Some Lies

Mobile Blogger eh

2012-01-11T10:15:00.001-06:00

This thing on?

Political Compass

2012-01-10T14:01:00.001-06:00

Well, this is rather interesting.

Coincidentally, I fall into the same area (almost exactly) as the Dalai Lama. This must show something but Ill be buggered if I know what. To be honest, I think Ron Paul is a fucking douchebag, and even if he wasn't a racist, misogynist I still wouldn't vote for him. So I can't be THAT Libertarian, right?

Where's my bong? Time for some deep thinking.

Tip o' Hat to Stupid Evil Bastard

Crowd Sourcing Ink

2012-01-06T14:52:00.001-06:00

There are many changes on the horizon; some before, some aft. The biggest of them I think will be the birth of my son sometime in late February or early March. In true punk-dad tradition I'm getting a tattoo to commemorate this event. However, exactly what to get...therein lies the rub...

I have a few tattoos already...a tribal design on my left shoulder, and a skull on my left biceps. My right shoulder has an astrological/zodiacal design on it. My right shoulder blade bears a bulldog, and I need to get the matching one done on my left. My right ribcage has large Kali that needs colouring and shading finally.

So, what to do next...the bulldog, the colouring for Kali? I want to finish my left biceps into a full half-sleeve, and perhaps my son's name or motif...his avatar can be built into that?

Originally I thought to go DeepGeek and use the single letter protein code to spell his name. Alas, unless I can get back in the lab and discover a novel protein and have it accepted with the letter O as its single letter designation, that plan is foiled from the start...and with a protein represented by the letter B, I can't even use just his initials either.

I'm inspired by the folks featured in Carl Zimmer's book "Science Ink". I've been looking at the photos online (not yet owning my own copy). Indeed, I saw that the Science Online Conference this year actually includes a trip to an awesome looking tattoo studio and will feature some of the attendees getting permanently inked! Zimmer finally reaches cult like status! To any attendees reading this who are getting inked for the first time, don't worry too much. It only really really hurts like absolute fuck for the entire time you're under the needle. Some areas are worse than others. My rib cage tattoo hurt so much i got a migraine, and for the skull on my left biceps, I nearly vomited with pain when he started to colour the inside of my arm.

It's like someone carving into your skin with a razorblade. Really slowly, with a lot of pressure.

You'll love it.

And have a few drinks afterwards - the endorphin rush is fucking unreal!

Anyway...I feel strongly that I want something to commemorate my PhD - i used molecular genetic techniques to dissect the function of voltage-gated calcium channels in synaptic transmission using <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i>. Among other things I discovered a novel RNA editing sequence intragenic to the gene we were looking at. That gave a pretty cool chromotograph I could have transcribed somewhere. Or, of course, if I had the money (and patience) a full detailed scanning electron micrograph of a fly head! The tenth anniversary of my defence and graduation is next summer, so I'm saving this up for then.

(credit - J Endocrinology, 191(1) 2006)

For now...well, seeing as there is no O in the protein code, I'm stuck. Hivemind - what thoughts do you have? What has inspired yours (wether or not you actually got it done; many think about it but fewer actually do it).

Without a Hitch

2011-12-16T11:52:00.001-06:00

I came late to the atheist fold and as a confirmed and ardent believer I kept my head firmly in the sand for too long. I lived that foolish duality that accepted faith and nonsense and unreason while clinging to the rationality that made me an excellent scientist. Oh how I wish I had the blinkers removed much earlier. how much more i could have done and been.

It was late, recently, that i really discovered Christopher Hitchens.

This post is rushed to get some thoughts out before they fully cloud my brain for the day. Hitchens is dead - just yesterday. Too young. Hitch-22 and Arguably are on my list of books for 2012. I wanted to read them when he was alive - I didn't know his end was so close; I have been woefully distracted this year.

The New Yorker has a wonderful eulogy by Hitchens' friend Christopher Buckley. One paragraph leaps out at me and makes me regretful for a year of self-indulgent, self-pitying self-loathing,

"Lunch—dinner, drinks, any occasion—with Christopher always was [bracing]. One of our lunches, at Café Milano, the Rick’s Café of Washington, began at 1 P.M., and ended at 11:30 P.M. At about nine o’clock (though my memory is somewhat hazy), he said, “Should we order more food?” I somehow crawled home, where I remained under medical supervision for several weeks, packed in ice with a morphine drip. Christopher probably went home that night and wrote a biography of Orwell. His stamina was as epic as his erudition and wit."

I miss writing.

New Year's Resolutions are often a feeble waste of effort and simply reflect a fear of mortality and wasted time. However, the Catholic guilt is deeply written into my soul and so I still make them. Faith and Works etc.

PZ Myers sums it up for me perfectly:

"As atheists, I think none of us can find solace in the cliches or numbness in the delusion of an afterlife. Instead, embrace the fierce strong emotions of anger and sorrow, feel the pain, rage against the darkness, fight back against our mortal enemy Death, and live exuberantly while we can. Confront mortality clear-eyed and pugnacious, uncompromising and aggressive."

This year's is simple: Write More, Write Well, Write for the sheer pugnacious joy of the words.

Statements of Lack of Faith

2011-11-25T10:26:00.001-06:00

I am a fairly recent atheist. I'm really more of a Judeo-Christian agnostic, but I have a suspicion this is just old habits dying hard. It's not been an easy journey and it's only recently that I've become more outspoken. This is partly due to becoming more aware of important civil liberties issues that I've read about ('enforced' public school prayers, the 'war on Christmas' being used to suppress diversity) and partly because I'm getting tired of the sanctimonious lies and hypocritical whining of Christians and the militant hate expressed by Muslims. Another important motivator has also been the common view that Christians seem to take, that because they are God's new chosen people* He wouldn't let them come to harm, thus scientists are liars and frauds and climate change is not man made etc. This affects me and my family directly (for e.g. warming up the planet we have to share) and indirectly (for e.g. I'm paid by Federal monies allotted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH); any attack on science is an attack on the meagre wage I get for serving the public good as a scientist).

Three recent events are of note and have spurred this little, meandering post and the two to follow when time permits.

A couple of weeks ago I made my first public statement of (lack of) belief. I read bloggers and writers who are great with their words when it comes to describing and defining their lack of belief in any higher/spiritual power. I've been curiously concerned about how I might speak up if asked about my opinion. I was at a bar with a friend and she was chatting to a gentleman, a dancer and choreographer. She is a Christian and so was this chap. I forget how the conversation moved round to this spiritual realm, but as they made the usual mumbling statements of faith, I stated that i was an atheist. You could have heard a pin drop.

"No you're not!" My friend exclaimed in the tone of voice usually reserved for young adults who make outlandish statements ("I'm going to buy a motorbike mom!")

"Yes, I am." I replied.

The dancer spoke up, curiosity in his voice betrayed by the fear and revulsion on his face. "Why do you think you're an atheist?"

I ignored the condescension of the statement, although I must admit I nearly used it as a springboard for a feisty rebuttal on manners. Heart thumping I paused for a moment and then spoke up "I am an atheist because after searching hard, I can find no evidence that there exists any higher power or any need for there to be a god. I can't believe in something I can find no evidence for."

His reply was a thoughtful, "Oh!". He briefly tied the common PoF tactic of asking me if I therefore believed in love etc., something I've since faced a few times and torn apart with ease. The idiocy of these statements simply betrays a lack of thought and reasoned argumentation on the part of the asker. My friend then steered the conversation back to more libatious matter and we ordered another round of drinks.

I think I handled it OK.

*An inherent LOL to poke at these people is each little sect thinks they're the chosen on and all the rest are hell-bound frauds. This is a very fun stick to poke them with....People's Front of Judea etc.

SfNBANTER - A Review

2011-11-16T11:31:00.001-06:00

What can one say about SfNBANTER -the premiere social event of the fall conference season? Once again hostess Dr. Becca excelled with another exemplary venue, menu, cocktail list and guest list. As exclusive as ever, the event was nevertheless overrun with the twitteratti and bloggeratti.

Dr. Zen wins the SfNBanter style award, again!

One must open with a very sincere Thank You to Jonathan Gross and the BioData team for sponsoring the event. It was great to meet Jonathan in the flesh finally, and chatting to the BioData team was fun and added a sense of relevancy to the wired nature of the event. After all, who better to sponsor a Tweetup than an informatics company with a very active social media presence?

This writer met old friends from the IRL (@mocost next time I'll manage more than "hi", @aechase, as ever a pleasure), old friends from the real (on line) world (including the mysterious and prolific @Scicurious and some true pseuds who must remain nameless, but know who they are), and made acquaintance with new peeps. Particular highlights were getting an awesome brain-Xmas tree ornament from @artologica, stalking @loveofscience, punking @mikechorost, losing a bet with @sugarscientist, making @artfulaction blush and swapping zombie tales with @bradleyvoytek. @noahWG and @genetrapper bought me beer, and thus consolidated themselves in the deep, fuscus and wormridden core of my heart for evermore.

A very special moment of the evening was meeting with some of my Scientopia peeps who I've known for years, but never met before IRL. And apologies once again to Drugmonkey for disappearing, and Namnezia for not saying goodbye. I was a case study in nicotine overdose by the end of the night and a brief palate cleaning walk around the block turned into an epic stumble home via a late night pizza parlour and meeting a poor homeless woman who wanted me to help her walk to Massachusetts. The state, not the Avenue...

I wish I could throw out a Heyya to all the folks I met, but the mixture of beer, avatars and real names was dizzying. Even i got confused about how to introduce myself. And that i think is the key to these events. Living online allows us to escape, expand or avoid daily social strictures, be they work or family indicated. Online we can be freer in our expression and find an audience of friends and peers to share our thoughts and writing with. It was great to meet so many cool, wired and ~~desiccated~~ dedicated folks from all ranks, fields, and social backgrounds.

So join us next year in New Orleans for #sfnbanterIII - in 2010 we celebrated with SfNPosterface in a nightclub with 2000 people. In 2011 we proved we have traction in DC. What will we do in 2012 in the French Quarter?....One positively shudders to even contemplate the debauched science we'll conjure... ;)

It's that time again

2011-11-09T12:50:00.001-06:00

I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. Well, it's been a tumultuous yeah and I've not been a very active blogger to be sure. But, that's par for the course. I've been doing this since 2004 and you have good times and bad times, times when you're feeling inspired to write, and times when you're not. But now there's some impetus - The Greatest Show on Earth is coming up (next week!).

The Society for Neuroscience are holding their annual meeting, as is their wont, and this year we're back in Washington DC. last time the meeting was in DC I had to catch the red-eye from Las Vegas the day before my presentation, where I had been attending the orientation for the new members of the Board of Directors of the National Postdoc Association. Ironically, I'm no longer on the Board and now they hold it in DC the week before SfN. Anyway, that was in 2008, I was still a Labrat and the world was only just realising how desperately bankrupt it was.

In 2010 myself and M'Belov'd Colleague Dr. Becca covered the event in San Diego, and ran a serious of semi-coherent videoblogs for it. I think they're fun, and the out-takes are simply FTW. I also ran a review of the SfN Neurobloggers, both before and after the conference.

My comment then, as now stands - the Society is making a farce of its efforts to engage a wired audience. Last year only a couple of the Neurobloggers were actually, y'know, bloggers. Some have kept up with the blogging more or less, but there was no effort on behalf of the Society to seriously screen entries based on anything credible like credentials, experience, following etc.

Surely, and really, fucking obviously, if you're trying to get more attention to your conference in the wired world, it would make sense to gather a stable of popular, talented and proven science bloggers to cover the event. Right?

Right?

They wouldn't make the same mistake twice they?

Would they?

Even after a few of "us" actually contacted the Society In Real Life and spoke to them about it.

Right?

Yes. Yes, they would. #DFS.

They're making no fucking effort to advertise this at all as usual. The SfN hashtags on twitter are being run by the usual Twits, and thankfully it's self-organising well. But once more they've picked a stable of writers, with a couple of very notable exceptions, who are totes WTF.

Zen Faulks has beaten me to the punch this year, so here's linklove to Zen. To whit:

"Last year, I wrote about the puzzlement about the Society for Neuroscience’s choice of official bloggers. I didn’t recognize a one.

With today’s announcement of the Neuroscience 2011 neurobloggers, I confess I am still baffled by the SfN’s social media strategy. Unlike last year, year, I do recognize one blogger, the mighty Scicurious [Ed: I'll add Jason Snyder of Functional Neurogenesis to this too]...I’m most baffled that two blogs didn’t exist at all a week ago, which happened last year, too. The application to be a neuroblogger asked for samples, including previous conference coverage..."

Seriously, I just don't fucking get it. Why bother having a call for applicants if the entire process is so desperately farcical. Last year I worried that the n00bs were opening themselves up for a shit storm because of the possible attention. However, by all accounts traffic was so low it was moot. I know Jason and Scicurious will do excellently, and as usual they'll likely get good traffic. The rest of you, if you actually exist, have fun, but don't sweat it. The entire thing seems to be a waste of time and effort unless you're already up and running. And if you are, you don't need this faux 'boost' from a Society that clearly doesn't give two shakes of a fuck about promoting itself, or you, to the Wired World.

********************************

FWIW, I'll be attending sporadically and blogging when I can - I have some family business to take of while I'm in the area so i'm staying in Annapolis and commuting.

Most importantly::: I'll see y'all at BANTER. mad levels of props to M'Belov'd Colleague Dr. Becca for organising the whole thing while I've been Blogger in absencia this year.

This is the second (annual?) blogger and tweeter hang out and if it's even close to last year, you'll need a free schedule Tuesday morning, and a handful of aspirin with that morning coffee.

Remember, if you don't want to out your Pseud, take your fucking name tag off before you go into the bar, or write your Pseud on the back of it, wear it in reverse and geek with pride.

See y'all on Monday ;)

Google-tube?

2011-10-19T13:53:00.001-05:00

Link on BBC new webpage - Searching for the next Google... along with this picture

(credit BBC I guess)

I get it - it's all techphillic and shit, but couldn't they have picked something slightly more fucking relevent? Either use Google to draw attention or mention chemical engineering or whatever the fuck that you8ng an is doing with that test tube.

...and test tubes? Who the fuck uses test tubes nowadays (shut up chemists)

DFS, at least it isn't the UEoBL* (pronouced weeble)

Oh shit i think my building is on fire. BRB. ETA - nope. false alarm

(*Ubiquitous Eppendorf of Blue Liquid)

Winter Retreat

2011-10-19T11:39:00.000-05:00

It's cold. Cold in Memphis. We don't "do" cold very well, which is silly because it's only hot here for 6 or so months of the year. Starting about now the weather gets grey, and chilly. The damp stays in the air and the chill is pervasive, leaching into your bones. It demotivates. All I want to do, and I think a lot of my fellow Memphibians would join me, is find somewhere warm to curl up. Somewhere with an open fire, a limitless supply of soup and good books (substitute TV for anyone not me).

Alas.

The cold. It demotivates in a different way to the heat. The heat saps your strength and energy. The constant grinding humidity. It never cools off in the summer. The nights are a miasma of discomfort.

I am demotivated. I got my "old" job back and a promotion is promised. I still don't have a faculty position so I am demotivated to work on grants for the third year in a row. I do a lot of the writing and editing and am "just" a line item. It's stupid, I know. I need the grants to keep myself and my team employed, and I need them more to prove I am the One who Can and thus earn the faculty position. But, I am demotivated.

I have book reviews to write for Lablit, and they're half written. Discarded and angry passages and paragraphs. Aimless and meandering. I promised a book review; I have others waiting to be written and now even WW Norton have stopped sending me books.

I have editing I should have done, but I lost my motivation and lost my contract with a major publisher to serve as a free lance editor.

I have blog posts to write. I used to love writing and blogging. BANTER and the Society for Neuroscience meeting are coming up. This time last year I was railing over at LabSpaces and getting excited for SfN. My dear friend and beloved colleague Dr. Becca is doing it all on her own right now, and god knows how she finds the time with her new lab.

I am demotivated. Depression is a shitty illness.

Eye witness silliness

2011-09-21T19:42:00.002-05:00

Is more proof needed than simple human hatred and the desire for vengence?

"Updated at 8:19 p.m.] The mother of the police officer that Davis was convicted of killing told CNN's Anderson Cooper that she is "absolutely devastated" that the execution has yet to happen.
“I’m absolutely devastated because I want it over with. ... They’ve been through the courts four times there in Georgia. They’ve been to the Supreme Court three times," Anneliese MacPhail said in an interview from her home, referring to previous delays. "This delay, again, is very upsetting and I think very unfair to us."
"I'd like to close this book," she said. "We feel (Davis is) guilty. The evidence and everything that we have seen – that I have seen , because I’ve been to all the trials – he is guilty, and I believe in that. And so does the rest of my family.”

Your heart is broken because a man who might be innocent is going to be murdered by the state that messed his trial up in the first place? You don't want vengeance, you want blood. And the blood of an innocent is just fine, because black blood is cheap.

The jury have retreated because the eye witness accounts are corrupted by all accounts. Corrupted by the police force your son worked for. Why wouldn't you want justice? Or do you just need closure? Humans are good at closure. If Mr. Davis ever gets out I don't think we have to look far for the lynch mob.

In honor of CPP

2011-09-18T10:36:00.002-05:00

NFL fucken networke is a fuckine joke. 2 hours before the fuckin game and a room full of over paid has beens are analysing Chad Ochocinco's fucking TWitter stream? Michael Fuckin Irving looks like he's going to have a fucking heart attack roaring about Ochocincos fuckin TWEETS?

What a fuckin joke. No wonder no one gets shit anymore. Hundreds of thousands of zombies are watchng these assholes thinkning that this is entertainment. And these douchefucks are being paid millions o dollars to act like spoiled slightly inbred fucking morons.

I fucking despair. What hope that the gamewill be any fucking better?

Labour Day Mark 12

2011-09-05T11:18:00.001-05:00

Today is my twelfth Labor Day, and my first as a Permanent Resident. I still have no idea what one does on Labor Day or, indeed, why it's so important. To Americans it marks the official end of summer and this has always struck me as odd because the weather (at least where I've lived over the last decade or so) is usually glorious and often 'better' than "real" summer (less humid, less hot).

The start of summer, Memorial Day (May), is marked with barbeques (cook-outs as we call them here), as is the Fourth of July, which includes the additional bonus of fireworks. Other holidays have associated phenomena - Martin Luther King Day (January) is a time of introspection and thought, doubly so here down South where the racial divide is still strong, and triply so in Memphis where Dr. King was murdered. (The site of his death, the Lorraine Motel, is now the National Civil Rights Museum and well worth a visit if you're in town.)

There are the pseudo-holidays of Columbus Day (celebrating men who refuse to stop and ask for directions) and President's Day (celebrating...uh, the President or something?). There's Thanksgiving, which to me is a chance to practice cooking a turkey in time for Christmas (my favourite holiday).

And there's Labor Day. A day off of work, but to do what? Some folks have one last hoorah at the beach (too far from here), or "one last" cookout (Tropical Storm Lee has put the kibosh on that in Memphis this year). It just seems a funny anti-climactic holiday.

But in the tradition of starting traditions where none exists, MusicGirl and I have decided there will a Labor Day breakfast and she will prepare it, just like Granddaddy Jim used to when she was a kid (Granddaddy Jim was Native American and she has fond memories of him smoking his cheroots and getting ash in the pancake batter, and then getting the batter in his long braided hair). So, this morning at the crack of dawn *ahem*...9:45...I headed out to The Store to get the makings for breakfast...and over an hour later returned with what I assumed was the correct makings. See, I don't "do"American breakfasts - when possible I make myself an "English" breakfast that most of my friends refuse to eat.

Ho hum...apparently 6 eggs was too few, 'center cut' bacon is wrong and it took me 35 fucking minutes to find the pancake mix - why isn't it with the rest of the cake mixes!? (And, yes we could make fresh, but we're still living out of boxes and some utensils etc. are missing). It took another 15 to find the maple syrup (why isn't it with the rest of the dressing, condiments, unguents etc.?)...and then 10 more minutes of sorting through the 873 different varieties, all of which were proudly "sugar free" or "lite" before I found something 'real' ("lite" syrup, really? Irony spill on aisle 5).

Well, what the hell! This year traditions ~~clash~~ meet and we get Tideliar's catered variation of the Official Labor Day Breakfast!

At least some folks look like they're existed....Can haz catsup?

Federal Bureau of WHAT?!

2011-09-03T16:21:00.000-05:00

Ah, there are few finer things than receiving mail. Well, to qualify, mail that isn't flyers or bills. A letter from home perhaps, a note from a loved one somewhere, reaching out to let you know that at that moment, that precise moment days or weeks ago, she was thinking of you and took the time and effort to write a card, a letter, a note - and then mail it.

This doesn't happen too much anymore because we communicate electronically. I can email my mom from my phone to tell her I love her anytime, why wait for a vacation or a major family event right?

For me, an immigrant to this wonderful, crazy country, most of the non-junk mail I receive is actually from the government. Citizens have little idea, although we likely share(d) the joy of the Federal refund check after tax time if we were lucky enough.

I am used to getting "official"mail referring to my visa, or my immigration status in some manner. Isn't it wonderful that the postal system exists where a transient email account might not guarantee delivery of a vital document - a travel permit, or for the lucky few, a work permit of some sort. Using this archaic 'technology' to communicate so vitally adds great import to important documents like these. That's something my country(wo)men will never know unless they too decide to explore the world outside their birth borders.

So, imagine my surprise/terror/delight/gut-gnawing-terror when I saw this in my mail box this afternoon...

(I am particularly taken by the "Have A Nice Day" motif. Federal ANYTHING scares the crap out of me. It's something an immigrant can understand - after all, it's made clear, constantly, that we're second class citizens most of the time. Thankfully, I'm white and speak English, so it's OK. Unless I'm in Arizona and then my "funny" accent could get me in trouble...

You see, the United States Customs & Immigration Service (UCSIS, used to be INS) isn't so crass as to bully us with a FEDERAL stamp - they know we're already nervous. Why bully the bullied until you need to?

I wonder what's inside...I have a few friends who have Top Secret clearance, or are working to get Top Secret clearance, so maybe it's the one-in-a-hundred recommendation check? Or...?

On this Federally gifted Labor Day weekend I refuse to be bullied by my government. I'll update you next week when I get round to opening it...

Gotta go find my kid

2011-08-25T14:37:00.002-05:00

One of my favourite TV shows of this year is Sons of Anarchy - I guess the the show actually started a couple of years ago; season four starts in a couple of weeks. I found it on Netflix, and with the urging of some friends started watching. I was hooked almost instantly, and was furious when I got to the end of season2 and found that netflix wasn't showing season 3.

Then a buddy pointed me at iTunes and I bought it! Alas, each episode is about 750MB and I was using my Android cellphone as a portable wifi hotspot so it took about 21 hours to download each episode.

So I called AT&T and dropped a wad of cash on their Uverse dealio so I could get fast wireless in my house and thus download the whole season in minutes instead of weeks.Not cheap, but worth the money.

For the uninitiated the show follows the trials and tribulations of a rather nasty "Hell's Angel" motorcycle club in California. These guys are portrayed as the "good guys" because they only deal in guns, they don't like the drug scene (the irony being that they sell the guns to their rival clubs who are then using them to protect their drug turf...). They work "with" the corrupt sheriff of their little town to keep the pace locked in a kind of 70s time warp. The baddies are the rival gangs, as well as the big corporations who are trying to muscle in on the town of Charming, as well as the "Feds" - the corrupt and avaricious DEA & ATF agents who are trying to shut down the gangs.

The club is known as "Samcro" - Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original" - they are the original charter, founded by 9 disillusioned young men looking for a way to fight back against a society they had learned to hate.

I don't know why, the excellent writing and casting I assume, but this show resonates with me and tugs at the angry young man I used to be. I wear my suit and tie, and do my science now, but I used to be a very different person. But that's another story for another day.

(screencap from here)

The leading man is the dreamer (and utterly dreamy) Jax Teller, club scion, son of the first president. In the first episode of the show we see Jax's estranged partner give birth to his son and the subsequent weight of responsibility this brings to this formerly free-spirited young man. That too resonates deeply within me. Needless-to-say the child is a key plot device and most of season 3 is spent in the hunt for him after he's been kidnapped by a rogue IRA member. One issue with this whole story arc really struck me though. At every turn in the plot Jax keeps saying, "I gotta go find my kid." And after about the 50th time it became a real annoyance to me and jarred the script. The "Kid" had a name, and a gender - he was a son. But more important than the lazy writing was Jax, or rather the actor Charlie Hunham's lack of authenticity (to my eyes). The child had become too obviously part of the story, "I gotta go find my bike."

This morning my partner turned to me and asked about daycare services at my institution. I know we have them and I know they're awesome and thus I know they're usually full. So, I was duly told to call and find out, and I dutifully did so.

"Hello, campus childcare, this is Mary, how can I help you?"
"I'm inquiring about your services, uh, childcare?"
"Yes, we have a full daycare center here. Is that what you mean?"
"Yeah. I need to know about daycare for my kid."

My kid...did I say 'kid' because I don't know gender yet, or because this early on I feel ridiculous saying child? Or was it, as I suspect, because kid is a distance term - he or she isn't real yet. Just a plot device. I need to pay more attention to the script I think.

Americans In Line LOL fail

2011-08-11T19:58:00.005-05:00

This one is a true classic. Well done AOL, screencap taken at 1953 on 08/11/11

I can haz programmer who gets basic web design?

No...HAHAHAHALOLz1111!!ELEVENTY....POWERS...of FAIL..... activate!

Bravo, AOL, bravo...or Netscape...or, no, wait, aren't you the Huffington (com)Post now? I lose track of the trail of fail, and then am reminded of why I totes trust you with my spam account. And only my spam account.

hey kiddo

2011-08-09T21:44:00.001-05:00

Well, here we are then. I guess you really are real. It's not just your mum making things up to get extra food and sleep, and to uh miss her period, and make me stop smoking finally...and...well, anyway...

I don't know what to say because I have too much to say. Too many thoughts. I wonder if you'll be like me and think too much sometimes. I have a million wonders about you and I can't wait to figure them out.

Sometimes I think I'm going to be right (actually, most of the time for your first decade and half). Sometimes I'm almost definitely going to be wrong (but I'll never admit it, so here is lesson one in self-control). Most of the time though I think we'll figure that out as we go. I can't wait.

It's the oddest thing, I already love you and you're just a kumquat.

But I saw your heart beating inside your chest. I heard your heart beat through ultrasound. You're alive, you're real.

You were our embryo, and now you're our foetus. You will be my baby, and you'll always be my child.

Here we go kid. Wish us luck.

G+ RageQuit FTW

2011-07-26T13:22:00.004-05:00

Ignore last night's post. Due some significant work/life issues I was in the middle of a total stompy-foot ragequit over G+ and planned to extend it to any Google service. yeah. Whatevs brohan.

FWIW, to any readers who had me in a circle onG+, I did totes IRL delete my G+ account. I'm not using if they're gonna ban psueds. Go read Janet Stemwedel or Scicurious' post (and links therein; especially BugGirl) for why it's a sexist, assinne and bullshit argument. Support your sisters. Ragequit G+

Fuck yeah!

Anyway. Fuck G+ but for Blogger et al., it's business as usual for a while as we see how this plays out.

should I stay or should I go now?

2011-07-25T22:56:00.003-05:00

Wow... Damn... Google got busy over here huh? Google Buzz (WTF) Google Wave (LOL) and now Google Plus... I hear no Pseuds allowed so I'm killing that tonight before I get locked out of 'everything'...for daring to have a persona behind my real name...which is.... Melody Juicybump*!

Shit is up in the air Dear Reader. On top of all this mayhem, I log into Blogger, where I have resided off/on since 2004 and I can't even figure out how to post and I've only been gone a month. Been bloggin here since 2004 and I can't figure out how to post... What. The. fuck. Guess I'm an old dude now. Damned kids...something something my lawn!

Guess I'm not your target demographic anymore?

G+ is gonna go the way that GBuzz did. Y'all are re-inventing the wheel for users and not innovating for users. One draws users, the other creates traffic. I know how it works, but at least give me a fucking reach around huh? Y'all fucked me with dual accounts (no reach around), then with Buzz (no reach around AND no lube!).

Ouch.

Anyway. Bad day at work. Was gonna catch y'all up with the goss and the whatevs. But I log into 'home' and it's all fucked up. A Pseud is only as good as the horse s/he rode on right? A couple of thousand of you visit me every week, when I post regualarly, and I than you for you interest and my commenters for their insight. I can be found, it's just the fucking internet after all.

Tideliar ain't dead but it's time for my bi-decadal** DILLIGAF

Ciao for now. You know how to find me if you want to (thanks Google!).

Bye.

*No, Google, that's not my real name. But due to Male-Based honesty priviges I could LOL at YouTubers and watch their ire every time I write under a female pseud. You see, IRL, I think it unlikely anyone will track me down to "just look at me" (you ain't just looking son). But, thankfully I have my BSD to deal with any bitches (male or female, fucking ladyboys huh?) that disagree! huh! eh? Huh! ...

** that means every five years, right?

There be dragons...

2011-06-28T21:21:00.001-05:00

I've just bumped into a friend of mine. Haven't seen him in ages, probably a year at least, not since a mutual friend left town for pastures new. (Field application specialist I think, biotech or there abouts.) This bloke works nearby, nice guy, good scientist. Married to a scientist. Both of them. Scientists. Working at the same institute. Them and my friend, the FAS, started about the same time.

I've been in this town for 6 years this week. I've known them for most of that. What's wrong here?

"Hello mate! Not seen you in ages."
"Yeah, I think not since Mike's leaving party, right?"
"Yeah, bloody hell, that was a good night out. What, a year ago last September wasn't it? 18 months at least?" I'm boisterous, louder than normal. I want to know what's going on in his head. It's the Tidelinterogation. I have an ulterior motive: he's in a good lab, and so is his wife. They're both very talented scientists and I want to know what's next. How is our sister institute prepping people?

The blogosphere has recently been all flutter about the archetypal disgruntaldoc and how a postdoc doesn't prepare you for anything and yadda fucking yadda yadda. Guilty as charged. My post based on a long chat with an unhappy postdoc inspired Prof-Like's query and I forced him to wear the meat pants again. Clearly they ain't doing him any damage, and neither is the feeble gnashing of the disgruntdocsphere.

But the feeble gnashing of the disgrunts is making noise out in non-blog land...and I fear that link might not work because it's to a LinkedIn chat on a closed circuit.

Scientists are human too and no one wants to see their dreams taken away. It's the basis of most decent tragedies, TV, stage or otherwise. But it happens. As M'Learned colleague has spake:

Academic Science is not Care Bears Fucking Tea Party

...

"So what's next? What are you guys planning? You've been here a while right?"
"Yeah, four and half years. So we've got at least six months left. We're planning and stuff. Y'know." At which point he is fixed by the steely and unhappy glare of a furious Tideliar. "Six months? So, what are you going to do? Academia? Industry? Bench? Non-Bench? Regulatory Affairs? Curator? Instructor? Policy Advocate? Legal Affairs? Tech-Transfer? Tenure track? Science Writing? Professional Development? Academic Administration? Editor? Research Communication? Librarian? Research Assistant Professor? Technician? Director of Animal Welfare? Informaticist? Teacher? Fucking Bartender? What are you doing?"

A laugh. A shrug, and disarming grin, "Well, I probably can get another year out of my grant. So maybe 18 months," For you, think I, what about her? "So maybe academic, maybe industry. Y'know. Thinking about it. Networking."

A shaft of light! Networking. "So, you're going to conferences, shaking hands, publishing, giving guest lectures, offering to review manuscripts? At least...right?" Right?
"Yeah, y'know. A bunch of emails." That confident, empty grin once more.

I've been there. Get your fucking arse into gear. Just because you got a bloody doctoral degree doesn't mean you're owed a job. Rememeber the fear you had about looking for your (first) postdoc appointment? "Am I good enough?

Amplify that by 70,000. Seventy Thousand.

Because that's how many postdocs in the US are competing with you for every damned job. You're on a treadmill and it's speeding up.

The good fight

2011-06-21T22:43:00.000-05:00

Now, I had it in my head to have a talk about another thing that had happened to me, and had, by coincidence, and nothing more so help me FSM*, happened to a friend of mine. However, someone has had the temerity, and so help them FSM for their forthright attitude, which I cannot help but admire, to challenge me on something I think an adult could reason without recourse to challenge***.

Now I want to preface this by making clear the loss of any life is an awful thing, because this blog post involves an interaction between me and a MediaHound that concerns a recent, local loss of life. Not just a car crash, RTA, but a fatality. I can only imagine the pain these families are living in. I also appreciate all the hard work our local NewsHounds do to keep regular Joes like me up to date and clued in with everything that might affect us. Like a major fatality crash nearby. Important for two reasons, one opening us up to the shared pain of loss, and one a simple matter of local infrastructure.

There was a crash, in Arkansas, involving a TDOT vehicle. And people died. Our local NewsHounds posted about this on the Twitters, and, I guess, being as voyeurostic as they hoped I'd be, I looked at the photo....

But it's a picture of a (T)DOT truck with dented side panels. There is nothing but a picture of a truck. And of course the usual interchoobs commentary. And suddenly I am struck with regret for my own voyeurism and...something more...

Why the FSM would a news channel have this on their Facebook page? It seems cruel and unnecessary to do this. The corollary is why are we driven as conusmers to look at this: Because they provide us with content we demand**.

Its just a dented truck - it adds nothing to the story, it brings no new information to the situation, it in fact, I dare to suggest, does nothing at all but runs the risk of inflaming opinion.

I expect, by definition the news media to give me information. There was no information in this photograph, other than the pointed statement of here is a dented truck.

So to this I tweet,

(I also 'broke' the URL so it couldnt be followed directly)

and with all due respect @3onyourside, the twitter feed of the news agency WREG, wrote back to me (bystander @friend redacted).

And this is wonderful, (and the point behind this post)! I don't believe them for an everliving second, and I think it's utterly disingenuous for them to suggest that they are absolved of any criticism of voyeurism just because 'they' were passing on information. However it is just my opinion. And thanks to media provided by 21st century technology, I get to express my ire and they (or at least George Brown

) gets to respond:

Now, I still call bullshit and hold my NewsHounds to higher standards. But WREG, and its representatives, got to talk to me directly and rebut/address my criticism. Now if that ain't a good thing about living in 2011, I don't know what is.

*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster]

**which sells advertising traffic

***Dude. WTF. Really?

Things I hate

2011-06-20T21:28:00.000-05:00

I don't mind getting beaten* in a poker game, but I'll be damned if I can be sanguine about trip kings getting out-kicked on the river by a fucking boat of sevens full of kings.

Son of a bitch. Son of a godamned lucky river rat bitch.**

Who fucking calls all in with a fucking King Seven? Who?

Fuck.

(* may contain traces of LIE)
(** I would have been one of two players left in the game)

Postdocs, what are they good for?

2011-06-14T23:25:00.000-05:00

A postdoc is best served, by definition, by gaining skills needed after a doctoral degree...to do...something...[needs ~~citation~~ definition]

In life science n00b postdocs expect to train for faculty status. You have your freshly printed PhD in hand and everyone (except the postdocs) at your graduate lab has been telling you that if you apply yourself as a turbo-gunner real life growed up scientist you'll be a Principal Investigator one day. This is a simple fucking fact - no one tells graduate students that they're embarking on career path with a ~20% chance of success*. And at postdoc level we add to this is fallacy, because not only does gaining more/perfecting bench skills prepare you for nothing more than a technical post, the simple math of the job market should tell you that you have at best a 1 in 10 chance of securing a good research-based PI position. But then again, who looks at the stats?

Your postdoc should prepare you for PI status by simply exposing you to the daily reality of running a lab. If you have the druthers and wherewithal to cotton to this you'll really be OK. Alas, that is rare and increasingly so because postdocs are, today, ten-a-penny and ultra low overheads make them a cost effective labor option** No one is teaching you, because after all you're a postdoc and should be self-sufficient, personnel or budget management or how to write a grant or how to appeal to an editor when the curse'd third reviewer chimes in with impossible demands. No one explains how to negotiate a start-up, or balance the three/four tiers of the tenure track. They don't demonstrate how to say no to increasing committee obligations despite a pressing need for 'time' to write grants.

You learn nothing as a postdoc, except how to be a good technician. To save your PI time and nervous energy by generating data as quickly and efficiently as possible.

So, bearing in mind these happy truths, what the fuck are you doing as a postdoc? Training to be a tech*** or taking the bull by the horns and driving...DRIVING...your career in the direction it needs to be?

*In my career to date, in academic life science, I have met only a small percentage of graduate students (10% maybe) who were pursuing their degree with the deliberate and explicit intention of pursuing a non PI career track.

**a postdoc earns ~$40k/yr + ~10% indirects = $44k. A tech earns $50k/yr + 40% indirects = $70k/yr. Now think about your NIH modular budget and add inflation over time.

***This is an excellent and under-rated career option - technician or research associate/RA prof is an excellent and under rated career move for technically excellent PhDs who love the bench and hate the 'drama' of running a lab

Blind stupidity or short memories

2011-05-10T21:43:00.001-05:00

Wait a fucken minute, I know I'm not the most observant person ever...I tend to look at the big picture, not the important minutia (which is probably why I'm in admin and not bench science)... but by the flood level from 1927 that everyone is clamoring about, we're fucken over it. We're at 47 feet by "new" measurements, and something like 52 feet by "1927 measurements"...

Now I've seen this river flood the locale 5 out of the six years I've lived here. I figured the city planers who developed the sandbar I live on knew what the river did irregularly, and we'd be OK.

DOH!

It turns out Old Man River does this fairly damn regularly

Son of a bitch. 1927, 1937, [gap? drought? who knows what?] 1973, 1993, 2009 (my call), 2011...

Excuse my naivete as a 5yr n00b to the town, but WTF?

This happens on an almost decadal basis and still people are dying and being dispossessed? I understand you can't tame the river, but surely we could try and tame the local effects that we don't make hundreds homeless - or is it John Q. Public's right to build a fucken house in a flood zone?

Love is a big fat river in flood

2011-05-08T20:19:00.000-05:00

A few photos from the Mississippi River near where I live

The new...bulwark (?) that now protects the lowest point in Island Drive where the road meets the bridge that gives access to Mud Island.
The bank is about 10 feet above the water so this should stop the river blocking our access.

The river near flood. Taken from the pathway, normally 30 feet above the river.

bloody wrong bloody filter for the bloody sunset. That's the river with the sun setting over Arkansas

The Wolf River Lagoon, just 100 yards from my house.
You can see by the trees in the background this is 15-20 feet higher than normal.
The water is now 2 feet from the bank. Three days ago there was a six foot gap.
The water is backflowing into the lagoon again...

Eate Itt!

2011-05-01T13:19:00.002-05:00

Everyone's favorite, mildly psychotic rantroll, Physioprof, has been wowing the blogosphere recently with his pasta recipes. I've seen DrugMonkey, Dr. Isis and Namnezia doing same, and I hear rumors that Jason Goldman is, not just "huge on the internet in China" but in on this recipe posting too.

Recently, my highly Belov'd BlogSis Dr. Becca had a crack at Physioprof's fusilli bolognese with interesting results. Not to be out done, I thought I'd have a go at this pasta blogging shenanigans. I'm not much shakes when it comes to pasta - so much so in fact that I hardly ever cook it because it's so...meh. I figured with my Blogmates as inspiration, and some general advice from Physioprof ringing in my ears, whatever I made couldn't be worse than what I can already conjure up. It seemed that the key ingredient was patience - don't rush the sauce. And wine. Lots and lots of loverly wine. I do, after all, somewhat resemble Keith Floyd and he never cooked without a glass to hand.

So... our obligatory still life (albeit mid-prep cos I forgot to photoblog at first)...

Ingredients:
Half an onion, finely diced
Some garlic (2 big teaspoons of pre-diced)
1 red bell pepper, diced largish
2 tins diced tomatoes
2 teaspoons tomato puree
2 tablespoons EV olive oil
2 tablespoons cooking butter
3 cups rainbow rotini
1.5 cups of white wine
Red pepper flakes
kosher salt
black pepper
fresh thyme
sliced zucchini (for the side dish)

Heat the oil till it's fucken hot, then add the diced bell pepper. Cook it till it starts to blacken a little

then turn the heat down a little to med-high and add the diced onion. Give it a stir and when the onion starts to turn translucent, add a generous pinch of kosher salt. This makes the onions sweat and adds to the oils the shitte is cooking in. Be patient and let this shit cook till it starts to caramelize, then turn the heat to medium and stir in the garlic. Give it another few minutes but don't let the fuckken garlic burn.

Now crank the heat back to medium high and pour in a half glass of white wine. PhysioProf refers to deglazing and has some foreign sounding shit at this point. I don't know nothing about that though. The wine will reduce pretty quickly, so be prepared to move fast at this point.

As soon as that half cup starts to boil off add the tomatoes and tomato puree and stir well. Then pour in the rest of the white wine and give it a good mixing. Keep the heat medium high till it's bubbling goode and then turn it down so it reduces slowly. You're gonna evaporate the alcohol and some of the water, but you ain't boiling it. This isn't gonna be soup. Now, keep an eye on this shitte, because it thickened way fucking faster than I thought it would.

This is the point that I boiled the water for the pasta and started the ~~courgettes~~ zucchini. I could have probably started these guys right before the deglaze and saved a couple of minutes. As it was I ended up moving the sauce off the heat and covering it while everything else got ready, then quickly warmed it through before serving.

To do the zucchini, heat the fucking butter till it's fucking really hot. Add the sliced zucchini and let it sit for a minute or two, then turn it over and get the uncooked side in the hot oil. Turn it every few minutes and you'll see it sweat and then start to blacken. Blackened zucchini is the fuking shitte, but alas, it's also easy to over cook and because of the sauce drama playing out on the other hob, I did kind of give it just a bit too long. It was still delicious though because I am awesome.

Mix the sauce and the pasta, plate that motherfucker and serve the zucchini on top.

Serve with a flourish, fresh basil and parmesan, a fresh rustic baguette and a nice fucken bottle of red ~~plonk~~ wine - this feast brought to you by

All in all it was the best damn pasta dinner I have ever cooked, and I'm actually looking forward to trying some more ideas and having more tasty feasts. So, PhysioProf thank you for the inspiration.

Science is a Voyage

2011-04-16T16:23:00.000-05:00

I’m the son of a sailor. My father served 35 years at sea. My uncle was a sailor too. I grew up listening to stories of adventure, both real and fictional. My favourite nautical hero is C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower, likely because we share many of the same characteristics . Thanks to Forester’s meticulous attention to detail by the age of 10 I knew the names of all the sails on a ship of a line. I knew the difference between ropes and sheets (which are also ropes). I knew how to use an old sail to fother a shot below the waterline, when to run the guns out, and how to quell a mutiny. Most importantly I knew how to pronounce forecastle without being laughed at. In addition to this theory, my father taught me all the knots I’d need for my imaginary career on the high seas, and I still count time in bells to confuse my friends sometimes (7pm is 6 bells in the dog watch, for example). I’ve always had a taste for adventure and was exploring Europe with friends by my mid-teens, and had visited northern Africa before I was 21. When I was 23 I moved to the US and embarked on my greatest adventure to date.

In Nathanial Philbrick’s outstanding historical biography “Sea of Glory” we learn of the epic voyage of the U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838-42. Although it ended in ignominy and is little known nowadays, this awesome 87,000 mile trans-global voyage officially “discovered” and first mapped Antarctica, they also created detailed maps of many of the islands of the South Pacific, and charted the Columbia River in today’s Oregon and Washington states. Finally, and vitally, their voyage lead to the establishment of the northern and western borders of the United States. In addition to these feats, in the aftermath of the voyage the US gained the US Botanic Garden and the National Observatory in Washington, D.C.

I find it not a stretch of the imagination to use these brave and foolhardy young men in a science metaphor. The seamen are the most junior scientists in this experiment. They are the graduate students and talented undergraduates. The men acting in roles we would refer to nowadays as non-commissioned officers, the First Mate, the Purser and so on are the techs – stolidly toiling away keeping the ship running, the sailors fed, the laboratories working. The junior officers – the first and second lieutenants, are the postdocs. Working under the command and direction of the Captain, they yet have tremendous latitude to advance their careers and the mission underlying the expedition. A ‘bad’ captain, think perhaps of Hornblower’s nemesis Captain Sawyer, like a bad Professor can create a terrible working environment and ruin the careers of the lieutenants working under him. A good captain, like Captain Pellew for example, can strongly advance the mission, while working to secure the careers of his trusted junior officers.

A major focus of both Philbrick’s book and Forester’s novels is not just with the adventures of the men aboard the ships, but also with the politics, the funding, the hard fought backroom battles that lead to a mission’s existence and survival. I miss being part of the voyage of discovery. I miss the excitement of the chase, the hint for the elusive result, the image, the data, the understanding. I gave that up for a corner office and a pay rise. Now I am one of the faceless suits that directs the voyage. It is on my whim that you set sail on your voyage, or languish in dry dock while your purser frantically looks for money to feed the men before mutiny sets in.

One of Hornblower’s most trusted friend’s is William Bush, who remains a lieutenant while Hornblower moves from strength to strength during the course of the novels. It is Hornblower, not Bush, who has the connections and the luck to further his career. Much like the postdoc who gets the right project under the right professor, he got his CNS papers and secured himself a tenure-track position. I was once a First Lieutenant working under a Captain who might be best described as a cross between Sawyer and Pellew. The good days were good, the bad days were terrible and it was obvious fairly on that I would never get to command my own ship. I would never be a Hornblower and couldn’t face being someone’s loyal Lieutenant Bush for ever. So I changed the rules of the game. To extend my Hornblower analogy, I went to Their Lordships at the Admiralty and asked if I could side-step that whole messy career at sea and just join in with them. To my surprise they said yes.

One day in the middle of my second postdoctoral appointment I went to the Vice Chancellor for Research and asked for help. I explained that I wasn’t going to get on the tenure-track and I knew there was little to be gained by wasting everyone’s time in applications that wouldn’t be considered. I loved science (and indeed still do). She was able to procure me an interview with someone looking for a project manager and I managed to talk my way past their hesitation and into the position. Their hesitation was obvious and they can’t be faulted for being reluctant to recruit a failed neuropharmacologist to a biomedical informatics project manager position. But with due diligence and great deal of hard work I made the job work and I remade myself from bench scientist to administrative scientist.

Now I have that corner office and healthy salary it would be easy to get complacent and become one of the dreaded Administrators of science that so clutter the Ivory Tower. I am very aware that people like me can make the life of the ‘real’ scientists incredibly difficult. We're the ones that demand you re-do your IRB, re-file your IND, we form endless committees and have endless meetings all to regulate and guide your work. Our efforts stifle your creativity and freedom. We remove the flexibility you need to explore the bounds of your imagination. Ours is a tie that binds – our endless red tape forms the Gordian knot anew.

I don’t want it to be like that. It was the vision of a few powerful and talented leaders, among them the Secretary of the Navy and President Jackson, that found the funding to get the unpopular U.S. Exploring Expedition started. If that had been modern academe it would never have happened. Too risky. Too “blue sky”.

No guaranteed return on investment.

I want to be the kind of administrator that helps drive projects to completion. I want you to succeed and I want you to be free from as much of the mundane nonsense as possible – that’s really what I’m paid to do – I’m not paid to stifle research, I’m paid to administer research. We’ll explore that in the next post (which will likely contain fewer tortuous nautical metaphors).

Sex & Fire

2011-03-30T21:18:00.000-05:00

The hardest thing is growing. Wait.. that sounds wrong... The hardest part of what I'm going through is the growing. I've been a bachelor most of my life and as any bachelor I'm using to taking what I want, when I want it. Not, of course, in a juvenile predatory way, although God knows (and may She have mercy) I'm at least as guilty as that as any man. But as an adult when there are two consenting people, why not enjoy one of our 4 innate biological needs?

It ain't that simple is it? Of course not.

A beautiful woman is asking you to have sex with her, and as your body responds your brain is saying "No". It's saying "No" for innumerable reasons, and yet the temptation, the desire, the want for that sweet taste of "company"... the sweet taste of sex, her skin, her lips, her warmth, the scent of control, the drive to own and possess, to feel her body respond to you, to feel your own response and the totality of the union...

...but that's why you're saying no. Now is not the time. You are not the person. I can fuck you, for sure, and clearly want to. But I don't want to fuck. The flesh is willing, but the spirit...the spirit says "No".

So, I'm growing. But I want it. Sometimes it's offered like that, and the usual excuses fail and you're left with, "Please, no. I want to but not now."

But I do want it now.

And so what. Home, frustrated, TCB again?

Yes. It is. It's called growing, and as it hurt to physically grow as a boy, sometimes it's going to emotionally hurt to grow as man.

One

2011-03-24T01:06:00.000-05:00

Sometime I need to talk about the seven. I also need to tell you that story about the clowns. You'll laugh at that, that's a good story. But seven... that's a long story. It's a good story, don't get me wrong, but it's a long story. Now isn't the time...

But...

Every number is an individual, until you divide or multiple or perform any function upon it. What if seven is made of separate ones added together... is there a greater whole than the sum of any parts, or even of some of any of those parts? Is each individual 'one' an equal member of the total, or do some individual 'ones' add more than others?

That, Dear Reader, is a philosophically complicated mathematical conundrum I can't answer right now. But, on the assumption that anything that in combination can be greater than the whole...

...to the ones that add to the whole thank you. Thank you for helping some of us be greater than the sum of our parts.

Absentee BlogLord

2011-03-23T18:09:00.000-05:00

Damn it's been a while.

This is a nothing post, just a place holder to let my Reader know I haven't fallen down a hole somewhere.

I split up with my fiance, which sucks, but is probably a good thing in the long run. We had a lot of self-fulfilling, overindulgent bad habits that need to be addressed and we were getting nowhere trying to do it together. I met again last night to tell her I need to not see her for a while, for despite being separated we were still hanging out most weekends. It was a thoroughly depressing talk and I got the feeling that she doesn't really get it. We'll see. I have to have my space if I'm going to fix things. Then maybe there'll time to fix us, but I can't and won't make promises.

Our big CTSA grant isn't going to get funded and we're out of submissions so on or before June 1st my institute will cease to exist. This has obviously been massively stressful, because no only is it my job on the line, but those of "my staff". Four young(ish) men who rely on me to keep the money coming in. Two had babies (or rather, their wives did) recently too, so there's an added pressure bonus.

I've been offered a position as Director of Faculty Development within our Office of Academic Affairs. This would pave the way to a possible Deanship in a few years, or even a Vice-Chancellorship. But... as much as I've enjoyed doing some of the work they've given me to test/train me, it's when I sit down to work with our faculty collaborators on their clincial trials that I really feel the love for my job.

I am a scientist at heart and I love the 'doing' of science, albeit vicariously. However, it's scary thinking about turning down a promotion and payrise to stay where I am, on soft money in an Institute that soon ceases to exist. My Unit will be kept around - we actually generate a portion of our running costs and it will get better as we pick up more projects. But... we're also getting a new Vice Chancellor for Research soon and will s/he want to keep me/us around? Will she see the value in providing core biomedical and clincial informatics support? I hope so - my University is looking to recruit up to 70 new MD/MD-PhD clincial scientists over the next five years and my Unit provides an essential service (secure, centralised, professional and cost effective data management support). But, who knows what the new VC will judge her priorities to be?

So... a lot on my mind right now. It's hard to write. I'm reading your blogs, but not commenting right now either. I'll be back soon, hopefully with happier and better news. Or at least a story involving something humorous. This place has been a bit morose recently....

The American Heart Association Responds

2011-02-22T16:58:00.001-06:00

Anyone who followed the discussionThomas Joseph and I had in the comment thread on my last post saw that we both concerned that there wasn't enough interaction between Societies and other funding agencies when it came t lobbying Congress. I thought I'd contact the Advocacy group at the AHA to ask what their tactics are.... (I have been in touch with them previously about helping in local advocacy and lobbying here in TN)...

From: Tideliar

Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 11:39 AM
To: Rick - ; Advocacy DC
Subject: Re: American Heart Association Follow-up

Dear Clarissa & Rick,

I have received several emails in the last day or so from different societies asking for “my” help in advocating against H.R.1

So far The Society for Neuroscience, the AHA, FASEB and the National postdoc Association have all contacted me via email. I am an active “academic/science blogger” and have noticed some of my colleagues also posting about the emails calling us to action.

http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/2011/02/a_message_abotu_proposed_cuts.php

http://www.labspaces.net/blog/1196/HR

http://tideliar.blogspot.com/2011/02/zomg-do-something.html

http://scientopia.org/blogs/chemicalbilology/2011/02/16/nih-budget-cuts-affect-medical-research-and-the-economy/

http://scientopia.org/blogs/meanderingscholar/2011/02/16/a-call-to-arms/

A discussion has also started about possible inter-agency communication; does it happen, are we coordinating across societies effectively etc.? An issue that is raised time and again by pro-science advocates is the difficulty in combating well funded and well organized anti-science lobbyists. I’d appreciate your thoughts on this issue and the opportunity to share them with my pro-advocacy colleagues.

Regards
Tideliar

**********************

From: Advocacy DC

Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 3:35 PM
To: Tideliar
Subject: Re: American Heart Association Follow-up

Dr Tideliar

thank you so much for your note and apologies for the delay in responding. Your message went to our general email box so it didn’t make it to me right away.

AHA is part of a coalition of like minded groups that meet regularly to coordinate on the messaging and collective ask for NIH research funding. Members include FASEB, ACS, ACC, etc. Lobbyists from the various organizations meet regularly so we can come together as a research community and have a more powerful voice in the process. I can share that we expect to have a common budget request in the coming weeks. We also coordinate on engaging advocates during a similar timeframe and when possible coordinate on DC based events. Over the years we have found this to be an effective approach and AHA is proud to play a leadership role in the group.

If it’s helpful to share insight as to messaging and strategy with your colleagues I would be glad to put you in touch with the appropriate lobbyist at AHA. Your ability to help spread the word via blogging and through colleagues is so valuable. It sounds like you already have it but I am also sharing the link to our current call to action on the issue. We appreciate all you do as an advocate and please let me know if there are any additional questions I can answer or resources I can provide.

http://yourethecure.org/composeletters_open.aspx?AlertID=19556

ZOMG do something!

2011-02-15T16:02:00.000-06:00

Hi Reader,

I know you love science and shit cos you read this blog right, and I am, nominally at least, a scientist. Right now science in the US is directly under attack from a deliberate and cold-blooded anti-science cadre in the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

The BadAstronomer has written a series of posts (for e.g. here and links within) about how anti-science (and usually, pro-evangelical) business interests are damaging many of the important committees in Congress. Climate change is held to be a lie, teaching of evolution is attacked in public schools and now the National Institutes of Health budget is under seige too. Inspired by m'learned Collague the deliciously shoetastic Dr. Isis, I urge you to help in the fight.

Anti-science politicians want to cut the largest healthcare research budget in the nation, and at the same time ruin the careers and research of hundreds, if not thousands of hard working academic scientists. Most of the scientists affected will be younger and more junior academics, either just starting out their own independent careers after a decade or more of servitude, or else it will effect those still in servitude - postdocs.

The vast majority of postdocs in the US are paid from "R01" research grants, and it is these that will take a hit. if the NIH bugdet is cut then contuning funding amounts will be cut too. This means there will not be enough money to keep folks employed in many situations.

I'm not arguing about jobs though, I'm arguing about lives. the lives of these dedicated and exceptionally taltened young mena dn women and the invaluable research they perform. Most of the top quality biomedical research conducted in the US is performed by postdocs. Already over worked, under paid and in many cases without any benefits or even health insurance, these tens of thousands of dedicated scientists *do* the research that makes *your* world a better place.

This email arrived today from Dr. William Talman, a jolly nice chap and President of the Federation of American Societies For Experimental Biology (FASEB). Among many other things FASEB is an active and vigorous advocate on our behalf. I urge you to read Dr. Talman's email, then click the link and find out how to CALL your local representative.

Don't be scared. They work for us. We voted them in. Do it. As soon as you can. Please.

$1.6 Billion Cut Proposed for NIH: Call Your Representative TODAY!

Dear Colleague,

For months the new House leadership has been promising to cut billions in federal funding in fiscal year (FY) 2011. Later this week the House will try to make the rhetoric a reality by voting on HR 1, a “continuing resolution” (CR) that would cut NIH funding by $1.6 billion (5.2%) BELOW the current level – reducing the budget for medical research to $29.4 billion!

We must rally everyone – researchers, trainees, lab personnel – in the scientific community to protest these draconian cuts.

Please go to [THIS LINK] for instructions on how to call your Representative’s Washington, DC office today! Urge him/her to oppose the cuts to NIH and vote against HR 1. Once you’ve made the call, let us know how it went by sending a short email to the address provided in the call instructions and forward the alert link to your colleagues. We must explain to our Representatives how cuts to NIH will have a devastating impact on their constituents!

Sincerely,

William T. Talman, MD

FASEB President

Call me Frankie

2011-02-05T22:56:00.001-06:00

He walks into the apartment, kicks the door shut behind him, drops the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. He takes out pork chops, butterfly cut and thick. Fat rind. Her favorite. He puts the broccoli next to the chops, the mushrooms. She loves broccoli. He’s standing, looking at the food. Puts the butter in the refrigerator, but leaves the food out. Opens a beer instead.

Frankie stares at him. Seems to shrug. You knew it was coming, she tells him. He tells her to fuck off and takes deep pull from the beer. An India Pale Ale. Her favourite. He takes an ashtray from the cupboard. It’s dusty, hasn’t been used for a couple of years. He pulls a Marlboro from the pack and lights it, deep inhale. Pulls smog deep into his lungs. He watches the smoke, blue from the cigarette, grey from his mouth, curl up towards the ceiling. There’s a pang of guilt but it’s quickly and deliberately pushed back down where it belongs. There’s a lot of guilt inside and it should all be together. All the guilt. Safe, tucked into the darkness where it belongs. What had she called it? The black hole. Where all his darkness lived. It lived there breeding, fucking, growing, rutting on itself in the darkness. There’s going to be plenty of time to enjoy that guilt, a bad enjoyment, like using your tongue to pick at a sore and rotten tooth. It’s going to be painful, but you’re going to do it anyway. Might as wait and do it properly. Wait till you’re really alone and no one can see and really fucking make it hurt. You make it hurt because when you dig into that dirt and pain you think it’ll make it all better.

“She’s gone Frankie.” There might be tears pricking at his eyes, but might be the smoke. Frankie shrugs again. So what? I’ll miss her later. Did you bring food?

“Fuck you Frankie.” She shrugs again and smiles at him. “Will you miss her? I do. I think I do. Part of me is glad, but so much of me is just empty. I don’t know what to think right now.”

Frankie sighs, stretches, and looks at him. Looks him in the eye the way she sometimes does when he’s holding her front of the mirror. It's like those times when she stops looking around, enjoying the change of perspectives, and actually looks at him reflected the mirror. Not at his reflection, but at him. It had always made him wonder what was going on in her head.

“Why are you so concerned about thinking about what you think you should be thinking about?” Her voice is high pitched, but not squeaky like he thought it might be. Her accent is impossible to place and as he thinks of that he laughs, hard. Of all the stupid things to think about, you think about her fucking accent?

“Do you know why this happened? Do you know why she left? Do you understand what you did in this?”

Surprisingly anger flares, “Yes I fucking know!”

“I doubt it,” She laughs. “But you will. Eventually. You’re all so complicated with those big fucking brains. That whole neocortex, useless because everything is run by The Hind. The Hind. Heartbeat. Fighting. Fucking. Eating. You do all of that, and yet you have this big stupid useless mind that messes everything up.” She emphasizes the word ‘mind’, accenting it deeper, as if the word is alien to her, and laughable in it’s strangeness.

“What the fuck do you know about eating, fighting and fucking?” He demands it of her, but the words sound impotent as they leave his mouth.

“How much do you watch? How much do you know? How much do you listen to the silence of life? Everything with you is noise, rushing and doing and moving and motion.”

“Don’t avoid my question. What the fuck do you know of love and life?”
She laughs then. There's a high pitched, uncontrolled freedom in her laugh that makes him uneasy. There’s madness in there. Something waiting to be let loose, and the feeling that if it got loose it would a wonderful glorious freedom that might not want to stop.

“Fuck you,” She laughs again. “Oh, don’t look so hurt. Am I supposed to worship you and your Big Useless Brain? We are so alike. We eat, we drink. We love, We fuck. We shit. We mourn our losses and celebrate our victories. But you…you are so much weaker by your ‘gifts’. Supermarkets, processed foods, airplanes, cell phones, cures for cancer (for humans at least). You have all these wondrous gifts your Big Useless Brains have given you. But the only thing that really matters is each other, and you can’t do that, can you? You can’t even fucking talk to each other.” She laughs again, a genuine deep laugh. “You can’t even fucking fight without wanting to kill each other!”

“So what do I do?”

She stares at him. “How the fuck should I know. It’s your brain my friend. You’ll find a way. It’ll likely be much more complicated than it needs to be. It’ll take too long, and really, it probably won’t help. But you’ll do what you feel you should. All of you need to spend more time feeling, instead of thinking. Trust me. It works.”

He’s suddenly tired. The conversation is not only a surprise but seems to be going in the wrong direction. “I’m drunk. Fuck dinner. I’m going to bed. Maybe tomorrow will be better.”

“No, it won’t, but at least it won’t be tonight. Go to sleep. I’ll sit here on the edge of the bed and keep watch. I’ll keep your demons away tonight. Just sleep.”

He lies down. The room is dark, the moon is a thin crescent on the horizon and the street lights can’t reach into the room. The beer bottle is empty and he drops it on the floor. He sleeps, glad she’s there to watch over him.

Frankie smiles to herself, curls up by his feet and falls asleep.

Do Not Open This Door!

2011-02-01T17:53:00.002-06:00

No matter how much I beg. No matter how much I plead. No matter the screams you might hear!

The greatest movie ever made!

Do not open this door, or you will ruin all my hard work!

Yes, Dear Reader, we're going for another attempt at stopping smoking. Not quitting; no one wants to be a quitter. So, I'm just...stopping.

Those of you who've followed my Meanderings over the last year or so will remember I last tried to stop in August 2010, and I wrote about it over at LabSpaces. I think I stayed clean for a month or so before slipping back into old habits. A ciggie here, a ciggie there, all OK cos it was just a trip to the bar with mates. Nothing bad. I wasn't really smoking again, seriously!

And then eventually buying a pack because I felt bad about stealing off my friends (a habit I despise in others' and which I will not tolerate in myself). Of course rarely can I smoke an entire pack in one evening, no matter how late I stay up, so there's a few cigarettes left in the morning. Just one to help me get the day started. Just to take the edge off the craving and the hangover.

And then, well I might as well just keep this half pack in my pocket, seeing as it'd be a shame to leave it laying around at home where the cats might eat it (a drug addict's internal logic is a wonderful thing).

Then a bad day at work, exacerbated by writing our CTSA grant with little to no guidance. High stress, pack in my pocket, just one smoke...

An endless litany of excuses and weakness. My dad once said I had the willpower of a hobby horse and I fear he's right (he quit cold turkey in 1979). However, as Cervantes said, "Faint heart ne'er won fair maid". And thus, here we go with another attempt.

I want to stop. I really want to stop.

I hate smelling of smoke
I hate being broke because I spend upwards of $200/month on smokes
I hate having to plan social events around smoke breaks
I hate being breathless
I hate being a demographic that dies young
I hate being an addict

Wish me luck Dear Reader. Feel free to leave messages of support and admonishment. Feel free to check up on me. Feel free to bully me on Twitter.

02/02/11...WILL be known as the day I stopped being an addict.

I am Dr. TIDELIAR!! (non-smoker)

Hi-fibre writer's diet

2011-01-30T17:01:00.000-06:00

I don't claim to be any great shakes in the writing department. I like to tell stories and I enjoy writing. Most of my writing is (pseudo-)confessional and the disclaimer on the right (under my avatar) should tell you all to need to know about the truth:invention ratio I employ.

But right now I'm working with my brother on a short story. We've spent a couple of weeks bouncing ideas off each other and then he wrote the first draft. I edited and returned. He started working on it and hit a wall. I said I'd take over. I've been writing for years, both professionally and in other contexts. He hasn't, he's a recovering artist and creative writing is new to him.

So the ball is in my court. But...when it comes to any writing we know it's hard to get started, hard to get focused. Once you're going it's usally fine, but getting going is tough. And when you're re-writing someone else's work, even if it is mostly collaboratively, all of it is 'getting going'. What does this paragraph need? What does this thread/arc need?

I am in the depths of imaginative constipation right now. I spent a week writing in my head, developing the story arc (as much as you can with a very limited word count). I developed the character a little, added some details, worked on a little depth.

...and now I'm in front of my computer none of the ideas will come out. I'm so full up with old ideas, they've formed a stiff and tight blockage and now I'm all bunged up. I need a mental laxative that keeps me cogent and my fingers working... suggestions?

who is that in the mirror?

2011-01-23T00:54:00.000-06:00

When do you say enough?

She is divorced 2 years now, and has earned a reputation as the village bicycle. We all go through it after a break up, but the judgement on women is far harsher.

but after 2 years it's not the same thing. You're on a destructive streak a country mile wide. You stay in bars to get drunk, get high and fuck strangers. All. The. Fucking.Time.

every night. your kid got sick and you co-opted the sympathy to make sure your bills were paid and your coke habit was fed. Who is that person? Who do you see in a mirror? No one, I think. You don't want to die, you're to fucked up to know you're still alive.

Me and my girlfriend drag you out the bar to try and make sure you're safe. You try and fuck me as soon as we get home and her back is turned. What the fuck is wrong with you?

she has her eye on a guy in the bar. We pointed out that she doesn't know him, anything about him. She's a predator. She's sharking him. She's now trying to talk Kali into driving her to the bar, because after she found her car keys we then had to explain that her car wasn't here.

And now she's bad mouthing me. I can hear her, telling how I made a move on her, so as to manipulate Kali to her side so she'll drive her back to the bar. To try and fuck a stranger. And more likely to get some blow.

I'm live blogging a woman going to hell, because I'm hiding in the attic staying away from her. If I go downstairs she'll sexually assault me again, "thinking" that pointless sex fills the void of companionship she needs, and also by doing so she'll make Kali upset at me and get driven back to the bar.

Now she's crying crocdile tears about her son with cancer. But I know it's lies now. It's not just about him. It's another fucking addict trying to get what she wants. A free ride to some blow. But she's also my friend.

So tell me. When is it enough?

Where to go...

2011-01-17T18:30:00.001-06:00

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day, Dear Reader. In Memphis, we had the day off work so we could do something...uh...for the cause, or something. Not sure. I mean, our city (downtown) is 52% African American. We have a black mayor, have for over 20 years in fact. Dr. King was actually, totes IRL assassinated, or (even murdered!) right downtown, at the Lorraine Motel. I know dudes who worked for the city and like went on strike and stuff when that shit was going on. Marching and everything, cos they damn well cared. I've read about how the Black Power movement came out of those days, the militant branch giving up on Dr. King's message of peaceful progress. He was like the black Ghandi or something and it wasn't fast enough.

Thankfully the world is a better place now, and we all have a equal voice.

This time last year a 'friend' of mine called my girlfriend a nigger. Because she was rear-ended by an ambulance and is looking to do nothing more than get her medical bills paid. But because she's black she's nothing more than a typically money grubbing nigger. Go figure. She's probably enjoying keeping Whitey down at the same time. Fucken white cracker ass motherfuckers keeping the black (wo)man down.

...Anyway...

Thankfully, the world has moved on a lot since Dr. King was murdered, but it hasn't moved nearly far enough. If I was posting this on my grown up blog I would stick a whole bunch of links to research on the neuroscience and psychology behind inter-racicial hate and fear. But we're not on my grown up blog. We're here. So I get to be pissed off and you can just read it, or leave.

I started dating Kali when we lived in Washington, D.C.. She's a musician, and I often went to the clubs she would play at. There was one, Bar None, a basement bar on U-Street and 14th. She would play at the open mic night there. Mostly it was spoken word poetry, but she would step up with her guitar and perform her music for the crowd. It was awesome to see my brand new, shiny, fresh out of the box girlfriend captivate a room, and I was so fucking frightened that someone was going to hurt me or beat me. Because I was white.

Of course after a couple of weeks I stopped thinking that every black man is Ice Cube in "Boyz in the Hood", and out to kill a white motherfucker. TV educated me. Real life re-educated me.

I was usually the only white in the room. Sometimes maybe one of two or three. Only once, out of a couple of dozen times, someone stepped on my foot and gave me the shoulder. I was curious why everyone was fine with me being there when it was clearly a Black Club.

"Oh, well you're not white. You're English."

That gave the lie to the whole ecumenical vibe I thought we were sharing. Turns out I wasn't welcome as a White. I was welcome as a foreigner.

Maybe it was just his perspective. I don't know. I've been through a lot of shit as a White dating a Black, and nothing has been any fucking easier since we moved to Memphis. 99% of it has been snide remarks, or comments, or judgement because she's black.

I'm not dating a lazy ass bitch. I'm not dating a fucking nigger. I'm not dating one of then dirty spear chuckers. I don't think it's funny when you make an off hand comment about "them". Who the fuck is "them"?

Dr. King believed in his cause. I think I believe in it too. It's a simple enough damn cause. The color of your skin shouldn't predicate anything but the fact you may or may not need suntan lotion. We have to work harder at this. How we do that? I'm just keeping about my business, treating my fellow humans like humans. I don't expect the world to change, but one thing we can do is make some small changes at home. Don't make stupid "Hug a N***** Day" jokes. Don't judge me on the color of my skin. Judge me on the actions I perform, the tone of my voice when we talk and how I treat you. America is a multi-cultural society but it will never, ever survive if we can't treat each other as equal humans first, and different cultures second.

New Geek on the Block

2011-01-07T15:37:00.000-06:00

It has been brought to my attention that some dude who used to blog at Nature Network is now blogging at Scientopia. It's like trying to keep track of johns in a brothel runnng a "buy one get one free" offer in the science blogosphere at the moment.

Anyway, if you like the grown-up(ish) more career based writing, be sure to visit A Meandering Scholar, over at Scientopia Blogs.

Sisyphus probably had it worse

2010-12-27T18:56:00.002-06:00

I hope you had a nice Christmas Dear Reader. I hope, as everyone should at this time of year, when family are at the forefront of our minds, that it was filled with the Peace and Joy of the season. A Cool Yule works too. Or a even Celebratory Solstice. How about a Happy Chanukah, or even a (very belated) Elated Eid ul Fitr.

I classify myself as a "spiritual atheist", perhaps humanist, but to be honest I'm still not sure what a humanist is. I was deeply invested in my Catholic faith as a child. I was baptised Anglican (the 'high' Church of England), but my mother converted to Catholicism when I was very young, and I attended a private Catholic boys school from the age of 7. I loved the mythology of the faith, the personal relationship with Jesus that it offered and the loving Father God you could reach out to. I loved the solemnity of the mass, the mystery of the priesthood, the 'bells and smells' - the reek of incense from the thurible, the call to fall to your knees.

As a Dungeons & Dragons^(TM) addicted teen I always played a Cleric. It was the closest I could get to being a Priest. We were taught by The Brothers of the Sacred Heart. Black cassocks, brass crucifixes around the neck, a full Rosary worn as a belt. I loved it. The strict and often vigorously applied corporal punishment didn't perturb me, raised as I was a Royal Navy brat steeped in tales of Horatio Hornblower and such like. I loved the selfless, militaristic splendor. I didn't want to be a teacher though, as the Brothers of the Sacred Heart were. I wanted to be a doctor, and heard about the Brothers of St. John of God, who fulfilled the same spiritual role as the Brothers that taught me, but you could be a medical doctor instead.

I knew by the age of 13 I wanted to join their ranks.

As an Anglican I was forbidden from taking the Eucharist and I was jealous of my Catholic friends taking their catechism classes as we became teenagers. I longed to taste the holy Eucharist, and to be a part of the mystery of faith. Why didn't I convert? Express my faith?

I don't know. There was just something I didn't understand at the time, it was a nagging feeling about...something. I wasn't worthy, because...of something.

I finally converted at 17, in a typical teenager's act of rebellion against my Grandfather ("You'll be written out of my will", and I was) and my own self doubt, and underwent my catechism and confirmation. It was all rather disappointing. I don't know why. I had been Catholic in my heart all my life, I even had a blind nun as a Catechist for crying out loud! That winter, three times a week, I would sit in Sister Mary's office, a roaring fire in the hearth and she would talk with me for hours, week after week, explaining the Faith and helping me question and understand my own. But it started to feel silly. Stories and myths. I had trouble staying awake and was guiltily frequently glad that Sister Mary was blind for that same reason. The Bleeding Heart Jesus who had stood in the main atrium at school was increasingly horrific and frightening. (The image below does not do justice to the statue whose chest was flayed open. Needless-to-say, when I visited last He had been moved to storeroom somewhere.) In addition it was, by simple logic, becoming increasingly blasphemous given the first couple of Commandments I was re-memorising.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image"

The Bishop of our diocese presided over the Confirmation mass. He didn't know me...where was Father Robert who had been my pastor these ten years? They got the name of my Catechist wrong. I saw Sister Mary try not to cry. They said that when we died we lose our sense of self and become one with God. I was horrified. I hadn't been taught this! The whole point was life after death was supposed to be a perfect and sin free continuation of my life in the service of God. Doing nothing but singing his praises.

Not that I could sing, or even really enjoyed doing so.

Like the devil writes in Twain's "Letters From Earth" (which I read many years later), how could a group of typical Christian men look forward to the one thing they dread most every week.

Something was horribly wrong.

That Christmas I went to midnight mass and instead of sharing the fellowship of Christ I listened to two mothers in the pew in front do nothing but complain about how Mrs. Soandso's son had gotten to be alter boy and their's hadn't and how he was really a little sod and he shouldn't even be allowed to wear the white.

And that was the moment my faith died.

It wasn't about God at all. You stupid selfish bitches killed God. And I hated them. Right there in the church, in front of God, I hated them with all my heart. Because they made Him a sham in front of me. In front of us all. He didn't matter at all. Smoke & Mirrors.

****************

Yet, there was lingering Need in my heart. I met and married a devout Christian woman after I graduated college. I went to church with her when I had to and I went through the motions, hoping it was making a difference, and yet knowing I was damned. God had seen my lack of faith and I was damned for all eternity, no matter what I did. Because He knew I didn't believe, really didn't believe in my heart anymore.

Odd isn't it? We moved to the US together and started attending a Presbyterian church. I tried to find my faith again. I thought perhaps Martin Luther had been right and the fault lie in the Catholic church, not in God Himself. His Godhood could stand intact against the weak faith and sin of billions, because the Church of Christ, our Mother, was safe in the protestant faith...faiths.

But you soon learn that each branch of protestantism is at war with every other, each is convinced that they alone have the right path to salvation. In the eyes of their Loving God, everyone else ever in the entire world is going to hell.

Wait. What? Seriously? What the fuck kind of messed up "loving faith" is this? The same people that disrespect and despise the Muslim faith for their damned Jihadist faith, to Convert or KILL, is pretending to mourn the loss of the world, while waiting for death and smugly enjoying the view they'll have from the gates of heaven as they watch the sinners burn. Oh, and of course only the Muslims are guilty of that, right? All of them, apparently.

When there's only one straw man to burn it's surprising how many tar brushes come out.

Arrogant, self-righteous bastards. And we're not even getting into the obvious hypocrisy that lurks beneath the surface of any large group like a church group. Who's fucking who? Who's trying to one-up who to curry favor?

That final desperate grasp at salvation was actually the death knell of my faith. I couldn't NOT question. I decided God, if He existed, had given me a questioning brain. A questioning reason and intellect. After all I was a scientist. I HAD to question things. Becoming a scientist didn't finally kill my faith, or fix liberal political views in me, despite the propaganda to the contrary. The two go hand in hand and there's no easy separation of the two. One drives the other. And who lives willingly in ignorance?

I can't deny that the Catholic indoctrination to Hellfire, Brimstone and Eternal Agony doesn't still run deep. But that's a symptom of the disease within that church. First thing any propagandist knows is get to the children. And they've had millennia to perfect it. The protestants are no better. And neither are the Muslims.

There's been a long and slow reaffirmation of selfhood in recent years. It's not been easy, and it certainly hasn't been quick. There's a British ex-vicar, Mark Vernon, now an atheist, who had a series of podcasts I listened to. PZ Myers, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, and the "New-Atheist movement" have been often painfully strident supporters of atheism that forced me ignore or re-evaluate certain issues I still struggle with. I chose to re-eavaluate.

I think, as long as the journey took me to get this far, it will be a long road ahead still. I still stand closer to Agnosticism (lack of knowledge) than Atheism (lack of belief). Agnosticism seems like a weak way out though. A compromise. I don't know what to think so I cling to this as a label. I don't want a label, I want to understand, at least understand my own mind and faith. Even an atheist can have faith and hope, but faith and hope in something real, not a myth, or legend.

****************

It's been a wonderful Christmas, filled with Peace and Joy. With family, with fellowship with good friends, with good food, with good beer and with silly gifts. Not everything was, or will be perfect. But it's going to be a great New Year too and the best part of that is that it's really just down to me to try and make it that way.

Standing in the Foothills

2010-12-14T18:42:00.001-06:00

I wondered how I'd feel coming back here. I'm still parsing the information I think. For some reason, and it's as likely to do with the unseasonably cold weather as it is anything else, I'm feeling oddly introspective.

However, introspection is best done in private, at least until the process has finished. At that point one can decide to share as much as one wishes of the journey. But to interrupt preemptively with extrospection and declamation is likely to force a early termination of the initial event itself.

I wondered what I would write about now that I once again had the freedom to write about anything I so chose. And of course, I can now think of nothing to write. I thought creative writing might again be fun. I used to do a lot of that for LabLit and I really enojoyed it. Some time peices were more free and creative than others, but I tried to put my style on everything I wrote, even book reviews.

"I can clearly remember the first time I saw the Milky Way. I mean, really saw it. I’d noticed it before while vacationing with my parents in rural Yorkshire, a wisp of starlight like a cloud trapped in moonlight. I remember being impressed, or at least as impressed as a surly teenager stuck in the Dales with his parents for a week can be. But the first time I saw our galaxy in its full glory was driving across the Texas panhandle a few years ago. I had reached a crossroads in my life and decided that the best way to determine which direction to head in was to take some time off work and embark on the kind of road trip my heroes had taken before me. Sometimes it was more Kerouac than Steinbeck, but it was nevertheless the quintessential American road trip.

I was somewhere between Amarillo and Oklahoma City on I40, a thick brown scar cutting across the belly of the nation. The sun had set and the landscape around me, an unending sea of featureless desert and scrub, had disappeared, swallowed by a thick darkness that pressed in on the windows of the car. I stopped, switched off the headlamps and walked off the road. Above me an infinity of stars receded to the limits of imagination. The foreground of familiar constellations was blazing atop a shimmering highway of starlight. Only once before have I been rendered breathless at the realization of my own infinitesimal place within the majesty of the universe. In April 1997, my band and I had traveled to the Scots border to watch comet Hale-Bopp glide overhead. As we entered a forest clearing and looked up we suddenly seemed very small and foolish, and our bottle of vodka for the toast, oddly sacrilegious."

(from What It All Means A review of 'Origins of the Universe for Dummies')

I tried to do it sometimes when I wrote for Nature Network, but felt the exhortation to stick within the unwritten guidelines of 'being scientific' stifled my creativity. It also effectively put an end to my writing for LabLit because every idea I got for something science-based to say was written for Nature Network instead. I deeply regret that.

I moved recently to LabSpaces and enjoyed the re-creation of 'A Meandering Scholar' with more freedom to wax lyrical. But as you know that little experiment didn't pan out for me. This is self-imposed, I think, but I still didn't feel free to write about anything I chose.

Oddly, part of my rapid and sudden departure from LabSpaces was the gnawing urge to write freely again. Silly, I know. There was literally nothing to stop me doing that either there or here. We were told we had freedom to whatever we liked, but I think having the banner of a network let me construct a mental barrier. I know at least one of my fellow exiles felt/feels the same way.

I think this is why Occam's Typewriter is going to be enormously successful. Not just because of the very talented crew of writers they have, but also because they are very open about being a blog network by scientists, not for scientists, or even always about science.

The best advice a writer gets is "write everyday", or my personal variant, "Just fucking write it". Grad students working on their first proposal or manuscript often feel like an asthmatic staring up from the foothills to the cloud smothered peak of Everest. "How am I going to do this?"

I was taught, and still rely on the same technique, to write, starting in the middle if need be, and rely on editing to whip the beast into shape. I feel the same when facing enormous projects involving any level of creativity. The most recent (and on going) is the annual overhaul of our Institute website. This year I decided to take the initiative and just do it my way. Partly this is borne by the confidence that I finally know what I'm doing, and partly by the fact most of the senior investigators involved don't believe we have a hope in hell of getting funded so the whole exercise is futile. Well, not to me. Right now, at my career stage, every experience is potentially valuable, and almost everything can be used to pad my resume in one direction or another.

It has been a protracted event this year because my time has been split between this and another major institutional project, but I think I'm nearly there. One of the investigators gave me 21 pages from the grant and said, "Use this to make the website". Well, shit. Talk about standing in the foothills of Everest with my Salbutamol inhaler uselessly back in Memphis. But, following my own advice, I have finally figured out to do it (it involves liberal use of internal redirects, pop-ups and understanding how to effectively use ahref anchors inside pages).

But what about the blog. What do I write here. I guess, sometimes you need to just write. Thanks for listening.

The Mole Returns Home

2010-12-08T14:43:00.000-06:00

*cough cough*

*sneeze sneeze*

Gosh it's dusty in here... 4 months with no house cleaning, time to get the feather duster out.

yes, dear reader, my adventure at LabSpaces has come to grinding halt. You can see the final post down below. I feel a bit like Mole, from Wind in the Willows right now. If you haven't read it, shame on you and I demand that you buy a copy immediately. And then read it.

Mole is befriended by Ratty and drug off on adventure (along with Toad (of Toad Hall) and Badger, and a nasty band of stoats and weasels). Somewhat like Bilbo Baggins, Mole isn't sure he likes the adventure, but goes along with the charismatic Ratty anyway. One of the most poignant moments in the book is when he finally gets home again, to his hole by the riverbank, to find it in disarray due to his absence. Of course, his friends help him spring clean and all is well with the world and they live happily ever after, perhaps some inter-species bestial love-up. Who knows. Milne never finished the sequel.

Anyway, I shall miss the traffic at LabSpaces, but I shall really miss my fellow bloggers. There is a surprising amount of camraderie, and I shall miss that.

*************************

To My Fellow LabSpaces Bloggers,

I assume it's obvious from the twitter discussion and general tension that it was me who emailed Brian regarding some of my concerns with LabSpaces. I assumed the email would be in confidence and would be the start of a dialogue, but in a sublimely, and typically, passive-aggressive manner he chose to actually post near verbatim sections of the letter for you all to see.

I wrote, "There are two main issues we face right now. Firstly, temporally at least, is the constantly increasing stable of bloggers. You stated clearly that you wanted the current bloggers to have some say in the recruitment of new "talent", and went so far as to share a spreadsheet with us. However, there have been more and more additions to the site and we haven't been consulted at all. I hope to keep this in confidence between us, but I don't think you're selecting the right people. Some of the bloggers really aren't very good writers and this is diluting the "talent" on the site. Moreover some of the blogs at LabSpaces are barely used anymore. We believe this isn't necessarily good for the LabSpaces reputation. We're also aware that you're still sending out invitations to bloggers, some of whom have declined your offer before. This too damages the reputation of LabSpaces, because people talk, and importantly for us, the bloggers are thus damaged vicariously."

Brian posted:
"Said bloggers have also complained that they think the stables are too full and include some lame horses. I'm not going take any of you out to pasture, because that's not right, but I do think that it looks bad on the community to have people in our "Active" Writer's List that haven't blogged in over a month. I'll code in some new changes to remove blogger names from the lists after 6 weeks of inactivity. I think this is fair. Once a new post is made, the writer list will be re-compiled to include the inactive accounts."

I have added emphasis to mine to highlight my wish.

I can understand that some of you are disappointed and hurt by my saying this, and I can only apologize to your feelings. Science communication, indeed, effective written communication in general, is surprisingly difficult to get right and takes a lot of practice. It is certainly not an art in which we are trained. It is also important to bear in mind the tone one might employ when writing a private communique versus something to be considered and discussed in public. I meant to offend no one by my statement, and surely I am not commenting on anyone as a person, but merely pointing out that, as I said above, effective written communication is hard.

Brian made it clear that this site is his creation and I respect that, but it was also implied that the current bloggers would have a say in site additions, and we clearly don't. Please believe me; I'm not singling anyone out here. It's the process, not the people that I'm pissed at.

In addition there are some other issues and concerns, but I have (surprisingly for me) calmed down enough to not stomp my feet, throw my toys out of the sandbox and start pointing fingers and calling names.

To Brian, best of luck with the site. It's certainly a major investment and I hope it pays off.

To my friends, the bloggers, I am sorry to jump ship in bad weather like this. I consider all of you to be my friends and I'll miss your companionship.

To my readers, I hope you'll continue to follow the adventures, tales and mishaps of The Tideliar at Some Lies on Blogger.

Winds of change, or just verbal flatulence?

2010-08-03T18:37:00.001-05:00

The times they are a'changing sang that dude, in that one song back in the day. I guess anyone who regularly follows us science bloggers (Wait, *this* is a science blog? ~Editor.) knows that a lot of changes have happened since the infamous dark days of Pepsigate. And if you have been following along, you know exactly what's coming next....

I've been asked to join Science blogging collective! I am stupefied and very, very flattered. Several bloggers of my acquaintance moved to a platform and were asked by the OverLord for blogs they recommend, and my 'name' came up along with some very sweet endorsements. The poor fools don't know what they've let themselves in for, but that's for them to find out...

I watched with interest the loss of talent, albeit only a small percentage of the total number, leave ScienceBlogs, and I watched with curiosity the rumblings of discontent over at Nature Network as the idiots discussed trying to take over the asylum.

I saw recently some of my blogmates get invited over to LabSpaces, and I thought, "Fuck yeah! You go guys!" Especially because some of them are fairly new to the game. Although their blogs may be old in internet years (like, a year old, anyway), there are skills and styles that comes with time. So, I was totally stoked to see these guys join a collective.

I watched with delight other blogmates get recruited to Scientopia when that opened its doors officially this week. I even left a comment on Professor in Training's blog that I was jealous that no one had invited me to join a gang. I felt a bit like the fat kid who gets picked last for football at lunch break. Then it occurred to me, that not only was I the idiot who volunteered to go in goal (and thus never picked last), and that by no stretch of the imagination could I ever be called fat, I already belong to a Science blog network!

And I don't mean in some wishy-washy, meta- kind of way...

like we're all communing our love of science ma-a-a-an. Dig it right? Like the internet is like, this, huge network of computers and right...like...

Shut the fuck up hippy, and get the fuck off my blog. And take your fucking patchouli incense with you.

No, I mean my "real" blog is on a major science network already. I reopened Some Lies a year or so ago to give me somewhere to vent my spleen, and due to certain information-highway related issues it has turned, gradually, back into my major writing platform.

Which leaves me with a dilemma. Do I now try and keep up two networked blogs? Or do i consolidate content? Or do i just adopt one identity and finally leave this hellish, Matrix-like nightmare of dopplegangers and avatars behind me once and for all?

I know not, dear reader, I know not. All I do know is that Some Lies is moving house, and I am embracing my new blogmates over at LabSpaces. The bloggers are expected to post at regular intervals, keep it science-based where possible and be active communicators on the Forums. I like that idea. No manifesto, no fucking page of Bylaws explaining how the General Voting Body of the Committee to Vote on Committees needs to populated on a thrice annual basis with all votes being corroborated by a quorum (or majority there of in times of war and under threat of death), unless a majority of non-voting members vote to have a general election, discounts at weekends for the elderly, meet in the hall if wet. I spoke with the OverLord, and he basically said, "I'm a dictator. I don't give a fuck what you do, just keep it on topic and post regular. Do well by me son, and I'll do well by you, alright?"

And I though, bloody hell, you sound like a character from Lock, Stock & two Smoking Barrels. How odd.

So, if anyone is RSSing me (perverts) you'll need to update your feed, and your blog roll too. I think I can re-direct the URL from this page. Come check out the new digs. Tomorrow. I need to go run the vacuum cleaner over first, and hide the bong. Y'know, like you do before welcome guests for the first time...

Can we agree to disagree

2010-07-30T15:51:00.001-05:00

I just received a tweet from a friend that really caught me by surprise. I had re-tweeted something by Andy Lewis, AKA Le Canard Noir, of Quackometer. I don't know the back story behind Andy's tweet, but I gather it was in response to a pro-homeopath. He linked to this article which shows the lengths some homeopaths have gone to to hide their work in Kenya. People are dying because they are being encouraged to take homeopathic "remedies" and prophylactics for malaria. And needless-to-say, people are dying because they are eschewing medical interventions that work, for water, which doesn't.

My friend tweeted, "@Tideliar Tidy, would you stop liking me if I told you I use supplements, homeopathy, and energy work?"

And this really took me by surprise. I know my friend is a practitioner of some form of "energy healing", but I'll admit I don't know the ins and outs of her work. However, she is has a wonderful relationship with her clients, and has performed a lot of her services for free when she felt people needed her and couldn't pay. And I know her and her family have gone through hard financial times. She is not a gold-digger by any stretch of the imagination. She truly believes in what she practices and because I have no evidence to suggest that she has hurt anyone, or encouraged anyone to use her services when they desperately need to go to a medical doctor I haven't really considered her beliefs to have an impact on our friendship.

I replied, "@[redacted] of course not! I'd (I will?) talk to you about them but I see no reason to let different beliefs harm friendship!" and then, "GF is a spiritualist who believes in energy. Id be worried if anyone eschewed modern medicine in a crisis though."

I think this gets to the heart of the matter for me. I am not a strident enforcer of my worldview, unless suitably provoked. I have had some long and deep conversations with my girlfriend about her beliefs and I'll admit they sometimes degenerate into "tiffs", because we disagree on some fundamental issues. It doesn't help her that I have a strict and long standing scientific background. I might only be a biologist, but I read books on Quantum Mechanics for fun, so debating me on the nature of energy and matter is not going to be easy. But, GF believes in her karma, and likes to burn smudges of white oak (or something pungent) to clear her aura, and I have no problem with that. I'm an agnostic who still prays like a Catholic because it works for me as a form of ritualised meditation.

I know for fact, that with homeopathy, There's Nothing In it. It relies on water having some kind of magical memory, and I stopped believing in magical things a long time ago. To make a homeopathic solution you serially dilute (succuss is the homeopathic term) something until there is literally not even one molecule of active ingredient left there (and I disagree with the nature of homeopathic on like-treats-like like, too, but that's a different matter right now). Homeopaths say that the water somehow retains a memory of what was once there and this is so powerful that it works as a medical intervention. But water can't have a memory of the substance that was once dissolved in it.

The only way water could store something would be as a pattern of the hydrogen bonds that form between molecules of H₂O. However, these bonds are not only very weak, they are very transient - if they weren't water wouldn't be the wet and runny stuff we need it to be. I think it was the eminent pharmacologist and scientific hero of mine David Colquhoun who measured the break-and-reformation rate of hydrogen bonds between molecules in room temperature liquid water to be on the order of 9 ns. That's 9 nanoseconds. That's 0.000000009 seconds. You break and reform new hydrogen bonds in the blink of eye. In fact, in the time takes you to blink your eye a water molecule has made and broken and remade 33,333,333 new bonds. If water has a memory, it has a very short memory.

I know these things because I am a scientist and a critical thinker (and a terrible mathematician...if there are mistakes above please let me know in the comments and I'll fix the math). Homeopathy never made sense to me, so i looked into it and found it lacking in critical honesty. That's why I don't "believe" in it; because it is scientifically unsound. But I guarantee you, if someone could do a fair and balanced clinical trial and show me a significantly positive effect over a drug intervention i'd be all over that shit like...insert metaphor of choice. As a clinical scientist I'd be virtually honor bound to go investigate further.

I say all that to try and stop the "well you have an agenda" arguments. The only agenda I have is to find the truth in how things work. And then to use the best practices to help fix people who are broken. Now, one of the things we know helps people is the placebo effect. And I know it works on me too. If my allergies are playing up, I'll pop an anti-histamine. I stop sneezing immediately even though I know there is no feasible way for the medicine to have had an immediate effect!

So, if you have a cold, or are feeling run down and you find a homeopathic remedy works for you. Well, it's your dollar to burn. I'd suggest a glass of Florida Orange Juice and a good night's sleep. If you find your thoughts are confused and you're having trouble sleeping, feel free to align your shakras, and cleanse your aura. Personally, I go to the gym and spar. Hard.

As long as you promise me that if you get sick...really sick, you'll use the accumulated knowledge and experience of hundreds of years of modern and clinical medicine. You're my friend and I don't want to see you hurt or dead. And you promise me that you'll vaccinate your child and keep your own boosters up to date. We all have to share this place, and we might not all get on, but we can do our best to find some common ground.

And as long as you don't mind me pestering you with science from time to time I reckon we can still be friends.

Your rush isn't the same as my rush

2010-07-22T13:57:00.000-05:00

I'm presenting a poster at The Society for Neuroscience annual meeting this fall. This year it's in San Diego, which is fucking awesome - I get to spend a week in California on the company cheque. What could be wrong with that?

Anyway, this topic will evolve over time, and if any fellow Sci-bloggers are attending and want to de-anonymise over a pint or two, let me know.

Today's irate posting is to do with Getting Shit Done in the office. Around 33,000 delegates register for the SfN meeting. It's fucking huge...and because it's huge and powerful, the Society prevents you from booking a hotel at Conference rates until you've registered for the conference. The problem here is that I can't afford to pay the $260 registration fee myself and need it to get processed by our business manager. Advance registration for Society members closed on Tuesday, which means that every motherfucker and hir fucking dog can book their hotel in downtown San Diego.

And I just checked and the BM hasn't processed my godamned registration yet. Quoth she, "This is in my stack to do. I’m hopeful to get it started this week. Registration deadline is September 8th. Is there something I’m not aware of that you need to take care of on your end, but cannot do until your registered? If so, just let me know."

Fucking hell, yes, dude, I told you repeatedly this was urgent and that I can't book my motherfucking hotel room until I get registered. Now one of two things is going to happen, both of which have happened before:

There will be no goddamned hotel rooms left downtown and I'll be stuck miles out of town. This happened in 2004 and I had to rent a motherfucking car to get to the conference every day.
There will only be the incredibly expensive hotels that company CEOs and Famous Profs with fat consulting fees can afford. This happened in 2006 and I got fucked for almost $2000 in hotel fees when my roommate backed out at the last minute.

On top of this I found out that I can't attend a mini-conference next week I was looking forward to either. I just wish, for once, people would get their shit together. Tell me, Dear Reader, does this happen to you too, or do i just have the worst luck?

**Note added in proof: it's not all bad...my staff know I am addicted to spring rolls; one of my programmers just came into my office with a gift from their lunch at the local Vietnamese place...***

A New Kid on the Blog

2010-07-15T15:48:00.001-05:00

Many moons ago when The Tideliar was but a small hatchling, the Birth-Dragon decided He needed a sibling. And Lo it came to pass, via some nefarious mechanism involving storks, pints of beer and a cabbage patch, The Beasel was introduced to this World. The Tideliar and The Beasel, although at first unsure of each other have become firm friends, and Tideliar was fortunate enough to act as Best Man at "The Wedding of The Beasel", a great event held with much fanfare some years ago. Which event also provided The Tideliar with his last trip back to The Land Far Away.

The Beasel is currently off work with a bad back, in fact has been off work for several months due to the shocking ineptness of the Heath 'Care' System. Quoth The Beasel unto The Tideliar a few days ago, "Oi, fuckface, tell me more about this 'blogging' of which you do." So instructions were sent, and suddenly there is a fresh and shiny new blogger on the block.

Go and enjoy A Pondering Beasel, and perhaps, if you feel his musings and ponderings warrant such, leave him a message of support. For although he is but a n00b in the interchoobs, he already knows the bug of blogging and recognition. Also, he is fucking funnier than a crippled child sliding down a banister rail into a poorly placed newlpost. I think he's shaping up to be a fairly prolific writer and he already has a good voice for a yarn.

TV Hater Redux/Revisit

2010-07-09T17:20:00.001-05:00

Written on Monday and only just noticed I went into MarsEdit's Draft folder...DOH!)

After bitching about having nothing to watch about a week I am deluged with several new shows. Nice to know that high ranking television executives read my blog.

As soon as I got home I turned on the TV, which is rare for me. It normally goes on a couple of hours later, after food is prepped, cats are fed, blog posts are drafted etc. Anyway, today for some reason I broke tradition and saw an advert for the premiere of the second season of the SciFi (SyFy?) show "Warehouse 13" and conveniently they had the decency to run episodes from last season right before it aired. This means that while I don't know all the details, I still saw enough to get a feel for both the show and the main characters. To be honest, it isn't that plot heavy, but it's silly fun and the kind of pap I love to tune out to. It's also the kind of show I would have adored as kid so it feels homey. I used to invent shows like this in my head, and write short stories about them. So...it's...ah...nice to know high ranking television executives can read my thoughts too.

Ahem

Anyway, at 2000 CST just as the new season started, both "HawthoRNe" and "Deadliest Catch" popped up. I'm not a huge fan of medical dramas; I was spoiled by early seasons of ER, but Jada Pinket Smith is a great actress and the first season was pretty good so I thought I'd give it go. Unfortunately, I also wanted to watch Deadliest Catch and my DVR only tapes two channels at the same time (yeah, I know, that was deliberate) so I had to cancel "HawthoRNe". I hope I don't regret that, although I kind of already do...

...to be honest, Catch got a bit samey after the first couple of seasons and right now it's the drama around Captain Phil's recent stroke that has me watching. As far as I know he dies, given the RIP notes posted on Discovery TV earlier this year/end of last, as well as the empty seat and constant eulogies on "After the Catch", the 'live' interview show after each new episode.

Anyway, no sense in crying over spilt cow-juice. Right now I'm enjoying "Memphis Beat" on TNT. Another genre of show I'm not keen on are police procedurals, having been spoiled by Hill Street Blues as kid, and NYPD Blue as a young(er) man. And also this kind of light-hearted show turns me off most of the time. I don't want Bruckheimeresque drama at every scene change, but at the same time, if I wanted slapstick, I'd watch "Scrubs" (which I don't because I don't like slapstick either...fuck I'm hard to please!).

So far it's pretty good, I'll likely give it a few weeks (assuming it stays on the air that long...fuckers). And it's interesting watching a show filmed in a town I know well. "West Wing" was filmed in and around DC when I lived there, but I've lived in Memphis much longer than I did in DC and know the city commensurably better. Seeing them piece together several locations rapidly for a single scene gives me a new understanding of the hard work editors do. Once brief scene as the cops walked towards an arena where a pageant is being held (in real life, a council building downtown), then through the interior (a building on the University of Memphis campus about 5 miles away) to grab a suspect, and then into a dressing room to "interrogate" him (a staged interior in a TV sound stage somewhere I expect).

One thing very odd is their accents though, the squad Captain sounds more Big Easy, than Bluff City. And the end of the episode right now has the cops busting in to "rescue" a white beauty queen "kidnapped" by her black lover. The cops draw down on him as she screams "no!". But they didn't shoot him, which is very odd for Memphis.

Note added in proof, once again...of course now SciFi, or whatever the fuck they re-branded as are reshowing the "Warehouse 13" episode I DVR'd earlier at the expense of "HawthoRNe". Bugger. It's great having a TV will a gazillion channels and DVR and shit, but unless you don't work, are a stay at home parent or plan ahead, there isn't enough time to find out what's on and when and plan the evening. Or...maybe this is what "normal" people do and I'm only just figuring out that I need to plan ahead. Fuck it. I'll work on it...

An as a random aside because it's Friday and I'm stoned on anti-histamines, "Gish" is a fucking brilliant album. Jimmy Chamberlain is a fucking genius drummer and an inspiration to get back behind my kit...

Seriously, even my TV hates me!

2010-06-28T18:52:00.001-05:00

Trying to stay sober during the summer in the US is nigh on impossible. I can't go to the gym every night because I have other things to attend to, and I'm not into the super hardcore body building that would necessitate a 7 day/week gym schedule. I have work to do in the evening, I have pets, I need to eat...usual homely and simple needs. All I ask is that every now and then there is something on the television for me to be entertained by.

In the summer there is a massive drought of anything except shitty sports like baseball. Baseball is fun live and the play-offs and World Series are OK, but during the season there are over 150 games and I can't fucking keep up with that! Also, even after 12 years the sports pages in the newspaper are still completely impenetrable to me so I can't catch up that way either.

All I ask is that a couple of times a week there is something on the fucking television for me to watch. After all, I pay enough fucking money for this. To have DVR, above average cable and internet I pay around $120/month. This is fucking daylight robbery.

Now the malodorous fuckstains that run Comcast have denied me access to a couple of networks, including The Science Channel, so the new Science TV show, Through The Wormhole, on Wednesday is denied me unless I pay even more money. And to make matters worse the money grubbing goatfuckers that run the cable networks are up to their usual hijinks and have managed to cancel/move one of the shows I was hoping to keep up over the summer. This happens all the time and I wonder why I fucking bother owning a television. At least once or twice every season something I'm watching either gets cancelled without warning, or as bad, moved to a different night or time so that I end up missing it if I rely on my DVR. Admittedly the show I was watching, Persons Unknown was a bit of a shitty throw-up of Lost + The Prisoner, but fucking hell, after a month we're almost halfway through and there is nothing else on, so why not let us finish it?

I am trying really hard to do the right thing here, but it's as if life itself is fucking with me right now. I could be in a poker tournament catching up with friends denied me by recent events. So I am left with cooking dinner, and watching movies edited for TV (i.e. 3 hours to show a 90 minute edited version of an average movie), paying money to subscribe to more channels or ordering a PPV movie.

Another early night with a book I guess.

note added in proof
Thanks to IMDB, which I usually hate, I found out the show in question isn't cancelled, yet, but moved to an earlier time. To catch the Kidz I suppose. At least I get to watch this pap and try and not think for an hour or so...The rest still stands.

Turned my world to black

2010-06-21T14:21:00.001-05:00

image from dvidal's awesome photostream

Oftentimes, in moments of personal crisis and stress, I find that my life resembles a cross between a soap opera, and a musical. Kind of like an episode of Glee. The soap opera part is obvious I expect; you feel like you're moving from one contrived situation to another with no control over yourself. Events seem to spiral towards inevitable disaster. A disaster that you're aware of because it seems like you're watching everything happen to a simulacrum. You know what's going to happen, but the other 'actors' don't and seem just seem to a follow a script. And with this comes an overwhelming, breath taking feeling of hopelessness because you know the future and the worst thing about knowing the future, as any real psychic will tell you, is that you can't change a damn thing.

The part that really makes my inner-life seem more like an episode of Glee, than say, The Bold & The Beautiful (although Eastenders would be a more geographically and socioeconomically accurate example) is the pop/rock soundtrack. I've been a jobbing pro-am musician for around 20 years and it's an understatement to say that music is incredibly important to me. It can literally make or break my mood, if not my day. Most people get "earworms", that annoying repetition of a jingle in your head for hours at a time. I get entire albums stuck for weeks at a time. I have pretty shitty sporadic insomnia at the best of times, and if I get an earworm I can literally lose days of sleep. I fear I might eventually go insane sometimes. It's horrible.

Anyway, I remember being deeply, deeply in love once. In hindsight I know it was infatuation, but holy fucking shit, I was smitten. And what made it the most awesome and most amazing thing ever was that, for while at least, she was also smitten with me. I had just left my wife and was living in Washington DC and had started a new postdoc position. At the compulsory staff orientation the HR person made everyone take turns standing up and saying their name, where they were from and what they were doing. Lo and behold, two seats down from me was one of the most beautiful 20-something young women I had ever seen (and this says a lot because I had just moved from a small College Town with literally thousands and thousands of beautiful young 20-somethings). Coincidentally she had just moved down from the same College Town and was working in the Neurology Dept. just one building over from me, in Pharmacology. We bumped into each other a couple of times that week, on cigarette breaks, and then started timing our cigarette breaks to coincide with each other. I felt myself falling for her; her huge smile, her always perfect blonde hair, the way she covered her mouth with her hand when she laughed, her big blue eyes that would return my gaze directly.

I still remember our first kiss, standing outside as the sun set, light was hazy red and gold through the rain. It felt like my first kiss, the way my heart leapt as my stomach dropped in the other direction.

Unfortunately, I was (am?) a selfish, narcissistic alcoholic who thought, at the time, that walking away from his wife was enough to make all the pain go away. And it didn't help that she was as bipolar as she was beautiful. God sure does have a sick fucking sense of humour.

Back then it was, amongst other songs, "Should I stay or should I go?" Trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with her life and my life and our relationship.

That was many years ago.

Nine days ago, for pretty much the same reasons as before, I lost the only person I give a fuck about in this whole fucking world. And I can't stop the fucking tunes in my head.

I can't remember when I last slept. I want to sleep.

I need a fucking drink so badly my hands are shaking. I do not want to drink. I will not drink. I have not had a drink in 8 days.

The blog might be darker than normal for a while. Some of my comments on blogs might be more acidic for a while. So, if you meet me, have some courtesy, have some sympathy, and some taste; use all your well-learned politesse, or I'll lay your soul to waste. I am not a happy fucking camper right now.

Busted!

2010-06-01T13:53:00.000-05:00

This is what comes of being an inherent blagger...

Email string between me and rep from Prestigious Local Institute:

***************************

On 05/28/10 7:30 AM, Organizer Dood, Ph.D
To: Dr. Tideliar

Hey [Dr. Tideliar]~
I heard you were selected as an editor for a journal...I was wondering if you could come and give a Career Development talk on editorial review at [Prestigious Institute] sometime in the second half of the year. Let me know if/when works for you. We usually do our seminars on Thursday afternoons from 4-5, but if that time/date doesn't work, we can work it out. Thanks, and I will buy you a beer afterward!

Cheers
Organizer Dood.

***************************

On 06/01/10 9:13 AM, Tideliar
To:Organizer Dood
--------------------

Hi Organizer Dood,

I'm not sure who said that I was editing for a journal; it's maybe half right. I am a copy editor for one of [Big Science redacted] databases, and that's freelance work I picked up by emailing the editors of the database. I also do freelance editing for scientific and technical articles (manuscripts, theses etc.), and I've worked as sub-contractor for the [Major US Science Institution Redacted] writing text books. All of this is freelance work though (tenacity, plus networking).

I interviewed at [Major Science Journal] a couple of years ago when I was job hunting, but soon realized that the combative nature of the job would be bad match for me, so I declined any offer and stayed put and then found my current position.

I'm happy to give a Career Development talk, but it would be something like "How to network and blag your way to a new position by the seat of your pants" kind of talk, not a "here's how to do it for job X" kind of talk :)

Tideliar

***************************

On 06/01/10 1:45 PM, Organizer Dood
To:Tideliar

Hi Tideliar,
We might have to work on the title, but that sounds awesome! We usually do our seminars at 4-5 on thursday afternoons, and we've got nothing scheduled following June 17th. so, we're free up for whenever you want to come and talk! Thanks a ton!

Organizer Dood

***************************

On 06/01/10 1:54 PM, Tideliar
To Organizer Dood

Oh shit. Really? I thought you'd say, "Thanks, but no thanks". Can I title it "Bullshitting your way through life: do's and don'ts"?

out of my sight, out of your mind?

2010-05-25T15:51:00.001-05:00

Call me a conspiracy theorist who distrusts the wankers that ran the rig, the wankers in charge of all this and the wankers in government who are rubbing their hands with glee at scandals and soundbites, but did those fucking wankers kill the video feed too?

..we are told that this is the end...

2010-05-18T17:46:00.000-05:00

...A design for life.

Damn. Homesick. Long day. Need beer. And a fight. Maybe I can combine...

We don't talk about love
We only want to get drunk
And we not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end
A design for life.

Where did all the nice idiots go?

2010-05-17T17:51:00.001-05:00

Sometimes you can amaze yourself at how bad you can totes haz teh FAIL

Back when the earth was young and I still had a ponytail and hope in the future I moved the US. I had to go through a veritable fucking suite (pronounced 'sweet', dear friends, not 'suit') of bullshit in order to successfully integrate. Finding a place in grad school was, in retrospect, the easy part. I had to take a battery of (very expensive) standardized tests called a GRE because apparently my degree in biology wasn't enough...I needed to somehow prove I could also read AND write AND do simple sums. Crazy...cos in the The Motherland one usually doesn't progress to university without first proving oneself in high school... Anyway, I studied for this asinine hurdle and got scores that were above average. Nothing grand, but I really didn't a fuck if the Dean of the College was worried about my ability to guestimate the square root of 6, or determine that colour is to tone as spectrum is to [fill in the blank]. Having been raised in a military family I have an innate terror and hatred of authority, so I was actually prepared to fail and throw it in their face, but I digress.

Once I got here I was thrown headlong into a turmoil I couldn't have prepared for. Ordering even a sandwich was a challenge..."two countries divided by a common language" is a cliche because it's true (which is also a cliche, but let's move on). I couldn't find a sandwich shop, but did stumble across a place called "Subway" that instead of being a gateway to a subterranean transport system was a sandwich shop. The gormless fuckwit behind the counter looked at me, I girded my loins and made my first purchase, my heart hammering in my chest.

"Hi Sir, welcome to Subway! What can I help you with today?" He asked, so cheerfully I used to think they must be medicated.

"I'd like a cheese sandwich please," I replied and experienced for the first time the look of utter incomprehension I would come to know and love over the next decade. Because once you go off script, They can't improvise.

"Hi Sir, welcome to Subway! What can I help you with today?" This time spoken through clenched teeth, sweat beginning to appear on the poor imbecile's forehead.

I spoke as if to a small, slow witted child, "I'd like, a cheese, sandwich. Please." And when this didn't elicit any response I too began to panic, because fear of social awkwardness is endemic to my people. Thankfully the poor boy figured out that it was I who was the fuckwit in this conversation, and he tried to take control.

"Well, sir, I can do you a sub with just cheese and veggies, would that be OK?"

It was my turn to start sweating...veggies? Are you fucking with me? Veggies are potatoes and carrots and so forth. Why the everliving fuck would I want a potato on my cheese sandwich? Thankfully he gestured at the salad bar in front of him and I just yelled "LETTUCE" at the top my lungs hoping he'd go away and I could flee.

"OK sir, cheese and lettuce. What kind of cheese? We have Jack, Provolone, Swiss, Cheddar, American..." like something out of Monty Python, the scene just kept unfolding. I finally got my cheese sandwich, the last hurdle being the pair of us working out he meant Alfalfa sprouts (which I know as "cress"), and not Brussels Sprouts.

Tideliar fixed the moron with his best "YOU FAIL" look during the "Great Sprouts Incident" of '98"

I discovered after a while that the blank look I got when I spoke was natural for a central Pennsylvanian when confronted by a white person with a non-American accent. I took to speaking, pausing and just repeating myself, giving my 'server' time to parse the information that I must be 'not American.

Things were no easier when I went to get my Social Security Card. This little piece of paper and the 9 digit number on it rule your entire life in the US. You almost literally cannot do anything without this number and must memorize it and be prepared to divulge it constantly. Curiously, its importance underlies a massive flaw in the "system" over here, because knowing someone's SSN (and maybe just a little trivial information, like their birth date) allows you clone that person's life. And yet one is forced to give it out over the phone when calling banks or credit card companies, universities use it as a form of student ID. It is the least secure and most important number in the life of any American, and needless-to-say identity theft is a major problem.

After I got my SSN I was able to get my driver's license (or indeed, licence), and that set another row of hurdles which I had to o'er leap, or else fall down. Americans find driving to be a fundamental right, much like owning guns or yelling at people (if you're a Republican) in the name of so called "free speech". I assume these things to be privileges which one earns, but Hey Ho, and indeed Nonny Nonny, I'm just old fashioned that way. Thankfully this assumed privilege of driving and the fact that one gets one's learner's permit while barely weaned from nanna's teet mean that the driving test is ludicrously fucking easy. It's designed that even a 14 year old can pass it and head out to cause mayhem and untold misery on the innocents around him. I had to parallel park in a space you could, to quote my dad, fit a fucking double-decker bus in. Then, having proven my chops, I was told to turn right out of the driver's license center, after 100 yards, turn right again, then again, and then again. Having successfully negotiated one small block of houses, I was told I had passed and presented with my new license.

This was many years ago and I still enjoy the semi-regular ritual of renewing my license. Because, as a foreigner, I am obviously not to be trusted with something so important without being forced to undergo a pointless rigmarole on a too-often basis. I can't remember how often I had to renew my license in Pennsylvania, but it was regular. When I moved to Tennessee I was surprised by a whole new suite of bureaucratic bullshit.

Tennesseans' get a regular looking license, one views it horizontally, the picture is on the top left, and again on the bottom right and there are all kinds of watermarks and hologram thingamajigs on there. But when I moved here us Dirty and untrustworthy foreign types were given, after much procrastination, a bright pink, vertically viewed "Permit to Drive" that said in bright red writing "NOT VALID FOR IDENTIFICATION", along the top. This, of course, meant that one had to carry one's passport with one to serve as ID. The bullshit inherent in this system is that I needed my passport and visa to get the fucking thing in the first place. So I was forced to carry two forms of ID on me, especially if i travelled. Although times have changed and I now have a regular looking licence, I am minded to relate that even after the 9/11 attacks I flew domestically (including through D.C., our mighty Capitol) without once showing my passport. Indeed, the only time a so called "official" of any rank refused to accept as ID a card saying in bright red letters "NOT VALID FOR IDENTIFICATION" was a kid selling beer at a festival a few years ago. My buddies wanted to kick his ass, I gave a $5 tip and had them buy my beer instead.

Anyway, the entire point of this TL;DR rant is that today I returned to the DMV to renew my license again. Now bare in mind in Tennessee things move slowly.

Very. Fucking. Slowly.

In my home town your average staffer or petty bureaucrat is a self-entitled douchemonkey of the first order. Everything is difficult and time consuming. The DVM takes this to the nth degree. Thankfully they are also usually badly trained and ignorant, because the people above them are lazy, self-entitled douchemonkeys too. Last time I needed to renew my license I was missing a vital piece of paperwork: the visa stamp in my passport had expired (it's only a travel permit, the actual visa approval or visa notice is another piece of paperwork). I was able to bullshit my way through this mishap with little trouble,

"This here visa has expired," He said, fixing me with a myopic squint I took to be his best effort at a steely glare.

"No, that's the travel permit. It means I can't re-enter the country if I travel abroad, but obviously I can be here legally to work. Look here's my work ID badge." I showed the badge, which does indeed have a picture of me on it and magnetic swipe on the back. I assume this was OK because only a couple of hours later I was in possession of newly re-issued drivers license. This time, however, I was not so fortunate. It turns out some complete fucker has taken it upon themselves to educate our ~~pubic serpents~~ public servants in how to do their job properly.

"This visa stamp has expired," She said. I noted the use of the word 'stamp' and began to get nervous. After all, I was 20th in line when I got to the DMV and it had taken me over an hour just to get this far.
"No, that's just the travel permit. My visa is fine, look here's my work ID."

"No. This is the visa stamp and your I-94 is here, so if you're legally working you should have an I-blah blah blah."

Tideliar protests at the DMV. But to avail. He doesn't have the right documents. Game Over dude.

She listed the immigration documents I should own, and probably do, somewhere, but my mind shut down at this point. I tried to argue my case, but she was unmoved. The utterly efficient and well trained harridan would not be swayed. So 78 minutes after arriving at the DMV I left, red-faced (see above for note about social awkwardness), and the victim of several dozen schadenfreude laden-smirks.

If looks could kill I would be the subject of a statewide mass murder manhunt right now.

Sometimes you got it...and sometimes you really, really don't

2010-05-13T10:20:00.001-05:00

I pride myself on being somewhat of a wordsmith. I do a lot of editing and writing, both scientific and technical and non-sci/tech (2pts). Sometimes, when blogging, it's easy to get lazy and just spew out a train of thought (2pts), and I often regret those posts. I rarely re-edit once I've posted something though; I prefer to get my thoughts out when I can in a medium such as this.

I used to write a lot for an e-Zine,and although still nominally on their staff I haven't submitted anything for over a year. I did a bit of editing, but finishing my postdoc and changing jobs removed a lot of the ire that fueled my creative juices (2pts). And now a lot of my job is writing and editing so I get a little less joy from just writing for the hell of it (proper, crafted pieces, as opposed to a 500 word blog post).

Over at The Hermitage recently, our heroine, The D-List Monktress was bemoaning having to write, and at VWXYNot, Cath posted something about the writing process that was apposite to your hermitage's woes (although I can't find it now). Cath's post was of something her PhD advisor gave her to help her with the writing process, with the block that can from having too many ideas in your head to get them out, that your perfectionist nature makes you want to get it write (boom boom!) first time. The gist of the piece was the best advice a writer ever gets:

JUST FUCKING WRITE IT

It will never come out perfect first time, so just get the ideas out and edit, edit, edit, edit. And it is this self-editing that I think is a key to the process of becoming a better writer.

However, one must first get the thoughts out, so here in its unabridged glory, is the abstract I wrote yesterday when I was braindead after a 2 hour meeting planning a clinical trial grant resubmission I'll be working on. Time to edit methinks...

"Most experimental science generates vast amounts of data, and analysis needs are often unmet. Behavioral neuroscience is no exception to this, and we find ourselves at the brink of a precipice, to fall into which will be to admit the loss of serendipitous discovery because we are overwhelmed by the mountain of data on the other side of this awful mixed metaphor. blah blah science and shit This is clearly totally awesome and will help overworked scientists to find some really cool and likely groundbreaking new shit. Fuck yeah."

2010-05-12T12:21:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately the embedding is disabled, so you have to go to YooChoob to watch it. Assholes.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge Star Wars geek. So, this is about the coolest most awesomesauce thing in the whole fucking Empire. Plus, I utterly HEART Alica Keys (ad Jay-Z is pretty cool too)

LYRICS:

[DARTH VADER/JAY-Z]
Yeah
No longer Anakin
Formerly a Skywalker
Son's next rebel hero
But I'll be Sith forever
I'm the newest Dark lord And since my training years
I can choke from anywhere
Yeah my force is everywhere Used to run with Obi Wan We were both best buds foreva
But after three movies Now I've got a blood vendetta Grew up on Tatooine
No vegetation Catch me rolling through the cosmos in a moon-like station to Leia's home nation Death Star wrecks it Now princess knows, Vader ain't one to mess with
Flying through the trenches
Blasting rebel noobies
What happened to the fat one
Think he died of heart disease All that's left is this guy
Chasing him in my TIE I won't deny That his force is pretty damn high
Damn i just got wiped out
Falcon shot the back of me
Spinning into outerspace
But I'll be back definitely

[PRINCESS LEIA/ALICIA KEYS]
In Star Wars Empire is out to find Leia Death star plans in R2 Shoot the exhaust port Kenobi may now be see-through But the force is within Luke
Let's hear it for new hope, new hope, new hope
[Vader: You're welcome Obi Wan... I made you a ghost!]

[DARTH VADER/JAY-Z]
Catch me rockin boots and a cape like superman
Hell, I made wearing black more famous than that Jay-Z can
You should know I'd find you, hiding out at Echo
Now I got a Blizzard Force eliminate you quick yo
Welcome to the planet Hoth AT-ATs hit the spot Walking tanks are too legit
But they fall down a lot Check the front, check the back, cant find the Falcon yet
We need them all alive, so no disintegrations Boba Fett 8 million asteroids, where'd your little ship go?
Get me to Cloud City, I got Lando on my payroll
Me I gotta double check if carbonite's ok If freezin's safe for Han
Doing Luke the same way
New deal Lando
Ain't no pardon
Kid blew up my boys
Rest in peace Moff Tarkin
Turns out we are family
Embrace your dark fate
Dad and son together, yo No way the emperor's safe, cause...

[PRINCESS LEIA/ALICIA KEYS] In Star Wars
Now Han Solo's a coffee table
There's nothing Luke can do [Vader: Should've joined me, bro!]
He's on Dagobah
With some dyslexic Jedi dude
Right hand still got sliced through Looks like they struck back, struck back, struck back

[DARTH VADER/JAY-Z]
Lightsabers grinding
Palpatine's smiling
Cause he knew it would come to this The light side is blind with casualties
Who do evil casually, then gradually become worse
Don't fight your destiny
Wasn't a great dad, true
Absent all the while
No happy times behind us, and plus, now I'm killin' you
Keep fencing mister, 'cause now I sense a sister
You don't go bad, maybe I'll enlist her
Now Emperor wants you, only wants me rubbed out You controlled your anger, stayed light side devout Watch out kid, he's got lightning bolts to immolate Uh-uh, hell no, daddy powers activate
End this prune with a badass murder suicide
Bald headed, mask off, heart melted kid you were right Burn all my gear so those Ewoks can't wear it again
Do it, I'll be watching you, a ghost, name of Anakin

[PRINCESS LEIA/ALICIA KEYS] In Star Wars
Destroy new Death Star's generator
Ewoks to the rescue
Blast through to the core
This Regime's gonna be brand new
Galactic Empire's through
The Jedi have returned, returned, returned

How about a shock collar?

2010-05-11T17:06:00.001-05:00

Yes...and that really is the point isn't it, you moron?

Once again in the Department of Slightly Hysterical Information Technology the crazy has risen its Medusan head and fixed me with a steely, petrifying glare. Not 24 hours after telling the world I'd thrown in the towel we're pretty much back to normal. This morning I received word that we are, after all, submitting an abstract to Massive Research Conference this fall.

And the deadline for submission is in under 48 hours.

And the main lab has used its allotment of submissions and seeing as I am member of the Professional Society running this Massive Research Conference I need to submit the abstract.

Oh Reader, Reader, Reader, I hear your thoughts through the interwebs, I really do...

"Dude, seriously, Tideliar you're being a fucking lightweight. Just submit the fucker already and go back to your manicure."

Alas, not so fast, dear Reader. Apparently I need to write the motherfucker too. This is because one of my programmers (Programmer¹) has been working 50% FTE on a project with this group and we're gonna submit an IT-database style abstract. The only real problem with this is that Programmer¹ can't write the abstract because knows neither how to write one and what to put in it anyway. He doesn't know the Science behind the work he's doing.

So, the conversation went something like this:

PI: "Tideliar. I need to submit an abstract for Massive Research Conference"

Me: "Cool. So?"

PI:" "Well, you're a Member of Professional Society and we need you to submit it."

Me: "And...let me guess, I have to write it too?"

PI: "Yes."

Me: "not unless I get first author."

PI: "OK"

Me: "shit. Ho hum. Fuck. Alright. What project?"

PI: You know that one that Programmer¹ has been working on?"

Me: "Nope,"

PI: "The one with the mobile camera tracking device thing that goes into a report generating function thing?"

Me: "SRSLY? WTF? Dude? Which letter in N.O. left you confused?"

PI: "That one. Oh yeah, LOLz @ U, it's due in less than 48 hours. Ciao."

And now, with the clock a tick-tick-tocking away Programmer¹ has yet to present me with anything, let alone a finely crafted 500 word synopsis of what he's been working on and why it is Super Fucking Awesome. I can't even find him. Apparently SysAdmin thought he was with Faculty, and Faculty thought he was with SysAdmin and Programmer² and Programmer⁴ think he might be in the bathroom. So, to preempt any further meanderings I asked the Head of Clinical Research to catheterize him.

Unfortunately, as she stared in shock, agog at the thought that I was serious, the rest of today's 15 cups of JetFuel^(TM) coffee kicked in....

"yeah. I'm serious. I want Programmer¹ catheterized. Then he won't need bathroom breaks so often. Hmm? What's that... no I don't suppose I am serious, after all, I'd need a fucking microchip tag to locate him if he went AWOL anyway. Wait a fucking minute! Can you do that too? I bet you can! Then I'll know which building he's in at least...but how will I find him within said building...I know, don't interrupt this is fucking genius! A shock collar. A shock collar...we can do it all at once! Put a shock device in the neck of the catheter! That's make the little bugger squeal! Wait! Where are you going?"

Is it just me, or does this happen to you too? Does everyone leave everything to the last minute all the time?

Marching to the beat of different drums

2010-05-10T11:28:00.001-05:00

Last week I had an epiphany. And a mild nervous breakdown. OK, that's a vast and unseemly exaggeration, yet more poetic than the truth (I left half a day early because I was fucking knackered from nervous exhaustion). I had scheduled Thursday and Friday off work because old friends were in town, but by Wednesday mid-morning I felt so shitty I just left. I went to bed at noon, woke up at 4pm, ate, went back to sleep, woke up at 8pm, ate and went back to bed and finally woke up again at noon on Thursday.

In two days I got 28 hours sleep.

Guess I was a bit burned out, huh? Last night, as I lay in bed trying to sleep, my stomach was in knots and for the first time in the 18 months since I left the lab bench I dreaded work on Monday morning. There is so much tension and bickering and ill communication that it is becoming almost unbearable at times. I dreaded the thought of having to meet with my boss and senior staff and hear the endless litany of how shit things were. I fight hard to get things done right and done on time, but I am bench scientist by training, not a project manager by training. I don't know how much is me fucking up, and how much is the inherently dysfunctional nature of academic administration. Shifting goalposts on shifting sands.

One of the last things I did last week was get us (me, by boss and a faculty member) registered for a Big Important Conference at a Big Important Government Lab we need to collaborate with. I managed to get them to bend the rules so we could register late (they had to do extra work because we're all on non-imigrant visas). I looked at how we might submit a 4 page proposal and I began to prepare a presentation in case one was needed, knowing that I would be the one to give it. I knew how important this conference was because the Big Important People of Science from the Government Lab had recently come to visit and I was impressed by The Powers that Be that we had to collaborate. I knew if I did well at this I could ingratiate myself with the Important People and that would be a good career move, possibly a job in the future.

Well, just now I was told to cancel the meeting registration and withdraw from the conference, because it's too close to our graduation here at work. Oh yeah, and we're not looking to collaborate with them now, but with Prestigious Private University. And I need to arrange a meeting for that instead, but I can't go because someone has to stay behind and watch the 'kids".

And you know what? I'm glad. I don't fucking care anymore.

I'm not faculty, I don't have metrics to meet. I write grants, but I get no recognition because I can't be a PI or co-PI. I am just a staff member. And that's fine. For now, my health and sanity are a priority, and I am going to enjoy being just a Program Manager and staff member. My day finishes at 5PM, my weekends are my own and I have plenty of annual leaved saved up.

Y'all fret about the big shit. I'm gonna write my blogs and book reviews again, and go to the gym and maybe enroll in a master's program to keep my mind busy. I feel better already.

Idiotometer hits top of scale...

2010-05-03T14:56:00.000-05:00

I swear I am running out of fucking patience in a big way. People's utter fucking inability to get their shit together and think before acting is sucking the fucking soul from my body.

I am a gnat's fart away from seriously losing my fucking shit.

I am not your father
I am not your babysitter
I am not your fucking nanny

I pay you to do a job. Occasionally you will need to think instead of blindly pottering along like a fucking bug on a wall. This should be self-evident in that the minimum education to work for me is a Master's degree.

If I have to send one more motherfucking "reminder" or "warning" over trivial shit it will end very badly for someone. Probably the person who gets the fucking email/phone call from me telling them to clear their motherfucking desk out.

A week of epic fail and it's only day 4

2010-04-22T13:56:00.001-05:00

Article the First:
A couple of weeks ago I swerved to avoid some arsehat in a parking lot and managed to run the side of my car down a bright yellow concrete traffic bollard. I now have a shitty, ugly, old green VW bug with a go faster/go shitter yellow stripe down one side. I called my insurance agent to find out IF I was to claim for the paint job (pah, car is 10 years old and only worth $2000), what the excess on my monthly insurance premium would be. IF I was to put in a claim for something I wouldn't get fixed. I was told to go so-and-so's body shop, meet the appraiser who would give me a quote on the theoretical repairs and from that they could determine the damage to my monthly premium.

$1800 to remove the scratches, with a $500 deductible. Easy out: No Fucking Way. As mentioned, my car is only worth about $2000 and besides, my A/C and starter have just died, necessitating another $1000+ of fixes just to keep me moving through the summer. I spoke with my insurance dude again,

Me: "So, IF I was to get this fixed, how much would it put my monthly premium up by?"

ID: "Hang on, let's pull up your policy. Wait, hang on, there's already a claim on here."

Me:"No, there can't be. I haven't filed a claim since I joined you five years ago."

ID:"No, here on April 7th. It says you lodged a claim for an "at fault" collision in a parking lot"

Me:"random high pitched squeaking sounds"

ID:"So, now this is already on file, we can't remove it. So... hang on. No, not to worry,"

Me:"squeaking sounds decrease in pitch, slightly"

ID:"No, you're OK. Your premium is only going up by $25/month."

Me:"squeaking sounds reach new, ultrasonic levels"

ID:"$25/month isn't that bad is it?"

Me:"That's 300 fucking bucks a year. D00d."

ID:"Oh, yes, I suppose if you look at it like that, it is. Well, we're sending you a cheque for $1300 to cover the repairs. You can use that to pay off the excess on your premium if you want."

Me:"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUC

*click*

Article the Second:
Recently Grand Moff Brown, unelected Prime Minister of England and compete fucking worthless dog's fart, finally announced he had asked Her majesty the Queen (happy birthday for yesterday, Your Majesty, FWIW) to dissolve parliament so he could call a General Election. I haven't voted since 1997 because not long after that election I moved to the US. So in the almost 6000 days since i could legally vote, I have excised that constitutionally enshrined right just once. This time, I raced to the nearest internets and looked into registering as an overseas voter. I soon discovered, via the power of an internests "search engine" a site called About My Vote, which purports to be run by the The Electoral Commission themselves. I spent a couple of hours working my way through everything because it is really not that well put together, and found the following nuggets of information:

You can register to vote as long it isn't more than 15 years since you last registered

You can register by mail to vote in the district you were last a registered voter in

You can grant a trusted family member your 'proxy', to vote on your behalf

Your proxy voter can vote by mail for you

The General Election is on may 6th

They need to have the mail in ballot 11 days before the General Election

Fucking Awesome right"?

It is only 13 years since I last voted

I remember my old address in the UK, although it is 100+ miles from my actual "home" address

My brother, Weaselcatcher, is a sergeant in the police, and a decent guy. My best friend I might say (and we share the same political proclivities)

He knows how to use a mailbox

It was early April at this point

That would give us until April 25th/26th to get the mail in vote sent in

imagine my dismay when I got a text message from Sergeant Weaselcatcher this morning saying "Call me when you can, but please have drunk some coffee first". It turns out the fucking morons who put the site together neglected one key piece of information: the mail in vote is held before the regular ballot and the cut off was FORTY-MOTHERFUCKING-EIGHT GODAMNED HOURS AGO.

Due to the utter inability of some fuckwitted middel-manager not proofreading the website he had built I have had my constitutionally enshrined rights, enshrined for almost a thousand years, stolen from me. I am have no doubt that if I had financial and legal recourse I could get this fucking mornon Hng, Drawn and motherfucking quartered or some such. Or put in the motherfucking pillory on the steps of the Palace of Westminster. I would be first in line to nail his fucking ears to his fucking forehead. How dare you inefficiency, laziness and general moronic inability to perform basic tasks interfere with my rights. Fuck you. Fuck you to hell.

Article the Third:
I have started training in Muay Thai again. It's my third anniversary of being a mean, kickboxing motherfucker. I go to a new gym now, and I'm able to park for free a mile away and walk downtown looking like a stone cold motherfucker listening to my fight song. But my box/cup/dick protector was rubbing my crotch raw. So I took the extreme step of shaving my junk. Not the best plan I have had. Now I have itches where it is unseemly to scratch those itches.

Article the Fourth:
it's only fucking Thursday. Doubtless this will be updated before my birthday on Sunday.

Goddess of Destruction?

2010-04-12T09:34:00.000-05:00

Kali, Goddess of Death, Destruction & Rebirth, and Pain...

...And there she is folks, finally. Two hours under the tender care of Joe, at No Regrets Tattoo Emporium. Two hours. Two long, and surprisingly painful hours.

I'm booked back in early May for the colouring to begin, but noticed that the date coincides with some friends visiting from out of town for the Blues Awards, so I think I'll have to bump it to June. I can wait though. Did I mention that this one was painful...

For the father? Nothing.

2010-04-05T15:28:00.001-05:00

Usually, a new Faculty member has a percentage of her salary guaranteed. This is known as hard money. The university is promising you, for example, 9 months salary support for the first 5 years of your career (that's the tenure track). The rest is made up by our new TT prof securing grants and picking up courses to teach etc. and that's the soft money. That's the bit that sucks because if you can't get a grant funded your salary is only 75% of what it should be. And if you're a postdoc, for example, on someone's R01, and it isn't renewed, you're fucked because 100% of your salary is soft money.

a young professor joins the tenure track and tries to negotiate his start-up with the dean...

There are as many variations on this funding structure as there are academic institutions. I have a friend who is a non-tenure track assistant professor who has 9 months of support, and is primarily in a teaching position. He can't write large grants to pick up the other 25% of his salary because he doesn't run a research program. So he picks up as much extra teaching as he can during semester to add to his pay check, because summer is hard to get through when the money dries up. What he wasn't told until after he joined his institute was that he isn't allowed 'unexcused' absences for longer than a few days, and even though he isn't getting paid for the summer, he still has to be there. So his dreams of traveling or working on his book during this time are scuppered by having to be present on campus.

My position, indeed my entire Unit is funded by a budget that is neither hard, nor soft. We could call it flaccid money. We're funded by State dollars while we vie for a large institutional award from the National Institutes of Health. (The NIH are the paymaster general to which most of us beholden, in case there are any non-scientists out there.) being funded by State dollars was great while we were the golden child of the program. Money was always there, we generally got what we wanted, when we wanted it, and we've used the beneficence of our administrators to grow in new areas. However, we just got our grant review results back from the Great Paymaster General in Washington, DC and things are not looking so good suddenly. Our latest application was, to all intents and purposes, shit all over by the review panel. In my opinion (worth less than one whole internets dollar) they missed a lot of the great stuff we're proposing and can deliver, and instead focused on the few tiny, insignificant negative aspects of the application. Like not having enough experienced leadership, or a good enough marketing plan for some of our 'products' and 'deliverables'. Like I say, mere details! Look at teh awesome science bitchezz111!!!q1

Anyway, suddenly working here has become less secure. Our studly and tumescent budget is beginning to wilt, friends are not returning phone calls and I kind of feel like the guy who gets caught punking the principle's office. Everyone is laughing and joking and offering encouragement until he walks in the room and suddenly you are very, very alone and friendless...

The work my unit does covers areas outside our direct scientific remit and we offer a lot of support to our administration, forming a kind of 'academic computing' division. I'm told we're probably OK for year, and the administration will support us for at least one more budget cycle while they try and figure out what to do with us all. This is great, if true, because I am nominally in charge of a team of 8-12 people and now trying to cover my ass while looking out for them too is already starting to tear at my nerves.

Right now we're waiting to hear from the Grand Poobahs at the Top of the Stairs about our budget. I think this part is the hardest because I don't know if anyone will get cut in the next month or two (myself included). I am working on the assumption that we're going to be OK for one more year (budget year, not calendar year). Once I have a budget I can develop a timeline and come up with some ideas on how to save my staff. I'm hoping that some can be saved as a whole and move to another institute in town that is looking to pick up the pieces of the pie we dropped. Some I can likely get into our IT division as we try and combine all of the IT services on campus.

As for me. I'm exploring a few different options, but I think my time here is drawing to a close. I can visualise several options and outcomes for my team over the coming months, but I am reminded of Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam warning to the Lady Jessica, at the beginning of "Dune".

"The boy may be worth saving, but for the father, nothing!"

I knew they'd come round, eventually.

2010-04-01T13:32:00.000-05:00

As many of our academic Blog community know, Prof-like Substance and Professor in Training have both resigned their Tenure-Track assistant professor positions and are returning to academic postdocs, because, basically, being a PI sucks ass and being a postdoc is awesome. You just don't know it at the time.

Unfortunately a cadre of hit-diosgruntledocs has been dispatched from the freshly Unionized UC-system to 'terminate with extreme prejudice" these "traitors to the glorious cause".

Obviously both PlS and PiT were a bit upset, as were their respective families, at their impending being KILLED to DEATH by disgruntledocs. So, in the interests of preserving life, and getting more of my own shit done, I have agreed to welcome them both into the wonderful embrace of Academic Administration. It's kind of like being PI, in that you spend all your time in meetings, dying slowly on the inside whilst not getting any real work done, but there's no stinky lab work which we know everyone hates anyway.

So, welcome my new ~~bitches~~ ~~slaves~~ employees: Administrator-like Substance and Administrator in Training!

Random Mid-afternoon Blubfest

2010-03-23T13:13:00.000-05:00

credit: Victorian Web

For the first time in ages I sat at my computer and relaxed during my lunch break. And for the first time in ages I just cried.

I pottered over the BBC News website and saw this audio slide show about the restoration of Worcester Cathedral (pronounced Wooster, for my American reader...yes it's where the sauce comes from).

It is remarkably similar in superficial appearance to the Cathedral in my home town, and I found the views of Worcester and its surrounding countryside really moving.

I left home 18 years ago, and I emigrated 12 years ago. And I've gone back less and less frequently, and I am so fucking homesick it's unreal.

I don't think I could live there easily anymore, accustomed as I am to the freedoms I now enjoy, and I really consider myself an Anglo-American as opposed to a true Anglo-Saxon (I know that's a silly semantic difference).

but the weight of history is breathtaking. My home city now has plenty of history as long as you count recent history...birthplace of Elvis Presley and rock and roll, death of Martin Luther King and so on. But it's so recent. My country is only 234 years old for crying out loud! And that youth undergirds many American idioms.

The church in my home town, not the Cathedral, but the local church was founded in 98 AD for crying out loud! My local pub is at least twice as old than the country I now live in.

"Ye Olde Fighting Cocks", the oldest pub in England

So I watched the slide show and looked at those views, across a green & pleasant land, and I cried my eyes out. It's been 534 days since I was last back, and it's been too long.

I just had the perfect meeting!

2010-03-22T15:11:00.000-05:00

I'm Program Manager. That's like being a Project Manager really. I guess they gave me the "Program" part because I got on the executive pay scale finally and they needed to invent something for me. I basically look after a couple of academic units and a research unit. It's a lot of hats and it is getting complicated...

Because the main research Unit I administer is fairly modest, and they cover the majority of my base salary, I have been surviving on Excel spreadsheets and hand written notes. But we're finally reaching the point at which I need some decent P-M software to help me keep abreast of all the pies I have my fingers stuffed into....and as mixed metaphors go I think that may be the dumbest thing I have written for a while.

Image search for 'Bad Metaphor' lead me to this site.
I'd say my metaphor was as poor as this young man's thinking that a half grill was a good idea

Anyway, I found some really nice P-M software I want (can't find the link now...), but it's going to cost a couple of grand per year to use it, and I can't afford that. There are some other sources, like BaseCampHQ and Zoho Project but there but nothing that did exactly what I wanted, and if I have to pay I want it to exactly what I want, not mostly or nearly what I want.

Then I found out that one of my colleagues has built some software to help her with task/project management so we spoke and I asked if I could use it. She agreed and gave us a demo at a Team Meeting a few weeks back. It does pretty much what I want and because it's free and it's her toy she said she'd let me in the back-end and I could customize our section. It's PHP & HTML on top of a Drupal template, and I can do some tweaks with that (not much, yet, but some).

I've downloaded Drupal, and to help me learn how to run things from the back-end I grabbed MAMP too. MAMP is a bundled package giving you the MySQL and Apache servers you need to build websites. Don't actually run a website one off your hard drive though or you're in trouble. As all this was going on I then found out that Drupal has a low approval rating in some pipes of the interchoobes and the naysayers scream for Joomla or other pre-packaged bundles.

At this point I threw up my hands and haven't been back since...

...wow...threw up my hands. What a nice visual image. Epic metaphor FAIL is FAIL indeed. I am NOT searching for an image based on that search term while attached to work's interchoob connection!

Thus, I was stuck with a customizable P-M system I couldn't customize, which I had loaded all my main research Unit's projects into and there it sat. My boss was yelling at me to get it sorted, so I was yelling at my colleague to get me sorted and it was all very Keystone Cops.

Until this morning when my Wonderful Assistant and I sat down at an Executive Meeting she called...She is a wonder and I love her for helping my sorry ass out like this.

See, I'm used to running my own shit and taking care of my own shit and other gung-ho aphorisms that can't and don't apply when you're looking after a team of around a dozen people and 20+ ongoing projects. It works fine when you're a lab rat with limited horizons, but not in the wider world. I think this is the hurdle most of us face when we leave the world of postdoc science and venture out. We 'train' for the tenure-track, but we have no idea what it's like, TT or not, to handle the massive demands on your time and attention.

So, Wonderful Assistant told me she is getting pissed off sitting round playing sudoku and watching me run round in circles going bright red and screaming and not asking for help. She essentially told me if I didn't use her to the fullest of her capabilities she was going to quit. We talked for a long time about what my Unit needs to do and I explained the nature of my job to her: I spend 75% of my time putting out fires and building bridges; and she can't help much with that except with scheduling my insane fucking calendar. I spend 24% of my time doing "science-type stuff", and she can't help much with that because she doesn't have the requisite background and training. I spend 1% of my time, and 95% of my energy doing all the other shit that needs to be done, like screaming at my colleague because my boss is screaming at me to get the fucking P-M software working.

"Let me help," She said. "I can talk to your colleague for you and sort it out."

"But if I can't talk to her and get it done, how can you help?"

"At least me try!" She pleaded.

And at 2PM this afternoon there was a knock on my office door. Wonder Assistant and Colleague stood there and asked if I had time to chat...

...and fifteen minutes later I am sitting here typing this blog post; my list of corrections, additions and tweaks has been noted and already begun. Colleague was laughing, smiling, and 'no problem'ing the entire time, Wonder Assistant was taking notes on what I needed and generally looked rather pleased with herself, as well she should. And in 24hrs time I will have the customized P-M software I need, by Wednesday Wonder Assistant will have re-modified my previous entries & added the mountain of Academic tasks we look after, and on Friday I will sing her praises from the highest peak in this Ivory tower during Group meeting!

Random post about sex at conferences

2010-03-21T02:52:00.000-05:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man at a conference, away from his house, will do something stupid.

I like to hope, albeit in vain, that those men are the undergrads, grads, or junior postdocs who are using the excuse of being away from 'home' of trying to tap into a "primal" urge they have had to leave by the wayside because they have grown the fuck up.

They are single, alone, away from home and horny and are doing nothing more than their societal and genetic programming tells them.

Of course that's bullshit.

Men are men and that's not excuse. It is, however, a biological fact. We're horny little bastards. However...hey, that big lump of meat in your skull gives you the potential to not act like the pre-programmed walking dick you wish you were, but to tuck away your vacation ego and act like you would at home.

Dear reader, the point is, I speak from experience: I have been that d00d at the conference, and for every time I had random sexual encounters with a stranger, ther are countless times I treated a woman...a fellow scientist as an object.

Not interested, then fuck off, whose next. I've got 76hrs to go...And at the time, I thought I was a nice guy, but it was just OK...it's the conferences!

Then you grow up. If you're lucky. Fuck...if They are lucky.

Now as a grumpy old boss type thing, i am more busy trying to do my job at a conference. And of course I am older and wiser and shit like that.

(I fear the wine is REALLY is kicking in now).

So. To the point of this.

It is troubling to be at a conference, as I am, and watch the gender/sex/horny-at-a-conference issue arise during our time here. I walked a student back to her hotel room tonight and I resented the looks I got from other attendees. Because we're in the boonies and we don't know all the guests...so I will of course walk her back while she grabs her cigs/purse/wallet/ID etc.

I also stood outside her room while she looked for her sweater. And bless her innocence she asked me why I was stood outside her room.

I shouldn't have had to stand outside and make "excuses" (oh, I'm smoking a cigarette etc.), and then later, talk to her with her mentor about why I stood outside. But then again I shouldn't have had to explain about that although statistics say that 3/5 women say they have been sexually assaulted, from talking to my friends that that number is actually much closer to 10/10.

But the door swings both ways. And I shouldn't have had to have left that gorgeous boy at the poker table, despite his urgent mutterings about his mentor.

I shall return to this thesis when it isn't so late, and I am more cogent. There is a lot to discuss, but I challenge you, dear Reader, to relate your thoughts.

As a man is it "hell yeah, conference season!" As a woman is "Oh shit, conference season...". Where does gender labeling begin and end, and does the lack of normal boudries make a difference, or did *we* make that up too?

Oh, FFS!

2010-03-16T17:27:00.001-05:00

Dear sweet infant zombie baby jeesus time for a Tuesday RANT

I AM

A trained neuroscientist

A trained molecular biologist

At a stretch, an electrophysiologist

Have years of experience working with clinical data

Am really fucking good at combining my basic and clinical science skills

An awesome motherfucking troubleshooter, fire-putter-outer and problem solver

I AM NOT

Your godamned mother

A motherfucking graphic designer

Going to hold your goddamned hand every time you are given a new task

Going to tolerate much more of you not motherfucking listening to me when I goddamned tell you to motherfucking do something

I am going for a motherfucking beer while YOU fix the goddamned presentation i asked YOU to do two fucking weeks ago which we need for FRIDAY.

2010-03-08T08:52:00.000-06:00

Should be an interesting week. It has started badly enough.

In no particular order:

This afternoon I have my first annual review at work and I just deleted all the paperwork I need to get done by 10am

I have to get a poster finished for printing by noon, and I deleted my draft copy

I found out after getting in the shower this morning that my girlfriend had stolen my shampoo

I think she had also been using my razor because my face feels like sunburned sandpaper

I heard my congressman, Steve Cohen advocate jail-house retribution and murder on a morning radio show. Odd for a Democrat, albeit one who has seen friend's daughter paralyzed in a random act of gun-related violence

I saw a two car road accident outside my office as I was crossing the street

Twatoo Time!

2010-03-04T12:01:00.000-06:00

I love tattoos. I love tattoos on me and I love them on other people. I believe in self-expression and freedom of expression. I have 5 tattoos (and 8 piercings), and it's about to be 6.

I got my first tattoo when I was 28 (I think, it's all very hazy back then). I got it because my band was making some head way and it seemed an appropriate time to get some ink and "join the crew" (I'll let you decipher the fine balance between peer pressure and freedom of expression...the irony is not lost on me, I assure you).

I got my second tattoo when I quit my band, and I finally got a job after a long and horrid period of unemployment. It was a job that required re-entering into the horror and servitude I had been trying to flee from when I had quit my old job. I got my third tattoo when, because of the new job, I moved to the new city 1000+ miles away from everyone I knew and loved (the city I still live in now). Part of that tattoo makes up the avatar you see on the right hand side of the page. It is my favourite I think.

I got my fourth to celebrate my divorce and some other things in my life of note at that time, things I won't relate now. I have a photo of that one somewhere from when the ink was still nice and fresh. I'll try and find it (actually it's on my old blog, the other Some Lies, and I can't find out how to get back into the fucker right now).

I got my fifth to celebrate advancing on from Postdoctoral servitude into my current position. I didn't get it when I *got* the job, but to just celebrate the first glimmer of hope appearing on the horizon. That tattoo, in delightful "cell phone self-portrait" is presented for your edification, below:

Tell you what, you try taking a photograph of your own shoulder blade in the correct orientation with a fucking cell phone and see if you can do better!

Anyway, I have recently been offered a promotion at work, and I think it's time to finish what I started back in 2008 and get the fucking shoulder pieces finished. You see, like the sailors of days of yore had swallows tattooed on their chests, I want bulldogs tattooed on my shoulders. The swallows, so legend has it, signified "sailing home", because these birds would fly out from shore and herald proximity to land. (Should help you guess where I'm from too, because this is a tradition of a certain Northern European country).

and I guess my colourful spelling gives it away too.

But I digress!

Just as the sailors of yore had swallows to guide them home, I want Bulldogs watching my back while I'm far from home (and that's the last clue you're getting). So, 18 months or so after getting the tattoo started, I am getting it finished.

Tomorrow, Friday at 2PM local time, I go under the needle.

Or I would be, but having changed jobs twice and moved offices/labs numerous times, I've gone and lost the motherfucking JPEG I made the stencil from. The closest I can find on the interchoobs right now is this...

...which is less than fucking useless because it's 1"x1", the resolution is ultra-low and it's in contrast.

Dude. Fuck. Sigh.

So now I have to look like a complete twat and call Joe, my artiste du ink, and find out if he can trace the stencil on my right shoulder so he can reproduce it on the left.

If there is a fresh post here with "tattoo" in the title this weekend, you'll know I succeeded, and there will pictures. Actualy, fuck it, even if I can't find the stencil, I'm getting a fucking tattoo tomorrow. There'll be pictures soon.

Moderate this, bitchboy

2010-02-25T16:41:00.000-06:00

Yeah, comment moderation, or at least word verification is now active. Sorry, I hate it too, but if one more spambot tells me my dick is too small I'm going to develop a complex.

IRB: Irritating Risible Banal

2010-02-15T17:23:00.001-06:00

I understand the need for Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). There have been too many travesties of justice committed on the defenseless and innocent in the name of progress.

Or, to put it another way, back before we were Enlightened about the Rights of Man we could be real assholes to each other. Although I would encourage anyone who is interested to look beyond your politically correct textbook, or CITI training manual and read about the work done and understand the time period in question. Paul Offit's "Vaccinated" is a good example, dealing with the use of mentally handicapped children as "guinea pigs" for vaccine research. Maurice Hilleman's defence of this tactic does have some credibility given the state of Human Subjects Protection at the time (or lack thereof). Not all of "Them" were soulless monsters. Perceptions were different back then and we must be careful of using too broad a brush stroke when applying the tar and feathers. Hilleman is a fucking hero and there should be a statue to him in every schoolyard in america.

Anyway, I digress from my rant. Ahem, excuse me while I work up the necessary ire, and if you are easily offended turn away now for this might be bluer than most.

As I said, I understand the need for Institutional Review Boards and the necessity of getting neutral, experienced, third-party observation of any protocol involving human subjects. However, you are taking the fucking piss when i am trying to submit an exempt IRB and it still takes, literally, hours of fucking paperwork. I am working on an IRB for an anonymous survey of the users of the database I administer (maybe a few dozen people). All we want to know is whether, in their opinion, the DB is performing its function: making their data collection & analysis easier. There's no possible repercussion for a negative answer, nor is there any possible repercussion for failing to provide Consent and thus declining to take part in our survey. It is 8 motherfucking questions about whether the DB works as we promise and, if not, what can we do to make it better.

I spent all day Thursday and Friday working on it. I got maybe a third of the way through... I think. The system we have to use (automated, of course) provides no guidance as to your % completion. I spent an hour or two just struggling with the second page of the questionnaire because it kept asking me for information that wasn't actually included in any of the possible combinations of questions being asked. I ended up calling for help on that one.

By the end of the day on Friday I thought I'd made pretty good progress.

Well, i just logged on to have another crack at it, and it came up with a nice official looking dialogue box telling me a new version of the form had been come out and I needed to convert my current form to the new one. Apparently someone has a pretty fucked up sense of humour, because "convert" apparently means DELETE pretty much everything I did last week. The only thing remaining is the motherfucking "title" page and of course, the second page that I got stuck on last week.

Thank you very fucking much. Whoever the fuck designed this system wants their fucking arse kicking. I know Faculty bleat endlessly about the amount of administrative bullshit they have to wade through, and I really feel for them. This is not what they signed up for (or rather, it is, but isn't clearly marked on the tin). It is wankery like this make the practice of Science such a fucking chore.

If I'm having this much trouble with a fucking exempt survey, then imagine my dread of the next one: requesting permission to harvest Electronic Medical Records for a text-mining/data-mining study for an Alzheimer's grant.

The fucking President and all his little congressmen (and congresswomen) run around like fucking chickens with their balls cut off wailing about how we need to do Big Science and Spend the Public money wisely, and they event futile, irritating piss-poorly-planned hurdles like the motherfucking HITECH Act without the vaguest consideration of the fucking consequences of their actions.

Fucking genius! Make us encrypt EMR and Personal Health Information to Federal standards (FIPS 140-2). And make it a scary Act by empowering the very division of government (Health & Human Services) that enforces it with the need to fine failure to enact in order to fund it's own witch hunt. But of course, don't take into account the fact that the manufacturer of the world's most popular web-browser doesn't auto-support this.

Assholes. (uSoft and the Gubmint).

And of course They demand that the only ay to try and get some fucking money to do your research is to try and do Big Science and gather medical records for the good of mankind, but make the system that protects those records either (probably) corrupt it's pointless, or so impossible to manage completion is needlessly Sisyphean.

Log Phase

2010-02-15T10:02:00.001-06:00

There's a meme doing the rounds about "why we blog". It started with Martin Fenner over at nature Network a year or so ago, and post-Scienceblogs vs. Nature Network.

(teh ghey fight, if ever there was one...Seriously. I'm not going to get into the whole thing here (yet), but what a fucking waste of electrons that row was. They are two different media, catering to two different audiences, with two different operating paradigms. Fucking bullshit, comparing electrophysiological analysis of NMDA Receptors in HEK cells, v.s patching native neurons in organotypic slices. Yeah, you can address the same basic questions, but you're look at two completely different fucking systems.)

Anyway, the meme has started up again via Steffi Suhr. I'm not one for scribbling about that stuff. This is a (mostly anonymous) semi-rant blog and I'm fairly sure, Dear Reader, you don't give a fuck about my motives for blogging...

...but...

...I was looking at the weekly email from my stat counter peeps today though, and saw something modestly exciting. And thus I'm going to break my own embargo on writing about why I write.

I have been a blogger for something like 6 years now. My first blog was virtually identical to this one and was inspired by the discovery of the first blog I ever read. It's gone now, long defunct as the author/blogger has moved on in his life. He was (maybe still is) an inspired musician and comedian, very entertaining writer and an associate in the same musical scene I moved in when I lived Up North. I saw what he was writing and enjoyed it greatly. After a while I saw through some of the humour, and realised there was catharsis in his writing. He was exorcising some daemons and exercising others. I wondered if I could do the same thing, seeing as I was in an interesting and transitional period of my life; I was separating from my wife, but still living in her house while she worked in Florida, I had just quit my job and was unemployed and almost an illegal immigrant, and I played drums in a fairly well known local rock band. I felt I had enough material to write, but wondered, "could I write".

Yes, it turns out I could.

Sometimes, you, Dear Reader, have been kind enough to leave a comment or two complementing me on my writing or praising a somewhat demented turn of phrase. Well, back in ought-four I started the first version of Some Lies and slowly, slowly, slowly accumulated readers and commenters. I learned the cardinal rules of blogging through trial and error (its funny how there are now websites devoted to telling bloggers the most obvious fucking things).

Use pictures (see below)

Keep it to the point (bollocks to that)

LINK OUT

TRACKBACK

COMMENT ON OTHERS' BLOGS

These last three are how you accumulate readers, and without readers, you don't get comments. And despite what anyone says, we all love to get comments.

Despite the pleasing sibilance of the aphorism, If You Build It, They won't come. because no one knows you're there and if someone does stumble upon you, you're just noise in an infinite system. You need to stand out. There are other tricks too (like using Technorati and Vlog (if that even still exists)), because they force-direct traffic to your page.

Anyway, I gradually watched my stats climb and it was fucking brill. At it's height (right before I killed the blog) I was getting thousands of hits each week and averaging 20+ comments per post. Not the most awesome comment count, but pretty damned good, considering maybe 1 in 20-50 of your readers will actually leave a comment. Especially on blogs like mine, because they tend to be the kind of blogs that build a comment-clique and folks are hesitant to jump in just to say "nice story" (which is a real shame).

Through my blog I mapped and told the stories associated with my changing life. I blogged through my move to my current location, my trouble with a long distance relationship and the exciting decline into alcoholism and emotional meltdown that went with watching my career as a postdoctoral (post-PhD/grad school) scientist collapse in ruins around me. The blog gave me an outlet and through it was able to hone my writing skillzorz, and actually pick up other writing gigs.

When it came time to re-direct my focus, clean my fucking shit up and move on with my career/life I used the blog as a crutch. And when I finally transitioned away from ~~the awful fucking diseased soul destroying hell of the lab bench~~ traditional basic science into clinical administration, I killed the blog. It is still stored on Google's servers, and I go and re-read now and then, and I've lifted some old posts from there for shits and giggles.

For reasons of my own I wanted an outlet for my writing/rambling/musing and frothing mental ejaculations and decided to resurrect Some Lies. And here we are, Dear Reader, a year into the new Blog. It still has that New Blog Smell because I don't post as frequently as I should. But that might change now I have discovered MarsEdit. I get to write offline in mark-up text, and post when I'm ready at the click of a button.

Fucking. Brill.

And on top of that I just saw my stat counter reflecting a log 0.5 increase in readership hits! (Don't worry, non scientists lurker, I made that up. I'm not sure what log 0.5 is either).

Oh Joy! I'm building traffic, my ~~loins~~ vanity is swelling and I have an easy and accessible means of writing that doesn't involve the crappy fucking TextEditor on my Mac.

Thank you, Dear Reader, for ~~pooping~~ popping by. I'm going to be making a few cosmetic changes around here (including more pics, see #1 above). Let me know if you think they suck, or even better, tell me how awesome they are and how much you wish you were just like me.

Synchopathic

2010-02-10T18:06:00.001-06:00

I use a Mac laptop at work, but have an htc/Android phone. This means I have issues trying to get a calendar that does "everything" for me. I have a very busy schedule most days, with lost of meetings and teleconferences and shit like that to take care of, so it is important that if I use a calendar it is synchronized between platforms.

On my Mac I use Microsoft Entourage. This is because, essentially, I have to. My boss uses it and thus everyone under her uses it (or Outlook for those still on PCs shudder). Entourage does come with a fairly nifty calendar and I can color code events by 'meaning". This is so I can scan my day at a glance: I have meetings in green, teleconferences in pink, seminars in orange etc. I have also set the server to auto-forward all email sent to my work account to my Gmail address, so I get my email on my work phone without having to log into the work email servers remotely.

I need to be careful when replying to email though, because I don't, for example, want the Executive Vice-Chancellor getting emails from "Tideliar"... (especially as Prof-like Substance pointed out, and as some of you now know, because my MeatSpace moniker does also appear next to Tideliar if I email you).

Now, you'd think that if one can pseudo-synch email like this, there can be no earthly, nor indeed, heavenly, reason why one might not also synch calendar events. And one would be sorely mistaken.

I have just spent an hour trying to synch Entourage Calendar (my laptop) with Google Calendar (my phone).

can't be done

It's a known flaw that no one has fixed yet.

"But Tideliar," I hear you cry. "You can synch your Entourage calendar with iCal on the Laptop, and then synch that with Google Calendar."

Yes, dear Reader. Yes you can. But it's a one-way fucking synch. I can synch everything from my Google calendar (phone) to iCal (laptop), and everything from my Entourage calendar (laptop) to my iCal (laptop)...and you can see the inherent flaw in this plan. If I need to use the Google calendar on my phone I am fucked. iCal is a sweet little whore that will take it from anybody, where as Entourage and Google are the expensive courtesans waiting for the right cock and paycheck.

Bastard Buggery Fuck, as old Mother Tideliar was wont to say in times of angst.

So, the only way round this is to either enter events on my Google calendar (Laptop) as they arrive, or manually update Google as my Entourage calendar fills up.

And yes, I know this shouldn't be a hassle, but there are some annoyances, like accepting invitations in Entourage (because we all use the same system in the office), and then remembering to go back and update my Google calendar.

And additionally, and importantly, it's 2010, and these problems have been known about for 4 or 5 years and I don't want to have to fucking deal with them to be perfectly honest. I shouldn't HAVE to deal with them.

Isn't that point of all this sodding technology?

well I've never done that before

2010-02-05T15:02:00.001-06:00

I was pottering around the Blogosphere, as is my wont, eating a 3 Musketeers (if a Yank) or a Milky Way (if a Brit). I lumbered over to the EXCELLENT and full of WIN Scary Duck for he does make me laugh and squirt coffee out of my nose on the keyboard (even if I'm not drinking coffee!) and saw a post about a band I didn't called The High Fidelity.

Apparently The High Fidelity was/is the band that evolved from the awesomely good Soupdragons (Glasgow's second finest export after my mate Lefty). Well, Scary Duck had linked a couple of The High Fidelity videos for his reader's perusal and I had a click.

And I liked it.

And I went to iTunes and downloaded the fucking album. On the basis of a fellow blogger's admitedly biased opinon and the ravings of the usual fucknut hordes that comment on YouTube videos.

This had better be good. Or else Mr. Duck (Scary) will find himselkf KILLED TO DEATH by an irate ex-pat Englishman who's down ten bob on a dodgy techno/pop album from 2002.

Does it work?

2010-02-03T16:43:00.001-06:00

A chum over at Nature Network alerted me to a groovy "offline" blog writer called MarsEdit. I'm playing with my 30 day free trial...Let's see if it works!

Sweet nectar of sunshine where have you been!

2010-01-15T14:50:00.000-06:00

Holy shit. I mean, whattheeverlivingbuggeration!

I have discovered the nectar of the GODS!! What the fuck have I been doing all these years! I must be blind... a fool!

Dr. Pepper Diet is FUCKINGDELICIOUSLYAWESOMESAUCE!

I HATE the original Dr. Pepper though. Root beer tasting shit water. But this stuff. FUCK ME...

Like liquid sunshine, wrapped up in your first kiss and coated in the feeling of awe the first time you realised you were in love!

Godamn! Now I'm horny too!

...it might, of course, just be the fact that the sun is shining for the first time in weeks, the temperature has risen to a giddy 15C (61F) and I have a three day weekend starting in 2 hours time. My sap is rising and I'm feeling deliciously sinful. And I thank Diet Dr. Pepper for it.

....coming down off this buzz tomorrow when I'm hungover, it's raining and the temperature has dropped to 40F is going to fucking suckass, and I don't think the DDP is going to help...

Let the mayhem begin!

2010-01-07T15:28:00.000-06:00

Fuck me. We're a week into the bloody year and it's absolute mayhem already.

I'm stuck between two very senior faculty who communicated poorly when working on a collaboration for a grant application. Now they're fighting over gets to be Principle Investigator (the boss position), and it has devolved to actually deleting each others names from the fucking budget on every iteration that goes round!

What the fuck?

And then another Faculty member came to my group asking for help with an NIH Training Grant. That's due in 2 fucking weeks!! TWO WEEKS! What the everlovingbuggeration?! She asked me if I could help her write it.

NO.

I will edit and do some basic project management for you, but I don't do education and I don't write bloody training grants. My name won't be on it and I won't get any money out of it. Sorry mate. No free lunches at The Ivory Tower Cafe.

Then, just now, one of our Very Senior Faculty, and Chair of one of the large clinical divisions called me in my office in a screaming panic that someone had stolen his data. he has a $40,000,000 (yes, that's 7 zeroes) clincial project and had been storing his data locally, in his office. Someone obviously pointed out that this is a Very Bad Idea and is why data get compromised and that folks like me exist to prevent this from happening by running centralised secure servers. Anyway, they moved his data to a remote server on campus and bob's yer uncle, it's gone.

He was about to call the fucking FBI when someone pointed out he should probably call me first. I called our IT department who found that a Windows Update had activated the local firewall and so his data was actually, theoretically, too secure!

Anyway. At least that was solved easily. I have a LOT of issues with our IT group. They provide a below zero level of support sometimes, and for certain issues (like now...the only Linux DBA is on vacation and so of course one of our Linux servers has gone down and no one can do anything. It took a week of emailing and calling to find out they couldn't do anything for the next week. What the fuck is that about eh?)

However, some of the guys there are fucking awesome and full of WIN. I wish e could get something unified going on. Between academic computing (essentially my operation) and Information Technology there need to be a very high level of support and, dammit, camraderie. We are all in this together, we serve the same fucking population, albeit from different perspectives. Why can't we get along?

It wasn't like this in other places I've worked, and it's making all of us look bad. I am getting fed up of receiving shitty emails and phone calls for things that IT should have taken care of. And I am fairly sure they could say the same thing.

New Year Resolutions

2009-12-21T12:59:00.000-06:00

Hello Reader,

Well, I'm on my last day of work before taking a few days annual leave and then our Administrative Closing. My institute is very good to its staff (probably because they pay us so badly), and with just three days annual leave I get almost 2 full weeks vacation. I'd love to be going somewhere or doing something, but a combination of no money and no travel visa mean I am stuck in this city I call home for those 2 weeks. I likely will be bored out of my fucking mind by the end of the week.

Anyway, time to think about New Year's Resolutions and so on and so forth. Mine are easy, and one has been a constant for the last few years, which shows how successful I've been at keeping it.

1. Quit Smoking.
I am a smoker, and have been on-and-off for about 20 years. Like most addicted and habitual smokers I love and hate it with equal measure. The long term health implications are horrifying though, and as I expand into early middle age I really REALLY need to quit/stop/cease & desist. So, wish me luck, Dear Reader. This one is tied into #2 on my list and I hope they go together.

2. Get back training.
I've been training/playing at Muay Thai, or Thai Boxing, for almost three years, but recently due to work and family I had to take a break. I meant to take a break for a couple of weeks and it has stretched into almost three months. I've lost nearly 10lbs (4-5 Kg), and it's not healthy. Because I'm not training I'm also more inclined to go for a pint (or two or three) after work, and obviously I'm still smoking. Muay Thai is famous not only for being one of the most brutal martial arts, but also one of the most aerobic, so getting back into training should help me with #1. And, of course, give me more stories of brutal and painful injuries to share. So far the list is 2 knockouts (with resultant concussions), two broken noses, four broken ribs, one dislocated finger, one cracked shin, one cracked foot, one dislocated fracture of the toe. Fucking brilliant!

3. Time Management
One of the reasons I had to take time off from training was that I was getting seriously behind in my non-direct work duties. Like most scientists I don't stick to the 40hr work weed. When I was a labrat I did more, but I still put in 50+hrs each at the day job. On top of this I'm taking a few graduate level courses to get a Certificate in Clinical Project Management. My training is in molecular genetics and neuroscience (with a light dusting of electrophysiology/biophysics), but now I'm an Administrator (ooh that cursed word) in a Clinical Science Institute, I need to pad the old resume out a bit.

Last semester was Biostatistics (excellent fun, but very time consuming with homework), and Fundamentals of Clinical Investigation. Finals have been taken and I'm happy to say I passed Biostats, and should have passed FCI barring a complete fuck up on the final exam. It was to critically evaluate a clinical study (using Zoledronic Acid (a bisphosphonate) post-operatively to reduce re-fracture and mortality after traumatic hip fracture, if you're curious) and I hope I did well. Seemed like a good study, and they certainly stuck to the CONSORT review outlines.

Anyway, on top of this I am on the Board of Directors for a national charity. We represent a very substantial number of people and have been taking a little heat recently for focusing too much on the small/procedural issues, and not the "larger" picture. Well, that's partly because the charity is young, and we've been working very hard on getting the organisational aspects of the charity in place, and now we're looking to expand. This position is time consuming enough, but I have been nominated for one of the Governance Chair positions on an internal committee and it is going to take a amassive amount of my time. I really struggled with getting everything done this year and got some stick for not keeping up woth everything I needed to do. Things are going to be tougher next year. I thought about resigning my position, but then lookerd at some of my fellow Board members. Without doubt they are excellent, motivated and talented people. Some are in the middle of mid-career job transitions and one of our more senior Board members just accepted a Chair at a very prestigious medical school.

If they can do all this and keep up, why can't I? no excuses Dr. Tideliar.

So, between my Board duties, and classes in Epidemiology and Legal & Ethical Aspect of Clinical Research, I am going to be very busy. Quitting smoking will add an hour a day, or so, on to my work week. And getting to the gym will keep me out of the pub and bring some focus back into my life. And that focus i can reflect in my job and extra-curricula actives.

Fuck, there's a certain, beautiful symmetry to my plan huh? I must be a genius or something.

What are you planning for next year? Maybe we can all encourage each other in 2010.

Merry Christmas, Dear Reader,

T

2 weeks?

2009-12-16T16:01:00.001-06:00

Dear Reader,

Fuck. Sorry. Really busy right now.

Building webpages

Forgetting to sit finals for biostats

Sitting (late) finals for Biostats

Sitting Clinical investigation finals

Getting my house ready for the Grandmother Invasion in a couple of days (actually failing at this, because we don't have a bed for her sleep in yet...)

Being generally fucking awesome (although in desperate need of a haircut)

...normal service will resume when I once more have to write 500 words of filth laden detritus upon you. Next week, probably.

What a bunch of wankers!

2009-12-01T13:01:00.000-06:00

Thanks to the Lay Scientist and their new Carnival of History I have discovered 'mongst other Things, a most won'drous new Blog. Hi thee at once, nae, sooner, if thou canst to:

Georgian London

As a Londer myself (albeit, barely), and an avid amateur historian I can think of no finer way to pass my idle lunchours than exploring Georgian London (and often, by extension, Britain) than Lucy Inglis' blog.

And to make matters better, the first post I arrive at is something near and dear to my heart, ~~and furtive scrabbling hands~~...

ahem,

Anyway, go check out A Frotted History... in church Mr. Pepys? Good grief!

Are you taking the piss?

2009-11-23T12:31:00.000-06:00

I'm all about cultural sensitivity and stuff, and I try and bit a politically correct to respect my fellow man. However, I do not subscibe to the rampant PC and CS bullshit that goes around and is used as an excuse to promote any old bollocks that any old bloke wants because it's his/her "right" to a certain belief.

Fuck. Off.

So, I was bloody surprised to find out that thanks to "National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month" we're having a "Informative Session & Presentation" (WTF does that mean? As opposed to a what?) on...

"Medicinal Plants and Backyard Herbs"
Natural Healing Remedies Inspired by the Native American Culture (Cherokee)

Are you having A FUCKING LAUGH?!

We're a medical School. An accredited Medical College!!! FUCKING HERBALISM? ARE YOU TAKING THE PISS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!

From the speakers' bio: "Her early training in herbalism came from walking the fields and woods of west Tennessee as a child."

What the ever-loving fucking pisswank does that mean? I walked the fields and woods of South Hertfordshire as a child, but at no point have I thought that it entitled me to some motherfucking herbalist shamen-like knowledge, other than how to avoid stinging nettles and badger shit.

I've been warned about making waves about this because I'll be construed as a racist and "hater". Thankfully my girlfriend is 25% Native American & 75% Africa American.

And the best defence is a good offence...

Statistics Don't Lie!

2009-11-23T09:48:00.000-06:00

New rankings for the most dangerous cities, and even neighbourhoods were released out today. Delightful Memphis is the 10th most dangerous city in the US, which is nice.

Our local ~~douchebags~~ hoodlums screwed up this weekend though, when we had a full FIVE murders; but they were too late to affect our national rankings. Poor timing lads, I mean that 19 year college kid you shot to death outside the library: wasted (literally). Although with murders regularly committed by teenagers (the youngest arrested in the aforementioned shooting was 16, the eldest just 19) , maybe it's an inexperience thing. a few years in the FedPen, and the advanced training this provides, should ensure a better result next time.

New this year were neighbourhood stats too. And although we made only a poor 10th place nationally, it was great to see Memphis ranking up with Richmond, VA; Dallas, TX and NY, NY as having multiple neighboorhoods on the crime-map. Our two neighbourhoods have an average risk of 1 in 7 for someone passing through (although I think they mean living there) of being a victim of a violent crime.

Fucking hell.

See it IS normal!

2009-11-04T14:37:00.000-06:00

From today's edition of Nature, about an article in the Public Library of Science (PLoS).

Nature 462, 14 (5 November 2009) | doi:10.1038/462014b; Published online 4 November 2009

Animal behaviour: Fruit-bat fellatio

PLoS One 4, e7595 (2009)

Libiao Zhang of Guangdong Entomological Institute in China and his colleagues have documented what may be the first case of regular fellatio in adult animals other than humans.

They report that female short-nosed fruit bats (Cynopterus sphinx) licked their mate's penis during 14 of 20 observed copulations. Matings that involved licking lasted significantly longer than those that did not.

Possible functions for this behaviour include stimulation to prolong copulation and assist fertilization; mate guarding; antibacterial effects; and the detection of chemicals assisting in mate choice.

The authors say their observations could suggest a possible adaptive benefit for the activity in this species.

Whiplash!

2009-10-29T14:23:00.000-05:00

How fucking good is that song? Seriously?! What the ever-living buggeration!

The whole motherfucking album just makes you want to go fucking run and punch someone/thing a hard as you can in the face with your other hand raised in the motherfuckin DEVILS SALUTE!

Fuck Yeah!

Here on the stage the Marshall noise
is piercing through your ears
It kicks your ass kick your face
Exploding feeling nears
Now is the time to let it rip
To let it fuckin' loose
We are gathered here to maim and kill
Cause this is what we choose

Adrenaline starts to flow
You're thrashing all around
Acting like a maniac

The show is through the metal is gone
It is time to hit the road
Another town Another gig
Again we will explode
Hotel rooms and motorways
Life out here is raw
But we will never stop
We will never quit
cause we're Metallica

Adrenaline starts to flow
You're thrashing all around
Acting like a maniac

You Proof!

2009-10-27T15:15:00.000-05:00

I am slogging my way through the User manual for our Clinical Database management tool. This is the version incorporating all edits from three non-native English speakers since the last review of Document version 2 earlier in the year. The team have done a wonderful job, but this is a long and hard process and I need more coffee. It was 42 pages long when i started, I am on section 2 (of 7) and it's over 50 pages already.

However, it could be worse...They have to double check the documentation on the source code.

All 1,000,000 lines of it...LOLz

Oops I did it again!

2009-10-27T10:01:00.000-05:00

Damn this fucking internets!

All the debate and chat about anonymity. Prof Like Substance mentions he has deleted posts after realising he was too close to revealing something. Professor in Training has been worried and self-edited. Damn Good Technician was outed in her previous lab, leading to acrimonious...acrimony. Grand Inquisitor was identified by disgruntled persons (un)known, who hacked his blog. Female Science Professor has some interesting posts on the topic. And Comrade Physioprof said Fuck, a lot, about this very issue.

I used to have another Blog, with the same title, that ran for several years until I was outed on a web-forum I moderate. Not a big deal, and a lot of my readers knew me anyway, but it necessitated closing and locking the blog once I'd made a few life changes and certainly, before I changed jobs and had to pretend to be a grown-up.

Now, I'm no technophobe, but like Stephen Fry said recently, I have the terrible habit iof acting without thinking, of opening my mouth and letting whatever (to me) witty aphorism, or apt riposte is curdling in my brain, slough out of my cakehole with nary a thought for the consequences. I tend to do the same thing with my actions: I am desperately impulsive, which gets me in no end of trouble.

I opened a Twitter account, and promptly, without thinking, linked my user name to my meatspace moniker. That was dealt with quickly, and I think indexing has buried any knowledge of my true identity. However, I was pottering around on Posterous, replying to a post on Brain Gym, that bedevilment of woo-science that infiltrates schools, universities and now medical Schools (seriously! What-the-ever-buggering fuck are you doing A) believing in Brain Gym, if you have an MD, and B) doing teaching it to your Med Students?). Well, the option came to post my comment to Facebook, so without thinking I said Yes! Share my thoughts with the world, for I am nothing if not vain & opinionated, and that is why I invented the internet.

And thus it came to be, my post, linked under my user name, Tideliar, linked to this page, has just been flashed across my Facebook page, which is under my meatspace moniker. And subsequently flashed across the homepages of all 400+ of my "friends", a lot of whom are work colleagues, who will be appalled to find some of the filth I've vomited forth on this site.

Let the editing begin...

I don't fucking believe it.

2009-10-22T18:39:00.000-05:00

I want a death match between gates and jobs right now.

Why oh why oh why oh why do little things like keyboard shortcuts have to differ between Mac & PC?

Like "jump back one word" vs "jump back one page"?

I only ask, because, say, for example, you're taking an online test, and the system is set for a single attempt. So, when you hit the wrong combination and it jumps back a whole motherfucking page, the system locks you out as if you'd submitted the test.

Imagine doing something so unutterably fucking stupid when you were only halfway through the test.

Imagine what a complete fuckwit you would feel like. Especially if you were the Project Manager for the office that oversees and administers the system.

Just imagine how stupid and irritated you'd feel right now. And what a bowel-looseningly cringing and fawning email you would have to send to the Head Instructor begging to be let back in over the weekend so you could finish said test.

Goddamned, motherfucking son of a fucking bitch.

What the everliving F*** is your problem? Part III

2009-10-12T15:27:00.000-05:00

To the ignorant, shit-kicking, fucktard behind me line at the deli today:

So they don't have iced-tea. Big fucking deal. Was it really worth a ten minute rant at the poor cunt standing behind the counter, who quite clearly cannot do anything about the fact that his employer doesn't carry iced-tea?

Oh, wait! They DO have iced-tea, just not the brand you want to drink! Oh, well it's fine to launch into a fucking ignorant, race-fueled rant about "them damned foreigners" in the middle of Einstein's Bagels then. Of course. We all wanted to know your views on "everything that's wrong with this country nowadays" because they don't have Lipton Fucking Iced-Motherfucking Tea.

"I don't drink any of that foreign muck. This is America, and we don't like foreign muck!" Was a work of rhetorical genius, made doubly ironic by the copper tint to your badly permed hair proclaiming your European ancestry. I, as a foreigner, felt especially welcomed to your city, as did my Nigerian colleague, and I'm sure the two Indian students in front of us were overcome with joy too.

"When I was in Boston they didn't even ask if I want sweet, or unsweetened, or even offer me any NutraSweet...that's why I won't live nowhere like that. They don't understand how things need to be done in the South."

Awesome. You geographically challenged fucking bigot. You predicate your entire, godforsaken, blighted existence on the basis of the availability of fucking Iced Motherfucking Tea? Seriously? You need to go fuck yourself. Really, you do.

You define, sum up and personify everything that is wrong with the racially charged Southern US. I know you, and I know your type. Making comments at them damned uppity coloureds, and never mind the Mexicans or the Jews. All things foreign are to be feared and reviled, and everything that is white and good lives here in the South. And is decorated with Confederate flags, and maintained by white folk. God fearin' church-goin' hypocritical lazy motherfuckers like you.

God Bless America.

Dr. Ruth Kirschstein has died...

2009-10-07T09:38:00.000-05:00

A sad day indeed. From NIH Director Francis Collins:

Dear NIH Family,

We are all deeply saddened by the news of Dr. Ruth Kirschstein's death last evening. She died peacefully, after battling a long illness. Our hearts go out to Ruth's husband, Dr. Al Rabson, and their son, Dr. Arnold Rabson.

Ruth embodied the spirit of the NIH. She was an icon. She was loved and admired by so many at the NIH, across the medical research community, among hundreds of members of Congress, and around the world. Knowing Ruth, she would cringe if she heard us praise her--modesty was one of her strongest suits. Dr. Kirschstein couldn't, however, argue with the facts about her service to the NIH that spanned more than 50 years. She was the first female Director of an NIH Institute, NIGMS. She was the Deputy Director of the NIH, acting NIH Director, and senior advisor to multiple NIH Directors. There are few at the NIH who have not been touched by her warmth, wisdom, interest, and mentorship. She worked diligently on breaking the mystery of polio and developing the Sabin vaccine. Her many other accomplishments are too numerous to list. We will have an opportunity for the NIH family to pay tribute, reflecting upon the life and lessons of one of our greatest leaders, according to her and her family's
wishes, at a future date.

Ruth worked up to her last days. Last week, in fact, I was on a conference call with her, and her insightful contribution made it clear she had not missed a beat.

I know I speak for all of the NIH and our entire community, when I say that the world has lost one of its dearest, most dedicated public servants, one with a huge heart and brilliant mind. We will miss her always.

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.,
Director, NIH

Sod this for a game of soldiers!

2009-09-25T16:36:00.001-05:00

I'm on vacation as of......NOW!

Albeit, a stay-cation. With family in town. Including a screamy 3 year old.

But!

I'm out of the office until Wednesday. Hooray!

But!

I will have my laptop, be on email, working on my biostats homework. And I keep my G1 powered up and active, so I'll be getting the daily minutiae and bullshit.

FUCK!!!!

I suck at vacationing!!

What the Everliving F*** is Your problem? Pt. II

2009-09-22T16:38:00.000-05:00

For a resolution to Part I: he was helped to understand the error of his ways and chose to forgo his poorly timed vacation.

To part the Second!

I am going out of town for a conference in a few weeks, to a city I love from afar: Chicago! now, I know we're in a time of budgetary woes and so forth, so I have gone out of my way to cover costs and reduce expenses as much as possible.

Firstly, I am traveling with two colleagues from work (two of the co-authors on the presentation I'm giving) and we are driving for fucks sake. It's a 10 hour journey. We are not flying we are fucking driving. We are not taking a 2 hour jaunt aboard a modern sky-liner to get there, because it is expensive. We are fucking driving for ten goddamned motherfucking hours to help save money.

Secondly, I am sharing a room with another colleague (from a different institute) when I get there. I could have got my own motherfucking suite at the motherfucking Hilton, but I did the right thing, and called up a friend and we figured out a room share.

Thirdly, I got pre-approval from the Executive Management Board of the Institute I work for to go on this conference. I wrote a memo to the Board, I drew up a budget and justification and I plead my case. They were so swayed by my rhetoric and oratory that of course they approved. It's only costing $2000 (that was before we decided to drive for fuck's sake. It's even less now).

So, I would say I've done pretty fucking stand up job of Doing My Bit, or being a Team Player, if you will. So now you might understand my frustration that I find out just three weeks before leaving, just AFTER the cut-off date to get the hotel booking fee re-funded that they won't cover my motherfucking hotel room!

Corporate, in their infinite fucking wisdom have canceled all purchasing and advance privileges for everyone, everywhere in the whole goddamned System. This arrives on top of my partner not getting paid for two goddamned, camelwanking months by the inept, corrupt and thoroughly fucking useless local City Government. So, I have killed my credit cards (and credit), and emptied my savings (not that she gives a good goddamn, but there you go, that's a rant for another day), and now I'm told I have to fork out $800 for a fucking hotel room, and I might not get it reimbursed!

Which bit of "work related expenses" do they not get? Do you really think I want to sit in fucking car for 10 fucking hours and get up at 6 in the fucking morning to give a presentation? Do you think that after working non-stop for a year trying to get this fucking Institute funded and efficient I wouldn't rather go on a fucking vacation?

I am told that the only option is to write a begging letter to the VP Finance and essentially beg for a...payday advance?

So, they'll cover my expenses.

With my salary.

Maybe.

Can someone, somewhere explain the logic behind this please? Anyone? anyone? Don't be shy, don't raise your hands, just shout it out?......

.....

.....

.....

No. Me fucking neither.

The Institute has already approved the funds from their budget. So why the everliving fuck are Corporate being dicks about this? Why must employees be treated like conniving, thieving little children out to have a jolly on the company dime? Why must I beg for something that has already been given to me?

I haven't yet decided on my approach, but have no fear, it will be extreme, and will share it with you too Dear Reader. Just what I fucking need. More fucking work.

Sartorial Inelegance

2009-09-18T11:29:00.000-05:00

One has a nice blog post brewing about hats at the moment, but that must wait, for I am in the middle of putting on another hat.

Suffice-it-to-say right, now, that is raining, heavily, still. Has been for days. I am wearing khaki slacks with a nice, full cotton French cuff shirt, replete with silver treble clef cuff-links. I look FANTASTIC.

However, I had to rush outside to grab something hat related and an unfortunate gust of wind now renders me sartorially inelegant. The problem with khaki is that it shows moisture. I must now attend a seminar on genetic research into the underlying etiology of Parkinson's disease in Drosophila melanogaster, followed by a poster presentation hosted by our Research Technology Unit, looking like I need potty training...

So very fat and very rude...

2009-08-26T12:31:00.000-05:00

Alcoholism runs deep in my family's veins. Alcoholism and it's concomitant risks of suicide. Straight down through the Scots blood on one side of our family tree is a thick vein of violent alcoholic depression and suicide.

I have faced those demons myself; both as a child with the terrifying spectre of a drunk and violent person, much larger and much, much stronger than I lashing out wildly with no regard for who or what gets hurt. Until later, when it's far too late to heal the wounds sustained. The constant fear of doing, saying, or even looking wrong, always wondering how bad it might be this time.

And, because like-breeds-like I have faced it from the working end of bottles of whiskey, cheap and dirty scotch flooding my belly and my brain with fire. And loving it. Feeling such rage and hatred for everything that all you can do is lash out.

And I've stood on that precipice, literally and figuratively, wondering if it wouldn't just be easier to let go and drop. Knowing that no matter how painful the landing, it will at least be a brief pain compared to the constant pain and torture of the present.

A long time has passed, but memories like that don't fade. And I still lie awake at night thinking and wondering and regretting. But now, as an adult, I can recognise symptoms and signs and heed warnings I was too naive, or too fucked up to notice in the past. There is no "slippery slope". That's a fucking scapegoat fallacy. There is just a step. One too many without care and it's too fucking late to back to where you were.

So, recognising those steps those feelings and those emotions, I made a resolution. Stop, before you look down and see a familiar, well trod path beneath your feet. Stop before it's too late; because it will be one day, far to late. And you don't have nine lives anymore old son. You've burned too many bridges, too many times to keep thinking that it's "gonna be OK".

I've been trying to keep it on the quiet, like. Publicity doesn't help. I assumed everyone would figure it out soon enough anyway; I mean, all I hear from acquaintances and drinking partners is "are you here every night?", or "Shall I see you next week? Oh, of course, you're always here."

I thought it should be pretty obvious why I'm not around as much. Enjoying a weekend with my girlfriend, but avoiding certain places, and people, like the plague during the week. Leaving early from events, canceling dinner plans, or returning concert tickets. I didn't expect much in response, but I certainly didn't expect the levels of disrespect I'm receiving from some quarters.

In the last couple of weeks I have been called, even to my face, a loser, a drunk, a failure, a quitter and been told in no uncertain terms by a couple of folks that I can "fuck off then!". And I have. That's the point.

Curiously, other people have been more supportive. "Good for you,", or "No problem. Let me know if you fancy a quiet beer at the weekend", or even "How about a coffee then".

To those then, Thank you. To the rest, Thank you too, for helping me open my eyes. I suggest you try the same thing one day.

So, you wanna be a star, huh, kid?

2009-08-19T12:41:00.000-05:00

Dear Dr. Tideliar. Can I call you me? OK,

Dear Me.

You wanted to be a Faculty member, and just like all postdocs who aspire to that lofty perch upon the alabaster tower of academe, didn't really believe all that was expected of you could really be So. Much. Fucking. Work.

Well congratulations sucker, welcome to the nest. You might not yet be full Faculty rank, but you're doing your damnedest to get there, and you're as close as you can be without actually having to teach as well.

Find attached the Internal Funding Opportunity grant application you have been volunteered to review. Because this is your first "study section" be sure to have plenty of sleepless nights panicking that you're screwing it up somehow. Try and have two copies of the review at all times, so if you feel you've been to kind you can work on version A, if you've been too harsh, version B. Also, make sure that your self-confidence is at an all time low, and personal paranoia is at an all time high, when you walk in that review room.

Yes son, they *are* all talking about *you*!

OK. Crack on then. And don't forget about the grants you need to write, and the staff you need to manage. And the meetings that need to be arranged, and the supplies that need ordering. Don't forget to keep an eye on your position on the totem pole (watch for splinters, and try not to slip).

Stop sitting there feeling proud/sorry for yourself son! You've got a 1PM meeting to prepare for! (and you'd better get over to PubMed and start reading those references...)

best, and warmest regards,

You.

Grow Up!

2009-08-18T11:30:00.000-05:00

God damn it all to ever-loving fuckeration! Why do people insist on acting like children?

My programmer just asked if he could go back to India; he hasn't been back for 2 years. Well, for a start, just ask, don't add stupid qualifiers. I have gone 4 or 5 years without visiting my homeland, so i don't care about this supposed hardship. Suck it up. You chose to work in the US, and with that come "responsibilities". Because you've added a qualifier to your question you're assuming or expecting a negative reaction and this concerns me. It means there's more to the question than meets the eye. At first listen.

Fuck you. My blog. My metaphors.

We are busy as all hell at work right now. Summer is drawing to a close and students are turning up en masse, Faculty are making the usual outrageous demands of our systems, and Admin are just cluttering the place up and slowing down meetings. The summer was blissful, quiet and almost boring.

I greet the question with a raised eyebrow, this is mistaken for a suggestion for him to continue.

"If I don't go now, I will be unable to go for one and half more years because of my visa status..." Once more stumbling to halt.

Still making excuses, and still not giving me all the information I need. I point out that I can't stop him, and of course I don't want to be mean (in public).

It transpires there is just a little bit worse to come. The "now" in the above sentence means, almost literally, now.

"I found a flight for just one thousand dollars..."

For fuck's sake. Act like a man and make the fucking request!!!

"It leaves on the 25th."

that's 6 days. Less than a week's notice that you need three weeks off at the busiest time of the year. Timed perfectly to coincide with us renewing your contact and picking up your tuition.

Godamned, selfish bullshit. And coincidentally his supervisor is off until the end of next week and also off the grid, so i can't double check his workload and schedule.

The Injury Post. Come laugh at my misfortune...

2009-08-11T16:07:00.000-05:00

This post is a redux of a post from the old “Some Lies”, now locked and hidden for many good reasons. This was first published in April 2006. I’ve neatened it up, and added a couple at the end. The re-post is for two reason. One, is I promised Microbiologist XX more of the old tales. The other is the sickening realization I’m back at year 1 of the cycle…

What cycle…oh, dear reader, read on…

************************

…So last night after band practice, me and my good mate and bassist William “The Beast”-“Lefty” Wallace (a man whose nickname is now almost as prodigious as his bass-work), were having a chat down the pub. Somehow the conversation steered to broken bones. We were likely talking about all the blokes we’ve beaten up and all the birds we’ve shagged. Cos, as rock stars that’s what we do. Or at least, we tell outrageous and grandiose lies about it.

Anyway, it occurred to me that this is year1 of my ‘about 3 year’ cycle. And that sends a shiver through me bones…cos they’re about to break.

See, ever since I was a nipper I have managed, through sheer bloody minded incompetence, clumsiness and stupidity, to break a bone on average every three or four years. There have been in betweenies too, and I thought once or twice I’d broken the cycle (along with my nose) but, alas, no. It might, however, make a nice blog post…

So.

1986. Age 11. Broke: left wrist. Backwards running race at the school sports day…yeah. Which fucking genius thought it was a good idea to have a bunch of skinny and uncoordinated 11yr olds sprint backwards? Walked home after school carrying my school bag (briefcase…fledgling geek) in the bad hand (fledgling idiot).

(in betweenie: “dislocated” elbow and (unrelated) eye surgery)

1989. Age 14. Broke: left wrist. I fell off my bike. Funny thing is, the day I got the cast off, I was chasing my brother to give him a bit of a hiding for something, when I slipped on a comic book and fell back on the arm and tore all the tendons in the wrist. How I laughed as I went back to the emergency room less than an hour after leaving it.

1992. Age 17. Broke left wrist and hand in 5 places. This time I fell down some stairs in Cham, Holland while on a youth hostelling tour of Europe. They had a brand new hospital and I was the first patient in X-ray. Which really made up for everything. Funny thing that tour…me and few of my mates on a church led trip. Priest in charge (and no he wasn’t a kiddie fiddler, so don’t ask), but I fell down the steps and by this point in life had a fairly good idea of what a broken bone feels like. I landed and yelled and then went into shock and started muttering, “I’ve broken my fucking arm. I’ve fucking broken my fucking arm” (being in a great deal of pain, you see). Priest tells me off for bad language. Cunt.

in betweenie: two major concussions requiring hospital stays, gashed hand requiring micro-surgery. Gashed forearm and elbow requiring blood transfusion (nice humeral arterial tear), and microsurgery.

1997. Age 20. Can’t remember. I did a lot (I mean a fucking LOT) of drugs in college. Sorry. Three or four years are completely gone. Bit of a bummer really cos I was too stoned to take photos. I did break my nose a couple of times, I remember that…

2000. Age 25. Broken tailbone. Fell off my mountain bike. I was riding standing up on the pedals going down hill and slipped. Dropped right onto the pommel of the saddle. Went camping in the woods two days later and forgot my sleeping mat.

in betweenie: broken finger. Boomerang related injury. Say no more.

2003. Age 27. Broke 4 ribs, two major concussions and my right knee. This was a good year for The Tideliar.

I broke two ribs in a snowboarding accident right at the start of the season. Both breaks were on my left side. A couple of weeks later, me and my good friend Shar get in a massive fucking car wreck a few miles outside Pittsburg. I knocked the passenger-side window out with my head. I’m really that fucking hard. I drove the rental car back home (4hr drive) cos poor Shar was too freaked out. It really was a very bad accident. The witnesses said they figured us for dead, for real. Anyway, I was nearly blind in one eye and completely uncoordinated two days later. About three weeks after that I’m at a party and a fight kicks off. Being the Super Ninja of DeathRock that I am, I waded in and got another two ribs broken.

Thankfully they balanced me out, cos they were on my right hand side. About two weeks after that I was snowboarding again…It was perfect, two maybe three feet of fresh powder. Your beloved Tideliar (albeit with perhaps one too many beers in him…it hurts to snowboard with broken ribs) finds the one patch of ice on the whole fucking mountain. It was right as I came out of a turn and my weight was on the toes of my back leg. I dropped my full weight at high speed onto my right knee. Ouch. I tried to stand, but the pain was quite amazing. I collapsed, but fearing landing on that knee I gracefully broke my fall with my head. Good job son! I was re-concussed and stuck a thousand feet or so up a mountain.

in betweenie: Broke a rib. My mate Big Jay gave me a bear hug. He isn’t called Big Jay for nothing. My band went on tour that summer and I had to play with a broken rib. See. Told you I was well hard.

2006. Age 29. Things accelerate now. I started Muay Thai (Thai Boxing). Broken ribs. Again. I got my ass badly whooped in the parking lot outside our “gym” and managed to pop a rib or two. I may have torn my diaphragm, but I have been known to exaggerate…

Also, whilst goofing during Muay Thai training, I also demonstrated my advanced training in clumsiness. I went to Thai-kick the kick-bag, for that is it’s purpose in life; it looked lonely, I was bored. You know how these things go…I now train in bare feet because my shin-pads have an instep guard that makes wearing shoes uncomfortable, and training in bare feet makes me concentrate on my kicks more.

However it also makes one’s feet slippery because of the dust. I didn’t check my stance, swung my right leg up and out, rotated at the hip and then my left foot slipped and allowed me to finish my rotation with the addition of a rather cool double back-salco onto my arse. Unfortunately the middle toe of my left foot stayed firmly planted and I rotated around it.

Looking down it was immediately apparent why my foot was numb. My toe was pointing off and to the left at a decidedly too jaunty angle. I have a fair amount of medical training and knew there was but one recourse. I sat down and used my hands to force my toes into a “fist”. I felt the toe slip back into its “socket” with a satisfying click. Being a super-hardcore motherfucker I just taped my toes up and finished training, which thankfully involved loads of kicking.

Stupidly I didn't go to the Doctor about this one. It's healed OK, but looks nasty still. The joint are misshapen and it still points to the left. It also aches a lot. Twat.

In betweenie: dislocated finger (this time I did go to the quack), broken nose (twice), a couple of mild concussions.

It’s now 2009. We’re halfway through already…do the math.

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something painful this way comes.

After 23 years of The Curse, I know there is no fighting it. I’m hoping the constant stream of violence and aggression I enjoy is keeping me mildly injured to the point where those beings from another astral ~~pain~~ plain, those behind this Curse, accept my sacrifice as worthy. I somehow doubt it.

What the everliving F*** is your problem? Pt.I

2009-08-06T12:31:00.000-05:00

Why does my professional society keep changing their goddamned log-in instructions? It has changed again, from having just been changed just before they organised our annual meeting, and from when it was changed again at the end of last year around the time we all had to fucking renew our goddamned membership.

My username has gone from my Firstlife Surname, to my work email address, to my Firstlife full name, to my work username. My password has wandered from my 9 fucking digit membership number, to my email address and back again, as well as being, briefly, something of my own choosing.

Every time you get a new CIO you do NOT need to overhaul your fucking User Interface system. Fucktards.

Goddamn your fucking idiocy. And now I'm getting emails because they have the wrong motherfucking address on file! The quarterly newsletter, that had been coming to my NEW OFFICE THAT I'VE BEEN IN FOR 8 MOTHERFUCKING MONTHS is now being returned undelivered.

Two questions. Or statements. Your choice.

1. My old department know exactly where I am, so why don't they send it over? I am in the building next door you mentally crippled, ignorant fucksticks. Literally, laterally, 400 feet from where I was for four fucking years.

2. Why has my "address on record" suddenly reverted to my old lab address? Not three weeks ago I registered for the annual meeting. I had to confirm my current address and re-enter it three fucking times during the entire, overly complicated, marketing-dollar driven, miserable fucking experience. You shouldn't even have my OLD ADDRESS on file you fucking morons.

What the everliving fuck is your problem?

Sci-Blogs NFL challenge! (aka WE LOVE STEELER NATION)

2009-08-06T11:23:00.001-05:00

From my esteemed blog-colleague, Prof-like substance, whom, I assume, 99% of my readers read anyway. Contact him, not me. We'll let PlS coordinate the mayhem. as he's actually a yank and everything...

*****************************

The NFL preseason starts this Sunday. I'm not kidding, you can look it up. That means that we are little more than a month from the NFL regular season, which also means this summer has flown by way too quickly. However, rather than focus on the pending doom that the school year brings, I am inviting my fellow bloggers to join in an NFL pickem' pool. For those who have not been involved in something like this before, the rules are simple - pick which team will win each game. To make it a bit more complicated, we will be picking which team will when when the spread is taken into account, but the idea remains the same - if you give the team expected to lose an XX point handicap, who will win the game? The weekly results will be posted here on Tuesdays during the regular season and we will come up with some way to recognize both the overall and weekly leaders (like the Tour de' France... but different).

Now, in order to keep the numbers reasonable and to facilitate the shit-talking, let's start by limiting the participants to those with running blogs. If this motivates a couple of regular commenters to start up a place of their own, great. You've got a month. So, I've started a yahoo group for people to login and enter their picks. Email me (proflikesubstance at the gmail) for the login info and let the shenanigans begin.

ur doin it wrong!

2009-08-04T17:02:00.000-05:00

Scream-lining?

Dumb-sizing?

Shark Tanking?

Undove Tailing?

Panicking?

What buzz word would you use for the fact that my Unit now has a manager:employee ratio of 1:1?

For a total of 8 people.

I fart in your general direction!

2009-07-28T16:53:00.001-05:00

You silly English knights! Which, unless,you've seen The Holy Grail and can pronounce it in John Cleese's loodicruuus Eeenglish Aaacent! isn't as funny as it should be.

I just saw the Summary Statements from the NIH grant we submitted back in January. Oh fucking Jeebus on a pogo stick did "they" not like it. They fucking hated it. Everything about it. I think the highest numeral I saw for any of the criteria (approach, innovation etc.) was a 3 (out of 9, but not 1 or 2 = don't fucking bother. most of ours were in the 5-8 range). Strengths...one reviewer (we had three) said "None that I can see".

Ouch.

I'm kicking myself a little bit for not fighting harder to get it postponed, but at the end of the day I only have so much clout here.

I tell you what. Given the level of engagement round here recently, there is no way on God's Green Earth I am doing the two proposed for the next round of submissions (October). There is too little drive, too little writing, too little help, too little...of anything. I've written grants before, and I've been a scientist (albeit a lowly one) for over a decade. I know what needs to go into this, and I'm not seeing at tenth of what we need. There is way too much, "oh I had an idea, go write me an R01 on that."

After reading this review, my "suggestion" to my Overlings will be to avoid having your name mentioned around Bethesda until you can be sure of submitting something fucking gold-plated. 24 karat, diamond encrusted, bejeweled and bewitched by good fairies.

I now have a massive headache and I'm going for a beer.

Mental Health Day

2009-07-23T14:04:00.000-05:00

I had a cold this week. Got to work Monday morning, feeling a bit dozy. By 10am I was sniffly; by 11 I was feverish, so they sent me home.

I went home.

I think I died around 3PM. Thankfully I'm like The Highlander, so I came back alive again. Just to feel shit for the next 36hrs.

Today I feel better, but dozy.

So, went through my LIST OF THINGS TO DO. It was 40 THINGS long.

It is now only 12 THINGS long. Unfortunately, all the easy THINGS like, "Ask Brad & Rebecca about new logo", are gone, and I'm left with THINGS such as, "Write JAMIA paper", and "Write AFSA Grant".

That kind of sucks. But at least they stand out on the page now, y'know?

And I was going over my mailbox limit. Again. I used to fight to keep my inbox down to 50 emails, then it was 100 emails. Then 150. Then I noticed that I had hundreds upon hundreds of emails stored in 15 folders and 35 sub-folders. No wonder I could never find anything! So, I instituted a new regime: be more brutal, and cut the crap. Plus, stop saving every wack-a-loon dumb email funny people send me. And, relax the inbox quota to 200.

Well, it hit 300 today. So, a fresh cup of coffee, and an hour's dedicated administrative ~~brutality~~ clearing later I'm down to 207...shit...208 in my inbox, and had the unfeasibly satisfying experience of deleting 5 folders and 700 old emails. Ahhhh...damn near 75-100MB of shite off my account I hope.

Right.

now what... 3hrs to go.... what gets cleaned next...

A quickie

2009-07-16T12:03:00.000-05:00

The building I work in is an old, attractive 5 story brownstone, replete with "turrets", and carved archways, mounted Saints etc. Because it was built in the 40s and 50s, it has but one elevator, and the bathrooms/toilets "alternate". Ladies and gents are on the ground floor, but then alternate on the way up, so men's rooms are on the third and fifth floors, the ladies on the second and fourth.

I work on the fourth.

My floor houses my unit/Academic Office, and the Postdoc Office for whom I also "work". Below us is finance & accounting, above is alumni affairs & development. The second floor is marketing as well as the executive floor for the various Chancellors and bigwigs, poobahs and grandees. The ground floor is payroll and student affairs/admissions.

I'm an unrepentant smoker, so I'm outside "having a quick fag" as we say in the old country, a couple of times of day. Because of this, and because of needing to go to the bathroom/toilet a couple of times each day (depending on how much coffee I've had) I've got to "meet" a lot of people in my building. 99% are middle aged, and of that 99% I'd say 65-75% are female, of which 60% are African American.

So, there's a brief demographic overhaul of my immediate work environment.

So, if there is about 1% of "young" people in my building, where are they? Some are on my floor: my programmers, coders, assistants etc. The rest are scattered around. And because the ladies room is on my floor, I occasionally get to see the females of species (in the corridor, I'm not lurking in the loo, you perverts!). And, very occasionally, like just now, I pass by a ~~stunningly attractive~~ young woman, and I can't help but think,

"Who the fuck are you?!"
"Why aren't you on my floor?!"

Now, I hope I'm not coming across as a perv or a predator. I am a human male and I like to see attractive women. Simple. Biology. But as a geek I do analyze my motives and I came up with a reason: it's not just that it's nice to see pretty girls/women. I miss hanging out with young people from work.

If they worked on my floor, or nearby at least, I could strike up a conversation. I would quickly establish that I'm not a perv or a predator, just a co-worker. We would likely then be chums, and maybe go for beers or something. I know a few of the young(ish/er) folks down on the second floor hang out and go for drinks, go for lunch together.

I guess I'm just lonely, and seeing a pretty girl in the corridor who gives me a quizzical smile, makes me wonder if other people are lonely too.

It's a Dirty Job, but I gotta do it

2009-07-10T10:47:00.001-05:00

We have just run an internal grant "competition" for a small Pilot Program to help provide running cost funds for faculty doing translational research who are close to submitting full scale grants. These folks need a bit of cash to help defray, for example, lab costs, or equipment costs to generate the preliminary data for a full NIH R01. The grants are a nice of bit of emergency cash, especially if your start-up funds are running low, or your grant got bounced for the old bullshit of "not enough preliminary data".

Competing Faculty had to outline a mentoring plan (to be mentored if junior, to mentor if senior) and a Letter of Intent. My institute is hoping to fund a handful of these depending on our final budget for the year. Competition was quite fierce, with over forty Letters of Intent being submitted. The selection committee ~~threw darts~~ worked diligently and selected over twenty to invite for full submission.

It of course fell to muggins here to send the notification emails. I did the wise thing (natch), and sent mass BCC emails. I was careful to have only 10 names/email so as not to irritate the email server. I used my address in the "To" field so I'd know they were sent correctly. and, of course, I have OCD like any good geek, and I know I did it right. I have since triple, quadruple, quintuple checked...because, needless-to-say, not everybody got the damned email!

At first it looked like a couple of our adjunct faculty were the only ones because they don't use the same email address as the rest of campus, and the wrong email addresses were listed in our Faculty Directory (natch). Then a couple of days ago (8 days after initial notices were sent) I found out that some of our on-site (and unfortunately, very senior) faculty were wondering about the status of their application.

Quintuple checking my original emails I saw that there was no rhyme, nor reason, for these non-deliveries. Nothing had bounced back from the server warning me of full in-boxes, for example. Of the ~10 names/email there was a randomness to delivery failure that precluded, say, the last three on each not being delivered. Some times Dr. Cxxxx would not receive the email whereas Dr. Txxxx did.

So, here I am, some ten days after the emails went out, frantically trying to contact everyone, by phone yesterday and email today.

"Dear X
please confirm receipt of the Pilot Project email regarding your Letter of Intent. Please confirm regardless of application status,
Sincerely
Dr. Tideliar"

And, as of now I am only waiting on 12 more responses. Thank fuck only one has indicated that he didn't get the message. Unfortunately, he is also one of the Super Senior Faculty and a Core Director. Ho Hum. My ass, see that fire over there? Yeah. That's for you.

Anyway, everyone who was approved who's replied to me has sent a brief note, "Hi, yeah, got your email saying we've been approved."

I have also had to contact, by phone & email, those who didn't get asked to submit, and that sucks. I don't want them to get a message from me and think, "Oh! Maybe I am approved after all!". Some responses have been very abrupt;

"Yes. I got your email saying we were rejected."

...ouch...sorry mate. But I didn't make the call. However, as Professor in Training wrote a while back, and as did Stephen Curry on his blog "Reciprocal Space" on the Nature Network, it's a kick in the balls to be rejected. I know. I too have written/am writing grants and been rejected more times than I have succeeded.

Some have however, taken it with...let's just say, have taken a different tone:

"Dear Dr. Tideliar
Yes, (unfortunately) we received your email. :)

Of course, we are looking for other
sources to study these needed areas since no evidence-based suggestions currently exist in treating these patients.

I look forward to future interactions.

Have a great weekend, Prof. Mega"

Just getting one like this made this scuttlebutt gig OK. Thank you Prof. Mega, even though you don't it. Sometimes it sucks to be the messenger.