THE PHANTOM RING

i've had a cell phone for about 5 years. most of the time i keep it in my front pants pocket. its always set to both vibrate and ring. the vibrating starts a few seconds before the ring so i have slightly more time to answer the call. more often then not, if i'm available to talk, i'm engaged in a conversation before the ringtone ever kicks in. i feel the call before hearing it, improving my response time

as a result of this behavior, i've been getting phantom rings. for about 2 years, give or take. little bursts of a vibrations on my upper thigh. right in the pocket region (blessing or curse - you make the call). i instinctively pull my phone out to find no one is calling.

its similar to phantom limb. the medical phenomenon, not the Shins song. when a person loses a part of their body, they sometimes experience a recurring sensation or pain felt coming from a part of them that no longer exists. like an aching in their left ankle after their entire left leg has been amputated. its odd. some sort of glitch between nerve endings and the synapses of a nostalgic brain .

i'm beginning to think that this "phantom" feeling isn't confined to limbs.

i've tried to formulate possible explanations behind this "phantom ring", but as per usual, my train of logical thought quickly derails into a fiery mess of imaginative unlikelihood. while this offers me no real answers, it does make for better blog posts and amusing campfire story times.

my theory:
cell phones emit and receive radio waves. my phone is kept in close proximity to my right leg. more specifically, my right femur. these radio waves probably travel through my flesh to the bone, then travel down through my fibula to the titanium plate and screws i had medically added for bone stability in high school. the radio waves excite the metal. it creates an attraction to ambient electrical charges, turning my ankle into a powerful electromagnet. the charged metal acts as a generator once its stimulated by the radio waves, thus turning my whole leg into an low pitch antenna. the phone in my pocket acts as a make-shift satellite dish. this lightning rod of nearby radiation pulls information of my surroundings in faster, allowing a for a slightly precognitive thigh. therefore, the vibration i feel is a 'spidey-sense', warning me of pending danger.

seems reasonable.
here's an artistic rendition:

...or it could be that i've just fallen into some psychosomatic habit from following a patterned routine .

i like the spidey-sense one better.

ARTIFICIAL LIFE

here's an excerpt of an interesting article i read yesterday. its amazing what this research could potentially produce, and by the sounds of it, within the very near future. i was aware of the miller-urey experiments and some other biochemical research on amino acids and their part in the foundations of early organic molecules, but this is gargantuan leaps and bounds ahead of that. the greatest unknown still on this planet is on the verge of discovery.

Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Aug 19 11:52 PM US/Eastern

"Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life." "It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways—in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

That first cell of synthetic life—made from the basic chemicals in DNA—may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it. "Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."

And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste..."

SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON (AP)

quite frankly, i'm pretty shocked to only be hearing about this now. i would have thought this would've been huge news. even more surprising is that i've learned about it from an unbiased article interviewing some of the leading scientific researchers and not from any one of the major religions who have got to be sweating it out about all of this. i'd have thought that they'd have tried to make a preemptive strike against these advances like they did with stem cell research or with cloning.

...just something to ponder...

CHECK YO SELF

DISCLAIMER:

***back to back rants. my apologies. i sent someone a message which became a spout off on this topic, leading to my realization that i've got a lot more to say about it. i've been rocking a lot of new music lately and am always checking out the quality flicks that breeze through my local cineplexes. i keep intending to write up some reviews, but either get distracted, or revert to some other topic half way through, deleting what i'd started. consider this a disclaimer.

and now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

self-checkout lanes have been popping up everywhere over the past few years. maybe this is isolated to my neck of the woods. if that's the case, to explain, its basically a line without a cashier. you scan it yourself. you bag it yourself. you tear your own receipt. simple enough, right? these self-checkouts are featured predominantly in grocery stores. every grocery store i go to has at least four of them. lately, i've been seeing them in retail stores like target and wal-mart. everyone's got self-checkout fever! come bask in the glorious convenience of technology. the idea is to speed up the payment and receiving process. we've all finished our food shopping only to find a mere 2 lanes open, each with a dozen full carts in waiting. with self checkout, four lanes can run with only one supervising employee.

my friend refuses to use them. he feels that these machines are outsourcing jobs from america's able bodied youth. while i agree, i'm not as strict with my principles. plus, in rebuttal, these machines don't build and maintain themselves...and i don't know of anyone who achieved their childhood dreams by climbing the grocery store corporate ladder.

my problem isn't actually the machines, its the people using them. some individuals turn the speed and convenience into stagnation and confusion. as a result, i've developed new stereotypes to increase my chances of avoiding deadlocked checkout traffic.

the vegetable eaters:

broccoli. carrots. belgian endive. none of these come with scan-able bar codes. instead, you have to set it on the scanner to be weighed, then either type in its designated 4 digit number or find it in a huge, slow loading produce picture library. sometimes its not even in the library. they could put the number in, if they knew that were an option, but most don't. the number is usually found on the little stickers on apples, oranges, peppers, etc., but not on loose wet vegetables like spinach, cabbage, herbs, and so on. if you're really observant, steer clear of any line with cabbage buyers.

the elderly:

two reasons, really, and i'm going to use the word "tend" a lot. old people tend to be set in their ways. they tend to continue to operate with there outdated technologies and comfortable familiar ways. in my grandparents minds, why have a DVD player if there's a working VCR? why worry about a CD player if the radio works fine? most old people tend to have no reason for owning a computer, and therefore tend to see no reason to learn how to use one (i spent an hour last week explaining how to use the computer at the library to find a book. in thanks, the old lady gave me a peppermint. score!). when faced with a scanner, a bagging system with a scale and a touch screen, expect bewilderment... and reason two. wheelchairs, walkers and canes should set off the warning lights. its a hands on process, folks, and these accessories can and will become quite inhibitive.

the cash carriers:

we've all been faced with a vending machine or change machine that just wouldn't accept our mangled bills. these same dollar takers are used in most self-checkout lanes. if that's all they have or if they're stubborn enough, you'll likely stand there scoffing as mr. or mrs. moneybags repeated forces their cash in, the machine sucks it up, then spits it out. repeat. repeat. repeat.

the over zealous:

some people can't move fast enough. in most cases that's fantastic, but this isn't one of them. say your buying peanut butter, jelly and a loaf of bread. you scan the 16 oz. jar of peanut butter. beep beep. "place in bagging area" appears on the screen. what they don't tell you is that the bagging area has a scale under it to prevent stealing. you have to wait a couple seconds for the scale to register that you just put something weighing 16 oz. in the bag, compare it to what was scanned and approve it. if you jump the proverbial gun, scanning and bagging the jelly before these few seconds have elapsed, it freezes until the clerk comes to void it. this happens A LOT so its likely that this could take a minute as the clerk is likely helping someone else who did the same thing.

so...the safest bets? 18 - 30 year olds. these people are the most technologically savvy this nation's got. they are the cell phone yakking, video game playing, myspace socializing, text message typing, debit card swiping generation. they all have computers. they also tend to shop light. college kids rarely buy more than 10 items at once. also, the younger they are, the more likely they've recently had a job doing just this.

FINE TUNING MY DOUBLE HELIX

hip, hip hooray for modern science!

the brainiacs have mapped out the human genome. we now have a fully detailed blueprint of the double helix that is homo-sapien. they are currently utilizing this information to get to the root of diseases, to get to the base of what make us what we are, and that's swell. really, kudos to them. still, i'd like to think that somewhere there is an outcast group of genetic engineers working on splicing genes from animals into humans. its 'how to make superheros 101', people. spider man, for instance, was nothing more than a spider-human cross breed. aqua man swam with the fishes, chatted with them even. hawk man...you get the point. so this post is for them.

i've got some ideas i'd like to share.

1. Wings - eagle wings, bat wings, dragon fly wings. whatever. i'm not picky. if it results in me being able to stay in midair for as long as i want, i'm cool with it.

2. Gills - i'll admit, they may be a bit unsightly, but it's a sacrifice i'd be willing to make. the oceans cover most of our planet and we still don't know a whole lot about them. biologists discover new animals in the sea all the time. plus, we haven't had a worthy and notable explorer since Magellan. it wouldn't be so much for me, more for the sake of humanity.

3. Chameleon Skin - i'm sick and tired of running from predators.

4. Super Vision - hawks and eagles would make for terrific donors. i have a friend who i'm nearly certain will soon discover she can see microwaves. i, too, would like this ability. hummingbirds can see a broader range of the visible spectrum, including ultraviolet. i'm not sure how i could take advantage of it yet. let me worry about that afterward.

5. Shark Teeth - again, maybe not that attractive a feature, but it would be nice to never need a steak knife again, or really any cutting tools at all. dentist visits would be a thing of the past. cavity? chipped tooth? yank that sucker out! there's 20 more behind waiting to bite stuff.

6. Ultrasound Skills - bats, dolphins and whales use it like radar to map their surroundings in a radius of up to hundreds of miles. you could "see" around solid objects. vision is far too limited these days. i feel i need something more, like sonar.

7. Cheetah Legs - i could sell my car and save tons of loot on gas if i could just run 70 m.p.h. in addition, we wouldn't have to endure any more geico advertisements.

8. Ant Strength - they can lift ten times their own body weight. that means a 200 lb. man could lift a ton with ease. we could hammer nails with our fists. no jar would ever be tough to open. sports would be far more interesting. i could throw out all my nut crackers, or i would if i had any.

9. Octopus Flexibility - i've seen an octopus the size of a watermelon get through a hole the size of a baseball. with this sort of contortion, people would be fighting for the middle spot in the backseat, making shotgun all the more easier for me to secure.

10. Monkey Tail - i think its slender enough to tuck away for a day at the office, and then break out at night for some tree swinging fun. i'd use mine all the time. it'd be like having a third arm. also, this would crank up my balance points big time.

GET ON IT, SCIENTISTS!
i'm available sundays for medical testing.