What is the punishment for this?

Things a journalist ponders while others just laugh.

A promise fulfilled

If you haven't watched this yet, do so now. If you have then watch it again:

My first paid writing assignment!

although paid is sort of a strong word in this case....

Silverglate: FDA can slap device executives with felony counts

If you’re working on a medical device that’s new and unprecedented, you might be a prime target for government litigation, according to Harvey Silverglate, a Cambridge attorney who specializes in civil liberties litigation, criminal defense and student rights. 

Federal laws in regard to medical device safety, he argues, are sometimes so vague and complicated that it’s impossible to defend against an accusation of wrongdoing. Technologies and techniques that stray from the status quo are especially vulnerable because they are not well understood by the government officials and judges who ultimately decide how to treat them. 

A company accused by the FDA may face hefty fees or an involuntary recall, but Silverglate is more concerned about the people who get chewed up and spit out by the system.

“Life sciences and medical devices have become a minefield with regard to regulation and prosecution by the FDA,” Silverglate said. “It’s an extraordinarily dangerous environment that you can’t believe until they come knocking at your door.”

You can read the rest at MassDevice.com!

My Satisfaction

Epic Battle of Mongoose and Stork!

Watch this video on mute:

While playing this as a soundtrack:

The song is longer, but it's still pretty awesome.  Also, the fact that I randomly discovered this today gives you some insight into my home life.

Dear Church: This doesn't mean what you think it means

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!

http://cuteoverload.com/2011/04/21/release-the-dweebs/

OH GOD YES

Accusatory Twitter Bird

Sees what you're wearing today...

and is judging you for it. 

ICWUDT

Twist brought to you by M. Night Shyamalan.

(click the picture to go to the video)

it starts out all cute and you're like "neat-o, an albino raccoon!" and then it gets weird and you're like "what the **** just happened there?"... 

Dear Twilight Fans

While you were sleeping...

This is what happens to intruders in the dungeon...

There's no sense having shame in the dollar store

The Puppy Called Puberty

(From the deep recesses of the internet...)

A Puppy Called Puberty It was like keeping a puppy in your underpants A secret puppy you weren't allowed to show to anyone Not even your best friend or your worst enemy You wanted to pat him, stroke him, cuddle him All the time you weren't supposed to touch him. He only slept for five minutes at a time Then he'd suddenly perk up his head In the middle of school medical inspection And always on bus rides. So you had to climb down from the upper deck All bent double to smuggle the puppy off the bus Without the buxon conductress spotting Your wicked and ticketless stowaway. Jumping up, wet-nosed, eagerly wagging- He only stopped being a nuisance When you were alone together Pretending to be doing your homework But really gazing at each other Through hot and laxy daydreams. Of those beautiful schoolgirls on the bus With kittens bouncing in their sweaters. By Adrian Mitchell

Penis Envy.

I'll admit it, sometimes I have penis envy. But it is pretty much entirely related to how easy it is for them to pee.

Damn standing up, writing your name in the snow pee-ers. I'll be over here, squatting behind this tree and trying not to pee on my own foot. ::sigh::

Mobstah Names

Emily G-Dreamboat
Kristen S- Hairlip
Anne-Marie Singh- The Grown Up
Mary Parker- Twenty Eyes
Arezu Sarvestani- The Butcher
Jessica Johnson- Twinkle Toes
Hillary Hoffman- Kids Incorporated
Alicia Prewett- The Stare

EL OH EL

So what if the love of my life is a fictional character from 1985. DEAL WITH IT.
(Awesome comic from Cyanide and Happiness at Explosm.net)

RANT

OFFICIAL FIRST MARY RANT.!.!.!.!. THE HELL WITH EVERYTHING EVER FOREVER!

Specifically, Aeneas. Seriously, fuck that guy. Lameass Prince of Troy, whose mom is that slut Aphrodite. He accomplishes nothing during the entire 10 years of the Trojan War except escape, and he even manages to fuck that up by carrying his father out, who is old as fuck and about to die anyway, and leaving his wife behind. Who is totally fertile and still useful, unlike the literal dead weight of Dad. A dad who, according to this painting, wears Santa hats, even though it will be many hundreds of years before the first Christmas.

So he does escape the flames of his former city by running away like a stinking coward, and immediately sets out on an epic quest of failure. The first thing he does after he gets the hell away from those angry scary Greeks is bury his stupid dead dad and cry a lot.

The next thing he does is wander aimlessly around for a while, because he is too lazy and cowardly to do as his mom says even though she's a goddess and he really has no choice. The terrible fate she intends for him? Marrying a beautiful, rich, young princess and founding a family line that will eventually lead to Romulus. Literally the only thing he has to do to fulfill his "glorious" destiny is fuck his future wife. That's it. And he doesn't want to, because he's a total weakling.

There are more reasons why I hate him, but they can wait for another day. All this rage has made me sleepy.

surprisingly catchy

journalism at its best.  

Yay, I Done Been Published!

check it out, my story on post-abortion counseling through the catholic church.  a stranger even emailed me to send me pro-life propaganda.  awesome.

Here's a cool new way to understand nuclear disasters!

Potty humour

Healthcare in the Dungeon

Student loans don't cover chiropractors, so we sometimes resort to cheaper options....

...but there's always someone to help you up when you've lost feeling in  your legs.  

Pregnancy Blog

OMG, NO! I'm not pregnant. Calm down.

CommonHealth, the NPR blog I work for, posted an interesting blog today. It was about how What to Expect When You're Expecting may be a little too anxiety-driven. Check out the post here. And when you're done being totally impressed with the blog, be sure to "like" it on Facebook.

You're welcome.... :) Love, Alicia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA1NoOOoaNw

GASP!

"There's all sorts of reasons you wouldn't want to take a bath with Dennis Rodman." -ERS

HELLOOOOOO

Because this exists

"Hellllllloooooooo"

Obligatory Charlie Sheen Post

Superheroes Quote Charlie Sheen

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to JESSICA

Garfield without garfield

Wishing happy birthday to ...

... moral vacuum, bug lover and the only man

Idle Worship

ya see what i did there?

anyway, this: 

click on the image to make it bigger.

From left to right: Galileo Galilei, Marie Curie, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Thomas Edison, Aristoteles, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins und Charles Darwin.

Created by esreveRYourThinking, hosted at DeviantArt.

Happy Times.

IT WAS A JOKE!

This girl called me to complain about her douche of a ex/current boyfriend. I, as I usually do in these instances, tuned her out. So finally she finished rambling and says "I don't know what to do. What do you think, Emily?"

I just paused and said "Don't ask me, my longest relationship lasted six weeks... and then he ran out of batteries."

She seemed so horrified that I couldn't bring myself to tell her it was a joke.

The Trials and Tribulations of Shimmying: a Cautionary Tale

“Hit Me Baby, One More Time” was released in October of 1998.   The video played on MTV’s Total Request Live, embedding itself in Emily’s fragile teenage mind.

Britney shimmied like it was nobody’s business and Emily frantically thought “I’ve got boobs, I SHOULD DO THAT!” Her mission was clear: she NEEDED to learn to dance like that.

And she tried, she really did.  For years Emily tried to shimmy like Britney Spears. 

She desperately tried to move her shoulders back and forth. She tried with her arms out. She tried with her arms by her side.  She tried while sitting.  While standing.  While lying down.  At one point, she probably tried to shimmy under water.  

But no, her stubborn body just would not cooperate.

 

Any time she tried to move her shoulders like the pop star, Emily ended up moving her hips instead.  The result was that she gyrated like a poorly constructed robot, furrowing her brow in concentration.

After years of failure at high school dances, Emily gave up her dream of being able to shimmy like a pop star.  It wasn’t like she listened to pop music anymore anyway… it wasn’t like college afforded the opportunity to shimmy, since dancing at college parties consisted of having awkward, clothed sex while standing on a dance floor.

Emily graduated and went on to be a marine biologist.  And there really was NO excuse to try to shimmy on a fishing boat.  Her mid twenties came and somehow, some of her friends learned about her shimmy quandary.

“No! It can’t be that bad,” they announced. “Show us!”

She showed them… and their faces started with looks of pure pity and rounded out with surprised looks of sheer glee from the embarrassment of friend’s dancing hardships.

They’d bring it up at the oddest times: Waiting in line for a roller coaster at Six Flags.

“Emily, Come ON! Show us how you shimmy.”  She would hang her head and shame and attempt her eternally failed dance, that time in front of her current crush.  You’d think that would be the worst part, shaking her hips like Full House’s Michelle Tanner in front of the boy she was currently trying to trick into sleeping with her.

But no, the worst part was getting shimmy-served by a 7-year-old boy. Yes, he was waiting in line behind her friends and exclaimed, “OH, YOU MEAN LIKE THIS?!” and proceeded to rock out with the best shimmy the group had ever seen.

NOTHING and I mean nothing, humbles a person more than getting shimmy-served by a 7-year-old.

Then, Emily’s grad school friend, Arezu decided to take up the challenge. She decided to show Emily the finer points of the shimmy, forcing her to face her dancing shortcomings.

Even Arezu’s boyfriend David tried to help. “Look down, while you do it!  That’ll help!” he said, shaking his shoulders like a pop culture pro. 

Fun Fact: next most embarrassing to getting shimmy-served by a 7-year-old is getting shimmy-served by a male Jewish computer programmer.

The group would go out drinking, and at her friends’ heartfelt insistence and Emily would try with renewed fervor to shimmy.  Sitting at a pub in Harvard Square she tried (and failed) to shake her shoulders.

But Magically… This morning while getting dressed… SOMETHING CLICKED.

The melodic sounds of Shiny Toy Guns in the background, Emily put her hands on her thighs and was, at long last, able to shimmy.  After a fifteen year battle, Emily finally beat her stubborn body into submission.

IT helpdesk

"How do you know all this stuff?"
"Trial and error"

So this happened...

I don't watch Jersey Shore and I STILL think this is an AWFUL idea...

The Daily What says this: Snooki In Wonderland: The Improved Classic by Phil Edwards, John Tenniel, and a grave-rolling Lewis Carroll is available on Amazon for only 99 cents. And your immortal soul.

Dear Facebook Creeper...

From College Humor: The Rest Here

Learn some proverbs from first graders

1.	Don't change horses	until they stop running.
2.	Strike while the	bug is close.
3.	It's always darkest before	Daylight Saving Time.
4.	Never underestimate the power of	termites.
5.	You can lead a horse to water but	How?
6.	Don't bite the hand that	looks dirty.
7.	No news is	impossible
8.	A miss is as good as a	Mr.
9.	You can't teach an old dog new	Math
10.	If you lie down with dogs, you'll	stink in the morning.

Swimming

That's what some of us amazing women are gonna get up to this week :)
Then I will get a mermaid tattoo

Possum in my roof

I was up all night cause there is an animal in the panelling above my ceiling, trying to build himself a home. There was scratching, biting, gnawing and chewing and it's still going on. Either it is time for me to move out, or all that my mum said about the imaginary friends in my life, was actually true

Who's Hosting the Oscar Party?!

Because I want us to blog about it like this girl.

Guess who has two thumbs and won't be getting any sleep tonight?

This guy.

Sh*t got real

Tuesday I reported from a rally for Wisconsin state employees on the State House steps. The scene was Mass. union workers v. Tea-Partiers and there were copious amounts of fighting and spitting even before the rally. When I arrived, people were yelling in each others faces and bureaucrats were giving heated speeches- one of them actually called for blood. I left the craziness when people started throwing lit cigarettes.

Yesterday I reported from Downtown Crossing station where MBTA general manager Davey was set to meet with riders to hear feedback. Out of nowhere comes a displaced former Harvard Station juice vendor who demanded justice from Davey, saying his business was shut down for no reason and he is now homeless. The man was very frustrated. While screaming JUSTICE! JUSTICE! DEMOCRACY! the police escorted him away. I talked with his wife who returned to apologize. Sad story- I think officials actually might've listened if he went about it in a different manner.

So.. that was more action than I bargained for! I won't complain if next week is dull.

The Dungeon's Dating Woes....

After a long-distance relationship that failed miserably, I decided to look around online.

But, this is my most recent update.

Shrug.

FAVOUR-CON!!!!!!!! WTF

Dr. Suess Does Star Wars

My god, you all needed to see this...

(Here's a little peek)

Dungeon Grocery List

• coffee (desperately)
• tissues 
• tampons
• aspirin
• plastic cutlery (Starbucks is getting suspicious)

Failed titles for our blog

• Damsels in Estrous
• Dungeons and Notions
• Knights of the Dungeon

others?

What's in the dungeon?

It has seven computers. No six. Maybe five. It doesn't matter. There's always a free one when you need it. There a brown couch too, which could have been any colour to begin with but has been dyed by coffee spills and stains over the years.

There's a mini fridge, a coffee maker which has never been used, a microwave with a self-sustaining ecosystem of microbes housed within (hey- we're science journalists- we like microbes!), and a chair for every tired arse.

A printer, a photocopy machine, an empty closet and drawers full of stationery which none of us steal from- all have their own little cranny in the room.

There are a bunch of good books too. Dunno who reads them though.

And, there are eight women, fierce women, who guard the dungeon and the treasures within with fiery vengeance often emanating from badly-made chipotle lunches or hangovers. Sometimes both. They march the dance of death around the over-lit cave warming it with bursts of source-rejected frustration, guy-dejected tears and comic-infected laughter. They write science, eat at will, play drunk scrabble, and could rule the world if given the opportunity.

No I cannot give you their phone numbers.

We're on Facebook!

"Like us" here.

Surviving Our First Semester

Here's a picture of us with a few of our professors last semester. We are one third done!

New Podcast!

Anne-Marie and I just turned in a new podcast for our online journalism class.

Check it out here.

Adulthood

So, Wednesday was a big deadline day for all of us with our controversy papers and whatnot...  The STRANGEST epiphany came over me:
 
So, I sat there winding down slightly, having just sent off an article on the credibility of Wikipedia for a 4pm deadline...

I realized slowly that it was past 4:30, the day was more than half over, and I was sitting at the table, wearing a coffeeboob-stained sports bra and a pair of Nintendo boxer shorts.  I had interviewed a Harvard professor, one of the original Wikipedia editors, and two authors that morning, all sitting there like that. I totally hadn't showered, Hell, I wasn't even sure that I had brushed my teeth.

And all I had ingested since waking up at 9am was three pots of coffee and one piece of American cheese...  

Yet...somehow... magically... I'm considered an adult...WTF society?

(I feel more and more like the chick from Hyperbole and a Half sometimes...)

All smiles for some reason: the crew trapped in the COM elevator. From left: Jessica, Kristen, Emily, Mary, Arezu, Alicia, Anne-Marie (really!), and Hillary

At last!

The moment you've been waiting for has arrived - a collective blog from the BU scijo students. Whether you are friend, family, or random Internet troll, you will be amazed and delighted to read about the continuing adventures of a budding group of science journalists. Tremble with fear at our mighty knowledge! Laugh hysterically at our bloopers and blunders! Cry bitterly over our many failures! But most of all offer us the support and validation we so desperately need. Now...READ ON!