Hey, Ben. I didn't steal your idea. It's already been done. Although, I want it in white. Actually, I find this picture to be rather scary. Very scary. ::shudder::

My cell phone reception has been really retarded for the last couple of days. If I missed a call, I probably wouldn't know if you didn't leave a message. I don't know what's up. It might be the weather, it might be some other strange phenomenon that's blocking my reception to the tower. Whatever. So if I missed your call and I hadn't called back, sorry about that.

Alright, I'm getting lazy. Saturday and Sunday were pretty much spent doing nothing around the apartment. I just stayed in and played videogames all day. I started off with Stubbs the Zombie and finished up with Halo 2. Maybe I'm starting to feel burned out from graduate school. I guess it's just the first year that's the most tedious since we have to take these general classes we don't really care too much about. Going to class has been depressing lately. It feels like there's nothing left to do but bitch about the small annoyances and worries, amplifying them until it consumes us. However I hate being redundant and once it's out for me, it's out. I don't need to come back to it. Once that's done, what's left? Uneasy silence and I hate it. Oh well. Things should perk up one of these days. Hopefully...

We talked about boobies in class today and I was still falling asleep. How sad is that?

Anyway, I guess I have a lot of crap to update about.


The last two Tuesdays, I've been going out to PJ Dorseys. The first time I went out was due to Thien passing his quals and the second time was from Christian and Jeff getting the green light to graduate. On Tuesdays, PJ Dorseys has this thing called the "World Beer Tour". Basically what you get is a 'passport' which is a list of all the beers they have on tap, all 43 of them. Anyway, once you have the passport fully punched out, you get your name on a plaque in the bar and could buy an etched mug saying you completed it. So during the last two visits, I've managed to put away ten beers. I'm almost a quarter done with this thing. I can stop drinking any time.. uh, I just don't want to, .. right now.. at this very moment, or something. Hell, I'm going to leave a legacy here in Syracuse even if it's just finishing the freakin' beer tour. That's right. It's too bad we already hit the good beers. Now we have to venture into unfamiliar or crappy beer territory. It'll be a tough road to the end, but Jeff and I will finish what we started. Since he's out of town until the first of December, I don't think I'll be progressing on the beer tour this week. Oh well.


Last, last Tuesday I went out to the University of Rochester with my lab for a little collaboration meeting. It was an hour-and-a-half drive out there, we had presentations all day, then another hour-and-a-half drive back. The driving sucked. Anyway, they have a pretty impressive facility. At least, the parts I saw. It was a solid five hour block of presentations once we got there. Estrogen, TCDD, dioxins, bone marrow, thymocytes, yadda yadda. Stuff I don't think most of everybody would be interested in. Well, the sandwiches were good. There were also tuna pitas for those seafood-inclined. I got home in a daze trying to digest all the new information presented to us. At least all this won't be on the next exam. Stupid things.


So there may be no Costco around here, but the less-evil Sam's Club alternate warehouse chain here in Syracuse is BJ's. Oh yeah, I've been a member for just over a week and I've already been there twice. I loves me some warehouse shopping and it's been a while. While I was perusing its aisles, I found something I believed faded from existence a long time ago. It was the equivalent of catching a live Coelacanth when they were still believed to be extinct. But jeez man, I found some Dunkaroos. There they were, sitting in giant 'Value Pack' boxes piled on a pallet on the warehouse floor. These things must either be ancient or exclusive to the BJ's warehouse chain for some reason. Crazy. So I found my source for buying large quantities of useless snacks that'll take me forever to finish. I bought three pounds of Nilla Wafers for $4, three and a half pounds of pretzel sticks for $3 and 20 bagels for $3 amongst other things. Yes, I loves me some warehouse shopping.


It started snowing last week. Snow isn't really big on conversation around here. I think these people somehow attenuated to the snow to the point they don't even see it anymore. There is no snow. I guess if you want to talk about the snow, you have all winter to talk about it. And it's not even winter yet. Oh well. The oddest thing to me was seeing private vehicles running around town with snowplows on. It doesn't snow enough in the Pacific Northwest to get people into it this much. I swear the city of Seattle owns two snowplows and they're not working by the time the snow hits. They're like broken or something. It's hilarious to me watching these brazen citizens running about the city, plows affixed to their trucks as acting snow vigilantes against the white, powdery forces of evil. Oh man. I wonder if I could get one for my beetle. That would be great.

After experiencing a heat wave when I got here and a recent cold snap, I would like to say something about the weather. In Seattle, the summers are dry when hot and the winters are humid when cold. It's the total opposite here. The summer was hot and humid and the winter is dry and cold. I'm not sure which is more uncomfortable, 'hot and humid' or 'cold and dry'. When it's hot and humid, you feel dirty again five minutes after taking a shower. Clothes stick to you with sweat and it's not fun. When it's cold and dry, your sinuses dry out and all the desperately needed moisture is sucked out of your lungs. It really sucks when you have to sleep in this. Hoo man. Oh well, it's all a matter of adjusting.

Well since it's cold and it's dry outside that leaves the snow rather unplayable. It's too powdery to pack together so it's not even fun. What's up with that?


Last, last Friday I designated Amber's townhouse as the location of the latest Karaoke night featuring Karaoke Revolution Party. This latest installment comes with 50 songs, DDR dance pad and Eyetoy support. I was having fun with another feature, the create-a-character option. Last time, Amber and I made characters of ourselves. Instead of making somebody that I wanted, I made a character that was realistic. Spiked hair, wristwatch, green tshirt, beige cargoes, black shoes. The hilarious part was that day, my outfit matched the character I made. It was like a little doppelganger on the stage singing along to my songs. Everyone got a kick out of that. Even Brandy called me a 'dork', which was something I previously thought was an action she was incapable of achieving. Proved me wrong.

Well, these characters on the latest version of Karaoke Revolution are pretty animated. Instead of standing there and singing like previous versions, they're running up and down the stage, hyping up the crowd, doing handstands, and other crazy-stupid stuff. When I first started playing, I couldn't follow the words since I was busy watching my character do his thing. They're crazy now. This version is a lot easier than the previous versions in terms of scoring. I managed to pull a 40,000 on a shot voice. Getting 'Great's now would give you the full points for that particular line. That night, I managed to get a perfect on A-ha's Take on Me somehow. Unfortunately, that was my only diamond of the night since it was all downhill from there. Amber scored another diamond and now the score is 2-1. It's a fierce competition. I feel like Dr. Claw. "I'll get you next time, Gadget! .. NEXT TIME!!!" Then I'll soar off on a rocket-copter or something retarded like that. So yeah, next time.


I finally caved and bought my plane ticket to Seattle for Winter Break. Stupid thing cost me $550!! And on top of that, it's also layover Hell. Three connections on the way there and two on the way back. I could've knocked off one connection for an extra $150. Yeah, no. I'm not really sure why it's so expensive, but I'm blaming fuel costs and airline bankruptcies. Stupid crap. Well, I'll be in Washington from December 23rd until January 3rd. I have so many friends to catch-up with, it'll be a packed schedule. I can't wait, this'll be awesome.


This last Friday, Brandy and I got together to try making pizzas again. The last attempt was overwhelmingly onion-heavy. Oh man. The problem was that those onions were still pretty much raw and wow, just too much. This time, with a little experience under our belts, came our second attempt. She went for a sautéd onion, fresh tomato, sausage, and Italian herb chicken breast with Mozarella pizza. I decided to be a little daring. Well, this was because I had some food in the fridge to fall-back on if things don't turn out edible. I had sautéd onion, scrambled egg, bacon, and breakfast sausage with Cheddar on my pizza. I made a 'good morning' pizza. I hadn't eaten all day and wanted breakfast, so I put it on a pizza.

Brandy's pizza turned out great. The fresh tomatoes complemented the flavor of the chicken and made them both stand out. Mine ended up getting burned since it was on the bottom rack. D'oh. Well, how did it taste, you ask? Truth to be told, it tasted like a real fancy omelete. I just wish it hadn't gotten burned, might have tasted better. And the best part was when I woke up the next morning. 'Hey look, breakfast pizza!' Awesome.


Who says nothing good comes out of getting drunk? So, last, last, last Friday I ended up drunk-dialing Que for the hell of it. I mentioned it in the last entry. I'm not exactly sure what I said that night, but now we're talking all the time. The funny thing is that we've never really talked before and for the last three years, we haven't talked to or heard from each other since. Crazy stuff. Now it's my apparent mission to save her from boredom this Winter Break. A task I will proudly procure. Alcohol is my friend.


On Saturday, I actually went out. Brandy and I checked out the Ice Skating at Clinton Square. It was fun, although we ended up dodging kids more than anything. One kid turned sharply in front of me and I had to run into a barrier to avoid him. Dumb kid. Should've just run him over. Well in the Summer, Clinton Square is actually a fountain with a reflecting pool. Once all this freezes over, it becomes an ice skating rink. Pretty spiffy, eh? Unfortunately, it's also pretty small and the place gets crowded rather quickly, littered with the fallen bodies of random children. I swear, they were falling on purpose. It's not that hard to stay on the ice. Hell, I even had two cell-phone conversations on the ice while I was dodging kids left and right. After freezing down enough, we decided to come back home and thaw out. It would've been so much better if there was more space and fewer bodies to dodge.

My passenger-side headlamp burned out. Tomorrow, I guess I'll have to figure out how to do this, and apparently, it's a real bitch. Dammet!


Alright, you've trudged through all my other crap above to get to the meat and potatoes of this entry: Thanksgiving weekend. I spent Thanksgiving with Justin's family and it was an interesting experience. He insisted I drive out on Wednesday. His place is about an hour and a half south of Syracuse. So after getting half the stuff I wanted to get done Wednesday night, I sped towards Justin's at 9pm after finishing a sizable batch of the chicken-onion thingy I made up that one day. I got there kinda late but not late enough to stir people from their sleep. After some quick introductions we all retired for the night.

Thanksgiving dinner started early. Feast time was scheduled around one in the afternoon. That's a little earlier than what I'm used to, but I could dig. There were 10 of us seated around the table with great food to go around. The one item that didn't appeal to my palate were the Brussels sprout. When Justin's dad asked me what I thought of them, I replied "bitter little balls of hate." Justin agreed so I wasn't the solitary, official Brussels Sprout hater in the house. Later that day, I even called them "cabbage polyps" to get my message clear. Despite my smear campaign, I decided to give them a try. Yeah, bitter little balls of hate. Exactly how I described them. I found the rest of the food to be very, very good. I mean it was incredible. Good thing I decided to bring a dish or else I wouldn't feel right waltzing in and eating all this great food for free. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, marshmallowed yams... good stuff.

The afternoon was very sleepy indeed. I spent a couple of hours taking and making calls to family and friends. When I was done, more lounging ensued until the evening when it came time to tackle the leftovers. Geebus, I ate a lot that day. I stuffed myself stupid. Afterwards, we ended up playing a board game called Fact or Crap. It was intense. It was during this game I almost died twice. Well not really. There are these signs on a stick, one side says 'Fact' and the other 'Crap' and one round I was a little overzealous with my response and flung the card off the stick and hit myself in the face. A couple of rounds later, Justin flung his card past my head. Did I mention there was alcohol involved? Well there was. We put away a lot of wine during the game. Fun times were had, memory a little muddled, all was good.... I think.

The night wound down next to the fireplace while watching the TV. Good stuff. I went to sleep stuffed with food and a little dizzy from the wine.

The next morning, I just had time for a quick cup of coffee since I had to head back to Syracuse to get some TC done before my cells died. Justin's family is rather amusing. They're great. What can I say? They welcomed me in as one of their own and they didn't hold back for anything. That's awesome. I had some great food and shared some stories, this was a memorable Thanksgiving. Although, I would rather spend it with my own family and since that wasn't possible, I couldn't have asked for anything more.

God, it's late...

music: Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want
He's everything you want
He's everything you need
He's everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
He says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But he means nothing to you
And you don't know why...

They could use their snowplows to help the president sneak valuable artwork out of the White House by plowing through protesters.
-Chan - 051129 - 2045EST



Wow. Genius, pure genius.
-rich - 051129 - 2303EST

Stupid busy ass week. Well, it wasn't really busy, but I've had stuff to do. A little bit of the good stuff and a little bid of the bad stuff, it all balances out in the end I suppose. Yeah, I haven't been updating much lately. I've been splitting entries between the Livejournal and the Myspace is all.

I guess I should explain what I meant by "superflash" in the last post. So... I've had a couple drinks already and taken a couple of pictures by this point. The flash on my camera is insanely bright and after a couple of complaints, I remembered that the flash could be adjusted... to make it even brighter. And adjust I did, and bright it was. "Blinding" was the best way to describe it.

So, on the 3rd of this month my cousin had a baby. Congratulations to Ann and Jah. The neat thing about the Harrison hospital in Bremerton is that they post their babies on the net so I get to see the little guy from three thousand miles away. Ethan Robert, eh? I guess this is the nephew I'm going to spoil to hell once I get out of grad school and get my PhD. It's all set. I'm going to be that eccentric bachelor uncle that spoils all the nieces and nephews who owns the windowless white van with "free candy" spray painted on its side. This is just destiny setting itself up in preparation. Damn you, destiny! Aside from my theoretical fist shaking, the baby's cute.

Last Friday, I hung out with Christian. I checked out his studio at Jefferson Tower. I was considering living there when I was checking out different places to reside. It's nice, but I needed more space. I chose to go with space over proximity. We watched the Family Guy Movie over a couple of beers. The movie is funnier when you're drunk. After a couple of phone calls, we walked downtown to Armory Square. It was Kristina's birthday and she had a sizable entourage in attendence. The only names I remember are Joanne and Elena, the girls... crazy coincidence, huh? Anyway, Christian and I met up with them at a bar named Tailgaters. The bar was dead. Serious dead and it was Friday night. Well, at least it was easy to find everybody. After some of us got our drink on, we went to PJ Dorseys then Ambrosia. It was fun, just the usual going out. I was pretty buzzed that night because the alcohol was hitting me hard. There are only two instances that makes the alcohol go straight to my head: either I have to be tired or I have to be hungry. I was tired, it's been a long week. Apparantly, the alcohol was hitting the girls hard as well since I was observing particular phenomena I like to call "lesbian moments". The name is pretty much self-defining. Nothing like girl-girl boob-grabbing, lip smacking action to top off the night. But then at Ambrosia, as the night was tapering off, some dude wouldn't get off my ass on the dance floor. N-O means "No". That sobered me up very quickly. Back to me mentioning about everything balancing out in the end. This would be a simplified example.

On Saturday, I slept in until the afternoon. I said I was tired. Anyway, I told Amber that I would bring Harold and Kumar go to White Castle over to her place. Since I slept in, I hadn't made anything to eat, so I decided to make food at her place. I attempted to make Beef and Broccoli which I haven't tried making in a couple of years. I decided to thicken the sauce using corn starch for the first time. It ended up being alright, although I used wayy too much oyster sauce. Too oystery. After the movie, she started falling asleep so I took this as a hint to get out. heh. Got home and got a call from Annie. Haven't talked to that workaholic in forever.

I went to lab on Sunday since that was when Jeff wanted to do the radiation dosing to the mice to make radiation chimeras. To make radiation chimeras, we expose mice to radiation to kill off their bone marrow, then later inject new bone marrow into those mice via. tail injection. This way we're able to make mice with chimeric blood cells. Anyway, in the lab I heard something slam into windows. I checked it out and it was raining in sheets. Earlier in the afternoon, the weather looked so nice. I went to the ninth floor to check it out and lighning was lighting up the sky and some flooding has already happened. It was totally out of nowhere. I feel sorry for Brandy and Amber who got stuck in the storm while out on a walk. That sucks. After the work was done, Christian, Victor, Will, Heidi, somebody who's name I've forgotten (d'oh) and I went to a Japanese restaurant named Kyoko's for dinner. The food was ok, not as good as Seattle Japanese food but it was still pretty expensive. When I got home, I called up Kyoko to complain about her restaurant. Turns out she went snowboarding that day. Ooh, I'm jealous. So the snow hit Washington a little early. That's a good thing since last year's winter was pretty pathetic. Good stuff.

The week was alright. I had a test on Friday and I was pathetically studying between lab and sleep. I didn't get hardcore into it until Thursday, and I did need a lot more time. I was rocked hard by the exam. Can't do well all the time, right? Up to taking the test, I've been plagued with a series of bad omens. On Wednesday, I was pretty late to class. On the way to school, I got stuck in 20 minutes of traffic. Once I got out of the traffic, my card wouldn't let me into the parking lot so I needed help with that. Then the shuttle from the parking lot to the hospital didn't come for another ten minutes. Then once I was in the hospital, the elevator to Weiskotten Hall stopped for a minute and the doors didn't even open. The great Flying Spaghetti Monster was trying to tell me something bad was up and I ignored the signs. On Thursday morning, there was some serious accident at the offramp, so I detoured to Adams street. Heading towards Adams, there was some construction going that was blocking the intersection, I needed to get past. More signs, more ignoration. Well, I didn't totaly ignore everything, I decided to show up an hour early to the exam since the offramp has been plugged up the last two days. I sat down to take the exam and they initiated rockage. (I just feel like inventing new words today.) I decided to go out that night and get wasted.

So on Friday, I hung out with Jeff, Christian and Cindy. So at some places for happy hour in Marshall square, the food is free and served in a buffet-style fashion but you have to pay for your drinks. Since we left lab a little late, there wasn't much left of the free food. We went to Bunker, the Sheraton and the food was all gone. So then we went to Darwin's where pitchers of Bud Light were $5 a piece. Amongst the four of us, we had seven pitchers of beer. I don't really like to get drunk off beer since that's a lot of liquid to take in. I prefer shots of liquor since they're more efficient. I hate using bar bathrooms too, since the toilets are gross with pee all over and the lines are long too. But who could say no to $5 pitchers of beer. Heh. Around midnight (We started drinking at 7) we went back to the lab to do some work. Christian had to pass cells and Jeff had to ween mice. Drunk mouse weening is more fun than sober mouse weening. Good stuff. Then I had to call security to get my car out of the parking lot (they lock it at night) at 1am. I got home in one piece. I decided to call Que at three in the morning. I'm usually not a drunk dialer, but since it was only midnight PST, it was OK. Haha, good stuff.

Yesterday, I woke up at 11am-ish. I didn't really do anything until 4pm when I decided to go out to search for some stuff. I only had two items on my list: Karaoke Revolution Party and the 2005 Jones Soda Holiday pack. I couldn't find the soda, but I picked up the game. I brought it back to Amber's to check it out. Since, my voice was still recovering from screaming all night at the bar the night before, I was sucking hard. However, I noticed the scoring was a lot more lenient this time around. It was back and forth Platinums until Amber managed to pull off a Diamond. WTF is a diamond?!?! It turns out it was a perfect score of 50,000. I got PWND. So then I suggested to go out to Armory Square for some bar hopping. We started at OHM, then Ambrosia, then Bar, then FUEL then PJ Dorseys. We both had Long Islands and Red Bull and Vodkas in our systems. As we were leaving PJ Dorseys, Greg and Jason found us and we decided to stick together. We went back to PJ Dorseys. After getting my jump on, we went to Awful Al's, a cigar bar. It was there when 2am rolled around and 'last call's were shouted out.

I didn't wake up today until 3pm. It was a good sleep. Real good. Haha. I then spent the majority of my day watching episodes of Mythbusters. Good stuff.

I've been borrowing The Nightmare Before Christmas from Jessica and watched it several times already. I don't remember how long it's been since I last saw it. Damn, I need to find the DVD now.

It's supposed to start seriously snowing this week. Crap.

music: Gorillaz - 5/4 FiveFour
She made me kill myself...

Richard!... How are you? Ooo-->Winter quarter I'm registered for physics, ochem, and bio-- utter academic suicide... Yes, I'm a 3rd year dumbass...WelpS! Just wanted to say 'HI' ! I bet you're doing better at school than I am =o)
-Dianne! - 051116 - 0310EST



I'm doing alright. I think grad school is driving me to alcoholism. Sounds like a tough schedule, good luck with that.
-rich - 051117 - 1240EST



you stole my van idea.
-ben - 051120 - 1544EST

I suppose I'm a little back-logged with this thing. It's alright, I have a couple of excuses. Here's the sequence of events in order: I bought Stubbs the Zombie then I had to stay late in the lab for a while, then I went to a party, then I had an eye exam, then I had a test, then I got sick, then I threw a Halloween party then I had an essay due on Halloween, then I went out for Amber's birthday. Good stuff, well most of it at least.

So, I picked up Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel without a Pulse for Xbox. The same game I mentioned in the last post. I remember picking it up on Tuesday, the 18^th. I also remember beating it on Tuesday, the 18^th. Hell, that game is ridiculously short. It's fun as hell in the meantime. So, let me describe the game for a bit. You are Stubbs. It's 1959 and some billionaire built a futuristic city over your unmarked grave. Now you're a brain-thirsty zombie. Go to town. The best part of the game has to be its humor. I'm all about the silly stuff. It's just hilarious watching a scientist rush a zombie, and then before he takes a swing he says "Have some PUNCH!" And when you rip off a soldiers arm, one would say "Ahh! My Penis, I mean my ARM!!" or "I can still kick you to death." or "Ow! That was my second favorite arm!" It's hilarious, the one-liners that come out of the humans. Like I mentioned earlier, the game is retarded short. I recommend renting it first. I love it, though. It's rated M for the adult-themed jokes in the game. Oh yeah, and it's pretty bloody too. If you could amass a large enough zombie hoard, they'll beat the level for you. I had fun with it.

Thursday, the 20^th was a busy day in lab. It was a 24-mouse kill day. We're studying the cause for thymal atrophy upon exposure to estrogen. So, we pulled in some good data from that experiment. Tony was in the lab from 5am until 12:30am the next morning. Holy crap! Yeah, long day. That's one difference I noticed working with mice from working with yeast. With yeast, there's always something to do, everyday. It's like consistent 8-hour days. With mice, there are going to be lag days with not much to do, but one or two days out of the week are really intense. Like 12-hour days. It's a lot of work to do. I didn't stay as late as Tony had to; I left at 8:30 pm. I kinda had to or else my car would be locked in the parking lot. They lock the gates. It's stupid, I know. Well, Immunotoxicology is really starting to grow on me. The research seems to be really rewarding, but I guess that's how I would feel about most research projects.

On Friday the 21^st, I went to a party at Adam's house. I was the only first-year grad student at the party. I guess nobody else would want to come out because of that pesky Cell Biology exam on Monday. I still came out, I guess I'm just hardcore like that. The party had a dual purpose. Mali, a graduating MS student, was leaving Syracuse to work at Merck and Jim just earned his PhD. Basically, it was a going away party. The party was fun, but then towards the end as people were starting to leave things got really sad. It brought me back to my going away party. Aww, sad. It got me thinking and my take home message for the night was:

Sometimes you don't know what you're getting into until you miss everything you've left behind.

That's what I was feeling for a while. I got home at 2:30 in the morning.

Saturday, I woke up noonish. I had that Cell Bio test on Monday and I haven't started studying yet. I was planning on studying all day on Saturday and Sunday, I just had a couple of errands to get out of the way before diving head-first into my notes. I had an eye appointment at 2:30 since I've been needing new glasses forever. My old pair had been seriously scratched on the front of the left lens. I'm not sure how that happened, but I think a microscope did it. So, I got there and the place was as clean as a clinic. Holy Crap... It's just a place for eye exams. I swear the exam rooms were clean enough to do open heart surgery. C'mon, it's just an eye place. It's not like life-saving procedures are going to happen there. During the exam, I tried to tell a little joke to the optometrist. We were going through the repertoire of lenses (lens one, or lens two...) and I said "You know, I'll never need to buy a new pair of glasses if I bought this thing and strapped it to my head." And his reply was, "I don't find that to be practical, this instrument is rather heavy and expensive." ... o_0

...

... Screw You. Whatever. Lighten up. I suppose in retaliation, he wanted a better look at my retinas and dilated my pupils. I forgot that this would keep me from reading anything within three feet of my face. I went straight to the library from the eye appointment and I attempted to study for Monday's exam. I could read one line of my notes then everything went blurry and I would have to look into the distance. I tried this a couple of times before I accepted the fact that studying that night would be futile. I was also developing a mean headache from trying to read. I was feeling really retarded for two reasons: One, I couldn't read and two, I procrastinated to study and now I'm only going to have one day to get it all done. BONED.

After sulking a while, I went to visit Pavi and Jess at Clark tower for a bit. If I couldn't study, might as well distract as many people as I could. heh... Actually, we were all supposed to meet up to watch a movie in the auditorium. After a couple of minutes of bugging them, Pavi, Jess, Brandon, AD and I went back to Weiskotten to watch The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Funny movie, but I don't think I'll be buying it on DVD. "Eruption... you know you want it!"

Sunday was hardcore study day. I drank 8 cups of coffee in the safety of my own apartment and chugged through my Cell Bio notes until 4am. I woke up at 7:30 and got ready to take the exam. I thought it was easier than I expected it to be. But then, I also only gave myself one day to study everything. Oh well, it's all over with... and that's a good thing.

That evening, a bunch of us went to Faegans to get soused which is the new tradition for celebrating these exams. I can't remember who all went out that night. Actually, I don't remember much about what happened that night. I do remember having at least three beers. I decided to sample the local, and not so local brews. Well, beers I haven't drank before. First, I went for a Yuengling from America's oldest working brewery. Why it's Chinese, I don't know. It's good stuff. The next beer was a Rogue Dead Guy Ale. Man, that was some strong stuff. You can distinctively taste the ethanol in that sucker. Then the next one was the Hoegaarden just for the name. So now I can say I once had a Ho' Garden. It didn't taste right for some reason, I remember it was lemony or something. I'm not sure if the Dead Guy Ale messed up my taste buds or something, but I that beer just didn't taste right to me. I might have gotten seconds of something, I forget. I'd have to say the Yuengling is good stuff. Buy the Dead Guy Ale if you really want to get hammered. The Ho' Garden didn't really taste right in my book, try it but you might not like it. And that was my quick beer review.

Over the weekend and the next couple of days, I wasn't really getting any good sleep. On Monday, the day after drinking 8 cups of coffee, I officially earned the title of "Caffeine Zombie" since that was the best description of myself that day. I came home and passed out between lab and going to the bar on Monday. I fell asleep again all day on Tuesday after lab and woke up late for class on Wednesday. D'oh!

Anyway, on Wednesday I went to Target after lab and bought some Halloween decorations for my apartment. I also picked up a 4-pack of Jones Candy Corn Soda. The first stop after Target was Brandy's apartment. I stopped by to share some Candy Corn soda since she liked the real candy corn so much. Man, that stuff is gross. It was the yellowest stuff I've ever seen. I swear, on a dark night the stuff will luminesce an eerily yellow glow. Back to the taste. It tasted like sugar, straight-up sugar. And the aftertaste. Man, that tasted like sugar too. So it was a sugar flavored soda with a sugar aftertaste. If I ever become a diabetic, I'm blaming that soda. Yech. It looked like radioactive pee. I drank radioactive pee. It wasn't good times.

My visit to Brandy's had a second purpose: to drag her out and help decorate my apartment with all the crap I bought. I've had the result posted on the livejournal for quite some time already. Not too shabby for $6. Yep, six bucks. The spider webs were $2, the pumpkins were $2 and the ghosts were $2. The most expensive part of the Halloween decor was the candy. I forgot how much I spent on candy, but it was a lot more. Basically the pumpkins and ghosts are plastic bags stuffed with newspaper and held together with twist ties. Not too shabby at all. In reality, this was all in preparation for the Halloween party I was having on Saturday.

So the ultimate price I had to pay for staying up late and playing "caffeine zombie' was that I got sick. I felt poopy all Thursday and Friday. I slept in all Thursday and missed a party on Friday because I was freakin' sick. That sucked. I broke out a second comforter and baked myself in my bed pretty much for the whole time I was home. I had to get rid of this bug by Saturday. This week was also really cold outside. I've experienced my first Nor'easter. It's also too early for these things. The weather's been really screwed up this year. It snowed in some areas up here. I thought I saw snow driving back home. It also could've been freezing rain. I couldn't tell. It was just chunky rain hitting my windshield. It looks like I have to retire the motorcycle for the season already. I need to ride it to Amber's, fill the tank the capacity, add Sta-bil, and put it in her garage for the winter. She already said it's ok. Boo. That makes me a sad, sad panda.

So by Saturday the 29^th I was feeling a lot better. I actually broke my fever Thursday night and Friday was recovery time. I was just a little snotty. Ha! So, I had a paper due on Monday on Microarrays and Macroarrays and I hadn't started yet. I tried to start typing it up Saturday morning, but I just wasn't feeling it. Serious writers block. I decided to screw it and work on it all day on Sunday.

I got ready for the party. I recycled the same pirate costume from last year since nobody here has seen it yet. Heh. Oh well... Tying the wrist thingies by myself was a bitch. Stupid things. Anyway, around 7:30 guests started trickling in.

This is Jessica with Pavi trying to hide to the right.



Pavi's camera ended up not working for the night... so I win?



Yarrrrrrrrrgh! The last time I'll be wearing this for a long time. Unless the situation calls specifically for a pirate, I don't think I'll be breaking this out for some time. I was called a lot of things that night. The most recurring name was 'Jack Sparrow'. I guess if I could remind people of Johnny Depp, that's a good thing. Supposedly, he's hot. Well, I wouldn't know... Why would I?... Stop looking at me! Leave me alone.



Amber's Devil/Angel.



Fixing the wings! Her camera wasn't working that night, either. Something about my place that breaks others' cameras. Strange.



Brian and Renee = Napoleon and Deb. Sweeet!



Pavi, Anandita and Jeanine on the couch. Jess and Amber hiding in the back.



Jess, Jeanine and Anandita.



So I broke out the liquor. We had Hot Chocolate and Starbucks Coffee Liquor, Hot Chocolate and Peppermint Schnapps, Rockstars and Vodka, Apple Pie shots (Vodka, Apple Juice and Cinamon), Sierra Mist and Mango Rum, Sierra Mist and Vodka, Cranberry Juice and Vodka, and the usual shots. Yeah, I'm prepared. I'm always prepared. After the buzz started to kick in, I threw in The Eye, a 2002 HK flick. Good stuff. I haven't watched it in forever. Nobody complained about the movie so I assume it was a good choice. I was a little concerned the subtitles would make it a turn off. After the movie, we lost some of the party and Pavi, Jeanine, Matt and I went to Armory Square and hit the clubs. We landed at PJ Dorseys and stayed for a while. We got tired early. I think I got home at 12:30. Man, we're getting old.

Actually, I think this was related to that paper I hadn't gotten around to yet. These guys have been up late writing it lately. Oh well. Next time.

I've been reading up on Skeeet's Halloween party. Man, I'm missing out. Rus put up some awesome pictures. Thanks, dood. So, CarLo bought the Lightning Reaction Shock Game a while ago and he broke it out for the party. The thing about this game is to hit your trigger when the music stops and the light turns from yellow to green. If you're the slowest to react you'll receive a shock through the controller. Also, if you hit the trigger too early, you'll also get a shock. Well, CarLo sent me a video of Dora the Explorer getting shocked. (You need to turn up the volume for this one.) Now, I'm convinced that I need one of these because they're awesome. Must... have.. it!

So I woke up bright and early on Sunday. I made a good breakfast of Bacon, Eggs, Toast and coffee. The breakfast was good because the rest of the day was going to suck, and hard. The sucktitude is equilavent of sucking a tennis ball through fifty feet of garden hose. Now that's some serious suckage. It was then when I realized I totally chose the wrong topic. The paper was supposed to be on laboratory techniques like Western Blot, ELISA, Mass Spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography, et cetera. I chose Microarrays and Macroarrays. Those aren't techniques, they're tools. Highly versatile tools they are!!! So, I had to cover a lot of ground. I covered cDNA microarrays, Chip-ChIP, Affymetrix DNA Chips, SNP detection arrays, Tiled Chromosome DNA microarrays, Reverse Microarrays, Internal Reflection Microarrays, and Protein Arrays. Holy crap, I felt like I was listing stuff to do with arrays like Bubba talking to Forrest about the many ways to prepare shrimp. On Sunday morning, I had one page done. By Monday at four in the morning, I had 19 pages typed out. It was at that point I decided to quit. I'm done. I don't want to see another microarray for a long time. Another 8-cup coffee night. It would be "Return of the Caffeine Zombie" for me on Halloween.

Monday, October 31. I actually woke up early enough to get my costume on. Since I was once again sleep deprived, I had the same hand gestures going as the sun-crazed, Jack Sparrow, a la Pirates of the Caribbean. I realized that I was going to be the only one in costume in Class on Monday by Saturday. But dammit, I said I was coming in costume and costumed I was. I did bring a change of clothes so I could change after class. Always prepared. I turned in my essay, spent a long day in the lab, went home and passed out early. Good stuff.

Tuesday was Amber's birthday. We went out to Red Lobster then to Faegans to get her drunk. I was the designated photographer since Amber's camera still wasn't working. Moving on...

Jessica and AD.



Our table.



Renee, Justin and Amber.



Amber!



Brandon and Jessica.



Anandita, Pavi, Jess and Brandy.



Brandon and Jessica.



Down the table.



Am-Brrr!



Jessica's roommates whose names I can't remember for the life of me. (Somebody help me out!)



Jess and Brandy.



Right side!



Left Side!

That's the last of the restaurant pictures. Amber's had a Giant daiquiri and they think I made "inappropriate conversation" at Red Lobster. Or something like that.


Alright, Meg and Sheena at Faegans. It's funny how this bar somehow became our refuge. We always claimed the area in the back of the bar. I think it's become our comfort zone. I'm all about variety. I think we should check out the other bars in Marshall square. Anyway, Tuesday was stupid. There was a cover charge to get in with no drink specials. First time I've had to pay cover to get into anything in Syracuse. Stupid stuff.



AD and Amber. Look how happy they look as they're looking into the camera!



Is Amber dreaming?



Amber and Brandy.



Christine!



Her friend, Whitey. No, I didn't make this up.



Jessica.



Justin resisting.



Persistence trumps resistance.



Yeah, I asked for it.



Goodnight!



Superflash! Jessica and Amber.



Sheena, Brandon and Christian.



Superflash on Amber.



Hanging outside the bar. Meg, AD, Matt, Justin, Amber, Brandon and Jessica.



Chillin' like a villain.



Storytime.



Me and Meg.



So faded right here.



That was fun. Amber should have a birthday every weekend or something. I got home around midnight-ish.

Yesterday, I lost my student ID. This is retarded. I've never lost my UW student ID for the five years I've attended it. And I haven't had three months of classes yet and I've lost mine. Well, it's not really my fault. The stupid latch opened and dropped my card while I was walking. I got a replacement that same day. Gawd, that was dumb.

So, I actually got my test back today. Well, most of it. My earlier confidence has proven me wrong. I didn't do as well as I thought even with the last section not graded yet. Well, we had two MD/PhDs lecturing us over three lectures and they're pretty hardcore. Oh well. After talking about it, points are adjusted at the end of the course so curves are set, in a way. Good stuff.

It's been just over three months since I've moved out here and I'm still getting used to being in the area. I thought I would be able to quickly adjust, but it's a little harder than I thought it would be. I don't really feel settled in yet. I don't know what's keeping me from getting comfortable. However, it does feel a bit lonely without all my friends a quick car ride away. Oh well, no point in crying over it.

I'm surprised my UW webspace still exists. Didn't the Skeeet page get pulled in September? Weird. Well, enjoy the old site while it lasts.

I finally received my power bill. $185. Not too bad. I was getting all ass-puckered for nothing.

It turns out that Star can't make it down here for Thanksgiving anymore. What tha hella, dood? So, I don't have any plans for Thanksgiving anymore. I have a couple of options, though. I can drive down to Maryland and have Thanksgiving with Star's family. I can ask someone here if I could join in. Or, I could also buy an Xbox 360 and hibernate with it over the Thanksgiving break. It's starting to look like option 3. Oh well, turkey's overrated!

I added a link to Jessica's weblog to the right. Check it out, it kicks my ass!

music: Green Day - Welcome to Paradise
Dear Mother,
Cant you hear me whining?
It's been three whole weeks
Since I have left your home
This sudden fear has left me trembling
'Cuz now it seems that I am out here on my own
And I'm feeling so alone

Pay attention to the cracked streets and the broken homes
Some call it slums some call it nice
I want to take you through a wasteland I like to call my home,
Welcome to paradise

A gunshot rings out at the station
Another urchin snaps and left dead on his own
It makes me wonder why I'm still here
For some strange reason it's now feeling like my home
And I'm never gonna go

...

Dear Mother,
Can you hear me laughing?
It's been six whole months
Since I have left your home
It makes me wonder why I'm still here
For some strange reason it's now feeling like my home
And I'm never never gonna go

....

Or you can come to Japan for 5 hours
-Chan - 051105 - 0922EST



I'll do it if you'll fund it.
-rich - 051106 - 0139EST