Simpsons Movie

Le J'ust.

Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

The psychological concept of Repression (the blocking of traumatic memories) is not a real condition. People who suffer trauma have the opposite problem; they are unable to forget the memories that haunt them.

Apparently, the idea arose from psychologists who relied on a formulaic theories of input/output along the lines of, "If the victim has problem X, then they had history Y." The problem with this theory is that people don't necessarily have that history. In this case, the psychologist attempted to "draw out" this memory from the patient's subconscious. Unfortunately, humans are extremely suggestible, and patients were easily persuaded into memories of events that never happened.

Harry Potter

I finished Harry Potter 7. It was alright.

*Spoiler Alert!*
The series is over.
*End Spoiler Alert*

Back From the Cabin

I just returned from the family cabin. I have 82 unread feeds. I have some reading to do. Later, I'll put up some pictures from the trip. (Unless I don't).

Knock-Out Darts? No Such Thing!

If you are a human being, then you're probably aware of "knock-out" darts: small, painless darts that knock out a human in a few seconds after being shot with no serious after-effects.

Like the knock-out punch, which has similar literary and film uses, (I'm looking at you, Lost!) the knock-out dart doesn't exist. Although it is possible to knock out a human with a dart, you cannot have that injection be both fast and safe. If you want to knock out a human in seconds, his heart will stop in minutes. Soldiers would kill for a dart that worked like the one in the media (and they've often killed for lack of it), but no amount of funding has produced this miracle.

PS. I saw Ratatouille again. Excellent.

Minnesota Trail

The Minnesota Trail at the Minnesota Zoo is open. I went there in a special pre-opening event. Although the event was nominally for members, they never checked IDs, so I have a feeling that there was a large deal of non-members there.

Anyway, all the old animals are back, and there are a couple new ones.

PS. Jonathon Coulton is a pretty funny guy.

The Elderly

The Simpsons has a habit of giving Abe Simpson some rambling speech that goes nowhere and is probably inaccurate. It's implied that, given the time, he could go on until he fell asleep. This is a cruel joke to make on old people because it's both sad and 100% accurate.

Simpsons DVDs

As my friends know, I've been snapping up Simpsons DVDs like they've been going out of style. (Which, I suppose, they are.) I just got Season Seven -which has some excellent episodes- and it came with a ticket to the Simpsons movie. That's a pretty good deal, if you intend to see the movie.