Fifth things...

Fifth things -- the fifth things that we never include in this blog, because in this dimension of (alleged) reality, the only true fifth thing is our Muse - often awaken me at night. And at the risk of touching off a long, ugly decline into irrelevence, with spring finally here, there's a fifth thing that has lately bothered me. A question, as they say, of import, gravitas, and possibly, crunchiness.

I mean, no less an awesome dude than Bill Shakespeare posed the musical question, "What's in a name?", then by way of immediate answer plopped "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" into Juliet's script.

But I happen to recall an old, small, and according to the great god Google, now completely forgotten story, in which a king and his princess daughter more or less contradicted Juliet by agreeing that everyone would like dandelions a bunch better if they renamed them 'Golden Fancies.' Of course, in this fiction, there was no question of accepting large, evil, international chemical marketing conglomerates' notions of weediness.

Now, Bill was a helluva writer, but not necessarily the final authority on everything. He was born at least five (heh) and a half millenia after certain, nearby, semi mythical coyotes. But while there is no longer any passing mention of Golden Fancies vis-a-vis dandelions left anywhere (And after all, the entire golden construct could be a cruel trick of an ancient and crotchety canine disposed to Alzheimerish daydreams, or a sharp-as-a-tack but completely unreliable narrator - your choice... I digress.) the philosophical saw-off continues to torture my poor doggie brain. Which is it?

Oops...we missed our 4-year Anniversary!

We've missed a lot of things lately. We ESIs get distracted easily. In case anyone is concerned about this, we haven't forgotten about the contest and will have an Emergency meeting VERY soon to determine the winner.
For those interested in looking back at our first post in celebration of our 4th Anniversary, here it is! The 5th year Anniversary will be huge. Just wait. We are already making preparations.

Llama dramarama, part two

Cedric and I have spent a couple of days talking about llamas and alpacas. It is the first step in my plan to help the little gnome get over his fear of the four-legged Andean creatures.

Today we made a major breakthrough: Cedric was able to look at a photo of a llama without shivering violently, falling over or vomiting.

It helps that the tiny man loves to sing: Alpaca-p my troubles in my old kit bag ... (whistling follows).

Cedric thinks he is so clever.

RNDP 25: More Dating Developments from those Hardworking Scientists

"Intranasal Oxytocin Increases Positive Communication and Reduces Cortisol Levels During Couple Conflict"

Swiss researchers Beate Ditzen, Marcel Schaer, Barbara Gabriel, Guy Bodenmann, Ulrike Ehlert, and Markus Heinrichs report that a nasal spray of oxytocin helped couples discussing stressful topics have more positive communication. "Oxytocin increased positive communication behavior in relation to negative behavior and reduced salivary cortisol, i.e., their stress levels, compared to placebo." [EurekAlert]

The researchers say they're a long way from using oxytocin spray in a treatment context, so I doubt they've turned their mind to its use in the dating context. Still, if you've been dating a while and you hear the words "we need to talk" a quick sniff on an oxytoxin nozzle might be a great idea.

Can Evolutionary Theory bring us a new Paradigm?

A survey of more than 10,000 individuals in 18 "human populations" has concluded that the stereotype of men being more promiscuous than women may be wrong. Dr Gillian Brown, of the University of St Andrews, said: "The study shows that women are just as likely to seek out just as many partners as men." [EurekAlert; Telegraph; PhysOrg]

This is interesting news for anyone involved in the dating game, but Dr Brown and her team are ready to take their research much further than these initial findings and apply evolutionary theory to understanding human mating strategies.

Recent advances in evolutionary theory suggest that factors such as sex-biased mortality, sex-ratio, population density and variation in mate quality, are likely to impact mating behaviour in humans...

Taking a new perspective on what evolutionary theory predicts about mating strategies will have important implications for how we think about male and female sex roles. We're entering an exciting new era in which evolutionary theory can help us to understand the diversity of human mating strategies.

It could be that further analysis of this data will let us build a data model where we plug in Ottawa's figures for sex-biased mortality, sex-ratio, population density and variation in mate quality and as output we'll get an optimal mating strategy - a critical component of a Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm!

May Day: The trial(s) of Mayor Larry

As a city pauses to either smell the scent of spring, or (depending on your kink) possibly the mayor, His Nibs will step down (temporarily, he truly believes...) at midnight tonight to deal with that pesky criminal matter pending before the courts. And I just wanna say that it is so unfortunate that others - you uninformed critics and naysayers! - cannot see him in the same optimistic light that he does. Because despite the repeated intrusion of actual, you know, reality, time after time he somehow manages to keep right on believin' in the essential rightness, goodness and smartness of Mayor Larry, to a point that some may call ummm, delusional. In this spirit, it seems like a good moment to pause and recall some of our favourite Larryisms:

• "Zero means Zero!" - Campaign promise to cut city taxes. And, umm, how did that go? Now an eponymous blog pointing out Our Beloved Leader's piddling, minor, utterly forgivable oopsies...
• " "I fell asleep on my boat in July drinking a beer and when I woke up I was the mayor of Ottawa." - That's okay, fella. At least a third of Ottawa voters seem to have been blacked out that entire time, too...
• "Quite frankly I believe with every fibre of my being that I'm innocent." - Right, gotcha. See intro, above... And after consulting (barely) overnight with an unspecified focus group whose opinions seemed to fly in the face of popular majority opinion, he said "overwhelming support" led him to cling to the job instead of bowing out after being charged...
• "I feel like a rock star!" - To media at Ontario Provincial Police HQ, where he was formally charged and printed, in:re that aforementioned pesky criminal matter...
• There is, naturally, no fifth quote...
• "No comment..." - The Mayor's hired spokes-thingy, after three companies that had been signed to build a light rail system slapped the city with $277 million worth of lawsuits. His Nibs had previously persuaded council that it could tear up the contract without major consequences...
• "Certainly I'd vote for myself..." - Larry announcing his intention to continue screwing up royally ummm, run for mayor again, in 2010 municipal elections. Maybe he went back to the same focus group he used to decide to stay in office, after he was charged in that aforementioned pesky criminal matter...?

Y'know, looking back over these quotes, I'm beginning to see that Hizzoner is in way over his custom-buffed head. Alone they might mean nothing, but there's obviously a pattern of half-recognized denial. Together, they form a highly public cry for help. Mayday, indeed...