I like this one from last year:
MEDICINE: Francis M. Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, for "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage"

I never thought of that... got the hiccoughs? ...now here's a solution guaranteed to work!

The Ig Nobels are out. Highlights:

• CHEMISTRY: Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin -- vanilla fragrance and flavoring -- from cow dung.


• LITERATURE: Glenda Browne of Blaxland, Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of the word "the" -- and of the many ways it causes problems for anyone who tries to put things into alphabetical order.


• AVIATION: Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek of Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina, for their discovery that Viagra aids jetlag recovery in hamsters.

even if they've found a way into my basement?
are you sure they won't build a nest in there?

Well, they won't be building a nest at this time of year. It's too late and too cold now. As soon as the snow comes and they'll all die and you can just go up and take down that nest and get rid of it. But even if you leave it, wasps almost never use the same nest twice, so it will probably be abandoned next year anyhow. At this time of year I really don't think you have anything to worry about. It'll be fine.

Taylor, there is a nest, we've tried RAID poisoning it twice already, and though it's sent their numbers down, it's obviously not doing the full trick. I would leave it until the snows come and they die, except that I don't want them to build a nest in our basement. And knowing that it's the queen who's gotten in suggests that there's a hole connecting the nest and the house. Queens don't get out and move at this time of year. Everyone's collecting food to feed her and keep her alive through the winter... so... yeah, I think it's a slightly bigger problem than just leaving our doors open and hoping they'll fly away.

if I wasn't allergic to them, I'd handle it myself. But either way it's going to involve a bit of damage to the house...

If you get a chance to play Halo 3 or if you play it again, have a Elephant race. See who is the first to go around the perimeter 2 times.

Haha, yeah. We always watch all the escapist reviews in our office. I like how he bashes even the games he likes. But I played Halo 3 and I actually think it's awesome. In my opinion it's the best looking game made to date. It looks better than Lair or Heavenly Sword or even Gears of War. And it even looks better than Bioshock which he seemed to like more than Halo 3, but which I'm not sure I agree with (I didn't really like Bioshock to be honest). Sure, the models are lower polys, but they make up for it in terms of lighting effects and dynamic objects and particularly excellent inverse kinematics. People who say that the game doesn't look that good are clearly retarded.

Alison, we get wasps in our house all the time. NBD. The most I ever had in my house at one time was 3. But just leave a door open and they'll eventually fly out. It's not usually more than 1 though at any given time. Go out and look around your house and see if there's any holes they're getting into or any nests that they're building. If you see neither of those things, it's not going to be an infestation. It's just random bugs getting into the house.

Besides which, by the end of October we will likely have some snow. The wasps will be dead from the cold by then anyhow.

so, we have wasps in our basement... awesome

I saw the queen checking a light bulb as I was collecting my laundry this morning...
and, well, I can't exactly go near them myself, so this is going to be AWESOME!
and in the meantime, my pants are going to go very mildewy...

oh, AND my roomie was like "let's not panic, maybe the wasp you saw flew in while we had the door open" ... to the basement?? and what queen leaves her nest at this time of year??

and then the other TA for my class said something like "you're going to die in your house!" ... excellent!

w00t

Brodziak and Gilbert are both on track for 82 goals!

Oilers on sportsnet in black & white with no sound. Wow. This should be fun.

Maybe I'll be spending some part of this season at the sportsbar at the bottom of the hill...