Reader of Entrails

I’m a fan of “eggs with stuff in”. Exactly what it says on the tin: eggs, possibly rice, random leftovers, whatever veg is on hand. And hot sauce 😆

I’ve enjoyed watching them, and now I can compound that joy by sharing the new word with unsuspecting friends!

Alt text: photo of a common merganser on the water. It’s a pointy-billed, large-ish duck with a dark copper head and a grey body. The head has a punk rock crest that is very dashing.

TIL the word “goosander”, and it brought me joy.
Thank you, random wildlife photographer, for the lovely bird and the delightful word.

I can hear the H in “whit” from here.

That moment when you half-step on a towel/purse/wrinkled carpet and your soul LEAVES YOUR BODY because you’re terrified it is a lil critter you just crushed.

Sometimes it’s depressing to be right.
And measles is such a terrible virus to have as the vanguard, because it straight up makes other diseases more likely. Not just while you’re sick, but as a permanent debuff. The increase in all-cause mortality for folks who have had measles is shocking.

Anyone who has heard my pro-vaccine rants has also heard my fears about polio resurgence. This would kill and paralyze people, mostly kids.
One of the scariest things about measles is that it can reduce your protection against things you’re already vaccinated against. Measles is just the beginning.

Yes! And if you are especially interested in a topic, checking out books on that topic lets them know a whole section is being appreciated. They might even add something else you didn’t ask for but would like. Librarians are legendarily good at that sort of thing!

We turned it into a date series of finding library that had the DVDs (or asking our branch to get them from others) and then biking over and checking one out.
Every time, we had a delightful chat w some librarian who was stoked that my beloved was getting to experience them for the first time.

This is where I tell the cute story about how once upon a time there were no (legal) ways for us to stream the Studio Ghibli movies, and early on in our relationship, I learned my spouse had never seen them (le gasp!).
What do?!
(1/2)

And as a reminder: physical media>>Libby>Hoopla for library budgets.
Now is a great time to check something out!
Don’t read? Most libraries have DVD and music collections and many have puzzles, games, or tools!

Hey, as a librarian I need to tell you:

Our funding depends on usage.

So go ahead and check out that book even if you don't think you'll finish it. No one will know. Check out that DVD even though you might not like it. Get ambitious in your quest for knowledge.

Immediate flashbacks to the fire mares in Krull. (I am old.)
Lovely art!

I especially wonder about the effect of people who were giving birth, not dying of sepsis, and able to have more kids (more births) vs kids who survived to adulthood who otherwise wouldn’t have. Obviously both happened, but which was a stronger effect?

More importantly, great chart.

Understanding music so completely that you can express how to create it from first principles by designing an algorithm is just WILDLY next-level applied musical theory.
“I’m so good at music that I made it out of math.”
You what?!
Amazing.

Immediately added this to my Steam wishlist.

Leverage proved it could work, and so many of us would watch THE HELL out of a heist-of-the-week repatriation show.
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But yeah, neuro cases are the WORST and I hate when I get neuro hoofstock. It adds so much time to the process. And no one likes cleaning the bandsaw.
If I never had to take out another spinal cord, I’d be so happy 😂.

We have P. tenuis, Toxo, and S. neurona here, so we end up having to go for the spinal cord on a lot of our hoofstock and our red pandas. RPs love to let protozoa romp around in their CNS, it seems.

Disarticulate the whole thing? Basically never. If I need the cord, I usually saw off the dorsal laminae with a bandsaw or skull saw, depending on the size of the animal.
If all I need is representative sections, I break the spinal column down in a few places and grab a section of the exposed end.

I reeeeeally hate when they’re wormbags.
But it turns out there’s a worse phase, which is, “This is so rotten, the maggots have all left.” That phase is both stinkier and soupier.
I once hatched out flies (in a bag) ON MY DESK to correct a postmortem interval that someone had wildly underestimated.

Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work.

“No whole, live things.”

Love that project! Sadly 80/20 is the improvement. When they started, it was 85/15. Doing good work over there, and we (as a society) have a ways to go.

Nobody has ever told either of these men, “Your kindness and compassion helped me survive,” and honestly it shows.

I’m so glad you’ve had good pathologists in your life!We’re a delightfully weird bunch! Always happy to chatter about lesions with a fellow appreciator, whether or not they are a pathologist themself.
…honestly, we’re excited to go on about lesions with anyone who doesn’t run away fast enough. 😂

Indeed, to say nothing of the decapitation 😂

For any confused folks wondering, this is a classic gross pathology diagnosis: ovine nasal adenocarcinoma. It’s a virus-induced cancer caused by a retrovirus.
This family of retroviruses causes a bunch of breathing issues, most notably nasal tumors, lung tumors, and progressive pneumonia.

For me, it’s chocolate cake.
Someone had all the ingredients to make brownies and chose violence.
Do not @ me with your weak excuses about the platonic ideal of chocolate cake being nice to eat. The best chocolate cake struggles to compete with a bog standard brownie.

Life’s hard. Make brownies.

I want to believe they are intense in the way that PHILLY IS THE BEST Philadelphians or the GO BIRDS sportsfans, but I want to think that they also shovel their sidewalks and vaccinate their kids.
Face paint and screaming and hailing the rodent-prophesied winter? ✅
Afraid of fluoridated water? 🚫