I think he's trying to tell me something. He just sent me the following five instant messages:
http://www.time-management-central.net/image-files/time-management-clock.jpg
http://www.freefoto.com/images/2000/02/2000_02_51---Number-Two_web.jpg
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/gifs/go-game.jpg
http://www.freefoto.com/images/2000/02/2000_02_54---Number-Two_web.jpg
http://www.mysticmedusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Suspended-Bed.jpg

I should also mention he's sitting about three feet away from me.

Me: You know what I want? A strawberry donut.
Sal: Aw, if it was anything within 60 miles, I'd have gotten it for you.
Me: That's fair. But when I'm pregnant you will go buy a donut and a strawberry pie and assemble one for me and say "thank you, dear, for hosting the parasite that will one day be our child."
Sal:It's not a parasite, it's a symbiote.
Me: It's a parasite. Why else would my body violently expel it? It steals nutrients from my precious bodily fluids!
Sal:Look, it's a give-and-take relationship. You give it nutrients now, and later it gives you another member for a D&D game. It's a symbiote.
Me: ::laughing:: okay good point
Sal: ...You're blogging that, aren't you? Damn it, sometimes I'm not sure I want to end up on Sal's Shenanigans

...but still Sal worries. He was brave enough to go up to the microphone during the "Mad Science: The Science Behind Science Fiction" panel on Thursday, since there had been much talk of robots and consciousness, which is within his area of expertise. I thought he was delightful and witty, and got a good laugh from the audience, but throughout the weekend he kept asking me if he had sounded dumb or anything. Well, I think this constitutes definitive proof.



I also note that he's the only non-celebrity on that list. Other Sal mentions here as well.

And yes, I am posting this so I can bookmark it and pull it up next time he's feeling insecure. Because he has no reason for insecurity! Too much awesome!

Sal's been annoyed lately. He says he doesn't know if he's just more aware or what, but the constant messages about what is and is not manly, and what men do and do not do, are starting to get to him. So now I know sort of what I sound like from the outside.

I do understand. I often think that gender roles as they stand might be harder on men-- I mean, at least women have a movement and a name. Plus, it seems to me that men's assigned roles are more rigid. I mean, as a woman at least I'm allowed to have emotions occasionally (though it is likely to be blamed on hormones, etc). The reaction to men poking at the boundaries of their strictly delineated role seems more violent to me as well. I mean, I'm not setting this up as the oppression olympics, since obviously the roles men and women are stuck in are each oppressive in their own fun and exciting ways.

He's tired of the whole thing-- of being assumed to be emotionally incompetent, of being expected to neglect children and relationships, of being disappeared from every discussion of the institution of marriage.

So when he saw Andrea's link to this article piece on CNN he snapped. And when Sal snaps, he's very, very funny. A warning: that link leads to an extremely annoying place. Protect your head if you read it (repeated contact with the hard surface of your desk is bad for it). Regardless, Sal fixed up the article in his own inimitable way. (He wants me to note that the jokes are funnier if you read the original, but I had only seen parts of the original and still was highly amused).

( parody AWAY! )

My lovely and romantic husband made me a new lj icon! And it's awesome! He took the images from one of our favorite bits of phd comics history, then changed the base color to suit my needs (i.e. everything must be green) and the hair colors to look more like me (yes, though only a few of you have actually seen it, my hair was at one point brown). WAY better than stinky flowers, and a close second to anything involving chocolate.

Now, off to Dittmers to grab reubens, then to Spamalot! It's a rough life, lemme tell you.

A commercial for Sonic airs on Comedy Central.

Me: Maybe I should stop at the Sonic in Gilroy on the way down to LA for a cherry limeade and some tots.
Sal: What?
Me: Tots.
Sal: Tots.
Me: [confirming] Tots.
Sal: Tots tots?
Me: Tots.
Sal: Tots!
Me: [laughing]
Sal: this is a fun game! My turn! Fish!
Me: [laughing and confused]
Sal: Come on, fish!
Me: Fish.
Sal: Fish fish!
[both of us laughing]
Sal: Okay, okay, one more round: transcendental!
Me: [gasping for breath]
Sal: You're really bad at this game.

I've been quite busy, and in one of those not-quite-depressed-but-just-can't-seem-to-use-my-imagination funks.

Anyway, in the grand Slacktivist Friday tradition, I bring you BOOBIES!



I really hope I win the "Go to the Galapagos with Alex Trebek" sweepstakes. I want to see these guys.

Postscript1: I love the picture in the comment I linked above, so I think I'll add it here. I'm thinking lj icon, personally....



Oh wow, in getting the URL I just realized that's from a website for an AP Bio class at Foothill High in Pleasanton. Small world.

Postscript2: when I showed this video to Sal (who had never heard of the boobie dance) he said "that strikes me as the kind of dance your dad would do." Might have to bring him some blue snorkel fins for Shelby's wedding....

So, yes, I'm a huge dork, but if anyone knows how I might get my hands on my own copy of the current issue of Cell, I'd very much appreciate it-- it's a whole issue devoted to RNA! Looks like a lot of interesting essays and reviews. Worst comes to worst I can print all of them, but it would be beyond cool to have the actual issue.

Means the paper we're about to submit missed the boat by a bit, but eh.

Anyway, I sent the link to Sal, who, after reading the table of contents, had this to say:

What's RNP? And what happened to RNB-RNO?

(it's ribonucleoprotein, by the way-- RNA/protein complexes. But his is funnier.)

Sal glanced at my screen this morning and saw the newest installment of 'Liss's OMG Shoez" series. "You know what would be great?" he said, "if that was the brand name of the shoes. Even better-- what if it was the generic brand name? Like 'OMG Peanut Butter' or 'OMG garden hose' or 'OMG Waffles.' Ooh, or 'OMG I Can't Believe it's not Butter!'"

... which I rather think might cover everyone I know one way or another (you know, how every food goes with chocolate or bacon?). Anyway, coming conveniently just before my birthday (and I will tell you right now this is NOT a photoshop job):




Yes. It is real. And it is severely awesome.

Sal's response? Not unexpected, really. He said "I say, would you care to take a turn about the room? But of course!" and proceeded to shuffle around our living room growling "BRAAAAAAINS...."

H/T to dottygale and poeghostal, my sources for all things zombified!

As I've mentioned, the communal breakfast area has a TV, on which is invariably playing Good Morning America. Which is so annoyingly trite and pointless I'm thinking of making up a word for that magnitude of trite pointlessness. No, I really don't need 15 secrets for losing weight. Okay, their recipe for homemade cat litter might prove useful if the economy gets really bad (right now $6 for 30lbs at Costco is fine, especially because it's odor-control). But their big "how to revitalize your wardrobe without spending any money!!!eleventyone" turned out to be "wear the stuff in your closet that you haven't been wearing." Mostly they push already overly famous celebrities and obvious "advice" with just a dash or two of status quo maintenance. It's really the overall inanity that gets to me, though.

To wit: yesterday as we were walking back to our apartment, Sal pitched the following "toss" to the next segment:

"Later today we'll tell you how to find out your dog's favorite color, but next we'll be exploring different ways to spread peanut butter!"

Today one of the "hosts" spent the whole morning in a Steelers-themed arm chair, leaned all the way back, and wondering why in every shot he looked like he had "three chins." Yeah, sir, that's the flesh of your neck. Please don't try to have it removed. Or, on second thought, go for it.

We need our own morning show. I could growl about how much the world sucks, then we could go to our literary critic Andrea to tell you why the book you're reading sucks, and Bearded Pirate Weatherman could tell you to batten down the hatches. Every once in a while, we'd Ask Joseph, which would consist of Joe sitting in a corner drinking his tea and glaring at everything, then cursing.

I have other ideas, but I have to get to work so I can leave sooner (I'm dealing with cell culture and skeedadling because I still feel rotten, which makes me cranky, which makes everything very unpleasant). I'll work on my pitch for the show later.

Sal was notified this morning that his paper was accepted to the 2009 International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Kobe, Japan! (This is the paper he was working on 30 hours a day back in September.) If you have a minute, it might be nice to send him a quick congrats, since this is a pretty big deal and I don't want him to underplay it to himself ;)

I'm doing surprisingly little procrastinating today, but what little I did was quality. Via Pandagon I read a CNN article arguing that women should wait for men to say "I love you" first. Given what a complicated issue this has been for me (seeing as how it involves articulation of emotion) I had to laugh at most of what the article had to say. Here's my favorite bit:

Unlike asking a man out, making a move on him, or even proposing, there's no action-based response to the first "I love you." It's all words, it's all emotion. In that moment, he either loves you back or he doesn't -- you only hear the black or white of a 'yes' or 'no,' not the gray of "Well, I like you a whole lot and I could see myself falling in love with you, but I'm just not quite there yet."

Why did I laugh? Because what happened with Sal and me is exactly opposite to this reasoning. Yes, Sal said It first, and that's where my life story diverges from everything else in the article. Because when he did say It, I said almost exactly "well, I like you a whole lot and I could see myself falling in love with you, but I'm just not quite there yet." It was reasonably early in our (official) relationship, and I was extremely thrown after my previous relationship went south (it being my first, thus causing my one data point to contain some really screwed up ideas) and since words mean a lot to me, I didn't want to go jumping off a cliff just yet. So that's what I told him. And he said okay. And we made out some more. So maybe for once *I'm* the one who doesn't see things in binary-- there really is a middle ground there, and it isn't gender specific.

It didn't take me long after that to get to a point at which I was comfortable saying the L word, largely because that first attempt had gone so well-- he said what he felt, I said what I felt, and he didn't pressure me or make me feel guilty, which I considered a Very Good Sign.

I'm not sure what I my point is here. I hope I'm not coming across as gloaty or anything, and I certainly don't want to imply that I did everything right and I have All the Answers! Mostly I just really REALLY like my marriage, and I really REALLY like that I don't relate to most relationship advice articles :)

You might notice I have a new icon. And it's not a girl with funny-colored hair! Did I sacrifice one of my beloved dyed-lady icons in favor of Captain Jack? Why, no! My lovely and wonderful husband [I'd call him Dread Prince Consort, but that's Andrea's as she's far cleverer than I] has given me a paid account for the next year! AND more user icons on top of that! Squee!

I'm off to finish my custom Doctor Who mood theme....

Merry Livermore Christmas to all!

So apparently there's a show on CBS called "Novel Adventures." From what I can gather it's four women having book-inspired adventures. I don't honestly care. What I *do* care about is the commercial they just ran for a contest they're having in which the winner gets a car and and an "adventure lifted from the pages of [their] favorite novel" with their three best friends. Which of course, piqued my curiosity.

I turned around and looked at Sal. "I would like to fight the Sith. Or take all the geniuses and retreat to a valley in Colorado while the rest of the world rots. Or go to Hogwarts. Or go to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe."

Sal glared at me. "Or you and three friends could TAKE A TURN ABOUT THE ROOM," he growled. You see, Sal is still angry about being confused while reading Pride and Prejudice-- his initial thought was that "taking a turn about the room" must mean they got up and strolled around the room, but, being Sal, he figured that was absurd and he was just being ignorant. "Then we saw the movie, and THEY TOOK A G*****N TURN AROUND THE ROOM. So I did read it right, and they're idiotic!"

So, what novel-inspired adventures can we clog their works with? Solving a murder mystery in an abbey? Wiping out an entire alien race while thinking you're playing a real-time strategy game?

"i'm fairly confident i can make you pregnant."
-sal

(after i speculated that we may not be able to have children, seeing as how he might be a different species, as evidenced by the fact that he intends to relax tonight by doing a spot of programming)

i've been meaning to post this for a while-- it's probably my favorite daily show piece in a long time, and it's almost completely nonpolitical. just silliness, which i'm of course a big fan of. anyway, watch and enjoy.



then read this recent ap article. i thought it was kind of an odd story, with pictures of an adorable baby animal, but then sal pointed out that it looks like senor putin fits nicely into one of john oliver's categories....

we're wandering around outside the security checkpoints at the stores and stuff. we hear an announcement about the location of the airport chapel. i joke maybe that's where we should try next. as it happens, said chapel is at the end of the terminal, right next to the currency exchange.

sal: "boy, jesus is gonna be pissed"

this is kind of a longish, complicatedish story, but i will start from the beginning. i clicked my friends page and was greeted by this delightfully fuzzy entry which led to the conversation with sal detailed in my comment to andrea's entry.

however, as i was typing the comment, transcribing our previous conversation, sal was reading over my shoulder. "wait... that's how you spell gung-ho?"

"uh... yeah. how else would you spell it?"

"i thought it was g-u-n-dash-h-o-e. like, it can tend your garden and defend your home."

"..."

::sings (like this):: "GUN-HOE!"

little boy on florida tourism commercial: i want to go to a place where you can eat all the ice cream you want and play all the video games you want.

sal: that's our apartment!


that one brought me up short. because he's right! our home is awesome! we have video games and comic books and ice cream and some stuffed animals and puppets. sweeeeet.

it amazes me how bad i am at getting perspective like that. guess thats what i have sal and you guys for ;)

[also i'm in a good mood, since my show-up-to-pick-colonies-at-6am-go-home-for-breakfast-then-work-until-7 day produced happy happy successful subcloning results. i am the subcloning goddess!]