Being Here

Halloween, Margarida, new found love, "Chemical Party", and not "The Fall"

2008-11-01T10:00:17Z

45 min of Halloween at the AIDL (Arthropod Borne Infectious Disease Lab).
The lights in the insectaries are on a timer, so the creatures' perfectly artificial circadian cycles are not disturbed, -what that means for you is: gotta move fast if you don't want to be interrupted by sudden and absolute darkness.
I think pressure, makes you slightly more aware of every noise, that's because you're trying not to pay attention, otherwise you would remember two things: 1) the building is now half gutted, half wrecked by the renovations in progress, and 2) only people with keys can get in. Regardless, you find yourself spinning as you walk trying to look back, the lab coat flowing and flapping all along, until you let it join the other lab coats that cover the hallway walls... Outside the parking lot, also empty. The darkness is more intense when the only light around is shinning directly on you standing alone, your shape cut out at the top of the stairs. In those conditions, your eyes cannot see the predators under night cover, within feet from you, and that would be perhaps because...
they aren't there?

Margarida
Margarida's Birthday, the 29th. I wanted to be there, instead Rita sent me Phado by M-Pex full of Atlantico and guitarra Portuguesa.

New Found Love
I fixed most browser plugins on my laptop and finally installed Opera 9.62.
Why would I resist it for so long? It must be that I wasn't ready for love.

Chemical Party
Months back I found "Chemical Party", in an endless diversion from browsing science jobs in Europe. It's nerdy neat, but I would have used a small mob of three to bully up potassium, instead of just one guy, -just watch it, it will bring you memories of High School Chemistry, only more fun.

Not The Fall
... Anyway, that took me to looking up the music, which I thought it was an unknown The Fall track.
Turns out it is "Fledermaus Can't Get It" by Von Südenfed.
Enjoy.

Ed Wood, Ed Wood, where are you, baby?

The things I know I'll keep on missing

2008-10-31T22:54:15Z

Just from Live Nation there are at least 3 shows that I'll think about for a while.

Surveys on strange kinds of human interaction

2008-06-25T04:48:11Z

I used to talk shit about the whole idea of dating websites; it's like a market, it's weird,
why can't people just settle with what they have, even if that is basically nothing (on the subject of dating)? there are plenty of other things to do, besides hooking up with someone...

So after being accused of speaking with nothing to back me up (which is a lie, to begin with), I went ahead and populated the fields with data on a profile, (I was pretty honest too.)

Even though I didn't learn anything to help changing my "very judgmental opinion", I was on the other end somewhat surprised with a few things:
I had forgotten how to behave in my own gender, (and quickly reminded that it really doesn't matter... )
In general, friendship is either meaningless and/ or a mask for people in these settings.
Friends of friends are just like the rest of the people, when you don't know them yourself.

At any rate, I closed my account; it was overall a fun experience, but more time consuming than what would be reasonable for me.
I still haven't decided if it is a good or a bad thing that I'm rather inapt at the whole thing.
Now, back to work and things I'm really good at...

Running gels

2008-05-30T23:45:50Z

The heights of my days.

protoignis @ 2008-05-13T12:39:00

2008-05-13T18:48:44Z

So this was in my Epi book (Epidemiology 3rd Ed. by Leon Gordis)
Alright, this is just too bizarre, for me not to post.
Either that or my head cold is more serious than I thought.

"An infected individual can transmit influenza or the common cold to a score of others in the course of an innocent hour in a crowded room. A venereal infection also, must spread progressively from person to person if it is to maintain itself in nature, but it would be a formidable task to transmit venereal infection on such scale."

-Mims

A task?

Modern Westerns

2008-05-05T18:23:43Z

This was my favourite article today, really.
In character Philip Marlowe: Product of a Hard-Boiled Time.
Morning Edition
May 05, 2008

Raymond Chandler's PI was created in the 1930s and has gone through several incarnations in radio, film and television.

protoignis @ 2008-05-05T10:45:00

2008-05-05T16:55:59Z

I'm not a green fanatic but, this Masdar City sure sounds exciting.
I find it ironic the where it is comming from; A slap in thet face or a snappy reminder?
Either way... A worthy shot at something completely new, if nothing else, from the scientic point of view it will pose many and very interesting challenges.

Masdar Iniciative Home page

Done with it?

2008-05-02T17:02:40Z

I may not be done with it, but I'm graduating in a few weeks and since I'm lacking an email address for some of you, I thought I would post it here. Yes, I'm counting all of you that have befriended me, it has been important to me even though it seems like I have been ignoring you for a long time.

The plan is to meet at the
Rolland Moore Park, picnic area around
12:00 noon, Saturday, May 17

I'll have some food and drinks (hopefully we won't run out, but worse case scenario noon will give us enough time for a plan B on the spot.) I would like you to bring ideas and things for field games. Some maybe more inclined to card games that's fine too. Bring kids if you have them handy.
There will be friends and people you don't know. There will be people I'll meet for the first time too, -this means do not embarrass me, please I do a good enough job on my own.

...So, this is an exciting opportunity to practice your social skills and be really awkward around strangers.

Remember, alcohol is not allowed due to city ordinance. Sorry about that.

Looking forward to a sinner lifestyle

2008-03-26T06:09:34Z

Do you see any genetic manipulation in this painting?

Hieronymus Bosch's The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things

I didn't think so.
But if we are modern, we commit modern sin, these are just some ideas for a fresh sense of guilt, a bring something new to the confessionary! campaign. I'll tell you all about it in a few years, when I become a full-time sinner and get payed for it... No, I'm not having sex for money (as of now, not even for the pleasure, if you must know.) It's just that genetic manipulation has recently become a sin and... well, it wasn't when I began doing it.

I'll give them something though; I do like the whole green approach.

Ocean Man

2008-02-23T03:44:57Z

When my eyes swell with water I see us like so.
It has been such an odd week, all I could listen to was Ween.
I found it helped me keep a partial, stroke-like, crooked smile on my face.
As I got home late Wednesday, I had a recorded message informing me of my uncle Domingos' death. I tried to call back at a decent time, damn cell phones ate 2 hours worth of Portugal phone time in 10 minutes. I was shut out of a conversation with my sister and haven't been able to talk since.
She thinks I should return by graduation, I want to and at the same time, I feel I have much to finish here before I go, not counting on the lack of a job, impatiently waiting for me there.
Today, on an email my sister revealed her idea; it consisted of me taking a loan, to wrap up and leave, -I'm not ready! Somewhere in the end of this email I knew my father is taking off, probably now, to go to Mozambique. What else will I find out?

You Need a Roommate

2008-01-09T16:11:13Z

Please check if you need a roommate, I'm almost certain you need one, you just never checked so you don't know.
Me and Mimi happen to be perfect candidates and that's something you probably didn't know either.
Do reply if you found this information to be useful.

Understanding animal behaviour with cyber roaches

2007-11-17T05:14:42Z

This takes Robot Chicken to a whole other level.

My father, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal and the US

2007-10-05T16:43:07Z

This morning, a story about the missing statue of the 18th US President, Grant reminded me of my father.
And why would that be? Well, because of a colonial war he didn't want to be in, the picture albums in Lisbon from his time in Guinea Bissau, how he loved Africa and, me being here, in the US, listening to this bits of trivia on Grant, needing to study history for an USCIS interview (sometime soon) and all that...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15011095

Don't look now but...

2007-07-18T17:13:27Z

The Man just got the bait, the $400 application fee + biometric services, have been pulled from my account, which means they are looking at me -or at my N-400 form.
So I get all nostalgic. Not being able to talk to my sister and all, knowing she was so mad with my absence, that she would cross me off... This won't be taken lightly, by the other side; Ines, the American, it does not even sound right but, the reason why I'm doing this is that I'm thinking I want to vote (make a change, we can all do it if we put forth the effort,) and it's also that I want to be able to leave the US for more than 6 months, if that comes up, without jeopardizing my base here.
I do this without compromising my next trip, a short one, in the next few months, finances will be tight but I know whatever I do, I must not touch the stash.
Oh Saudade, filha da puta!

It's a RevCo World

2007-06-27T17:50:18Z

An incubator in Micro.
I pass it on a daily basis and have been wanting to capture it.

Music From Regions Beyond

2007-06-27T02:43:38Z

That's the new from Tiger Army, that will bring them to Denver July 8th.
One Spanish track, (not my favourite) "Hechizo de Amor" or "Love Spell" recalled Heroes Del Silencio -I should explain, they have a reserved spot in my heart, in one of those poorly lit corners (where I sang along, so sure that none could hear me), a bit like a small, overstuffed closet, that I used to share with my sister... Have I been given to rantings lately?

Monkeys and Peacocks

2007-06-26T17:48:54Z

Today I dug out some negatives, from before I moved from Portugal, (1998, that must have been one of the last times I used Ilford FP4 Plus).
That happened, because almost a month ago, in a conversation with mez, I accessed a memory of an albino peacock, (the reactions to the creature varied; it's missing all the color, which is a key peacock feature but, it adds in exquisiteness, it's almost intriguing.)

I took the film to the library this morning, (the media computers there are better than in Micro), but for some reason the scanner I was hooked to was unresponsive... "excuse me, is there something wrong with this scanner?", had I known what that question triggered, I wouldn't have brought it up; in a lapse of time I had her fingers all over the emulsion, my face changed, "please don't...", the film got sucked in and I had but to wait for her to get tired, so I could open the lid's underside and surgically recover what was preciously mine...

Top: Wild Type female chasing a monkey after the monkey piss the hell out of her by messing with her tail feathers.
Bottom: Albino Mutant, posing. (White was the new black, such a poser.)

Distance

2007-06-20T17:14:09Z

I'm not sore. However, Estes Park seems a lot farther by bike, maybe I should say it was a little brutal but, I'm glad I did it.

Hints: Stop in Drake instead, turn around and do the Devil's backbone trail. Take a ride up to Estes and bike your way down. If it's really important that you bike to Estes in a sunny and breezy day, take no less than two gallons of water, sun screen (and all the goodies.)

Unconditional love

2007-06-10T04:12:12Z

Mimi loves me, even after I allowed her chest to be shaved, and I make her take pills twice a day.
She felt that the best way to prove this was to bring me a mouse's head.

Homage à Buñuel

2007-05-29T01:06:25Z

Bon soir
Cocktails à Mexico et puis,
Miranda.
Maintenant, Whisky et Porto.
Café sans thé, sans café, sans lait.
Leurs rêves dans les rêves, dans mes yeux.
À travers d'un glace, et sur un piano.

Imagination/ Paranoia

2007-05-23T05:21:24Z

Black Death

At night I've been watching Mimi for strange behaviour or any symptoms of sickness. That's all I can do to be aware. I imagine I have fleas.

Large Cat

Two nights ago, I imagined I clearly heard my name whispered while I was biking, a bit too fast for such non sense, in the middle of a very dark, deserted Center Avenue.
That made me bike faster but, still until I reached Shields I heard a strong dry meow. My field of vision changed a little, I couldn't see as much as I needed and things got edited out in black. In my head there was a mountain lion, or a werecat, and then there was me on a platter/ bike.

I'm usually not given to these wild thoughts... I must check my medication.

Yay!

2007-04-22T05:17:05Z

This is like my birthday!
Only there's still some time and, it's not my birthday.
Here's the alleged gastritis (no bananas here, but then again it's too early.)

Reoccuring Dreams:

2007-04-20T19:47:21Z

I get a phone call and my sister is in town.
I'm swimming in the ocean.
A friend teaches me to fly off a building.
It's Summer.
Foxes.
Llamas.

Meanwhile, as I wait to see my niece/ nephew, here's a natureza morta, (notice, the banana.)

throwing the demons on endymion23

2007-03-03T08:28:42Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWL1ZMH3-54&mode=related&search=
Richard Dawkins in a BBC interview, he is one of the Biologists against religious contamination of reazon.
The man has written some quite amazing stuff.

Oh my dog...

2007-02-14T06:32:56Z

Requires sound; headphones are a good idea, it made me laugh a lot but, it made Mimi very confused, (whatever they were saying.)

Marcelo pointed this to me.