Sounds like they are having a fire sale over at River Valley Cycle... or at least the building is on fire.

Yamamoto is the "Smith" of the Japanese world. That and Tanaka. It's a super common name.

is it weird that I want to take a vacation from grad school and learn how to quilt?

just asking...




I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

The funny thing is there are quite a few Yamamoto's doing some neat work in chemistry, I guess one out of that crop isn't that bad

If Yamamoto wasn't going to invent a way of getting vanilla out of cow dung, then who will?

"No, I spoke with him."

It would be highly irregular for them to begin building a nest at this time of the year. That's as much assurance as I can give you. The queen usually starts the building of the nest, but she requires help, and at this point in the year the queens are among the only few surviving wasps still out there. I'd put money on the fact that she's probably more interested in finding a place to hibernate than she is of starting a nest.

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?