filked

Ok, so here it is then. Genetics filk from the mind of Dr. Jack, esteemed author of Armored Poodles Dancing on the Floodlights and Rubber Chicken Band:

This morning in the shower, the following kept running through my head (just the first line or two, but I wrote the rest when I got to work and was supposed to have been working on my ASPHO presentation). You know the tune:


@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
I got to phenotype my flies
count their legs and check their eyes
all the colors of their hair
and extra legs they're never gonna need

Got to phenotype my flies...

Got to genotype my flies
Check every last mutant allele
No more poorly loaded lanes
or primers that fail to properly anneal

Going to phenotype my flies...

[bridge]

Need a technician for my work...
So I can write the grant some more
Learn how to dump my load
On some unwitting but proficient scape goat

Got to publish my results...
Analyze any data that need massaging
Send it for review
like lambs down to the slaughter...

The comments are sadly revealing

Got to repeat all the work...

[second bridge]

Repeat the phenotype...

[d.c. al coda...fade]

peeps

Dang. I've been filked. I'll put the words up here once the author tells me it's ok.

So, in today's installment of 'Signs of the Apocalypse,' we can take note of the planned reality TV channel. I suppose it was only a matter of time.

On the other hand, as long as we as a species retain our fascination with Peeps, there might be some hope.

tomtom

Yep. Tom Tomorrow cracks me up. It's a hurty kind of funny, but funny anyway.

tumors

Hey, check this out. Cities may be tumors metastasizing across the face of the planet, but they sure look neat with the right light and angle.

wireless

So, here I am typing on the latest toy to hit the house: one of those cute little rf wireless keyboards that comes packaged with a 'gyromouse,' which is essentially the Theremin of mice (functionally, not mechanistically). You wave it in the air and it zooms around the screen as if it were sitting on my 'Lovely day for a Guinness' mousepad.

I expect these beasties to be really helpful for recording, in that I can now angrily stab at the keybard to stop, rewind, and redo that last damn take that sucked, without the added annoyance of having to cross the room. I'm not convinced that the keyboard is going to replace my wired keyboard for all things, as it's kind of a tiny little laptop-sized jobby, and even I seem to be able to type too fast for the receiver to get every letter in a paragraph. Still, I'm psyched. Might not wear out the carpet between where I stand to sing and the mixing station now!

Hell, according to the box the thing doesn't even need line of sight to work. Imagine it: I can randomly, blindly, mouse around my desktop from the next room! Wow! Take that, old world!

Ten minutes ago, I said to Marg:

"Hey, look! I'm surfing the internet from fifteen feet away from my computer! How stupid is that?" I had opened my browser with the gyromouse while standing near the door, and had managed to open up a bookmarked page, though I couldn't really read it at all.

"Pertty stupid," she agreed, and it was true. But still a loada fun.

thank who

Just in case you think I'm the only one putting strange sounds on the net, here's a link to someone who's collected mp3s of TV stars doing covers. Included are Leonard Nimoy's version of 'Both Sides Now' and Ed McMahon singing 'Thank Heaven for Little Girls.'

Shudder.

go

Another day, another bizarre pop culture obsession. This one's another anime called Hikaru no Go. In the mode of many good anime series, it starts with what sounds like a really dull premise and becomes utterly fascinating. In this one, Hikaru is a teenage boy who, while rooting through Grandpa's attic, finds a haunted Go board. He becomes possessed by the spirit of a dead Go player, who wants to play tons and tons of Go.

No, really- it's lots of fun.

I think there's a little not so subtle meta-commentary in this series, making fun of the typical 'fight of the week' macho stuff in many animes targeted at adolescent males. The fight of the week is replaced by the Go match of the week, and it turns out that with cool special effects and heroic music, watching two 6th graders play Go is every bit as exciting as watching two spiky-haired tough guys with improbable powers beat each other up. Beyond that, the series has (at least for the first few eps I've seen) a nice story and charming characters.

Now if it just didn't have so darn many episodes, I might get something done this month...

chudger

Dang. I thought I had been badgered before, but boy was I wrong.

Check out this bad boy.

Thanks to Damon, who sent the pic and told me it came from here. The site is fantastic, in a weird Americana roadtrip way. Which I think is the point.

arprilfools

Ok, this is not an April Fool's joke, and it's not a drill. The blog is back. No more two-month interruptions, I promise.

Today, when all sorts of crap is wrong with the world, I'm struck by how sense of humor and general enjoyment of the small things remains. Look at all the scary photos on the web of HK dwellers in the SARS stories, and what do you notice? Patterns, designs and cartoon characters adorning the surgical masks everyone has donned. The message? I'll happily panic when our experts tell me to, but I'll be damned if I'll do it without my Pikachu.


It's all about the little stuff.