Seasons Greetings /Top viral film from Alabama

Okay, I don't really care much for viruses of any kind. Computer viruses are nasty, human pathogenic viruses are no picnic, and there are some unsavory plant pathogens as well. Tobacco mosaic virus is one of them. But in the forests, viruses are not really known for being pathogens. In the forests, the fungi are pretty much the main players with the trees. But this video is the new, good(?) kind of viral,

Warning, you may find yourself humming about "just like a mini-mall" when you should be humming Christmas carols!


And in honor of the Holiday, here's a lovely image of jolly ol' St. Nick and some mushrooms. Thanks TV!

I'm still here, just been busy, y'all

Sorry for the long radio silence. Dead air is the bane of radio, and I imagine ignoring one's blog is a slippery slope to extinction.
Just got through with my written examinations for my prelims. Five eight-hour exams. Ouch. But they're done now and I'll have to wait until next year to see if I passed. Then, on to the oral exam. Lots of good fungal questions. Nerdly good fun.

That's just one excuse, the other really good excuse being the passing of my old laptop. I was backed up, kind of, so it still hurts a bit and I can't post any cool fungal photos now, unless...
no that didn't work. I'll try again later.

I took another stupid online test, and I am a cool nerd

This one at least made me chuckle a little bit. On the inside.

I took a stupid online test and Yes, I am a biologist

Are you also? Take the test, try it out. Who knows? Okay, my beef is that the author of the test has the typical zoocentric view of things. Only one question pertaining to fungi? (It's about kingdoms, how passe )
And about 5 of 30 about neurons and such. I'm not sure how long I'm going to leave that little test on here. Maybe I'll have to write up a mycology test. Are you a mushroom? Click here to find out!
Okay, rant over.

Check out this little gadget

I haven't been doing as much mycologizing as entomologizing recently. And on top of that, I've just been busy busy busy. So the cool item I'm posting has little to do with mycology or Alabama. If I may direct your attention to the bottom of the page (press "end" to take the short cut), you'll see a nifty little device for showing off all the states or countries you've visited, as I demonstrate. You can then click on this link, or the one at the bottom to create one for yourself.

I did get to see some interesting bugs and fungi on a trip to Florida last month, and hopefully I'll get some pix up soon.

Why didn't I eat the boletes?

Howdy y'all,
It's been a while, but here's an interesting cautionary tale which may explain why I didn't eat the boletes. As the wise old saw goes, "there are old mycologists, and there are bold mycologists, but there are few old, bold mycologists".

About Alabama and Fungi

Finally I've found a website that refers to Alabama and fungi which is not this one. Actually, it refers to one of my favorite fungally-derived products, beer. Not that I have anything against bread, I guess you could say I like fermentation in many forms (though definitely not all forms). Anyway, this site has some information on some of Alabama's rather obscure blue laws. For example, I didn't know that beer had to be below 6% alcohol, or that you can only buy containers smaller than 1 pint (and I'm not sure where kegs fit into the whole picture). These folks are trying to get the laws changed so we can buy half-litres of barleywine here, instead of in Georgia.