I'm rescheduling having people over this weekend due to conflicts. I'll probably be doing a dinner out for the birthday some time this week. I'll post something up once I figure out what's actually going on.

My other recent project. This is the second lemming I've made, he's a blocker, sort of. My brother requested one when I was down there visiting this past weekend. I stayed an extra day so I could whip one up for him before he takes off for his study abroad in China for a year.

Next time I want to find some yarn for hair that's more fuzzy and less wiry, but overall I'm pretty happy with how he turned out. He stands probably just under 4" tall.

I've been trying to find things to do to unplug for a while. So instead of playing video games, I figured I'd crochet. I've made it half way...

I'll be honest, this wasn't my idea originally, I got inspired by several gaming related afghans I've found around the interwebs. But it's been fun so far learning new stitches and techniques. This is my first attempt at making something with lots of colors. I was having issues with color changes, but they're turning out much better on my second attempt now that I'm doing it right.

In the long run (or hopefully not too long run) this pattern will be a couch pillow and birthday present.

Me: The thing that really tickled me about my job at the U was that the refrigerator at work was full of brains.

Them: Speaking of brains, how is it that you're supposed to kill a zombie?

Me: uhhhhhhh...

Them: Don't you have to chop their head off or something?

Me: I would believe that, but I don't actually remember, sorry.

Them: I just assumed that if you knew a lot about brains, you would also know a lot about zombies.

Me: ...


although to be honest, I'm a little embarrassed that I don't know more about zombies...

This past Monday, I got another year older. And after a relatively uneventful day of trying not to dwell on the difficult times of this past year, I received the best birthday present ever, thanks to Mo and Jon.

At 10:30 pm I got a phone call from Mo, saying that she had an extra ticket to the Obama Rally in Chicago, and asking if I'd like to come. After some hemming and hawing, I decided to embrace the impetuousness of my lost youth, and managed to find a cheap ticket on Megabus.com.

At 7am the next morning, I got on the bus, and by mid afternoon I was in Chicago!

That night, we attended the Grant Park rally with a couple of Mo's friends, and about 125,000 other people. It was a beautiful night, in more ways than one. The crowd was excited and upbeat and generally relatively pleasant. They had CNN running on the jumbotron at the end of the field, and each state that was called brought more cheers and dancing. When the election was called the whole crowd was electric, and as President Elect Obama spoke, there was not a dry eye to be seen.

After experiencing the collective sigh of relief breathed by so many, and hearing everyone's personal stories of hope for the future, all I can keep thinking is... I hope, I truly hope, that this man can live up to half of the expectations that people have. So many people were crying for change, for progress, for help with their finacially situations, for help with the broken healthcare system, for hope of equality and justice. It was intense, it was moving, and at the same time it makes me scared that nothing that can happen in the next four to eight years can live up to the expectations that people have for an Obama presidency.

In lighter news, I have a few pictures to prove I was there. =P
I didn't take all that many, and only a few of those turned out, but I'm not a good photographer, and there are only so many types of pictures that one can take packed on to a field surrounded by people.

This one is from immediately after the election was called. There are a few more on my newly created flickr stream. I'm finally catching up with these fancy internet things.

Well it's Jon's brother's last night in town, so we were thinking about heading out for a drink or two. It hasn't been decided yet where we'll end up, since it's all cold and rainy and blech out, but there has to be somewhere acceptable.

Any and all party crashers are invited to join us, feel free to give either of us a call, or reply here.

*as I write this I believe I hear Jon behind me posting about the same thing. You have officially been spammed.

UPDATE: heading over to Psycho Suzies, 8ish, fun times.

It still greatly amuses me that Thunderbird doesn't think that neuroscience is a real word, and in fact would like me to replace it with pseudoscience.

lolz

Ok you Minneapolis dwelling internet using peoples...

What ISP do you use?

We currently have Comcast (yeah laugh it up) and I'm looking for something better but not much more expensive.

Q: Students: How long will my University e-mail account remain active once I leave the University?

A: If you complete a degree program, your e-mail account will remain active for life, provided you access it once every six months.

I know everybody loves Gmail, and I do have a gmail account, but my life has revolved around this UofM account for 6 years. So this makes me happy.

P German, H Fields. Rat Nucleus Accumbens Neurons Persistently Encode Locations Associated With Morphine Reward. J Neurophysiol 97:2094-2106, 2007.

"The electrode placements were verified by passing 20uA of current through the electrodes to deposit iron at the tips of all electrodes. This was accomplished using a 9-V battery in series with a 500-kOhm resister, with the ground inserted into the anesthetized rodent's rectum."

o.O

Turns out I know two totally disparate groups of people in Minneapolis. This shouldn't be totally surprising to me, but I guess I forget.

3 points to prove my case, all of these occurred at work recently:

1) Me: There's a $300 purchase from NewEgg on the pcard, does anyone know anything about this?

Them: What's NewEgg?

2) Me: I'm all excited, I'm going to the Jonathan Coulton concert tonight!

Them: Who's Jonathan Coulton?

3) Me: The concert was fantastic, and apparently Neil Gaiman was there sitting right up front.

Them: Who?

/sigh

... while reading forums you come across the following:

Poster1: OMG you can get Chlamydia from MMORPGs?!?

Poster2: Not if you practice safe specs.

... and you find yourself laughing out loud... at work.

Doh!

On an unrelated note...

I was at happy hour on Tuesday with the coworkers, celebrating (?) the departure of our boss (he's off to Boston for a year), when out of nowhere, our little French-Moroccan post-doc jumps out of his chair exclaiming:

"It's not like I fucked a squirrel that I had duct-taped to the table!" *appropriate gestures included*

...

When I asked for context (after catching my breath) it was explained to me that earlier in the day there had been a discussion revolving around duct-taping a squirrel to one's genitals in order to sexually assault it.

Needless to say, that DIDN'T HELP.

Is it bad that when I get really pissed off and frustrated at my mice (as I did yesterday when 2 of them managed to escape their testing apparatus and run off into the night) I also get kind of excited that, unlike all the people that irritate me throughout the day, I actually get to be responsible for their demise?

Here's my current list of schools that I'm planning on applying to, approximately sorted from west to east (for lack of a better method):

UCSF - San Francisco
UWash - Seattle
UCSD - San Diego
UofM - here
Rosalind Franklin - North Chicago
UMich - Ann Arbor
UPenn - Philadelphia*
MUSC - Charleston
Brandeis - greater Boston

So that's 9. I don't know that I want my list to get any longer, but I'll definitely sub out if more interesting things come to light.

*Correction

We just saw The Departed last night. And I have to say. Best.. movie... ever.

At least that's how I'm feeling right now. I don't know that I've ever walked out of a theater before wishing that I could immediatly rewatch the movie I'd just seen and at the same time never wanting to see another movie ever again because nothing could be as good.

QuitMeter Counter courtesy of www.quitmeter.com.

Probly more like 100 cigarettes not smoked. But still. That's a lot.

Just sayin'.

I woke up today phase shifted slightly from reality (maybe something slightly less than a 1/4 wavelength). But I haven't been able to pinpoint exactly into or out of which dimension I've shifted. My mind feels like it's still located inside my skull, because I'm definately looking at the world through my eyes, so it's not any of the spacial dimensions. I've watched myself interacting with people in a reasonable fashion without having people look at me strangely (which is maybe an anomoly in and of itself) so it's not time, as these phase shifts usually are.

This is the type of day where posting to LJ feels as real as any other interaction I've had, and all I want to do is to lie in bed, fully covered by a blanket in absolute darkness listening to audio books or some such because I'm in the state to believe that it's just as likely that I'm actively living out any other story as it is that I'm actually living out my own.

If only I were still on drugs. Then at least I'd have an excuse.

Well Rumsfeld is officially out... to be replaced by ex-CIA chief Robert Gates. Unfortunately I know nothing about him. Is this going to be a useful change?

Even though Pawlenty gave his victory speech this morning at 3am, Mike Hatch only conceded an hour ago. So sad. We really did well overall (I was just listening to a speech by Nancy Pelosi and it made me feel alright about things as she poked at the president hoping he would start listening "to the voices of the American people". But I was really hoping that we could see Pawlenty outta there. I am not a fan.

But in good news, David Bly in district 25B won a state house seat finally! He's a great guy and the father of a good friend of mine from Northfield. He pulled it out at the last minute (even after the news had picked his opponent as the winner) by 63 votes.

EDIT

They just called the Montana Senate race for the Democrat, John Tester. And Webb is still up by 8,000 votes in Virginia. We might take it after all.