asimplechord

First things first! It is November, and thus time for NaNoWriMo. I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing, so if anyone's still here, give me a fandom, character or pairing, and three words. I might write a sentence, I might write a paragraph, or I might find a picture or gif that's appropriate. Yes? OK.

The rest:

:( I'm still looking for a job.

:) I went to a Chicago Wolves/Rockford IceHogs game! It was odd. Because the Wolves were the home team, but the Hogs are the bb!Blackhawks, and they're so close to home that the audience was pretty evenly split. The lady next to me is a season ticketholder, but she was utterly clueless, because she kept saying that she didn't recognize any of the names of the players or their faces, and she didn't know what was going on. Um. The team that was the Chicago Wolves last year was the affiliate of the Canucks, and is now in Utica. This team is St Louis's AHL affiliate, and they were the Peoria Rivermen last year. So yeah, none of these dudes SHOULD be people she recognizes. But I just nodded and ignored her. And waved to Michael Davies (tiny forward is tiny), former Badger, who saw Aaron's UW sweater and came over to give us a nod.

:)) FRANK TURNER. Cool venue, great show.

:))) Tabby will be in the Chicagoland area soon. And Butch Walker is playing at the House of Blues next week.

I put a bunch of stuff up on craigslist, but if anyone here wants a table and 4 chairs, some bar stools, a butcher-block, or random band memorabilia (MCR Day of the Dead mask, signed and unsigned posters, etc), let me know. I really just want this stuff to stop cluttering our space.

I think that's pretty much it at the moment.

\o/ Proofs for the migration/invasion paper came back. I'm not really happy with the figures - we had them the size we wanted, and the publisher shrank them about 25%. I'd've used more of the white space if I'd known they'd do that. But still. Paper #2 for 2013. One more (a mini-review) is under editorial review, there's another for which I'm doing experiments to respond to reviewers' comments, and there should be at least one more submitted from this lab in the year with my name in the byline, because I started the project even if I'm not going to be the first author.

~ A real estate agent from Aaron's future employer came and assessed the house. Their estimate is about $30K higher than the last tax assessment, but we'll list it there and see what happens. She had three things she wants us to do (all stuff we've talked about but procrastinated on actually doing), but there's nothing major. Paint a couple of things, powerwash, re-tile the master bath's floor. Aaron's going to take care of most of that, because he is FINISHED work. He's being paid for the vacation time he had accrued, but Wednesday was his last day of work for Dow.

? There's a fic meme somewhere for hockey fandom that's all about the stupidly hilarious things that hockey commentators say, right? If not THERE SHOULD BE. Like, no, really, how many times can someone talk about Malkin's penetration or someone getting wood on it without earning a smirk and a laugh?

? I want to see Star Trek: Into Darkness some time this week. WHO WANTS TO GO SEE IT WITH ME?

OK. Rafa's playing in Rome on TTC, I've got to finish reading The Good Earth before the Blackhawks/Wings game, and there's choc chip banana bread to be baked for Carmen's crawfish boil, so I should get moving.

Staal collective, in full glory. I... don't really see the point?

I guess this is to make roster space for the Checkers, who are heading into Calder Cup playoffs this weekend, and would probably like to have the skills of Riley Nash and Tim Wallace back, while the Canes are basically done when the regular season is over?

And to set an NHL record when/if all four Staals are technically on the team rosters when the Canes play the Rangers tomorrow, even though Marc Staal is still hurt?

Every other team (it seems) has had a de-aging fic.

Shouldn't ( this ) inspire a Canes one? Or is there one already, and I just haven't read it?

Shame is for other people, right? Right. I posted some porn. victors/spoils. Genderswap hockey RPF. Je(ss) Skinner/Justin Faulk, post-game 6March2012.

( bits and pieces in this 'verse that may or may not become fic at some point )

1. Aaron has pneumonia. Apparently there's a mini-epidemic in our 'burb of runners coming down with it, and their expanded lung capacity makes them not realize how sick they are until they are REALLY sick. The doc gave him a shot and a scrip for an inhaler and antibiotics, and he was noticeably better last night, so I think he'll be okay in the next day or two.

2. Reviews back on the last manuscript submitted. The suggested experiments from two reviewers do not appear too onerous.

3. GREEEEEEN DAY. (I'm still going to SXSW for Friday and Saturday at the very least, even though this has turned into the most hectic week at work and home.)

4. Flyers vs. Devils tonight. I'm hoping that the Devils' recent slump has reached its end, and they'll put the Flyers into the bottom of the Atlantic division in their next couple of games.

5. Jason Zucker :( Chances that Granlund goes back to MN? I favor sending Larsson up instead, or maybe Fontaine, because I don't think Granlund's fast enough to contribute the way Zucker does, but Larsson's solid enough offensively and defensively and Fontaine's right behind him in terms of scoring, while Granlund would benefit from more playing time back with Houston.

1. I've basically spent most of the last 72 hours alternately taking cold medicine and sleeping. The only thing I've been awake for is the the Aeros game last night against the OKC Barons. (Holy crap, Matt Hackett, keep making saves like that, 36/37.)

2. Someday soon I might finish reading Sean Pronger's Journeyman and have something intelligent to say about it.

3. I should probably write some trope-fic, shouldn't I? But mostly I just want to poke more at comment-fic and see if anything else falls out of my head.

4. Did y'all see the stats sheet for this game? Check out the video and that right column, particularly for the third period. 244 penalty minutes. Jeez, I thought the Rockford/Lake Erie game was bad for penalty minutes. Mostly I think the coach's, "They're a very caring group in there," is HILARIOUS, because multiple couples-skate fights does not make me automatically think, "Oh, clearly these are very affectionate, loving dudes."

If you read Russian Machine Never Breaks or watched last night's Caps/Bolts game, you've already seen this, but...

( what's going on with Ovechkin's hair? )



Ugh. Back to reading all the background ever on histone acetylation and gene regulation so I can converse intelligently about the new project for the grant proposal. I love how as soon as I get competent at a new technique and caught up on all the background literature for that topic, my boss decides that we need to move into yet another new direction, so there's a new learning curve to be scaled. :|

What was that last night, Wild? Jonas Brodin is doing an amazing job as a small-ish, young defenseman, and Charlie Coyle had a decent night for his home debut, but. What. Seriously. OTOH... DEVILS. :)

Morning random:

a) Writing "I suck at summaries" anywhere in your summary pretty much guarantees that I am never going to click the link to your fic. Even more so if it's a work in progress.

b) BBC News reported this morning on a prisoner who concealed his mobile phone in his rectum. Guards became suspicious when a ring tone was heard during a search of his cell. Ow.

c) It is Friday. Paper is submitted. Book club (ie, wine drinking with book discussion as an excuse) tonight. HAPPY WEEKEND!

a) Clybourne Park. The Alley is producing it this season, and we saw it on Sunday. I really enjoyed parts of it, and think Norris does an interesting job of weaving race and perception as related to urban renewal with things like unpopular war and PTSD. Parts of the second act felt like they were written specifically for a talk-back with a sociology or history class, though. Best thing: the use of popular music through the decades to transition between 1959 and 2009. Some of the dialogue was that sort of train-wreck where you KNOW someone is going to say something utterly, completely offensive because they've boxed themselves in in conversation, and I spent a good portion of the second act cringing. David Rainey, you (or your character, whichever) are an A+ troll.

b) Canadian boys and stereotypical speech patterns. Go listen to the PONDcast for the the preview to the other day's Wild/Blues game. How many times can Marco Scandella work "for sure" into a response? Pretty much EVERY TIME he answers a question. (Less said about the results of that game, the better. Not impressed with his interfering with Oshie like that so close to the end of the game. D:)

c) Watching last night's Edmonton/Avs game, A turned to me and said, "It's much easier to appreciate how talented Eberle is when he's not scoring against our team." YES. YES, IT IS.

d) So tired of my boss right now. He asked me to change EVERY GRAPH in the manuscript so that the bars were bounded by 0.5pt lines. When they've been in the format they're in (1pt) since I first made them. Nine months ago. And NOW, while I'm trying to finish the last little bits of that paper and do a slew of experiments for the new grant, he wants to me to change them? No. That'll involve deleting the current graphs, going back to GraphPad and changing them, then re-importing, re-sizing, and re-labeling them all in the graphics software he favors (which I haaaaaate like burning). For all 15 graphs. I have enough to do. If he really doesn't like that line weight, he can change them all. And then after THAT discussion, he decided that I should re-analyze some of my data. Again. Because the results don't fit his hypothesis. THAT'S NOT HOW SCIENCE WORKS.

e) URGH. The LCD display on our PCR machine is dying. If not, I could just stick these first strand synthesis reactions in it and leave, and it'd do the temperature changes for me. But no. I'm hanging out for the 42degC bit, then moving them to the 70degC block for 15 minutes, and THEN I'm done for the day.



Cranky day. Because in between today's grant/paper shenanigans, Post-Doc Who Thawed All Our Cells, kept coming to ask me questions that wouldn't need my attention if she just LOOKED IN THE INVENTORY that I conveniently posted to the lab server, and which I update every time we get a new antibody. Ugh. I believe tonight is not going to be a gym night. I believe it is going to be time for ALL THE WINE and ALL THE HOCKEY. And Dante and A cuddles.