Phew

Alright, I have managed to locate a new apartment.

I'm moving a few hundred feet, to the complex next door. The problem is, I have a futon. I don't know that I have a friend with a big enough pick-up to move it, and it feels kinda dumb to rent a U-haul to move something a few hundred feet.

This will require some of my trademark creativity...

The Most Disturbing Explanation Ever

This response is a little too long for a comment, so here's a more complete explanation. Besides, there's some real fun stuff here...

First, the paper is available online here.

The MR study was actual anatomical imaging. It used a very high speed sequence (single-shot) that allowed 11 1-cm slices in the axial (i.e. head-foot) direction to be acquired in 14 seconds. They acquired the images by asking the couple to pause. Make your own joke. It really was just a "feasibility study", so there's no real technical commentary.

Now, fMRI of the participants neurological activity during coitus might be interesting. Actually, it would be very interesting--I'm pretty sure that's an unknown area of research. Plus, it's would be easier to restrain the head during the act than the entire body.

A few closing observations:

*My mental state was way to clinical during this. I didn't even make a joke about cine imaging...

*The paper quotes Leonardo da Vinci and includes Queen Elizabeth II as an acknowledgement. Honest.

*The study was done without external funding. I wonder why.

*I still love the comment about the amateur street acrobats.

*Yes, the paper was done in Amsterdam.

The Most Disturbing Study EVER

In the British Medical Journal in 1999, there was a paper titled, "Magnetic Resonance imaging of the male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal".

I won't describe the rest of the paper, however, I will say that we had a fruitful discussion about motion artifact suppression in my office.

Actually, I do have to give this quote: "Only the first couple was able to perform coitus adequately without sildenafil (experiments 1 and 2). The reason might be that they were the only participants in the real sense: involved in the research right from the beginning because of their scientific curiosity, knowledge of the body, and artistic commitment. And as amateur street acrobats they are trained and used to performing under stress."

Resolution of the Cliffhanger

Well, to follow-up my last post, nobody showed up to the ballet.

It was at least a valient attempt at spicing up my life--it's not like I wouldn't make the same choice again.

At least when they make a TV show of my life they'll have a cool shot of me standing in the gazebo beside the theatre, watching the rain, while dressed up spiffy. It'd be a great close to an episode.

Schroedinger's Ballet

This is at once an interesting evening and a boring evening.

Driven by a certain amount of boredom with my life, and by a long-buried desire for adventure, I decided to leave my second ballet ticket for tonight in a book at Barnes and Noble's, with a note.

I have absolutely no idea if anybody took the ticket or not. As I am making a choice that relies on a certain amount of weirdness and improbability to for any definition of success, I think I have a slightly better chance of success than most people would.

Epilogue to follow.

Um, Yeah

Saturday evening I was called upon to entertain prospective students.

In other words, use my charm and charisma to persuade the incoming female biology students to attend ;-)

One of the requisite stops is that we finish the evening at The Flying Saucer, a bar in downtown Houston.

Another group was also at this bar. It was a convention. A convention of roller-skating clowns in the adult entertainment industry.

It took a few minutes before anyone could come up with a coherent thought. Luckily, they left quickly, because apparantly there's some rule against skating in Houston bars after 10PM or something. I didn't ask questions.

Dustin in the Frigid North

Wisconsin is much like I remembered it: snowy.

So far the EPIC course has been excellent, although it has involved fairly lengthy days.

Apparantly some of my application paperwork has been posted by a copy machine somewhere in GE-HC headquarters; I said that my dietary restriction was that "Broccoli makes me pout".

My Favorite Warning

On the History Channel's "Roman Vice", it displayed: "The following program contains adult themes and explicit ancient images of sexual behaviour."

In other words, they showed ancient Roman dirty pictures on screen...

What does it say about me that I found the show on Roman engineering more interesting?

Ash Wednesday

In some denominations, you will receive an email on Ash Wednesday about mourning and repentence. At some chuches, you get an email about Lenten sacrifice.

But I'm a Campbelite, and we don't do much for Lent. I got an email asking me to judge the church's chili cook-off on Sunday...