asimplechord

- Because why_me_why_not asked for some Bob/Jepha, I have to ask: does Jepha Howard still call Salt Lake home, or has he relocated to LA or some other city?

- Why is there not more discussion of Midtown!Gabe in comparison to Cobra!Gabe? He's so earnest and SERIOUS in his Midtown lyrics, it kills me; he did such a huge volt-face to become the "you people take yourselves and music too seriously" model that he is now.

- Am I the only person who imagines Brendon joining Keltie Colleen and other assorted Rockettes for high kicks during the repeat of the chorus of Behind The Sea?

- Dear Person Who Used The Last of the Transfection Reagent And Put The Empty Box Back In The Fridge: FUCK OFF AND DIE. I'm pretty sure you're also the person who returns empty boxes of what should be sterile Pasteur pipets to the shelf, and who used all the but the last four mL of my acrylamide, Tris buffer, AND Western Works reagent and put the empty bottles back on my bench.


And on that pleasant note, I AM GOING TO LUNCH, SOMEWHERE MY LABMATES CAN'T FIND ME.


FLYING SAUCER, TONIGHT 7PM. $2.75 PINTS. CANNOT WAIT.

First thing this morning was lab meeting. Excruciatingly boring. Poke-my-eyes-out levels. The Chief even wanted to get up and leave.

Yesterday's work-related rant was muted by why_me_why_not's happy-making post and by a) constant reminders that it was Hotass Brothers Day (which ended up being *such* a disppointment), b) only one day remained until the Gym Class Heroes show (YAY!), and c) the appearance of this month's AP, complete with Rise Against interview.

I'm mostly over it. Mostly. But the day is young.

To let you know the level of yesterday's stupidity, I'm just going to ask you science-type people one question: if I told you to use isobutanol from a bottle containing a settled mixture of water and isobutanol, which layer would you take, the upper or lower?

Uh-huh. The Idiot was not clear on whether hydrocarbons were more or less dense than water, and was choosing the wrong layer. For making gels. Which he made wrong. Twice. Because apparently the label "1.5M Tris pH 8.8" really means "1.5M Tris + 20% SDS". Really.



So. TONIGHT, I AM GOING TO HAVE DRINKS AT ABSINTHE, AND LISTEN TO THE GYM CLASS HEROES, AND NOT THINK ABOUT WORK EXCEPT TO BE GRATEFUL I HAVE A JOB AND I'VE GOT THE WEEKEND OFF.



*smirk*

Is it wrong that my first thought upon receiving Ticketmaster's weekend ticketing notice is that Metro Station's tour title is possibly the least accurate thing ever? "One Hot Night In November"? If it's not sold out the day-of, I might go just to laugh at their skeeze.

Dear Lab-mate,

1. Isopropanol ≠ isobutanol. They have different names, different miscibilities, different uses, different odors, DIFFERENT FORMULAE AND STRUCTURES. THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE. If I told you to use isopropanol, I meant for you to use isopropanol, not to decide that it didn't really matter. YES, THIS IS PROBABLY WHY YOUR DNA FRAGMENT DISAPPEARED. NO, IT'S NOT MY FAULT. I WROTE IT DOWN, AND I SHOWED YOU THE APPROPRIATE BOTTLE. FUCK OFF AND DIE, I'M NOT INTERESTED IN HEARING YOUR EXCUSES.

2. Saving a file to the "my documents" folder on one (common equipment-devoted) computer? Does not mean that you'll be able to access it from another computer. No, believe it or not, if you've never used that particular PC before, your network folder is not automatically mapped as a drive. And no, if you stop me on my way out the door for the day, I'm not going to go map it for you. That file isn't going anywhere. You've got a print-out. Deal.

3. Saving a file as a JPG? Means you cannot re-open it in the acquisition software. DON'T TRY, you'll crash the program. Drag it onto a thumb drive and take it back to your computer; open it in Photoshop or what-the-hell-ever program you want there.

4. Sterile technique does not mean that you stick a clean pipet into the lab stock of LB (which, by the way, if I told you that, yes, LB was in the 'fridge, and you're holding a bottle with a big LB label on it, why ask again if that's the LB?) MULTIPLE TIMES. It means you flame the mouth of the bottle, pour out, flame the mouth again before capping it. AT WHAT ASSBACKWARDS PLACE DID YOU LEARN TO DO SCIENCE?

No love. I'm not kidding. None at all.
Me


I'm maybe PMSing and feeling a bit hostile.

It's sorta sad, because the day started off really well.

So, there are some things I don't really get about the bandslash fandom. Like, why would you want to have an "Unpopular Bandom Opinion Meme", anonymous or not? That's inviting wank. Does anybody really need that?

I mean, I don't mind sharing my opinions, unpopular or not. But I'd rather not stick them out there as a bull's eye for sniping.


( unintelligible science babble below )

Also? I'd really like it if the Chief and ex-student S would stop being so damn passive-aggressive and TALKED to each other. It'd make my life so much easier.

Dear Thermo/Forma and SRS,

You totally suck. Design flaw, my ass. That incubator worked fine for seven fucking years. There's no reason for it to die again less than two months after we shelled out for your inordinately slow, hugely expensive repair service to fix it.

No love,
Me

And while we're at it?

Dear UT-HSCH Purchasing,

You are the least efficient, most expensive, biggest pain in the ass ordering system I have ever encountered. And since I've attended/worked in state-funded institutions for fifteen years, that's saying something.

Ditto on the affection levels,
Moi

Dear Person Who Decided to Re-Key Everything,

I can appreciate that you're trying to make life easier by putting all the common equipment rooms on the same key while upgrading security.

But it would be helpful if you asked the people who actually use all eighty-bazillion keys which rooms to which we require access before changing the locks.

The PIs? Sorta clueless on that score.

If I can't get into the tissue culture room Monday morning because you asked all the PIs instead of lab managers for key inventories? I will be seriously pissed.

Dear Facility Managers,

Please to not be f*cking with the vacuum and air-flow during regular business hours. It was irritating enough to lose vacuum pressure for the traps last night at 6pm, but I can understand that you were trying to avoid inconveniencing us during the most common work hours. I was happy to see that pressure had returned when I got here this morning. But it is now the middle of the freakin' day, and the traps? Not working again. No suckage. And that is bad. So I'd appreciate it if you either turned it back on or warned us ahead of time, so we could plan around the outage.

If this issue extended to the back-flow in the tissue culture hood, and all my plates end up contaminated, I'm going to be seriously pissed. So, yeah, WARN US NEXT TIME. It's not like we don't already get a bazillion inane "oh, be careful of the sidewalk cleaning on Fannin St for X days this week" messages. They go into their own filtered subfolder entitled "Construction Crap" in my Outlook mailbox. One more? Wouldn't have hurt.

No love,
Me

( Another entry for the phuckit file. )

Moral of the story: Always label your tubes appropriately, because you might not be the person who uses your samples in the future.


( A public billet-doux for the phantom dark-room user )