I don't think I mentioned that on Friday I picked up some 
Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches. One of the labs on campus had an oversupply so I picked up a few to pass along to one of the classrooms at school and to keep a few as a new BCRC mascot. They're pretty cool -- The adults are impressively large and prone to frequent hissy fits. They move slowly, so they're easy to handle. When I arrived at the lab, the fellow was removing mites: his colony has a lot of phoretic mites that don't appear to hurt the roaches, but he was removing them by putting the cockroaches in a bag with flour and gently shaking -- the shake-and-bake method, as he called it. He said that it causes the mites to lose their grip and drop off in the flour. In addition to several adults, I got a bunch of nymphs as well. I'll be interested to see how quickly they grow.
I've been working on the Muppyville moo. Since I have some students working on using the moo for their semester project, it's the perfect pretext for me to familiarize myself with the system. I began with moving around, then creating simple rooms and descriptions, and finally I'm beginning to create objects and program behaviors. I had found several good programming references, but not many code examples, so I was pleased to find a guide that provided some way easy examples including a parrot that "gets angry" if you poke it or pet it too much. The boys have been having a great time with Muppyville: wandering around, creating places and objects. Yesterday, Charlie said, "You know ... even though it's just words, it seems even more real than if it had pictures." I think this is a nearly universal realization (among literate people) and there is no greater testament to the power of language.
I saw half the class today working on their final projects. It's wonderful to see the creative ideas they've come up with and it's such a treat to have them trying to do stuff so that I can watch and help and kibbitz -- it's what I love doing best. I'm setting up moo things for one group, debugging PHP code for another group, pointing out a netlogo model for another group, and talking about ideas with another group. It's confusing and challenging and bewildering all at once. I love it.