asimplechord

+ Write Bradley Manning a birthday letter. Seriously, the dude's been essentially in solitary for almost two years for allegedly sneaking classified data to Wikileaks. Send him some positive thoughts.

+ Rec: In good times and bad by rsadelle. Hockey RPF, Boston Bruins. In which Tyler can no longer play hockey and ends up as Segs' househusband. It's cute, and it made me smile.

- Work today. But if I work today I'll feel less guilt about taking off early later in the week. Plus, trying to get replicate experiments finished before the holiday break.

+ Followed by Aeros vs Peoria at the TC. Hackett was strong in goal the other night, and Zucker scored his second GWG in overtime. Hopefully the winning streak will continue.

Book-related ones!

1. The new Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell (heh, written like it's a pairing; in a twisted way, it is), Kill You Twice by Chelsea Cain, will be released in August, and an excerpt of the first chapter is available online.

2. The first 50 pages of the next installment of Naomi Novik's Temeraire series is also on the interwebs. I thought the last book was sort of lackluster in comparison to previous ones, but it set up this one. I hope.

Thanks to jmc_bks for the links!

+ eckerlilas wins tonight! ♥ I hope she, shutyourface, fiddleyoumust, ericaplease, and harriet_vane (and others I'm sure I'm forgetting) had an awesome time at the Discos' show tonight. PICS OF THE STEAM PUNK KIT, I WANT THEM!

+ Happy birthday to harriet_vane! Here's to a new year, full of exciting travel plans and a new place and hopefully lots of positive thoughts and events!

+ Spent the day wigged out because I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen my wedding ring. I don't even wear it 99% of the time, but when I was digging out earrings to wear this morning I didn't see it in its spot, and I couldn't figure out when I'd last worn it or where I might've put it. Searched before work, then after work I dug through all backpacks, bags, totes, and pockets before finding it.

All that stress for a hunk of pressed metal and crystal?

+ Spent half my work day using one of the department's confocal microscopes. IDK, it's good that the manager wants to help me learn the system, but she's a physicist, not a cell biologist, so I'm not sure that her advice will give me the result that I need. But at least I know now how to work the set-up, and I didn't bleach my samples, so I can always sign up for more time and re-acquire images with a higher magnification and redefining the original Z plane where I want, rather than where she thinks the cells look best.

+ Hey, new Against Me! album. I'm enjoying you. (Even though you're just different recordings/demos from Searching for a Former Clarity.)

+ Billie Joe Armstrong's teenaged sons have a band? And he produced their first album? I can't decide if I'm intrigued or if that convinces me even more that it's all about who you know.

+ So TAI's following in the footsteps of other DD/FBR bands? I'm sure I'll be sad about the departure of MGC and the Butcher at some point, but a) I'm enjoying his Animal Upstairs project, b) I'm curious to hear the new album without their influences, and c) I feel like, if there's any truth to the rumors about how Tomrad was given the heave-ho, we should enjoy some irony.

+ Time to settle into bed and set the TV so that I fall asleep watching today's French Open matches. I hear Rafa's match against Isner was more epic than it should've been? And that Nando's hair is making the FO its last stand?

+ I mentioned this in an email to why_me_why_not and jmc_bks. The world doesn't need more schmoop, right? But ( this pic cries out for it )

+ Last random thought for the day. Why did hero_living follow me back on twitter? I enjoy Rudy's (or whoever posts in lieu of Rudy) positive thoughts, but I didn't realize they followed people back. :/ Fourth wall, I like you.

+ Jeremy Scahill and Josh Foust on Democracy Now this morning, in the wake of JScahill's piece on Yemen. IDK, as someone who'd sort of forgotten about Yemen's place in military/foreign policy strategy after the USS Cole until the Wikileaks revelation that Petraeus had verbalized a deal with Saleh, I found it educational.

+ The Sony Ericsson Open has a Roger/Rafa match-up in the semi-finals in the offing, if they each win their quarterfinal matches today. In any case, my plan for this evening is to watch Rafa's match against Tomas Berdych, which ESPN2 is scheduled to broadcast.

+ Work. \o/ /o\ I spent yesterday going through a bunch of old data, for the project that was mine before the Chief decided that we really needed to get the Idiot's abandoned project consolidated and shipped out for publication. A year and a half later... yeah. I'd completely forgotten some of the experiments I'd done. I did a metric fuck-ton of work on this, and it links to the Idiot's stuff, so that time was not wasted, but I'm still angry that I had to stop working on the biochemistry that interested me to finish his shit. Beyond that, we've sifted through a ton of mass spec data, and I feel like there's SO MUCH that could be done, if only there were more hours in the day. Or I could clone myself.

+ Trying to decide if I feel up to dealing with the crowds at the Discovery Green two days in a row. I don't care so much about tomorrow's headliners, but The Hold Steady are playing a set at 7pm. Ditto for Saturday: I've seen Kings of Leon, but I'm totally willing to get there early enough for a good spot to see Panic! At The Disco.

+ CHRIS CORNELL. Saturday. (Really, I don't think that requires any more commentary.)

+ A's birthday Monday. He can't decide what sort of birthday cake he wants, or where he'd like to go for his birthday supper. Suggestions for a restaurant that will not require travel anywhere near Reliant Park during the NCAA Final?

I was thinking about the question posed here for discussion in the context of The Runaway General and the appointment of Petraeus to head ISAF. (Wow, he'll be a busy man.)

( cut because I babble. a lot. )
*sigh*


At that point in my mental circumlocutions, my brain started hurting, so I went back to counting cells and focal adhesions under the microscope, because as boring as it sounds, these are metrics that I have complete confidence in.


*I sometimes wondered how he got the job in the first place. This is a man who personally helped cover up the blue-on-blue fire that killed Pat Tillman. And detainee abuse occurred under his command.

Courtesy of J: there were a few things in the first page of this LA Weekly article about m/m novels that annoyed me, but in the end it came off as relatively even-handed. And there's a mention of slash fandom as the progenitor of the current m/m ebook phenomenon.

ETA: :( John Frusciante left RHCP? He and Flea were the reason I loved them.

Day 01 → My favorite song
Day 02 → My favorite movie
Day 03 → My favorite television program
Day 04 → My favorite book
Day 05 → My favorite quote
Day 06 → Whatever strikes my fancy
Day 07 → A photo that makes me happy
Day 08 → A photo that makes me sad

Day 09 → A photo that I took


Coffee is a serious thing for me. And I liked the way it looked, the heavy white ceramic against the table's surface, the black coffee.


In other news, J linked me to this Rafa picspam and this Feli Lopez picspam. NGL, I have spent a significant portion of the evening ogling various body parts.

Is Chris Pine going to stake his big-screen career on reboots? Don't get me wrong, I liked the early Jack Ryan novels, and never thought that Harrison Ford fit the description. But really? Another retread?

Also? Army of Women. This could be a really cool, really helpful innovation.

I don't have really strong feelings about Folie A Deux, except that I enjoy the second half better than the first, but the review at LiveDaily amuses me. Because a) there's no real depth or explanation about why the reviewer thinks it's not good, and b) the reviewer clearly doesn't understand how to use the word "latter" appropriately.

For shutyourface and vic_ramsey, The Hush Sound @ Daytrotter. If you look in the archives, a bunch of other bands have done live sessions that are available for download, including Phantom Planet.



Ugh, bad hair day. I know - it's so short you'd think a bad hair day would be impossible (minus the whole psycho-hair bed-head thing I have going on most mornings) but I, uh, didn't comb it when I got out of the shower this morning. And then it got rained on, which you would think might help it. Sadly, this is not the case.