So how was your weekend? Mine blew chunks. First, Friday afternoon I come down with some fucking head cold. "IT'S NOT SWINE FLU," my boyfriend tells me every time I ask, BUT HOW WOULD HE KNOW? He's not qualified to rule out swine flu. He's not a doctor, you know, even if he does play one during certain role-play scenarios that I'm not allowed to write about, per his you-can't-write-about-our-sex-life fatwa. (He's actually not into medical role-play scenes; I only tossed that out there to throw snoopers off the scent. He's an adult baby.)

Okay. By yesterday afternoon I thought I was feeling well-ish enough-ish to get out of bed-ish and go see Zombieland with my son—his first R-rated movie, my first zombie flick since Sean of the Dead—but I was wrong. Modern zombie movies are loud and pounding headaches are fickle. You think it's nearly gone and then it comes roaring back when you trust your skull to the magic that is Dolby Surround Pound Whatever. (So how did that loud R-rated zombie flick work out for the kid? I'm pleased you asked: Zombieland wasn't all that violent, except for that scene where the zombie clown is dispatched with a sledge-hammer blow to the head. I empathized with the zombie clown. No sex, no boobies, thoroughly cartoonish gore. Zombieland wasn't a problem—the preview for Saw XXXXVIII, on the other hand, was extremely problematic.)

Came home from Zombieland, crawled back in bed, and only just got up to discover that... it's beautiful outside. And I'm too ill to go outside and enjoy it. Sick in the head, sick in the stomach—which is interfering with the work I brought home with me this weekend: writing up the short synopses for HUMP! films [GET YOUR TICKETS FOR THE PORTLAND SCREENINGS, WHICH I'M HOSTING, NOW], which requires me to watch some of these videos again... which are stacked up next to the bed... but I'm not in right place—I'm already nauseous—to watch HUMP! films or write up HUMP! films.

So I decide to read the paper, which the boyfriend left outside the bedroom door before taking off to enjoy the day with the kid. And I feel all miserable and dehydrated and hotzone and I'm feeling really sorry for myself and then I read this:

Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes. Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.

What was wrong with Ms. Smith? She ate a hamburger.

The frozen hamburgers that the Smiths ate, which were made by the food giant Cargill, were labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.” Yet confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.

And those scraps and ammonia-soaked mash are supposed to be tested for E. coli contamination... but aren't. Because some slaughterhouses won't sell meat to grinders that test for E. coli. And that's not illegal because the U.S. Department of Agriculture "allows grinders to devise their own safety plans." Sounds like a plan. And meat processors don't want to test for E. coli because, if it's found, that could trigger a recall. So lots of ground beef is only tested for fecal contamination when it reaches the mouths of American consumers: if someone gets sick, and if the illness can be traced back to a hamburger, then we'll do the recall.

Anyway. I'm glad I don't eat ground beef... very often. And I'm glad my kid doesn't... very often. And I'm no longer feeling sorry for myself, but rather feeling sorry for Ms. Smith.

And you know what? If we're not gonna have universal health care then we need an uncontaminated food supply. If we're going to have a contaminated food supply, then we need universal health care. But no health care and a contaminated food supply really seems like a bad plan. But I'm all hopped up on Theraflu, so... what do I know?

Scientists have discovered a man-sized fossil of a dinosaur that is essentially a 1/100th scale model of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. From the Smithsonian's website:

In this week’s edition of Science, an international team of scientists describes a new, diminutive precursor to the more familiar Cretaceous giants. It was discovered in approximately 130-million-year-old rocks in China. They have named it Raptorex kriegsteini.

At first glance you could be excused for thinking that Raptorex was the juvenile stage of one of the later tyrannosaurids. At only about 10 feet long, it had long, gracile legs, a slender-looking head, a large eye socket, and ridiculously small forelimbs which terminated in claws. While it was not quite a fully mature individual, it was not the juvenile stage of an already-known dinosaur. It was something scientists had never seen before, one that can tell us much about how its giant cousins evolved.

When a 25 year old French guy dropped the Mercury a line and asked if we'd be interested in talking to him about his hitchhiking tour around the world, I thought he was lying. But Frenchman Jeremy Marie has an elaborate binder of maps and photos of himself on camels and boats and he has a website, too, so as far as I can tell he's telling the truth. In 2007 Jeremy embarked on a project to travel around the world while paying $0 for transportation. Two years later he's made it to Portland via Mexico, Central America, Cape Town, Ethiopia, the Middle East and Southern Europe (in reverse order). Here's a condensed and edited interview with the expert couchsurfer.

• If you see this man, give him a lift and some fine brie

Were you ever surrounded by sharks?
No. Sea lions, dolphins but I was never lucky enough to see a shark.

Have you had any trouble getting rides in the U.S.?
When I cross the border from Mexico to Texas, I tried to get to San Antonio and it took three days. The area was grass and dry and I was tired. I found lifts, but it was only one mile, two mile. The thing of my project is to show that there are good people in every country. In Texas, the good people are more difficult to find.

Five more questions below the cut.

Hat tips to WTFoodge!

It's the kind of place where an old couple can run a roadside store called Cooterville.

Which itself is the kind of place where creepy ceramic unicorns go to die.

Our intern Rachael is having quite a tough time this summer, having taken off on a two-week trip around Europe. Because we pay her nothing, we insisted she continue to blog from abroad. Here’s her first post.

In Portland, I'm used to being accosted by skinny hipster kids asking for money to save the trees, save the children, save the ocean, save music in schools, save their mother. And when I lived in Florence as an exchange student last year, I got used to being accosted by other American kids passing out flyers for clubs, parties, and pub crawls. But last night, sitting on the patio of my favorite bar in Florence, I experienced something new. What they were peddling, I wasn't expecting.

The pouring rain had stopped, and sipping on my Martini Bianco, I was enjoying watching all the designer Italian shoes walk by. I noticed two pairs of identical shiny black pumps authoritatively walk up to a group of young men on the patio. I looked up. Two women with shiny black dresses and shiny black hair were giving some sort of spiel to the boys. Clearly they were taken in. Italian men are famous for their drooling over lovely women, so I would expect nothing less than full-on ogling when two thin, beautiful women wearing tight, shiny black everything approach them. Shiny black haired girl number one reached into her shiny black patent leather bag and passed around some little boxes. Smiles all around. The women moved onto another group.

What was going on? No flyers, no petitions, no exchange of money. I watched a few minutes longer until they hit up my table.

more after the jump!

Today as I was frantically searching for something interesting to post about, I found something even better: Harrison Ford.

The above web ad was so compelling, that even though I had no idea what Mr. Ford was supporting, I had to pause... “Wait. Harrison Ford supports it? The Harrison Ford? Then, you’re right, there is absolutely no reason I should not support this "it" you speak of. After all… 1.2 million jobs? Why, that’s a completely disassociated number that I can totally stand behind!”

Turns out that “actor, pilot” Harrison Ford is supporting general aviation and a petition that asks congress to re-think “a poorly conceived user fee plan.” I’m assuming that general aviation is all the aviation outside of big commercial and military aviation, and likely includes ultra-lights, para-gliders, and these guys…

You bet I’ll sign that petition. But that’s not the important part. The important part is that this web ad is so compelling, and so powerful, it could be used for just about anything. Check it.

This is a dress made of meat. Yes, actual meat. It was built by Jia Jem as a one time costume meant to be a riff on Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Some might balk at Jem’s use of meat in fashion. But that could all be solved by Harrison Ford:

See? Problem solved. In fact, you look into the sweet, soulful eyes of that sainted man and you think to yourself: “Give me a pattern and 50 pounds of sirloin. I’m making a freakin’ meat gown!”

Let’s try another example!

This is the amazing work of Slovania’s Slovenia's only jazz choir Perpetuum Jazzile. It’s hard to imagine that there would be anyone out there who would not enjoy the vocal stylings of Perpetuum Jazzile, especially after reading this sentence from their web page:

Happy faces give us energy and confirm that we are devoted to what we do with our hearts and souls.

But some people just don’t dig Toto, or jazz choirs. I’d like those people to consider the following:

You see? Now, aren’t you ready to watch that again? Not only watch it again, but move to Slovania Slovenia to join Perpetuum Jazzile, or at least follow them on their next tour? I know you are.

Thank you, Mr. Ford.

Despite living in the U.S. for my entire life — including the Midwest for four years — I have never, not once, ever touched a gun. Until today! I was hanging out in Hawker's Lockers pawn shop on 82nd Avenue for a story about the economy and, of course, conversation with the good-natured young woman behind the counter turned to her surprising love of guns. While some reports says gun sales spiked dramatically before and after the election, the Hawkers Lockers workers say they haven't seen any difference. According to pawn shop employees, you should forget the stock market. Gold and guns are your surest investment bets, since (at least in this country) they never depreciate in value. "Though a few weeks ago, I was at Dutch brothers and the coffee guy started asking me about where I work," offered Cassie, the young woman, "He said he wanted to buy a gun before the 'Barackolypse'!"

I asked Cassie to show me her favorite gun in the store. The walls and counters were lined with rifles and handguns, but Cassie headed straight to the back and brought out this $1200 semi-automatic Bushmaster. "I was that little redneck girl who just liked guns," she explained, looking over the huge gun and then handing it to me. Oh geez.

Why have I never touched a gun? Because I'm terrified of them. Everyone talks about media desensitizing kids to violence but I think growing up on Terminator and True Lies has made me possibly more wary of guns: if there's one in the room, it means SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE. The gun wasn't heavy and it looked like a prop, but I still can't wrap my head around why it's acceptable for someone to walk into a store and buy a Bushmaster any day of the week.

"Can this be like a hunting gun?" I asked. Cassie and the other worker, an older guy named William, laughed. "That's not an animal gun!" said William.
"What's the totally legitimate, non gang-banger reason for owning one of these?" I asked, my finger on the trigger. Cassie shrugged. "There isn't one."

The crew got a kick out of my gun jitters and a minute later I looked up and William was aiming a fancy sniper gun at me, a red laser sight beam dancing over my sweater. "You see that dot on you?!" William laughed. haHA!

Last night saw another installment of the OMSI After Dark program, where the museum stays open for extended hours for those 21 and up. Beer and wine were served, and free vodka samples were given away (one per person, although each sample confusingly required two tickets to redeem). It's a good opportunity for those who like science but don't like children. Judging by last night's packed attendance, there are a lot of people who fall into this category.

Now, unlike a certain movie would have you believe, the museum does NOT come alive at night. No Egyptian mummies brought to life, or kindly bespectacled Teddy Roosevelts as played by Robin Williams, or T-Rex skeletons comically maurading the premises. Instead, almost all of OMSI's regular exhibits were on display without much enhancement. The most fun part was the physics room, filled with toys, gadgets, whizmos, and whirligigs, like that shocky ball thing that stands your hair up on end, or the fan tunnel that you can stick a paper cup on top of and watch it shoot up in the air. But again, the place was utterly packed, and you're trading the presence of little kids running around for a mob of adults. I'd say it's a fair trade-off, in that you can play to your heart's content with all of the whatsits without feeling self-conscious or looking creepy.

The Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, including "Secrets of the Mona Lisa," however, I thought was a bust. It was pretty slow going, with the first part showing endless wooden replicas of possible inventions from da Vinci's sketchbooks. You could only touch a small fraction of them, and many of them weren't that interesting. The Mona Lisa part was even more tedious, with facsimiles of giant zoom-ins of various parts of the painting, shown through different lenses (infrared, etc).
There was one useful replica, that showed how the painting might have looked in da Vinci's day (brighter, bluer), and I got the sense that the painting's mystery and fame is largely due to its deterioration over the years: It began life as a beautiful but perhaps not all that exceptional work, and grew stranger and murkier as it got older. Even her mysterious, all-seeing eyes were at one time vibrant, aimed in a single direction. But in the end, it was frustrating to wade through all this hype and promotion about a painting that is actually located thousands of miles away.

Still, the science-y stuff was fun, and although I doubt you'll learn much, it's a good way to see OMSI when it's not flocked by kids.

OMSI After Dark continues on the fourth Wednesday of every month, from 6-10 pm; upcoming dates include April 22, May 27, June 24, and July 22; $10

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, enjoy this documentary footage about Leprechauns. They're soooooo cute.

1) Andy Richter will be joining Conan O'Brien as the new Tonight Show announcer—so will you people PUH-LEEZE stop acting like Conan's dead or something?

2) According to a CNN poll, 44 percent of you think tonight's speech from President Obama will be "good." That's somewhat down from his inaugural address when 72 percent of you predicted you'd "shit your pants."

3) The world now has Cheez-It Scrabble tiles!

4) Hey everyone I've ever dated! A dentist in Florida has invented something that will hopefully make you stop complaining about giving me a blowjob.

5) I look amazingly like Virgin CEO Richard Branson when he's wet!

Because I know that most of you didn't go to church today—your souls are most likely damned to hell anyway—I thought I'd give you a bit of that old time religion from 1799 1874 1914.

I'm fairly certain that there aren't any Jehovah's Witnesses trolling Blogtown (and if there are, can I interest you in reading our free publication?), but I must say, their Jesus is a badass. A winged badass, at that. I'm sure that if he threw down against He-Man, Jesus would most likely win.

Also, does this animation remind anyone else of Heavy Metal?

Maybe it's just me...

Not having the internet at home, I get utterly (and unproductively) consumed in the glory that is the World Wide Web when I get the chance—and as the Mercury's newest intern, now I get all the chances in the world! Of course, the best thing about the internet is once you leave the safety of e-mail or a respectable news/entertainment source (a-hem), it becomes a labyrinth of lost time. I couldn't tell you how I came to discover these things, but I became quickly and completely obsessed with my findings.

1) Clocky the Robotic Alarm

Clocky is the brainchild of an engineering student. The beauty in this alarm is that once it goes off, it then proceeds to leap off your night stand or whathaveyou, then rolls about your floor making unexpected turns as it roams the room (carpet and hardwood compatible). This whole time Clocky is still making noise, forcing its owner to then get out of bed, hunt it down and turn it off. To better understand how awful a way this would be to wake up, click here. I wake up everyday to something gallivanting about making obnoxious noise too; but in my case it's a rabid squirrel on my uninsulated roof, and unlike Clocky I don't get to choose what time this horrid creature will ruin my REM.

p.s. It's between $50 and $60. I'm sorry what? I truly wonder what this engineering student is doing now.

2) Singing Valentines from Pride of Portland Chorus

Ever since I saw Beaches, the 1988 hit chick-flick staring Bette Midler, I have been harboring the desire to send and/or receive a singing telegram (Remember, she dressed up as a scary giant rabbit? "Happy Birthday Bunny Boy!" ...wait, what?). This may become a reality for me if I'm financially stable enough to cough up the $35+ (only $10 for a singing phone call) in time for the Big Day. A quartet will sing to your honey (I'd still take one person dressed as a Donnie Darkoesque bunny over four people in perfect harmony) and you can even pay extra to have them bring roses. The performances will ensue on Friday the 13th (scary bunny?) and Saturday the 14th.

Mrs. Midler herself with John Heard, the man to whom she sang while in costume...the other chick stole him right from underneath her big nose.

Couldn't find a picture of Bette in Bunny form. She must be ashamed. Compare with plain Bette.

Meanwhile, and I'm just putting this out there, if any of our readers want to fulfill my telegram fantasy...I won't object. I'm here on Fridays.

Over and out.

The only way I've found to deal with the malaise that comes from it being unbearable outside is to curl up with something addictive inside. Yes, obsession cures all, even other obsessions (I've checked), and there's nothing safer to get addicted to then serialized drama. TV on DVD is basically my go-to anti-depressant. That single pair of footsteps in the sand? It's not Jesus, kids, it's Chuck Bass carrying you when you can't carry yourself. 24, Alias, The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, Gossip Girl- they've all been good friends to me in times of need.

I'd feared that I was running out of obvious go-to shows, but thankfully a new obsession fell in my lap right when I needed it: those freaking Twilight books. They are horribly written and overwritten at that, and are basically incredibly stupid. But somehow the love story between little Bella Swan and her 200 year old vampire lover has got me staying up all night to see What Happens Next and is happily taking my mind off other, more (de)pressing matters. Success!

Anyway, the kids next door probably have the whole series, so trade them for a candy bar and get cracking. Your life will in no way be enriched. But you'll be obsessed with this saga of teenage lovers for a hot second, and who wouldn't want that.

In the future your studio apartment wont suck so bad. In fact, it could even be desireable.

Get a load of this shit: 24 Rooms in one. Moving walls—bedroom, living room, wet bar, library, whatever else, all transmutable in the same space. Good God. This is so awesome it might even be worth the Soylent Green breakfast, lunch and dinner...

View the slide show of Hong Kong architect Gary Chang's brilliant creation or read the story, "24 Rooms in One".

Perhaps you're not one to make resolutions about getting in shape, or you've grown fond of the extra girth acquired during the cocktail parties and butter-based meals of the season. Maybe you're just realistic about managing your expectations. Well then, I give you the Waistband Stretcher:

When your waistband feels too snug, reach for the Waistband Stretcher. You don't have to get rid of your favorite jeans, skirts or slacks thanks to this simple waist-band stretching device that lets you add from 1-5 inches (depending on size of garment) to the waist of cotton pants, skirts, and shorts. Just moisten the garment's waistband, insert the waistband stretcher, extend the garment to the desired size and let dry - voila, a more comfortable fit! Easier and more economical than taking tight-waisted clothes to the tailor for alterations. The Waistband Stretcher is constructed of durable plastic, and can be adjusted to fit waist-bands from 21" to 45 inches. Order today and make those clothes comfortable again!