The egg was first.

So, according to CNN, the chicken and egg question has been solved.

The article says a geneticist, chicken-farmer, and philosopher have agreed that it was definitely the egg that came first. This is because genetic material doesn't change throughout an animal's life, so the first chicken must have come from an egg that contained some slightly mutated DNA.

Wow. I always say it was the chicken. This is because chicken tastes better than eggs.

updates

Not much new to report over the last couple of days.  I'm digging into a summer of full-time researching and, so far it's tough to get motivated.  

I'm still waiting to hear for sure if they car is totaled.   We are thinking about what do about getting a car.  One possible choice is a Honda Fit.  It's new to the US this year, although it's been selling well in other countries as the Honda Jazz.

Today is the first game of the summer intramural softball season.

M and I are planning to travel to Prince Edward Island, Canada after our wedding.   We haven't booked anything yet.  We planned to drive up there, but now we have no car.    Most likely that will be worked out in some way before July.   Recently, M and I have been watching old videos of Anne of Green Gables, which is based in PEI. 

I wonder if all the recent immigration protests in the US are really helping.   It is bringing a lot of attention to the issue and lighting a fire under the people who think "all laws should be enforced".    Of course, these people don't believe that the federal wiretapping laws should be also be enforced.  Americans seem to be especially good at having extremely strongly held, yet conflicting beliefs.   I suppose you can find examples of double standards in many cultures.

It seems that the immigration system was better a few years ago (before 9/11) when it's faults were swept under the rug.  People could get into the country and leave with an enormous amount of trouble.  The path to a green card or even a visa was somewhat murky, but do-able.  Now there is constant harassment of people trying to enter the country by the INS.  "are you a terrorist???" When my colleague came to work with us from Taiwan, his visa was delayed for 5 weeks to make sure he wasn't a terrorist or a 'threat' to immigrate.   The USA would be lucky if he did immigrate.   

Tomorrow I have jury duty in Boston at 8AM.  This is my first time.   I was called for jury duty in Colorado once.  I delayed it, but they never called me again.

I planted my tomatoes a couple of weeks ago.   Right before the rainstorm.. they seemed to have survived.  I'll post some pictures soon.  I also planted some herbs and a jalapeño plant.

Goodbye, faithful car.

Here's the interior of my car. Unfortunately my camera battery died soon after taking this one picture.

I went over to A&B towing today to get my stuff out of the car. Unfortunately, it's much worse than just a missing engine. They took nearly everything from under the hood: the engine, the radiator, the distributor, the clutch... When you look under the hood you basically see straight through to the ground. I wish I had a photo, because it's quite dramatic. They even took a 4-year-old battery and all the belts and hoses. My aluminum wheels and tires were also gone. However, the thieves were nice enough to replace them with cheap-o rusty wheels from an 80's honda civic. I think the only thing left behind was a windshield wiper fluid reservoir. Oh, and the windshield wipers themselves. Totally sucks. There is no chance of repairing this car. As you can see in the picture, they even took the shifter knob.

This was a great car. I am pissed off and sad at the same time.

my car was found, but...

it has no engine.

I got a call from the Police tonight.   They told me that my car was found at 25 Business St., Hyde Park.  It was towed by A&B Towing.   The police officer said he was told there was "some engine damage".  He told me to call the towing company.  I called them and they said, "engine damage? there's no engine."

There's a good chance the car will be totaled.  I will visit it tomorrow.

More updates later.

Dude, where's my car?

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning someone stole my car from right behind my house.  It was parked in our designated spot.    It's been reported to the police and my insurance has set me up with a Nissan Altima while I wait to see if it turns up. 

I am remorseful.  I paid for that car with my own money soon after I started my first job and I really feel very attached to it.   It's in great shape and I have carefully maintained it for 7 years.  It has 119,000 miles on it, and I hoped to keep it for at least 3 more years.  This is the 5th time I've been robbed in the last 10 years.  Two years ago some thieves took the distributor (an $800 part) from this car while it was parked on my street.   It's frustrating.  The sad part is that after a while I am getting used to this.

My insurance agent says that 80% of stolen cars turn up in two weeks, so I have to wait until then for them to pay out.     However, the guy from Enterprise rent-a-car told me that from time-to-time some organized crime group steals a large number of Acuras and Hondas are all in one night and drives them to Canada.  Once they cross the border they are loaded on freighters to be resold in Asia.   It seems a little bit of a complex operation for my '95 Acura Integra.  I have a feeling that the same people who stole my distributor two years ago needed more parts.  I just hope it doesn't come back totaled.

Well.  In other news, I'm almost done with the semester.  This incident has put a damper on my push to the finish, but what can you do.

Red Sox-Yankees

Yesterday I was lucky enough to score some tickets to the first Red Sox-Yankees game of the year. My friend Hilary got the tickets from a business contact... Luckily (for me) her fiance had to work late so I got to go! The fans were all hyped up for this one. It was the first game in Boston for Johnny Damon. He was booed at first, then he tipped his helmet to fans in the crowd and got a mixture of boos and cheers. I think the fans still appreciate what he did for us for four great years, but now he is a Yankee and things are different now.

The sox won 7-4. David Ortiz sealed the deal with a three-run monster homerun to the bullpen which felt like it took like a minute to come down.

The Red Sox made a last minute trade yesterday. Tim Wakefield was pitching and Josh Bard, the backup catchter they were training to replace Mirabelli, was having a lot of trouble this year. I think he had 10 passed balls in the month of April. The sox made a trade to get Mirabelli back just in time for the game. He flew into Logan Airport and was picked up by a black SUV and a police escort. He changed in the car and got to the field by 7:13pm just in time to catch Wakefield's first knuckleball. Only in Boston would city police provide such a service!

Some great screen captures from the evening news (captured by some dude on SonsOfSamHorn):