4th Annual Beaver Queen Pageant

This evening, I went to Duke Park to see the Beaver Queen Pageant for Beaver Lodge 1504. This annual event raises money for the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association.
Beavers, who are normally disguised as humans, performed on stage in order to compete in the pageant. Hundreds of people watched in amazement. It was very hot, but it didn't feel nearly as bad as I expected. Barry was liveblogging, so be sure to check out his coverage.

It looked to me as if everyone was having a good time, because it was a beautiful event for sitting around and shooting the bull.

Surrealistic Sustainability

The last time I was at Shade Tree Coffee, I found out that their plastic cups are 100% compostable, because they are made from corn. I'd never noticed. This morning, I decided to look at Saladelia's cups at the Perk, because that's where I felt guilty about ordering beverages in plastic cups most frequently. By golly, it was the very same kind of NatureWorks corn polymer cup. I haven't checked yet, but I'm betting the ones from Twinnie's are made from corn, too.
I also noticed that it said on the bottom that it should only be used for cold beverages. I guess that didn't register.

This afternoon, I decided to refill my cup with water from our water cooler. I prefer drinking water if it it's lukewarm, rather than cold. Our water cooler has buttons for both hot and cold water, so I usually add some hot water and it's fairly random which I put in the cup first. This afternoon, I added the hot first and the cup instantly melted and deformed. It was really cool, as you can see. You couldn't set it on a flat surface anymore and I wasn't about to drink the water afterwards, but my plants were happy.

Now, I haven't done enough research to determine whether or not the corn being grown to create the NatureWorks polymers are displacing other food crops or trees in the rain forest are being cut down in order to grow it, as is apparently the case for corn destined for bio-fuels, but there is no doubt in my mind that we have to find some solution for all of the plastics that are being created that aren't being recycled and are left to accumulate in the oceans, landfills or worse. I also now know that melting your cup is very entertaining.

The Price of Free Speech

I do have good news. I figured out why my Treo 650 was bombarding me with messages whenever I turned off bluetooth. Apparently the keyboard application (or any third party connecting application) will keep trying to access bluetooth unless that is also disconnected. So, once I made sure the keyboard application was turned off, it stopped asking me if I wanted to turn bluetooth back on. As it may now be obvious, I hadn't tried out bluetooth at all until I got the keyboard.

On Tuesday I went to a Durham FM Association meeting and we had an excellent speaker, Carlo Tomasi, who talked about his work with Canesta on the laser virtual projection keyboards and 3D sensors. I'd been admiring the keyboards on ThinkGeek for some time, so it was neat to see one in person and learn more about the technology.

Last night, I went to the Duke Symphony Orchestra concert, which was great. I didn't think my dad was going to be able to go with me, but he decided he would rather do that than grade midterms. We went to Taverna Nikos beforehand and I seem to be in another trout rut. My last one lasted over a year, but we were eating there a lot more often at that point.

Today, AE had the day off, so she came over to campus and we ate at the Refectory for lunch. It was such a beautiful day and it was delightful to eat outside. We had "Sopa du Soya", which is the faux chicken version of my favorite Mexican casserole dish. I like the chicken better, but whatever soy product they were using was quite good.

I'm going to do something unusual for this blog and weigh in on the Don Imus debate. I had actually didn't even know who he was until this controversy arose, so obviously this was a good publicity move. I've read various articles that say that it was his first amendment right to say what he did and therefore he shouldn't have been fired. That just doesn't follow at all. The constitutional right only applies to the legality of what he said, which I don't believe is being disputed. Don Imus, as an employee of a business, represented that business. If a business believes that it is not profitable to have him represent them, then it is that business's right to fire him. I am almost positive that if it had been financially advantageous to keep him, then they would have. Then that would suggest that advertisers thought that the majority of their consumers felt that this was acceptable behavior. If that were the case, then we would have a much larger problem on our hands than just one announcer.