I’ve always wondered what the actual terminology was for why I can make myself sneeze whenever I look at a bright light. Normally, this occurs when I’m first walking outside on a sunny day. A quick peak towards the sun, and ACH-CHOOO. It feels pretty good, actually. A simple Google search yields lots of interesting tidbits on this “genetic disorder.”
Scientists have announced that they are closer to solving the mystery behind unpopped popcorn kernels! The American Chemical Society’s BioMacromolecules journal will contain the details of a study into maximizing the “pop-ability” of the corn kernel. Read here for more.
Wired is running an article on some of the interesting things that have been spotted using Google’s map service combined with satellite imagery. I did some fiddling and was able to locate Area 51 (or so I think). Check out this Wired article for more interesting pics.
As long as I can figure out what the heck I’m doing. 
I hope to revamp the look of the site from the default template to something more representative of me. I’m also hoping to add more sections, and a better home page to the site, to tie everything together. Of course, the blog is somewhat hidden from view, so I’m really just letting myself know that I want to do this…
I’ve made several changes/additions to the site. I’ve finally added a calendar, which is using the LiveCalendar 1.6 plugin for WordPress. It’s schweet. Though I did run into a minor bug where if the URI was “http://www.chrisbunting.com/blog” it didn’t like it, so I had to change my site URI to simply “http://chrisbunting.com/blog”. That’s cooler anyway… 
I’m loving these WordPress plugins! The good thing is I’m able to add the functionality I want, but it distracts me from working on what I really want to change, and that’s the appearance of the site. Someday I’ll get around to it, but for now I’m just having way too much fun with the plugins.
What a wonderful surprise! Arriving home today after work, I noticed a package was sitting on the porch. Since Meg loves to order things and not mention them to me until she’s tearing into them, I naturally figured that this particular package was for her. (Not to mention that her birthday also comes before mine.) Needless to say, I was quite surprised when I saw my name on the package. Since there weren’t any obvious clues as to what it was or who it came from, I tore into it quickly and found an item from my wishlist packed nicely inside the box. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a note accompanying the gift, or any writing indicating who sent it to me. My original suspicions as to the sender of the gift proved to be incorrect. Therefore, I’m going to hold off saying thanks for now, and hopefully I’ll hear from the person responsible in the next few days. Until then, I promise not to use it until May 7th!
My in-laws LOVE coffee. And tea. Whenever we visit, and as the night is winding down, it’s inevitable that the offer for a cup of coffee or tea is moments away. What really surprises me, though, is that they can consume these vessels of caffeine in the late evening and still have no problem getting to sleep a short time later. I’m already quite the night owl as it is, so if I even partake in one cup of coffee late at night, I’ll be wired until the early morn’. So my curiosity was piqued when I saw this article from CBSNews that discusses the science behind why caffeine causes the brain to continue working when it’s normally time for resting. There’s also some helpful tips near the end of the article for how to get better sleep at night. As for my in-laws, I guess I just married into a family of caf-fiends… (har har!)