jaralith

Wow, I haven't posted in a while! And now I'm trying to post over a Loki in my lap. <3 kitteh!

My laptop stopped working. I'm pretty sure it was the power supply, but I've been lazy about yanking the hard drive. I'm borrowing my advisor's old laptop for stuff that absolutely must be done at home. But really, I'm not missing it much. I just do more work while I'm at work, and then actually have a life in the evenings! And since I put the grant in yesterday, I actually do have time!!

*pets the Loki*


Oh, I got new glasses! For long-distance. I used to only wear them at the computer. I picked them up today! Everything looks farther away, and every time I walk around wearing them I can't stop laughing because I feel so tall. =D

Huh. I am actually happy with my life, so I don't have much to say. =)

aerodiver, entropius, faye134679

We've been friended by one of those Russian bots. This one's journal is named "cbriju."
The bots make a profile and copy-paste some random crap into it.
I just reported it, but keep a look out for more of them.

Nobody's really sure what the bots do... they think it's data mining. It's a fresh warning, though, to never post anything remotely personal outside a friends-lock. The bot gets access to all your public entries, and those of your friends. (It has been noted that those "porn-star name" memes are rife with info that most people use as their security question... mom's maiden name, street you grew up on, etc. Go lock those.)

More information here.

Holy mother fuck!

I can't say I just finished the thing. But the draft is done, and it's off for revision. I'll likely spend all day tomorrow and Sunday revising. But revising is easy... writing is hard! And the hard part is done!!!

I shall have something special at Grad Student Happy Hour this evening. Usually I get a Sam Adams Cherry Wheat and call it a day. Or do I want to save the something special for my birthday? We will be at Mad Mex after all, home of the $5 Big Azz margarita!

Away, to happy hour! Maybe even team trivia!


P.S. Cherry Coke Zero is nasty. I needed caffeine and it was the only thing available... I am regretting it. It is awful. It's like artificially-flavored ass cherries added to flat Coke, with that horrible aspartame aftertaste. (I thought it was sweetened with sorbitol, but alas! Now I shall have an aspartame headache on top of the caffeine spaz!)

PHENYLKETONURICS: You're not missing anything!

Man, what is it about California?

Initially, I thought all my potential post-docs would be in Pittsburgh or Chicago. Being a huge fan of not freezing to death, I've been looking into other options.

So first I find UC-Davis. There's a high-level researcher there that I've actually worked with. We'd be using primate models, which is kinda meh, but doable. And then I found this program at UC-San Francisco! Much better fit, and there are a number of high-level researchers there that I have met in passing. I shall schmooze them at the PNIRS conference this summer. And today! In cleaning up my desk and surrounding pile of crap, I came across a document I picked up at PNIRS last year: a call for applications to the Cousins Center. It's at... UCLA. UCLA looks cool, but it's in Los Angeles. I'd be studying own immunology as I slowly hacked my asthmatic lungs out.

I still think UCSF is perfect. The sun came out from behind the clouds as I typed that, so I shall take it as a sign! The campus is dedicated to health sciences, three awesome faculty I want to work with are there, and one of their current postdoc fellows is a woman I drank beer out of a plastic boot with last summer. =D

K. Paper, writtens, orals, NRSA, write paper, conference, teach, proposal, run study, run more different study, conference, teach, write diss, defense, graduate. I'm on it! Looks like I won't finish until 2011, though... Mom will be unhappy. She's looking forward to having an excuse to go to California. I am down with this, as it keeps her off the topic of grandchildren!

Happy birthday, 2009!

May you kick way more ass than 2008 did.

...good god, I can't believe it's 2009.

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Yes! Yes I do! Not hurricanes, since I live in Pennsylvania. But having grown up in Missouri, I was prepared for tornadoes and earthquakes. These precautions transfer well to zombie preparedness.

*I have saved up a month's worth of all my prescriptions. (The pharmacy will refill two or three days before you run out. Refill as early as you can and save those last few pills each month.)

*I stockpile water in used juice bottles. I even change it out every year or so! I should do that more often. Some plastics leach into the water. Same with canned foods. Make sure you switch out your stockpile before it expires!

*I do still need a NOAA weather radio, but I have lots of first aid supplies, all the time. =)

*Every time I walk through campus, I check buildings out for zombie safety. My building, for example, isn't that great. My old lab would be great, as it has no windows and thick locked doors. But there is no food there! There is a flat roof for good gardening, if the zombie threat becomes long-term.

*I never get caught out without shoes I can run in.

Ahh, back to the politics:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6167856

This isn't just some random dudes from another country now. It's you. US citizens can be held as enemy combatants. That puts you outside your own system of laws and sticks you under the jurisdiction of King George III.

Material support... well, my tax money supports Bush's war, so I guess that makes me a terrorist!
Seriously, there is *no* definition of "material support." And with the suspension of habeus corpus, you have absolutely no right to demand you be told what you did wrong. In other words... they can pick you up for anything, and you cannot fight it. And they expect me to trust this guy??

"A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody." (italics mine) http://www.lectlaw.com/def/h001.htm

Various quotes from Supreme Court decisions:

"[The Court] recognized the fact that`[t]he writ of habeas corpus is the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action.'"
"[t]he writ of habeas corpus is one of the centerpieces of our liberties."

I gotta hand it to Specter. He introduced an amendment to get rid of the suspension of habeas corpus. It was voted down. Uh, hello? Habeas corpus means, literally, "you have the body." In other words, prove there was a crime committed. You can't have a suspect if there was no crime. Sorry, Georgie, we can't arrest people "at the will of His Majesty" here in the US. But now we can! And that scares the fuck out of me.

So if you would... Amnesty International is a good group against this kind of bullshit.
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/site/c.goJTI0OvElH/b.2108611/k.C0B9/The_America_I_Believe_In_Leads_the_World_on_Human_Rights/apps/ka/ct/contactus.asp?c=goJTI0OvElH&b=2108611&en=hnLFLKNuG9KyEHMhE2LzENOnHfILKIOhH5KEIKMqFnLXE

You might also mention to your Congresspeople that they're shooting themselves in the foot. (Seriously. They're signing their own power away. WTF?) You can find out their contact info here: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Seriously, write your Congresspeople. You don't have to be eloquent. A piece of paper that says "You're an idiot for voting for this" will do. They just stick letters in the "yes" stack or the "no" stack and weigh them anyway. (Seeing some of the mass-produced responses I get from Bud Cramer, I don't think they even read them beyond that.) And then... vote with your vote! We have elections in November!

( Here are the Senators who voted yes )

WHY have we not impeached this chimpanzee?

Be loud. They know they can get away with it because Americans are lazy and only know what Fox News tells them. Prove them wrong!

Hokay.

So there's this cat. She is very sweet and fluffy. We estimate she's around two years old, maybe a bit younger. She's rabies-free *grin* and just had her rabies vaccination. (I have her cert and tag.) She is intact, and either Not Pregnant or in the very, very early stages of pregnancy- either way, the vet said spaying is a good option at this point.

Cat is very, very friendly and would like nothing more than a person who would pay all sorts of attention to her. She's a stray, but she's so tame I'm pretty sure she was a housecat that someone lost or got rid of. I'll see if I can post some pics.

Care she needs:
-Vaccinations besides rabies
-Spaying
-Flea dip (I haven't seen any on her, but her kitten has lots so I'm sure she does too.)

Anybody who knows anybody who might want this cat... let me know! Or, ya know, just come to Walter's apartment and grab her... she's very vocal. Not hard to find. =)

Hokay. Getting a little irritated.

The store got the dresses in on FEBRUARY FOURTH. This is now a month ago. Four weeks. Thirty days.

Do I have the dress in hand?

No.

I have to drive to Missouri, altered dress in hand, in SIX DAYS. I'm going to have to pay rush to get the damn thing altered... that is, IF it even ends up here.

Don't even talk to me about Bridezilla. You're watching Bridesmaidzilla in the making here. For $175 freaking dollars you can freaking ship a dress in less than a freaking month! I have never paid this much for a dress in my LIFE... not to mention for a dress I DON'T EVEN HAVE!

Rawr.

That reminds me. I need to get her a gift.

Hey Ben/Jeff... can you watch/not kill my cats from 3/10-3/13? I'm leaving around 6am on Thursday and I'll be back by probably 10am on Sunday. *sigh*

Hokay, sleepy. Done ranting.

( that survey that's going around )

Okay. Wasting time time is over. Now for work. hehehe whatever