I'm famous

What else can I say now that traffic to this blog has mushroomed some 800% from 1 person to 8? A little conversation tipped the bucket this afternoon and now the hyperlink is written on about 4 desks around the lab, and probably still proliferating. Imagining a sustained 800% weekly growth (comparable to some Vegas loansharks), and that each person eventually clicks once on one of the ads posted (they're supposed to be here, somewhere, I'm told by Google Inc.), then I will have doubled my annual income by March. I thank you all in advance...

Speaking of famous, Matt and I (and now James as well) are still enthralled by Entourage, HBO's new offering this season. Hopefully, it does better than previous pilots with Jeremy Piven (remember Cupid?, though that was Paula Marshall's fault) and reappears after this season's finale. Eyecandy aside, there appears to be a striking resemblance between Vince Chase (Adrian Grenier) and Jose Theodore (overpaid NHL netminder, party animal, and part time Hell's Angel pretty boy). However, a closer glance at the HBO website reveals a more startling detail. See what you think.


Who would have guessed he was such a versatile actor?

Nerds live on

Eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
- Mark Twain

Yesterday, I was reacquainted with a childhood favorite of mine. Small amorphous aggregates of red, yellow, green and purple sugar which pack a potent twang when swallowed by the gobful. Yes, Nerds are back. They even made it into Lovemarks (more on that another day). And to my delight, my angel colleague Eliza brought an entire populace of them back from wherever it is she disappears to on alternate weekends. Lemon and watermelon, cherry and apple covered lime, Nerds taste as good as they did in the days we'd beat up other kids (or get thumped ourselves) for this stuff. Perhaps like a sign of other things to come, entire hordes of kids were addicted, sometimes desperate enough to lick the innards of boxes already bared emptied. We then peddled some to Xiao. Though I have never hustled anything, ever, there was a strange rush to converting a naive to a user. Regrettably, multiple flavours no longer come packaged in a single box with their own spouts, which would make them double addictive. The result? "Oh, they're just like rice!". I shall now monitor him over the week.

August is the hottest month

When the last pipettor is laid to rest at the end of the day, I sometimes question myself what I'm doing here. As J-Dahg reclines on his way to Scandanavia and beyond to kick off his third consecutive month of vacation. Of course, this is simply a reiteration of just about every other day for the past six years. Yes, what am I doing here? Six years has taught me something though: to each sorrow is a consolation. Not necessarily on par, but with a little imagination it eases the pain somewhat.

Today, I have been reminded once again that there are certain perks (or consolations) of being on campus in August...as opposed to, say, holidaying in Europe. A quick scan of the university grounds indicates that this year's crop of freshmen are in business. As always, they provide a refreshing sight to drab Ivy surroundings. Except there appear to be visible cracks (certainly not a pun).

While I had noticed signs of it last fall, the autumn crack, as it shall be referred to from now on, is definitely here to stay. The quality of roughly half of the freshmen continues its downward trend. They have lost their shape, sport strange assymetries, and a plastic aura about them. Strangely, they still manage to put up very presentable front. But by what mechanism? Perhaps youth is invincible.

Again, my memory fails me, but I recall about three years ago I decided to invest in L'Óreal. At the time, it was the only significant publicly traded cosmetics outfit. Only an ongoing shareholder lawsuit prevented me from jumping in. In hindsight, one lesson is clear. Beware of public companies - the really profitable ones are owned by tremendously wealthy people who will have added the equivalent of my net worth (and yours) by the time either of us reading this.

But I digress. August also reintroduces tennis to north America, like a long lost species to its home continent. And with tennis comes Maria. But even the goddess of green shows signs of The Crack. See how the modern wonders of cosmetics and fashion ressurect her to her former glory. Curious how she funds the restoration? Check out her blog at Motorola. Yes, she has her very own line of phones.


There are worse day jobs...

6 times a fool

Unwittingly, I have been sleeping with the enemy. Literally. Two days in a row, my bright yellow bracelet has remained on, tugging ever so slightly at the wrist. Livestrong it says. "Do you really reckon he took steroids?" asked Raina on Friday at the pub. At the time, my most sensible reply was that for someone who had come out of chemo and had only one nut, it was hard to believe he could walk without a pharmacy. Perhaps the helpful scientists at Squibb gave him the equivalent of a hormonal Jamba Juice.

Looking at it more closely now, another side has become more apparent. Being neither French nor a staunch supporter of cycling, I'm not so concerned about steroid use. Instead, I appear to have been wearing something commemorating someone who decided not to forfeit himself at time of great trouble, who places his professional glory above his family, and defends his doping by threatening to sue. Disappointingly, telling kids to turn away from suicide may mean little if they are set such standards to measure up to.

For now, the cute little band will return to a box of memorables. Items with a rich history loves, events, and mistakes. I still promise to take it out once in a while as a fashion statement. After all, everyone I know thinks it's cool.

One man's poison

I know the stock market suffers from the dog days of summer, but I never thought the same applied to football. And don't the D days fall in July anyway? Nonetheless, the initial start of the European league season has already begun to go downhill for me. More precisely, the sportbook has taken a bit of a hit from the initial highs due to the fault of Matyjlland. These Danish champions managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by blowing a 2-0 lead against a ten-men team in injury time. Just to complete the insult, their opponents heralded from the highly revered footballing nation of the Faroe Islands. At this moment, I still do not know where these islands are.

Not to be put off by a letdown, I dove head first again into the book today. Before I start mentioning fixes, it was definitely very awkward to watch Chelsea edge past Spurs by another book aid. Smacks of farce, but I'll take it nonetheless. Perhaps that's the way a true punter should feel.



"You dumbass, don't you know the odds if we just drew?"

Even E. coli get the blues

These are truly testing times at the lab. After giving two presentations this morning, I was in no real mood to put up with any more crap. I guess the bacteria we had cultured felt the same way too, having been pulling extra duty overnight to produce our green. Unfortunately, they have been engineered to produce a green protein - greenbacks would have been a better choice. The thought led me to consider why it took so long for someone to figure out that the fluorescent protein that make up the bulk of a jellyfish could be used to tag other things and make them glow as well. Like mice or fish for example. Then again, maybe some sod did come up with the idea, sold it, and is now reading this in the comfort of his seaside chateau in the French riviera. To make matters worse, the disgruntled critters decided to withold our green as inclusions so that even when we crushed the shit out of them, they clung on to it, leaving Matt and I with little to work with. Cooking them seemed to do no better. Under the UV light, we got the equivalent of the prokaryotic middle finger as the tubes of sediment glowed in our faces. I think I'll go back tomorrow, flush them with amp, and turn to the yeast as my new friends.