because it's called epMotion

and it comes with 5 hot (i guess) boy banders! Yay!

Stop pipetting late at night! You might be sung to by a boy band!


Here are the lyrics:



Pipetting all those well-plates, baby, sends your thumbs into overdrive
And spending long nights in the lab makes it hard for your love to thrive

What you need is automation, girl, something easy as 1 2 3
So put down that pipette, honey, I got something that will set you free

And it’s called epMotion (whisper: ‘cause you deserve something really great)
Girl you need epMotion (whisper: yeah girl it’s time to automate)
It’s got to be epMotion (whisper: no more pipetting late at night)
Only for you epMotion (whisper: girl this time we got it right)

DNA
RNA
Proteins
Cell Cultures
Less reagents
Faster workflow
Saves you money
Well, well, well

And it’s called epMotion (whisper: ‘cause you deserve something really great)
Girl you need epMotion (whisper: yeah girl it’s time to automate)
It’s got to be epMotion (whisper: no more pipetting late at night)
Only for you epMotion (whisper: girl this time we got it right)

apes gain rights in spain, still have brains cut apart in u.s.

Nearly everything I ever read or hear about animal rights activism is PETA's bullshit or negative reactions to other animal rights groups. Nothing, it seems, is ever good news in the animal rights world. It's so nice to hear something wonderful:

For the first time in history, an animal is given the right to freedom and not to be tortured. IN A COUNTRY THAT LEGALIZED DIVORCE IN THE 1980's. People kvetch about how how change takes time, but honestly, thank you Spain, for the gay marriage, the Equality Ministry, and the REAL animal rights.

Fuck you America.

sex, london, sex!

I just watched the show, now I want to be a prostitute. Funny how television romanticizes everything... instead I'll just read the book.

But here's the blog that supposedly started it all:

Belle de Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl


I like her. If I had the money, I would pay her to just hang out with me and go shopping and swimming and boy-scouting for a day.

I wonder if she's real?

summer solstice (warning, this is an emotional rant)

The night of June 20th was the summer solstice, a holiday that I actually DO enjoy celebrating. (This and Halloween). I came to terms with my past on Friday night. I didn't go to sleep, I stayed up with a bunch of random punkrockers, and I realized that I love who I am. The morning felt different, I felt different, and for the first time since I left Novato, I missed my friends. Tonight, one of them called me to hang out. Going home next week won't be so bad. There are people I need to apologize to.

I met a guy named Bones. He made a bad first impression. But he's just scared. He's been so fucked over by the world, just like us all, and he copes by being tough. But when we were talking at 5 am this morning, even though it started as him apologizing for his friends incompetence with women, I saw a strong yet sad, proud yet angry, rude yet sensitive guy who I should have kissed before getting on the MAX. He told me about his brother being shot by gang members when he was trying to break up a fight. He told me about getting his ass kicked every day after school until he brought a knife with him and stabbed one of the bullies. He told me about how he bought, cooked up, and injected a shot of shitty heroin into the arm of the girl he loved and watched her die.

I am reminded that it's okay to fall in love with someone for a split second, even if they have nothing to give you and you have nothing to give them. I hope I see Bones again someday.

Punks wear leather jackets covered with studs and patches and crass statements (haha no pun intended) I think as a physical manifestation of the emotional armor many of them have built up around their truly intelligent, sensual, passionate selves.

I also met an asshole who got right up in my face and tried to intimidate my friend and me. He went on and on trying to be a tough, unfeeling douchebag, but really he was just presenting himself as a fucked up, attention hungry, scared little boy (reminded me of a lot of Petaluma punks). I've seen his type so many fucking times at so many shows, and I am sick of the likes of him stinking up the scene. Then, later, I met the man who practically raised him (a man who happened to be the one I SHOULD have tried to sleep with instead of that boy). He told me a story about how Asshole went to a bar with him on his birthday, and started crying because he was afraid that when he came out and told his friend that he was gay, his friend would beat him up.

There were many things on Friday night that reminded me of who I was in Novato, and who the people I surrounded myself with were, and why I gave a shit about such shitheads. We all grew up together, went through the same bullshit, dropped the same acid, went to the same shows, smoked pot when we were 13 under the bridge at Sinaloa, behind the dumpster at Pioneer Park, watched Family Guy together at 8:13 every Friday night. My friends may no longer love or care about me, and I could give a shitless about them, but they were my friends for a while, and they have been really important to me.

Tonight I discovered that my ex has been lying to me for a long time. For the first time, I'm not angry, I'm just hurt. I'm finally crying for me, for my own pain, for the past year of emotional hell, for how long it will take to believe in love again. I don't want to see him any more. I don't want to talk to him any more. I will talk to him one more time, to say goodbye, and to say I'm sorry. I wish someone was here with me right now, I wish it wasn't 2 am, I wish I could talk to someone who would just sit there and listen and let me cry out everything. Instead I'm going to go on a bike ride. I might not sleep again tonight, but that's alright. I have a lot to think about. I don't hate that girl any more. I can't have hatred any more. I want to change the way I am, I want to be truly kind again.

How can I be kind when I am no longer naive? I don't know.

I forgot it was the Solstice, but the Solstice didn't forget about me.

gay brains!

Here's a really interesting article.

In short:

Gay men and straight women have similar brain scans.
Lesbian women and straight men have similar brain scans.
Evidence that "if you are gay, you are born gay."

w00t, fuck you Mormons! You can take the brain out of the homosexual, but you can't take the homosexual out of the brain!

jackson pollock and fractals

Via Luke I have just read an article on Jackson Pollock. Here's what I think, but a warning first: I don't claim to know anything about statistics, fractals, chaos theory, or modern art, but I do claim to love this kind of science, or what I can understand of it. I may be wrong in my interpretation of this article at certain points, but I assure you, I get the gist of it.

So I don't enjoy looking at Jackson Pollock's artwork. It's boring to me, chaotic, uninteresting. But I now have an immense amount of respect for it because of an article I just read on the fractal nature of his work. Statistically, his pieces speak the language of nature, which is statistical repetition and similarity. Because of the way he painted with movements of his entire body directing the lines of paint instead of the more limited arm-hand-brush motion of other painters, and because of his drip-splash techniques that mimic the motion of water (a chaotic system that follows fractal patterns), he was able to achieve high statistic repetitions of patterns across many scales. According to the mathematics (which I don't understand AT ALL but I believe the statisticians), his paintings had fractal values that are close to those of nature (lightning, trees, and coastlines for example).

He did all this before chaos and fractal theory were developed/discovered. Art preceding science! Art is science! Science is art! The patterns imagined and expressed by the creativity of the human brain are identical to the ones observed and calculated by analysis. It seems like the way we process our environment and express this processing through art is intuitively tied with the mathematical reality of our universe.

This is so cool to me. I thought you would like to hear about why I no longer hate
Jackson Pollock.

banjo mania with steve martin!,

Holy banjos and dobros, Batman!

Winners of some big fat bluegrass competition doing one of my fave songs (the banjo player of the year is a woman! yeehaw!):




And I have so much more respect for Steve Martin now:




He's a better banjo player than actor.

Yay for the banjo!

pleased to introduce the honorable misters london and crusoe

I am pleased to introduce the honorable (and terrified) Mister Jack London:



And Sir Robinson Crusoe:






There shall be a party on Saturday in honor of their debut.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time.


Oh... and I almost forgot... Monsieur A. Newt, attending from Pond-at-Audobon in Northwest Portland:

if your name is michael, you won't go to jail; brock, you're screwed

This is the most ridiculous study I've ever seen. There is no fucking point, except to raise a ruckus and make stupid parents, who shouldn't be having kids anyway with their lack of common sense, freak out and name every one of their children Michael and Mary or some other biblical bullshit. I'm still going to name my kids (if I ever have them) Jasper and Jade. Statistically, my babies are going to grow up to be serial killers, you know.

words of the vag

An interesting article on the etymology of slang terms like cunt, pussy, horny, poontang (teehee), etc.

The etymology of pussy is shitty. It's shitty that pussy is less derogatory than cunt, because cunt was originally the world for the vagina, not a word refering to a woman, like pussy. I wouldn't call a person a cunt, but I prefer to use this word when refering to my cunt: 1. because it has a powerful, dominant ring to it, and 2. because even when it is used derogatorily, usually it is in anger at something about a person that is overbearing, rather than the demeaning "pussy" that implies weakness and connects femininity to powerlessness. Also, I would rather call my cunt cunt. Calling it a pussy reflects the degradation of a woman's identity as being her utility as a sex object that the patriarchy has for so long perpetuated.

Phew.

bellydancing: rachel brice

I am in love. I want to start bellydancing again...

crazy corporate cubicles

An exciting job opportunity!

a touching struggle for a tiny life

This made me cry with sadness and with joy. There are good, good people in the world, and if you need to remember the human in humanity, read it, but here's a synopsis:

About a year ago, a woman took in two abandoned pinkies (newborn rats) to try to raise them, not a light task. She basically took on the role of the mother rat, and slept very little. Sadly, one of the ratlings died of pneumonia. The other, Pepper, struggled to make it to 5 weeks, but had a stroke. She tells her story of desperately trying to bring the baby back to health with such emotion that I am in tears. She was an angel of devotion to that little guy, and though he didn't make it, she tried as hard as anyone could to save him.

I miss my Huxley. Soon I will have the guts to write his story, maybe in pictures like the Good Dog Carl books.

Here's a picture I found today:

~R.I.P. Huxley~

Garden + Rats

I planted a garden today with my mamma. It was cold, rainy, dark all day.

But none of that mattered, because I planted a garden with my mamma.

My grandpa was a Master Gardener.

Today, when my mom and I stepped back from our work, she said:

"Grandpa's smiling."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am getting two of these baby boy ratties on Sunday. This may compensate for the fact that I will be alone and lonely for two weeks while my flatmates are out of town. What shall I name them?

Some choices (note: I name my animals friends after literary figures and/or authors)

--> Huckleberry and ??? (Tom?)

--> Orlando and Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, Esq (I love this combo, but will it give them identity issues?)

-->Renton and Spud or Simon (I like these names, but the implications...? Kind of ironic, naming rats after junkies)

--> Oedipus and Orestes (hahaha)

--> Nicodemus and Rasco (rats from the BEST BOOK(s) EVER!!!)


I don't know. I'll know when I meet my new friends.

check it: public statue, Prague (pronouned prAg, as in flag, lag, etc. mofos.)

Oh yes please.

vegan greek pilaf... easy yumminess

I just made this, and you should too!

From the Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen:

Note: this is the recipe for 6 servings... I usually just make 1/2 cup rice, and play the rest by ear, you know, a handful here, and handful there... I like handfuls.

1 1/2 cups raw brown rice
2 1/4 cups water
Olive oil (for sauteing)
1 1/2 cups minced onion
1 small stalk celery, minced
Salt
sunflower seeds or pine nuts (or not...)
black pepper
4 - 5 medium cloves garlic minced
2 tbs. lemon juice (I just squeeze a lemon straight on after it's all done)
1/4 cup minced parsley (I've used cilantro though, I don't like parsley)
1 tbs dried mint (or not...)
optional: tofu, mushrooms, carrots, peas, anything you want!

Put rice and water in small saucepan, cover, simmer.
While that's goin down, saute onion, celery, salt, and any other veggies, until tender.
Add seeds, pepper, garlic, tofu. Saute further (5 minutes?)
Mix with cooked rice, add lemon juice and herbs.

Mmmm... eat.

street art

This is an awesome site full of street art from around the world:

Wooster Collective

power struggle: necrotizing fasciitis

Attack of the flesh-eating bacteria!

Our species has quite a destructive superiority complex. The average Western* Homo sapiens is cultivated in a society that teaches that Man is the pinnacle of life and intelligence. We deserve to rape the Earth! We have opposable thumbs! Come on! Even "conservation" efforts are directed by the idea that the human being is the steward and owner of natural resources.

According to the EPA:

Conservation: Preserving and renewing, when possible, human and natural resources. The use, protection, and improvement of natural resources according to principles that will ensure their highest economic or social benefits.

Well, if we are so high and mighty and invincible, what about necrotizing faciitis (currently my favorite disease)? A bacteria that eats away the flesh, is resistant to antibiotics, and can strike at nearly anyone (though rare)? What about the fact that 90% of the cells in our bodies don't belong to us? We would die without the uncontrollable, yet benign infection of bacteria that thrives in our warm, dark, damp guts and cavities... bacteria that is frighteningly close in relation to the killers we pump our bodies and food and clothing with failing antibiotics to deter. (But this is another subject all together.)

An interesting perspective: ecofeminism.

While I don't necessarily agree with every principle of radical ecofeminism, the shift from a destructive, us-or-them, survival-of-the-fittest view of our role as a powerful species on this planet to one of interconnectedness, equality, and patience is essential.

A very good book on this subject: When Species Meet by Donna Haraway

Anyway, I love my internal ecosystem. Do you?

*Distinction made because this is the culture with complexities I am aware of and knowledgeable about. I believe that most dominant cultures in the world share many of the Great White West's patriarchal values and perspectives, but I just don't know enough to make any claims.

WOW a blog! TRENDY!!! Yeah!

I made a blog. At the behest of Luke Fidler. This means that I am no longer invisible on the internet. Well, it was a good run.

So, basically, here's the deal. I hate myspace. I hate facebook (well, I've never had one so I don't really know if I TRULY hate it, but I can be a pretentious prick and pretend that I hate facebook. OOh alliteration.) But I do so love the internet, and I like to think that I have very clever ideas that all my friends and pretty much everyone on the internet should read about, THUS:

Pretentia* + ego + internet - Facebook - Myspace = BLOG!

Some questions:

-------------->should i only write with lowercase letters?
-------------->hOW aBOUT tHIS oBNOXIOUS bULLSHIT wAY oF wRITING?
-------------->wanna fuck?


More soon. I must ponder these... ponderances**.


*Pretentia is now a word.
**Ponderances is not a word.