable wesome] little guys” or TALGs). The fact that the match was so obviously choreographed made it that much more amusing (its not fun when TALGs get hurt for reals…).

The bar’s tactic for getting audience participation is to have one of the guests (preferably a white guy… mmhmm…) referee the fights (incidentally, its also a ploy to get their money since the referee = beer money sugar daddy). They picked one of our friends’ boyfriend so I videotaped the fight for posterity (doh! I wouldn’t have thought to take a video otherwise!). Here’s one the videos I took in all its midgety glory:

Hopefully, there will be a next visit to Ringside so I can watch the girls boxing in oversized boxing gloves. I heard that that too is camp-tastic!

Yay Valentines Day!

While we're on the subject of Tim Harford... Here's a little something for the singles:

"even when there is little to be lost from maintaining standards, people are very quick to lower them. My advice: do likewise."

Hello, I'm Such A Fangirl

I’ve been a fan of Tim Harford ever since I accidentally picked-up Undercover Economist in a bookstore in Taiwan two years ago. It was lucky, I guess, since if I were in a store with more English books, I never would have bought and read it. Who knew Economics could be so addictive when it’s used to examine and explain non financial things??

Anyway, turns out that aside from being an Undercover Economist, Tim Harford also writes a column called Dear Economist in The Financial Times where he tries to answer “regular people’s” (regular people read Financial Times??) questions and concerns using Economic Theory. Being the dopey (I would have used “nerdy” instead of dopey, but nerds are actually smart) fangirl that I am, I wrote in a question to Dear Economist one slow afternoon in the office. And, wonder of wonders!! I received a reply within 15 minutes!!



I should probably not be this excited over an e-mail that could very well have been sent by an e-mail reply robot.. But anyway, I am!! I have a genuine Tim Harford e-mail reply!!! Now if I could only find a way to sell this on e-bay…