faketasticy

you know who look like they are having a lot of fun?

people in pictures.

bent science

I found a great site today for quick elucidation of sometimes complex ideas.

For example, read the following:

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Pol III, the main DNA replication enzyme, cannot work in the 5' - 3' direction, and so replication of the lagging strand is more complicated than of the leading strand. On the leading strand, Pol III "reads" the DNA and adds nucleotides to it continuously.

On the lagging strand, primase "reads" the DNA and adds RNA to it in short bursts. Pol III lengthens the bursts, forming Okazaki fragments. Pol I then "reads" the fragments, removes the RNA, and adds its own nucleotides (this is necessary because RNA and DNA use slightly different kinds of nucleotides). DNA ligase joins the fragments together.

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make sense? probably not

okay, now try this:

www.maxanim.com

sorry for all the science-talk. I got exams soon. I got biochemistry on the brain.

big things in little packages

last day at the job and, as a present, they gave us all copies of the Merck Manual.

It is the new edition. It has bible-esque pages (you know, the really thin pages .... bible-esque) which I assume is important.

What is the Merck Manual? Only the greatest book I have ever received.

Let's flip to a random page:

p934 (Dermatologic Disorders): Did you know that Pruritus (itching) can be a symptom of primary skin disease or of systemic disease? How about the fact that skin diseases notorious for causing intense pruritus include scabies, pediculosis, insect bites, urticaria, atopic and contact dermatitis, lichen planus, miliaria and dematitis herpetiformis?

new page:

p1836 (Neurologic Disorders): Use of hypnotics in sleep disorders. Hypnotics act at the benzodiazepine recognition site of the gamma-aminobutryic acid (GABA) receptor and augment the inhibitory effects of GABA. Hypnotics should be used cautiously in patients with pulmonary insufficiency. In the elderly, any hypnotic, even in small doses can cause restlessness, excitement, or exacerbation of delerium and dementia.

awesome ... 2991 pages of medical diagnosis. With a small bible-esque font.

by the by, GABA is one of the brain's major inhibitory neurotransmitters and is formed from glutamate in a one step process. It looks like this:

HOOC-CH2-CH2-CH2-NH2

Except in physiological conditions the carboxylate is deprotonated and the amine is protonated. Just like most amino acids. Glutamate (or glutamic acid) has the basic amino acid back bone with a propionic acid side chain.

This is pretty basic for a lot of you, but for me ... pure fascination.

imagery for the chemically inclined

Integral proteins are like icebergs floating in a lipid bilayer sea.

sad part? I love it.

in the midnight hour

hosting things is a lot of fun.

Last night I hosted my own good-bye / cristal's b-day bash. I purchased a 100 bucks of booze and mix, made a great dancing CD, advised the downstairs neighbours that they would not be able to sleep and prepared to party ... kinda ...

When the first people arrived ( Shane and a few of his friends ) at 10 o'clock I was just waking up from a nap and was stumbling out of my room wearing just my boxers. It was classic. Shane already equates me with the art set ( I am certainly far from any art set, but with him being in finance, anything not in finance is part of said set ) so he was probably a tad hesitant to bring his finance friends to an "art" party. And then they walked into an almost empty house, the only guest a half-naked, bleary-eyed man.

I love montreal for the late starts. I love that I could nap until 9:30 and be pretty confident that no one would arrive.

It was just Shane et al. and me and the roomies for another hour or so, so we talked about law school and MBAs and things of that nature. Just getting it out of our system.

And then the people arrived and it was fantastic. I got to DJ. I got to wear a suit and rollerskates. This morning was a tad rough.

Montreal is cooling down. The amazing heat only comes in spurts now and it gets dark early. Hibernation already? It is only late august .... you have to move like a hummingbird here to enjoy it. Move fast, see everything, consume entertainment like nourishing fat reserves, build up stories to dream about in the dark depths of winter. So cold, but remember how fun summer is? Survive winter for summer.

I listen to BBC dance music occasionally and one of their tag lines is "we're living for the weekend." They even have a weekend countdown timer on the website. Isn't that depressing? Poor britain. Poor brits. Maybe just poor "brits who like BBC radio 1."

The sneaking into ballet was great. It was free and in the park, but we arrived late and the stage was at capacity so they wouldn't let us in. So we snuck in. The best part, besides the ballet (which was contemporary - think stretchy jeans and thrusting as opposed to tutus and nutcrackers), were the people who saw and said "you realise that it is free?" and we replied that we knew and didn't elaborate. I assume they still think about us.

I got to see mr manes briefly in Montreal which was, as always, a great pleasure. Him and his girl are off to do great things in Burma and I am jealous and excited. They are going to do stuff in burma ... good stuff ... stuff I would be incredibly happy to do. And they are going to law school ... you see? See!!!

I was having a discussion with my boss about all the wrongs in the world ( he strongly disagrees with law school and is not afraid to tell me but he is going to introduce me to his environmental lawyer friends who love what they do (which is sue American companies that think they can use NAFTA to pollute Canada and Mexico)) and he started to tell me about a project he was interested in: providing nitrogen fixing rice to impoverished nations and this struck me as something I could get behind. Raising money to provide beneficial rice is immediate and needed. I am going to look into this. Anyone know more about this?

He also raised an interesting point about intense poverty being a trick to survival in a place where people want what you have and are not afraid to take it. This is Hobbes in action. I need to read Guns, Germs and Steel again.

Out of here on the 4th. Attempts to get to burning man have failed. There is no time and I still haven't been to the architecture museum here. God.

crisse

serious apologies to anyone who checks this with any regularity. I am afraid that I will have to win you back.

I am writing this while standing next to the window, desperatly trying to soak up the internet's basking rays.

That is part of the reason I haven't posted. The other is summer.

I will write more when summer and montreal and fun are over. I assume this is irony.

Life for the past month has been relatively simple: work and class and paper writing and sneaking into ballet and new friends and all that associated shit.

I don't want to leave but, for the sake of the future, I just must.

I will probably live with Noah in Victoria, assuming he finds a good place. If not, I am thinking about finally living on my own. A boy has got to strike out on his lonesome eventually.

Victoria. Blah. Although the wedding was great and I do miss tippi and chris. It will be fine. Not exciting, but fine. I am going to get my outdoors on. And maybe some of your more musically inclined folk will help me to put together a weekly night of dancing. I am going to miss dancing.

pictures of me not dying

I didn't die!

I finally got to see buck 65 again and it was amazing.

I used to have this issue with concerts. I disliked them, mainly because I always felt (1) kinda jealous of the musicians and (2) like I could be doing something better. But I have changed in Montreal - now I really enjoy shows.

Buck 65 shows fill me with joy. Although he is getting too popular. His thing was intimacy, he is a story teller where story tellers seem rare. Sure, musical lyrics tell stories, but at the first show of his I saw, in Victoria and at a tiny bar, he spent as much time telling stories as he did singing songs. And I really liked that. Most of the concerts I have seen involve an artist using his/her music to tell a story but never actually talking to the audience. And while Buck talked a fair amount at the latest show, he was more aloof, likely because the audience was much larger and he is much more famous. It might be hard to reveal truths when lithe and half naked girls are holding up "I would fuck for Buck" posters (which he took with him).

The point of this is that I need a story teller in my life. Maybe a saturday night story telling party.

Camping on St. Jean-Baptiste was not scary at all! Although I didn't talk very much. Although it started somewhat inauspiciously. The night before, I had had a dream where I was wearing a canadian flag by accident at the camp and it was going to get me in trouble (as you may note, I was actually a little worried about this trip). So when I got dressed and packed on friday morning, I tried to be careful of what I packed.

When I got to work I noticed that the shirt I was wearing was red and white. Ooops, I thought, this is a bit too canadian flag like. But I wasn't too worried. Still, I told my Quebequois workmate what I had noticed and how I thought it was funny. "That is funny," he said, "but it is more funny that the shirt has a maple leaf on it."

Shit. I suck. I didn't change and I did honk "Oh Canada" as we pulled into the campsite. The frenchies thought it was some new pop song. And, after all that, I didn't get beat up. Woot.

I did get eaten alive by massive bugs, and we had a small leech scare, and I was burnt to a crisp and I was totally malnourished (having only eaten chips and instant noodles for the whole weekend), but I was alive! I launched off fire works for Jean-Baptiste and barely noticed Canada day. I am becoming a true Quebecor. Fuck you English canada.

Montreal kicks ass in the relaxing/partying catagory. I have mentioned tam-tams, and today hanging out in the park I realised all french boys are sinewy individuals who play frisbee with incredible agression (they cheer when they make a good catch) and spend a good chunk (possibly all) of their time flipping and doing hand-stands and some sort of psuedo-campiori (shane thinks they can do these aerial feats because they are all unemployed and that they are sinewy because they can't afford food, but, you know, shane). But I experienced some relaxing/partying which is a little bit more me.

Picnik Electronique. They take over an entire park and set up huge speakers and have an all day dance party for the folks who leave the all night clubs. The park is gorgeous and situated on the banks of the St. Laurence. Now, the vast majority of the participants are a little strung out, and the gay men, of which there are may, have the naked gay man problems (whereby, if you are a gay man you must remove your t-shirt and dance until you are sweaty and smell bad) but it was still a lot of fun. There are enough normals (and this includes all the gay people who don't feel the need to remove their shirts and sweat) to make it great. Of course, Eric, Isabelle and I spent a good proportion of the event down by the river poking a dead fish (actually that was all Isabelle) and looking for fossils (also Isabelle) and trying splash each other with dead fish water (mainly me, but ultimately all of us).

LSAT came back. Don't worry. I did fine.

Also, I caved and purchased a cell phone. Call me. 514-814-5758. I haven't got a message system set up (I am cheap so this whole process is going to take time) so just call a lot.

bike structure!

back once again with the ill behaviour

okay, I can do this now.

recap:

I went back to Victoria for a wedding on the 26th of May, which was absolutely gorgeous. Chris and Christina were both extremely pretty. So pretty. There was dancing afterwards which fit the ultimate wedding cliche: old people dancing with young people, little kids dancing on the feet of ... tippi. Tippi loved that shit. I had to stare at the ceiling to avoid getting teary-eyed during the ceremony. I am such a wuss.

The next day, we spent the day eating and hanging out at the beach before a surprising dangerous fireball bottle fight at an airport construction lot saw me off. Destination: Halifax.

Yep, I flew from Montreal to Victoria for the wedding and then victoria to halifax for a chemistry conference, where I was presenting a poster on some work I have been doing.

The conference was huge and 95% of it was over my head. I went to some of the medicinal chemistry talks and chemical energy talks but they were extremely specialized. Also, my goal in life is to design an enzyme that can turn a washing machine in a landfill into food. It would look like pacman. like this:



One giant washing machine eating enzyme. I really shouldn't be a scientist.

Halfaxians are really, really nice. It is a town similar to Victoria, but I think Victoria is nicer. What Halifax does have is Dalhoisie, which is a gorgeous university. UVic is so freaking ugly. Oh well.

Then back to Montreal to start preparing for the LSAT. The LSAT is hard. That is all.

Come the end of the LSAT, I did as promised and reintroduced the party.

This weekend, montreal really showed itself. Fringefest was in town and while I am not a huge fan of the plays, there was plenty of associated free music, which I like.

So there was, just this weekend, FringeFest, the french music festival, the symphony of fire, plus tam-tams, world cup and stanley cup. I am loving world cup because of all the soccer everywhere. you leave your house in shorts and you will find yourself in game. I pretty much play everyday.

An impromptu game started on the blocked off street of St. Laurent (a major bar lined street in Montreal which gets shut down to traffic periodically and totally comes alive. Towns desperately need major pedestrian only streets) which started to get a little crazy. I wasn't involved although I thought it was great. That being said, the second time a ball knocked beer off our table, one of our tablemates chucked the ball down the road. Only a police blockade stopped the thrower (and the rest of us, cause we were all laughing hysterically) from getting attacked by the soccer players. Good ol' montreal.

I had avoided Tam Tams for my time here, just cause I still struggle with people just spending there whole day relaxing and having fun. But Shane LP and I went up to play a little soccer and, actually, it was pretty great. Hours and hours of drum circles, pot and dancing. If that doesn't hold your fancy, you can find pickup games of soccer, ultimate or football, or you can watch the amazing campiori fighter/dancers or wander into the woods and watch the quebequois medieval fighters, some of them in full armor (where does one even buy full armor), beat the shit out of each other with swords. The guys with full armor are freaking intense. I can barely walk around in shorts and a t-shirt. These guys fight for hours in a metal suit. Hats off. I will definitely be spending more time there.

Last night we watched the disappointing final, but whatever. I only wanted the team to win because it would have made the town come even more alive. That and I would have gotten a testosterone boost, which I think we all want. The best part of last night was the bike structures. There were 11 of us, all with bikes and we went bombing around town, like a large gang, and at each bar we stopped at we stacked the bikes. We got them pretty high. I just like that it happened. we were all more excited about the bike structures than anything else. We hardly drank at the bars, we just wanted to go biking again.

Next weekend is Jean-Baptiste. I am going to go camping and, according to the francaphone friends who are taking me, I will be one of the few anglophones and that I need to be just a little careful not to piss people off. All I do is piss people off. So, yeah, I might die this weekend! That being said, there is a party this weekend which costs $4.00 but you get a pair of vintage underwear at the door. The first floor is a normal party. The second floor, though, one can only go if one is only wearing the vintage underwear. I love nakedness. I love camping. What should I do?

don't forget that I am incredibly hairy.

how are all y'all?

hey

I am on the interweb. Bask in my glory.

this is it

after how ever many days, this is all I have for you:

the highest level female tennis players wear long dangly earrings while competing for ultimate glory. You can check this out in your local newspaper's sports section.

This strikes me as being somewhat fucked up.

okay, back to studying.

Jun 13th. party.

inevitable

things have slowed down a little here, but that is not unexpected.

there are two reasons for this:

primarily, it has been raining non stop for a week. Who knew that was possible? I though the east was constant sun in the summer. I feel like someone lied to me.

secondarily, I really have to face up to my responsibilities:

In the next 3 weeks I have a wedding in Victoria, a conference in Halifax, a doctor's appointment in Waterloo and an LSAT to write.

So, you know I gotta prepare for all that.

in fact, I think I may be scarse until June 13th. Then, I can reintroduce the party.

dogs

whoo doggy, where to begin ...

so, this place is awesome. that must preface everything.

it is gorgeous, everybody is happy, every single girl is good looking and most of the guys are good looking. bi-sexuality seems more appealing with each passing day.

my home is amazing. my cooking has improved exponentially.

work is interesting.

life is just ... you know, good.

adventures:

a) Concertland.

good lord, clubs and concerts here are good. I found my bar ... it is a purely french place which serves $2.50 shots of tequila and turns into a clothing store by day. Marissa (not negin: it was late when I wrote this and I was very drunk) and I danced there. we had fun.

I saw Japanther a few days ago and it was good. I just got back from Duchess Says. Jesus fuck. seriously. fuck jesus. that was good. energy is seriously underrated. Doug has a good thing going on. SLUM records is, most likely, going places.

b) bikingland.

so I decided that, rather than taking transit for an hour and a half, I would bike the 35 km to work. All went well the first day. The ride is beautiful (if long) and I found myself surprising capable of riding 70km a day. well, that is a little untrue. I could not make the last 5 km yesterday and had to eat three slices of pizze to regain balance. but otherwise good.

today ... today sucked.

I blew a tire, not unexpectedly, with all the glass and potholes, but I was retardedly unprepared. I tried riding on a busted tire. That sucked. So I walked. I found a depanneur, got a bunch of wildcat, got drunk and kept walking. I tried riding again. A mix of alcohol and grass made it seem okay. I haven't actually looked at my front tire yet. But the rides were short lived. Riding a street bike on grass with a flat tire while drunk is hard. really really hard.

I walked and walked and walked. I starting yelling at nobody in particular. Old ladies looked at me funny.

I found a store that sold more beer and bought a six pack. During flirtations with the cashier I found out that there was a metro near by and that bikes were allowed on. Victory. I was going to duchess says! (if I had had to walk, which I assumed I would, it would have taken me another 2 hours to get home. as it was I did not arrive until 10:30).

I got come, drank on of the six pack, watched some Casanova and headed to the club. As I attempted to pay, the guy closed the money box and walked away. so, it seems that the night was free. To make amends I bought a cd.

c) myhouseland

I lucked out. my roomates rule. the boyfriend of marie, the parisian, just got a place with a 2500 square foot backyard. If they make me leave I will cut myself.

sleep now.

goodnight moon.

merde

that's right, I am in montreal now.

not much time at the moment, but I thought I would share a bit of my new life.

My apartment, which is gorgeous, is centered on a massive stainless steel cooking space (it ain't your father's table). So, you know, I cook now.

I got off the metro, picked up some fresh veggies, came up to the apartment to an offer of an espresso by this parisian girl who lives here, poured a little white wine, made my own version of pad thai, wandered over to a friend's place to watch the canadiens lose, came back, am doing a bit of work and am waiting for mercedes to come over for a beer.

i can't believe I have only been here three days. it kinda feels like home.

they have both a med and a law school here. why would I leave? except the brutal cold.

the beta band

I don't necessarily want to repost repeatedly from metafilter but I thought, given the ideas in the last post, that I would share this.

Fear of the word 'nuclear' is a big problem. It shouldn't be. Nuclear is a great word.

"Waste" is a pretty bad word, but research is all that is needed.

We must be able to use the waste productively. It is what we do. Find uses for stuff.

it's a whale fish

The Tyee, which I thought was solely an election blog, is actually not.

I looked at it today and found this article: 100 Mile Diet.

Premise, if you don't wish to read the article, is that the authors, a couple (I think) from Vancouver decided to only eat food grown in a 100 mile radius from their house. It was tough at times, but they got through it.

The main reason for this? Fossil fuel consumption. Eating foods grown miles away from you causes a large amount of pollution to be emitted by the trucks, trains and boats transporting the food. Okay, sounds good.

An important question, the question one always must ask, is what happens when everyone does it? It is all fine and dandy to have your own little project, to make a point (and it is a very good point), but I believe that it is untenable for the population at large if we maintain a need to have all of our food made for us.

Okay, so the problem is cost. We want the cheapest food possible. With economies of scale as they are, the cheapest food is often going to come from far away. With economies of scale, it is always going to be cheaper to have someone else produce your food than produce it yourself.

Cost is, in fact, always the problem. The 100 mile rule could be used for almost everything, but the economies of scale for electronics and furniture is huge. The problem is that the economies of scale for food is probably about the same. On the 100 mile diet blog they say that costs did skyrocket. And they hadn’t yet had to deal with the incredible demand put on the farmers that would ensue if we all chose to buy locally.

So, what is the problem? Our desire to be happy and the fact that this desire is so closely related to what we have/own. As much as people like to bandy about the idea that friends and family are the most important things a person can have (and that is true), it does not take into account the strain on said relationships that can result from needing to overwork, which is a very real problem if you remove economies of scale. (Although I have read recently that the high divorce rate now is related to the fact that people are so privileged now that they expect a happy marriage as opposed to the supportive marriage that existed up until most recently – with that in mind, family may become better when people have less because there will be more mutual (and necessary) support)

We can try to buy more locally, yes, (we can develop small economies of scale) but ultimately we need to develop better transportation methods, better fuels and better energy sources. While two young and unencumbered people may be able to do the 100 mile diet, I don’t think it tenable for the entire population.

I think food is much too cheap (most things are much too cheap) so it may be the case that, when true costs (i.e. the human suffering costs I referred to a few posts ago) are taken into account, that locally grown foods are more beneficial. Although I still think that, even if prices increased to allow foreign farmers (and all producers) a fair return, it will still be overall beneficial to have a world market. So, alternative energy is the key and maintaining a world market.

One thing I liked from the blog was this:

“A friend of ours has a theory that a night spent making jam–or in his case, perogies–with friends will always be better a time than the latest Hollywood blockbuster. We’re convinced.”

I am convinced too. Stupid movies. Although I finally bought The Wrong Guy. I think a few of my friends and I have definitely bonded over that.

I think I just experienced something of religious proportions.

i love it when people move

last night was semi-debaucherous.

jungle theme keg party at the paper tree.

I picked up a fake fur coat and a lion toy. As I was tearing apart the toy to make myself a mask I discovered electronics. The thing was wired. It played music (jungle music) and roared while moving its mouth. I was the king of the party. I assume.

I also scored sweet roller skates. montreal a go go.

today is the day

Happy Birthday Natalie!

In honour, I ate indian food. my tummy kinda hurts.

terrible prejudice

wow, did I underestimate myspace.

I considered it a disgusting cesspit, where pre-teens went to hide away all their scavenged animated gifs and emo music, where shitty bands went to harp about their unoriginal audio excrement, where 33 year old perverts grasping on to their fading youth went to chat up anything younger.

to some extent this is all probably true, but what I failed to see were the good parts.

as I perused this afternoon, I took the following path (myspace name in brackets):

myself (immutabler) > mercedes (mercedesisawesome) > raf (raf_is_awesome) > some unknown (massinha). It was at this last "space" where I found out about a launch party at club lambi (on St. Laurent).

Why is this important?

because my only goal in montreal is to go to as many art shows / magazine launches / product lauches as possible.

I don't want to pay for one drink in montreal. I want all of my alcohol, for 4 straight months, to be paid for by someone else.

And myspace is going to make this happen. I owe myspace a (free) drink and an apology.