I warn you, the following entry delves deep into my very messed up mind and it is gross and not pretty.  You have been warned.

My sister is very pregnant.  In fact, today is her due date.  She is ready to explode.  For over a week now she has been 5 cm dilated.  5 cm! 

I'm sorry, but just when I think I'm ready to have a baby -- I learn something new and distressing about being pregnant.  The escapades surrounding my sister's first pregnancy took me over five years to come to terms with.  I thought I was on the road to recovery... I was thinking of babies in that maternal way....  Now I've learned that you can be walking around 5 cm + dilated for over a week. What the hell!

So I beg of all pregnant women -- please PLEASE PLEASE! stop telling me about your birthing/pregnancy experiences.  

Some things you are not meant to know until there is no way back... 

So, tomorrow the LHC gets switched on.  Those of you scared that the world may end, trust me, it won't happen tomorrow.  Tomorrow they are just sending a test beam around in one direction... so there will be no particles colliding.   For your viewing pleasure, N sent me a youtube video of a "rap" someone created about the LHC.  It was filmed at CERN and the "rap" is  scientifically sound.  Still, when the 'creepy robot' voice proclaims, "it is time to drop some particle physics in da club," I pretty much pee my pants laughing while pretending that the voice belongs to N.

Enjoy:

I came across this flowchart on Digg last night (here's the link) and I couldn't help but laugh.  Sadly,  I get caught in this 'procrastination loop' almost on a daily basis.   Do you fare any better?? 

I love it when people comment or write about things they truly do not comprehend.  Especially when it brings out the crazies.  As you know, my husband is a particle physicist.  He is part of a large international collaborative group that is researching -- well here, this is taken directly from the ATLAS website:

ATLAS is a particle physics experiment at
the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Starting later in 2008, the ATLAS
detector will search for new discoveries in the head-on collisions of
protons of extraordinarily high energy. ATLAS will learn about the
basic forces that have shaped our universe since the beginning of time
and that will determine its fate. Among the possible unknowns are the
origin of mass, extra dimensions of space, microscopic black holes, and
evidence for dark matter candidates in the universe.

Naturally, the minute any scientist tries to do science -- especially when it relates to anything that may help us understand how the universe was created -- the crazy dooms-dayers come out of the woodwork to make me laugh uncontrollably while they spout utter nonsense under the guise of rational thought.  You see, I tend to take the word of highly trained and intelligent scientists, over the word of say, some guy (there was a hypertexted link, but i thought better of a) giving this person more hits, b) attacking someone I don't know but think is stupid ) -- some dipshit with a myspace page who claims the world will end on December 21, 2012 -- which I might mention is not even an original crazy thought as many weirdos and people believe this, just check out this.  Now, I don't know about you, but the validity of any dooms-day site is always enhanced when they are selling merchandise...

Last night, N and I were reading this article and I laughed and laughed at the comments.  Here are a few samples...

• I  dont trust that collider .I dont think its
  safe,And wouldnt be messing with nature? I think people around the
  world should vote or let there govement know how they feel about it
  first .Before they turn it on.aND ASK IS IT SAFE TO TURN ON AND
  USE?Also what good it for any way? Or is it another play toy for
  science to play with?

• Your tax dollars at work defending science from
  these nutjobs. Doesn't the Federal government have the power to refuse
  to allow itself to be sued? And wouldn't this be an ideal circumstance
  in which to exercise that power?

  I think we should sue to stop the Hubble repairs, too. They might reveal something... unexpected! Horrors!

• When the courts throw out this lawsuit based on
  the current arguments, these people will invent some other world ending
  catastrophy to try to stop this important research.
• If the LHC could create black holes, then we
  would not exist, since collisions of greater energies happen
  continuously in the atmosphere.

  Fundamental Particles: Electron, Neutron and Proton.
  
  Fundamentalist Particle: Moron.

• I say let them use it, if anything happens God will save us right? lol
• Apparently I've just been sucked from my normal
  universe into one where the laws of physics were written by Stan Lee
  (that's Mavel comics dude). OR is it that the nay-sayers and nervous
  nellies came from the comic book universe? Puhleese if you are
  concerned about this use the circumstances to educate yourself using
  information from a reputable source. How about "The Black Hole War" by
  Leonard Susskind?
• Someone has been watching too much science fiction and not taking enough science classes.

  So let me boil this down for you. If CERN creates a black hole, it
  will be a quantum black hole, which means that its really, really,
  really small. Which means that it doesn't have enough mass to be stable
  and will evaporate in milliseconds. That's really, really, really fast
  - too fast to suck in enough mass to become stable.

  It is far more likely that aliens will destroy the earth because we
  don't have a good understanding of science than be doomed by anything
  CERN does. So we must fire it up to save the planet!

  My stupid science fiction idea trumps your stupid science fiction
  idea. Now lets argue about which Star Trek series was the best.

• Given the possible hazards, why is no one in the
  news media asking McCain or Obama for their views on the LHC? It's a
  little silly for candidates to be babbling on about our national
  security from "terrorists" if we're about to be sucked out of planetary
  existence by scientists.
• 
  

  ---

So there you have it... N is a bigger threat than terrorism.  Just so you know, the LHC switches on September 10th, 2008.  So enjoy these last few days of existence. Something tells me though, that I'll be posting on September 11.... Hmm, maybe Nostradamus predicted I would blog about how stupid people predicted the end of the world on the day after the world was supposed to end....