[	mood	|	accomplished	]
[	music	|	Deelite - Groove is in the Heart	]

The fish blog is finally complete!! I didn't make a new layout, since I was kind of planning on it and the betta blog being "sister" blogs... I just tweaked the betta blog layout a tidge, changed the images, and presto, a brand new blog. I'm still changing a few things around, but it's presentable, at least. Go look at it... click the ugly oscar on the left! Quick like a bunny!!

[	mood	|	sleepy	]
[	music	|	Aqua - Calling You	]

As you can see, I made a really, really dumb graphic just for the fun of it. I mean come on... arsenic -> poison -> poisson -> fish... get it? LAWL.

[	mood	|	chipper	]
[	music	|	Jimmy Eat World - Sweetness	]

The subject of my post today is microworms. For those of you who have never had the privilege of seeing these creatures in person, they are tiny nematodes which are barely visible to the naked eye and are commonly cultured as food for very young fish fry. Microworms are cultured in a small container filled with moist grain which has baker's or brewer's yeast sprinkled across the top. They feed off the yeast, multiply, and eventually start making their way up the sides of the container where they can be easily harvested.

One of the few difficulties involved with culturing these minute creatures is keeping the cultures fresh. Microworm production slows in aging cultures, so it is important to refresh the media every week or two to maintain a healthy worm population. Today was the day that I was to refresh my cultures.

I began by collecting a scoop of culture media from one of my two cultures and placing it in a plastic disposable cup. This would serve to reseed the cultures once I had replaced the original media. I then proceeded to scrape the old oatmeal/worm concoction into the trashcan in our garage -- yes, the garage. There was no way I was chancing putting that into the indoor trashcan, as it does tend to have a rather unpleasant odor. The first culture wasn't so bad, but the second... oh God, the second. It looked so innocent, so normal; its shimmery exterior, composed of millions upon millions of squirming nematodes, glistened in the afternoon sun. However, beneath this deceiving surface it kept a dark secret. A secret almost too horrible to mention.

The moment my weapon (a handy stick gathered from the porch) broke the surface of the culture I realised my mistake.

Imagine the worst odor you have ever encountered in your entire life. Now multiply this by ten and couple it with the scent a beached whale covered in baby vomit and left to rot in the sun for a week. Yes, I was met with a stench so terrible, so foul, that it could bring even the strongest lumberjack to his knees. The layer of worms had been preventing the odor from escaping its container, but now its full fury had been unleashed upon my poor unsuspecting nostrils. To my horror, the oatmeal which I had been using as culture media had soured, and poor oxygen flow combined with a copious amount of yeast was causing it to ferment.

In my rush to quickly dispose of and escape the choking stench, I managed to dribble some of the culture media directly onto the top of my exposed left foot. I fully expect it to blacken and rot off within the week.

I tell you one thing though, I've learned my lesson. I'll be refreshing my cultures much more often now in an effort to keep from going through this ordeal ever again. It was worse than chicken houses, worse than a morgue... even worse than a men's public restroom! If that odor could be condensed and incorporated into some sort of projectile weapon or bomb -- well, let's just hope that we develop that technology before an enemy.

[	mood	|	pleased	]
[	music	|	Five for Fighting - 100 Years	]

Some random user on Yahoo actually made me think about something tonight. First he asked me what I thought of marriage, and I replied that I didn't plan to get married. He asked why, and I just blew it off at first, but then he kept pushing the subject because he's from a culture where it's practically unheard of to never get married, so I finally started trying to think of an answer better than "I don't want to."
You know, I've never really given that a lot of thought. I honestly don't think I'm cut out for it. I guess I'm just so entirely involved in my life that I don't feel the need for romance? Love is nice, sure, but there are better things if you ask me. I prefer... I don't know... inspiration, experience, friendship, knowledge, and things like that. I guess if the perfect partner just randomly fell out of the sky and landed in my lap one day I'd go with it, but I'm not going to waste much time actively searching for that ultimate love that everyone seems so desperate to find. I don't think most people are ever lucky enough to find what they're looking for anyway. I don't think any relationship lasts forever... they either end, or you die before they end. I say that only partially in jest.

What I'm saying is that A) I don't think romantic love is that important to begin with and B) I'm not going to waste my time trying to find some ideal that probably doesn't exist in the first place. Note that there's nothing cynical in my tone when I say that -- that's just the way it is. I honestly don't believe in perfect romantic love. Maybe someone will prove me wrong one day, but somehow, I doubt it. I'm happy either way... I'll be an eccentric, chronically single scientist like Mr. Gibson and then die at the age of 90, surrounded by my 2843902849031 cats.

And since you bastards don't read my betta blog, I'm going to mention here that I've got about 50 eggs that should be hatching out tomorrow. Yay for the proud betta parents Mini and Lil.

[	mood	|	weird	]
[	music	|	Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby	]

A thread on The-Spot.net got me thinking about my version of the perfect man. The blueprint I came up with is pretty frightening, to be honest. My ideal man is an eccentric biologist who looks like my hollywood lover, Crispin Hellion Glover (or has a similar bizarrely attractive look,) and is equally weird. To give you a hint about just how strange Crispin Glover is, he produced a movie in which most of the actors had Down syndrome (but the movie wasn't about that,) and made a music video which involved Hitler sitting around watching an act at a nightclub.
I am also magnetically drawn to Trent Reznor. It's not just that he's so hawt he makes me salivate uncontrollably like some filthy hormonally driven hound, it's that he's dark, brooding, and inherently sexual. He's one part stereotypical bad-boy our mothers warned us about, and two parts tortured artist. You could lose yourself in someone like that, and that danger is what makes him all the more attractive.
I also like goofy, fun, nerdy people though... I don't think it's even possible to have all of that in one package, do you? If it is, that package probably has some serious psychological problems.

Now that I've ruined my chances of ever dating anyone who reads my blog, I'll shut up.

EDIT: I finally saw that clip of Crispin Glover on Dave Letterman... the funny thing is that everyone thinks he's on drugs in that clip, but he's not. He's honestly that crazy all on his own. Rumour has it he suffers from a condition called Cluttering, so I guess that helps explain some of it -- another very plausible theory is that he was testing out his character from Rubin and Ed.