Anmerkung der Woche (Comment o’ the Week!)
Okay, we’re not changing the name of Comment o’ the Week, but the German thread made chuckle so much that I had to give our schnitzel-eating friends one more shout-out. Remember, if you see a comment you like, please quote it and write “COTW” so we know you think it’s Comment o’ the Week-worthy. Don’t write “AdW” because I will not remember to search for that next Friday.
Okay, now is the time that we dance!
I’m in a good mood today, because this was such a fun week full of the world not being destroyed by eeeevil scientists. Speaking of that, again, huge thanks to Skepchick commenter notreallyalice and her friends at CERN for providing those hilarious photos from inside the facility. I’m in such a good mood, in fact, I’m going to make an addition to this week’s Comment o’ the Week — an addition that may become a recurring bit. Before I get to the COTW, I would like to announce THE BEST NEW USERNAME!
This week we had a flurry of new people signing up for Skepchick accounts. The Best New Username (BNU, pronounced “buh-NEW”) goes to Spacepope, who just commented on the German thread. “Spacepope” makes me picture an elderly Catholic gentleman in a funny hat flying around Saturn, collecting data to support his theory that the Earth is the center of the Universe.
Okay, on to the CotW!
Lots of nominations and lots of hilarious posts (Andrés gets second place), but this week’s winner had the clear support of both commenting peers as well as the Skepchicks, who weighed in a bit behind the scenes:
AmateurScientist // Sep 9, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I used to think my gender was the best, but then my girlfriend built me a bookshelf with her vagina. That put her ahead until I cooked her Eggs Benedict with my penis. So I guess we’re even.
For those who are hoping to win a future COTW, please note that Amateurscientist utilized the Dali Equation: G*S/L=COTW, where “G” is “genitalia,” “S” is “surrealism,” and “L” is “length of post.” Congrats Amateurscientist! You win a monkey. Touch him. Love him. Liebe meine abst-monkey.
Nooooo they be givin’ me second place!
Ok, I can live with that. As long as that doesn’t leave the bathroom messy.
Spacepope *is* funny. I certainly laughed the first time I saw it on Futurama. http://bit.ly/3aL05v
No offense to whomever picked it for their alias (good taste and all that), but it’s not exactly award-winningly original to do so.
I did. He was bad. I had to spank him.
This from PZ Myers on how to answer the question from a friend “Do you believe evolution is true:
PZ frames the answer the way he does in order to first answer the question straight away, and only then introduce the notion that scientists don’t “believe”. We do, as he notes, have a tendency to start off pedantically with an introduction to “belief” versus “think” and wander into the shrubbery.
Notice that the question gets answered, even if the listener loses interest in the remaining explanation as it goes on.
I will keep my monkey and love him all my days. I’ve already started building him an indoor mini-jungle. With my penis.
Thanks for the mention Rebecca, and Darren thanks for reminding me where I got that part of my title, I was kind of wondering about that. Now I will give you my full title
Psychedelic Spacepope of the Known Universe
also I am a member of the Second Order of Magnitude
Yes, those are self given titles, so what, who cares.
To explain things, if that’s what you would like, (if not stop reading here). The title of Spacepope is both a bit mocking and a jealous homage. It mocks the titles that a couple of people I worked with had or wanted, people who made twice what I did and did half the work. More importantly, I listen to the Thom Hartmann Show and one of his regular guests is Christy Harvey who title is Director of Strategic Communications at American Progress, I heard that and thought, what a cool job title I have to get me one of those.
The second bit is a friendly dig at Steve Novella of “The Skeptics Guide to the Universe” who is constantly saying ‘orders of magnitude’ , so much so that it is stuck to my brain.
Okay, that’s all for now.