I've been updating a lot lately and you know what that means. It's study time. Oh yeah. I have my second BioChem exam coming up on Monday and the take-home points from these recent lectures are a lot harder to extract than the ones from the first test. It seems the classmates are freaking out as well since they'd rather STAY HOME AND STUDY than watch Tim Burton's Corpse Bride tomorrow. Yeah, that's right. I'm calling y'all out! Bring it!

(edit: so it seems Jeanine and Jessica are coming out. Sweet.)

So yesterday, I mentioned how the weather was taking a drastic dive from summer. Speak of the devil. Last night was really windy. I can't explain it. As soon as I start complaining about the weather, some kind of freak storm shows up and tears up the joint. I was in my room trying to sleep and I could hear the wind whipping around and feel the building shudder with each gust. It was quite the ride.

So anyway, I was checking other news and I learned Seattle was in the same boat. That's interesting.

I got a package from my mom today. She sent me a birthday card and says she's throwing a party back in Bremerton. I hope she'd understand if I couldn't make it seeing how I'll be busy having fun with my exam the same day. Awesome!

So Amber and I were trying to remember all the food jingles we've been exposed to while growing up. A quick Google search pointed to this site. Going through them really takes me back to a simpler time before I feared getting shot or stabbed while walking down the street. Those were the days.

One other thing: Katamari Damacy Numa Numa. .. ... WTF?!?!?!

Ok, I really should be studying.

music: Meow Mix jingle

I have to admit, yesterday's entry was rushed towards the end. It's been a tiring week for some reason. I can't find an obvious source, but it's like something's just sucking the life energy right out of me. It's like a constant state of tired. Maybe it's the weather changing. As soon as Fall hit, the weather turned towards cold. It turned fast. It was like a defining line. High temps took a dive and the mornings are now dew-soaked and bitter cold. I can't wait until the Winter, oh yeah.

So last Friday, I was supposed to watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith since a couple of us were going and it was showing in the school auditorium for $2 a pop. Well, I got there and the doors were locked. Problem. It was then I realized I needed my student ID to get in after hours... which was at home. Piece of crap! I kinda wanted to watch it. Oh well... that was my super-retarded moment of the week. There's more to come, don't worry.

Speaking of movies, I just seen one of the most retarded movies I have ever seen and it was in class. It was a bunch of Stanford students acting out translation. Students acted out the 60s and 40s ribosomal subunits, mRNA, the growing polypeptide molecule, the elongation factors and the termination factors. The film was made in the 70s and they must've been on acid, shrooms, weed, alcohol or a combination of all four. Then the narrator started to get poetic. I responded by whipping out my favorite limerick of all time:

There once was a guy named Dave
Who dug up a whore from a grave
She was moldy and shitty
Had only one titty
But look at the money he saved

Probably the most sane thing said over the 18 minute film. I think it made me retarded.


I learned a very important lesson today. I decided to wash my cotton shop rags in the washing machine. I use these things when I'm working on my car or bike and they get greasy, oily, filthy and whatnot. Well, I threw them in the wash with some soap and bleach. The rags got clean, but the drum of the washing machine was coated in a layer of black grease up to the waterline. Grossness. I spent a good 20 minutes with some Orange hand cleaner scrubbing out the insides of the washing machine. That sucked. I guess that's what laundromats are for.

It's Star's birthday today! I'm typing it out because I'm too lazy to write it down. She might be flying up here for Thanksgiving. Sweet. 20 lb. turkey for two.

The last movie I've seen in a theater was Wedding Crashers and that was back in Seattle. I'm going to try to get people to come out this Friday to watch Corpse Bride. It seems interesting.

In We ♥ Katamari, I'm using the prince with glasses and the camera. Kinda like me, I guess. Ha! Well, I had him wearing the ear ribbons and bikini earlier. That brings me back to Resident Evil: Code Veronica. mmm, .. disturbing.

The awesomest cake evar!

And I saved the best news for last. So, after a lot of struggling and bitching and emailing tech support, I haven't been able to transfer the domain server from eNom (my old server) to Dot5 (my new host) successfully. I'm not sure what's going to happen to the domain name or my webspace. If luck is on my side, it will transfer automatically. However there are reasons why I'm not an optimist. My subscription to eNom expires October 10. If this becomes a 404, you'll know what happened.

music: Gorillaz - M1 A1

Corpse Bride is good. bring a date and when you tell her what movie you're watching you can follow up with "that give you any ideas?" *wink* *wink* fool proof.
-CarLo - 050929 - 1512EST



I already tried that with Battle Royale it didn't turn out so great.
-Rich - 050929 - 2014EST

Yeah, it's late and I have class tomorrow. Why am I still up? That's because I took a five-hour-long nap earlier today. I'm not sure if that's still considered a nap. That's borderline sleep. Anyway, it's been another busy week with things happening, stuff going on with a little bit of reckless abandon thrown in to flavor.

This week, we got our first exam back. We knew we were going to get them back once lecture was over since they were all sitting in a stack in the front of the classroom waiting for the lecturer to stop talking. We were squirming around worried more about the numbers written on those papers than what the lecturer had to say. Once we got them back the average (81) was announced with the standard deviation (10). We were complimented since the average was high in comparison to previous years. However, they didn't take the same exact test, so that's not really saying much. I got mine back and I was less than optimistic to learn my score since I'm the unofficial king of stupid mistakes when it comes to taking exams. I was very relieved to see the 91.5 on mine. Now I'm thinking that maybe I'll survive grad school after all. I'm an outlier and a good one, at that. The only reason why I'm announcing my score is because everybody knows it already. Somebody just had to peek over and now everybody knows. Oh well... The direct result was that I wasn't invited to go drinking that night. That's messed! And it's also not the right reason to go drinking. But any reason is good, I guess. The last time my class found out I had a great score on an exam, I had to buy them chocolate. Well, I didn't have to. I also did it to piss someone off. If you want the backstory, it should be here. Well, that time it was worse. I got a perfect score and the second best was 8 points below mine. And now I'm making steaks and hosting and organizing get-togethers. Oh well.

Speaking of organizing, I volunteered myself to put together several activities for the first year graduate class.

I threw out a couple of dates
Sep 26 - BBQ/hangout at my place
Oct 03 - After test drinking
Oct 12 - Pumpkin carving contest
Oct 29 - Halloween costume party
Dec 03 - Cayuga wine trail

If you noticed, September 26th has already come and gone. That went well except for one hitch. It was raining buckets that day. We were faced with the remnants of Hurrican Rita pouring over the proposed BBQ date. Fortunately, I was prepared. My mom gave me an electric grill before moving out to Syracuse. It was one of those things that I knew she used once and didn't really like it. I took it anyway. It turned out to be a party saver. I had burgers turning on that thing throughout the evening. Of course, it didn't have the great flame-cooked flavor in them but that's better than eating it raw and bloody (or pan-fried). I also made that pasta dish I made up last week. I scaled it up x4. Man, that was crazy. I was so exhausted after making all that food, but there was no time to rest. Guests were due in another thirty minutes.

Here was how things happened. As guests were trickling in, I was playing the first two DVDs of Happy Tree Friends on the TV. Once several burgers were grilled up, we ate while watching The Incredibles. Afterwards, I broke out Karaoke Revolution and that went on until we couldn't take it any longer and went home.

The party was fun. I ended up making way too much pasta. I ended up using 2lb. of onions, three Cream of Mushroom soup cans, 2lb. of pasta and I forget how many chicken breasts I sacrificed. It was a lot of food and I have a lot left over. I know I don't have to cook for the remainder of the week.

I successfully traumatized Jessica. I guess Hello Kitty fans don't really need to see the Hello Kitty Vibrator (HOLY SHIT, $$193!!!) I keep on my desk in my mug full of pens.

I still suck trying five random songs.

Justin speaks whale, apparantly. (humming a song w/o knowing the lyrics)


So this past week, I've been going in to lab. Technically, I'm not supposed to start rotations until October 3. I'd come in only to find nothing to do. I need a project and the PI has been out of the country for the past two weeks. He won't be due back until October. I wonder if it's still worth it to stop in. The two grad students in the lab are busy on their own things. I really need a project.

While having lunch with the dean, my obsession with Jeanine's tattoo went public and the girls started talking about theirs. The guys, on the other hand, remain uninked. Three girls have tattoos so far and no guys. What's up with that? I find it interesting.

This week, I managed to get a lot of AIM SNs. I feel so special. Thought I'd just mention that.


I also got my expensive piece of paper in the mail this week. It took three months from commencement to get in my hands. I was going to hang it in the bathroom, but it's actually hanging off the wall in my study. It's right next to the drumming monkey from Japan. Good stuff.

I've been hooked on We ♥ Katamari the whole week. That would explain the lack of updates. I'm pretty much done with it for now. I need to get my study back on for the upcoming exam on Monday. Whose bright idea was it to combine the Cow and Bear stages? Sweet jeebus, that's mighty frustrating. Did anybody else notice the training stage takes place on the head of the King of All Cosmos?


I've never mentioned this, but it's been really annoying. There's a construction project going on right outside of our classroom. It's the only classroom we have too. It's so distracting, especially when they break out the jackhammers. Ho, man... We need to change locations.

I'm getting tired again...
Blah.

music: We ♥ Katamari - Everlasting Love

Dude, gonna be flying out tomorrow to NY. I'll give you a call when I get there. We need to do something dammit!
-Brian - 050928 - 2019EST



Hey, I'm not about to pull a Charlie Bravo on you. I try to be a good wingman, not the polar opposite. I'll be back for Christmas. Don't worry about it.
-Rich - 050928 - 2038EST



Dude, the shit is gonna go down no matter who's in the house! Don't worry about it! But if you say so bro, I'll see what I can do to get my ass up there for a minute.
-Brian - 050929 - 1230EST

Slacking on the updates?! Not enough love?! Alright, that's it. You're getting a painfully detailed entry on these past couple days... Nah. You're lucky I'm feeling lazy. Because I'll spare you the trouble of reading everything and I'll spare me the trouble of typing everything. We both win. But then, I guess I have a little to say about a lot of things this week.

Alright, so I downloaded FFVII: Advent Children along with the rest of the world on Monday night. I stayed up to watch it and according to the LJ, I got done by 4am Tuesday morning. Good thing I didn't have class that day until 1pm. I'd have to either skip out on class or Advent Children. That would be a lose-lose scenerio for myself and those make me sad.

I really, really want to rant and bitch about the movie but that would require me to spoil the story for everybody, so I'll have to refrain. However, I believe the entire, complete movie could be painfully pieced together from the kajillion trailers Square-Enix released to the public. Seriously, I cleaned out my hard drive of all the Advent Children trailers I've downloaded and my recycle bin found itself holding seven different movie trailers by the end of the deletion spree. I also know I didn't save all of the ones I've seen. The movie has been done for a while, they just needed a guy to sing some song during the after credits, ya know those credits that roll after the real credits get done.

My big gripe against the movie is the story. Don't get me wrong, I liked it. However, this movie is a followup to a 40-hour epic. So much more could've been fit into the storyline. Unfortunately for the 90-minute constraint of a motion picture, it just wasn't possible. Maybe it should've been split over two movies or something.

Man, I'm so going to install a sword dispenser on my bike. That would be so cool. I'd push a button and, like, six steak knives pop out from the side. Not only that, but they'd all be taped together like Cloud's new sword. When some car gives me crap on the throughway, I'll break out my steak knives and throw them one by one at the driver's window. Yeah, that's right. Think twice before cutting me off or I'll ding your window with my knives, yo.


Another thing I need to bitch about is the Nintendo Revolution's controller. What's up with that thing? This is so not what I wanted to see after a year or so of hype. It's a freakin' remote control with motion sensors and different games would require different attachments. Hell, the in-house nickname for the controller is even the 'nunchaku'. I could imagine myself breaking that thing if some form of Ninja Gaiden came out for Revolution since the connection to the attachment seems so fragile. This reminds me of that crappy videogame sold "Only on TV" with a commercial of a kid swinging a bat in front of the television looking like some amateur assclowning retard. I don't know, if I want to jump around and swing something to play a baseball game.. I'll go outside. It's innovative, I admit, but do we really want to be flailing around in front of the TV? If you clench the controller tight in your fist and crack your friend in the jaw, will it show up on screen? I didn't notice this at first, but Scott Ramsoomair over at VG Cats mentioned Sex Toy (NSFW!!). And now, that's all I can see in it. Hell, I love Nintendo. I grew up on Nintendo. I've been skeptical about their next-gen strategy since they announced it and I said I'd cheer them on, but they're definitely not making it easy. This announcement carried the same energy as your best friend coming up to you, out of nowhere and she tells you that she's pregnant as a result of some wild party or something. You just want to yell "What the Hell do you think you're doing, you idiot?!?!" But you still love them, because you have to. Who knows? Maybe this thing will be wildly successful and I'm just not seeing it right now. Maybe this legendary controller design will successfully drive market share towards Nintendo's direction. Anything can happen at this point but I'm really hoping Nintendo doesn't make the way of Sega.

And that's what really grinds my gears.


I've been watching this recorded Yellowcard concert and it's rather amusing. It's "Yellowcard - Beyond Ocean Avenue" and they play some current songs and some older songs. The real amusing part of the concert is the violin guy. It's hilarious watching someone rock out with a violin especially when you're convinced they're delicate, high-class instruments. Even though a song doesn't have any violin in it, violin guy is running around the stage and doing backflips off speakers. Hilarious, he is. Oh yeah, the music is good too. Check it out.


I guess I should get back to my life somewhere in this post. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights were kind of spent studying for the first BioChem Exam. It's the freakin' third week of classes too. When I say 'kind of studied', I really mean doing everything randomly that's not studying. Ever notice how you do the most random crap during Finals week? For example, there's cleaning the bathroom, colorizing the closet, cleaning the crumbs out from the bottom of the toaster, watching DVDs, downloading Advent Children, meeting skunks or whatever. All the material we've covered so far has been review for me so I was so slack in studying. Note the randomness in the livejournal. I just had to go over a few things. As far as the test went on Wednesday, it wasn't that bad at all. I found it to be real straightforward. In contrast to UW Biochem tests which were laced with the impossible, insignificant and tricksy. Those were borderline unfair. The only thing that justified their difficulty level was the fact it was all averaged to 2.7. The professors made those tests so sadistic, you'd wonder if the questions were actually written by the tortured souls deep in the bowels of Hell. Ok, maybe not that bad, but those were pretty hard. In SUNY we're all expected to pass since we're the creamiest of the cream or something (it was in the welcome speech, I swear). No curve, get them all right, dammit. I don't know my score yet, but it can't be too bad.. right?

That night, we wandered into Armory Square for some sweet inebriation. We were led by Jess and following were Justin, Brandon, Jessica, Pavi, Matt, Steve, Jeanine, Amber, AD and Erik. Unfortunately, Jess was still unfamiliar with Armory Square and we wandered about for an hour without finding a happy bar fit for our presence. We were rescued by Thien and Greg, a pair of third year graduates. They told us Marshall Square is where it's at on Wednesday. We went to a bar called Faeton's. Good stuff. Beer and well drinks were $3.50 and mixed drinks were $5. My night was spent with a Long Island, Cran & Vodka and a Blue Moon (beer). Conversations were interesting, at least I think they were. I don't really remember much from conversation, not from inebriation but from the deafening ambient noise. And I can't really read lips. Not when I'm looking at boobies. I mean lips.

I remember getting home at one in the morning and having to wake up at 7 for class the next day.

I managed to wake up that morning, but staying up for the rest of the day was the real challenge. Class from 9 until 4. Hoo boy, that was real hard.

As soon as I got home I ate dinner then passed out. I thought I was taking a nap, but I ended up passing out for the night. I don't remember how long I slept, but that's the reason I'm wide awake right now. Definitely longer than 8 hours, maybe longer than 10. I'm not sure.

Today I started my first lab rotation of three. It's two weeks early, but I don't really care. Labs are fun if you know what you're doing. My first rotation is with Dr. Silverstone. And I'm getting a project related to interpreting microarray data and thymic atrophy induced by estrogen in mice. Fun stuff. It's all a matter of separating the cream from the crap. I think I'll manage, but there's only so much I could do in three months before my second rotation.

Today I didn't do much. Watched some stuff on the computer, sat around the apartment. I would've gone on a ride, but it rained. Tomorrow's supposed to be rainy too. Crapness.


Well, Chan's off to Japan. He'll be having fun, I know he will. O-Daiji Ni! Take many sexy pictures.


music: Yellowcard - Back Home

Everybody here is living life in fear of falling out of line
Tearing lives apart and breaking lots of hearts just to pass the time
And the eyes get red in the back of your head, this place will make you blind
Put it all behind me and I'll be just fine

Way to supply me with yet another means of procrastinating on personal statements--you rock! And you're so coming to Japan in the spring; don't even try to fight it.
-Kristi - 050917 - 0740EST
http://kristiinjapan.blogspot.com
kgovella@gmail.com

Another means of procrastinating? Wha? I didn't just demotivate you back there, did I?
-rich - 050917 - 1353EST



Hehe, cant agree with your view on AC, I think it is superb :)
-hikari - 051004 - 1443EST

... But you do with steak.

It may have been a short week with Monday being Labor day, but it sure didn't feel short.

I went on a good, long motorcycle ride this week. I haven't really been riding around lately and it's starting to feel like the bike is just wasting away on the parking lot. I was out for a good two hours, put nearly 100 miles on the odometer. I ran around south of Syracuse, around Nedrow. The roads run along farmland and are sparsely traversed by cars (and cops, heh). Riding around throws your mind into some state of zen. You're more aware of your senses. Your sense of sight, smell, and balance are brought to the foreground. Then you realize you're left with your thoughts. No distractions from the radio or passengers. It's just you and your thoughts over miles and miles of open road. I take this time to organize a lot of things in life. I think about what's been happening and where I'm going and if I'm doing things right. I sort out my problems and work out ways to deal with them. It helps me with a lot of things. That's when I'm the most introspective. I've been on edge the past week since I haven't given myself any decent riding time lately. Yeah, I've been on edge but I think I've been doing a good job hiding it. Heh. It just feels nice after sorting through everything you've been worrying about. Determining what's worth crying over and what's not worth your time then figuring out what you need to do about everything. It's just nice.

One thing I didn't anticipate on this ride was what happens when the sun goes down. I was riding around the farmlands and as soon as the sun set, bugs came out. They came out in numbers! It was horrible. They're also huge around here. They feel like BBs at 70mph.. I mean at the speed limit. Yeah, that's something to be careful for.

On Thursday, my class had to attend a retreat in Skaneateles, which is West of here. (It's not pronounced the way it looks.) I had wake up at an ungodly hour. I left the house to pick people up at 6:50. After picking up Heather, Jeanine and Brandy we set out to the retreat and got there at 8am. After some breakfast, we were subject to talks from 9am until 5pm with a lunch break in the middle of that somewhere. It was interesting, but most of the speakers included so much detail that it was easy to lose sight of the main concept. When that happens, the mind starts to wander. It's only a matter of time before the nodding off begins. I managed to stay up, but I caught some seasoned graduate students and even doctors losing consciousness. I didn't think it was that bad, but I'm used to the three day long ISB retreats. I'm not really sure how I managed to pull those off. Right before the lunch break as the incoming graduate class, we had to introduce ourselves to everybody else in attendence. I didn't go with my first idea, which went something like this:

(droning and slack-jawed) "Befo- gradu-et scoo' I was hook'd on crak' cokane. SUNY sav' ma life. Thank you, SUNY."

I did something a little more normal. Name, undergraduate institution, research experience and current interests. Good stuff.

I passed out early that night, after running around and buying stuff for the BBQ on Friday.

On Friday, it seemed everybody's energy level hasn't recovered from the retreat. I was starting to think that the BBQ is going to suck if everybody's going to be sleepy and drained. I hosted it at my apartment. I was the meat jockey for the evening. I featured my coveted steaks. However, there's a significant number of anti-beef students in my class. I had to throw in some chicken. I don't normally grill chicken since it has to be thoroughly cooked and it if you don't want it to be dry by the time it's done, it will have to be slow-grilled at a lower temperature. I also had burgers made to order. A lot of people brought some food too. Since I'm used to nobody bringing anything and I've run out of food before, I grossly overestimated the amount of food to buy. I have 15 burger patties left (with fixins), a pyrex baking dish full of grilled steak and chicken, a plate of brownines, three containers of chocolate chip cookies and a large foil container of pasta salad. Lotsa leftovers.

(Kristi, I'd hate to throw all those left over tasty steaks out. Heh.)

It was fun even though I totally forgot about the Kaiser rolls in the apartment. Serious party fowl. ::sigh::

I didn't get to take too many pictures since I was working at the grill most of the time. Nevertheless...


Brandon, AD, Matt (on the floor), Justin and Pavi.




Brandon, Erik, AD, Justin and Pavi.




Jess, Renee, Jessica, Matt on the floor and half of Brandon.
Brandy and Jeanine managed to escape the camera... for now.


It was fun. My plan to win friends with food seems to have worked so far. There's this unavoidable urge to bash on medical students for us grad students for some reason. Good times.

Rich: There are two types of people I hate. Prejudiced people and med students.

(Yeah, I know I stole that right out of Goldmember.)

So on Wednesday, we have our first Biochem Exam. It seems we're going out drinking afterwards and Jess is in charge. This'll be fun.

music: Rob Thomas - Lonely No More

I can help you take off the edge... heh heh heh.... miss you dude!!! Gimme a call or some shit! Love you!
-Brian - 050912 - 2327EST



HI RICHARD!!

Note: Send leftovers to poor hungry sister in Seattle... A-sap
-Dianne - 050913 - 0211EST



Waddaps yo!!

I've been busy lately worrying about the first exam I have to take for Biochem. I just got done with it and it wasn't that bad. But let's see if I can say the same once I get it back.

Dianne, I'll be mailing you a steak in an envelope. Unless the post office notices it and eats it first. I hate that.
-Rich - 050914 - 1253EST



rich? people call you rich?

no. I refuse. I'm going to call you richard and you like it.
-ben - 050914 - 1737EST



Yeah, I'm going by 'Rich' here. That's because I'm talking to doctors that want to be called by their nicknames and if I go by my formal name, now it just sounds weird. I dunno.

Um,... I met a skunk the other day.
-Dickard - 050914 - 1904EST



You're totally slacking on the updates, Richard! Where's the Internet love?
-Kristi - 050916 - 0522EST
http://kristiinjapan.blogspot.com
kgovella@gmail.com

The livejournal's been getting some love.

Not much to report on exam week.
-Rich - 050916 - 0717EST

Movie night, last night was fun.

Amber, Brandy and Matt showed up. In preparation, I ran outside to buy a couple of things. First of all, I picked up the Sin City and Shrek 2 DVDs. I've been meaning to pick those up for quite some time. Next, I ran to the grocery store for some chips, salsa and popcorn. I bought two Jiffy pop popcorn .. uh, units. I've never played with the stovetop variety of popcorn and I thought it would be interesting. It was. It also tastes better than microwaved popcorn. Buy it!

Anyway, we all settled and watched Sin City. Afterwards, we decided to wash the sour imagery out of our heads with some Karaoke Revolution. Actually, I challenged Amber to a Karaoke duel. We played it as if it were a game of chess, trading the microphone between each song. This went on for about two hours. I have to say she's a formidable opponent on the Karaoke battlefield. The fierce battling ended without a clear victor. Although I did impress the crowd with my "I Believe in a Thing Called Love". We plan on taking this to a Karaoke Bar for the grand finale with standard rules: loser takes a shot and winner takes two. That'll happen next weekend if we could find an appropriate bar.

As a side note, I had Matt meet the man. From the looks of his expression from sampling the toothpick, he was rather impressed with the potentcy of The Man Sauce. Good times were to be had.

I was mindlessly wandering the webmotron when I came across the next version of Karaoke Revolution. Karaoke Revolution Party looks intense. Over 50 songs with duet mode and get this, Eyetoy and DDR pad support. I thought the PS2 would be out of USB ports by the time everything gets plugged in. It comes out early November. I'm bringing this back to Seattle come Christmas and IT'S ON!!

Today's supposed to be a study day since I've been loafing around all week. Oh well...

this was posted on the lj cityscapes community http://rileylj.livejournal.com/35039.html
-kristen - 050906 - 1945EST



Nice!

However, that's not the Syracuse campus. There are a hojillion SUNY campuses across the state.
-Rich - 050906 - 2046EST



doh. i saw SUNY but overlooked the city... blame the dogs. i'm sure they were being loud at the time.
-kristen - 050906 - 2138EST

And what a busy week it was. I'll just throw a couple of highlights out since so much has happened this week.

Orientation week wasn't all about signing papers. We were also subject to a 3-hour radiation safety course. Good gawd, it was long and tedious. I've been certified to work with radiation in Washington for the past three years and it never got this bad. All I had to do was to take a 15 question quiz after reading some radiation safety materials for 45 mintues. Easy and painless. Man, this was bad. He demonstrated how to use a Geiger-Mueller counter by sweeping over two work areas twice. So glad that's all over.

Onward to funner stuff. Friday night I went to a dinner dance sponsored by the school. The incoming graduate class students and the incoming medical school students were invited to attend. Like I said last time, we were vastly outnumbered. The graduate students stayed closely huddled together ready to defend ourselves from attack at a moments notice. Jenny and Danielle kept trying to get us on the dance floor. I main excuse was that I wasn't drunk enough to go out there. Janine and I went to the bar to buy some drinks. I purchased the first volley. I picked up a Long Island Iced Tea (4 shot equivalent) and she got a Rum and Coke. I pounded that drink quickly. Round two for me was a Tequila Sunrise (2.5 shot equivalent). That was gone post-haste as well. Out of concern, Terri, the coordinator of the graduate program, asked me how I was getting home. I got there on my motorcycle and I planned on leaving on it. The look on her face was classic. I didn't even get buzzed that night. Sad. I left the party near midnight when they started to kick everybody out.

On Saturday, I went to a picnic off Lake Onondaga, the most polluted lake in America. The shelter where the picnic was held was downwind of the lake. That lake stunk. It smelled like low-tide and lakes aren't affected by tides. After finding a coulple of fellow grad students, we got some food and claimed a table for ourselves. Since there was the option for a chicken breast or a hamburger patty to assemble your burgers with, I took both varieties and made an enviable example for all to see as I devoured it. There was a soda tap at the picnic and the only problem was that the bees found it. It looked like a big, metallic bees nest. It seemed one tap was reserved for bees, in case you wanted a cup full of bees for some reason. We didn't stay too long at the stinky, bee infested lake. However, I did snap a photo of the grad students that made it out for the picnic.


On the left side of the table is Jing and Matt. On the right side is Pavi, Heather, Amber and Jess. Jess runs 10 miles a day. That scares me. I'm winded after walking from the parking lot to class in the morning. That makes me sad.



On Sunday, I made a pizza at Brandy's apartment. It was fun. We didn't know what the hell we were doing. We raided out fridges for stuff to throw on the Boboli pizza crust we picked up. What ended up composing the pizza was a whole wheat crust, marinara sauce, spinach, mozarella cheese, chicken, mushrooms, olives, garlic and onion. Let me emphasize onion. The overwhelming taste on the pizza was the onion. I'm an onion fan, but this was too much. The next morning I woke up with an onion taste still in my mouth. It was that bad. I also forced Brandy to watch Napoleon Dynamite while we were eating the pizza. heh.

Classes aren't too bad so far. It's still review for me. I need to go over the amino acids before the quiz.

This whole week, I've been glued to the TV and internet surfing around for information about the devastation in the Gulf Coast. It's really bad I have so much to say, but it's already been said. The slow response of the Federal Government and the horrible conditions these people suffered. It's all out there, I can't say much more about it.

On Friday, I was dragged out of my happy apartment by Brandy and Pavi to take some Salsa lessons downtown. That was interesting. I was doing good until towards the end when the more complicated moves were thrown at us. I kept ending up on the wrong foot for some reason. I was thoroughly confuzzled.

Yesterday, I checked out the New York State Fair with Pavi. Matt showed up later and we found him after some confusion. (We didn't know there was more than one entrance into the fair.)

The fair was packed. I believe that day over 100,000 people attended the fair.



This one's for Ben. It's pronounced 'Chowda!'



Pavi took this picture. Brandy brought her cowboy hat to the salsa lessons and I kept stealing it. If a regular hat looked awkward on me, a pink one must be something. And here it is, something.



WACKY WAVING INFLATABLE ARM FLAILING TUBE MAN!! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go watch the Family Guy movie.



There was an exhibition called 'Toothpick City' at the fair.



All these replicas are to scale. It makes you realize how puny the space needle is.



Oh man, these were good. I bought a wine slushie. It's good stuff. I need to figure out how to make these things. It's probably just ice and wine.



Another interesting dish available at the fair. I didn't dare try it.



This is the butter sculpture they had on display. That's a lotta butta. The theme was "Moms, mornings and milk"



There were also birds and stuff there. The most popular one was the bald eagle, naturally. All the birds on display were injured some time ago and cannot survive in the wild anymore.


The fair had so much more, but I didn't take pictures of everything. There was a lot to do but we didn't feel like playing midway games or going on rides. The high-calorie foods (deep fried twinkies and candy bars) were intimidating to us so we were spent after about 5 hours of the fair.

Tonight I'm trying to organize a movie night at my place.

Next week I'll probably have a BBQ then hit the downtown bars with a couple of other grad students.

I hope everybody else is doing well. Later, yo!


music: Gorillaz - All Alone

its pronounced "chow DEYA" I'LL KILL YOU
-ben - 050914 - 1742EST



"I'm going to enjoy this..."
-Rich - 050914 - 1948EST



I'm glad you liked Toothpick City. The Space Needle is still pretty big though.
-Stan Munro - 050921 - 1025EST
http://toothpickcity.com
stan@toothpickcity.com