Magazine Billing Services - a total con (mostly)

This is an FYI for everyone, so that you don't get caught like we did. Okay, this is not a TOTAL con, because I mean, I do get the magazines. It would be a total con if also, I got no magazines. But here's what I mean...

I have subscriptions to several magazines. Occasionally in the mail, I get something that looks like a bill for renewal. I never know whether Brian has done this or not (even though I've gotten them before), so I leave them out for him. And I keep getting the magazines, so I'm guessing it gets renewed. Yesterday he checked back through the checkbook and saw that he had renewed one particular magazine FOUR TIMES in the last year, three of which were for three year subscriptions. One of the years is up this month, but I still have NINE YEARS remaining on my subscription, to the tune of about $200. The hell? The bills are coming from Magazine Billing Services, and evidently they just indiscriminately send these 'bills' to you (4 times this year? And thats only the ones we paid. I'm pretty sure we've gotten more than 4 of these.) regardless of where you are in your current subscription. On the back, if you turn it over, it does say that "This is a magazine subscription offer not a bill or invoice. You are under no obligation to buy or renew at the time". On the front though, it looks very much like a legitimate renewal form.

Okay, so I can just see a story like this going up on some website like The Consumerist, and every commentor saying "Moron. This is totally your own fault." Which, it totally is. We should have kept track of when we had paid for subscriptions and how long they were good for. Brian probably should have twigged that he had paid for three year renewals three times already this year. The thing is, he sits down with a pile of bills and goes through and pays them. And I'm sure thats what this company is hoping for: you'll just blindly sit down and pay them, because it sure looks like a bill.

I haven't gotten to call the Customer Service phone number yet because they're only open M-F, but I'm going to call tomorrow. I don't expect that they're going to do anything for me though. On the back of the "bill" it says "All orders are fully cancelable by calling our toll-free number within 168 hours from the time the order is placed (which is pretty arbitrary I think, considering that you mailed your payment in. 168 hours starting from when?). After that, in most cases, cancellations will not be accepted. If a cancellation is accepted, it will be subject to a $20 processing fee (so, basically, the price of a 1 year subscription)." I'm thinking I'm not going to be able to get any of these subscriptions cancelled, but I can at least verify that I have NINE YEARS remaining on my subscription, and tell them to TAKE MY NAME OFF THEIR MAILING LIST, FOR GODS SAKE.

Hello, I'm pregnant!

Up until now, I didn't really look all that pregnant. On Friday, I woke up looking not so pregnant. On Saturday, however, hello! All of a sudden, I look a little bit pregnant. Thats a little bit exciting, because its nice to have some confirmation that something is actually going on in there. In between doctors appointments, I get a little bit worried because there's really no outward indication that there's actually a baby in there. Herryn's wedding is coming up at the end of July, and I've got to get my bridesmaid dress altered. I took it in last weekend, but I thought it was a little bit early to do so, especially since things were just beginning to pop out a little bit (although it still only looked like I was fat). They told me to come back in a couple weeks instead, which, in light of this weekends events, was probably a good idea.

We also heard the heartbeat this week at my doctors appointment, which was very exciting! My next appointment is the big ultrasound where we'll find out whether its a boy or a girl (at least, we think we're going to find out. I don't think we're 100% decided). Oh, and also make sure everything else is forming okay. My mom is going to come down for that, which will be exciting!

In other pregnancy news, I'm trying to learn to sleep on my side, which I'm not super keen on. Oh well. Aaaaand, thats about it.

Card tricks

I totally love card tricks. Totally. In college I taught myself a few. One of them was really cool and I was good enough at it to really surprise people, but I can't remember it anymore. A few weeks ago we had gone out for pizza with some people I work with, and I left early because I was still secretly pregnant and not feeling so super. Brian and I had driven seperately (meeting after work), so he stayed to pay the bill. When he came home he told me about the awesome magician who had performed at their table, and I was really bummed that I had missed it. So tonight we went back so I could see him.

Oh. My. God. He was awesome. It was this guy. It was like David Blaine when he used to do actual tricks, except way less annoying. He did two card tricks and a quarters trick at our table, and I was totally gobsmacked. Even when I kind of had an idea of what I should be looking for, I still have no idea what he did. Totally awesome!

Also, a fancy new template!

I got a fancy new blogger template here. Loves it!

Our godawful building - aren't we lucky?

Eve brought up some bad memories when she mentioned the Frank Gehry building built at my college/grad school. It is hideous, and I hate it. It seems as if the architect was thinking: "Hm. What would happen if a building could actually become ill and throw up? Eureka! A building would vomit metal out of its roof! Thats it!" Not sure what I mean? Check out the pictures here. I thought it was just ugly, but I didn't know it was also dangerous in the winter. Although I did always wonder why those barricades were there. I actually thought it was related to another issue this building has had: a disgruntled ex-student gunman. Boy, was that an exciting weekend to be on campus!

One thing that I liked a lot about Duke is the fact that there is some sort of unifying architectural style on the campus. CWRU was all over the place - partly because it is actually a fusion of two colleges, and partly because they just didn't care when they put up new buildings. We've got this building (the control tower at a very feminine alien airport) next to this building. And right down the quad is this building (which, to be fair, I think they've torn down, although its still on the campus map) next to this building. We did have one pretty part of campus, the Mather Quad, which has buildings like this and this. But, god forbid we keep the pretty part of campus unscathed, because the barfing metal building is RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from Mather Quad.

I'm not sure if I'd hate the barfing metal building as much if it were in another location, preferably one where you could step back from it a bit. Where it is, it is literally right on the street - only the sidewalk seperates the building and the street - and then there are buildings right on the other side of the street too. You can't get any sort of perspective on the barfing metal building because you can't get far enough away from it to try to take it in.

And in music news...

Yay!
Yay!
You've got to be kidding me.

Also to note: I know I'm behind the game here, but I only recently got The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and its really good. I never paid much attention to the Lips because 'She Don't Use Jelly' was a little irritating. Now I see I've been depriving myself. I know they have a new album out, but I've been trying to curb my iTunes Store addiction a bit.

Jeez. 'Oh, Britney' is RIGHT.

Everyone's been talking about Britney Spears' interview with Matt Lauer. I DVR'd it and I just got a chance to watch it. And... oh. Oh, no. What. Has. Happened. To. My. Britney?!

True, her slide into trashiness has been going for a while. First she had that quickie wedding in Vegas (and an even more quickie annulment), then she married skanky K-Fed, they had that stupid show... ugh. I get queasy just thinking about that show. I do think that the tabloids have been overly harsh on her lately, especially with regards to the baby. She's screwed up a few times, but I'm sure that most new mothers have also made mistakes (I'm sure I will!); they just don't have cameras on them 24/7 to capture the moment. But other than that? She's not really doing much to help her cause.

Speaking as someone with an um... ample bosom, I know that wearing a shirt with an open neckline is flattering (makes you look less like your chest and chin are one, as Trinny and Susannah would say). However, boobs practically escaping from the shirt - not so flattering. Also, hot pink bra totally escaping the shirt? Also not flattering. Also, see thru shirt + hot pink bra + escaping boobs? Triple unflattering. Between the outfit, and the hideous overbleached hair, and the gum (I chew gum obsessively too, but generally not when I'm being interviewed by Matt Lauer), she came across more like a clerk at our local Eckerd than a wealthy entertainer.

Also, I was really sad to hear that she's 'happy' with K-Fed and that she thinks its sad that people want her marriage to fail. Because I totally do. If she was married to someone say... worth being married to, I would totally want her to be happy. When she's married to a greasy, skanky scumbucket, I kind of want that to go south. I keep hoping that getting divorced will snap her out of this trailer-trash rut.

I agree that I can't understand why she doesn't have like, a publicist, or a stylist, or something, to get her shit together before she goes out there for an interview. If her image is in the trash, wouldn't this have been a good opportunity to dust it off a little bit? She totally blew it, and I'm totally bummed.

What good can come of baked beans?

My parents went to Philadelphia this weekend to visit my cousin, her husband Mike, and their new baby. My mom told me an exciting story from this trip that I thought would benefit from a few of my special diagrams.

(This is an artist's rendering of the events that day - I wasn't there so, this is also the artist's interpretation)

Here's a set up of Mike and Denise's deck/patio.

Mike is up on the deck with the grill (Okay, that big gray thing is the grill. I know, its hard to tell. Give me a break.), making grill stuff. My mom is sitting at the table on the patio below the deck. Mike's grill is obviously fancier than ours and has one of those side burners so you can make stuff. Like, say.... baked beans. In a big pot.
Whoops! Looks like the baked beans are getting overdone, or something. Mike lifts the pot off of the burner and sets it on top of the grill while the rest of the stuff is cooking.
Now Mike needs to check on the stuff on the grill, so he opens the lid... with the pot of baked beans still on top. You can see where this is headed:

The pot of beans goes flying off the top of the grill, landing on the chair below, right next to my mom. A mom-covering-in-beans was narrowly averted, thank god. It would have been too bad, and yet totally hilarious, if she had been sitting in the baked beans chair though.

My mom called me on Monday morning as they were leaving town (in fact, they were in the parking lot at Pat's King of Steaks because my dad is a Pat's addict. Enough of an addict to require a cheesesteak at 9:15 am) but I didn't get to talk long because I had lab meeting. So, she didn't get to tell me this story until Monday night. I emailed Mike on Tuesday morning to tell him I was craving baked beans, and his response was 'I figured I'd hear from you about this before now!' Haha. Mike may not be our actual flesh and blood, but he knows us all well enough.

In the interest of fair journalism, two items should be presented in Mike's defense.
1) When we grill corn, we often melt the butter in a dish on top of the grill. On multiple occasions I've had the butter dish up there and opened the grill, flinging the dish of butter over the side of the deck, much in the same way Mike did with the beans.
2) Mike pointed out that this story is still not as embarassing as one concerning my own dear husband, which will go down in family history. And, in the history of anyone who hears that story actually. So, I think Mike's safe for a loooooong time as far as family stories go.

Crazy cat lady

If you ever had any doubt that I was the Crazy Cat Lady, we can now confirm this. Today we brought home our new kitten, Jasmine! She's a long haired calico (an X inactivation cat! I always wanted one!).

Here she is sleeping on the shelf.


She's 6 weeks old and very very small. We got her from the vet's collection of Stray Fund kittens. She came in when she was two weeks old, with her brother (an orange tabby, short hair). They had been found in the grass collection bag of someone's lawnmower.

Here's a picture of her with Brian's hand, so you can get an idea of how small she is. Also, my GameBoy is behind her head.


We're happy to have another cat. We've been thinking about this ever since Smokey died. And besides: two cats = three cats = four cats. Once we got a second cat, adding another one is like nothing. And anyhow, Beamish is like the Invisible Cat. Really, its like we only have two other cats.

A very tiny bug

I forgot to post this picture I took a few weeks ago. Brian and I were sitting out on the deck one night when Brian noticed a very tiny praying mantis on his beer bottle. I tried to take some pictures of it. Here's one:



If you click on the image, it will open up larger. You might be able to see the bug better.

Asheville

For our sixth anniversary this weekend, Brian and I decided to take advantage of our last months of kidlessness and go on a little trip out to Asheville, NC. We hadn't been out there yet, and I was really interested in seeing the Biltmore Estate. Asheville is a cute town. Very sort of crunchy-hippy, which worked out well for me because there were a large variety of vegetarian (or vegetarian-friendly) restaurants. On the first night we walked around and ate dinner at the Laughing Seed Cafe, which a friend had recommended. It was FANTASTIC. I had a tempeh reuben, which is like my favorite thing ever. I used to get that all the time at Tommy's when we lived in Cleveland, and I missed it.

On Saturday we went into the Biltmore.



Its right outside Asheville, so only about a ten minute drive from the hotel, tops. It really was beautiful. The house, like any other mansion like this, is full of crazily ornate furniture. I couldn't take any pictures from inside the house though, so too bad for you. It was neat though. I wish we had gotten the headphones with the audio tour though. I was thinking there would be more information in the house, in the form of a book, or signs, or a docent, or something, but there wasn't.

Even more exciting than the house were the gardens. There was a pretty flower garden and greenhouse where I got to take a lot of flower pictures.







It seems I need to go back and read the instructional book that came with my camera, because I'm having trouble getting the focus right on macro images. I've got 5 and a half more months before I need to become an expert baby paparrazo.

(Speaking of which, I totally wore some maternity pants this weekend. No, I don't really need to yet - in the course of gaining one baby I also lost about 8 lbs, so it equalled out and pants are all still fitting just fine. But, I don't really own any shorts, and I got a cute pair of bermuda shorts in the maternity clothes shopping spree my mom took me on. I'm a real pregnant lady now!)

Right. Also there's an azalea garden, totally not blooming. When do azaleas bloom? All I've got is: not right now.
And some foresty walks and a pond which theoretically contains trout. Or something. Was it bass? I think it was bass actually. We didn't see anyhing bass-y. We saw a lot of things that were bluegill-y though. There was no need to bust out the Bass-O-Matic. I've got some pretty pictures from this part of the Biltmore too, but I'm getting tired of uploading them. Bleh.

Also, there's a winery at the Biltmore. I wasn't really going to drink any wine, but I did hope to do the sip and spit version of the wine tasting. Only, I forgot my stupid ID. And despite the fact that I am 31, I look 15. Also, they were totally ID'ing everyone. So anyhow. I got to smell the wine.

Even more importantly, I got to eat ice cream TWICE this weekend. Once in Asheville at one of those crappy-ass Marble Slab Creamery things (I just don't really like that stuff all that much), and once at the Biltmore, where I got black cherry ice cream in a WAFFLE CONE. OMG. I really needs me some ice cream now. I don't know if its pregnancy alone, because I usually develop this craving in the summer (esp. here in rain forest hot NC). Our Lowe's is right near a frozen custard place, and really, Brian can't take me to Lowe's in the summer without starting off a serious whine fest. But I think its a little teensy bit worse now. The whole thing is marred slightly by the fact that my stomach has shrunk to the size of a thimble (along with my bladder. I swear, peeing is a full time job these days).

Well, now I'm paranoid.

Now Nathan's made me paranoid about blogging about work, so I've deleted that last post. Anyhow, you probably already read it. And if you didn't, ask me about it!
There are enough examples of people losing their jobs because they've blogged about work. I think thats ridiculous, but whatever. I like my job, so I'd like to keep it.

Photo contest update

I got an honorable mention for my picture of the yellow flower (down towards the bottom), which totally wasn't even my favorite (the butterfly was)! The butterfly was in a harder category though, I think.

Everyone on the road is a moron, part 2

I wouldn't say that I really have road rage problems or anything, but people on the road do annoy me sometimes. I hate people who are so impatient that they have to drive three millimeters behind you, even if everyone in front of you is going exactly the same speed as you are. What do they think I'm going to do? I'll tell you what I'm certainly not going to do, and that is move over so you can pass me. In fact, I'll probably make it as difficult as possible FOR you to pass me. I'll slow down to pace the car beside me if I need to. If you're going to piss me off, I'm not going to make your life easier.

So I like to watch when asshole drivers get screwed by their asshole behavior. Yesterday I was driving home from work and was driving one way on a 2 lane road. Coming the other direction were two cars stopped - at least the first car was turning left, but was waiting for oncoming traffic to pass (i.e. me). There was an SUV behind them who obviously couldn't possibly wait for the two seconds it was going to take for these people to turn left, so he attempted to go around them on the right shoulder. Which would be fine if there were room for him to do so. Which there was not, so he ended up in the ditch instead. Ha! Moron. So he wasted infinitely more time trying to get out of the very steep ditch (and really, is lucky he didn't roll over, because it was looking pretty precarious) than he would have waiting for the people to turn.

I totally laughed and drove off.

For the cat who has everything

Our cats are begging us for this stuff.
Actually, its totally cute. But the cats do not look psyched.

Delusional

Eve linked to this article on her blog, and I just skimmed over it. I wanted to point out a few qotes from the article:

Kanazawa's perhaps controversial perspective is that of an evolutionary psychologist. "Men conduct scientific research (or do anything else) in order to attract women and get married (albeit unconsciously)," he says. "What’s the point of doing science (or anything else) if one is already married? Marriage (or, more accurately reproductive success, which men can usually attain only through marriage) is the goal; science or anything else men do is but a means. From my perspective, scientists are no different than anybody else; evolutionary psychology applies to all humans equally," he adds.

Wha? Whaaaaaat?!?! If men are conducting scientific research in order to get a girl, they obviously skipped the class where they were instructed what women go for. And I like 'em dorky, people. This is a geek-o-phile telling you this. You're barking up the wrong tree.

Last month, when I attended a writers' conference in New York, one of the speakers was Sreenath Sreenivasan, an assistant professor and dean of students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. A scene he described from his marriage evoked a vivid image in my mind. He was sitting against his pillow in bed with his laptop in hand. His busy, multitasking wife (a management consultant and mother of twin toddlers) was also working on a laptop, seated right beside him. The two were tending electronically to their demanding jobs, but they were also instant messaging each other, obviously on the same emotional "bandwidth" in their devotion to both career and marriage.

Okay, please. I remember once in my freshman year of college when I was hopelessly addicted to IRC, Nathan and I were sitting in the SAME ROOM on TWO DIFFERENT COMPUTERS IRCing TO EACH OTHER. And mostly, I think we just thought it was hilarious (and we weren't even drunk). But COME ON. If you are sitting right next to eachother in bed and you're IM'ing each other? This does not imply being devoted to your marriage. This implies being REALLY LAME. It takes longer to type what you're saying than it does to just say it, for gods sake.

Many scientists complain that the very nature of a science career limits opportunities to find a partner. "Much of science is disproportionately male," says Chad, an engineering trainee. "There were weeks during graduate school where I literally did not speak to a female. I also remember attending parties of 50 people or more, yet you could count the women on one hand; all of whom were taken."

Where we work, I think there is one reasonably attractive single man, and every single woman is vying for his attention. Its sort of amusing. So hey guys! Come work here!

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.

Various

I'm glad to see that Jessica from GFY has finally broken up with Lindsay Lohan. Its been a long time coming.
Oh, and if you're a girl? and you like shoes? like I do? Take a look at those shoes she's wearing in the 'coming' link. They ARE the cutest shoes EVAH. My mom called me the other day and this post was one of the things she wanted to talk to me about, and we said almost simultaneously how unbelieveably cute those shoes were. I MUST HAVE THEM.

Also, the bluebirds. I haven't checked the nest since the last update, but I need to do it soon. Like tonight. Anyhow, I don't really know what happened to those other eggs. Its a mystery. I noticed the last time I had looked before they hatched that they mother had sorted the eggs out, and the chickadee eggs were kind of pushed off to the side. So its possible that they weren't warm enough and they didn't hatch. I don't THINK she got them out of the nest, at least I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that. So, I'm thinking when the baby bluebirds fledge, we're going to find some nasty old eggs underneath them.

UPDATE: I fixed the link above. Go drool over some shoes!

Hey, all you stats people!

I know you're out there. And you too, Eve. I know you're not a statistician, but every other post on your blog contains the word 'regression'.
Anyhow, this will be right up your alley (via the Consumerist). Although, did he use Excel?? Oh, no he DIN'T.
(Actually, it might be Prism, not Excel)

Basically, this is 'how to commute effectively for nerds'.

Suri update

Consultation with a baby name book has led to the following meaning for 'Suri':
"Just thought I would let you know that I looked up Suri in our name book and it means "pointy nose." The origin is given as Todas which means nothing to me."

That didn't mean anything to me either, but again Wikipedia has proven fruitful by telling me that the Todas are members of a small, pastoral tribe in Southern India.

Tom and Katie, you still suck.

(I really used to like Katie Holmes too. Did you see Pieces of April? That was good.)

Bring on the fakeness

They have this new yogurt now, Activia, which is advertised to 'help naturally regulate your digestive system'. God knows I could use a bit of help regulating my digestive system, so that I do not have to become so familiar with all of the public restrooms on my way to work, and/or within a 20 mile radius of wherever I am at any moment. Of course I picked this up as soon as I saw it at the store.
I've had these 8 little cups for about three weeks now and I've still got two left (even though you're specifically told to eat it EVERY DAY by the annoying girl on the commercial) because it tastes kind of icky to me. I cannot put my finger on what part of it I don't like, but there's something. I was thinking that perhaps it was these beneficial 'live, active cultures' and 'bifidus regularis' that I wasn't nuts about, but I really think these same things are in EVERY yogurt, and that Dannon is just marketing their fancy bacteria.
Upon further reflection, I think its probably just that I don't like regular yogurt. Real yogurt. I'm so all about that non-fat, no-sugar blended yogurt that I'm no longer able to tolerate real yogurt with real fat and real sugar in it. Come to think of it, I feel the same way about peanut butter. You're all going to think I'm crazy, but I don't like regular PB anymore - I eat the reduced fat crunchy Jif, and now regular PB seems tooooooo goooooooey. We got some regular once to like, bait mousetraps or something, but we ended up throwing it out when our mouse problem subsided because no one would eat it.

Doing my 'bifidus regularis' research for this entry, I read in wikipedia that:

"Opinion is divided about the benefits of live yoghurts - while some consumers seem to gain relief from using this product, others see results from no change to chronic diarrhea."

Which doesn't seem sooo helpful for me. So I guess I won't feel as bad when I switch back to the fake stuff.

The long-awaited bluebird update!

We weren't able to check the bluebird box while we were in Florida (obviously), but we checked it just now. Look!



Four baby bluebirds!! I think they're about 8 days old, judging from pictures I've found on other websites.

Suri about that...

Well, Tom and Katie finally had their fake, alien baby. In keeping with celebrity tradition, they gave their new daughter some ridiculous name - Suri. Ok, its not as ridiculous as Apple or Moses (geez Gwyneth) or Pilot Inspektor (but I also love that Grandaddy song, and in fact that whole album. Go listen to it!). But still.
Suri is suppossed to mean 'Princess' in Hebrew and 'Red Rose' in Persian. One friend of mine said that "in Gaelic, Suri means 'one who is screwed from being born to weird parents'." Hee. Actually, I have a friend in the lab who is from Iran and is thus a native Persian speaker. I asked her what Suri meant. She looked it up and found that it meant 'One who enjoys feasting; a hanger-on'. This is not quite 'red rose' and actually not quite good either. Well done, freaks.

Working on my massive sunburn

Well, this week I've been in Sarasota visiting my parents and getting sunburned. We drove down here on the 12th in time for my birthday - 31! ack! My mom took me to get a manicure and pedicure. I like getting a pedicure, but I'm so fricking ticklish that its a little difficult. We also went out to dinner that night with my grandparents.
We brought down Milo (the cats were left to fend for themselves, a la that Travelocity - or something - commercial) so that he could meet his new girlfriend, my parents new sheltie, Kelsey. Kelsey looooooooooves Milo. She followed him around wherever he went. Brian and Milo drove home on Monday, so Kelsey is a little bummed out. She's a normal size sheltie, but since our dog is such a big one she was like half his size. They look kind of funny together. Kelsey lives here with our two cats, Wynton and Olly, neither of which are overly certain of their feelings towards the dog. Kelsey thinks that the cats tails are some sort of handle for them and he walks around with their tails in his mouth. Consequently, Wynton's normally puffy tail is now thin and ratty.

One day we saw a pair of Sandhill cranes on the golf course across the pond from my parents backyard. Brian and I sat out there to watch them, and they started walking over towards us. They got really close - we finally moved because we thought they might eat us. I got some good pictures of them though. Here are two of them.




(Well, you're just going to have to tilt your heads for now, because I don't know how to flip those. I'm on my parents computer.)

We went out on the boat to Egmont Key, which is a wildlife sanctuary. On the way over there we had three dolphins following behind the boat. I'm not kidding you, they were RIGHT OFF THE SWIM PLATFORM. By some miracle, I got some good pictures of them jumping:




After Brian left, my dad and I went kayaking in some mangrove canals at their friends house in Port Charlotte. It was fun, but we hardly saw any wildlife at all, which was surprising.

And yesterday we went to Tarpon Springs with my grandmother, where we saw some sponge diving and ate at a greek restaurant. This is a very heavily greek city that was initially populated largely by greek sponge divers. We went on a sponge diving boat ride where they had a guy go out in the old-style diving suit and get a sponge. I chatted to the guy for a bit because he was from Stevens Point, WI.

In other Wisconsin news, we went to Shaner's Pizza today, which is owned by Shane Rawley, an ex-pro baseball player who went to my high school in Racine (Horlick!). They serve the perfect Chicago pizza - not that stupid thick stuffed pizza. Oh no. I grew up in the Chicago area, and my dad before me. And I'll tell you, its CRISPY THIN CRUST CUT IN SQUARES that is the real Chicago pizza. So that was great.

Also, Easter with my grandparents was good. Its nice to be able to see them when we come down here, they live about 15 minutes away. Jim and Ed's birthday was on Saturday, but we tried to stay busy so it wasn't too bad. Jim was up on NH with his group of friends, who are just great. For his birthday they took up a collection to get his Gay Miata painted. Right now its barbie yellow, but you can see the red underneath where the paint is scratched. Yesterday we saw a hot pink Miata and I texted him to tell him that would be a good choice. I thought I was the only one who called it the Gay Miata, but his Subaru friends posted a funny funny picture:



bahahahhaah!
Coming home tonight, back to the cats! Oh, and Brian. Hee.

This is for Mel

Mel just posted a list of google searches that bring people to her blog. One of them was 'foam tactile issues'. Well Mel, I think we've found your searcher.

Another screwed up concert

My friend Sheri and I really suck at going to concerts together. We attempted to see The Bravery a few months ago, only to get there and mistake the second opening act for them and leave just after the Bravery started because it was so late, and I had to give lab meeting the next day (as I do today!). On Friday night we went to see Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab For Cutie at Duke. The doors opened at 7pm and there was an opening band, so we decided to get there later. You know, these things never start on time, then the opening band takes a while to play and a while longer to dismantle and set up for the next band. We figured that FF wouldn't come on until about 8:30 or even later. We went out to dinner first and got to the concert closer to 9pm. We were standing in a loooooooong line for the bathroom and asked one of the undergrads near us who had already played: Franz Ferdinand, of course. This was who I wanted to see most too. Bugger. Well, that was the most amazingly fast two sets in the entire history of concerts.

We got to see lots of little undergrads who look like they're 12 in relation to our very nearly 31. Death Cab was good, but I'm still bummed that I missed FF.

The rest of the weekend was not too exciting. Brian has installed cabinets in our laundry room and painted it, and he finished that up this weekend. It looks really good, and like an actual room. And yesterday we visited our friends and their new baby.

We're going to Florida this week which I'm looking forward to. Bringing Milo of course so he can meet his girlfriend, my parents new Sheltie, Kelsey. I'm hoping to go kayaking while we're there. We wanted to kayak with alligators in Myakka, but it sounds like its been too dry and the waterways are largely dried up, at least to the point where kayaking would be difficult. My dad said something about a kayak trip through a mangrove swamp which sounds cool. Mangroves make their own little ecosystem. Their roots are like little fish hatcheries. We snorkeled in one on a marine biology trip when I was in college, and it was pretty cool to see all the teeny tiny baby fishies.

A bluebird dilemma

A few days ago I showed you a picture of our female bluebird sitting on her eggs. Today I checked on the nest again and she wasn't there, so I got to see the eggs. The nest is a little high up, so I have to stand on a step stool and I had to tilt the nest cup (its in an egg carton kind of cup) to take this picture.



As you can see, we do have bluebird eggs in there, five of them! There are also four other eggs, and I'm not sure what they are. House Sparrows are considered a pest and you're suppossed to dispose of house sparrow eggs and nests found in bluebird boxes. I don't think thats what they are though. It is probably more likely that they are Carolina Chickadee eggs. I'm not sure what to do with them though. It seems like this would create a problem for the baby bluebirds. I just sent an email to someone who runs a bluebird website, hopefully they'll have some advice.

two more and some additional info

I forgot about this two - one that i took in Bah Habah, and one of a flying hummingbird.

Also, in response to a previous comment - pet photos DO count, but i'm trying not to enter in that category because it was the most heavily entered last year. And I saw some of those photos and lets just say I've got NO CHANCE. Although, Cherry is very photogenic and I've got several really good pics of her! Bummer. In order to increase my chances, I'm trying to go for some of the other categories - flora, local flora/fauna, landscapes.

Photo contest

Okay, now its your turn to serve your blogger. We are having a photo contest at work which will apparently be judged by our co-workers walking down the hall. Its an earth day contest, so a nature theme. I have no delusions of actually WINNING anything, but I want to enter. So I'm looking for your votes from the following batch of pics, a shortlist that Brian and I came up with.
You can see them all in my Flickr photostream (click here). You can leave a comment on the pictures you like, if you're also a Flickr member.

I've also uploaded them here:
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Leave your comments in the comments section, obvs. I am going to enter three photos.
Thanks!

I know you're jealous.

I won this today at a product show.



Secretly, you're jealous. I know you are. By the way? Its not just ANY figurine. Its a BOBBLEHEAD.

bluebird motel

Look who is in our bluebird house!



A female bluebird! She must be sitting on eggs, because she didn't leave the nest when I knocked on the side of the house or when I opened it. Pretty cool!

Don'ts and Don'ts

I can't believe I've missed this for so long, but this is a great feature on Gawker: Blue States Lose. Which is described by them thusly:
Every week a fresh crop of images of ridiculous-looking hipsters acting in a ridiculous fashion is made available on the Internet. Many of us are familiar with the photo galleries at The Cobrasnake (primarily Los Angeles), Last Night’s Party and Misshapes (both in New York). These sites, which aim to make wasted party-going retards look fabulous, are quite possibly the most infuriating thing in the world. But much like a gruesome car wreck or a Paris Hilton home movie, you just can’t turn away. Every Friday, we’ll steal a little from Vice magazine and post our choices for the Top 10 most ridiculous hipsters, complete with links to the photos and derogatory comments. They’ll make you - a young, liberal-leaning urbanite - suddenly hate everything about youth culture, your city and, probably, life. In other words: Blue States Lose.

Its like What Not To Wear of young hipsters. Oh man. Some images are NSFW, but you'll know which ones by reading the captions. I'm so glad I'm uncool and boring.

Birding around the pretty lake

When I go on walks around the lake at work, I see a lot of cool stuff, other than geese who are out to get me. The other day we saw what looked like a couple of male mallards, except they had white breasts, which mallards don't. They were Northern Shovelers. I wish I had had some binoculars so I could have gotten a better look at their beaks. Yesterday I saw a Double-crested Cormorant airing himself out, like in that photo. They're generally found in more coastal regions, so perhaps he was migrating? I'm also pretty sure I've seen Ruddy ducks in their winter plumage. Whatever I saw had a big white cheek patch like that and was a diver, and I didn't see anything else in the bird book that fit both of those descriptions. I should get a second pair of binocs to bring in here that I can bring with me on walks. I don't go too many other places where I get a chance to see water birds, so its a nice change.
I saw a birding blog listed under the blogger Blogs of Note that I'll have to check occasionally.

Vote for me: The naughty judge

Last week or so, a bunch of those election-time roadside signs began to appear. There is one posted across the street at the intersection when I turn out of my development, so I see it every day when I go to work. I kept meaning to post something about it, but I kept forgetting.
I was just standing here, brushing my teeth, when Brian called. He had just left the house on his way to work. He said:
"Oh! I've been meaning to say something to you about this for a while and I kept forgetting. Have you seen that sign for the judge candidate when you pull out of the development? What the hell? Why would you want to vote for THAT guy?"

Too bad Brian isn't an American citizen, so he can't vote.

The reason we're perplexed by this campaign is that the sign says something like:

Vote for "Naughty" Nauseef for Judge

This seems like a bizarre nickname to be using in your quest to become a District Court Judge. It sounds more like a mobster or something. I think if I were on trial and found that "Naughty" Nauseef was my judge, I'd be a little concerned.

I found this article which discusses the fact that this guy submitted his paperwork to be a candidate for this position, and it says that the nickname is based on a mispronunciation of his name. Which is great, but that doesn't mean you have to use it in your campaign. Because you are not twelve.

New content, the easy way!

First: a goose update!
Yesterday? I was walking to my car? And a goose totally HISSED at me. I'm fearing for my life now. If you don't hear from me for a while, talk to the geese.

Second: Links!!

I can't stand Kelly Osbourne, but that is a really cute coat.

(also from Go Fug Yourself, Britney's back and she's mad!)

Eve's alternate endings for journal articles are also appropriate for the biological sciences. Writing a paper? Check them out. Its what you're really thinking, after all.

Haiku makes every day life far more interesting. Try it!

Photo Booth is an excellent way to amuse yourself and others!

Soccer is not just for warm-blooded creatures anymore! (I saw a video of this on Good Morning America, and its much more entertaining in video form, I have to say. But I do what I can here, for you, my readers).

Hedgies!

When geese attack

The institute that I work at is very park-like. We have a pretty lake in the middle with a path around it. I like to walk it sometimes when I'm waiting for an experiment to finish. As a result, we also have tons of geese running around. I've heard stories of people getting attacked by geese when they're on the path, but I've never had a problem. That is, until yesterday, when I came head-to-head with ATTACK GEESE.


See? I took this picture over the weekend at the pretty lake. Look at how that goose is coming to kill me.

So, I was walking into work in the morning, drinking my tea (which I now inexplicably take with milk and sugar. Those Brits got to me!!), minding my own business. I was approaching the building when I saw a car coming up on my right, and to my left I heard some geese going nuts. They like to yell at each other sometimes, so this didn't really faze me. Actually, the day before as I was walking in, I watched a goose chase after three guys drving around in a John Deere tractor. That was pretty funny. The goose was full-on angry, and the guys were just moseying along in their little tractor, totally not caring.

I'm getting off track here. Okay. Minding my own business. Drinking tea. Car on right, geese going nuts on left. As I'm crossing the little parking lot entrance, I hear the geese coming closer, and fortunately I looked to my left because THREE GEESE WERE FLYING STRAIGHT TOWARDS MY HEAD. Holy crap! Here's an intricate diagram that I just constructed for you:



In the split second after I noticed this, I thought to myself "Surely those geese are going to change course so as not to kill me." But as they came closer, it was clear that they were not. Holy crap again. So I ducked!! And shrieked loudly, I have to say. They flew right over me, I swear they were less than a foot away from my head. Oh my god. After they flew past, the car that had been coming from the right pulled up next to me, and the guy rolled down his window to say "Holy cow! I thought they were going to hit you!" Me too, buddy!

Seriously, if one had hit me? It would have broken its neck and totally died. Died from hitting me. Thank god I don't have to be the 'Girl Who Killed a Goose with her Head".

I hear that when the geese have nests (which they will soon!) they get extra testy, so I'm looking forward to THAT. Because clearly, they are out to get me.

*sniffle*

Oh, that Duke v LSU game last night was HEARTBREAKING.



Don't you just want to cry looking at this picture (which I lifted from ESPN.com) of my two favorite Dukies, JJ and Coach K? Oh. I do.

I mean, Duke was certainly not in top form, and LSU did a good job of keeping JJ Redick under control, which I think is pretty important if you want to beat Duke. I am so sick of hearing about 'Big Baby' though. Gag me.

But I mentioned that I love JJ Redick. He seems like such a nice guy (I cannot vouch for how this idea holds up in real life having never run into the guy anywhere in Durham. I do know from having dated - or tried to anyhow - many apparently nice guys, a good chunk of them are actually total jerks) and I really wanted him to be on a winning team in his last year, because he deserves it! So, I was sad. And I was really actually tearing up when he walked off the court and was crying and hugging people. Ohhh. Because I am that pathetic.

But anyhow. Any hopes I had for doing well in the NCAA pool were also dashed, along with my JJ dreams.

Can I also say that I love the ads that they play during games for the NCAA, with the athletes talking about how they're going pro in something other than sports? I love them. Brian hates them though. I just have more respect for college students who are students FIRST and athletes SECOND. Actually, I don't mean that. I know that being a college athlete requires a SIGNIFICANT time investment, so I am sure that they spend almost as much time on sports as they do on school. But I hate the guys who drop out of school before they finish to pursue a professional sports career (hello, last year's UNC team!). If you're in school, you're in school to get a degree. Yes, perhaps your sports playing GOT you to school, but you should at least accomplish your education-related objective while you're playing. Maybe thats just me.

A plug

My friend from high school is a jazz saxophonist who just came out with his first CD. You can buy it on his website.
I totally sat next to him in Jazz Band when I was a freshman, people. OMG, I am so cool. Yet he was very good and I was only sort of middling as far as jazz band went. And now it is his career, and I play saxophone in the science-geek band at work.

Anyhow, if you like this sort of thing you should give it a listen!

I heart The Consumerist

The Consumerist had several great articles yesterday... and I have nothing much to talk about.

1. You know you've thought about this: how many freaking blades are we going to get on razors? Do you remember that SNL commercial? Funny.

2. And you thought your job was sometimes difficult. Click on the link to read the whole story, because its kind of hilarious.

3. Creepy. However, I'd go to her plastic surgeon.

4. This is totally true. I didn't read the original article but I totally agree with this:

We’ll let you read it for yourself, but here’s the crux: “Do you want to be told by your doctor, ‘Oh, nobody studies your disease any more because the owner of the gene/enzyme/correlation has made it too expensive to do research?’” That really just says it all.

That is totally true. I don't know much about how patenting of genes is going now, but back when I was a tech, people still did positional cloning of SIMPLE MENDELIAN DISEASES (can you imagine that??) and gene patenting was all the rage. In fact, Brian had a patent on a gene from his PhD, which was subsequently sold by his university to some company. However, at the time these things were patented little (to nothing) was known of their functions. Most were only patented based on speculation, or even more so because you had to get in while the getting was good and all the genes were already patented. It was not really clear what the patent was going to accomplish in terms of how it would impact other people's research on a given gene. I'm not sure that it has yet... at least not as much in academic labs. At least, I don't ever remember hearing of any instances where this has occurred.

I think a more pressing concern is "Oh, nobody studies your disease anymore because not enough people have it (or at least have your specific mutation) and its not cost-effective for the companies."

The highs and lows of my NCAA bracket

I don't really watch all that much college basketball, but I love March Madness because I love to watch the scores all day, agonize about the state of my bracket and talk trash to other members of our pool. For many, many years I picked Kentucky to win every time (In college I was a UK fan, and also a big Rick Pitino fan, although not so much when he went to the arch-enemy, Louisville) and I got screwed every time. This year actually is the first I didn't go with UK - I picked Duke.

Oh, shut up. I like Duke. I particularly like JJ Redick, and he's a senior, so I want him to win.

I don't know too much about the other teams, particularly ones not in the ACC, so my rationale for choosing teams usually goes a little something like this:
"Okay... Oklahoma vs. UW-Milwaukee. Well, I used to live near Milwaukee, so I'm picking UWM (an upset which I correctly picked!). Gonzaga vs. Xavier.... Gonzaga sounds like 'gorgonzola', and I like that, so I'll pick Gonzaga."
Also, there is a lot of bias in my picks towards who was good in the past but may not be so great anymore. Like Marquette, who I picked to go to the 8 but who lost in the first round.

Of course because I'm a Duke fan, I desperately want UNC to lose. Yesterday they totally got beat by George Mason, so HA. I had picked UNC to win, so its not great for me in terms of the pool, but it IS great for me in terms of gloating.

It seems like a lot of people have picked UConn, which only sort of narrowly avoided defeat yesterday at the hands of my old favorite, UK. I have them in the final, but I'm hoping that this suggests that they're not going to win.

food photography

For some reason, I've always thought food photography was pretty cool. All of the little tricks they have to make your food look more appetizing are pretty neat. In fact, the father of someone from my PhD lab is a food photographer, and he made a special pizza slice lifter to make the pizza in photos on frozen pizza boxes look all gooey and cheesy.
This video about photographing pancakes for IHOP* is pretty funny.

* if IHOP must advertise themselves as the International HOUSE OF PANCAKES, then why do their pancakes totally suck?? They taste like wallpaper paste. Seriously. If pancakes is going to be your thing, at least make sure your pancakes are awesome. Which they are not.

dead weight

Brian has had his own lab for about a .... year? or more? I don't remember. Anyhow, when you're a scientist you get thrown into this land of managing people with very little experience. His first tech was okay, but he was only there for a few months before he followed his girlfriend when she moved away. It took a little while before he hired another person, but when he got his R01 funded he had the cash to do so. He hired a research analyst, which is a higher level position requiring a number of years of experience and thus gets paid more, because he had the funds and he didn't want to waste too much time training.

This girl was a piece of work. She was constantly suffering from 'migranes', and would sit at her desk wearing sunglasses and holding an ice pack to her head. When Brian would ask her to do something, she would sometimes say something like 'do you really think thats a good idea in my current condition?' I do understand that people have migranes. One of the girls in my lab in Boston did. I would say she got one every month or two, and when it happened she was completely laid up. However, I suspect that Brian's tech maybe was not having actual migranes. One incident that tipped me off was when she was sitting there in the lab doing the sunglasses/icepack/laying head on desk thing, and told Brian that she was waiting for the emergency room to call her back to let her know whether they had a bed available, so that she could come over and get treated for her terrible migrane. Okay. A migrane which is so bad that it requires an emergency room visit. Again, I've never had migranes, so I don't know whether this is really something you would do or not. A little while later she was still sitting there waiting and Brian came by and said he had just been to a product show. For you non-scientists out there who get wooed by companies with actually cool stuff, scientists are easy and we will flock to anywhere that there are a) free pens, b) free food or c) free t-shirts (the best). He mentioned that there had been free pizza at the product show. She immediately perked up and said 'Oh really? Free pizza? Well, maybe I'll just head over there while I'm waiting for the hospital to call me back.'

So - emergency-room-requiring migrane can instantly be cured upon the mention of free pizza. Hm.

There were loads of other indications that the illnesses were not always as bad as she made them out to be. One day she came into his office doing charades with a note that said she had laryngitis and couldn't talk. She spent the rest of the day trying to ask him questions by acting things out or writing them down. However, later that day he came into the lab unnoticed and she was talking on the phone. One day I had stopped by the lab to pick something up from Brian, and while we were sitting there talking I kept hearing this dinging noise. I thought she was playing computer games, but no - she was clicking around a pair of those worry balls that had chimes in them. I finally said 'What in the HELL is that noise??' and she was all 'oh! I have to do this all the time, for my wrist.' Uh huh. I had trouble with tendonitis or carpal tunnel in my wrists when I was in high school and college (from all the musical instruments) but you know, I did my physical therapy AT HOME.

This would all have been bad enough, but she was also really crap at lab work. She screwed everything up, all the time. Even very very simple things. It was really setting him back, both time-wise and money-wise.

Anyhow, after going through a long and arduous process, he fired her yesterday. She totally knew it was coming - she had already packed up her stuff. We went to the Mellow Mushroom to celebrate. I'm so very very happy, because now we don't have to deal with this crap anymore. Although the stories were always funny.

Brian has learned many things from this experience, most importantly: LISTEN TO WHAT THE REFERENCES SAY ABOUT A PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEE. There were hints in her references that there had been some problems like these, but Brian didn't really pay that much attention to them (of course, the referees don't come right out and say it, so they were being a little vague, and he wasn't sure how much to believe them).

Lost the go in the go-for-it

I'm having a really bad week this week, for reasons that are probably partially PMS related, but otherwise are unexplained. I mean, come on. I've had PMS like three other times since Ed died, eh? These did not result in four full days of all-crying-all-the-time. I don't know what is the deal this week, but I don't think my eyes can take it anymore! So sore! Also, really not getting much accomplished at work - a minimum.
I have been going to a bereavement counselor, my second visit was this week. I'm sure this is a good idea, but it feels a little strange talking about my feeeelings with this stranger. Duke has a bereavement center that is run through their hospice. Family of hospice patients go for free, everyone else is with donations. Its in Hillsborough, which is quiet and rural-y, and the center is really an old home which is located near the hospice (I think).
One thing we talked about this week was how I felt about how other people have handled things. Feeling abandoned by friends or relatives, etc. I have read that this is very common among people who have lost siblings. Support seems to flow in the direction of the parents, the spouse, the children of someone who has died, while people tend to think that grief felt by siblings is not as great. Or that you must be over it by now (surely, its been four months, aren't you over this yet?). I can't decide what I am most upset about this week: the fact that my brother has died, or the relationships with other people that I feel I have lost (or that never were what I thought they were in the first place). It does help to know that I'm not the only person who has felt this way.
My parents had a great support network around them in the weeks immediately following Ed's death. I assume it has stayed this way. I asked the counselor whether he thought it was just people of my age group who didn't know how to be supportive in this situation, because we have not experienced this as frequently as people of my parents age group? He thought that was probably true, and also mentioned that it might be because people of my age do not form the same kinds of communities as my parents generation did. He mentioned like church communities, neighborhoods, other things. This is probably true, and I never thought about it before. I don't even know my next-door neighbors. Also, my social group is generally the other scientists that I interact with, who end up moving around a lot (every couple of years, especially early in our careers). There are many people with whom I've been the best of friends when living in the same place, only to completely lose touch once one or both of us have moved. I guess thats just the way it is.

On a completely unrelated note, I also wanted to say that I totally tried to not find out who won Project Runway last night. We don't get Bravo in Durham (although our neighbors in Chapel Hill with the SAME FREAKING CABLE COMPANY do), so I had just been reading the recaps on TWoP and talking to my mom about it. Until, that is, iTunes started selling it. Hurrah! It hasn't come out yet on iTunes, so I didn't want to know. Then I was reading a totally non-PR related post on PerezHilton.com and IT TOTALLY SPOILED IT. Oh!! So so so so sad. Still can't wait to watch, but it just won't be the same. Sniffle.

I can't believe I'm defending algebra, but I kind of am

As much as I have a well-documented hatred of bugs, I also have a well-documented hatred of math. I did a passable job at it in high school (because I worked hard at it), but I really never got algebra. I did sort of get geometry, but not algebra (I personally think you're either an algebra person or a geometry person), and certainly not calculus (which I got a C on first semester and failed second semester). What the hell is going on with calculus, I have no idea. And I certainly couldn't tell you if I ever required calculus skills in my daily life, because I have no idea what calculus even has to do with anymore.

Like me, my friend Karl has the tendency to 'not suffer fools gladly', but he rants even more than I do. Like, exponentially more (ooh! is that algebra-related? I think so!!). Some of my blog readers surfed over here from Karl's blog, so you already know him. But for those of you who don't, he's a biostatistics professor. So he likes the math. He insists that statistics is not math, but I still don't believe this, owing to its use of numbers and mathy symbols.

He has a post up on his blog today about a recent editorial in the Washington Post (which you can read here), in which the author discusses the uselessness of requiring algebra for high school students. His basic point, as far as I can tell, is that algebra is useless in your life, and students who just don't get it can get frustrated and just drop out of high school entirely, as did his example: a girl named Gabriela.

I totally can't even believe this article, as it seems to suggest to me that we should just eliminate the requirement for any "hard" classes in high school, just so the students don't get frustrated. I quote: " The LA school district now requires all students to pass a year of algebra and a year of geometry in order to graduate. This is something new for LA (although 17 states require it) and it is the sort of vaunted education reform that is suppossed to close the science and mat gap and make the US more competitive. All it seems to do, though, is ruin the lives of countless kids. In LA, more kids drop out of school on account of algebra than any other subject. I can hardly blame them."

How incredibly ridiculous is that? I hate algebra too, but this really seems to send the message that students really shouldn't have to challenge themselves. No one is saying you're going to need algebra in particular to survive in life, but what you DO need is the ability to face these kinds of challenges. I had to study way more for algebra than anything else. I had to get a tutor for calculus, just so I could pass it (because 2 semesters of it were required of anyone getting any degree at my college). It was hard, and I was miserable, but you don't just get to give up because something is hard. You're going to face many challenges in your life that aren't math-related, and you're not just going to be able to skip them because you don't know how to deal with them. You may as well learn that in high school.

Terror on the highway

Yesterday it was almost 80 degrees here. Have I mentioned my love of North Carolina? Love. Okay. So, since it was so nice out, we were outside a lot yesterday. We ate lunch outside, and Sheri and I took a half-hour break later in the afternoon to go for a walk around the lake (where I saw what I think were ruddy ducks in their winter coloring). When I went to my car that evening, it was still really nice so I opened the windows a bit.

After I had just pulled onto the highway, something horrible happened: a huge beetle of some sort flew into the car and landed on the dash right in front of me. I am aware of course that I am a grown woman. However. I am majorly terrified of bugs. Majorly. Some highlights from my life of bug fear:

1. In Wisconsin, the summer brought June bugs. I hate June bugs. They fly all out-of-control and bang into things, and if you're unlucky and you get in the way, the thing will be you. Ugh. They congregate around lights at night, so each lit doorway was a minefield of June bugs. There was no way I was going to stand in the doorway trying to open the door when I could be barraged by June bugs. So I carried a garage door opener with me. That way, I could open the double garage door (which had lights at either end) and run in through the center, as far from each light as possible.

2. In a related story, one time in high school I took the cordless phone outside to sit in the car while I was talking. No, I have no idea why. We used to play with the electric seat adjustment controls in the car (we had 'chair races' where you had to take the seat through a predetermined course with the various controls), so maybe thats what I was doing. Anyhow. I'm sure I was talking to Kendra. I decided it was time to go back inside but there was no garage door opener in the car, and there was no frigging way I was going to the front door. So I had Kendra hang up the phone and then re-dial my house, let someone inside pick up and tell them to open the garage door.

3. In England, for whatever reason, it is not common to have screens on your windows. I think it is just to torture me. When the windows are open, any and every insect outside can fly right on in. I can't sleep then, because I'm terrified that something is going to get me in the night, and I end up taking some Tylenol PM just so I can go to sleep. I keep telling Brian that we need to get his parents screens for Christmas sometime.

Anyhow. There are more stories, but I think we've effectively established that bugs and I are not friends. So this bug is in the car and I know there is no way I can drive like a normal human being under these conditions, so I pull over to the side of the road. I get out and go to the other side of the car, so that I'm not on the highway side (and some moron doesn't hit me or something). I can see the stupid beetle overturned on the dashboard, trying to right itself. I'm panicking now, because I don't know what to do. Because obviously, I am not going to TOUCH it either. No way. My phone had fallen out of my bag onto the seat, which I hadn't noticed, so I thought I had left it at home. And I was like, crap. I can't even call anyone (although who would have gotten that phone call from me and not totally hung up on me?). I had some sort of newspaper type item in the backseat, and I grabbed that and tried to push the beetle out the open driver's side window while sitting in the passenger seat. Even when I pushed it, it didn't go far. And it was getting further and further in this narrow gap between the window and the dash, so it was harder and harder to reach. I'm really freaking out now, and kind of half hoping that someone will see me and think I have a flat tire, or engine trouble, or something, and stop and help me out (even thought I'd have to tell them that in fact, I needed assistance getting a bug out of my car). Finally, I got one good flick in and I thought it had gone out the window. Phew! I snuck back around to the drivers side of the car to get in. However. The lighting was rather poor, and thus I couldn't see the floor of the car all that well from the passenger side. When I got over there, I saw that the beetle was on the floor on the driver's side. I was afraid to spend too much time over there trying to get it out (again, not wanting to be killed by oncoming traffic) so I just furiously stamped on it. It was pretty well smashed, but even so, I kept worrying while I was driving that I hadn't killed it, and that it was going to crawl up my leg or fly into my face and then I was going to crash the car. So I kept stomping my foot and rubbing it around, just in case.

I did make it home safely, but totally adrenaline-charged. Now I've got to take the dustbuster out there and vacuum the bug up so that I can get back in the car to go to work.

Some links

These ads are pretty hilarious. (from The Consumerist)

Why in the hell did anyone marry this guy in the first place? Shouldn't this contract have been a bit of a red flag? I'm just sayin'.
(And by the way? This is totally for reals, lest you question the authenticity.)

A really crazy landlady.