The fates are vicious and they're cruel

Friday Night Lights is renewed for two more seasons!

Also, Supernatural is cracking my shit up right now.  Sure, it will all end in tears, but the whole conversation about  SamGirls vs DeanGirls and slash.  Lordy, the meta, it slays me.

This morning,  I followed a giant silver Dodge Ram pick up truck all the way to the train station.

A pick up truck with floppy, shiny chrome testicles swinging from the trailer hitch.

Turns out is you Goggle "truck testicles" you get about 35.000 results.  Who knew?

Also, why?  What makes you look at your vehicle and think "That automobile really calls for color-coordinated genitalia," ?

No, really. I mean I have a hoof-shaped bruise on my posterior.

Okay, so it is mostly on my hip. Also, it is huge, puffy, and turning shades of lavender that are not usually found in nature.

Zeke, the lesson horse, nailed me today. He was being obnoxious and snorty on the lunge line whenever I asked for a trot. The third time it happened, I swatted him. Of course at this point, he took exception to the puny human insisting that he actually do work and cow kicked.  I was standing in just the right spot to take the main force of the blow square on the hip.  I got to walk it off, while Zeke got the snot worked out of him by  Mr Trainer Man for the next ten minutes, until he decided to settle down. 

This is one of the few times I've felt lucky to have a little extra padding.  I felt his shod hoof make contact right with my hip joint.  My toes were tingling from the impact.  If I were smaller, I probably would have hit the ground.

Zeke is a 16.3h black draft cross.  He is big and strong and stubborn and really feels no pain at all.  When I first started working him, he scared the crap out of me.  Not due to his sheer size (although he is four inches and about 400lbs bigger than my mare)  but because he has that draft-horse mindset of "I'll just keep pushing on and eventually the sqishy pink monkey will realize it can never win!"  Who needs opposable thumbs when you are the size of a VW bus?  The past few lessons, he has been a doll, mostly because of a series of face offs where I ended up the winner.  Today, he decided to try his luck at rebelling again, only turning up his disobedience from annoying to aggressive.  He's not rank, but he knows that he is big and intimidating.  If he really wanted to hurt me, that kick would have launched me across the arena.

All said, this was an awesome lesson!  Yes, I know, I'm sitting on an ice pack and tomorrow is gonna suck.  But I learned so much!

1. Stay with the shoulder or get out of range. Standing at the girth put me in kick range.
2. Never let the disobedience happen more than once.  He had three chances to plan his rebuttal too my discipline.
3. Discipline.  Sure, hard and fast.

Also, always have an ice pack in the freezer.

Rather than leaving semi-coherent messages all over my flist, I should finish packing.

'Cause I'm outta here until Saturday!

Take care, all.  Don't trash the place while I'm away.

*Off to finish packing for 6 AM flight*

Some one pointed me to this article about a neo-Randian movement.

Basically, some conservative/libertarian types are suggesting that people in the $250,000-plus income bracket "go Galt" which is to say, stop contributing their ideas and money to society, in order to bring about the system's downfall.  Based, of course, on the fictional hero John Galt from "Atlas Shrugged."  Galt lead his fellow innovative business-creating brethren to a utopia called "Galt's Gulch" where they sat pretty as the system came crumbling down.  Or some such.  I was a junior in HS when I read the book, and I've never bothered to read any other Ayn Rand.  I only read the book because our local paper  had a John Galt quote on the mast head and it was on the AP reading list. 

Here's the part where I'll probably piss off someone.  I think students should read Rand, in context with the history and politics of her time.  It is a valuable viewpoint to understand.  I also believe that anyone who is no longer a student and has to work to support themselves, should realize how flawed her arguments are.  The idea of basing a truly capitalistic libertarian utopia   on a fictional work has as much validity as basing your spiritual path on the rambling of a sci-fi author.

As many of the commentors of the article cited, the idea that people can suceed in American society without government help, is flawed.  The government, meaning your taxes, paid for the roads you drive on, the plant that treats your water and your sewage, the firemen and police and soliders that protect your life and your property.  In my case, they provided for my education, from Head Start right through my graduate degree at a state-funded land grant university.  While I don't make more than $250,000/yr (only 2% of American do), I'm certainly more well off than I had imagined I would ever be.  Certainly more well off than most other children born to high-school droupouts working menial jobs in small farming towns.  Thanks, America.

This is so insanely myopic.  It hinges on the belief that there is a creative, industrial class and only the people who belong to that class can do the work that generates jobs and keeps the economy flowing.  What it doesn't count on the motivation of new people trying to break into the work force and carve a niche for themselves.    Are there a plethora of people who will be graduating from college this spring, all thinking "Jeez, I'd love to take that $260k job, but I'd have to pay more taxes.  Guess I'll just work at the Gap."  Really?

One commentor mentioned that he consciously chooses to make less money than he could, so as to avoid the increased tax rate.  Which is a valid choice.  Join the middle class, buddy.  We can use more people, since fewer people are members than believe they are.  We donate more money to charity and have a higher overall tax burden than the wealthy.   All that work you are turning down?  Someone will be happy to do it.  Someone will be happy to make that money. 

Interesting story on how the primary researcher for the use of Celebrex and Lyrica for pain applications admits to falsifying data and forgery.

Scott S. Reuben, MD, of Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., a pioneer in the area of multimodal analgesia, is said to have fabricated his results in at least 21, and perhaps many more, articles dating back to 1996...In addition to allegedly falsifying data, Dr. Reuben seems to have committed publishing forgery.

Pfizer, who makes both drugs, had been giving Dr Rueben grants and speaking gigs.  Now they are scrubbing his name from their data and literature.

In addition to the sheer lack of ethics in a doctor falsifying data that he knew would be used by other doctors to treat actual patients, this kind of thing totally ruins my day.  Not because I'm shocked, but because I can see how things like this happen in science every day. 

I was 90% sure when I went to bed last night that work would close to day.  Not that we do that, often, but Boston already had declared a snow emergency. 

When my feet hit the floor at 5:30 this morning, the first thing I did was call out "Inclement Weather Hotline" to check.  No dice.  Work was still on as planned.  I brushed the car off and went back inside to shower.  The radio was detailing that every damn place in MA and NH was closed, so I called again at 6:25.  Now the message called for "delayed opening" at 10:30.  Delayed openings are more of a pain for me than actually going in, since the rush hour trains run from 5:30 - 8:30, then the normal hourly schedule resumes until 4:30.  If I take the 9:30, I'll make it to work for 11:00, but if I take the 8:30 train, I'll be there for half an hour before the building opens, which isn't exactly fun in a blizzard.  I decided to call back one more time, at 6:35...and bingo!  Closed! 

To prove I'm neurotic, I called five times to make sure they didn't change their minds.  To prove I've improved since last year, I didn't call my boss or team members to make sure I got it right.   I just took off my work clothes and hopped on the couch with a pot of tea.

I've done nothing but read my book and unload the dishwasher!  Perhaps a run to Stop and Shop is in order. Snow day!!! 

How is it that the pear of anguish was featured in recent episodes of both Criminal Minds and Bones?   People who write tv procedurals are either seriously messed up or just totally out of ideas.

At least on CM they didn't demonstrate how it works.  Yeech.