The Fount of Useless Information Recommends T-Shirts

I need a new t-shirt, and I'm thinking that this might be the place to find the one. Over at Free Katie, they are campaigning to free Katie Holmes from the nefarious grips of Tom Cruise. Is it any of our business? No, of course not. Does it really make a difference in my life? Not really. No. Is it the site amusing? Without a doubt. Is it wrong to try to free poor Katie? Possibly, but certainly no more wrong than having to witness Tom Cruise go completely psychotic on Oprah. Only Rob and Amber of Survivor/Amazing Race/Rob and Amber Get Married quasi-fame are a more annoying couple, but even they were not truly ubiquitous like the TomKat. If buying a t-shirt can prevent us from having to endure Tom proclaim his love each time a camera goes by, then don't forget to don your Free Katie shirt before going to see War of the Worlds.

If the campaign fails to free Ms. Holmes, I can only hope that the vows at the eventual wedding go something like this:

Minister: "The couple has decided to write their own vows, which they will now read to each other."

Tom: "Katie, I can't imagine living my life without you. I've been trying for days to find the words to express the way I feel, and I think I've finally got it. 'Katie, You can be my wingman any time.'"

Katie: "No, man. You can be mine."

Now, go forth and purchase.

Until later...

Life on The Pharm: Boundaries

Back to the office once again for more stories. I often wonder how it is that people can have such different boundaries. Just because I believe that something is acceptable doesn't mean that you will and vice-versa. This is how we end up having problems with close talkers or people who feel that it's acceptable to hug anyone and everyone. Unfortunately, sometimes these boundary-crossings happen in the workplace, to make things even worse, sometimes they happen in the bathroom.

I was just finishing up washing my hands and preparing to leave the restroom one day recently when a coworker walked in. As he passed me, we exchanged the obligatory "Hey. Howyadoin'?" I went to the paper towel dispenser, and began drying my hands. Then, as he entered a stall, he decided to address me again. Now this is not a, simple "seeya later, have a nice day" type of thing on his way into the stall, but instead he entered a stall while asking me a question, shut the door, dropped trou, sat down and waited for an answer (I'm guessing that's not all he was doing while sitting there, but contemplating the reality of the situation is far too disturbing for me). This was not some sort of question pertaining to work that had to be answered at that very moment. It was a question about the upcoming NBA draft. Typically, I don't mind discussing the professional prospects of various college basketball players, but when the other party is sitting on a toilet, I don't feel that it is the appropriate time for that (or any) conversation. Feeling rather awkward (i.e. wishing to be anywhere other than where I was at that moment) I answered the question and tried to leave. No such luck. From the stall came the disembodied voice again with a follow-up question. At this point I was left with two options, be incredibly rude and follow my instincts which were telling me to run screaming out of the bathroom or stand there carrying on a conversation with the toilet-bound colleague. I eventually opted for the middle ground, replying as briefly as succinctly as possible and exiting immediately upon ending my sentence, preventing any opportunity for continued conversation. To put it mathematically: Defecation+Conversation=Abomination. Boundaries, people, boundaries.

So for all of my readers out there, file this away for future reference: If your naked posterior is currently in contact with porcelain, I do not wish to converse with you. When you are done, fully clothed and have washed your hands, come see me and I'll be more than willing to talk. Chances are, I might be able to concentrate on the subject a little bit better, as I won't have to dedicate 75% of my brain power to figure out how to escape.

Until later...

Trivial Tuesday

Today's Category: Movie Nostalgia

Anyone who knows me well, knows I love The Goonies and I love my Goonies DVD (once you can quote the entire movie on your own, the viewing experience is greatly enhanced by adding the commentary). So, we're going back to Astoria for this question. Jeff Cohen is probably best known for playing Chunk in the Goonies and while it's tempting to ask you where Jeff Cohen went to college, eventually becoming the Student Association president, I won't. Instead, I want you to tell me Chunk's actual name. (First is sufficient.)

Post the answer to this week's (very easy) question in the comments section, and claim what is rightfully yours, the right to brag to everyone you know about how smart you are.

Until later...

Update: Wow! That was quick. Congratulations to Laziest Girl who rapidly gave us the answer of Lawrence. Apparently I was overcompensating for the past two weeks and making the questions too easy.

Maria Full of Grace

We watched Maria Full of Grace this weekend. It was quite good and painted a not-so-wonderful picture of being a drug mule. I felt that the balance between how horrors of the job and the reasoning behind someone becoming a mule was very well done. While I could never imagine taking such a risk myself, I could never imagine having to deal with some of the situations they dealt with either. This helped make the film much more believable.

The thing I found the most odd about the movie is that the actress playing Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) looked remarkably like my friend, Fashion Maven. I don't mean she looked exactly like her; there were some features that were very different and there was the thing about how one of them is Colombian and the other...decidedly not. Regardless, it was strange to see someone who looked that much like someone you know on screen swallowing pellets of heroin to smuggle across borders.

Until later...

Book Club

At our most recent book club meeting, we discussed She's Come Undone, by Wally Lamb, which I have already discussed here. I doubt that any of you care too much about the discussion, but I was a little saddened by how wonderful some of the people thought the book was and that some of the women in the group were shocked to realize that it was written by a man.

Really, posting about this just gives me an opportunity to post some pictures of what I brought to our lunch meeting. By not responding quickly to the email asking for people to sign up for various portions of the lunch, I ended up being responsible for bringing plates, bowls, silverware, etc. That was not nearly exciting enough, so I thought maybe I'd make a dessert (somehow no one had been assigned to make one). After checking with Filter-free Coworker (the organizer of this month's meeting) to make sure she had no problem with it (someone offering to make dessert...of course she didn't), I decided to make a chocolate cake with a white chocolate ganache between the layers and on top. The ganache didn't turn out with the exact texture I wanted (partly due to differences between white chocolate and actual chocolate, and partly due to slightly too much enthusiasm on my part during the mixing), but it still worked. I added sliced strawberries on the top and around the sides. I was very pleased with the way it tasted if not how it looked. Here are a couple of pictures. Note the triangle of dark chocolate on top; single varietal Venezuelan criollo chocolate 71% cacao...mmm.







Until later...

Favorite Songs

After I posted about current songs that I really can't stand, I got to thinking about reversing the list and going with a list of songs that I am completely enamoured with. I eventually discarded that idea and came up with a slightly different one.

If you had to look back and pick a single song, any time period, any genre and say that that is the song for you, what would it be? If you are like me you might find this to be rather difficult, because I usually have a current favorite song, but songs fall out of favor as I listen to them too many times and as others replace them. This song may not even be one you listen to all the time, but one that when you hear it causes you to sigh contendedly and just let the music wash over you for a while. Or it might be a song that the instant it begins, you have to turn the radio up and sing along or start dancing around the living room. What would your song be?

For me, I listen to a lot of new music and I tend to really love hip hop, but to pick out one song I have to go back to what is really before my time. I have to choose Prelude to a Kiss by Duke Ellington. Since there are many different recordings out there, I would say specifically the one on Duke Ellington's Greatest Hits (copy this shortcut and paste in a new browser window for a sample from Amazon.com). The first time I heard this song (sitting in a class on popular music in culture, actually), I sat there listening to the piano intro leading into the slow, gentle tones of the saxophone feeling completely enveloped in the music. It's not my typical drive-time music, but each and every time I hear it I still have that first impression of awe and total immersion in its melody.

Now what about you? What is your song? Post it in the comments section, post it on your own blog, shout it from the rooftops, turn the volume on your radio up to 11 and sing along as you drive down the road. (Eyes open and both hands on the wheel though. I don't have so many readers that I can afford to spare any.)

Until later...

Time to Find a New Line of Work

It seems that my line of work has become more dangerous recently, and I wasn't even aware of it. Over the past few years, several microbiologists (or people who are closer enough to microbiologists to fit into a conspiracy nut's theory...more on that later) have died. Some were natural deaths, while others were from outside causes (car accidents, plane crashes, murder, suicide, industrial accidents). While people die all the time, these people have jobs that could possibly link them to secret government projects. If these now deceased scientists might have been working on something secret and dangerous, then none of this can be a coincidence. The question then becomes, as one article put it, "Who's killing the world's microbiologists?" (Not to be confused with the 1978 film, Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?) More articles here and here.

I have to point out a few issues I have with several of the articles (and I'm using that term as loosely as possible here) I have found on the subject. Despite what one might think from reading these articles microbiologists, geneticists, molecular biologists and protein chemists are not all the same thing. While they don't tend to feud on an East Coast-West Coast level, they might chafe at being lumped in with the other groups. Some of the techniques may overlap, but they are all fairly distinct groups.

All of the articles seem to take any involvement with DNA sequencing or molecular biology as evidence that a researcher is involved in covert bioweapon research. If this is true and would make one a target, I am very glad that I have now moved into pharmaceutical manufacturing. I can only imagine how much danger I would have been in if the terrorists, government agency, or aliens (Take your pick. No one can decide who is responsible) had developed an interest in genetic analysis of hydrogenases before I finished school.

Before you begin asking "isn't it possible that these things could all be just coincidence?", one of the authors has done the work for us. According to his calculations the odds of this happening are 14,000,000,000 to 1. That's awfully nice of him to help us out like that, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he might want the help of an actuary or statistician to try and figure this one out.

Several of the things in the articles end up being remarkably perplexing. For example, when it is brought up that in the case of a specific scientist, there was no evidence in his research to make him a potential target, the theorist's answer is that it's not proof that he wasn't doing anything that would make him a target. This is true, but the same logic can be applied to show that he could have potentially been researching the best way to market Barbie dolls to males age 13-18; after all, there's no proof he wasn't. This is how these theories typically work. Facts that may or may not belong together are joined with a theory that could possibly explain everything, even though many simpler explanations are available. Once the theory is formed, the burden of proof is no longer on the theorist to prove the theory but on the more rational or more naive depending on one's point of view. You see, absence of evidence is only further evidence of a cover up.

To sum up, let's follow the logic of one of these theories, and see if you can understand how the various leaps of faith are made. Several scientists have died in circumstances ranging from the suspicious (murder) to the ultra-suspicious (things like heart attacks and complications from lung transplant surgery). These scientists worked in similar fields, and some of them had experience in molecular biology. Still with me? Good, because this is where it starts getting a little sketchy. The theory now explains that all of these people were in fact working on weapons that could specifically target ethnic groups while leaving others unimpacted. (Proof? Remember, you have to prove that they weren't doing it. All evidence has been covered up.) Then, the people who were working on the weapons program were targeted and killed by a terrorist group that is making a weapon that will destroy most of the population of the planet. They had to eliminate these people because the scientists were the ones who could have developed a cure. Note that for absolutely no reason whatsoever, we have made a complete 180 and gone from theorizing that the scientists were developing ethnically targeted weapons to theorizing that they were killed for being able to cure the terrorist's super weapon. Look back at this theory and remember one thing: The only actual facts here are that people who worked in some related fields of study died. How did we get from point A to point B Z?

Whenever things come up that we don't understand or that we don't want to accept, we often try to find ways to explain them to ourselves and each other. While we may not like to think about the fact that people die, they die of natural causes well before what we believe is their time. They die in tragic accidents. They even die horrifically at the hands of other people. It's much easier to think that there is some sort of nefarious plan to eliminate specific people and that if we can find and thwart this enemy, we can all be safe again than to realize that sometimes things don't happen for a real reason; they just happen.

Of course, just to be on the safe side, I'm going to update my resume seek a new career. Maybe I'll become a pastry chef, or blog full-time. Maybe I'll join the IFOCE.

Until later...