More Pre-EB Wackaloonacy

 Last Friday I blinged my namebadge  for #EB10 (that’s the meeting’s twitter hashtag for those of you who do not yet tweet) with the usual stuff. To the left of my name is my twitter name (you can tell because @ precedes it). Below the word “University” lies the Nebraska “N” with the Cellular and Integrative Physiology logo superimposed. Completely against University Stylebook, but much cooler than anything official. In the lower right corner I stuck the APS logo to augment the boring “APS” printed below the barcode.

By far the best image falls to the right of my name; a larger version is shown here. These toasting kidneys were “appropriated” from a cool web site, I Heart Guts.

Here is the site’s own description:

I Heart Guts is the brainchild of an anatomically obsessed illustrator who loves internal organs and all they do. Founded in 2005, our little family operation (heh, heh, heh..ugh) strives to offer the best in stoopid slogans paired with happy gloppy guts. We like to think of the Guts as what you might find inside a dissected Hello Kitty.

The guts grew from a single drawing of a broken heart, after a string of bad hookups, dead-end relationships and lame-o boyfriends. At the time, I was also doing a lot of drinking and smoking, so a sad liver and bummed-out lung followed. Years later, my wonderful husband wondered, “Why don’t you do something with those darned guts?”

The site includes a lot of useful information about the function of various organs and glands, as well as a store with plush organs, tee shirts, and lapel pins (all of us bio-geeks need these; perhaps they should sell them at EB). The free e-cards just rock, especially this one featuring the bladder:

I will not have my plush kidney in time to take it to Anaheim (the site has a gallery for guts on vacation). But I will be wearing those kidneys over my heart.

More on the Twitter smack-down between Isis and Marty Frank in tomorrow’s post.