Month: May 2008

June 2008 “Happy Birthday!” Thread

Known Muser birthdays this month:*

06-04 Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd’s birthday (1994 – color?)
06-05 Potato Chip’s birthday (1994)
06-06 Romana2’s birthday
06-11 yesterdays_kinked_moose’s birthday (1992)
06-13 King george the stroodle’s birthday (1992)
06-13 muselover’s birthday (year? color?)
06-15 earthgirl’s birthday
06-20 Kricket’s birthday (1993 – light blue, electric green, pastel purple, or tie-dye royal purple, gold, and anything sparkly)
06-26 Gaea’s birthday (1995 – salmon)
06-29 Blufyar27’s birthday
06-29 Brave Sir Robin’s birthday (1993 – tie-dye)

You turn 5,000 days old this month if you were born between September 24 and October 23, 1994.
You turn 6,000 days old this month if you were born between December 28, 2991, and January 27, 1992.

*Note: Listed MBers who have been inactive for several months won’t appear on next year’s birthday calendar unless they show up again.

Muse Academy Student Lounge

Part 2008.1.

The lounge is on campus and is open to students from all houses. It’s much more informal than the Hare & Hedgepig (to say the least). Amenities include a refrigerator and all sorts of games, including a nicely broken in Paker deck. A good place to unwind from academics and to mingle with members of other houses.

Back in Business

That’s a relief, after two days in limbo.

You’ll have noticed that the “Latest Comments” sidebar has disappeared. There’s a story behind that: During the hiatus, our host company noticed that MuseBlog had been overloading its server with queries. The problem turned out to be coming from the sidebar. The plug-in that creates it operates very inefficiently, by looking through the whole blog every time to find the most recent comments. So we had to disable it.

(Someone has noticed that you can check recent queries almost as easily by looking at the RSS feed.)

The good news is that we’re upgrading our service to something called a “virtual server,” which will allow us to make as many queries as we like without inconveniencing anybody else. If it works, “Latest Comments” will be up and running again within a couple of weeks. The only drawback to the virtual server is that it costs more money, so everybody should hurry over and buy lots of T-shirts from Musery Loves Company Robert will be living off oatmeal for a while.

Anyhow, welcome back, and happy blogging! A round of pies for everybody!

Ranting and Spazzing, with Abundant Spoilers

WARNING: MISCELLANEOUS SPOILERS LURK ON THIS THREAD. IF YOU WANT TO AVOID ALL RISK OF ENCOUNTERING SPOILERS, STAY AWAY.

If you really need to talk about something you’ve read or seen but don’t want to ruin it for everybody else, this is your place. Post a spoiler notice before your post (example: “SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD SPOILER.” — remember to end with a period!), and then rant away. We’ll list the spoilers as they accumulate, as a warning to others.

Now, go ahead — let it all out!

SPOILERS:
Prince Caspian (movie)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (book)
Indiana Jones
Percy Jackson
Deathly Hallows
Order of the Phoenix (movie)

National Spelling Bee, 2008

It’s in Washington, D.C., on June 5 and 6 May 29 and 30. speller73 is taking part. Anyone else?

The event takes place just a block from Robert’s office, so any MBers and their families are welcome to stroll over for a tour of Science magazine and/or lunch at the National Press Club.

The 2007 bee made for some high drama on the blog. You can read about it here.

May Day Ball — Part 2

Muse Academy’s big spring event, continued from Part 1.

The Organizing Committee thread contains useful reference information, such as a menu of hors d’oeuvres and pictures of some of the gowns students are wearing.

If you need a break from the music and dancing, you can skip upstairs to the rooftop garden.

Platypus Has Weird Genes, Too

This isn’t Muse-related, but it’s worth knowing:

Today, the journal Nature publishes the first map of the platypus genome. It turns out that this strange and wonderful animal is strange and wonderful on the inside, too. Google “platypus genome” to find out more (and notice how artfully news reporters avoid writing the plural of “platypus”).