I have brilliant ideas.

So, we (my roommate, my girl and I) went to see A Chorus Line at the theatre yesterday (it was a cute little show - very meta). On our way out afterwards (my roommate drove), the lines leading out of the parking lot were loooong and sloooow, with people trying to force their way into the line so they could get out faster (resulting in no one moving). At one point we watched two cars nearly collide because they were trying to back into the line from opposite sides of the car in front of us, so they couldn't really see each other. (My roommate honked to get their attention.)

Anyway, we're bitching and you can tell that other drivers are bitching at the whole thing. The radio music was boring, so we pop on the soundtrack to Rent.

Then I declared that the most appropriate thing to do in this frustrating situation is to roll down the windows, crank up the volume, and sing at the top of our lungs while dancing wildly in our seats.

So we did.

It was awesome.

1. I'm a TA for a course with four professors. The professors are new to teaching this course and some have little teaching experience. I have TA'd this course once before, and I took it during undergrad, which makes me the veteran. I have no doubt you can imagine your own horrors. While I will note that everything's under control and moving smoothly for the most part, there are times when I want to tear my hair out. (The students have just written their second midterm, some of which I have to mark. I've just read through the midterm. I... am annoyed.)

2. Started playing Dragon Age: Origins as a dwarven noble fighter. So far, the game is pretty neat. I'll have to get used to the play setup as I realized that most of the RPGs I play are Japanese style RPGs (Final Fantasy and the like), so the format is different. Seems to be fairly straightforward though - for simplicity, I've put all my points into Combat Training so I whack with the best of them. :P Also, I have the strategy guide, mostly for making sure I can find all the side quests and also for party relationship stuff. I am amused that there is a (somewhat tricky) way to get a foursome together. I may attempt that on another playthrough. For now, I've decided to chase Leliana whenever she shows up. Romancing a jealous assassin/bard seems like a dandy idea, don't you think?

3. My latest blog post on Genetics Made Complicated ate my brain. Mostly because I had to figure out what all the math means - and then get it down to the essentials so that the reader doesn't have to figure out what all the math means. I probably didn't have to go through all the effort, but I get lost in detail sometimes.

4. LARP tomorrow! I play a eunuch! Whee!

A new post at Genetics Made Complicated:

Genomes Go Public

That should be the last of the spam for this week. :P

I'm trying to keep a decent update schedule, and this one is a mite time sensitive, so here's the latest post on Genetics Made Complicated:

"Gay Genes" Aren't Enough

I've launched a new blog called Genetics Made Complicated, in which I talk about genetics, biology, and its intersection with society and philosophy.

Come tell me why I'm wrong! :D

I'm experimenting with a free program called Mendeley. It's intended for academics and is essentially a digital library where you load up your pdfs and it'll scan for authors, journals, blah blah blah and generate citations. You can also open up the PDFs, highlight stuff, make annotations, create tags, search through ALL your papers/tags, sort papers into collections etc. There's also an online component where you can share your collection like a reading list or make a shared collection with a limited number of participants so you can see each others' annotations/notes.

Then it occurred to me that I can upload my RPG PDFs into it.

I'm not sure how useful this will be. It means that I can take notes on my PDFs and highlight text, and when you consider that many of the PDFs I have are meant for research rather than play (unless they're short enough that I can print 'em and not feel like I may as well have bought the book), that's pretty good. If I want to, I can export the PDF with my notations and send if off to someone else. Maybe I want to give feedback about the text? It does help me organize my RPGs into a handy interface and tags are always nice. Currently the program is in beta, so some functionality isn't there - advanced search might be nice. I'd like to be able to sort the notes that I make. (They appear in a side bar, so you can jump straight to the page with the note by clicking the note. I like this.)

I've got it open now, mucking about with scientific papers, but my RPG folder is lookin' at me....

1. Most important announcement thus far: I haz the Mouse Guard RPG. \o/

2. Got talked into acting in a LARP last night. My girl and I are playing emissaries sent to the group to see if they are, as we have been told, willing to submit to our lord's rule in order to destroy the infestation of demons and the demon-tainted mortals that are plaguing the world. We feel out the characters and at the end ask for a show of hands - it's mixed. We're on our way out, ("Now we know. Thank you for your time.") when the following happens:

Theophilus (PC): Wait! How do we know you're who you say you are?
Me (thinking "It's a little late now, isn't it?"): *laugh* Come with us! We'll go meet Divus (our lord) together.
[My girl poses with arm outstretched, beckoning to Theophilus (we couldn't have planned that better!)]
Theophilus: *backs up nervously* I... don't know if I would be walking into a trap.
Me: *laughs again and leaves*
My girl: Either you have faith, or you have none.

(Her parting words have much more impact in the context of the night and the themes of the game.)

It was cool.

3. I'm not prepped for my demo game today! Why am I on LJ?!

Pure Spec is on tomorrow and Sunday. Tomorrow, I'm running short demos of Cog Wars, Don't Rest Your Head, Spirit of the Century and Dogs in the Vineyard. Because my printer ink has crapped out, I'm not sure if I have enough char sheets. Then again, I don't know what kind of traffic I'll see. If I were in the lobby, I think I'd be more worried - but I'm in the Main Hall and I suspect that people coming in may taper off after a while since games aren't especially staggered.

Sunday, I run a game of Cog Wars.

I really need to read through the rules again. And get more ink.

Even though I'm running fewer sessions, this may kill me like last year.

I'm sick. Again. This is bloody infuriating. Why is my immune system so screwed up?!

Well, this weekend was a cock-up. That might be why. (There was familial drama and hospitalization - separate incidents and wasn't me in the hospital, fyi. And no, I don't want to get into it.)

Guh. I don't have time for this nonsense.

Back from conferencing.

Best conference EVAR. I talked with people. Like, important, dean of the faculty of law type people. They were nice. And smart.

Too tired to really give details but my brain is now full of cool.

I don't usually do this, but Norman Borlaug, the guy who could be called the Father of the Green Revolution, died a few days ago.

If it wasn't for him and his work, we wouldn't be having as many debates as we are about ethical ways to grow food, monocultures, biotech in agriculture, etc. We'd be talking about starvation.

Conferencing in a few days.

To-do list:

- Get new notebook for taking notes and stuff
- Recheck business card design (I'm there to network and if I have business cards, I might actually do it) and print out some cards.
- Go snack shopping for the rides there and back

Bloody hell, I'm terrified. This is ridiculous.

1. Got to play a paragon level encounter last night in D&D 4e. The Warhammer game fell through due to lack of players so we went on a quest for adventure to the mall, picked up Dungeon Delve, threw together characters (the character builder is sweeeeet) and whapped some undead. There was a Goliath Warden, a Halfling Barbarian (me! and I loves it so) and a Half-Elf Bard. I screwed up the monsters a bit (we didn't have a GM and sort of passed the book around though I played the monsters, mostly) but given that we'd forgotten to scale back the encounter to account for less than 5 players, it worked out. Worked out quite well, in fact. The halfling barbarian worked like a charm (starting off with a bang by launching herself off the shoulders of the goliath to land on the other side of a flaming zombie and flank) and the howling and yelling and raging were great fun. The goliath warden soaked up piles of damage, and the bard was throwing around all sorts of temp hit points and other random goodies. Wacky fun.

Of course, now I really want to play in an Eberron campaign with a halfling barbarian and a raptor mount. *sigh*

2. Hey, Levi. Remember that game I couldn't remember the name of? It's called Agora and it's being worked on by Josh Roby.

Had a meeting with my supervisor. I came off as a gibbering idiot, but she poked me with a sharp stick until I was coherent again.

Data that I have looks good. Signs point to having a reference genes which will be usable (thank god) soonish. I have hope again (and am quietly waiting for it to be dashed).

Will likely be going to a 5th International DNA Sampling Conference called the Age of Personalized Genomics, which focuses on "the ethical, legal and social controversies that characterize the rapidly developing field of personalized genomics." This sounds like the coolest conference EVAR. Check out the titles of the talks in the concurrent session I want to go to (damn concurrent sessions - I wants more talks!):

- Race, Risk and Odds Ratios: the Relevance of Personal Genomics for the Non-European - Sandra Soo-Jin Lee
- The Persistence of Race in Biotech Patenting and Drug Development - Jonathan Kahn
- Human gene patents and genetic testing in the UK: results of an empirical study - Naomi Hawkins
-Promoting and Subverting Control: The Double-edged Effect of Personalized Genomics - Robin Pierce

Squee! Here's hoping I can get organized enough to get down there.

Went to K-Days/Capital Ex last night. It wasn't too terribly busy and jumping between the air-conditioned coolness of the AgriCom and the heat of the midway meant I didn't go nuts from the heat.

In no particular order:

- Ate lots of crappy fair food, including: mini-donuts, lemonade, smoked beef on a bun (which elicited vulgar jokes due to the appearance of the horseradish sauce), roasted nuts (insert appropriate jokes here), chili cheese fries (which looked absolutely disgusting and fulfilled my need for cheeze-with-a-zed), and boneless "chicken wings" (bits of chicken cut up so that it looked kinda like chicken wings). I am not ill today which, I'm sure, is due to the scary food fighting to the death in my guts while I slept. It was great.

- Won a Po (from Kungfu Panda) after spending too much money on the games. I have way too much fun wasting money on those stupid games. It's like gambling - you know the house has a crazy advantage, but it's still fun to play. As is our habit now, we gave away the stuffed animal, except this year we were jumped by a kid. Like so:

Wide-eyed girl (runs over and screeches to a halt in front of me): Do you want that bear?

Me (lying): Er... sorta. Why? Do you want it?

Girl: Yes!

Me: Oh? Why?

Girl: I love bears! I have a huge collection and they're my favorite animal and I'd take care of it....

Girl is joined by friends and I'm surrounded by small children gibbering. There's a brief altercation as the original girl argues with her friend about how "it's not fair" and "you got one for free, and I actually asked!" I think the friend wanted in on the bear.

Me (interrupting): Okay, okay! Hold on. I'll give you the bear if you sing me a song.

Girl: Okay! What kind of song?

Me: Whatever. Sing for me.

Girl: Can I sing a Johnny Cash song? Just the chorus....

Me (blink blink): Whatever you like.

Another brief altercation as her friend tries to convince her to sing a Jonas brother song. I get my song (I actually have no idea what song it was. It was cute, though.)

And so, Po went to a new home.

- Went to the butterfly tent. My girl is a butterfly hunter and located some very pretty specimens. Also, "Smells like banana!" now means, "Hey, I think there are some hot lesbians over there." I'd like to note that (1) my girl and I were not the referenced lesbians and (2) the phrase came from a completely misunderstanding and therefore has no rational connection from one end to the other whatsoever (unlike most of the seemingly nonsensical things I say). The lack of rational connection actually irritates me vaguely which, in turn, amuses me.

- We found the Hut of Deep-fried Everything, but there was no deep-fried Coke. We were... sad? Sure.

- Giant Obama dolls. As prizes. Really.

And that was the fair. Next week, Heritage Days and foooooooood!

1. I continue to nurse a cough. I expect to be able to climb a flight of stairs without losing my breath any day now, so that's good. And blowing my nose actually has some relief value. Yay!

2. Finished watching Avatar: the Last Airbender. (Yes, I'm late to the party.) It's been a long time since I've been this impressed by children's television. The series is amazing. I'm terrified for the movie, though.

3. Want to kill thesis. Or self. Either one solves a problem.

Saw the new Transformers movie last night.

The bad: If you read any of the reviews, you'd know that one of the main criticisms is the overuse of rather adolescent jokes, gratuitous (and hard to follow) fight scenes, and gratuitous sexy women shots. These criticisms are right on the money. Also, cheese everywhere. Any movie where I get to snicker, "My god, he's powered up to Dragonmegazord!" has cheeze smeared on the walls. I liked it, but only because I like cheeze.

The good: It made my girl horny.

Verdict: Two thumbs up (but only when watched with my girl).

I'm in the midst of reading Genes: a Philosophical Inquiry by Gordon Graham and I'm increasingly of the opinion that the tendency to dress up genetics and the technology that grows from our increasing understanding of the science with metaphors in order to explain it to the layman is detrimental to the overall philosophical and moral debate. I have to do more reading on the matter, as it's currently just a gut reaction, but there's a difference in the way that the debate is presented to the general public versus how its presented when the audience is composed chiefly of academics. Sure, it's unfair to put the onus on informing the general population on the ins and outs of the science that has taken me years to absorb on the author, but the gap in presentation (jargon-laden and nuanced vs metaphor-laden) is not only noticeable, it means that sometimes I feel like people are talking about an entirely different subject.

Take, for instance, a diatribe written by PETA about transgenic animals. (I tried to find it to link, but after wandering around the PETA site for awhile, I had to stop. They mean well, but their propaganda makes me want to scream.) One of the points raised against the creation of transgenic animals is that there are many unwanted animals in shelters, and if animal testing is to be done at all, why create more animals that will be doomed for death when there are plenty already in shelters on death row? This makes no sense to me at all. I mean, it's like objecting to video games because you can get viruses through your email. It's completely nonsensical to me, but standing from a certain point of reference (why are you creating more animals just so you can torture and kill them?), it makes a certain kind of sense. It's just that it's wrong and while at best that wrongness just leads to a certain amount of comedy (haha, let's giggle at the uninformed and feel superior), at worse it means that people are asking the wrong questions, and real issues are completely passing us by.

This bugs me.

My girl is taking a bubble bath. The following ensues:

Me (pointing at bubbles on her foot): Hee. You have soap booties.

Her: I'm a hobbit. A seeeeea hobbit.

I'm marrying a sea hobbit. :D

For an interesting and in-depth interpretation of exactly what the California Supreme Court's majority decision means, take a look at this post by jimkeller. The short? Prop 8 sets a precedent where rights can be taken away by a majority vote.

Update: And here, an interesting interpretation that is more optimistic. In short, if this interpretation is true, Prop 8 has been whittled down to mean that it takes away the term marriage but does not take away the right for same-sex couples to enter into a familial relationship which in all ways but name resemble a marriage. Keep in mind that all it says is that Prop 8 does not expressly forbid such marriages-but-not-called-that - it just says that Prop 8 doesn't completely modify the previous decision that banning gay marriages is unconstitutional. Of course, what this marriage-but-not-called-that is isn't discussed.