Segs in the city

Apparently you can take a seguey tour of most large cities of the world.
Personally? I think this would be hilarious.
I admit I'm not good with long groups of guided tours as I tend to want to go my own pace, but I like the information you learn from tours. And for a seguey tour I would most likely end up looking at J after 5 minutes and raising and eyebrow and we'd both just crack up and head screaming off away from the tour group on our own and meet up with them at the end...maybe.

What's that over there? *zoom*

Hee hee...

A to Z of awesomeness

Yes. This is just the thing for my tired brain...you had me at this...Optimus prime Obliterating Oompaloompas tipped it over into full fledged squee and proved to me just how awesome the world can be...

Well *I* think so...

Although I have discovered that I like pitted dates and that one or two dates is indeed the perfect hunger quenching healthy snack I still think they would be even tastier if handed to me by a monkey wearing a little hat.

Tee hee...you said titmouse

My friend Chris was talking about how he was giggling like a titmouse.
After sniggering like a 5 year old I got to wondering:
What exactly is a titmouse (other than a word to make all people under the age of 40 giggle at)?

So I looked it up...it gets wierder - it's not a rodent at all. It's a bird. Sort of like a miniature bluebird. AND...wait for it...there is even a tufted titmouse...which made me giggle even harder.

Why call a bird a mouse?
(How is a door ajar? bwaha ha ha...)

Do birds giggle? And how do they sound when they giggle?

I'm not sure, but I bet it's AWESOME...

Science is sexy

or something like that...

The latest issue of Scientist magazine, has a bit of a blurb about how the most recent issue of GQ has a spread about the Rock starts of Science...putting popular musicians with top scientists for photo shoots. It was response to only 4% of people randomly surveyed being able to name any scientist. They want to make more people think about science...

Although I think it's great to create more awareness of science...and how we're not all (*cough*) complete nerds (*whistle*), and that it's a goal in life for future generations, what rubs me entirely the wrong way is to put them in a photo spread with rock stars. Cause that's what science is all about - fame and fortune and feeling sexy. Yeah, we wake up every morning and put on our sequined lab coats and think "Someday I'm gonna find out something that will make me FAMOUS! I'm going places baby!"

Yeah. Sure.

We all toil away in labs, doing meticulous work, to try and find links for disease prevention, cures and treatments, find better ways to test for impurities and bacteria to make food safer - heck even help students learn more about science...we learn WHY things are the way they are. It's not about fame and entertainment - and the few researchers who are in it for fame are nasty, venomous dicks who will undermine other researchers, refuse to collaborate and work their grad students to near death to have glory of the next big paper, and even skew or make up data for profit or recognition. The thing is - Nobel prizes are given to amazing accomplishments in research - they are not the goal of research, they just happen, because someone makes an incredible leap of knowledge that is so fundamentally enhancing to science that we are all better for it as a society and as a researching group. I'm not knocking music - it brings me great joy, but to compare Cheryl Crow to NIAID director Anthony Fauci ? Well...not a level comparison at all. That's like saying Charles Darwin's ideas could be equal to the incredible leaps ahead that Sir Issac Newton or Albert Einstein brought to physics....PULEEZ!
(sorry - just a little geek humour there...)

And yet, the more I muse over this, the more I realise that there are correlations of rock music to labwork:

Lypsynching a performance - when Principle Investigators go and present projects at conferences under their name and they've done none of the actual work - they're just spouting out their lab slaves data with just a shadow of their former ability.

Grant proposal times are a lot like Canadian Idol - a lot of talented people competing for a few bits of $$ and the ability to go forward...all of them pretty focused and talented and yet only 1 will be given the prize, based on the whim of a few people on a panel

Groupies - Doing cutting edge research in the current hot field of science? (right now-breast cancer). Well, you'll be beset on all sides by grad students and post docs wanting to work with you. Companies will offer you equipment to use in exchange for addition to your publications or patents so they can make billions off you. People will toss your name about at conferences, as tho simply knowing or collaborating with you makes them better workers too.


It all just amuses me in a slightly chaffing way. Putting fame into the mix is insipid and dangerous. We already have to fight the battles of rediculous patenting of ideas with no practical applications that inhibit the average joe researcher from doing new things. We have to all squabble after reduced funding. We have to try and take money from companies and let drug companies fund our research and yet somehow be unbiased and learn without always producing a marketable product.

And perhaps, most importantly: People need to understand that there is just as much value in the experiments that fail. Those teach us things too...we learn how things DO work by this kind of results...yet, noone wants to publish a negative paper. People will try and publish junk research to just get a publication. People refuse to collaborate, wasting money and effort in the quest for the scientific prize, instead of using their ethics to keep their work in check.

We have a long way to go in the field of scientific research in regards to bringing up anew generation of scientists who are willing to shed the crap and bureaucracy and move into the future of research - groups of like minded individuals pooling their effort to best use money and knowledge to solve ideas. Creating open source data like the human genome and online journals. Quality over quantity to increase the field of knowledge - to find cures. To help people live better lives...one bit of data at a time.

image

It all gives a whole new meaning to "I'm gonna rock the lab today". :)

I'm gonna get off my soapbox now and put on my sequins and get back to work...

I'll have an avelox with a side of prednisone straight up...

And don't forget the salbutamol chaser...

Hey hey.
Guess what? I'm sick again. Yup. And not half assed either...it's an all out lung infection...came up over a matter of hours on friday and got bad fast...would've been pneumonia if J hadn't bugged me to go in to go checked out yesterday. I get an xray today to be sure I'm not needing more fun medication or actually *do* have pneumonia. I think the pharmacy I've already been given has started to work already. Not being able to breathe is not fun...it's rather frightening actually. I'm enjoying the breathing part.
Definitely.

BUT...all will pass I'm sure. I was mad about it, but what can you do?

I'm balancing this with the new knowledge that Coldplay is coming to Edmonton and Calgary in the summer and I am going to see Phantom of the Opera tonight. Unfortunately I'll be medicated to the gills, so as not to dsturb the other patrons, but I can't wait. I haven't seen it for a loong loooooooooong time. We're going to get dressed up and try to have a great time. It sucks to be sick, but I'm determined to enjoy it. J hasn't seen it, so I'm determined to not ruin it for him by hacking through it. I'm also determined to try by best to get tickets for Coldplay...they're not on sale for a while though.

But I'm going off to bed for a while. I took the day off to rest...figured if I need to go for an xray, noone at work would be interested in catching this. I so rarely take a day off that I don't feel a bit lazy.

Hug and sneezes to all.
Later...

Hippy New Year

You know it's wierd -I was away at a winter camp for New Years in the woods with lots of wonderful people, eating amazing food from a chef of the gods, learning cool things like contact juggling and firespinning, dancing all night to great music and meeting new and old friends in the wilderness and generally refilling my brain again...and I find I have nothing concrete to write about my time there since I've gotten back. It all seems so mundane to try and describe my holiday. It wasn't earth shattering or orgasmic or some sort of epiphany or anything...it's just as tho I can't really describe it and you all don't really need to know (or care? :P ) about the many details of my New Year's time away with my friends at Maskepetoon.

So to fill the gaps, here are some random key words from experiences of the weekend. I am curious if these words will invoke as much strange appreciation and joy in you as the times, words and experiences did in me the past week...

(ahem)

Ghastly, McGuffins, portal, poi, bodyrolling, smoking fireplaces, fairylights, ice lanterns, curried shortbread, glwoing crystalline altars, blinking, wattage, too many jiggawatts, glacial rebound, wedded bliss, pumpkin pie shooters, frozen lakes, northern lights, inquisitive coyote fur, fuzzy wristicuffs, Charlotte's web, discoball hammock, celtic myths, vision quest, dogs fetching and losing giant sticks, moroccan mint tea, palming a deck of cards, saffron rice pudding, endless hugs and relaxing from the inside out.

So...um...yeah...that's my New Year's in nutshell. I've a few resultions to come, but that's all that's coming out right now.
Hope you are all well and this new year is as intriguing to you as it is to me.