Just don't look

DID YOU KNOW? Columbus, Ohio is the second-largest metropolitan area in the United States without passenger rail service.

Two blog entries in under an hour. I'm doing pretty well today. I even reinstalled Windows 98 on one of my lab computers (a more different one) before noon. But that's a story (and a YouTube video) for another day.

Like any self-respecting gay male under the age of 25, I read the label on basically everything I buy. I don't know, maybe it's not just a gay thing, maybe it's an engineering thing too, because I'm always interested in maximizing ratios like calories-per-dollar and fiber-per-calorie. Anyway, the point is, food labels: much like Cathy, basically an endless source of fascination for me since childhood.

I had some quinoa and broccoli for lunch and finished up the hunk of excellent smoked gouda that the Roth-Gormleys and I bought at Cheeseboard last week, but I still ended up a little hungry today from all that installing, just now, as I was writing my last blog entry. So I broke into my middle desk drawer and pulled out a black cherry almond Clif Bar, because half a Clif Bar is usually enough to get me through my day in lab. Also I eat when I'm under stress.

After I finished proofreading the last entry, I was just sitting here staring at the label, and I noticed that among the many vitamins that Clif Bars purport to be fortified with, they apparently contain 10% of the daily recommended serving of biotin. This got me a little worried, because I learned in my enzyme kinetics class this semester ("the one that reacts with amines", that class) that biotin is the most important biological molecule in any living creature, ever, and its binding with the protein avidin, named because it binds biotin very... avidly... is necessary to sustain all life in the universe.

So I got kind of worried, because, like I said, I read the label of basically everything I buy, and I've never noticed anything I eat containing biotin before. Maybe it's only in prepared foods? Like Cheeseboard Pizza? I'd be down with that. Because seriously, Cheeseboard Pizza, is there anything it can't do? Sustain all life on Earth? No problem.

Also, Clif Bars contain only 10% of my recommended daily intake of Biotin. Does this mean that I need to eat 10 Clif Bars a day to stay alive? Because, yo, even at Trader Joe's, that's gonna get expensive. After seconds of consideration, I decided to consult Wikipedia, where I discovered that...

[biotin deficiency] is extremely rare, as intestinal bacteria generally produce an excess of the body's daily requirement. For that reason, statutory agencies in many countries (e.g., the Australian Department of Health and Aging) do not prescribe a recommended daily intake.

Whew, that was a pretty close call. I mean, there are worse things I could eat than 10 Clif Bars a day, but not many. My stomach would probably become so dense that it would actually fall into one of my thighs.

Although, on that subject, a Google search for "Clif Bar competitive eating" yields no meaningful results. I think I'm one step closer to my dreams.

Ooh whatcha say?

DID YOU KNOW? The city of Phoenix, Arizona is the nation's largest metropolitan area without passenger rail service.

--

To: Sam and Elisa
From: Professor Radke
Date: May 27, 2008

Do you all think it worthwhile to have Elisa try to set up the glucose assay for avicell digestion? I know that Cate's group is doing this. We could then more readily compare to our surface results? If Elisa has success, perhaps Shirley could carry on (or we can try to get another student?).

--

To: Professor Radke
From: Sam Maurer
Date: May 28, 2008

I think that also establishing this glucose assay could also be useful, especially when we are ready to begin comparing ellipsometry results to our own measurements. I don't think Elisa will have time to set it up before she leaves, but I'll talk to Shirley about it. Let's hold off on getting another student until I know exactly how much work is involved, and until I see what Shirley's summer schedule is like.

--

To: Sam Maurer
From: Undergrad
Date: May 29, 2008

Dear Sam Maurer,

I am currently a 3rd year Chemical Engineering student looking for a
summer research position. I have been looking for a summer research
position for the last couple of weeks and I have not been able to find any
openings. You are my only hope!

I have already talked to Professor Radke, and he said to contact you
directly about the possibility for a position.

--

Sorry, dude. I like undergrad research and all, but I haven't gone by the name Obi-Wan since before you were born.

Midwest Wedding Explosion

DID YOU KNOW? Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It's happening. Sub-Zero vs. Batman.

I had been planning to write an entry only about this, because seriously, what the freak? It seems like Marvel vs. Capcom 2 really closed the book on superhero/fighting crossovers, what with its potential for Gambit/Chun-Li/Mega Man vs. Doctor Doom/M. Bison/Jill from Resident Evil three-on-three craziness. Seriously, craziness. It's crazier than winning a chance to play hoops against Barack Obama and Reggie Love. But no, then Acclaim had to go and make this. One of the tags on Gamespot is "neither fans satisfied," which I would guess should pretty much sum it up.

Then I spent two hours this morning planning my Midwest Wedding Explosion with Ruthie. Basically, I have to go to a wedding on August 8th in Detroit and Ruthie has to go to a wedding on August 16th in Milwaukee, and we're pretty sure that we can take each other as +1's. So, I mean, Detroit and Milwaukee are only 373 miles apart. What's that you just yelled? "ROAD TRIP?!" Yeah, we hear you.

But, you know, neither one of us has really owned a car for the past 5 years, so we're not used to the idea of gas costing, oh, let's say $5.50 a gallon. Or us having to pay for gas. So we're gonna Amtrak some of the distance because we both love public transportation (for different reasons). Also, it's cheaper, it's like a free hotel if you time it right, and as long as you're traveling endlessly through amber waves of grain, you might as well let someone else do the driving. Hey, if you end up sleeping in the Toledo train station for four hours, well, there are worse fates. We might grab a car in Wisconsin for a day or two just to get to some of the more remote attractions, and because the idea of a road trip through only Wisconsin is too charming to pass up.

Still, if you've got any ideas for things we can do in the Midwest during our intra-wedding week, feel free to post it in the comments. We'll try to wangle transportation out there as best we can, take pictures, and document it in a stunning blogsplosion in late summer. Here are some of our current possible candidates:

Cedar Point
Ohio State Fair
Überstein, Chicago
Miller Brewing Company
SPARTA, Wisconsin
House on the Rock (from American Gods)
SPAM Museum, Austin, Minnesota

But, yeah, I mean, Yelp only goes so far ("YELP CAN TAKE YOU ANYWHERE YOU WANT TO GO" --Sam M. Elite '08), so give a holler if any of these things look particularly good or bad, or if you know anywhere else that's recommendable.

Standing by the wall

DID YOU KNOW? Saparmurat Niyazov, former President-for-Life of Turkmenistan, renamed the month of April after his mother.

This morning on my way to work I almost ran into some lady with my bicycle. Totally my bad; I was on the sidewalk, which is not where bikes should be. She spilled her iced coffee, but not too much. Generally I try to stay off the sidewalk, and I'm seriously only on it for like one minute every morning because the five- or six-way stop at Shattuck and Rose is really confusing, but oh well, now I will be on it for zero minutes every morning. Sorry, glasses lady, just like I frantically repeated over and over this morning until you said "Yes, I know you are."

Anyway, yeah, in the spirit of disarmament, I thought that today would be a good day to post pictures of the Berkeley World Wall for Peace, erected in Martin Luther King Jr. Park in 1988 out of 3,000 hand-painted tiles. I'm kind of unclear as to who did the actual painting of the tiles; many of them seem to be the work of children, but then one of them was like, "I am 25 and want to see my children grow up!" So I don't know exactly what's going on with that. All I know is that the Peace Wall was fantastic and will now be a permanent fixture on all my tours of Berkeley.

So, I mean, this is kind of the model tile for the Peace Wall, I guess. Maya's interpretation of world geography is a little strange, like how the United States is actually an island that is located east of the Soviet Union, which is an undersea kingdom, but her heart is in the right place, and it probably says "peace" in two different languages.
Or you could do this, I guess, and pool your tiles to make one big display. I'm guessing that this was just because it was an assignment in grade school art class to paint a tile, and three kids realized that they could punt all their work if they just asked their artist friend to paint all four of their tiles and call it a "group project." Like that one time in AP History when we had a group test. I messed that up a lot. Sorry, Jordan Klein.
Then you've got... amoebae for peace? Is that a ladder? Or a mirror? Or what is exactly going on here? It's kind of abstract. I originally thought they were starfish with glowing hearts, kind of like Carebear starfish, but then Shana pointed out that the one on the left looks like it's in a culture dish. Anyway, my point is that I have no idea what this represents.
Speaking of abstraction, his one kind of has some I Am The Walrus poetry going on here. I don't quite get it, but it's also a nice idea, and has some really neat, flowy artwork that I admire, because my artwork never has any flow, it's rigid, kind of like me as a person.

I like this one, too, because it's kind of stream-of-consciousness, desperate, exasperated, and if you know the books I read you know that's how I like my prose. I like that "using" could have probably fit on one line but he or she put a hyphen in. Idonno, I've been kind of worried about the end of the world lately, now that I know people who are stockpiling weapons for peak oil, or maybe a zombie holocaust and they're just pretending it's peak oil, but still, it's good to know that the end of the world has come often, and continues to often come.
I wish I could think up names this great for my pets, although maybe if my pets were involved in world peace efforts a little more, maybe I'd give them better names. No, seriously, Cognac is an awesome name for a horse. The best I can come up with is a dog named Sherpa.
This is probably the greatest poem since Groker. I have no idea what it's trying to say, maybe it's a veganism thing with "Save a pig eat beans," but at the same time "the apple juice was pee," so... fruits are not so desirable either, and... this is the kind of tile I'm going to paint if I ever get asked to do a project like this, although I fear that I'll just come off as trying too hard.
This one's a little simpler. Not any more sensical, but a little simpler. Uh. Not quite sure what Delisa was going for. Or maybe she was going for "Peace is the Lick," it's hard to say.
Yeah, I uploaded these in no particular order, save for the last few, but this one is kind of pretty too, and an enlightening reminder that war can destroy deer and trees.
And penguins. I guess this penguin is actually kind of upset by these flowers, because he would prefer a colder climate? I don't know,I'm kind of getting a global warming message out of this. Also, the buttons on the penguin's stomach suggest that he is wearing an actual suit, which explains why he is yellow, I guess.
I don't know why the word "Eat" makes this so much more enigmatic that "Eat it" or "Eat up" woud, but you agree, right? I mean, you know that whatever student made this one just got sick on the day when they were painting tiles and had to do this really quick in colored pencil, but I think that the world is better for it.
I mean, yeah, Anne Rice would have ended the Cold War in a few years with insight like this.
I hate to be one of those people that's like, "Oh, I am so educated and that mathematical expression makes no sense," because sometimes you don't think it does but it actually does, but seriously, what does this mean? Why is it a line integral? Over a closed line? To infinity? What are you even integrating over? Seriously, this is just sloppy. Or maybe it's transcendent, I don't know. Like I said, rigid. I'm rigid.
OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? So in 1988 some teacher was like, "I want you to draw a picture of peace" and some kid came up with this. I'm guessing he or she is about 30 years old today. Seriously, what do you think that kid is up to?
And finally, forget lofty goals of peace or global warming or nuclear disarmament or saving animals or whatever. Courtney just wants you to stop smoking. I like that her name is at the top, too. Just because the fact that Courtney made a tile for the Peace Wall is really the most important thing, isn't it. Good job, Courtney. You horrible, horrible selfish little girl.

No more wandering

DID YOU KNOW? Also on the list of absurd jokes featured on 30 Rock that are actually about real things (see also: trivection oven, gay bomb), Soy Joy candy bars are real.

This week I realized: if I'm ever giving you a tour of the place where I live, there are two basic rules:

1. Wear comfortable shoes.
2. Don't get gastric bypass surgery.

That's pretty much all you need to know. Because the idea is that we're going to walk a lot, mostly heading to places that only I think are interesting, and most of them are going to serve food. This is best encapsulated in the five-mile walking tour of Boston I gave to my beloved high school friend Shana last year during dead week, starting at the Mapparium and ending at Pizzeria Regina.

Because seriously, tourist destinations are for losers. Again, the definitive example can be drawn from my five-hour walking tour, during which I totally forgot where the Make Way For Ducklings statue was in Boston Common, but I made sure to stop at the ether monument. When else are you going to see an ether monument? Come to think of it, I think I also went to the ether monument on my first date with Colin. God, I just can't ever get enough of ether.

And then, well, Berkeley. This was a particularly egregious example of my philosophy of touring. I mean, we could have gone to the Scharffen Berger factory or something. But, I mean, that's kind of a lame-o destination for the sisters Roth-Gormley, who live 20 minutes from Hershey, Pennsylvania.


So instead we went to the Tool Lending Library so that I could show them these two posters of Missy Elliot and LL Cool J. This is probably the most absurd destination on our tour, but by no means the only absurd one. Let us go then, you and I.


We started at Cheeseboard because, yo, it was zucchini day and who can resist zucchini day? I think we got there at like 11:45 because vegetarian pizza for breakfast is the greatest idea that anyone could ever have.


From there we went to Long's Drugs because my drain was stopped up and it was just getting worse and it was kind of embarrassing in a, "No really, this just started happening yesterday; I don't actually live in squalor" kind of a way. After much debate, I grabbed a $5 bottle of Drano Max Gel good for two uses, or one use on a tough clog. Shana thought it was kind of odd that you just literally pour the product you're buying directly down the drain, but, hey, that's where most products you buy go eventually. Food, cocaine. Whatever.


While waiting for my sink to unclog, we checked out the Peace Wall in Martin Luther King, Jr. Park. It consists of a bunch of tiles painted by children or something in the year 1988, all of which basically plead for world peace. A lot of these were really priceless, so I think I'll save the specifics for a future entry.


From there we went to the nearby Berkeley Public Library to check out the awesome architecture ("that's a really nice line") and also because I felt like getting a library card. I got a library card. I used it to check out a book on Shackleton on a total whim. I really need to start taking trips again because that's the only time that I really, you know, read. But even on trips I guess I have some scientific papers that might be more productive. No, I think the path to ending global warming begins with Antarctic exploration.


I want to say "then we went to the Thai Temple," because that actually is kind of a cool destination, but in reality, that was kind of an incidental stop on our visit because I realized we were in the neighborhood.


Because where I really wanted to go was Berkeley Bowl. So I could show Shana and Maura the produce section. Produce. I wanted to show them the produce section. You know, it's really impressive. You can get anything there. Fiddleheads. Lemongrass. Gai lan. Anything. And it used to be a bowling alley. It's really fantastic. Luckily, our visit had a practical purpose too: after walking 15 blocks to get to Berkeley Bowl, we were all really thirsty and decided to grab some cold beverages.


We brought these cold beverages to Crixa Cakes, where we were all still too full of zucchini pizza to go for the divine-looking chocolate bourbon cake. Seriously, it was the cake equivalent of Halle Berry. No, that's not politically correct. The cake equivalent of Heidi Klum. But we did go for some bittersweet chocolate mousse, which was indeed appropriately bittersweet. No crazy sweetness there.

It was by now way too late to get to the Campanile, which had really been my only goal for the day, so we stopped off at my apartment and dropped off some luggage. I think it was on the way home that we also stopped off at The Produce Center because I was in the mood for some Bay Leaves, which they keep in the smallest, most remote corner of the store. Seriously, you have got to see this corner. Well, save it for your tour of Berkeley.


From there we headed over to campus to rendezvous with Michael J and head over to Cafe Intermezzo, because I was in the mood for some massive salad action. Like I said before, every man on Earth secretly wishes he could be a competitive eater, and although I don't think I could do speed that well, I'm still immensely proud of myself whenever I'm able to finish an entire Intermezzo salad in one sitting. They actually are larger than your head.


And our tour ended at the Berkeley Alumni House, where Hung and Adam joined us to check out a lecture on German energy policy. The dude doing the presenting, I think he was the German consul, didn't really say anything new or world-shattering, but I was encouraged that someone in some government had, at least, a basic knowledge of some current ideas in energy research and policy. Anyway, who freaking cares, there was free German beer and pretzels afterwards. Like I said, no gastric bypass.

I totally would have gone for some Gelateria Naia afterward too, but apparently other people get tired or something, so we headed back to the apartment, to bed, to the welcoming breast of Zombie Buchanan. The following day we completed our Cheeseboard trifecta (cheese, pizza, and pastries, all in the space of three days), and, well, it was time for Roth-Gormleys in bloom to head back to Seattle.

All in all, I hope they had an awesome trip and never find out that the Pyramid Brewery tour was within walking distance.

Garp's cases.

DID YOU KNOW? This week is National Dog Bite Prevention Week.

When I become a rock star, I'm gonna need a band behind me, because I don't play piano well enough to rock out without a sufficient amount of guitar noise backing me up and covering my mistakes. Kind of like Brooke White. I haven't formed a band yet, unless you count the short-lived Tangularity, but when I do, I've already got the name picked out. Or rather, a list of names I've compiled over the years from which I will pick one appropriate to our musical stylings:

Tenzing
Tanzen Wir!
Super Energy Pill
The Franklin Badge

and now...

The Jane Chord

I found out about the Jane Chord on Slog a few weeks ago and meant to share it with everyone, but ended up only sharing it with my beloved high school friend Shana. Here's how Terry Teachout introduces the concept.

The Jane Chord, to which Bill Buckley introduced us years ago, is a concept originally promulgated by Hugh Kenner. The idea is that if you make a two-word sentence out of the first and last words of a book, it will tell you something revealing about the book in question. Or not: the Jane Chord of Pride and Prejudice is It/them. But every once in a while you run across a Jane Chord so resonant that it makes the room shiver—the chord for Death Comes for the Archbishop is One/built—and even when a famous book yields up nonsense, it’s still a good game to play.

My beloved high school friend Shana and prom date Maura are here for a few days, and we spent an hour in Black Oak Books yesterday playing some Jane Chords. It can get frustrating when you take a book as excellent as Owen Meany and end up with something like "I you.", but when you find a good one, it's enough to make you tear open your entire bookshelf.

My favorite is unquestionably Everything is Illuminated: "My will." Kind of ambiguous, yet all possible interpretations thereof are both appropriate to the narrative and kind of haunting. Shana has persuaded me to read Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver based only on the words "His soul." and a promise that the remainder of the book lives up to the expectations that they generate.

So this morning, while waiting for our guests to wake up, I've been applying the Jane Chord to other media, things that are long and word-filled, but not necssarily novels.

For example, my favorite poem ever, Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd" has a good one. You get "When dim.", which paints a fairly effective picture of the twilight suggested by the poem, and probably Whitman's state of mind while writing it.

My second-favorite poem yields "Groker live.", itself painting a fairly effective picture of the intense longing suggested by that poem, which I can't print here for fear of accusations of libel. But some of you get the inside joke.

If you take The Beatles' entire discography, from "I Saw Her Standing There" on Please Please Me to "Let It Be" on Let It Be, you get "Well be.", which is just fantastic. Is it nonsense? Or is it a command phrased in archaic grammar? Add in the two Anthology songs after John Lennon's death and you get "Well bird.", or take the count-in on their first album and you get "One bird.", both of which I find pleasant, but kind of inferior.

And finally, to end this entry with some self-promotion, if you take my MITblog as one long, finished, stream-of-consciousness novel serialized over two and a half years, you get "Hello ozonolysis.". I think I'll stop there.

What do you think?

Better start eating

DID YOU KNOW? Telegraph Hill in San Francisco is home to a group of wild parrots descended from released pets and cared for by a homeless-man-turned-writer.

Possibly nobody on Earth is as excited about the prospect of having oatmeal for breakfast as I am, but you can say that about a lot of things, actually. The reason is that, on Alton Brown's recommendation, I buy steel-cut oats, because yo, they do make way better oatmeal: chewier, nuttier, faster, stronger. However, they take around 45 minutes to cook on the stovetop and can't be microwaved. As I've previously mentioned, I'm not that good at waking up on time, so oatmeal has become a luxury that I can rarely afford.

After sleeping for 12 hours, though, I was ready for some comfort food this morning, and for some reason way chewy oatmeal with cold milk has always done that for me. So I took spent a relaxing morning cleaning and blogging while my oats simmered, and when they were done, seriously, as Alton might say, Good Eats. I switched over to Good Eats because David Archuleta is singing "Imagine" again on American Idol, and seriously, there's no way I'm watching that ever again for any reason.

But it's been an excellent day for food in general. I always hate packing a lunch and then eating it at home because I don't make it into lab on time, but you know? I gave an hour and a half presentation in Professor Radke's stead yesterday. Also I'm still in the process of installing Windows 98 on my lab computer, so I couldn't even run data collection software no matter how long I was in lab today. So I had some leftover peanut noodles for lunch, using the awesome peanut sauce recipe that Hung gave me. I think I also put edamame and bok choy in it, but seriously, the peanut sauce is all that you're gonna notice if you use it in any dish.

So then I cleaned all my dishes while listening to the Savage Lovecast, only to look through my fridge and decide that I needed to make stuffed zucchini for dinner. I bought these strange spherical zucchini with a French name from the farmer's market last Saturday and they are seriously awesome. But stuffing a zucchini with quinoa, red onions, and goat cheese requires getting so, so much dirty. A frying pan. A saucepan. A pyrex. A cutting board. One of my goals in life, really, instilled in me by Sam's Mom, is to cook dinner using as few dishes as possible.


But, I mean, when you end up with something like this and get to enjoy it while watching Judge Judy, sometimes it's worth it. It was mad tasty, and since I was already dirtying dishes like an enraged monkey, I decided that tonight was also the night to make some vegetable stock out of the scraps that I'd been saving in the freezer for a few weeks. This comes after Michael Ruhlman's nigh-hysterical assertion that, "Your food will taste better and fresher if you use that wonderful and inexpensive fluid at the end of your tap rather than anything that you can buy in a can or a box." I'm usually not too foodie-crazy, but he sounded super-serious, and also he's kind of a hottie, so maybe homemade stock is what gives his skin that extra lustre. But then again, he also admits to washing his hair with Dial hand soap, and I'm not quite down with that.


But, you know? With a little bit of salt, this stock does kind of annihilate anything I've ever gotten out of a box. Even a box from Trader Joe's! And that's hard. I threw in a couple purple potatoes because they were way less delicious than the fingerlings I bought from the farmer's market at the same time, and when I took them out, they were among the most delicious potatoes I've ever eaten. I'm saving them for lunch tomorrow. But I threw out the rest of the vegetable scraps, because I don't have a yard and therefore I have no reason to compost them. Well, no productive reason.


So, yeah. Vegetable stock. Totally worth it. I now have dirtied a stockpot, a frying pan, a saucepan, two Pyrex dishes, a strainer, and many other things. Like a wooden spoon. I like owning a wooden spoon. Anyhoo, if you're ever bored and looking for something to do, boil some vegetables and a little tomato paste, and yo, you will have some nice vegetable stock going on. And, according to Michael Ruhlman, an angel will get its wings.

Hopefully the same one that lost them when I installed Windows 98 over Unix.

The time of chimpanzees

DID YOU KNOW? In May 2003, a "critical massacre" occurred in Buffalo New York when two riders participating in a super-annoying monthly Critical Mass events "failed to yield to an emergency vehicle," which basically ended up starting a riot.

I wanted to come out as "single" on facebook, but I decided that I needed to change something else on my profile at the same time so that I wouldn't look desperate, just thorough. Luckily, when I made this decision, I noticed that Bay To Breakers was coming up in two short weeks, so I figured that this would provide me ample opportunity for a new profile picture.


Yeah, so now instead of being all, "Oh man, Sam's on the prowl!" I figure people will be like, "YEAH, Diddy Kong! ...and he's single!"

A conservative estimate would be eight hours. It took me eight hours to make this costume. Finding a carboard box that would fit me, cutting it up, putting it back together, covering it in brown construction paper, pimping out my grill, making wheels, a license plate. Then I hit up no fewer than four different thrift stores (don't worry, University Ave in Berkeley has a half-mile-long "thrift crawl," so it only took about an hour) for a sleeveless shirt, a hat, and some tiny red shorts. The stars on the shirt took about 8 coats of fabric paint, but, you know? Eventually, it was all good, because I ended up looking like this...


I took this picture of myself at around midnight the day before the race, as I finished the costume, because I had to share my excitement with the only other person on the entire planet who was awake, Mason, who took 10 minutes to respond to me because he was playing Mario Kart. I didn't take a camera to the race, kind of assuming that I was going to run the whole seven and a half miles while making monkey noises, but luckily, a bunch of other people did bring cameras, and so were able to capture the complete brilliance of our costume adventures.


But yeah, the whole running thing? False. No. Not when this is the Boston Marathon-sized crowd.


And not when you're afraid of taking off for fear of running into the thousands of other costumed participants, or getting sprayed by beer from someone's massive bacchanalian float, or slipping on a tortilla, or... well, any one of a thousand other stage hazards. Seriously, it's worse than the original Rainbow Road, where there's no railings and electric Thwomps that spin you out just for touching them.


So I ran for a little bit, just to catch up with Mitra and her posse around Mile 4, but after that I was kind of over the whole running thing, and finished the race in a respectable 2:29:41. Yeah, 7.5 miles in 2 and a half hours. Oh man, that's probably going on the internet, isn't it? I think that's actually slower than just plain walking.

But yeah, catching up with Mitra was somewhat of a harrowing experience. We both had our phones, and kept being like, "Are you right in front of the float? I'm right behind the float!" And I mean, she would be talking about the motorized UFO that doubled as a beer keg and I would be talking about the viking ship or something, and we'd just get confused and miss each other again. I did know that I was looking for a crowd of Paulie Bleeker, which any other day would have been kind of a giveaway, but apparently in a costumed road race five months after the most beloved film of all time is released, it's kind of hard to find Paulie Bleeker in a crowd. So I'd see a yellow headband, run, realize it was a bunch of drunk white guys, walk a little bit, see some striped socks, run, realize it was some old lady, stop for emergency mimosas, see another yellow headband, run. I would estimate that I saw more than 100 Paulie Bleekers on Sunday morning. That's more than twice the number of naked people I saw. And I feel like that's a goal we should all aspire to.

I thought that we were the only Mario Kart, because I didn't see any others along the way, but according to the internet, that's not entirely true. Oh well, I guess in a group of twenty or thirty thousand costumed people, there are bound to be a few repeats somewhere. Hopefully I was the only Diddy Kong, because seriously, I spent longer on that costume than I did on any of the four major oral presentations I've given this semester.

Anyway, after finishing the race we got free "hummus sundaes" from a hummus bar set up by Sabra after the race. Sabra the hummus company, not the winner of So You Think You Can Dance Season 3, although I'm sure that she's somehow involved with it. As far as I can tell this was the only free thing in the entire post-race expo, and as a result it was pretty well-hidden. But two hummus sundaes definitely hit the spot for lunch, along with the four bananas that I devoured during the race

All in all, next year I'm definitely not going to walk the race sober, as I explain briefly in my three-star Yelp review. I know, three stars is a little low, but I'm comparing it to the Hangar One vodka factory here. Afterwards I came home, grabbed some dinner with a friend, started on the oral presentation that I had to give to the source of my funding yesterday, pretended that Sam's Mom had actually woken me up when she called at 6 AM to remind me of my final, started studying for my kinetics final, totally rocked my kinetics final, came home, made lunch, fell asleep while finishing my oral presentation, gave my oral presentation, made dinner, and slept twelve hours. You'll never see my eyes. I woke up briefly in the middle to watch Devotchka perform "The Clockwise Witness" on Conan, and that was a little disappointing because the sound quality was kind of bad, and also why didn't they perform that in concert? Another extraordinarily productive day in my extraordinarily productive life.

And now? Regrouping. I have a lot of data to look at, a lot of research to plan, a lot of weddings to attend, and a lot of apartment to clean before my beloved high school friend Shana and prom date Maura get here tomorrow. I think it's tomorrow; I was kind of asleep when they called.

One more thing, a lot of people have been googling "beowulf shotgun players" and finding my blog, so I'm just going to put out there that no, it's probably not worth your money.

Good idea, bad idea

DID YOU KNOW? The "gay bomb" that was a major plot point in the Season 2 finale of 30 Rock was also a real idea. Just like the trivection oven in the pilot episode. I think it won an Ig Nobel last year.

One thing I forgot to tell you, a couple weeks ago, sources tell me that it was April 27, is that I found a license plate on Oxford as I was biking home from lab. You know, it was just going to sit there and get run over by cars anyway, so I did what any civic-minded citizen or homeless person would do: I stopped, ran out into the street, picked it up, and put it in my bag. Now I have California license plate 5DJB657.


I called my beloved high school friend Shana and asked her for advice. Should I keep it? Should I try to return it to its rightful owner? I think she was at work, so she was necessarily a little short, but she concluded that I should go on a "magical quest" to return it and let her know how that worked out. I first considered craigslist, but their Lost and Found listing seems way sketch; it seems to be populated mainly by people who kidnap other people's dogs and hold them ransom. Plus, I wasn't even sure if it was legal to pick up someone else's license plate, so I was a little dubious about advertising my license plate thievery on an open online forum. But I figure that the statue of limitations has expired after two weeks, so blogging about it is no problem.

Sometimes I like to cooperate with The Man, so I decided to go to the DMV's website and send them an e-mail. Basically the only thing you can do on the California DMV's website if you want to communicate with them is send a form letter with fewer than 100 words of your own, which a computer will analyze and then reply to with a stock response. So here's what I got out of that.

Dear California DMV Customer,

Thank you for using the California DMV Automated E-Mail System. Our system is designed to answer general questions based on the information you provide. We are unable to determine an appropriate response to your inquiry through our automated system. You may wish to rephrase and resubmit your inquiry using this link, http://www.dmv.ca.gov/contacts/contacts.htm or you may call us at 1-800-777-0133 during normal business hours and one of our technicians will be happy to assist you. Because we receive our heaviest call volumes on Monday and the day after a holiday, the best days to call us are Thursday or Friday.

So, yeah, it seems like the DMV doesn't care very much about this license plate. I definitely wasn't going to go down to the DMV to talk about it; the last time I was at the DMV I ended up walking out a socialist. And I wasn't going to spend an hour on hold, either. So I put it on a pile of stuff and ended up piling some more stuff on top of it and I kind of forgot about it. Thus ended that spirit quest.

And then today I received my bib number for Bay to Breakers. Since my team is going as Mario Kart, originally we intended to use our bib numbers as license plates instead of pinning them to our shirts. I had the best idea for a license plate holder too, but I can't tell you what without giving away my costume.

But then I thought to myself: "Wait, Sam, you already have a license plate." So, sticking my semi-pilfered California license plate 5DJB657 to the back of my Mario Kart and running 8 miles with it in plain view...

Good idea? Bad idea?

He's lost in his bitterness

DID YOU KNOW? NKOTB are BACK! I had remembered hearing that before, but I didn't realize the ramifications thereof until I was linked to their website.

I have my list of "things I like." Have I told you this? The most recent additions are watch tans, No-Ad sunscreen, and scallions. I'm also frequently tempted to start a list of "things I do not like." Number one on the list right now would probably be "the word 'slurp.'" God, what an unpleasant word. There is nothing appetizing about it at all. This means that there is a Thai restaurant in Berkeley that I will never try, but according to Yelp, perhaps that's a good thing.

But second on the list would probably be unicyclists. I do not like unicyclists at all. I mean, not the people or chimpanzees who ride unicycles at the circus. That can be kind of impressive. Or people that ride unicycles on top of umbrellas. That should actually go on my "things I like" list.

I'm talking about unicycle commuters. Seriously. Unicycle commuters. Is there anywhere other than Berkeley where one would run into unicycle commuters? And I mean that in the literal sense. Run into. Yesterday as I was on my way home from class, this dude unicycled right past me and across a narrow pedestrian bridge--I was slowing down to avoid hitting any pedestrians thereon--and he was seriously flailing his arms like Paula Abdul after a Justin Guarini performance. Once again, I almost died.

As far as I can tell, unicycles and bicycles are comparably priced, so it's not like people who commute on unicycles went to the n-cycle store and decided that they could not pay the premium for an extra wheel. Let's compare the relative benefits of each mode of transportation.

Bicycle
1. Second wheel offers improved stability and balance, minimizing flailing.
2. Has brakes. Stopping does not require dismounting.
3. Handlebars facilitate turning.
4. Can be locked to exterior bike racks, which are ubiquitous in Berkeley.
5. Can be taken to any number of bicycle repair shops if necessary.
6. Some models have multiple gears, offering increased mechanical advantage.
7. Can accommodate a basket or other carrying device, obviating the need for a backpack.

Unicycle
1. Draws attention to the rider.

And it's weird, because I'm a famewhore, and I really like riding my bike with no hands (it's on the list). Today I grabbed something out of my backpack on my way down Walnut St. But, you know, in case of emergency, I could always lean slightly forward and grab my handlebars if necessary. Seriously, unicyclists? What's wrong with you? I have never met a unicycle commuter that seems to have complete control of his vehicle. From my limited experience, I can extrapolate that they probably run into, on average, at least one pedestrian on every commute. And seriously, I'm pretty sure it's just so they can look cooler.

Oh man, you know? I had promised no angst in the very second entry of this blog. Whatever. You know what? I'm going to keep this up, just to discourage undecided people who google "unicycle commuting" to check out their options. Guys, seriously, you will only be raining destruction from the heavens on the innocent motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists in your city. I'm actually making the world safer, one wheel at a time.

And to balance out the angst I have just released into the universe, here's some German funk music that I picked up on a blog yesterday.

Listening wind

DID YOU KNOW? Chef Gordon Ramsay completed the 2006 London Marathon in 3:46:10.

Today is the windiest day ever in Berkeley and also it's 102 degrees outside and I almost died. Serious wind. We're talking MacGregor wind tunnel velocities, except not quite that bad because the ground hasn't iced over, so you're not actually getting blown backwards as you make your way down to MacGregor convenience for some emergency OJ.

I've started to feel really old lately, ever since this dude I knew in undergrad sold his company for five million dollars. I mean, he only went to MIT for one semester and then took a leave of absence to start Auctomatic, which I thought was the stupidest idea I had ever heard when he described it to me. Those of you that know me know that this is one of the few times in my life when I will ever admit to error.

Yeah, I think it's people younger than me becoming more successful than I am that really makes me feel older now. You know, Mark Zuckerberg turned 24 yesterday, so theoretically I will always have 18 months to make a billion dollars and catch up to him. But David Archuleta is already in the finals of American Idol and he's, what, 17 or something? Like, I want to be idolized. But I fear that I'm already too old. Chris Brown is only 19 and actually I haven't really heard of him very much, but he's already been sampled in the hands-down best track off the free Bootie compilation CD I received on Monday.

I think it actually has to do with web development being the new romantic profession. You know, in the late 19th century it was pulling yourselves up by the bootstraps and becoming a railroad baron. Then for the first half of the 20th century it was being a writer who condemns modern society while struggling with alcoholism. Then in the 1960's it was being a rock star and practicing in your parents' garage and then playing shows in grody nightclubs until one day you hit it big and started playing stadiums in front of trillions of people. And now it's being a web developer. It seems like we're due for a change every 50 years or something, so I can't wait to see what goes down next.

Another thing that made me feel old recently was seeing the Shotgun Players' rock opera production of Beowulf last night. It was okay; King Hrothgar was really a standout (although he was also the composer), and there was some really neat staging with two dozen box fans a-spinning as Beowulf gets torched by a dragon and some soprano sings an aria in Middle English. But mostly it was kind of incoherent, and dude, there was just so much swearing. My mouth was almost agape, and that's something that doesn't happen too frequently; the last two times I can remember were Bootie and seeing the Trevi Fountain in Rome.

Not that I'm totally against swearing or anything. I actually think it's kind of an art form, and kind of beautiful in the right context, like Freddie Mercury singing "now you can kiss my ass goodbye" or Dan Savage's startlingly vulnerable eulogy of his mother. But seriously, Beowulf? They were just swearing all the time. Not that, you know, Grendel probably wouldn't swear, as long as he was tearing people's limbs off and devouring them, but still. There was just no art in it. It was just words. And, Idonno, I thought it was a little overdone. Except when Grendel's Mom had a recitative where every other word was "fucking," literally, and that was kind of pleasant.

But, yeah. I guess I don't like swearing anymore, and that makes me feel old too. And finally, today in lab the death song of my data computer grew too loud to be ignored any longer, so I found a slightly newer computer and installed Windows 98 on it. In the process I had to write over Linux, so I'm sure that somewhere in heaven, an angel has lost its wings. Anyway, when I tried to open Internet Explorer, I got the message, "Windows is trying to detect your modem." And then I remembered that Windows 98 was an upgrade for our first family computer. My my.

Im Wunderschönen Monat Mai

DID YOU KNOW? The most-covered song of the year 2007 was officially "Umbrella" by Rihanna.

I'm not going to actually count, like I did for my MISTIblog, which will most likely be longer than my thesis (144 pages double spaced without pictures), but I'm pretty sure that this blog entry is longer than all of the papers I supposedly worked hard on instead of writing it. Go me.

I hate it when I get so far behind in blogging that I can't even begin to organize my thoughts and tell you about all the amazing things that have been going on in my life recently. But, you know? I can do this all in one entry. I can do anything.

Thursday, May 1

Let's start with my presentation for Radke Lab. One thing that's developed since I took 10.26 with Professor Virk is that I'm so over ever having text on my slides. When you have text on slides, you have to reference what the text says and you're accountable for it, and it could be wrong. With pictures, you can kind of say anything you want about the pictures on the fly, and if someone smarter than you is in the audience says "No, that's wrong!" you can be all, "No, that's not what I actually said; of course you're right!" and then you learned something you didn't know before and also nobody can prove that you're stupid. Unless you're being recorded, but I'm not that much of a rock star yet.

But there was one slide that I couldn't resist including in my picture-filled presentation; luckily, the text I included thereon is not subject to dispute:
You know, it's kind of hard to believe that Donald Rumsfeld, of all people, would say something that describes so precisely, if not quite coherently, the nature of scientific research, or at least scientific research from the perspective of a graduate student. But there you go.

Friday, May 2

This day was more or less without event, except Hung and Adam came over to watch another chapter of Angels In America, which I fear that nobody is really enjoying as much as I am, but that's how it works sometimes, when you commit yourself to watching a six-hour miniseries. Anyhoo, any grief caused by my guests' possible boredom was totally offset by the fact that I found mangoes for 25 cents each at Safeway, which is basically four times cheaper than what I'm willing to pay for a mango on a normal sale day. So, seriously, I bought eight. And as of this writing, the Ides of May, I'm still working my way through them in my morning cereal. Rice Krispies and mango. It's kind of like mango sticky rice, right? Mango Krispie Rice. I am a culinary genius.

Saturday, May 3

This was the busiest day of all time, or at least since high school when I used to have double musical rehearsals and hang out in the chorus room and Sam's Mom would bring me Hong Kong Ruby in the 30 minutes I had between practices. I woke up and decided to run 10 miles, which I am trying to do once a week now, and I decided to just run up into Tilden Regional Park and keep going, instead of doing my normal route. I know that this is a bit of a white whine, but the weather and the park were just so incredibly beautiful on that most perfect of mornings that I ended up running seven miles before I even realized where I was. And then, well... I had to run back seven miles, right? The problem with running. In addition to making your heart explode, you know? But Lake Anza is extraordinarily beautiful from... whatever side I ended up on. I was also really excited to run by somewhere called Inspiration Point, which makes me feel like I should be in a car necking with Chachi or something.

Then I heard that there was some mariachi band action going on at Cheeseboard Pizza to celebrate... Tres de Mayo. I'm never one to miss mariachi bands, ever, in any context, and also I needed to go to the Farmer's Market, so I grabbed my Supreme Master tote and headed on a merry little walk down Shattuck.

And, sure enough, mariachi action going on at the Cheeseboard.


Also, I kind of knew that this was going to be one of the best days ever because this was the Cheeseboard's definition of "one slice of pizza" that day.


For real-io. It's like Ernesto's except it only costs $2.50, and it's not made with Hormel pepperoni. I then headed to the Farmer's Market, where fresh produce and haunting steel drum music somehow inspired in me a craving for a single, really intense bite of dark chocolate. I tried every stand at the farmer's market, The French Hotel, Cheeseboard, Saul's, Love At First Bite, and Masse's Pastries, but somehow nobody was dispensing chocolate at quite the price point, darkness, and texture necessary to satisfy me. Finally I ended up going home and eating some mango yogurt, which was kind of satisfying, in a different way.

Then I had to bike down, down, down College Ave, which is actually easier than driving down College Ave, to Nisita's place, where we went to construct our costumes for Bay To Breakers, a drunken costume road race in SF that's going down on Sunday. At the risk of major spoilage, we're going as Mario Kart, and it's pretty much going to be amazing. I'm not going to tell you who I'm dressing up as in particular, but it's safe to say that I am going to be the biggest hazard to other runners in the entire event. We also discovered that I can fit a cardboard box that measures "10 x 10 x 10" over my shoulders and around my waist. I am kind of afraid to ask what unit 10 x 10 x 10 represents, but you can judge for yourself when I put up Bay to Breakers pictures next week.

But that's not all. No no. I had to skip out on our Karty party a little bit early because I had made plans to see the Mozart requiem as performed by the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra. I'm not super crazy about the Mozart requiem, but that week's 30 Rock was about Amadeus, porn video games, and Will Arnett, so I was more receptive than I would have usually been upon seeing an ad for the performance in a bookstore--it's just that I happened to see an poster advertising the Mozart requiem before I saw any Arrested Development DVDs or Custer's Revenge.

I mean, the Domine Jesu is basically one of the greatest things ever; the whole "ne absorbeat eas tartarus" melody that comes in at 1:00 in this video is so dizzying that it nearly makes me pass out every time I hear it. But the best aspect of the performance was the incredibly lovable conductor, Arlene Sagan, whose age must be about twice her height in inches, and yet still conducted the choir with masterful control and appropriate passion. I also liked the fact that there was a charity bake sale in the middle of the piece. You know, you don't normally expect to go out and eat brownies right after the Lacrimosa, but it was an interesting interpretation.

And then somehow I ended up getting back from the Requiem at 1:30 AM, somehow simultaneously both earlier and later than I would have liked.

Sunday, May 4

So Vasily, who demonstrated total dominance in the impromptu arm-wrestling tournament that took place during our otherwise placid Radlab ski trip, had the great idea of going on a Radlab bike ride, at least while we have more than five people in our lab. And seriously? It was Radriffic.

We biked and BARTed over to the Embarcadero center, along with every other person who lives in the East Bay, and took a quick ride over to Pier 41 to meet up with Vasily and rent some gear for one of our bike-challenged coworkers. From there we biked up the waterfront or whatever you call it in San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and up into Sausalito, where we stopped for lunch. I had a pretty decent tuna melt, although it helped that I was in a tuna melt state of mind at that exact moment in time.

Then it became the most wonderfully beautiful day of all time as we biked over bridges and around marshes and through yards and past schoolhouses and over wooden bridges to get to Tiburon, where we got the reward of some really fantastic gelato at some place that I forget where it was. Anyway, this whole thing was just an excuse to show how proficient I am at taking pictures while riding a bicycle, a skill I developed during 240 miles of Tester Lab bike trips.











I took 224 pictures, but somehow Vicky is in basically every one I decided to upload to this blog. Rest assured that we have more lab members. Like 2 or 3 more.

Monday, May 5

I purveyed my aforementioned cake to a few hungry members of my chemical engineering class. The rest of the day was kind of without incident, until I got home and roasted some beets. Yeah, that was the most interesting part of my day. No, seriously. I apparently bought nine red beets at the farmers' market about a month ago. Remember when I told you about that awesome roasted beet pasta dish I made a while back? Evidently it was so inspirational that I went out and bought a few pounds of beets, probably because they were the only things that were in season at that time.

Problem: I bought some red beets. Man, I don't know if there is a more intractable vegetable than red beets. Like, first of all, you have to roast them for an hour before they're edible, so they're definitely not a convenience food. Second, they just get red everywhere. On your cutting board. In your oven. Under your fingernails. In your ear. Everywhere. Also, in case you didn't know, they come out of you the same color that they went in. It's kind of freaky. You think you've sustained massive internal bleeding the next morning, until you realize no no, it was just the beets. And then finally, then they don't even taste that good once you've gone to all that trouble.

Or so I thought. So, yeah, nine red beets. I just roasted all those mothers all at once, because I couldn't stand having beets hanging out in my crisper any longer. So I used the first one to make a pasta dish with some oranges, green garlic, and arugula, but seriously, it just didn't compare to the last one. Trader Joe's Chevre really was the secret ingredient. That one was magical; this one didn't even look appetizing.


Then I was just kind of bummed because I still had four cups of chopped roasted beets hanging out in my fridge. Luckily, I had been reading cookbooks yesterday while drying off after my shower, and I recalled a recipe for Alton Brown's beet and broccoli slaw. And, I mean, I'm a little bit over Alton, but how bad could that be? I didn't have any broccoli, probably for the first time in my life, but I made up for it by chopping up some carrot, asparagus, red onion, and apple, and just throwing it in with the beets and some vinegary dressing. And yo Alton, kind of delicious, and even better mixed with arugula for a 30-second salad. Totally awse, even if it took me a week--and a lot of red--to work through it all.


Tuesday, May 6

I don't think anything of import happened today, which I determined by looking through my gmail archives, except that I discovered that I am (finally) the first Google hit for "sam maurer," with or without quotation marks. YEAH, take that U Mass Amherst econ major and Emporia State University debate coach.

Obviously, my goal is also to be the first google hit for "sam maurer amherst" and "sam maurer debate emporia" as well. It is not enough that I shall succeed; all others must fail.

Wednesday, May 7

So I had a problem set due and a presentation to give on Thursday, and at 1:58 PM I received the following e-mail:

Sam,

Any interest in the opera tonight? Bartok's Bluebeard and Ravel's L'Enfant.

It's at 7:30 on College at the Julia Morgan Center. I'm going.

And for some reason I responded,

Sure! Why not? Do you think we can grab some $10 student rush tickets?

sam

I mean, y_0 = homework, presentation, but whatever, we can assume that y_0 is much smaller than opera, because the Berkeley Opera company is crazy good, AND I was the First To Review it on Yelp! First To Review is kind of the ultimate measure of Yelp cred. I have five, but the other ones have been for restaurants in Delaware and Harrisburg, and a parking garage in Central Square. Getting one is pretty challenging; you either have to find places that are just about to open and review their decor, or go to places where no other Yelpers live. That's how my "Yelp Friend" Dan M. has 338/442 firsts: he just goes to McDonald's's in rural Pennsylvania and writes up a one-sentence summary of each of them. Probably pretty useful, if you're ever driving through rural Pennsylvania and you have a satellite smartphone.

Anyway, getting a First To Review in the Yelp-filled Bay Area is nearly impossible, and I was totally ecstatic that I got one, especially because I got to see two outstandingly good operas in the process. I celebrated by watching Top Chef after the opera, starting on my kinetics homework at midnight, and starting my oral presentation in the shower the following morning.

Thursday, May 8

Apparently after Wednesday night I was pretty much going for the world championship of procrastination. I had a presentation for my enzymes class which I came up with in the shower at 8 AM and prepared, mostly, in the very back row of my last ever kinetics lecture with (really) Enrique Iglesia. I hope I acquitted myself well in the beginning by admitting that, as a chemical engineer, I actually have no knowledge of chemistry and the entire class was way over my head, and chemists are smarter than chemical engineers. Judith Klinman thought it was kind of funny, or maybe it was just pity laughter, but I feel like after being elected to the National Academy of Sciences you're kind of over pity laughter. At least I hope so. Anyway, neither professor threw anything at me after my ridiculous, overcomplicated research proposal, so maybe I have a hope of doing okay on the final paper for the class.

Then my undergrad Shirley, and you can tell I like her because I just called her Shirley and not Undergrad, invited the whole Radke lab to a FREE barbecue courtesy of her dining hall. It was totally dining hall food. I really hated the dining halls in undergrad, except for that one sassy stir-fry dude in Baker, so I always tried to avoid going, but, you know, freedom makes everything better. Yo, so many ribs. So, so many ribs. A universe of ribs. It was fantastic. Potato salad. And beans with apples in them! I have to try that. Totally free. Oh man.

You know, I'm trying to make a list of things all guys like, regardless of their hobbies or upbringing or sexuality or anything like that. So far here is what I have come up with:

1. video games
2. competitive eating

Any other day, I would have been totally all over a rib eating contest. But no, this day I had to bike home so that I could get there in time for 30 Rock and start the "beefy" transport problem set that was assigned six weeks ago. But seriously, laughing at Cathy Geiss's finest moment ever tired me out so much that I pretty much had to go right to sleep immediately after 30 Rock ended. And how did that turn out?

Friday, May 9

So yeah, World Series of Procrastination here. I started my transport homework at 12 PM when it was due at 5, and based on what I finished, it would have only taken me about 8 hours to actually finish completely. But you know, as you can already tell from the 8 days previously described in this entry, my life is obviously way too busy for me to have 8 hours to spare to do a transport problem set. I was on my way to drop it off in Penny's lab when she almost slammed a door into my face.

"Oh, here you go!"
"Great, thanks!"
"Are you going to the bathroom?"
"What?"
"Because that's where it belongs."
"I'm going to get ice."
"Oh, I mean, um..."
"At least it's finished, right?"
"That's a generous assessment."

Man, I am so good at conversations. I got home and had a totally chill night, though, working on my 10 x 10 x 10 kart-board box for Bay to Breakers. I am just all over the kart-related puns today, aren't I? Look for tons more in my entry on Monday. Gosh, I'm so excited.

Saturday, May 10

Oh MAN why is my life so busy, and why don't I blog with enough regularity? I'm kind of exhausted just going through all this. I probably did stuff this morning, but I'm gonna guess that it wasn't important because of the awesome evening that I had planned. So I invited like 12 different people to the city to hit up Bootie, out of which I ended up getting one "yes" and eight "maybes." WHATEVER. Bootie is so amazing, I figured, that I'd be totally happy to go even with just one other person, or maybe even just all by myself.

So Ashley, the only person in the entire world who can beat me at Connect Four, invited a friend to go with us, and we all met up on the BART to head out to Ike's Place for some expensive sandwiches, which we of course had to make a reservation for because it was the weekend and Ike's Place is crazy. We sat in Mission Dolores Park eating them, soaking in the scenery, the sunshine, the windy weather, the architecture, the truffle guy, a few cute dogs, and a bajillion punk rockers on bicycles for no apparent reason. At least it wasn't Critical Mass. God, if I had a North Dakota state quarter for every time Critical Mass messed up my pedestrian a-ramblings.

In the process of this awesome evening I met someone from Pocono Mountain West high school, which should excite at most one of my loyal readers.

Then we headed down to Truck because I am an Elite Yelp Whore. I think we were there a little early to make a fair judgment, but drinks were cheap, the decor was awesome, and they have a menu item called "Frings," which is unfortunately just a platter of fries and onion rings together instead of some kind of toric potato or something. Over frings I discovered that four of my "maybes" had turned into "yes" and also we were going to be met by an entire gay birthday party, and also Hung wanted to go to Hot Mess. Oh, if only all of my social plans could end this way.

Okay, so every word I've written in this entry so far is totally meaningless, because it hasn't gone toward the description of Bootie at all. Seriously. Bootie. I kind of had these unrealistic expectations of it going in from the Yelp reviews. They were all just like, "Wear whatever you want! Dance however you want! As long as your body is in motion, you will be accepted!" and I was kind of envisioning some sort of new dance paradise, maybe like the one described in Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 or depicted in her Feedback video. I mean, I'm really self conscious about dancing ever since leaving MIT, where nobody knew how to dance at all, except Gabe.

But seriously? Bootie? Whatever. Bodies in motion. That's all it is. Goths, queers, yuppies, hippies. Everyone. Dancing. It's a totally different world. It was cathartic. Nonstop dancing. Seriously, massive drag queens, a shirtless angel, and a dude dressed like A Clockwork Orange, all grinding on each other to the beat of some of the greatest mashup music I've ever heard.

And oh, the music. I mean, it was all pretty good before the live band came on, but seriously? Their first number was "Riders on the Storm" mixed with the rap section from "Rapture." They mixed "Closer" with "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" (Mitra: "I get these songs confused!"). They sang "Umbrella" over the beat to a Cure song. And for their last number, they mashed up "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with "Behind These Hazel Eyes," which I think was pretty much the best way for them to appeal to everybody in the audience. Then they played the Macarena and somehow it didn't suck, and there was a drag show at midnight, and then they went back to DJing, and we got tired and had to leave, but as we left they mixed "Rehab" with "Toxic." It was seriously all I could do not to stay; my heart was willing, but my bootie was weak.

Then Ashley and I took the Oakland bus home and survived, which is notable. She crashed on my bed and I really should tell Sam's Mom about this blog now, because she will be happy to learn that I am still making good use of that AeroBed she bought for me.

Sunday, May 11

So this is where it ends, because nothing important has happened this week, and I lose an average of three days in blogging every time I work on this blog entry. Ashley woke up and, muse that she is, inspired me to make waffles. Outside of recruiting weekend, this is the first time that I have actually used my waffle iron since coming to Berkeley. I used to be afraid, but I grew strong. It's seriously not that much work, and waffles are freaking delicious. I feel bad because Sam's Mom definitely packed my waffle iron among the things I brought to Berkeley in August, and I've used it like once now. Totally could have made room for some books there. Oh well. Waffles are power.

Then, I don't know, circumstantial evidence says I went running, and then I headed over to Hung and Adam's place for some dinner. I brought a salad, which contained Trader Joe's brand Dark Sweet Cherries, which is pretty much the greatest name for any consumer product since Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific Shampoo. The ingredients list for Dark Sweet Cherries even reads just "ingredients: dark sweet cherries." I'm pretty sure the ingredients list for GYHST doesn't read, "gee, it's ammonium laurel sulfate! oh man, tocopherol acetate!" But that's only because I was not alive to design it.

I stopped at Trader Joe's on the way and picked up this awesome wine that was on sale for $6, and I will tell you what wine it is as soon as Adam delivers the three bottles I made him buy for me when we went to Trader Joe's the next day. Anyhoo, then we played German board games, which I still kind of suck at, and did limbo, which I also kind of suck at but didn't know that until recently. Then we watched Strangers With Candy, which is at least something that I can kind of do successfully.

And.... done. Now that I'm not doomed to repeat my past, I can start blogging about my future.

It's only for now

DID YOU KNOW? Patty "Stockholm Syndrome" Hearst guest-starred on an episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete as Mrs. Krechmar, the nicest next-door neighbor in the world.

Still working on that all May, all the time entry, but it'll probably get done tomorrow after I finish my last major assignment for the semester, a 10-page paper for my enzyme kinetics class, based mostly on the presentation that I wrote in the shower last week. But you know, I gotta believe, I gotta keep blogging no matter what, never give up, never surrender and all that.

This is the real headline for today, courtesy of my Gmail inbox and its sporadic import of my leftover MIT e-mails.

All three e-mails came from the same sender to the MIT ChemE-All list. I'm just kind of curious as to why super glue was so urgently necessary, especially for a function like the ChemE awards ceremony. I didn't win anything last year, but I went there and I didn't notice anything that needed super-gluing or duct-taping among the decorations. You know, I'm not that disappointed anymore if super glue and duct tape are apparently necessary to assemble the awards.

In other news, I have inspired two separate people to compose 27 Yelp reviews in the past 24 hours, simply by rocking my Yelp Elite hoodie. Man, I am such an awesome ambassador. An elite ambassador, you might say.

Also, as I told Mitra this morning, happy four year anniversary. God bless you, Sarah Tabacco. I'm kind of sorry that the first google hit for your name is my blog. And kind of honored.

All we have is now

DID YOU KNOW? The Deborah number, a dimensionless quantity in rheology, is named not for its discoverer, but for the biblical prophetess Deborah, who sang of "mountains flowing before the Lord." Correspondingly, the number deals with time scales related to the fluid properties of a material. It is the only dimensionless quantity that has ever been named after a woman.

I have a really long entry that I've been in the process of writing for a while, talking all about how busy I've been this month and how astoundingly great my life has been. And I feel like I keep apologizing for never finishing that post, like I used to do all the time on my MITBlog. But unfortunately, for you at least, I have to leave for Bootie in half an hour, which I could not possibly be more excited about.


In the spirit of feeling close to Gustavo, I decided to put up a quick post, NOW, about this really awesome salad that I just ate. Iceberg lettuce, asparagus, strawberries, and a honey mustard dressing that Dan taught me how to make. By "taught me how to make," I mean that he said "you can make a really great honey mustard dressing combining olive oil, honey, and mustard in a 1:1:1 ratio." Now the secret's out. Sorry Dan.

Seriously, it tasted like the Greek goddess of spring was taking a nap on my tongue. What an excellent and seasonal salad this was. Okay, Bootie time.

A gun that fires cost

DID YOU KNOW? There is a Vermont secessionist movement.

Thanks Ruthie.

So the computer we run ellipsometry on is kind of old. It runs Windows 98. Did you know that was released 10 years ago? When I was 12. This is actually not the oldest computer I've ever worked on. In Tester Lab we used to run HPLC off of a computer so old that it had chomatograms on it that predated my birth. I mean, it wasn't Y2K compliant, so the data that I was collecting on it was technically dated February 17, 1906, but there was other stuff on it from 1984, the real one. Presumably.

But, you know, that computer worked. It did one thing; it ran that HPLC, and it did a good job of it. It wasn't compatible with any printer released after 1990, and the only Generation X printer we could find required that you stand beside it to manually feed it paper, but other than that? It was a nice computer. It never froze. It never yelled at you. It was dependable. They knew how to make them back then. I think it predated DOS.

So the computer from which I run my ellipsometer. It kind of does not work. Like, I have to collect data for 4 hours at a time, or else the data I collect is not really useful. My computer is only able to do this three out of every four times without freezing. There are a lot of times when three out of four times is pretty good, but this is not a good example of one. Like, amputations. If you can only do an amputation correctly three out of four times, that's not good.

Anyway, I recently discovered that Ctrl-Alt-Deleting and closing every nonessential program helps system stability a lot. And, I mean, it's not possible to run more than one program at a time, but you know? Who needs all those programs? All I do is run ellipsometry on it. It keeps me focused. The big problem with this old ellipsometer computer is removing data from it. It took me three weeks to figure out how to do that.

Well, actually, at first it wasn't such a big problem, because Internet Explorer still worked. Forget Firefox. Internet Explorer still worked. It took five minutes to load Google. I mean this homepage. It took five minutes to load this. You know how sometimes Gmail says "It's taking a long time for your page to load! Want to use the basic HTML view?" It took three minutes to recognize that. Then it hung and had to be restarted. But anyway, Calmail was a little less graphics-intensive or something, so only took about a quarter of an hour for you to get in there and mail it to yourself for use on another computer. I had to rinse the flowcell after finishing my data collection anyway, so it wasn't so bad. Just part of the routine.

Then Internet Explorer stopped working. I mean, normally your advice would just be "Use Firefox!" but no. No no. That's not gonna happen. I tried defragging and the computer froze two percent into that. I tried running a virus scanner, but some automatic update opened while it was running and crashed it. Basically the internet was broken, like some mad ox. And just to give you a little more perspective on the age of this computer--the floppy drive doesn't work either. It makes a grinding sound every time you turn it on.

So I presented Professor Radke with this data and convinced him that we needed a new computer. He concurred. I asked Loddie where the ellipsometry software was so that I could install it on the new, shiny computer I was about to buy. She said that she didn't know and suggested that I call the company. So I shot them an e-mail last week explaining the situation. We want to upgrade our computer but can't find the software. Can you send it to us? I wasn't really expecting anything, but it felt like I was getting work done in lab that day by sending an e-mail. Much to my surprise, here's the response I received today.

Hello Sam,

unfortunately your configuration of the SE400 is not compatible with a new computer or operating system. The current version has Ethernet connectivity and can be used. In your case that would mean to upgrade to a new controller based system and computer.

Cost associates with this would be $19,000 if sent in for this upgrade or $25,000 on-site. This is a pretty high price tag but unfortunately the old system is no longer supported. I can send an official quote in case you would consider this upgrade.

Best Regards,

Ralf

Twenty-five thousand dollars. Seriously, somebody offered to sell me something that costs twenty-five thousand dollars. I could spend that much money right now. Like, dang. I'd consider it, but, you know, that's kind of nearly my yearly salary, so I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that it gets put toward that instead. Still. I feel like I'm wielding some sort of insane power right now, like that one time I went to Neiman Marcus and tried on a five thousand dollar pair of shorts. Except those were actually kind of comfy, whereas an ellipsometer controller would not be so.

Cost aside, I think my favorite sentence in the e-mail above is "the current version has ethernet connectivity and can be used." You know, it's encouraging to know that I'm buying a controller that can be used. Especially when I'm spending twenty-five thousand dollars for it.

The happy ending is that I finally figured out that the computer had SSH file transfer software on it, and apparently for good reason. Luckily, I'm going to have MIT webspace basically forever, because Mollie isn't working for the admissions office anymore and probably nobody else would volunteer to move all the pictures from my MITblog out of there and change all the links in the text. Yeah. So web.mit.edu/smaurer forever.

Anyway, so all my data is kind of out there in the public right now, because, well, it's easier to download that way. Whatever. Some people might call it an interdisciplinary collaboration. I like to think of myself as a pioneer. An insane pioneer, wearing five thousand dollar shorts.

Motorcade of generosity

DID YOU KNOW? I just ate an entire orange peel while typing this entry.

Back in middle school I was in Chamber Ensemble and Mrs. Winch had the fantastic idea of having the Chamber Ensemble put on one-act musicals in front of the entire school in December to celebrate the holiday season. You know, in retrospect it was probably kind of embarrassing, but at the time I was totally digging the role of a rapping chimney sweep named Shingles who has the one line solo, "I'm covered in carbon, I'm covered in soot!"

It was the late nineties, so of course these musicals were miracles of religious diversity. In seventh grade, we had songs about Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, and snow in general, which I guess was meant to appease the pagans in the audience. There was only one black person in our entire choir, and inexplicably she was not chosen to appear in the vignette regarding Kwanzaa, leaving four seventh-grade boys to improvise a backstory about "my friend Michael" who told them all about the wondrous traditions surrounding the holiday of first fruits.

But eighth grade--the year of the rapping chimney sweeps--totally one-upped that production, both in terms of diversity and creative staging. We had to free Santa Claus from a chimney. We had to throw carrots and leeks down a chimney so that a poor Jewish family could make Hannukah soup. We had to sing a sweet lullaby outside Stephanie's window so that she could see that she "had what it took to be a Kwanzaa Child." And finally, we had to find a pair of shoes for an underprivileged Latino family, which we threw down their chimney while exclaiming, "Hey Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas everyone, feliz año nuevo, happy new year too!"

You know, the definitive song on the subject has already been written, but I guess it's under copyright or something, and our school district definitely didn't have the means to afford any of that. Anyway, the point is, today is Cinco de Mayo, and it's not a holiday that I usually celebrate, or even know what it's about, but, you know, I'm kind of lucky that I was indoctrinated in the ways of diversity so early in my life. And since I spent the Decembers of my youth observing Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Navidad, and Snow Day, I thought that this year would be a good time to figure out how exactly to celebrate this most momentous day in Mexico's history.


Turns out one of the ways people celebrate is by making a tres leches cake, which is something I've always wanted to try since seeing it on Alton Brown. You know, I usually love Alton Brown, but his recipe for tres leches cake lists all its dry ingredients by weight, and I kind of don't think that a kitchen scale is a good investment when I only bake, on average, once every two months. Yes, I know that by-weight measument is the only way to be sure that you're getting the proportions exactly right, but seriously, it's a buttery cake that's soaked in cream and condensed milk for 12 hours and then frosted. Is there any way that it's really going to turn out too badly?

So I used an allrecipe that, despite using volume measurements, which can apparently be off by like 200% or something, turned out fantastically. Seriously. Five stars. If I had an account at allrecipes. Actually, making an account there would be a good investment, unlike a kitchen scale, or Starbucks stock.

And of course, what has two pincers, a free cake, and is now the popular one? This Zoidberg! There's really no way to be unpopular when you send out an e-mail with the subject line "Free cake!" and the first paragraph,

As you all know, I'm really proud of my Mexican heritage, so to celebrate Cinco de Mayo this year I thought I'd try making a Tres Leches cake, just like Grandma Maurer used to make back in Lebanon, PA. Stop by 295 Tan at 1:00 PM if you want to have some. Maybe Colin will even put on La Calle.

Strangely enough, some people believed that I was Mexican. No no. I'm a Mexican't.

We're going wrong.

DID YOU KNOW? Dagwood Bumstead from the comic strip Blondie was disowned by his family after marrying below his class.

Yeah, it's been a while, or at least I hope I have established a posting schedule regular enough that four days qualifies at a "long time." You know there's nothing I love more than being regular.

Oh man, I had a busy weekend. So, basically, I think that it's ended up that I don't do... work on weekends anymore. Like, I just did a half hour's worth of dishes that had built up over the course of it, and you know that I haven't been that bad about dishes since sophomore year or something. By "you" I mean "Mitra." That's actually who this blog is always addressing, I think. Anyway, if I didn't have a chance to do any dishes this entire weekend, you know that I didn't read any papers on the synthesis of Langmuir-Blodgett films.

But I'm hecka tired (trying to watch my mouth in anticipation of telling Sam's Mom about the existence of this blog), so I don't have time to tell you all about waking up in my lab at 4 AM, or biking to Sausalito and hearing Kelly Clarkson, or a cat with six toes on its paw, or a mariachi band, or my ex-girlfriend Shannon, or condensed milk, or gettin' it on like Diddy Kong, or anything like that. Not tonight. But soon. I have to make a correction to a previous blog entry.

So here, perhaps in a euphoria induced by the best joke in the first new episode of 30 Rock in months, I wrote,

Nature, nurture, who's to say? But let it be known that when I was eight years old, my favorite comic strip was Cathy, because of her views on shopping and men. And really, as far as I can remember, that was the very first sign that I was ever interested in things such as shopping and men. And chocolate. Chocolate chocolate. Ack!

I know, you're laughing for five minutes straight at your office computer again, aren't you? Sorry dude. Anyway, it turns out that that's not actually true. I was having this conversation with someone on Saturday night and I remembered that this was not, in fact, the first sign of such interests. No, actually, as Sam's Mom told me at some point during high school, I think it was at the Evergreen Chinese Buffet, where most of our important mother-son discussions took place, including the one time sophomore year when I told Sam's Mom that I wanted to take Allison to homecoming my sophomore year and she protested that her high school dances were "dens of iniquity," teaching me both vocabulary words and important life lessons simultaneously...

Anyway, I'm digressing again and I really need to get some sleep. I think we were on the topic of some baby we knew and how its first word was "dada" and the Mom was inconsolable. And then Sam's Mom informed me that this situation hadn't arisen with me, because my first word was neither "dada" nor "mama," neither "dad" nor "mom," not "hello" or "hi" or "milk" or "dog" or anything so pedestrian. No, Sam's Mom told me, my first words were "young guy."

Yes, "young guy." By Sam's Mom's recollection, it was because she used to sing me this song, and it used to go "You're just a young guy! You're just a young guy!" I don't know if it's an actual song, or if I'm even getting the lyrics right, but the important part is that I was apparently musically gifted as a youth, even moreso than Shawna, who apparently has some video of her when she was like 1 year old playing the piano and figuring out when she got wrong notes, psh, no, this was like 9 months. Yes, the important part is that at this tender age I was able to pick up on the refrain to the song and sing its pivotal words back to Sam's Mom: "ung ahee." And Sam's Mom translated those fateful syllables as "young guy," and thus the phrase "young guy" has gone down in history as the first words I ever spoke. It's almost like a pair of bronze baby booties, except ones that still fit twenty-one years later.

And Sam's Mom told me this before she knew I was interested in shopping and men. And chocolate. Chocolate chocolate! Ack!