I was at the Italian fest for a little while yesterday with great company, a friend from I haven't seen since highschool/early college- it was entertaining to catch up with him. Good stuff! We enjoyed a giant slice of pizza and a cup of lemonade while playing a few games.

I was given the fish won (from tossing ping pong balls successfully into little glass bowls).

Meet: "Fluffysimo" (originally "fluffy" for all of two seconds then I was interrupted with, "Fluffy?!?! we're at the Italian fest, Carey- they need names in honor of the festival" so I proceeded with naming them, Fluffysimo) and "Cannoli".

I don't imagine they will live long, I have yet to see one stick around for more than a couple of days.




Please live little gold feeder fish. Please kitties don't eat them. That is not a bowl of fish soup.

As well as having the honor in selecting a large stuffed animal after getting the dart into the approved section of the board. I didn't even try the game, as my dart skills are more likely to injure someone than actually win anything. Alas, the giant, flat, pillow-like (and super soft) stuffed pug brought me quite a bit of humor (it is by far bigger than any real pug could ever hope to be).





But even more so, the real reason behind this post, was the humor in what I spotted among all the stuffed animals and other trinkets I saw spread out for prizes....

This is a sweet picture. The man behind the counter, collecting money, a partial display of stuffed animals.. and one more thing..

take a look--(edit)back row counter, which item does not belong?



is that one of the prize options? ;)


that was one huge bottle of pills- just out in the open.. crazy!

So I imagine tonight will be insane at TATS...

Seems more people I know are going, than not.

curious.. are you going?

I haven't hit up a TATS concerts yet, so if I am going to go, this is thee one!

There are only two more after this one, too. So many changes..

For those into HP, the new movie comes out tomorrow! finally!

Well, I am going to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince tonight at 11:59pm at the Regal theater on Niagara Falls Blvd (right off the 190, Home Depot lot). In case anyone is itching to go and does not have to be up super early, please join! (e:pyrcedgrrl) and I will be there with our wands and long trailing Hogwarts scarves.

"Not!"

(I'm a fan, but not that much a fan!)

I would normally see it at the IMAX, but I believe it isn't going to be there for a couple of more weeks? yes, I know, what is waiting a little while longer after waiting TWO years to see this FINALLY come to the theater? Nothing..

but I want to see it NOW! and I rarely get to the theater..

so, tonight 11:59 :)

hehe

I read the books, and as the characters and story becomes more mature and involved, I am glad to see the movies going along with it. From the few trailers I have seen, this movie should not disappoint. Looks creepy :)

The Body Worlds exhibit will be hosted at the Buffalo Museum of Science. It begins July 9th. The exhibit will be available for 13 weeks- through September, early October

Buffalo Museum of Science
1020 Humboldt Pky
Buffalo, New York 14211
Monday - Saturday     9 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Sunday     11 a.m. - 7 p.m.

I believe it is $22.00, however, there are $3.00 coupons available at Wilson Farms (just ask cashier) and in Artvoice, both online and in the paper.

There are deep discounts for Students (with ID) and Seniors 62+
Also, children rates.

Anyone planning on going? You should, it looks amazing!

It is 'Body Worlds 3 and The Story of the Heart'


for an idea of what it is about..




Real bodies!
Preserved with "plastination"

Plastination is a technique used in anatomy to preserve bodies or body parts. The water and fat are replaced by certain plastics, yielding specimens that can be touched, do not smell or decay, and even retain most properties of the original sample

Pics snagged from Google images:




For anyone thinking about going, there is a discount for groups of 15 or more.
following text boxes contain information taken from the Buffalo Museum of Science website:
[box]
Groups of 15 or more are welcome to purchase tickets to BODY WORLDS at the group rate if purchased in advance. BODY WORLDS & The Story of the Heart are "timed tickets," valid only for a specified admission date and time.It takes an average of 1-2 hours to go through the exhibit; therefore the last ticket will be sold an hour and a half before the exhibit closes. Visitors are encouraged to arrive 15 - 30 minutes prior to the time printed on their ticket, particularly on weekends.Minimum group size of 15 is required to be eligible for group rates.
Adult (Ages 19+)     $17.50
BODY WORLDS HOURS BEGINNING JULY 9
Monday - Saturday     9 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Sunday     11 a.m. - 7 p.m.

PLEASE NOTE: The last BODY WORLDS ticket is sold from the BMS Box Office an hour and a half before the exhibit closes for the day. Due to anticipated crowds, we highly recommend that tickets are purchased online in advance. Visitors are encouraged to arrive 30 minutes prior to the time printed on their ticket.[/box]

About Dr. Gunther von Hagens- inventor of Plastination and creator of Body Worlds:
[box]
Gunther von Hagens' life reads like an archetypal scientist's resume-distinguished by early precocity, scholarship, discovery, experimentation, and invention. It is also the profile of a man shaped by extraordinary events, and marked by defiance and daring.

Von Hagens' two year imprisonment by East German authorities for political reasons, his release after a $20,000 payment by the West German government, his pioneering invention that halts decomposition of the body after death and preserves it for didactic eternity, his collaboration with donors including his best friend, who willed and entrusted their bodies to him for dissection and public display, and his role as a teacher carrying on the tradition of Renaissance anatomists, make his a remarkable life in science.

Anatomist, inventor of Plastination, and creator of BODY WORLDS-The Original Exhibitions of Real Human Bodies-von Hagens (christened Gunther Gerhard Liebchen) was born in 1945, in Alt-Skalden, Posen, Poland-then part of Germany. To escape the imminent and eventual Russian occupation of their homeland, his parents placed the five-day-old infant in a laundry basket and began a six-month trek west by horse wagon. The family lived briefly in Berlin and its vicinity, before finally settling in Greiz, a small town where von Hagens remained until the age of 19.

As a child, he was diagnosed with a rare bleeding disorder that restricted his activities and required long bouts of hospitalization that he says, fostered in him a sense of alienation and nonconformity. At age 6, von Hagens nearly died and was in intensive care for many months. His daily encounters there with doctors and nurses left an indelible impression on him, and ignited in him a desire to become a physician. He also showed an interest in science from an early age, reportedly "freaking out" at the age of twelve during the Russian launch of Sputnik into space. "I was the school authority and archivist on Sputnik," he said.

In 1965, von Hagens entered medical school at the University of Jena, south of Leipzig, and the birthplace of writers Schiller and Goethe. His unorthodox methods and flamboyant personality were remarkable enough to be noted on academic reports from the university. "Gunther Liebchen is a personality who does not approach tasks systematically. This characteristic and his imaginativeness, that sometimes let him forget about reality, occasionally led to the development of very willful and unusual ways of working-but never in a manner that would have harmed the collective of his seminary group. On the contrary, his ways often encouraged his fellow students to critically review their own work."

While at the university, von Hagens began to question Communism and Socialism, and widened his knowledge of politics by gathering information from Western news sources. He later participated in student protests against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops. In January, 1969, in the guise of a vacationing student, von Hagens made his way across Bulgaria and Hungary, and on January 7th, attempted to cross the Czechoslovakian border into Austria and freedom. He failed, but made a second attempt the very next day, at another location along the border. This time the authorities detained him. "While I was in detention, a sympathetic guard left a window open for me so that I could escape. I hesitated and couldn't make up my mind, and that decision cost me a great deal," he says. Gunther von Hagens was arrested, extradited to East Germany, and imprisoned for two years. Only 23 years old at the time, the iconoclastic von Hagens was viewed as a threat to the socialist way of life, and therefore in need of rehabilitation and citizenship education. According to the prison records for Gunther Liebchen, "The prisoner is to be trained to develop an appropriate class consciousness so that in his future life, he will follow the standards and regulations of our society. The prisoner is to be made aware of the dangerousness of his way of behaving, and in doing so, the prisoner's conclusions of his future behavior as a citizen of the social state need to be established."

Thirty-six years after his incarceration, Gunther von Hagens finds meaning and even redemption in his lost years. "The deep friendships I formed there with other prisoners, and the terrible aspects of captivity that I was forced to overcome through my fantasy life, helped shape my sense of solidarity with others, my reliance on my own mind and body when denied freedom, and my capacity for endurance. All that I learned in prison helped me later in my life as a scientist."

In 1970, after West Germany's purchase of his freedom, von Hagens enrolled at the University of Lubeck to complete his medical studies. Upon graduation in 1973, he took up residency at a hospital on Heligoland-a duty free island where the access to cheap liquor resulted in a substantial population of alcoholics. A year later, after obtaining his medical degree, he joined the Department of Anesthesiology and Emergency Medicine at Heidelberg University, where he came to a realization that his pensive mind was unsuitable for the tedious routines demanded of an anesthesiologist. In June 1975, he married Dr. Cornelia von Hagens, a former classmate, and adopted her last name. The couple had three children, Rurik, Bera, and Tona.

In 1975, while serving as a resident and lecturer-the start of an eighteen year career at the university's Institute of Pathology and Anatomy-von Hagens invented Plastination, his groundbreaking technology for preserving anatomical specimens with the use of reactive polymers. "I was looking at a collection of specimens embedded in plastic. It was the most advanced preservation technique then, where the specimens rested deep inside a transparent plastic block. I wondered why the plastic was poured and then cured around the specimens rather than pushed into the cells, which would stabilize the specimens from within and literally allow you to grasp it."

He patented the method and over the next six years, von Hagens spent all his energies refining his invention. In Plastination, the first step is to halt decomposition. "The deceased body is embalmed with a formalin injection to the arteries, while smaller specimens are immersed in formalin. After dissection, all bodily fluids and soluble fat in the specimens are then extracted and replaced through vacuum-forced impregnation with reactive resins and elastomers such as silicon rubber and epoxy," he says. After posing of the specimens for optimal teaching value, they are cured with light, heat, or certain gases. The resulting specimens or plastinates assume rigidity and permanence. "I am still developing my invention further, even today, as it is not yet perfect," he says.

During this time, von Hagens started his own company, BIODUR Products, to distribute the special polymers, equipment, and technology used for Plastination to medical institutions around the globe. Currently, more than 400 institutions in 40 countries worldwide use Gunther von Hagens' invention to preserve anatomical specimens for medical instruction. In 1983, Catholic Church figures asked Dr. von Hagens to plastinate the heel bone of St. Hildegard of Bingen, (1090-1179), a beatified mystic, theologian, and writer revered in Germany. His later offer to perform Plastination on Pope John Paul II foundered before serious discussions.

In 1992, von Hagens married Dr. Angelina Whalley, a physician who serves as his Business Manager as well as the designer of the BODY WORLDS exhibitions. A year later, Dr. von Hagens founded the Heidelberg-based Institute for Plastination, which offers plastinated specimens for educational use and for BODY WORLDS, which premiered in Japan in 1995. To date, the exhibitions have been viewed by more than 27 million people, in cities countries across Europe, Asia, and North America. His continued efforts to present the exhibitions, even in the face of opposition and often blistering attacks are, he says, the burden he must bear as a public anatomist and teacher. "The anatomist alone is assigned a specific role-he is forced in his daily work to reject the taboos and convictions that people have about death and the dead. I myself am not controversial, but my exhibitions are, because I am asking viewers to transcend their fundamental beliefs and convictions about our joint and inescapable fate." Apparently determined to exhaust the limits of living in freedom, Dr. von Hagens has made a concerted effort to travel and propagate his interests around the globe. He accepted a visiting professorship at Dalian Medical University in China in 1996, and became director of the Plastination research center at the State Medical Academy in Bishkek/Kyrgyzstan. In 2001, he founded a private company, the Von Hagens Dalian Plastination Ltd., in Dalian, China, which currently employs a staff of 250. In 2004, Dr. von Hagens began a visiting professorship at the New York University College of Dentistry. He is currently in the process of designing the first anatomy curriculum in the United States that will use plastinated specimens in lieu of dissection.

Gunther von Hagens' BODY WORLDS exhibitions are currently showing in North America. "The human body is the last remaining nature in a man made environment," he says. "I hope for the exhibitions to be places of enlightenment and contemplation, even of philosophical and religious self recognition, and open to interpretation regardless of the background and philosophy of life of the viewer." [/box]

I've been intrigued for some time, and it is exciting that Body Worlds is here. Some people find it controversial and disturbing. I'm simply curious..

you?

Just thinking over some summer plans.. such as which events, activities, foods, drinks, and so on that I feel more motivated to pursue. My schedule has changed a bit, and I feel like I am reacquainting myself among the living. Over nights.. sucked (for lack of better word). Anyway, it is now July and the time can slow way down.

Speaking of down.. I'm down for some sushi.

almost anywhere..

but have any of you been to Ichiban?

It is on Sheridan, I believe.

I rarely remember the name as it is supposed to be said as I usually call it, "itchy bum" whenever I hear it.

I was there once, sort of recently. (e:pyrcedgrrl) took me there at the conclusion of a long thought out decision. 'Sushi Therapy'' is always a welcome gesture. Of course, I would like to go back under more relaxed conditions.

I used to go to Kunis (of course) and some others whose names allude me. Oh, and Koi, at the Casino (good friends, good times, damn, so much time has passed). Havent been there in a few years though.

Last several months had left me grabbing food when and where I could. Not a whole lot of dining out at interesting and yummy places. Overall, I prefer to cook or cook with someone, or have someone have me over for dinner.. but finding somewhere to eat is always welcome too.

ok, enough about food!

So summer stuff planned so far:

• I've got a camp out that I am attending at the end of the month at a friends country property. I need to double check my camping supplies!

• There are some TAT concerts I'd like to go to, along with ones at Art Park and Molsen Canal Series (is that the name?), that is now in Lockport. I think Our Lady Peace is this Friday. I need to write this stuff down.

• There are a few movies.. not a fan of going to the theater, but heading to the drive-in once or twice will be fun, along with a couple if IMAX flicks (Harry Potter- finally!) (NOT Transformers!) I have an Ice Age movie ticket that I hope to use soon.

• Dali &, Bodyworld.. and getting reacquainted with area museums and galleries. Especially free ones :)

• swimming, hiking, biking, long walks, the usual active fare- preferably a few planned outings with friends, but I often head out solo due to my spontaneous & adventurous nature.

• photography jaunts

• chilled out good times with friends, old and new.

• camping again.. but somewhere such as Green Lake out in Syracuse (and maybe Allegany, Letchworth, or Stoney Brook come late summer, early fall- love camping in the fall, but lets not think that far ahead!).

• visit my families country home in Esopus then head to the city home for a couple of days. Need some H&H bagels!

• maybe a spontaneous jaunt for bagels (or whatever-i'm not bagel obsessed, just fun to go some distance for something kind of random- doesn't have to be food, either. mmm) before then. I enjoy destination-less drives more than a pre determined one, but I am open to anything.

• might have a garage sale.. but only one day, two at the most. I keep saying this, but it is not something I am enthusiastic to organize.

What else should be on my list?

der.. (e:ladycroft) and (e:rory) shindig! WOOOO can't wait!