Oh, also?

Totally non-baby related:
This is an absolutely hilarious story. Read the first part of it here, and an update here.

The genetics experiment begins!

So! The secret is OUT. Brian and I have begun a little genetics experiment of our own, and its due on December 17! Thats right people, your blogger is preggers. Twelve weeks pregnant, in fact. How crazy is that? So crazy. Brian prefers to think of this as 'taking back the colonies for England, one baby at a time'. Either way, we're both dorks.

Still, even 12 weeks in, I can hardly tell I am pregnant. Not a whiff of morning sickness to be had. Its awesome. One morning right after we found out I did gag at the smell of raw eggs. And this weekend I totally threw up cranberry juice on the kitchen floor - although that was precipitated largely by coughing. Also, brushing my teeth has not yet failed to set off the gag reflex, which I don't really get. I mean, minty goodness! Come on! I'm shocked, actually. I am like the queen mother of digestive system ills, so I figured I'd be KNOCKED OUT with sickness. Hurrah for me!

(Ladies who were majorly sick - don't worry, I expect that I'll suffer with something else soon enough!)

My parents are of course super thrilled, as I'm the first in the family to procreate. Now they're busily trying to think of what they want to be called by their grandchildren. My father got the ball rolling with 'Sky King'. Actually, he was between 'Sky King' and something else that I can't think of now. I'm sure my mom can leave it in the comments section. My mom is thinking of 'Queen Mum'. Our children will have a hard time finding cards for their grandparents that say 'Happy Birthday Sky King, from your grandchild'. I guess they'll have to make their own.

The biggest bummer so far is the lack of wine. This is also of course the biggest giveaway. I got totally caught by one of my friends when I volunteered to drive to the beer festival, because that is completely unlike me. As far as beer goes, I get to drink the occasional O'Douls which, yeah. It sucks. But its passable.

Anyhow, thats our news! Yay us!

UPDATED: I asked my mom, and the other name my dad was thinking of wasa 'Pinball Wizard'. I don't know how that slipped my mind.

What, they're not real doctors?

A quick link:
The Fake Doctor's guide to Grey's Anatomy.

Jeez. Someone should get him to watch General Hospital. He'd have a field day.

Eurovision

Brian keeps me informed every year of whats going on in the Eurovision Song Contest. This is not something I had ever heard of here, but its a big exciting deal in Europe. Each country selects a song to represent them at the Eurovision contest (via an American Idol type voting system) and then someone wins. This year he was particularly interested in the Finnish entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, Lordi. He sent me their website a couple of weeks ago, where I saw their upcoming tour advertised: "Bringing Back the Balls to Finland". Hee. And here's an article about them on the BBC. Lord have mercy on Finland, indeed.

Anyhow, today I saw on GFY that they won the whole mamma-jamma. So I totally had to listen. Here you can see their performance in the Eurovision final:



Make sure you stick around for the end, where his wings come up and his battle axe starts spewing fire. Its excellent.
I also enjoyed this interview with Mr. Lordi, where he said:

“Sure, some fans have seen us without costumes. But they won’t take any pics. And I also don’t wear my stage costumes when I walk my dogs.”

You can fool some of the people some of the time...

This morning I was in the car, and the woman in front of me had a church-y bumper sticker that read:

Don't let my car fool you
My treasure is waiting for me in Heaven.

I'll tell you, her Kia didn't fool me. At. All.

If you are evil you will win

And never was this more true than last night, when my least favorite team EVAH won 'The Amazing Race'. Sure, in the past there have been plenty of hateable teams mostly due to their jerkiness. BJ and Tyler took my hate to a new level with their CONSTANT MUGGING FOR THE CAMERA and STUPID HIPPY SCHTICK. Every time their faces came on the screen my blood would start to boil, just waiting to hear whatever stupid crap came out of their mouths. And yet, today they are a million dollars richer. Ugh.

ANTM was slightly more satisfying, if only because Jade (most Evil contestant EVAH) got eliminated in the first half of the show. I still thought Joanie should win, but oh well.

So Becky, what did you think??

My night of TV

Look, I don't know what Amish is talking about with this whole 'No Appointment Viewing' thing. I do know that my ass will be FIRMLY planted in front of the TV tonight watching:
the two hour season finale of The Amazing Race featuring, as the finale usually does, a bunch of teams that I haaaaaaaate (notably BJ and Tyler and Eric and Jeremy) or don't really care that much about (Ray and Yolanda - though by the mere virtue of my not hating them, I'm rooting for them).

the finale of America's Next Top Model where I hope that Joanie wins, because I've loved her ever since this picture. However, I like Danielle too, so it will be ok if she wins. It will NOT be okay if Jade wins, because she is evil. Although, this also means that she has the luck of the evil.

a new episode of Lost, which I still think is the best show on TV.

Our DVR is going to be BURNING UP!

Everyone on the road is a moron

Today the alarm went off at 6 AM, as it usually does, but I was tired and didn't have any pressing need to get to work early, so I decided to sleep in until 8. Aaaah, lovely sleep. I didn't pull up to work until around 10, which seems late if you have a real job, but science people are all about the lateness, so its no problem. Since I work at a government lab, we have to go through this whole showing-your-ID rigamarole to get on the premises - you do this when you drive up. There are two lanes to drive through, but there was only a security guard at one, so there were two cars in front of me. The first car must have been a non-employee of some sort, and they have to go through much more to get in, so another security guard went over to the second lane and waved the car in front of me to go over there (I think, actually, I couldn't see what was going on because the car in front of me was a big SUV). All I knew was that the person in front of me put her car into reverse. So I started to get my car into reverse, but before I had she started BACKING UP! I laid on the horn, but this didn't stop her at all, because she continued until she backed into my car. Hooray. My poor car is taking so much abuse. I got out of the car and I was like 'What the hell are you doing??' and her excuse was 'I have something big in the back of the car so I couldn't see behind me.' So, you DON'T BACK UP, IDIOT. Its not like its unusual that there would be someone behind you at this ID check stop. If you can't see? Don't go! Or ask the security guy who is standing next to you! He knew I was there!

Anyhow, the car is okay really. Also, its difficult to tell because the front of the car is already messed up from my pre-Christmas rear-ending someone incident (which I still haven't gotten fixed, I KNOW).

Our wet weekend

Well, the weekend culminated yesterday in some torrential raining + hail excitement. Brian thought it would be nice to go to the Eno River State Park for a picnic lunch, so he packed up some bread, Parrano (best cheese on the planet!) and drinks and we drove out there with the dog. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas - it started to rain almost as soon as we got there. No problem - we opened the back of our Honda Pilot and sat in the back of the car picniking. Hee.

When we got home it continued to rain steadily, interspersed with several bouts of world-is-ending-type hailstorms. I don't remember seeing hail all that many times in my life, period. In the last month now, I've seen hail come down three times! Again, we really hoped that our stupid neighbors cars would get DESTROYED, but again, the hail wasn't big enough. Damn nature! Not as vindictive as me, apparently.

Okay those of you reading from NH and Mass. and saying - but we've got floods!! I'm not lookng for your sympathy. I did see Derry on the news today with regards to flooding. Oh, and my parents are on their way back north this week - just in time!!

In other news, the in-laws departed on Sunday morning, continuing their tour of the Great Motels of the Eastern Seaboard. Instead of visiting somewhere worth going (like Charleston or Savannah, which my parents and I both recommended), they again stopped 20 miles OUTSIDE of Savannah, with no intention of going TO Savannah. Their next purported stop is Daytona Beach, so I'm figuring that means a hotel 20 miles inland. Whatever floats their boat!

They were just as dorky 20 years ago.

I was just talking with my advisor, remisincing about college. We both went to the same college, you see, albeit probably 20 years apart. He was telling me a bunch of college stories that were pretty amusing. Two of them perfectly illustrate the dichotomy that is my alma mater (a dorky engineering school):

1. The Sigma Nu house used to hold Saturday night chess tournaments. Woo!
2. Panhel (actually, it probably wasn't panhel back then -there weren't really any NPC sororities on campus, were there?) and IFC sponsored a Century Club FUNDRAISER. You'd get sponsored per beer you drank, but you only had an hour.

I know, the drinking age was 18 back then. What an exciting time to be a college student!

Don't pretend like you didn't think of it too

I am not above laughing at inappropriately named birds. And I suspect you aren't either.

In fact, holy crap! There could be a blue tit crisis!

Most ungratifying presentation EVER

I just gave my journal club presentation to SEVEN PEOPLE.
I'm so glad I spent time working on it so that SEVEN PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE DEPARTMENT could bother to show up.

I HATE journal club.

I mean, I don't want to go to journal club any more than the next guy, believe me. But its ONCE A MONTH for NOT EVEN AN HOUR during LUNCH when you would be EATING ANYWAY and you could just EAT DURING JOURNAL CLUB.

Why even bother if no one is going to come? It doesn't help that none of the faculty go either. Today there was my boss and a friend of mine, and that was it. If the faculty don't make it seem like its important enough to attend, then no one in their labs will think its important either.

Bleh.

Other things that happened this week

This week is a busy one for me at work, I have to give journal club (haaaaate) and lab meeting later this week.

Brian's parents went to Kitty Hawk for a day (or possibly two) which I think they'll enjoy, especially in comparison to Fayetteville.

Karl was in Chapel Hill this weekend for a meeting, so we met up on Monday night for dinner, where we consumed $1.50 domestic drafts (and not just the crappy ones!) and Karl tried to convert me to Socialism.

We also had a good chromatin-y seminar at work and I learned how to change the bulb on the microscope. I know, its like non-stop excitement around here.

I finally bought our plane tickets to Herryn's July wedding, and let me tell you. I don't think North Dakota wants us to visit it. I'm serious, these plane tickets were more than what we generally spend to go to England. At Christmas. I did manage to get tickets into Grand Forks for a similar price as I could have into Fargo (which is apparently a bigger airport) so that was good. We just have a 4 hour layover in Minneapolis, but we'll live. I just got a Nintendo DS after all. We're looking forward to seeing everyone again - Kendra, who I haven't seen since our 10 year reunion, and Erin, who I haven't seen since sophomore year of high school!

Oh, and Brian planted my tomato plants, so I'm looking forward to some lucious tomato goodness.

And really? Thats about it.

A dorky video game post

I was reading updates from a video gaming conference where everyone's announcing their new stuff, and I saw news about three of my favorite games, Metroid, Dance Dance Revolution!, and Final Fantasy.

I still haven't finished the other two Metroid Prime games on GC, so I'm not in any hurry to get this new one, though I will eventually. I'm particularly enthused about FFXIII, although its hard to tell what its about. But it doesn't look like we're going to get any more from the Yuna/Rikku/Wakka/Lulu set, at least not from the trailer. I'm not particularly enthused to find that playing FFXIII is going to require a PS3, which is ridiculously expensive and so not going to happen.

Okay, dork mode off.

I bet they'll move back home after they graduate college

Oh! Another thing that happened this week is that the baby bluebirds seem to be leaving the nest. The other day we watched the mom and dad bluebird doing some crazy stuff around the bluebird box where the male would sit on top of the box and do some weird one-winged wing flapping, and the mom would go in and out of the box. At one point the mom went in and two birds flew out!

My mom told me to tell the bluebird babies that they were too little to leave the nest yet and they should stay a bit longer, but I think their mom said "Thats it!! Out! Get out!!" I don't think they're all out for good yet as the box seems to jiggle around a lot still, suggesting there are still bluebird babies hanging out inside. But I think an empty box is coming pretty soon, and perhaps a new clutch of eggs?

A neighborhood surprise

We were just at our neighborhood block party. We took Brian's parents over + a lot of beer (as did everyone else) (they didn't bring Brian's parents too, just the beer). I was chatting with a bunch of neighbors when one of them mentioned the lawyer who lives on our street. We don't really know him, but we see him around and say hi. Didn't know his name though. We just call him 'Popeye' because he's obviously a big fan of weight training. Anyhow, this neighbor says 'Yeah, he's a lawyer - and he just ran for District Court Judge!'

Huh?

It turns out that my buddy "Naughty" Nauseef lives ON MY FREAKING STREET. I kid you not. What are the chances? Slim. Supa-slim.

I still can't get over that. I wish I had known! I would have told him to get a new campaign manager!

Anyhow, too bad, but he lost.

Although, our wonderful District Attorney Mike Nifong won, so obviously the Durham voters are smoking crack. I was REALLY shocked by that, because I didn't think anyone thought he was doing a good job with this Duke rape case. Either you think he's a complete doofus and publicity whore for taking it so far so quickly with so little evidence (and a negative DNA result), or you think he's a complete doofus for not arresting the entire team immediately. I figured Durham-ites would be split into those two camps (at least it seems that way from the news coverage), neither of whom I expected to vote for him. And yet, he won. So what do I know?

This week - a montage

I've noticed that I'm posting less frequently, so each post ends up being a big mega-update.

Well, this one is no different.

This week has been super exciting. Last Saturday we went to the World Beer Festival in Raleigh with some friends from work. I graciously offered to drive, so my beer consumption remained relatively low, especially in comparison to everyone else at the event. Usually when there are a bunch of drunk people I am right there with them. This was one of a few times that I can think of where I've been completely sober while surrounded by drunk people and... hm. Things just aren't as funny when you're not drunk. Its especially easy to see this when you're surrounded not just by the four drunk people you're driving around, but the 500 bazillion other drunk people at the event. Also, its much easier to pee in a port-a-potty without completely grossing yourself out when you're drunk.

On Monday night, Brian's parents arrived from England. Well, actually, they arrived from Sarasota where they had first gone to visit my parents. They rented a car and drove up here over 2 days, ostensibly to stop on the way to see things. However, they stopped in Hardyville SC, where they went somewhere for dinner but were not allowed to drink alcohol because it was Sunday. And then on Monday they stopped in Fayetteville (Fayette-nam) and went to Pizza Hut. All in all, a rousing tour of the Southeast. In the grand tradition of in-law visits, we've put them to work. They powerwashed and stained the deck (with Brian) and next are installing a ceiling fan. We haven't really done too much exciting with them yet. On Monday we took them out to dinner, but that was a bit of a fiasco. We drove 25 minutes out to Hillsborough to go to a Mexican restaurant we liked, but it was closed (assuming because of the 'day without immigrants'). Then we drove 15 minutes to Chapel Hill to go to Crook's Corner and introduce them to some good Southern food, but that was closed for a private function. We ended up at the Carolina Brewery, which is fine, but by the time we got there it was 8:30 and we were all practically self-digesting. We planned to go to a Durham Bulls game this weekend, but the games are on Sunday and Monday and each night looks like it will rain, so we may put that off until later next week.

As if this was not exciting enough, we've also been moving our lab to a new space. Lab moves SUCK. In the past three years, I've been involved in three other lab moves (Cleveland to Duke, Duke Building 1 to Duke Building 2, and Duke Building 2 to Duke Building 3) and each of those has sucked in its own way. None more than the Cleveland to Duke move though. Anyhow, the moving process is GREATLY enhanced by proper planning. Our move this week was fairly poorly planned and thus was a complete free-for-all. I guess it mostly worked out in the end, but things aren't organized as well as they should be. Ah well. On the plus side, I now have:
a) my own phone!!
b) a big lab bench all of my own!
c) a hole in the lab bench where my knees can go when I'm sitting down (I know that doesn't sound like a luxury item, but I didn't have this in the old space. You try wearing a skirt and sitting at your lab bench like that)!

I was also suppossed to have a work band performance yesterday, but I ended up opting out. Of course, I did lug my saxophone into work before it became obvious that I wasn't going to play. I don't have one of the cool small shoulder bags for my alto like I did for my old tenor, I just have the humongous case it came with. Anyhow, this was suppossed to be a smaller group - myself, the trombone guy, and the piano guy - the work 'jazz combo' if you will (but its no 'Managers of Zayres'). I asked what music we were playing and the piano guy said he had some he would bring. Okay. Yesterday morning I thought to myself, "Twenty bucks says the guy just brings a piano book and thinks I'll be able to play off of that. Maybe I should bring my flute, just in case." See, for all you non-music people out there, instruments are tuned in different keys. So one instruments "C" is not anothers. Piano, flute, trombone... these are all in 'C', but the alto sax is in 'Eb'. So their C = my Eb. Anyhow. Back in the day I probably could have done this okay and transposed things in my head. But alas, that day was a long time ago, and there was no way in hell I was going to be able to do that. Indeed, the piano guy brought over a piano book. I tried to explain to him why I couldn't play along, because my instrument is in Eb, not in C. He truly did not get it, because he kept suggesting that we play songs that were written in the key of Eb, and then I would be fine. Its not like I'm only capable of playing songs with three flats, dude. Whatever. I just went back upstairs to the hell that is lab moving.

Anyhow, I better get going because this continues this morning when they'll migrate our computers over, and that happens in half an hour which, coincidentally is the amount of time it takes me to get to work!

Cow. Cow. Yep yep yep yep. Cow.

My brother sent me this video the other day. This is my favorite Sesame Street skit ever! I especially enjoy when they cover their faces with their lower lip. Click on it to play.