www.jeffthefish.com

I’m always shocked to find that an actor who plays an American in a movie I’m fond of, such as Sam Neill in Jurassic Park, is British or Irish or Australian. It’s kind of jarring to hear them speaking in their real accent. I’m also pretty impressed that they can pull it off so well, but I think that’s due to my fallacious tendency to think that Americans don’t have an accent.

First, please realize that, though I do not own a television, I am a big fan of House, M.D., which I watch via Netflix. Second, please realize that I barely pay attention to pop culture. Anyone should know that. I only know the show exists because Mathias told me about it, and I only decided to try it out because I read that he gets a pet rat in season 2. Now, of course, I’m hooked.

But guess what.

I just found out that the actor who plays Gregory House, M.D., is British!

As I type this, Kevin is laughing at the fact that I didn’t already know this. Perhaps several of you are also laughing. Please stop.

House is played by Hugh Laurie, who, as Kevin just informed me, is the Laurie part of Fry and Laurie. Now, I am aware of the existence of Fry and Laurie. They are admired by skeptics, and I’ve seen clips of their shows on Skep Chick, I just didn’t realize they were the same person!

But now I can totally see it:

My first reaction was actually disappointment, but then I realized that that doesn’t make sense.

Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer, has written a post about Ray Comfort’s latest stupidity and linked to my website in gratitude for sending him the link. I’ve hit the bigtime again!

If only Ray hadn’t been born without the gene for comprehension…

…but I tried an espresso drink from McDonald’s. So sue me!!! It was Sunday evening, I was on the road, and nothing else was open.

But you should be glad that I tried it so you don’t have to. It tastes exactly like you’d expect espresso drinks from McDonald’s to taste: like sugar and water. Blech!!

So yeah, please PLEASE don’t tell my friends.

Here are some links so you can go learn yourself up.

Humans are getting less and less special as we learn more about the nature of life. Here’s an article that details six traits that were once thought to be uniquely human. One thing I think they could have added, though one could argue that this falls under morality, is altruism, like that found in vampire bats and (gasp!) E. coli(pdf).*

Also, no matter how hard certain Kentucky-based groups try to deny it, the transitional fossils keep rolling in. Here’s an amphibian that has salamander traits and frog traits. The predictive power of the Theory of Evolution!

*For more info on E. coli, check out Carl Zimmer’s new book, Microcosm, and listen to Carl’s interview on this week’s episode of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe.

Have you noticed that there hasn’t been anything funny on this site lately? I think it’s my sleep apnea taking its toll on me. My creativity is the first to go. I’d say I’ll try harder to be funny, but that would only result in less funny. So thanks for sticking around during these boring times.

Speaking of boring, yesterday we drove to the Northern coast of the Olympic Peninsula. We saw lots of tide pool inhabitants, as well as forest creatures, but no cetaceans.  Every time I get on a ferry, I hope and pray that I will see porpoises.  It’s only happened once, and only for a split second, but it was awesome.  Everyone gets a boner for orcas and no one seems to care about porpoises.  Bleh.

Here are two things we saw.  First, a very very small spider in a flower:

Second, a sanddab in a tide pool.  It was so cute and small!  I love him!

And then we saw a buffalo giving birth.

This is the first time in my life I have ever seen a flying fish fly! And it’s probably one of the longest recorded flights ever in history! Thanks Taisha!

Watch out ladies, he might wile you with his ability to point out $20 bills and photograph himself, sometimes simultaneously!

Thanks Kevin and Phyllis!

This year Jennifer and I will be driving from Seattle to Salt Lake City, to Denver, to Roswell, to Phoenix, to Los Angeles, and back home, with stops in between for whatever we feel like doing.

Does anyone have any recommendations?  Anything you think we should absolutely not miss?

When I was a child, my mother mowed lawns for a living. She did this, she said, because she needed a job that allowed her to bring me with her.

One day while she was cutting grass at a restaurant called The Red Maple, I was pretending to be a member of the Ghostbusters. I crossed paths with a patron coming out of the restaurant and said, “The Stay Puft Marshmallow man is coming!”

“Oh no! I’m getting out of here!” he said, and then he left.

I felt so bad. I was only kidding, and it didn’t occur to me that he was going to leave anyway. I thought he believed me.

I thought you might want to read this exchange I’m having with a friend of a friend about pre-marital sex. I think the fundamentalist attitude towards sex is a recipe for disaster, and I’ve seen the effects of those disasters. He’s in favor of it though. We’ll see what happens.

The blogger requires that all comments be approved before posting, and it sometimes takes a while for him to get around to it, so keep checking back in the next couple days.