Newsie's two: The revenge of newsies.

Thats Moe (Maurice) a jive talkin' cat from the wrong side of the tracks.

Thats Moe and Poxin chillin.

Played hookie all day instead of going to work and getting nothing done. Instead I caught one of these:

Thats a ground dragon type named Flygon for those of you not in the loop. Other than that the sun is shining and the animules are sleeping. I think when The Crab gets home it will be time for a nice walk to the park and maybe a beer or a nap. In other strikingly important news I read the book Neuromancer by William Gibson. The book outlines a distopian future where Case (the main Character) has to hack into an A.I. in cyberspace. Its like Tron and 1984 crammed into a book and combined with nightmares you had about being sucked into your computer. The book invented the word Cyberspace and inspired parts of the Matrix... But dont worry... Its not as good as Keanu (Key-On-Oo).

newsies

1) I got a new cat this weekend. His name is Maurice and he is a space cowboy. Pictures will come soon.

2) Eric and I signed a lease this weekend for a sweet house starting August 1. It has a giant fenced-in yard, a permanent outdoor grille, a deck, a garage, and lots of room inside for all our stuff. I want to move in now! There are no pictures at all of the house.

The landlord was awesome. We got to the showing early and he told us about his radio show where he plays vinyl only and his other radio show of 50s music. His philosophy is to leave his tenants alone, and accept tenants based on if he feels he can trust them or not. He trusted us, about five minutes before another group of kids tried to sign the lease.

Also he is close personal friends with the SubDudes and goes touring with them. He always has too much fun. It's sort of too bad we won't see much of him, because he is a cool dude.

3) I will most likely stay in Fort Collins this summer and go to New Hampshire in the fall for an internship with a biofuels company. Too many fun things will happen here this summer for me to go away, and the company I want to work at just laid off some people, so they are not prepared to bring a new person into the office. Fine by me.

4) I did my important onion shooting experiment yesterday, and will get to see the results this afternoon. Cross your fingers that it worked! Pictures will be posted, if I get any good ones.

That is all.

trendy trendy

I saw a lot of plaid in the fall - Eric and I had a game of plaid-spotting that stopped being fun pretty quickly because it was too easy.

Now everyone is wearing boat shoes - in Colorado. That or those shoes Annie got where they send money for people in Africa to get shoes if you buy a pair. Of shoes.

Also we saw girls in bikinis on the plaza at school today. It was just over 60 and windy, and their top pieces had dangling strings that could have easily been pulled. I think they were advertising a luau. Foolishes!

The boat shoes are especially stupid because there are no boaters here. There is nowhere to boat.

Have you seen anything trendy lately?

PS the best is plaid boat shoes. FTW!

America kicks ass

King Missile you did it again.

Also I got three new books. Neuromancer, The Difference

Engine, BoneShaker. Bam (H1). God damn I love

steampunk. Anyway We played hookie yesterday and

went shopping for fountains, bed covers or something, and

plants. Why doesn't anyone have fountains.... Not having

fountains at the local Tibetan import store really put a

damper on the day. Also we played trivia last night and

got fifth but we won 1/3 rounds via a dartboard tiebreaker.

I should be going to work right now but instead I think I'll

read a little... If I cant do that whats the point of being a

grad student.

Astronaut Buttox

Moon8

1) Speak/Breath/OntheRUN

2)Time/Breath Reprise

3) The great gig in the sky

4) Money

5)Us and them

6) Any Colour You Like / Brain Damage / Eclipse

Pitchas!

Here are some pictures.

Little My walks again!

Redbud!

The fam waits.

Dick Cheney among the crocuses

The building I saw in my hotel room.

I like how the colors change across it.

He's gotten very militant.

Toys!

This weekend Eric and I got Fridgits, which lets you build a marble racecourse on your refrigerator. Some key pieces are a cup to catch the marbles, a wheel to spin them around, and a swinging cup to drop them just where you want. Mostly the marbles roll around on the floor, to the delight of Pocky. There are expansion sets!

We got all this at ScienceToyMagic, which is a store that used to be in Santa Fe and Rob Culbert hated it because it competed with his toy store. The guy in charge is a crazy physics man. The store itself is about as big as a bathroom stall, but his toys are all tiny so I guess it works out. (He sold me the Fridgits with an IOU since I didn't have cash!) He liked to explain how everything worked in a barely not frantic stream of fast-talk.

Also this weekend we got a balance board, but it's a cheap one from Sports Authority and I find it quite disappointing. The balancing point is more like a plane, so if you find the sweet spot you can stay balanced without any work at all. However, doing pushups on it is hard because the board's diameter is so small.

And, Mom sent me Koolaid Fun Fizz Drink Drops, because she's the best. These are the most fun if you put them directly in your mouth and bypass the whole "drop them in a glass of water and watch them fizz" part.

It's almost spring!

Noted.

The cat has started playing lava in the living room. I didn't realize they liked that game as much as us.

If you are in DC and want something sweet to do, look no further: The Mansion on O street. I have heard that it was established as a secret club for important people to have extremely private liaisons. The mansion has 100 rooms and 32 secret doors. You are free to try to find all the secret doors and touch everything, without anyone standing over you or nattering away about the history of the place. Also it is full of art and music. I haven't done it yet but I am super excited to check it out.

Also a tour of the Supreme Court is high on my list. When we were in DC, we did a tour of the Capitol building, which was less than ideal, but we did get to experience the acoustic phenomenon where people can stand at two spots quite far apart and hear each other perfectly. If you talk to your representative (House rep., I think) you can get tickets for a tour of the Dome. They say that's a workout, because you have to climb a million stairs to the top and there is no stopping point along the way. So do it before you're old and lame. Also if you talk to your representative you can get access to the House floor and the Senate floor to watch them debate. (Not the floor really, but the galleries.)

And my favorite new blog is this. It's so easy to be satisfied!

Tuesday

It's Tuesday! But seriously.... it's tuesday.... I hurt all over for no reason. Its like the flu cramps without the rest. I ran errands. Attempted to clean the apartment. Payed bills. Won a game of DotA with Tinker. Now I am going to watch some loony toons. Margaret is away feelig important and punching congress man in the stomach. 'More Money for Higher Education or we Will Kill your First Born.' Not really she is just learning about stuff I guess. Anyone knopw a sweet synth player? We should Jam... Just so you feel like you havent wasted 2 minuets of your life reading this here is a video

a picture for annie

Here's some brain images for Annie:

1) Really zoomed out

2) Really zoomed in, right about at the median

projects emerge

So Eric has now acquired an amp and a drum pad. Combined with the Korg we have the makings of an in-house electronic dance party. When Dane comes up and takes on the role of mix-master well, there will be no stopping us.

Meantime, the infinite buttons of the silent accordion frighten me. I figured out one of the buttons and then forgot it. I took the accordion into the lab last night, figuring while I waited for gels to run and whatnot I could do a little practicing. It's gotten scary in the lab at night because there have been a couple of major thefts, by people who clearly had keys and snuck in! What if they try to get our lab next?!???!?! If I'm playing the accordion they'll know to stay away, I figure. However, last night I did not have time to practice because I kept finding things to do besides run gels.

I am so close to getting my plasmid constructed! All I want is to get it done before spring break. But I also want to get my homework done, and sleep, and go to class like an obedient student. I just remind myself that I can sleep on the plane.

Speaking of planes, I will be able to go to Elizabeth's graduation! I have a conference to attend in Alexandria the week after, and they will fly me out a week early so I can take a brief vacay in MD. Whoop! (I still have to tell my professor this plan...)

Also I have gotten several nice packages in the mail recently - a cake-baking kit, complete with black gel frosting. I am holding off on using it until there is an appropriate occasion, one where I can make lots of people look at and eat black gel frosting. I got Dad's scarf he knitted me for Christmas, complete with maroon racing stripe. And I got some delicious rummy vegan cookies from Annie. Pocky also likes them - to eat and also to bat around on the floor.

Eric won't eat the beet soup I made - he tasted it and said it tasted like dirt. That's alright, I know it's an acquired taste. He also is not motivated by the thought of red pee. (He also won't try the rum cookies, but he claims to generally not like cookies. More for me!!)

Finally, happy anniversary us! We actually made it a whole year together, most pleasantly. The future's looking good.

Hey Whale! Whatcha been doing?

Let me answer that in slide show form..

.

You should look concerned Moomin... very concerned

all business

I am in the lab now. I am digesting three different plasmids (1 hour), running them on gels (1 hour), extracting the right DNA from the gels (1 hour), checking the DNA that I extractd (30 minutes), ligating the DNA (1 hour), and transforming e. coli with the ligation (1 hour). Then tomorrow I will see if I have successfully cloned anything, and I won't have to come in this weekend.
So I have about 3 hours left. Fringaninganinga. I am bored with this shit.

Side note, curries are delicious and super easy to make. You need onions, garlic, turmeric, cumin, beans, rice, veggies. Coconut milk helps. Tomatoes are sometimes nice. And then you have delicious warm food that looks like horrible diarreah (only before you eat it)!

Katamari is a super fun game, I think I might play a lot of it this weekend.
Spring break is coming up when I go to DC to meet lots of important people. After spring break I will be free to ski all the time!!!*!*!*

I am borrowing the accordion of Pat from the band. Pocky likes to sniff it so far. There are hundreds of buttons and I am determined to learn what each of them does, so I can play polkas and mariachi songs.

Cats don't have eyelashes.