Author Archives: Cath@VWXYNot?

About Cath@VWXYNot?

"one of the sillier science bloggers [...] I thought I should give a warning to the more staid members of the community." - Bob O'Hara, December 2010

Trees do the darndest things! (Part III)

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Cath@VWXYNot?

STREAKERRRRRR!!!! (sorry, everyone. Again). Part I: British roots / on the fence Part II: Treehuggers

Posted in freakishness, nature, photos, silliness | 4 Comments

Whining and opining

Posted on October 20, 2012 by Cath@VWXYNot?

We (well, mostly Mr E Man) have spent the last couple of weeks booking flights and accommodation for a much-needed vacation in Puerto Rico. We’ve now got everything sorted except the car rental and the last night’s hotel and are … Continue reading →

Posted in bad people, family, idiocy, silliness, travel, whining | 20 Comments

Bragging Rights Central archive, Oct 2012 – Mar 2013

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Cath@VWXYNot?

The recent lack of regular updates is due to my new job: I used to update the sidebar at my desk during my Friday lunch break, but now that I work in a much more social environment and have lunch … Continue reading →

Posted in meta | 1 Comment

A frog on my blog is my goal and it’s gotten a “tee hee!”

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Many thanks to Mermaid for forwarding me this most excellent email signature from a local frog biologist, and for securing Dr. Helbing’s permission to blog it! I remember a phase of DNA helix squiggles in email signatures in the early … Continue reading →

Posted in art, nature, science, screenshots, silliness | 8 Comments

A Song of the Hunger Compass: it’s book review time!

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Cath@VWXYNot?

(This got really long – sorry. You probably shouldn’t try to read all of it in one go). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It was all Bean Mom’s fault. She posted a review of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series … Continue reading →

Posted in blog buddies, book review, embarrassing fan girl, family, movie review, rants, television | 42 Comments

“I’ll be the judge of that”

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I’ve noticed a recent increase in the number of emails I receive that say things like “this is a polite reminder” or “this is a gentle reminder”. While there’s never anything in the message to contradict the sender’s choice of … Continue reading →

Posted in communication, English language, grant wrangling | 7 Comments

Weird critters

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I’ve found myself favouriting several similar posts from the “Dropping The Science” RSS feed lately, with no clear idea about what I was going to do with them. So here they are, in all their weird and wonderful glory, for … Continue reading →

Posted in evolution, freakishness, furry friends, nature, photos | 13 Comments

There should be an APP for that!

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Cath@VWXYNot?

(where APP = Automatic PDF Pusher) I have five browser tabs open to article abstracts, from four different journals. All five articles are currently published as provisional PDFs. All look interesting and/or relevant to my work, but don’t quite tip … Continue reading →

Posted in publishing, science, technology, the wonders of technology | 14 Comments

FIRST!

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Cath@VWXYNot?

So last night, I was enjoying a friendly Twitter argument with @ScientistMother and @27andaphd about Tim Hortons commercials. During the course of our conversation, it transpired that both ScientistMother (born in Canada to foreign-born parents) and I (born in the … Continue reading →

Posted in blog buddies, Canada, English language, family, fun with language, rants | 28 Comments

The joy(ride) of delayed gratification

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Cath@VWXYNot?

The first music I loved was my parents’ music – The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, all that. The first music I loved that was my own was, embarrassingly enough, Stock Aitken Waterman pap. In my late teens came Nirvana, Blur, … Continue reading →

Posted in embarrassing fan girl, family, music, personal, videos | 14 Comments