b_canadensis

Am back... shuffles feet awkwardly...

2009-07-28T21:39:49Z

Procrastination, it’s a wonderful thing. When it’s not anxiety-inducing and debilitating of course. Not that I’m procrastinating now. Of course not. I’m just catching up on an lj that I haven’t updated in three months. It’s really quite shameful of me, and needs to be remedied. Right now. Instead of working on writing up my thesis. Because writing up the thing one has been working on for the past two years is not something that one would get the urge to put off in any way. Never. The suggestion is absurd.

Yes, it is true, I should be writing. I’m almost done in the lab, though I might be a couple more weeks because the dratted AFLPs might actually be working (seriously, they couldn’t have continued to not work for another month or so? Then I wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not I should bother with them at all.) Bah! Oh well, it should only be a couple more weeks and that’s not so bad.

In other news it is actually not raining right now. This might not sound like much, but I think it has rained at least once almost every day for the past two weeks. And they were calling for thunderstorms this afternoon. Can’t say I’ll be all that upset if those don’t happen.

What else is new? Oh, books! I would recommend “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” to each and every person I know. It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time. It’s completely charming. It’s like a cross between Jane Austen and L. M. Montgomery, in other words completely awesome. And even if you don’t like either of those two authors (first of all, seriously?) then you should still read it, because the authors somehow make a book about the Nazi occupation of the Guernsey islands and the period immediately following it absolutely hysterical. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t make light of what happened (and some of the stories are heart-breaking), but the characters themselves are all pretty hysterical, even if the events they’re talking about aren’t always. It’s all told in letters, so I found it took a couple of minutes (about ten pages) to get into, but once you figure out who the first four letter writers are, and their relationships to each other it’s smooth sailing. I absolutely want to be the main character too. She’s fabulous. It’s one of those books that tells a good story (and they’re far rarer than they should be), and tells it with charm and wit. I haven’t loved a book this much in a while.

Actually it’s been a good month for me and books. Finally got around to reading the sequels to Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men, Wintersmith and A Hat Full of Sky. The whole series is pretty awesome. I think this is because both witches and the Nac Mac Feegle are featured prominently. Also got around to reading Robertson Davies. Am now wondering why no one had ever insisted I read his books before now. I mean, sure you hear every so often that he’s a really good writer, and his books are good, and yes I’d been meaning to read them for a while. But never has someone said to me directly “You should read Robertson Davies. He is an amazing writer.” And I have far more conversations about books than the average person. He is such a good writer (although admittedly, I may be biased as I started Fifth Business immediately after reading Good Omens, which is hysterical and brilliant, but not a particularly compelling read). I’ve only read the Deptford Trilogy so far, but I liked World of Wonders, and I really liked The Manticore and I loved Fifth Business. It’s a trilogy that starts when one boy throws a snowball at another boy, misses, and hits a pregnant woman, causing her to go into early labour and the premature birth of her son. And it’s about how all their lives are affected. Seriously, it’s just so well written. I especially recommend Fifth Business. The narrator is excellent. I would be sad that I’m done them, but I just bought another one of his trilogies so I’m all good (What? The used book store was having a sale.)

In other news, since the last update I’ve been to Stratford four times. Yup, that’s right. Four. (I have another feeling it’s going to be another year of going seven times).

First off was Importance of Being Ernest, which was excellent. Not so fond of Mike Shanna or Sarah Topham (surprisingly) at the start but they improved, and Brian Bedford and Ben Carlson were both good. Ben Carlson even wore a stupid hat very similar to the stupid hat Colin Firth wore in the film version. Also, one woman in the audience had a ridiculous, shrieky, high-pitched laugh, which at one point caused Mike Shanna to crack up and have to stare at his feet for a good thirty seconds (during which Ben Carlson was standing in a stupid position having just screamed “I want you to go Algy! Why won’t you go?”). It was really quite humorous. And the sets were amazing. Spontaneous applause broke out when they unveiled a couple of them. Bartholomew Fair was also very good. Excellent cast, and the actors wandered in the audience a lot, though we weren’t sitting in the right place. Lots of silly looking, but also oddly awesome costumes. Jonathan Goad’s pants were about twice as wide as they needed to be for example. And the dialogue wasn’t hard to follow at all (even though we had no idea what was meant by the frequently used “s’lid” at the time. Apparently it’s ‘By God’s eyelid.” Sadly have had no need to use it in daily conversation, yet.).

Also good was Julius Caesar. Sure there were some problems, *cough* costumes *cough.* They weren’t all bad of course, but there were a couple of weird choices, and by weird I mean really unflattering. Now that I think about it, maybe the costume department just hates Jonathan Goad... And putting the actors in really modern dress and jungle fatigues for the war in the second act made the two acts appear disjointed (and even though I suspect that was intentional, I still didn’t really like it). Also, even though the men were wearing more ceremonial outfits, and somewhat more traditional outfits in the first act the women were wearing modern dresses, which was a bit jarring. But the first act was really good. Jonathan Goad was amazing as Marc Antony. Gerraint Wynn Davies was good as Caesar. Tom Rooney was a really excellent Cassius and Ben Carlson was good as Brutus (and props to him for holding it together when some idiot’s cell phone went off in the middle of one of the soliloquies.) And both women were good. But the second act, oh the second act. Apart from the costumes, which were distracting, they kept playing gunfire sounds in the background and helicopter noises, which I was not a fan of. And then there was the video screen. Oh the video screen. It showed Antony and Octavius wandering around on a map of the Roman Empire dividing it up and planning their campaign from above, while they walked around on stage. I assume it was done to show the size of the Roman Empire, and the planning required for wars of that sort. But it was distracting. At one point the top of Jonathan Goad’s head was right above his actual head. It looked ridiculous, and I don’t think that was what they were going for at that point in the play. Still, apart for a few things generally good.

The low point for me was definitely MacBeth. Which was very sad. Colme Feore was the title role, and while he certainly wasn’t bad, he also wasn’t great. There were times when he was quite good, but overall, I don’t know. Same with Lady MacBeth. In some scenes she was good (like the dinner scene, and the sleep-walking, and the one right before he commits the murder) but the rest of the time I didn’t think she was strong enough. Sure parts were good. The Doctor was good (although really James Blendick has a completely awesome voice), so were both Banquo and MacDuff. Some of the staging was cool, again the dinner scene and at one point around when Lady MacBeth goes crazy they had Malcom and MacDuff doing a scene diagonally across the stage and Lady MacBeth, her maid and the doctor doing one diagonally the other way, with both groups freezing when the other was speaking. But for the most part the play was meh. I went with two people, and we both agreed that at times we were bored (which was a novel experience for me at the theatre, and unexpected in MacBeth given that it really is blood, blood and more blood). And when we weren’t bored we were being startled by special effects. It was set in the future, in Africa. Which just seemed silly with all the references to Scotland and England in the text. But really, that was just the costumes, so I could have dealt with that, but the effects, oh the effects. It opened with gunfire, complete with flashes, which was just jarring. And there was a lot of flashy gunfire throughout the production which knocked you right out of the performance, if you managed to get into at it all for a while. And while I knew that like Caesar it wasn’t set in the right time period (and parenthetically, if I were to name two of Shakespeare’s plays that would least lend themselves to changing the setting those two would be the ones, maybe Antony and Cleopatra for similar reasons, though I haven’t actually read it so I couldn’t say), I figured that at least I wouldn’t have to deal with a stupid pointless video screen. But that was not to be. Video screens were on for the entire second act, mostly just showing what was supposed to be security footage of MacBeth’s castle, but they were used to tell the prophesies of the witches in the second act. And if I thought the gunshots took me out of the play, having to watch people on a video screen did it more. I don’t know, I just don’t think you connect to them in the same way. The only effective use was right when the lights went down they flashed MacBeth’s face. Otherwise, completely pointless and unnecessary. Other pointless effects, there was a car crash onstage, but it was stupid. It’s just in the last part of the war, and seems more to have a car crash, or even just have a car onstage than anything else. Although I guess the car is then used to help conceal MacBeth’s beheading, but surely there was a better way? Also, the witches’ cauldron was the trap door in the stage and they decided to have some stupid screen of green lights. It was all just distracting. I mean, it wasn’t horrible, but it also wasn’t good. Actually, the one awesome thing about it was the score. That was fantastic.

But seriously, if there is a screen anywhere in Midsummer Night’s Dream, or a video screen of any kind Stratford is getting an irate letter. Actually, they might get one anyways. Seriously, did two of the three Shakespeare’s need to be set out of their time periods and (more grievously) feature video screens? I think not.

There, theatre rant over.

And now that I’m done ranting about the theatre I guess I should go do some work. Or perhaps I’ll go buy groceries.

Whistling tunelessly...

2009-04-30T19:21:30Z

Hello,

Well, it’s one conference down one to go. Overall I think it went well. The presentation was fine. People actually showed up and asked intelligent questions, which was a concern since I was presenting on the last day and wasn’t talking about either ballast water or zebra mussels. That is one problem with going to an aquatic invasive species conference, there’s a lot of ballast water chit-chat. And I get to go to a second one next week… Oh. Joy. No, I’m kidding (sort of). I’m sure it will be a lovely conference. So, yes, overall, conference = good. Although the sessions were organized by organism (instead of, I don’t know, by question) so I did learn more about tunicates then I ever really wanted to know. For those of you who aren’t aware (and I’m assuming everyone that might possibly be reading this falls into that category), tunicates are aquatic invertebrates, and causing havoc in some of the maritime fisheries. Yeah, they named the concurrent sessions by organism. It was odd organizing, but great for mockery purposes ([In overly cheerful voice] “I’m going to tunicates this afternoon!” or “Oh curses, I can’t go to Bullfrogs! It’s on at the same time as Plants!”) so I guess it all evens out.

Montreal was a lovely city though, although it did rain the entire week we were there. And the Montreal Canadians were eliminated from the playoffs, which was very sad and so the city was in mourning. It was actually pretty funny; on the evening of game four you should have seen the number of police officers wandering around the bars and the pubs around St. Catherine’s St. I’ve never seen so many law enforcement officials in one place at one time before in my life, except maybe on television.

I’m going to Halifax next week, which should be good. I had to make a poster for it though. I hate making posters. They just seem so pointless to me. For one, in what other situation would you ever have to make one? Seriously, when am I ever going to use that skill again? I’ve just jinxed myself haven’t I? My job is going to consist almost solely of making posters now isn’t it? Sigh…

What else has been going on? Not much. Am in the process of working up the courage to go swing dancing in Waterloo when I get back from the conference.

Mom has a new ally in her quest to get me to visit home more. I was talking to my parents on the phone a couple of weeks ago when nephew picked up the extension. After the usual greeting and me asking him what he was doing (“Talking on the phone.” Ah, of course. How silly of me.) He gets to this, “Why aren’t you home?”
My reply: “Well, because I’m at school?”
Nephew: “Why?”
Me: “Because I have to go to school.”
Nephew: “Oh. You come home soon?”
Me: […]
Luckily at this point my sister managed to get the phone from him. I feel that this development isn’t any too fair.

In other news, Murdoch Mysteries continues to be possibly the most ridiculous show ever.

First, last week the plot was ludicrous. I’m not even going to explain the case to you. I explained it to Best Friend and I believe her head was spinning at the end. It involved a missing child, a dwarf dead in the river, an automatron war machine and the usual accompanying warmongering, a (fake) blind assassin (hey, I wonder if the reference to the Margaret Atwood novel was intentional?), a Prussian spy (even though I’m pretty sure Prussia didn’t exist during that time period), and whatever the 1905 equivalent of CSIS was.

However, the episode is kind of fantastic if only for the following exchange between the Prussian spy and the CSIS guy:

“Murdering liar!”
“No you’re the murdering liar!”
“No, YOU’RE the murdering liar!”

Until the inspector yells at them both to shut up. This is made all the more amusing by the fact that CSIS guy is played by the guy from Slings and Arrows who sells water and tells Richard to get him on the board of directors to help out the festival.

Also, when the automatron mysteriously disappears George runs in with:

“Sir! There’s been reports of a giant metal hooligan on a rampage!”

And this week, well, not quite as good. However, the case did feature a surly parrot as a witness, and Murdoch was injured so George was acting detective, which was funny. Also funny, when Murdoch is injured and the woman who owns the boarding house he lives in and her friend come to visit him. I feel at this point I need to point out that because we only have rabbit ears on our TV, CITY doesn’t come in that well so the picture is really blurry and it’s hard to make out any kind of detail. So her friend says like two things, and I’m sitting there sure that I recognize her voice, but she’s just this little old lady in a bonnet, and the picture’s so bad, she could be anyone. I figure she’s just a random Canadian actress, and I’ve seen her in some small part somewhere and dismiss it. Then, she’s comes back later and actually has more than one line, and I realize, no, no I definitely know her from somewhere. I recognize her voice… who is that? Is that… IS THAT MARTHA BURNS? It was totally Martha Burns! Dressed up as a little old lady because it turns out she was a confidence trickster. Every so often Murdoch likes to feature Confidence Tricksters. I cannot tell you the absolute glee I experienced watching Martha Burns play a confidence trickster on Murdoch Mysteries. Also amusing, listening to them say “Confidence Trickster” a few thousand times at the end. This makes four Slings actors on Murdoch. Clearly Susan Coyne should be next.

On the other hand, the love story plotlines, a little sickening (much as Murdoch hallucinating Dr. Ogden amuses me, although, again, it was more amusing (and weird) last week than this week). I wouldn’t mind it so much if it wasn’t happening so very quickly. Now, I will readily admit that I will suspend disbelief for television shows really easily, too easily one might say, and one of the best things about this show is that it requires you to suspend disbelief pretty much continuously. But usually only for the cases, not the character interactions. And I’m sorry, but I can’t believe that Murdoch starts and ends relationships as quickly as he seems to be doing. I understand that you only have 13 episodes a season, so you’re a little crunched for time, but seriously, maybe it would have been better if you’d extended it over a couple of seasons or something, because this is getting ridiculous.

On the other hand, if this show gets cancelled I am going to be so, so very sad, because it just brings me such joy.

And that is all for me for now. Oh except that I got a new userpic. It's from this British TV show Black Books about a really sarcastic, antisocial bookstore owner. I thought it was appropriate considering how much of a whole lot of nothing this entry contains.

Oh, and also, on the way back from the lab I saw a one-legged goose standing in a puddle. I regret the lack of a camera as now I'll never be able to photo-shop in an eye-patch and a peg-leg and make an icon out of it.

To all i send belated Easter tidings

2009-04-14T02:45:36Z

So, had a happy, if generally uneventful Easter. Cut off all my hair. Seriously, it's short now. At least comparatively. But I think I might love it. However, given the drastic nature of the cut I do not think that it would have been unreasonable for someone to notice. Seriously, Paul noticed when I got new glasses, but apparently not that I've cut off about 5 inches of hair.

Saw the small one. Continued in my role as house game-player. First we played hide and seek, then what would have been tag, but I believe I shall call "YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!" as this is what nephew bellows as he runs past you on his way to the dining room where he proceeds to circle the table while you attempt to catch him. Occasionally he mixes it up by crawling under the table if you happen to get anywhere near him.

Also amusing, his fascination with eggs, both real and decorative. And his reaction to Mommy when she's bothering him: "LEAVE MY 'LONE!" (I recognize that I really shouldn't laugh about the second one. But really, it's too funny. Afterwards he apprently went to see Grandma when Mommy was mad at him, and when she asked him why Mommy wasn't pleased, nephew quite candidly said "Because I kick her." Grandma succeeded in holding in the laughter while nephew was still in the room.)

In other news, saw the second half of the newest adaptation of Mansfield Park. It's pretty good, but it's really condensed. To give you an idea, they shove that entire book (which is one of her longer ones) into an hour and a half. Granted, much of the book is filler, and absolutely nothing happens, but still... I still quite liked it though. I have to reread the book. I keep getting a bunch of the secondary characters from it confused with the secondary characters from Persuasion. It doesn't help that both books contain a pair of sisters related to the protagonist, the youngest of whom is name Louisa.

And lastly, guys, I have somehow managed to switch the orientation of the text in the bar that you type the website into on your web browser (am clearly up on the technical lingo). It is now on the right instead of on the left. This is extremely irritating, and if closing and reopening the web browser doesn't work then I have no idea how to fix this problem. Seriously, how do you even do that? I think my computer is playing mental games with me...

It is possible for a birthday gift to act as payback for a sibling's earlier trangressions...

2009-03-20T19:46:40Z

Today is nephew's birthday. I bought him special paints that only work on the special paper that comes with them. There is an outline of a lion on the paper. I was amused. I also bought him a recorder. I told my parents over the phone. I'm sure that the strangled sound my mother made upon hearing it was meant to show approbation. She then insisted that it remain at his house and not hers. I think this must be so he has more time to practice. I'm such a good aunt, introducing my nephew to musical instruments so early in his life. After all, isn't music supposed to develop all sorts of areas in the brain, and you know, be tied in with math and pattern recognition? I only have his best interests in mind. He enjoyed the kazoo he found so very much. And think of the pride it will instil in my sister as he walks around blasting into the recorder...

I want to go outside.

2009-03-17T16:57:02Z

Subject line pretty much says it all. I went walking outside for about 10 minutes just to get out of this building and I want to go back. It's really really nice out. This is perfect weather. Why is it not possible to set up PCR reactions outside? Sigh... it's so pretty out...

Dear weather, why are you so cold?

2009-03-12T21:24:14Z

Seriously, it is freezing out today. It was cold, windy and damp yesterday, but today it's freezing. And this is made more irritating by the fact that only a few days ago it was actually relatively nice out (ie. the temperature was above the freezing mark.) Today it feels like it's the dead of winter again. It's not even that I mind the cold, it's the fact that it feels like the temperature is changing by about 10 degrees every single day (and amusingly and completely coincidentally, the subject to my previous post confirms this)! Really weather, consistency is all I ask!

Which is actually a nice segue into talking about Tom Stoppard. Went to see Travesties last night. So good. So very, very good. I'm not going to describe the plot because, quite frankly, I don't feel like it (so much of my praise will make little sense I realize). I would totally recommend it to anyone, although I would also probably recommend reading the play beforehand because there's so much dialogue and it's so quick, that everything is just that much easier to follow. But really, it's so much better live than just reading it. The scene in limerick form was fabulous. The guy playing James Joyce literally pulled a rabbit out of his hat, which was fabulous, actually, the guy playing James Joyce was generally fabulous. Really, the whole cast was great. The butler danced randomly a lot, sometimes even with Joyce, drank copious amounts of champagne and had wonderful and amusing facial expressions, made all the better by the fact that they were fairly subtle. The guy playing the main character Henry car has to go from being quite elderly (he's narrating his memories) to being about 30, and the transition was really, really well done. I was impressed when he did it. Also, there is much referencing Oscar Wilde, and much quoting of The Importance of Being Ernest. Once scene is even transferred into song form. There's also a bunch of Shakespeare references, including one of my two favourite lines from Much Ado About Nothing, "I was not born under a rhyming planet." I love Tom Stoppard. In his honour I present my new Icon, courtesy of things_imagined

In other news, my flow data is not normal, nor are my residuals. Typical. You know what else isn't normal? My log-transformed data or it's residuals. That sound you hear, that's me banging my head against my desk.

Statistics can die in a fire.

On the other hand, AMOVAs are supposed to be fairly robust to violations in their assumptions right? Right?

It's actually warm out today!

2009-03-06T20:11:31Z

Bonjour,

I have returned for an update. Lab work is still not working in general (have just discovered that along with the AFLPs still not working, I have wide-scale contamination issues! Huzzah! Actually, sadly was kind of happy about that because it does allow me to explain in part the random crap I keep seeing), or really odd. Is sad. Am now actually analyzing flow data though. Of course when I told my supervisor about the results of said analysis (because they are crazy) he actually asked me how this sort of thing kept happening with my project. Am glad to have confirmed that the amount of random crap that has happened with this project is much higher than that normally associated with a Master’s thesis. It’s somewhat comforting to know that I’m not doing anything wrong; it’s just that the universe hates me. My new goal is to have something so ridiculous happen that supervisor just puts his head down on his desk and doesn’t say anything. I’m pretty close. We were talking about how we would only expect to see one haplotype in the Canadian population. When I pointed out that since that was the case I’d probably find seven, supervisor just said “Yeah. You’re right,” Aand laughed. Post-doc was confused, and supervisor (not me, mind you) explained that basically this has been my entire project. Post-doc seemed to accept this. Although, he may have just been being polite, when really he thought we were both crazy.

In other news watched the season premiere Murdoch Mysteies on Wednesday with roommate. Roommate had only seen show once before, so had to explain that it’s not really the best show in the world, but I still love it. Roommate seemed to accept this, but of course roommate already thinks I’m completely crazy/has come to accept my love of television shows with elements of the ridiculous.

Case in point, in the premiere Murdoch and Co. (A Ring of Endless Light flashback!) were at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show (yes really.) complete with people with stupid cowboy names and Annie Oakley, when someone gets shot in the middle of a trick. And the guy who was playing Buffalo Bill was really familiar to both Roomate and I. It took me 20 minutes before I realized that he was Da Vinci from Da Vinci’s Inquest (turns out both our fathers watched it). The only reason it took me so long to recognize him was his ridiculous Buffalo Bill costume. The whole thing is ridiculously silly. At one point Murdoch wins a cowboy hat (lassoing a metal horse at a carnival game since before becoming a detective he was apparently a ranch hand out west), which both he and the inspector refuse to wear because it’s ridiculous. Then Dr. Ogden says she feels the prize hat deserves to be worn (I think she just wanted to see someone look like an idiot). Cue George wearing the stupid thing.

Then, they have to look for bullets in the hay bales. George and Perkins are doing it by hand because as George explains to Murdoch, first they were going to burn them, but George thought that might compromise them as evidence (Murdoch agrees), then they were going to feed them to the Buffalo, but then they’d have to go through the excrement, so that left by hand. At which point I was like, ummm…. Guys, I know it’s the turn of the century so you don’t have all the fancy technology, but did either of you think of using a magnet (I don’t know if bullets are actually magnetic, but I think it’s worth a try)? Or the fancy probe that Murdoch made Dr. Ogden back in season 1 for locating bullets in bodies? Or you know, if you don’t want to go all the way back to her lab, how about putting the bales of hay in water. Hay floats and bullets sink. I’m just saying… On the other hand, the visual of George pulling little tufts of hay out of the hay bales was pretty funny.

Oh, and then they have to find the former bounty hunter who works at the circus since he snuck into the lab and cut the head off the corpse when it turns out the victim had a price on his head in Kansas City. (Yes, this is the actual plot. I know.) So they go to the circus and see him running off. Conveniently Buffalo Bill’s horse is right there; remember how Murdoch used to be a ranch hand? Yup. My exact reaction: “Oh my God. Murdoch is going to go charging after the bounty hunter on a white horse. I LOVE this show.” Now, when I originally watched the episode I figured it would be more like Hugh Jackman in Kate and Leopold, but I wasn’t putting enough emphasis on the whole ranch hand thing. Since this is Canada, Murdoch had to lasso the guy to catch him while charging after him on a white horse. One of the highlights of the episode clearly.

Then, continuing with the “Murdoch invents everything” motif, Murdoch has apparently invented tape. George thinks they should market it, and has even come up with a name, “Constable Crabtree’s amazing adhesive strips, okay Dr. Murdoch’s amazing adhesive strips.” This is only notable because it reminds of The Blue Castle. I love The Blue Castle.

At the end of the episode George gives a Wild West style monologue about Murdoch, which unfortunately I can’t remember enough of to quote here, but it was hysterical… I’m so happy my show’s back.

In other news, have read A Great and Terrible Beauty, The Monsters of Templeton and Ysabel. Loved the last two, not sure about the first one. The Monsters of Templeton is kind of hard to explain, but it’s basically about a grad student who has a personal crisis, goes back home (on the same day a monster surfaces in the lake) and goes on a quest digging through her ancestry to figure out her father’s identity. It’s a really good read, despite the fact that her whole family is a bit soap-operaish, but I read it in a day because I couldn’t put it down. Ysabel is fantasy, and it’s totally fantastic. A 15-year-old on vacation in Provence stumbles into the middle of a Celtic myth basically. It’s great, not what I was expecting going in, but still fantastic. A Great and Terrible Beauty is about a boarding-school girl in Victorian England who’s mother dies, and then she realizes she has supernatural powers and can enter special realms. It’s not bad, and it’s kind of interesting, but I guess my problem with it is that no one’s very likeable in it. And it’s also much darker than I was expecting. Plus I feel like some of the stuff that they do is unbelievably unrealistic for the time period, though I admit that I could be influenced by Jane Austen… So, maybe if you’re thinking about reading that one, be forewarned. It’s not bad, but I just thought it would be better. Although, the last couple of chapters are pretty good, and I kind of want to read the sequel to see what happens next. Actually, it’s more that I don’t want to read it, but I want someone else to and then tell me what happens, and then I can decide if I actually want to put in the time or not. I’m undecided about whether or not I’ll get the sequel. However, I would definitely recommend the second two.

Oh, last week went to go see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in Guelph on the spur of the moment. That play is fantastic live. I love Tom Stoppard.

I guess I should go and do something productive now though…

Stupid conferences and their stupid requirements...

2009-02-19T22:26:45Z

Guys, I have to write 100 words by tomorrow. 100 words of what you ask? Of a bio-sketch outlining by background and expertise in the subject I'm presenting about at the conference I'm going to in a couple of months. Now, I know 100 words is nothing, really it's about 8 sentences. It's just that I really don't want to. And I've been procrastinating for about three days. Besides, what are they expecting? My background and expertise? What background and expertise? I'm a grad student at the University of Guelph and I've been studying this for a year and a half. That's my background and expertise. Of course, if I made the language a bit more pretentious that'd be about 100 words... sigh... I know it's childish, but I really really don't want to.

Oh god, do you think it's supposed to be in the third person?

nothing of consequence

2009-02-17T21:15:24Z

Oh lj, how I have neglected you.  I knew that eventually I would again of course... at least it's only been about a month and not a year or so.

The reason for this neglect, general frustration about my project I suppose.  At least the flow cytometry is pretty much settled. If the chloroplast sequencing has magically worked I will be content, because at least the AFLPs appear to be moving forward even if they aren't working per say.

Although today I am annoyed. I needed to pick up enzymes today. Unfortunately place where you can pick up enzymes closes at 3:15. 3:15! What office at a university closes at a quarter after three?  Four I could see. I knew it closed early, and expected that early meant four o'clock. Guess what time I showed up? If you guessed anything other than THREE STUPID FIFTEEN you are very incorrect. So now I have to get my enzymes tomorrow. But I can't even do it first thing in the morning because it doesn't open until 10. mutter... mutter... mutter... gnashing of teeth... Gnashing is really an utterly fantastic word by the way.

Speaking of fantastic words, Stephen Fry used the word "prolix" aloud in his last podgram, not that I completely geeked out when I heard it or anything.

What else... saw Maeghan on Friday. Turns out am not the only one with irritating car issues (have had to buy second front bumper for car in two weeks... please don't ask). Was excellent fun. We spent the night at her friend's apartment. Ate pad thai, drank margeritas (or was it daquaris... no, think it was margeritas... whichever has the tequila), played scrabble, played Mario Kart on the Nintendo Wii, am not so good at Mario Kart, although did have moments of improvement. Watched a completely ridiculous movie made in the late 80s/early 90s with Dennis Quaid and Stanley Tucci. Can't remember the name, I might have been a little bit tipsy at that point, however that didn't stop me from thinking "My name is Muerte, it means death" for the rest of the weekend. I told Rachel all about it, but for some reason she didn't seem to think it was as funny. That might have something to do with the tequila...

Have become nephew's hide-and-go-seek partner. I lack the ability to say no. And when I try, all that results is "Please?" and I totally end up doing it anyways. His seeking abilities have improved somewhat, his hiding abilities... not so much. If the curtains he's behind or the blanket he's under (which has completely changed location since the last time I was in the room) aren't actually moving then he's either giggling or roaring like a lion. Unfortunately, as one would expect, load roars are not condusive to remaining hidden. I'm not entirely sure why he feels the need to roar while playing hide-and-go-seek, but then no one but a three year old will ever really understand three year old logic.

In other news, have become completely obsessed with The Mentalist. Not because of the cases, because they're generally fairly ludicrous, but because of the team. Their interaction is fabulous, and I love the dialogue and the general ridiculousness that occurs. I really like the characters. The whole thing amuses me immensly. Although, I clearly need another television obsession like I need a hole in the head. It does lend support to my having a television type though. Possibly two types that sometimes overlap. Seriously, pretty muchevery show that I've ever watched has fallen into (at least) one of two patterns: 1) Gifted individual uses unique gifts to help law enforcement (Bones, Numb3rs, The Mentalist, possibly Stargtate SG-1...) or 2) Much clever and snarky dialogue (The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60, House (although I'm becoming less entranced), Stargate again, Veronica Mars, Slings and Arrows...) possibly in a small town (Corner Gas, Gilmore Girls, Ed...). Of course, it doesn't hurt that all of the above have elements of the ridiculous about them as well. I am sadly predictable sometimes.

Saw Confessions of a Shopaholic. Yeah, that was terrible. Don't get me wrong, there were funny parts to it (John Goodman, Joan Cusak, Hugh Dancy...) and in general the acting was good. And if you want to just go and watch Hugh Dancy it's pretty good. He has some great facial expressions and there is a shot of him in a tux, although I would perhaps recommend renting it and putting it on mute. Unfortunately she's completely over the top and obnoxious and so you don't really care if anything terrible happens to her. And the dailogue, I can't remember any examples (probably blocked it from my mind), but some of it not even Hugh Dancy could sell for me. And I'm sorry, but if Hugh Dancy (in a tuxedo and with his fabulous facial expressions) can't even save the movie for me then there's a problem. I don't even think that Isla Fisher was doing a bad job, I just thing the whole thing was poorly written and possibly directed.

I suppose I should get back to work, so I will leave you now. I will attempt to update more regularly, but no promises...

Now for some self-pitying depression...

2009-01-14T17:09:13Z

Guys, the peaks have shifted on my flow cytometry data for no good reason. I know this means nothing to you all, but trust me, it's not good. And it means that I might not be able to use approximately 250 samples that I just did last week. And I was so happy that things were getting done and stuff was finally working, because really, has anything worked well at all this entire project? No. It keeps working, then being annoying for no good reason. Now I get to go to a meeting in a little less than an hour and tell my supervisor that something else has gone wrong.

I'm unbelievably depressed. The only good thing that I can figure is that I don't see how it could possibly be my fault.

I have returned...

2008-12-31T04:22:44Z

I am back from the land of no internet, aka. the cottage. T'was an interesting Christmas. I'm sure all will be relieved to learn that I was not forced to commit fratricide (according to dictionary.com that word can be used in reference to either a brother or a sister) and I am not now on the run from the law. Nephew continues to be cute, although he is becming increasingly contrary. "No" is still his most commonly used word although "truck" is possibly a close second. He is in to absolutely everything and a wee bit sneaky. When asked to count to ten before getting a bronkin buck ride (don't ask) his response was "one.. two.. free.. four... five... TEN!" This despite the fact that he can, or so I am told, actually count to 10. Before Christmas he gravely informed me that he wanted "A choo-choo, a truck, and a tractor."  His interests are as varied as ever. Incindentally (and unsurprisingly) he recieved all three. Although the choo-choo track was frequently broken and had to be re-assembled while nephew looked on with a penitant expression (which tended to last all of two seconds).

Seeing my cousins was fun as always. Sarcasm was as prevalent as ever, although to be fair I do associate one of my cousins with sincerity... also ducks with pretension. Had three ridiculously large meals in a row, all at different houses. Your typical Christmas really.

I got several lovely things for Christmas including my summarized Complete Works of Shakespeare in Rhyme (clearly hysterical), a new super-non drip teapot (Am very pleased about the two new teapots as clearly having two teapots means that I have to wash them half as often), sugar and flour canisters, The complete Blackadder Series (hysterical) and the wildflower identification book I wanted. I was pleased. Also, everyone appears to like the gifts I got them so that is all good.

On the not so good end of the scale, half of my bumper fell off my car. Yes, Really. There was a crack in said bumper, but I thought it was just cosmetic. It had been there for weeks, not sure how it got there, someone probably hit my car in a parking lot or something. Apparently not so superficial as half fell off along the crack while I was driving along highway 6. I am displeased. Also this holiday my uncle's car was hit in a parking lot and my cousin's windshield wiper broke (causing them to attach a kleenex to the remeaining wiper with an elastic band). Clearly, like most bad luck, automotive bad luck also comes in threes. My mother laughed pretty hard when I told her, and now that it's a day later I'm laughing about it too, although my reaction at the time was slightly different, more half flabbergasted half muttter... mutter... grumble... grrr..... mutter.... grumble... GAH!  ARGH! Why does the universe hate me? And then something I bought disappeared in a manner that defies the laws of physics, much like the road runner on the Bugs Bunny cartoon along or pretty much anything purchased from Acme Industries. I'm dealing with my week with sarcasm, something new and different for me. I feel it's good to branch out.

Over the holidays I read several books, including Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. Loved it.  Abslutely loved it. I thought I loved Commander Vimes before, but he's really just so much more fantastic now. Also, I love Lady Sybill even more. Also read Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury which is also really, really good. I definitely recommend that one as a very well written dystopian novel. I think it's my favourite of the ones I've read, which I recognize number only 4, possibly 5... Is Lord of the Flies dystopian?  I associate the term more with books set in the future where culture has basically collapsed... Also, Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findlay, which is very good, but also very odd. Much better than Pilgrim (the only other of his novels I've read) though. Lastly, I finally read Terrier by Tamora Pierce (excellent fun) and have started House of Mirth (not so much fun at all). If anyone is planning on reading that book ever DON'T READ THE INTRODUCTION. It seriously gives away the entire plot of the book and then you will not want to read it because it is so depressing and you know what happens. Needless to say my progress is not quick.

And with that I shall go, perhaps I shall watch more Blackadder as it is so very fantastic, containing more references to cunning plans than Harry Potter fanfic.

A Quick pre-holiday post...

2008-12-20T07:36:50Z

Tomorrow morning (depressingly early for a Saturday) I will be driving home and from thence to the cottage for a week. I decided that I would post one last time before I go. I didn't drive home today because it was snowing so hard that the outlines of some of the buildings across the street from my office were blurred by snow.

Of course, not much is new with me. I learned the true excellence of my snow tires in a trek up six in a bit of a snowstorm earlier in the week. Visibility may have been poor, but traction was excellent. All of my Christmas shopping is done, Woo Hoo! That is always exciting.

What have I discovered in the past week, 2-year old nephew + harmonica = highly amusing. His level of glee was pretty great. Decorating the Christmas tree never seems to change much over the years, except now alcohol is included as well as hot chocolate and marshmellows. I have a new teapot (it's yellow) that (unless you hold it just so) doesn't drip a half a cup every time you attempt to pour a cup of tea.

I read Farenheit 451. That is an excellent book. I would definitely recommend it. A bit depressing of course, what with the whole it being a dystopian novel and all. I also read Travesties by Tom Stoppard, which they are putting on at Soulpepper later in the year. I'm going. I've decided. The play is brilliant. It's about how James Joyce, some random Dadaist whose name I can't remember and Lenin were all in Switzerland during the first world war. It's told from the point of view of a British Officer remembering events which centre in part around a production of The Importance of Being Ernest. There's much dialogue (some altered) from the play, as well as from Shakespeare. There's also a scene told entirely in limericks. I must see it staged. Also, Jerry is in it.

I am looking forward to the week off. Hopefully it is reasonably harmonious... Perhaps I will keep a log of anything interesting that happens during the week and post later. I can probably start it off now:

Saturday morning/early afternoon: Drive to cottage. Attempt to tune out nephew's running commentary on the various vehicles and their colours that we pass. Supress urge to kill only sibling. Smirk to self re: parents bickering, specifically mother criticizing father's driving. Optional in case of bad traffic: Father tells mother to get out map to find alternate route. Father ends up having to pull over and study map himself due to mother's abysmal sense of direction and poor navigational skills, or alternately if pulling over is not an option, the map is passed to me as a more reliable navigator.

Really, I think it's fairly accurate.

Anyways, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I have been having an interesting week automotively...

2008-12-11T22:11:20Z

This is post is a bit delayed, but the last week has not been so good for me and my car. I suppose I should be counting my blessings that I even have a car though.

So, first I decide that I have to get snow tires. Canadian Tire has been stringing me along saying that they're supposed to be getting snow tires in the correct size in sometime. After two weeks they still don't have them, so I decide to start calling around. I called random garages around Guelph, very little joy. Clearly my car requires the most common size of snow tires ever. Two places said yes, one of them had a really sketchy set of snow tires, so sketchy in fact that they didn't have a manufacturer listed. I decided to give them a pass. The other place, Andy's garage, had a set of reasonable sounding snow tires. So I decide to get them, despite them being stupidly expensive, because my tires were terrible and I don't want to die because I'm skidding all over the place on icy roads. The only high point of the whole thing is that Andy's turns out to be this family owned business that's been there forever. They insisted on driving me to the university after I'd dropped off my car and picking me up. Then, I was curious about these tires, so I looked them up on the internet (What? It seemsed like a sensible reaction to me!). Turns out I seem to have purchased really good snow tires. They're kind of amazing. I can't even tell that I'm driving on snow. And they were cheaper than the ones from Honda and a couple of other places (most of whom were sold out anyways).

In the end I was quite pleased with the snow tires. Then, that night, my dirver's side windshield wiper broke. Personally I feel that a functioning driver's side windshield wiper is crucial in the Canadian winter. Okay, so it wasn't broken, but it was moving about half the speed of the other one, so neither windshield wiper was effective. As it happened my car was due for an oil change anyways, so I take it into Honda. They ask me what's wrong and I patiently explain that I'm due for an oil change, tacking on that my windshield wiper is broken and also that my car squeaks when I turn right. For some reason the girl at the counter found the list of complaints amusing. So they look at it. Change the oil, engine's fine (Yay!); the windshield wiper was just loose so they just screwed it back in and didn't charge me (double Yay!) and the squeaking was due to the fact that two parts near the breaks (but not associated with, I double-checked) are wearing out. They need to be replaced sometime in the next 6 months, or one might fall off, although in the interim the car is completely driveable (checked that too). This supposedly will cost over $600. (Boo.)

Then, to add insult to injury, the day before I had to go to the liquor store briefly to get a present for my grandfather for my parents (long story, unlike the oh so brief tale I'm currently spinning). I was in the store maybe 15 minutes since I knew exactly what I was getting. When I got out to the parking lot I noticed that I'd left the driver's side door unlocked. I hoped no one had stolen anything, but then consoled myself with the fact that there was nothing in the car too steal. Then I looked in the back seat, SOMEONE STOLE MY SNOW BRUSH! Seriously. WHO DOES THAT? I don't really care about the cost, it was like $5 at Canadian Tire, but it's the pinciple of the thing... Who notices someone's car is unlocked, looks in and is like "Hey, that's a nice snow brush... I will steal it! Ha Ha! Evil plan!" Not that I'm bitter... I think I'm going to be bitter about that for the entire winter, at least.

Thus the story of my car is completed. Stupid snow-brush pilfering jerks...

Oh marking...

2008-12-09T07:05:19Z

So I'm marking my last set off assignments (Huzzah!) containing the usual litany of problems including but not limited to:
-Does no one know how to write a results section? They're supposed to contain text and tables/figures; one out of two isn't acceptable!
-Please tell me exactly why you've done something, don't assume I know
-That's not a word!
-Citing some kind of source here would be a good idea.
-Stop looking words up in a thesaurus and replacing them with longer words, the exact meaning of which you don't know, because I do and now your sentance is stupid.
-That term doesn't mean what you think it means...
and my personal favourite: Well that just makes no sense.

However, I have now found what may be my favourite typo ever. "This is demon strated by the parabolic shape of..."
Quite possibly the most amusing unitentional space ever, especially since both words actually exist and so this wasn't picked up by spellcheck.

Because I was looking at Bones episodes...

2008-12-04T21:14:13Z

Okay, so this is somewhat spoiler-ish for anyone who watches Bones, but I was trying to figure out if there are any more new episodes before the Christmas break and found the episode summary for the first one after the break (there may or may not be one in between, I am unsure. Next week is a re-run). Anyways, here is the episode summary and the reason for this post:

"The death of female conjoined twins who worked in the circus is investigated. The investigation leads Brennan and Booth to go undercover as a Canadian knife-throwing act, and also causes Booth to come face-to-face with a clown."

For obvious reasons I laughed pretty hard.

Well, now I feel stupid

2008-12-01T16:47:28Z

So I currently feel like the biggest moron on the face of the planet. Thursday I spent all day gating and analyzing flow cytometry data (gating basically cleans up the values), only to discover at the end of the day that I was getting different values for gated vs. ungated data. This is a problem. So I figure the way I'm gating is screwing things up, so I spend all day Friday re-gating everything. Still getting different values. So, after becoming extraordinarily frustrated and depressed I talked to the lab tech today after trying a few more things the details of which I won't bother you with. Lab tech is extraordinarily confused and tells me to go try to figure out which peak is shifting because of the gating. This leads to the discovery that they're on quite different scales. Long story short, when you gate you save the file using a different file type. This causes the computer to not ask you what parameter you want to analyze as it can only do area. I am a moron, and when I was analyzing ungated data I was accidentally analyzing height since the parameter labels that you click on look similar, hence the slight discrepancy in values. Two days spent gating and regating, and after all that it was the ungated stuff that was wrong because I consistently clicked on the wrong box. Seriously, could someone please just put me out of my misery?

Some days were made for banging your head against a wall…

2008-11-28T05:56:55Z

In other words, the vast majority of this post will be a rant.

It has been quite the day. I’ve spent probably 12 hours staring at a spreadsheet and moving numbers around only to discover that I need to redo half of said numbers tomorrow because for some reason gating the data (which should only remove all the crap and make it cleaner) has resulted in uniformly higher values for DNA content than the ungated data across the board, indicating that I’m doing something weird when I gate. So all in all, good day… someone please just shoot me now, I think it’s kinder in the long run.

Oh, but not to worry, I did have a break from my spreadsheet mid-afternoon.

Some undergrad students were foisted on me by a random professor. Why were said undergrad students foisted on me you ask? They were trying to find my supervisor. After looking down the hall and confirming that said supervisor was not in his office I informed them that I had no idea where he was. Their question: Was he coming back later in the afternoon? Of course I had no idea, so I asked the lab tech. Lab tech told me that supervisor was coming in at 3 for a meeting, but that he was really busy and would likely not be able to meet with said undergrads. I return to undergrads and tell them this, suggesting that perhaps e-mailing supervisor is the way to go (while thinking in my head “Morons! Who shows up at a professor’s office randomly in the hopes that he will be there?” I mean, I do that occasionally, but since his office is two doors down from mine, it’s slightly more understandable). Students point out that they need to talk to professor today or tomorrow before exam on Monday (Professor hasn’t taught course since early October, so clearly they’re on top of things). The following conversation is slightly summarized.

Me: [in slow measured tones] “Again. E-mail.”

Irritating undergrads: “Is the meeting at 3 here in his office?”

Me: “Yes, but he will be in a meeting so at best you could arrange a time to talk to him later.”

Irritating undergrads: “What if we come by randomly a few times in the afternoon?”

Me: “He might be here. I really have no idea. Seriously. E-mail.”

Slightly slow undergrads: “Okay. Ummm…. Do you know anything about phylogenies?”

Me: [stupidly, in hindsight] “Ummm….. well, yes but…”

Slightly slow undergrads: “Okay, well we had this multiple choice question on our midterm about which one was more parsimonious. How do you tell?”

Me: [thinking, oh, okay this will take like 5 minutes if it’s multiple choice] “Do you have the question?”

Slightly slow undergrads: “No, but I can draw it.” [draws tree] “All of them branched like that, and there were four numbers on the top that changed order and 1,2,3,4 in order was the answer. Do 1, 2, 3 and 4 always have to go in order?”

Me: “That depends, what do 1, 2, 3 and 4 represent?”

Stupid undergrads: “Oh, they don’t represent anything. They have no relation to each other. They’re just numbers.”

Me: [completely flabbergasted] “Ummm… well, without the exact question I really can’t help you.” In my head: [You unbelievable morons! Who doesn’t bring the question with them? Also, either the branching pattern is different OR the numbers are related to each other somehow otherwise the question would be unanswerable! That much is obvious. Why won’t you go away?]

Moronic undergrads: “Well, do you know how phylogenies work in general.”

Me: “[gives extremely basic description of how one builds a tree] … and that’s all I can tell you without a question in front of me. Wasn’t kidding about the e-mail.”

Organic material incapable of rational thought: [shuffles off]

So then lab tech comes in wondering who they were and laughing at me, saying he’ll warn supervisor if he sees him. Later supervisor comes by:

Supervisor: [laughing] “So, I hear you were accosted.”

Me: [indignantly] “Yes!”

Supervisor: “Well, one of them did e-mail me to set up a time tomorrow. They mentioned that they met with you, but said you weren’t very helpful. [more laughter]”

Me: [look of absolute disbelief followed by annoyed stuttering]

Supervisor felt I went above the call of duty.

Seriously though, who does that? Do the undergrads really think that not only have I memorized his schedule, but I have some sort of tracking device on my supervisor (not that that wouldn’t be handy, but it’s probably some sort of violation of privacy/human rights). And who comes to ask a question about the midterm but doesn’t bring the question? And how exactly would I be expected to be of more help, having never taken or TA’d the course and so having no clear idea what it covers, especially given that they don’t even know exactly what they’re asking? I have enough problems with the students I’m actually marking. People keeping e-mailing me demanding to know why they got 0 on sections of an assignment they didn’t complete. Do they not realize that if you actually get 0 on something worth greater than 2 that means that you either didn’t do it at all or what you have is so wrong that the marker can’t find anything of merit? It makes me sad. At least they no longer have any reason to refer to sunlight as a small percentage of them like to call it “solar radiation.” I want to take off marks for sheer pretension. Clearly they never lost serious marks for using ‘flowery language’ in lab reports.

On the upside I have purchased chocolate, and Bones this week was fantastic… really, really funny. Line of the night goes to Hodgins: “Your father reminded me why I got into science, so I could figure things out in a ridiculous manner.” I laughed, hard.

Also, am now 24. Had an uneventful but enjoyable birthday. Saw the best commercial ever for a book, a romance novel actually. I thought it was fake at first, it had one of those overly dramatic cheesy voices, as well as really over the top dialogue. Nope, totally real. Best thing ever. I should try and tape it. It would provide me with hours of amusement, probably more so than the actual book.

And now I need to go have a shower and then read/watch something mind-numbing before I go to bed.

My laziness was overcome by threats

2008-11-24T06:01:58Z

Dear fowl-named-lj (Okay, HOW have I never used that pun before? Seriously, how?),

I would like to apologize for ignoring you for the last month and a half. I kept thinking of things to post and then becoming too lazy to actually do it. This state of affairs was only halted because I was forcefully (sort of) told to post in my lj and I promised to do so. You have no idea how much I wanted to post an entry consisting solely of "Consider this a post". Actually, since it's likely that the only people who will read this know me pretty well, you actually might have some idea.

So what is new with me you ask? Well, clearly nothing of consequence.  Went to see Caesar and Cleopatra at Stratford in early October (one of many almost-lj-posts). Christopher Plummer was amazing. Absolutely amazing. He's such a fantastic actor, and his voice sounds exactly the same as when he was in The Sound of Music, just not quite as strong at times. His timing is perfect, just perfect. He really made the play. I was not so fond of the woman who played Cleopatra, although she wasn't bad, just not as good as her co-star. The supporting cast was funny. The guy playing his British servant or whatever he was was hysterical, as was the carpet-salesman. Dianne D'Aquilla was great as Cleopatra's lady in waiting (her name is complicated to spell and I'm not looking it up) and Peter Donaldson was absolutely fantastic, and very funny as Ruffio.  Shaw is quite a funny writer really.

In other Stratford news, I'm going to a minimum of four plays next season, probably more. Perhaps I'll meet this season's record high of seven. So I have a bit of an obsession, at least it makes me happy and that is all that matters.

Went to see Great Big Sea live in Kitchener last Thursday (another almost-lj-post). The tickets were a birthday present from my parents. I love Great Big Sea and that was the best concert ever! Not that I have much to compare it to, but still, I love them.  So good, so much fun, such good singers, and funny.

Have been doing flow cytometry in the lab for a month. That's thrilling. However, all the chopping has made me quite adept with a razor blade, a fact that I find unbelievably amusing. I've also been marking undergrad assignments. Their inability to write a coherent sentence or to follow the basic structure of a lab report is quite disheartening. I do not understand how you get to be in second year university in a science program and be unable to do those two things.

Have also become obsessed with Boston Legal. It is so ridiciulous and so very smart, which is ideal in any form of media. And really, to prove that this show is in fact perfect for me, in one episode one of the main characters, Alan Shore, gets up and begins singing "You've got Trouble" from the Music Man in defence of the pacific salmon to raise awareness of their endangered state, followed by an explanation of why farmed salmon are not an acceptable substitute. I laughed and laughed. I love Alan, most of the time.

Tonight I went to see Paschendale with my cousin in Elora. Adding support to my claim that none of the roads in the Guelph/Kitchener area follow any sort of logical pattern justifying my inability to get anywhere without getting at least mildly lost and having to turn around at least once, is the fact that not one of the roads we too en route had the same name from start to finish, in fact often there were more than three. Also, apparently if you drive north on one of the Highway 6's in the area you can go several directions and still get to Elora.  I do not understand. Also, Fergus is considerably bigger than I was expecting it to be. It has box-stores, and it's 'historic downtown' contains many non-historic things (like a Source Circuit City store and several other non-historic signs and storefronts), not to mention St. Andrew's Church isn't even on St. Andrew's St. adding to the confusion.  That said, Paschendale is a very good movie, obviously quite sad given the subject matter (although I don't understand how one could cry for say, the entire second half of the movie). It really underscored the sheer pointlessness of that war. At least there were a couple of really funny scenes and some levity in some not-so-funny scenes. I liked it much bette than I was expecting to given the subject matter. Clearly I should just trust Paul Gross. It was also very Canadian, which I liked.  Having seen it I find it even crazier that some people won't go see Canadian movies simply because they're Canadian and so therefore they think they won't be any good. There's a particular brand of humour that's only found in Canadian movies (and not just those made by Paul Gross) that isn't found in most other movies that is truly fantastic. Although, sadly most of the actors weren't so recognizable so you couldn't really play "Hey! It's that Canadian actor!" like you can with almost any Canadian movie.

Speaking of fantastic humour, just watched Death at a Funeral, which is a british comedy about a funeral where a bunch of crazy things happen. It doesn't sound very good (or at least not in good taste) but it's actually very well done and pretty funny. It's just so random. There's a crotchety great-uncle that hits people with his cane, a random guest that no one knows who turns out to be a problem, people accidentally take a hallucinogenic drug thinking it's valium. Also, most of the actors are recognizable, including Matthew McFadden as the lead (probably not spelt correctly), who is just not as cute when he's not playing Darcy. My cousin and I agree, dressing up as Darcy just makes men much more attractive (10 points for alliteration).

And with that I will leave you.  I hope this post was satisfactory.

Illiteracy...

2008-10-01T23:55:40Z

... Or one good reason why the world is falling apart around us.

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed."
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - I love Jane Austen, unequivocally.
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien – I’ve read the first two, does that count?
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - I also love the Bronte sisters, unequivocally.
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible – I’ve read parts of it, but have no means read the whole thing
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare – Okay, I’ve read about half of it maybe..
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger – and hated it
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot – No, but I’ve read ‘The Mill on the Floss’ so Eliot is covered. (Maeghan, I totally agree with you on this)
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (I’ve heard this book is about as cheery as it sounds)
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens – Why is the only Dickens on this list stuff I haven’t read, I’ve read four of them!
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis – Why is this on here as well as the Chronicle’s of Narnia? I’m confused.
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell 42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert – I got through two chapters and then decided I didn’t care. I might try to get through it eventually.
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton – I’ve read Enid Blyton, but I don’t think this was one of them...
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery – bilingually
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole – I have no idea what this is about, but I love the name.
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Okay, I've read 40. 41 if you count my half of the Bible and half of the works of Shakespeare... and I have to say, six does seem a bit ridiculous. I mean, I think I read 3 or four of these for high school classes and then plus Harry Potter, that means no one is reading at all. That makes me sad.

Weekend Update

2008-09-29T17:36:38Z

So I had a fairly good weekend. It definately started well. On Friday went to The Music Man again. So much fun. I enjoyed it more the second time around. First of all, we were sitting in a different part of the theatre, making it a completely different show (an excuse my mother totally didn't buy, by the way. She was also under the impression that my theatre-companion hadn't seen it yet [interesting since we saw it togther both times] and so thought the whole going twice was ridiculous). Although some small things were changed. From our new angle we had a much better view of Jonathan Goad's facial expressions. That man can smirk about 15 different ways. I liked the opening better the first time around, and they appeared to have toned down the fog on the bridge scenes, as is more appropriate for a production set in Iowa. Also loved the Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little reprise for the expression of utter confusion on Marian's face. Loved Marian the Librarian just as much the secondime. Still covet Leah Osler's voice. All in all, thoroughly enjoyable, despite the noticable lack of marching leaving the theatre which was altogether shocking. I love the Music Man. It just makes me oh so happy.

Then, my cousin and I went out for drinks. Caffeine was a bad idea let me tell you. No sleep until after 4am. Luckily we saw no actors, as that would have resulted in humiliation or possibly a restraining order. And then we forgot to march back to our car, that was a bit sad, although possibly for the best since neither of us were wearing the proper footwear.

Then on Saturday, I got my hair cut. It's so much easier to deal with and the two sides are again curling to somewhat similar degrees as opposed to doing completely different things. Then went to a used book store and bought books that I really don't need but I want them (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Blind Assassin and I can't remember the name of the last one, but it's a romance novel/thriller written by Louisa May Alcott before Little Women. I am intrigued). Four of them. Oops. Oh well, what's done is done. It's my sickness. Later went to my friend's house for dinner. Walked through a field with a city-slicker who complained bitterly the entire time. Got a mosquito bite on my forehead. Was displeased about that. Fell in the mud. Was indifferent about that. Might have contracted sore throat and so am filled with bitterocity (Yes, that's right, bitterocity. What of it?). Spent much of the evening discussing Sueprnatural, which I don't watch, but that's okay. Bought an excessive amount of desert (not my fault/idea) and have converted people to the wonder that is Hagen Daas chocolate ice cream (excellent).

Then on Sunday nothing was left but to procrastinate marking and be generally unproductive, which I was very successful at. Overall, a fairly good weekend.

And the icon is in honour of John Stead, who's work as fight director we admired and pointed out throughout the musical (to our great amusement, I particularly liked the scenes where their fists were raised). Well done as always. The icon is courtesy of ladybranwen at melancholydanes.

Probably the less said here the better

2008-09-22T20:16:31Z

Alright, now to start I should just acknowledge that I’m not exactly sure why I find today’s livejournal writer’s block so hysterical. For posterity I give you:

“Autumn starts today! How do you personally sense the change in seasons? Is Autumn more of a season in itself, or a transition period?”

Why is this hysterical? Well, it’s (most likely) not really. Why do I find it so? Well, to start, how do I personally sense the change in the season? I don’t know about anyone else, but I generally walk outside and think, “Huh, it’s gotten quite cold outside (or hot, depending on the season in question). The seasons must be changing,” or something similar. I admit that it might not always be quite that pretentiously expressed. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d imagine something similar happens with most people. In some cases this revelation may have more to do with the presence/absence/colour of the leaves on the trees as opposed to the temperature (or perhaps if one is beyond a certain age and/or in an L.M. Montgomery novel it would be appropriate to cite your worsening rheumatism/feeling the change in your bones). However, the wording above makes me picture people using some sort of Ghostbuster’s-like device whose main purpose is to monitor annual weather patterns (“According to the device we’ve reached the critical leaves fallen:leaves on the tree ratio and autumn has now conclusively started.”) or conducting some sort of seasonal séance to confirm the passage of the seasons.

Also, “Is Autmn more of a season itself, or a transition period?” If autumn’s a transition period then so is spring, meaning we’ve really got two seasons and two transition periods, which is stupid. Also, you could argue that they’re all transition periods. It’s not like summer and winter are rigorously defined and the other two aren’t. They’re just the more extreme temperature-wise and so we’re more likely to think they’re somehow real and not just arbitrary names that we came up with. They all flow into each other! Of all the stupid Writer’s Block suggestions I’m really not sure why I’ve decided to jump all over this one, a great many of them have been equally ridiculous. This one in particular though seems like it would generate pointless debate that does nothing but result in people wasting time answering this stupid question, something that this post actually exemplifies quite well in hindsight. Maybe I should just put my head down on my desk for 10 minutes.

Before I do that for my own safety, word of warning to anyone planning to eat at Moxie’s anytime soon. Don’t get the cappelini with salmon and shrimp. It tastes like salt. I don’t mean it’s excessively salty. I mean that it tastes like salt, salt that has somehow acquired the consistency of slightly over-cooked pasta. And when you get them to make you a new one without the shot of salmon brine (I know, I’ve been trying not to think about that one for the past few days… shudder…) it’s so bland that one is actually forced to put (a small amount) of salt on it (when the waiter isn’t looking), which one’s dining companions will then inexplicably find inordinately funny. Sigh.

I’m going to stop before this gets even more out of hand. Clearly I’m still feeling a bit punchy…

In honour of my annoyance I'm premiering a new icon courtesy of ladybranwen at melancholydanes.

None

2008-09-17T18:09:07Z

Greetings,

In the past few days I have managed to finish First Among Sequels, finish my book of American Short Stories (not so much a fan of Hemmingway by the way), read Kilmeny of the Orchard (a most excellent fairy tale) and read some Faerie stories. Clearly I’ve been very productive.

I was highly amused by a few things. Firstly, reading Kilmeny of the Orchard reminded me of a girl that I knew in res at universities opinion of the book. She wasn’t a fan because the two main characters were so perfect that they became Mary Sue-ish (to borrow a term from fanfic). This amuses me because the story is very clearly a modern(ish) retelling of a fairy tale (handsome boy goes to different land where he meets girl totally isolated by society. They fall in love. Girl overcomes only defect (inability to speak) when boy’s life is threatened by the jealous villain, allowing them to live happily ever after) and so by definition the characters kind of have to be ridiculously perfect. I really liked it though. I thought it was really well done, and not very long (just over 100 pages) so it’s a nice quick read. Good on a rainy day.

Also, First Among Sequels. Hee. Just Hee. Although it’s not as good as The Eyre Affair, and I’m not sure if it’s as good as Something Rotten (I’d have to reread it to be sure), it’s still very good. A little too much of the book world at times but still… Things I loved: Acme Carpets, Stig, Spike (and his thinking that Thursday needed help burying a body… snicker…), Landen, Landen and Thursday’s marriage, the piano being accidentally embedded in Emma and making Frank Churchill take the fall for it, Thursday_5,Sherlock Holmes being inexplicably killed off in the fourth book of the series, a mention of Temperance Brennan and the game of survivor with the Bennet family… really that whole thing. Loved Jane questioning whether Bingley would be wearing a bee costume and Mr. Bennet replying that both he and Darcy would probably be called on to do something equally ridiculous. Of course, then I sat and thought for a while about who would actually win a game of Bennet family survivor. I originally figured that Mrs. Bennet, Kitty and Lydia would for some sort of alliance and that Mr. Bennet, Lizzie and Jane would form another with Mary being some sort of swing vote, except that I’m not really sure that you would be able to get Jane to vote at all. This led me to fear that one of the sillier sisters might have an advantage, although I guess it would depend on when in the book the game was taking place, because towards the end Kitty would be more likely to side with Lizzie and Jane... Clearly I’ve thought about this way too much and still have no idea what the actual outcome would be. I have too much time on my hands.

In other news, continuing in my quest to make my roommate watch ridiculous, yet fantastic things we watched Men with Brooms. She liked it, but not as much as I do. I love the curling announcers. And the pointless beavers.

That is all.

Because this made me laugh really, really hard...

2008-09-14T04:04:44Z

Okay, so I've finally gotten around to starting First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde, and I've noticed that I really should have reread a few of the earlier ones because I've kind fo forgotten what happened at the end of Something Rotten and the majority of both Well of Lost Plots and Lost in a Good Book. I remember some stuff and so far it's not affecting my understanding of what's going on, just making me irritated because I can't remember the details.

That said, I'd forgotten how amusing ol' Jaspy could be. Regarding how the humour is being sucked out of Thomas Hardy novels:
"Even until as little as thirty years ago the whole Thomas Hardy series was actually very funny - pointlessly frivolous, in fact. As things stood at the moment, if you wanted a happy ending to anything in Hardy, you'd be well advised to read it backwards."

Hee!

I'm going to have to start funneling money from my book-buying sickness to support my theatre habit

2008-09-10T20:52:28Z

Last weekend I went to Stratford twice.

It was kind of excellent. On Friday night I saw a new translation of Lopé de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna with my cousin and her parents. It was in the Tom Patterson theatre which I’d never actually been to (and my parents still haven’t, which amuses me now). The stage in there is really cool because it’s really long with seats all around three sides of it, but there’re only 10-12 rows of seats so wherever you sit you’re actually really close to the actors. The play was quite good, but a bit hard to explain. It’s a comedic musical about a vicious Spanish aristocrat who abuses the village of Fuente Ovejuna, specifically the women, until the entire village rises up against him and brutally murders him. Then, when questioned by the other aristocrats, the villagers all say that Fuente Ovejuna killed him so that no one person can be singled out. Seriously though, the translation was quite funny… except for when someone was being, you know, murdered, or kidnapped, or beaten, or humiliated… The cast was quite good. Geraint Wyn Davies and Seana McKenna were excellent as the King and Queen, very regal, but also amusing. Sarah Topham was excellent as was Jonathan Goad. I loved some of their scenes together, particularly the one where he’s wooing her and making random dove hand gestures and she can’t stop laughing. The guy who plays the fat Mortimer brother on Slings (okay, his name is Robert Persichini) was in it and quite funny. Scott Wentworth can play an excellent villain. He just looks evil when he does it. And all the other villagers were good too. The dialogue was obviously modernized. I’m pretty sure that a Spanish contemporary of Shakespeare’s wouldn’t use a phrase like “Well that put the dog in doggerel,” but I could be wrong. All in all, I’d highly recommend the play.

Then on Saturday night I went to Hamlet for the second time with my best friend and her family. I think I liked it better the second time. Geraint Wyn Davies is just so very awesome as Polonius. Seriously, he’s so funny, and not nearly as annoying as Polonius could be. And I really, really like Ben Carlson, and apparently so did our usher. She, much to my amusement, informed us that she thought Hamlet was really hot as she seated us. Much as I like him, I must admit that I don’t find him at all attractive. But his Hamlet was quite humorous. I also loved Adrienne Gould’s Ophelia much more the second time around. And actually, Bruce Godfree’s Laertes. But the nunnery scene between Hamlet and Ophelia was so very well done (and was also when Rachel started crying, although as we discussed later, at least she wasn’t wailing like she’d lost her child) as were the scene’s after she’s gone mad. The second time around I noticed more of the details, like where people were standing in certain scenes and stuff. I’m really glad I did it. Although, all this theatre going might be getting a wee bit ridiculous.

My weekend continued to be busy on Sunday when I went to the Eden Mills writer’s festival with my parents. It was interesting. I’d never heard authors do book readings before. I heard some whose books I would consider buying (Lawrence Hill and the two women who were discussing L.M. Montgomery) and some who I would not (whose names I don’t remember). I also heard Dennis Lee read, which was amusing, Even more so when I heard my mother muttering “Alligator pie, alligator pie, if I don’t get some, I think I’m gonna die” beside me. Although, then my geekiness reared its head after the L.M. Montgomery session. One of the women arranged her book chapters so there’s one for each of the novels and said that there were therefore 22 chapters. I started mentally counting, but try as I might I could only come up with 20. So of course I had to look it up. According to several pages on the internet, there are only 20. I think the speaker must have been counting the two books of short stories published in the author’s lifetime… but still, would you really call those novels? Must wait until book is published and check.

In other news, still going on with the lab work, getting some interesting and somewhat unexpected results. Kind of want to see how this turns out now. I went out in the field today to help someone in the lab with his crabapple seedlings so that was a nice break from the week of lab work. My job was to help find really small trees in a field and then write down all the numbers from the measurements he was taking. And apparently to attract all of the mosquitos. I got eaten alive. Seriously, it’s September and it’s gotten chilly. Who would have expected to get swarmed by mosquitos in a field today! There wasn’t even standing water!

Well, that’s all for me today. In honour of all my theatre posting I think I’ll introduce my new item courtesy of ladybranwen at melancholydanes.

Summary of the trip and literary rant

2008-08-29T04:36:26Z

Well, I’m back in Guelph now. The two trips to the states went well. I got samples from almost all of the populations that I wanted to. I didn’t kill my field assistant; she didn’t kill me. I realized when I got back that I’d basically spent two weeks being no more than 20 feet from her between the hotel rooms, the canoe, the van and the eating out all the time. Here are some final statistics for the trips:

Total states visited: 11

Total lakes visited: 16

Total lakes visited with Cabomba in them: 11 (12 if you count Delaware)

Total number of kilometers driven: 7060 (which, by the way, is about the number of kilometers of put on my car in the past year)

Total amount spent on tolls: $94.75 (Well, at least the ones I remember to get receipts for)

Number of people who thought field assistant and self were siblings: 5 (Apparently it’s the blondish/brownish curly hair and similarly shaped glasses. As we all know the shape of one’s glasses is a highly heritable trait).

Number of owl statues seen in Pennsylvania and New England: 472. Okay, so we didn’t actually count and I just made up that number, but I think it’s accurate. They were literally everywhere.

Number of meals eaten at Panera: 6 (best bakery/sandwich place ever)

Number of Days Inns stayed at: 6 (three consecutively)

Here is what’s stayed with me from each state:

Michigan and Indiana – Friendly people, an excess of street signs. Seriously, there would be five or so for any given exit or upcoming road/lane change. We laughed at the time, but then we reminisced fondly later. Lovely park areas.

Ohio – Park officials who think it’s odd that someone would want to canoe down a creek and a woman who wanted to know if we’d ever been to Saskatchewan and our general impressions of it as a province.

Pennsylvania – By far the prettiest of the states we were in. It’s beautiful with the rolling hills and all the trees. It also boasts a large tunnel on the interstate and an abandoned amusement park. It’s also where they spot treat for Cabomba in some lakes resulting in some deadish looking lakes (we found a total of three plant genera in one of the lakes). Many, many statues of owls.

Delaware – lakes with copious amounts of duckweed and the two major highways run basically on top of each other. Seriously, as you drive along I-1 you see signs on every exit saying that they go to Highway 13. If you look at a map it becomes obvious that they cross several times and basically run on top of each other. It’s like they decided in Delaware that they wanted another highway but didn’t have anywhere else to build one so they put it on top of a pre-existing highway. Then as you drive down 13 you see signs for alternate highway 13. Actually, that was a common theme in the states, having alternate routes for all the highways of the same names. There was often a highway 3 connected to 3A or something stupid like that. I do not understand this fascination with naming highways the same number. We’d be reading our directions, turn three times and still somehow be on the same highway.

New Jersey – Not the most attractive state. The area we were in certainly wasn’t pretty. Even the state park was full of garbage, along with copious amounts of Cabomba. Also, ridiculously convoluted streets. For some reason every road had a median making it hard to turn around, and for half the intersections in order to turn left you had to be in the right lane and do this wier loop thing. Of course there was no warning beforehand which intersections were like this and which were you know, normal. It was about this point that we began to miss the oversigning characteristic of MI and IN.

New York – Manhattan was pretty crazy traffic. Oddly enough we were the only people to drive through New York City with a canoe. Lots more Cabomba. Upstate New York was fine. It was the end of the trip and we really just wanted to go home. A crazy Cabomba population that somehow grew 12 feet down in the lake requiring the dredger (ie. a rake head on a rope with a weight (my waterbottle filled with rocks) tied to it). Best part of Cabomba collection. The dredger amuse me for some reason.

Connecticut – The place where they’re actually sort of on top of their invasive plant problem. Well, they’re monitoring their lakes at least. Also where there is a rare native plant that looks suspiciously like Cabomba.

Rhode Island – We didn’t actually look for Cabomba here, but we stayed here a few nights due to the proximity to CT. Excellent vineyard tour. I bought wine. Also where field assistant and I went on a walking tour of Newport, which was actually quite interesting, although amusingly (and predictably) was us and a bunch of 55 year olds. Probably the sailboat capitol of the world.

Massachusetts – Lake where it was ridiculously windy and we kept getting blown into lily pads while collecting.

New Hampshire – State where they had regulations about Cabomba collection and I actually had to inform someone of what I was doing. Also, pond where we accidentally left the rake. It was a good thing that the Cabomba in New York was too deep to need the rake or that would have been problematic.

In other news, I wanted to break the flow cytometer earlier this week. First, on Tuesday I screwed up my buffer because I forgot to check the pH, then on Wednesday I forgot to load in the instrument settings so I lost an hour. Then the stupid cytometer stopped repeatedly and took approximately an hour and a half longer than it was supposed to. On the upside I did learn that you can rerun samples that have been aborted for any one of the many errors the machine seems to experience all the time. I suppose I should look at it as a learning experience, but at the time I wanted to set the thing on fire. However, it’s working now and I’m getting data. Data!

And lastly, guys, someone has written a sequel to Much Ado About Nothing. Really. I’m not joking. In like 2004. It’s called The Devil’s Bride. I was wasting time on the internet when this came to my attention; so, naturally, I tried to find an online copy. Well, I succeeded and I skimmed through it. It’s written in what is an attempt at Shakespearean language and is supposed to be in a similar style to one of his comedies I’m guessing. Now, at this point, some of you might be thinking, that since the comedies tend to end with everyone getting married how could one possibly write a sequel? Well, that’s when you introduce random siblings (complete with gypsy curses) and start redeeming villains. That’s right. The plot is thus, Benedick comes up with what he believes is a suitable punishment for Don John: forcing him to marry his sister Allegra (unfortunately named because really, who hears that and doesn’t think of anti-allergy medicine). I’m not going to go through Bennedick’s reasoning because, well, it’s ludicrous. We’ll get to the important plot point: that basically all the characters are going to scheme to get them together. One impediment of course being that Allegra has vowed never to marry because she’s under some sort of gypsy curse such that her husband will die. Really. This is the plot. So they tell Don John, he agrees because if he doesn’t he loses everything and ends up in prison. During the course of the play first Don John bonds with Beatrice with sarcasm. Then we learn that Don John saved Bennedick’s life in the war. (What?) Also, apparently he also has a dead wife and possibly a daughter, I wasn’t reading that closely. After falling in love Allegra decides she wants to marry him, but he thinks he’s not good enough for her (I kind of skimmed this, there was however a scene where she tries to seduce him but he refuses). Meanwhile, Hero disappears for a few hours one night shortly before or after her actual marriage. No one, including her, knows where she was. Apparently Claudio could divorce her unless her whereabouts are ascertained. Apparently Borrachio (before being killed by Don John, I skipped that too) slipped her a sleeping draught and carried her into Don John’s room as this was the location that would cause the most problems if she was discovered and then carried her back in the morning. Don John figures this out and while telling Beatrice and Hero, Claudio storms in and challenges him to a duel, never having been able to forgive him for his role in their wedding. Don John loses on purpose and almost dies, but is saved by a near-death-experience conversation with his dead wife. He lives; he and Allegra get married. As do Don Pedro (whom everybody inexplicably begins calling Prince Pedro, which I don’t remember anyone doing in the original ever) and Margaret. Again, I’m not kidding. I think I skimmed over much of that as well. Throughout the play Beatrice and Bennedick bicker randomly to very little purpose and it’s not very funny. Also, the author keeps using language that is way too modern. There are several phrases that I’m quite sure were never used in Elizebethan times. I can't think of an example and I'm certainly not re-skimming to find one! The play ends with Beatrice kissing Bennedick to shut him up, which, in theory, is quite a clever idea; however it was unbelievably poorly executed and un-funny. Why? Why would anyone write this? And I was upset about the Jane Austen sequels? Although, actually, probably the saddest thing is that while trying to find a copy of the thing I discovered that somewhere someone actually staged it! Why must people do this the classics? I’m upset on behalf of my favourite Shakespearean comedy.

And I'm off to bed!