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While serving champagne at Thanksgiving dinner today, I referred to our house as "the luxurious Pressman hotel." Nobody got the reference. Just be glad for them that we weren't having soup today, particularly not cream of mushroom soup.

Happy Thanksgiving to y'all. Let us pause and reflect on the historical significance of this day, one that is truly a microcosm of American history: a bunch of white people royally fucking over colored folks.

P.S. boobs
P.P.S. Stolen from charlycrash: kittens - something we can all be thankful for:

Stevie Ray Vaughan, aka SRV. Just after getting over a serious substance abuse problem, he died in a helicopter crash at the age of 35. What a damn shame. Check out his "Pride and Joy" (#2 on the playlist on my stickied entry) to see why I picked him.

Tags: writer's block

stolen from charlycrash:

"Comment here and I will tell you why I like/love you.

Even if we don't talk much, I want EVERYONE to participate. If you want to share the love and do the same at your journal, go ahead. You're under no obligation to carry it on if you comment here."

So yeah.

To-do before Thanksgiving:

1. Complete my half of a mock grant proposal for bioanalytical chemistry (bulk of work must be done by 11/18)
2. Study for (11/19-11/20) and take (11/21) cumulative exam on acid-base chemistry
3. Combine my work and my partner's work and nicely format/edit it to complete mock grant proposal for bioanalytical chemistry (desired completion date: 11/22; actually due 11/24)
4. Sit back, relax, have a Coke and a smile, begin reading George Eliot's Middlemarch (upon completion of 1-3)
5. Fly back to PA (11/24)

Fun fact #1: We can't use calculators for this cume, just logarithm tables.
Fun fact #2: George Eliot was actually Mary Anne Evans. Writing during the Victorian era, she chose a male pen name to ensure that her works would be taken seriously. (And also to keep people from prying into her personal life, since she was deeply involved with a married man.)

Do y'all remember the case earlier this year, where a teenager with cancer (Hodgkin's lymphoma, one of the most treatable forms of cancer) refused chemotherapy because it made him sick, and his family was insisting that he should get some kind of alternative quack treatment instead? And then his family was ordered by a court to see him through chemo and radiation anyway? Well, his treatment is now complete, and there's no evidence that he still has cancer.

Score: +1 for science-based medicine.

1. One of my friends in the department has been trying to get me to play him at chess for like a year, and he finally managed to get me to go to the campus chess club on Wednesday. It's not terribly big, but all the people there seem pretty cool, and they're all roughly around my strength. That's good; playing someone much better than you is no fun, because nobody likes getting slaughtered. Conversely, playing someone much weaker is also no fun (unless you really dislike that person), because it's not challenging at all. While I've forgotten most of my openings, my tactical abilities are evidently just mildly rusty, so that's good. Time to start actually playing again, now that I have some folks to play! Oh yeah, and I beat my friend twice, bwahaha.

2. Last night, Dina and I watched To Live and Die in L.A.. I picked it up years ago for ~$4 in a bargain bin at Best Buy, based on the fact that it had an interesting premise and a 30-year-old Willem Dafoe as the villain. Also, CSI's William Petersen plays the main character. And yes, I did say a 30-year-old Willem Dafoe - the movie is from 1985, so you can just imagine what the soundtrack is like (mostly Wang Chung, who, I just found out, aren't even fucking Chinese, the cheeky bastards). It was a lot of fun, and it features a spiffy car chase up the wrong side of the highway, complete with an endless stream of bad guys just showing up out of nowhere with guns. That made me happy, as I love car chases in movies (I know, I know, my taste is so highbrow).

3. As of ~8:45 a.m. last Friday, my Separations class is complete. This means that I have just three in-class exams remaining, ever (my Bioanalytical final this semester and a midterm and a final in Microfab next semester). Not that I'm counting or anything.

Current Music: Tenacious D - City Hall

Well as you all know, as of yesterday, same-sex marriage is now illegal in Maine again, by a slim margin. I could type an impressive volume of vitriol against the people who passed this, and why it's such a stupid idea to allow the majority to vote on a minority's rights to begin with, but I won't. Instead, I thought I'd post this:



(hat-tip to ms_daisy_cutter for the screencap)

That's how much the Catholic church donated in favor of banning same-sex marriage. (You can check for yourself here; it's under question 1.)

Questions:
1. Would Jesus approve of spending over half a million dollars on banning same-sex marriage instead of, you know, feeding and clothing the needy? I know that Maine gets mighty cold this time of year, and I bet that cash could have heated an awful lot of homeless shelters.
2. Here, we see a church getting financially involved in politics. We saw the same thing with the LDS church with Prop 8 in California; they donated many MILLIONS for that. Why do these churches still have tax-exempt status?

Stuff like this is why I stopped considering myself Catholic many years before I ever quit being a believer altogether.

Fever gone but itchy.
Hungry and eat doggy food.
Itchy itchy Scott came.
Ugly face so killed him.
Tasty.



Itchy.
Tasty.

U.S. Continues Quagmire-Building Effort In Afghanistan



KABUL, AFGHANISTAN— According to sources at the Pentagon, American quagmire-building efforts continued apace in Afghanistan this week, as the geographically rugged, politically unstable region remained ungovernable, death tolls continued to rise, and the grim military campaign persisted as hopelessly as ever.

In fact, many government officials now believe that the United States and its allies could be as little as six months away from their ultimate goal: the total quagmirification of Afghanistan.

"We've spent a lot of time and money fostering the turmoil and despair necessary to make this a sustaining quagmire, and we're not going to stop now," President Barack Obama said in a national address Monday night. "It won't be easy, but with enough tactical errors on the ground, shortsighted political strategies, and continued ignorance of our vast cultural differences, we could have a horrific, full-fledged quagmire by 2012."

Added Obama, "Together, we can make Afghanistan into a nightmarish hell-scape Americans will regret for generations to come."

The U.S. plan to build a lasting quagmire in Afghanistan calls for the loss of at least 5,000 coalition troops, nearly 1,500 of whom have already been killed, and a wasted investment of nearly $1 trillion, a quarter of which has thus far been spent.

( The rest )

Samantha from Garden State. Why?



'nuff said.

Oh yeah, and it doesn't hurt that in addition to having that smile, Natalie Portman herself has at least one scientific publication (in psychology, I think), speaks multiple languages, is active in liberal politics, etc. etc.

Tags: writer's block

Some year around Halloween, when I have the cash, I'm going to buy a black hearse. I'll pay somebody to put hydraulics on it, install a wicked sound system, and then drive around on Halloween, dressed as the Grim Reaper, blasting Rob Zombie's "Dragula" and "Superbeast" at ungodly decibels, tilting the hearse from side to side when necessary. ("Master of Puppets" would work pretty well, too.) Imagine it - *tilt to one side* DIG through the ditches and *tilt to the other* BURN through the witches and *tilt* SLAM in the back of my *tilt* DRAGULA!!!! It would be really fucking cool to have an exhaust pipe that could spew fire at that point, but I'm pretty sure that's illegal. Even if it's not, if another car happened to be behind me at that point, the driver would be mighty displeased.

This year, though, I'm going as Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel. Patrick Bateman was my first choice - I'd wear a suit, poncho, put fake blood on my face and neck, carry a (fake blood-coated) plastic axe, and ask people if they like Huey Lewis and the News - but I just got the suit I'd wear, and I don't want the first time I wear it to be that. Perhaps next year. Ah, ideas, ideas.

Oh yeah, and the day after Halloween, I'll be 25. How about that? Looks like I'll be imbibing my fair share at midnight that night.

In other news, I've been playing through the original Resident Evil games lately. I can appreciate RE1 for what it is, but as good as it was when it came out, I honestly can't say it's held up over time; the graphics are abysmal compared to modern systems (or even RE4 on the PS2), and the controls are really crappy compared to later games. None of this is to say that it's not fun to play, and to this day, there are few sounds more satisfying to me than that of a Hunter's death scream immediately following a magnum round being fired, but it still pales in comparison to modern stuff. I'll work my way through 2, 3, and 4 again, and then actually buy RE5, which I have yet to play. I can't wait.

'Til then, I have plenty of zombie movies to see this week to keep me busy: Zombieland, some other zombie movie that's in 3D, and Diary of the Dead. Oh, and of course, Return of the Living Dead. Tarman would be very sad if I didn't visit him this year:

Despite the unseasonably cold weather, it's been a good weekend. For one thing, my knee is almost better; I can move it through a full range of motion and walk without any pain or discomfort, which I most certainly could not do last weekend. I murdered the cume I had on Saturday, and that aside, I've been studying for my upcoming midterm in my bioanalytical chemistry class, which will be on Tuesday. I currently have five in-class exams remaining in my entire academic career (unless I go batshit insane and decide to pursue another graduate degree), and after Tuesday, it will be just four. w00t.

Also, since it's October and Halloween is coming up, I thought I'd go ahead and post something scary. See this picture?



It's from the video for Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy," which is the only music video I've ever seen that I'd say is legitimately terrifying. Enjoy:

This fulfills my ironic image quota for the day.

I ran across this remarkably sexist (read the text) Volkswagen ad today:



This seems to be the norm when it comes to old ads, but of course, I wasn't alive then to accurately sample the ad population.

I'd like to say that things have gotten much better since this ad was out, and while it's true that overt sexism/racism/etc. in public media are less common, sexism, racism, size-ism, etc., are very much still there; it's just that they are subtle, insidious, and whitewashed over, rather than in-your-face.

My thoughts on the matter can be summed up by this very funny and intelligent song:

Tags: writer's block

I found out just now that 2003's Old Boy - an outstanding (and, I promise you, unforgettable) film - is being remade, and it's going to star Will Smith. And be directed by Steven Spielberg. Well, not "remake" - they're calling it an "adaptation." I was horrified when I first heard about this, but upon further reflection, it might not be such an abomination after all. I don't want to go into further commentary to avoid ruining it, but I highly recommend the original to y'all foreign/quality film buffs.

Also,

What is it with literally 80%+ of ads these days having the word "mom" in them, usually in the form of "discovered by a mom" or "invented by a mom"? Am I the only one seeing ads like this absolutely everywhere?:



In completely unrelated news, it will be October in about five minutes. I never used to like autumn because it signaled the onset of winter, but now I like it more and more, and Halloween is becoming my favorite holiday; in addition to being fun (and immediately preceding my birthday), it has absolutely none of the stress that's associated with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Autumn is still cool, but not cold (at least here in NC), and of course, the foliage changes. Also, all the breweries are releasing their harvest ales, which are some of my favorite beers. I just had a pecan ale from Abita the other day, and it was quite yummy. Pumpkin ale is also wonderful, and in fact, one of the best beers I've ever had - and this includes Belgian and German imports - was a pumpkin ale from a microbrewery/restaurant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Speaking of which, I should swing by the local specialty shop to see what kind of import harvest beers are available. Such a trip can only end well.

Dexter's fourth season started tonight! And based on the first episode, this one has definite potential. I just hope they do a better job with this season's finale than they did with season three's, as that one felt too rushed and anticlimactic - probably the only negative thing about last season, actually. If the writers improved on that, this could be the best season yet, and based on the transcendence of season one and two's finales, there's definite hope for the kind of atavism I'd like to see.

Be excited.

Who are some of the better playwrights out there? Yes, I know about Chekhov, Sartre, Ibsen, Beckett, and obviously Shakespeare, but I'm sure there are many other people who write excellent stuff. I ask because plays seem like a great medium to turn to when reading time is limited (which it will be for me for a while); I can definitely read a play in a day or a few sit-downs' worth of word-gazing, or even if I can't, it won't take much longer than that. Certainly not as long as it takes to read a decent novel, or non-fiction book, or heaven forbid, a typical philosophy text.

Come to think of it, short stories are also excellent here; I should have a gander at Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asmiov's works, and maybe Dostoevsky's, although I know nothing about his short stories.

Y'all are a highly literary bunch overall, so any input would be appreciated.

Current Music: Muse - Uprising

School's been back in session for a while now, and that means I have to study for exams. I have two this week, so I'm currently going through my notes for one of them and writing out the many equations I'll need to memorize.

Studying this type of stuff (loads of math equations I'll quickly forget) has never been my cup of tea, but you know what? Unless I masochistically decide to pursue another graduate degree, this is the final year that I will ever, ever need to do this. Ever. Once the spring '10 semester is over, I'll be doing research full-time until I graduate. No more courses, no more studying...just go to the lab to do research, then head home and do whatever the hell I want. I suppose thesis writing is a daunting enough task, but that doesn't involve studying, and the thesis defense is a formality in most science programs, so I'm not really concerned with that at all. Anyway, that's years away.

So, for now...baby steps. One exam at a time. In fact, come to think of it, I have fewer than ten course exams remaining (!!!) in my entire academic career, and only a few others that are considerably easier. And to think: this time last year, I was fairly convinced I wouldn't even survive the semester, and I usually had just one or two days to seriously prepare for an exam (I have *weeks* now). This is like taking candy from a baby.

Separations: prepare to feel my wrath.

Current Music: Pretty Fly for a White Guy

Pardon the doublethink in the subject line. Still following up on my interest in 1984, I was reading the (woefully inadequate) list of Newspeak words on Wikipedia today, and eventually, I came upon the entry for "unperson." In the world of 1984, "unperson" referred to someone not only killed by The Party, but vaporized, sent to oblivion; The Party's ability to retroactively alter historical records on a mass scale ensured that people who became "unpersons" never existed to begin with. They'd even doctor old photographs to remove "unpersons" if necessary.

Well, whaddya know; Stalin made the "unperson" phenomenon into reality:



The fellow who was in the first photo was killed in the Great Purge. Lacking the ability to comprehensively "rectify" historical records to the extent that The Party could, we obviously have some records of these persons, but damn if Stalin didn't try. I suppose this isn't huge news for some of you, but I definitely wasn't sufficiently knowledgeable about Stalinism to be aware of this.

Next to me, a fresh mug of jasmine green tea steams, and the smell of ginger and mangoes is filling the house as my mango ginger tofu bakes. My research group is having a potluck today, and one of the staff scientists is vegan, so I figured I'd make something that everyone in the group can enjoy. And this stuff is friggin' awesome, folks.

I mentioned to rechercher the other day (hey, that rhymes) that I had some cool stuff to post, but have been quiet for various reasons. Here's the first cool thing. Insanely cool, in fact.

Abiogenesis, the process through which life arose from basic, nonliving building blocks, is becoming less and less mysterious. This is a commonly-leveled charge against evolution: "Evolution can't account for how life began, therefore, [insert religious conclusion]." Actually, it turns out that the principles of natural selection apply to certain molecular systems as well as to complex living ones. Richard Dawkins argued for this nicely in the Replicators chapter of The Selfish Gene back in 1976: if a self-replicating molecule arose just once and stayed around long enough to produce progeny, and those replicated, then we'd have the very beginnings of what would eventually become life. That's essentially what our cells, guided by the blueprints in DNA do: they self-replicate. And now, today, the Szostak research group at Harvard is making major strides towards showing that Dawkins' chapter was much more than just a "what if."

First, here's a nice YouTube video that sums up the Szostak group's research (skip to about 2 minutes, 43 seconds, since the first part is just an anti-creationist diatribe):

To accompany the video, here's a list of the Szostak lab's publications, here's a layman-accessible summary of his group's research, and here's a technical summary of it. A brief and oversimplified rundown of the process is as follows (watch the video/read the summary; they're short):

(1) Lipid vesicles self-assemble, creating an encapsulated system separated from its environment by a membrane
(2) Proto-nucleotide molecules diffuse into the vesicle; like the modern nucleotides in DNA and RNA, each proto-nucleotide has one counterpart, so these proto-nucleotides are self-polymerizing and self-copying
(3) The nucleotide chains are too large to exit the vesicle once they've polymerized, but thermal currents can separate the polymers into two copies, which can then go on to form more copies (this strongly resembles the polymerase chain reaction, which creates thousands or millions of copies of a chosen genetic sequence via temperature cycling)
(4) Single nucleotides will then continue to diffuse into the vesicle and form copies with the existing polymer chains
(5) The proto-cells grow as this occurs and compete with one another for lipids and nucleotides
(6) More stable polymers with better copying fidelity and faster copying speed will be selected for; eventually, they will begin to serve useful functions and will continue to evolve
(7) There is no (7). Natural selection is already taking place. Also, there's no (8).
(8) See (7).
(9) Sea bass. Mutated sea bass.

As I said earlier about abiogenesis being "less mysterious," that implies there is still some mystery, and indeed there is; the group hasn't shown that this is exactly how abiogenesis took place, as we can probably never know that, because proto-RNA or whatever didn't fossilize. It has shown, however, that self-replicating molecules can be very simple, and could have arisen in the conditions on Earth all those billions of years ago. Voila - abiogenesis, and the beginning of the tragicomedy we call life.