Ay Carajo

I have no idea how it happened. It just did.
I was not sorry though, it brought a smile after a mistake.
But it was just weird. I rarely used it as a cursing word. It is a word my father would use for cursing, not me.... I can't think anyone in my generation would have used it.
The M word, or HP would be the cursing words of choice, but, Ay carajo?!?!

Anyhow, that is how it went. I messed up in cell culture, and even though I've been forgetting my Spanish for the past 5 years, and even though I was talking to someone in English so my brain was in English mode, I still managed to utter "Ay carajo".

Odd, amusing, not so fitting for the scenario, but still amusing.
Does this mean there is a chance for me to retain my Spanish knowledge? Although I've been asked to translate words like staplers, to which I can not come up with a translation, has the Spanish still remained somewhere safe in my mind? Do I just need to unlock it once more? Find the key?

Hopefully. Until I figure it out is back to Spanglish susmercedes :D

Back to regular procrastination

Now that the prelim has passed, my conscience tells me it is ok to go back to procrastination.
I know that is not what my advisor would want, but, then again as a scientist she should know that almost nothing turns out as you expected it to be :P

First thing to take care of was: the purchase of BRAID and Fallout 3 for the PC. But now we have to move into bigger things, things like the PS3.

Interestingly this same day experience point posted this article reminding me how purchasing a PS3 will not be entirely used as a procrastinating tool, it has some scientific applications that would help my community. Therefore, the purchase of a PS3 would not just be a reward for the hard work, but a step forward into the path to become a better MUCH BETTER scientist.

So keep an eye for good bundles, let me know which one of the many versions since released should I be getting, and above all, what would be the best games to start with.

Lab break in San Fran

As most of you know I went last weekend to the ASCB meeting in San Francisco.
My only other time where I went to such a big gathering of nerds was with Otakon, and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed at the ASCB people as I saw NO cosplay whatsoever. Otakon was way better on that front.

Anyways the trip started quite ok with a new and improved Indy airport.


there was a stop at Minnapolis where they had this amusing projector:



When I got to San Fran I was received by Stynky and Sis-in who took me to the Coit tower for a better view of San Fran... once we climbed a couple of stairs >.>




We also walk a lot around and saw ice skating, giant spiders, free bread etc. All in all, a good day. The best part was the great advice from Stynk, as he pointed out how close was the playstation store to the Moscone center :D
I did however had to restrain myself of going there the next day, as I had to be a salesman for ASCB in order to get my money back for registration (which I'm still waiting)
T-shirt selling was ok, I guess, a short visit from Chippy made it better.
Once I was done I went to gather as much free swag as possible, as always free stuff is nice yet it would've been niceR if I had won the Wii from the SABioscience seminar. After months of constantly buying their primers and staying at the moscone center till 8:30pm, I was betrayed by them as they handed the Wii to a random Berkeley student. GRRRRR
He probably already has one and will be selling this one on eBay GRRRRRR
Life is so unfair!.

So, no Wii, guess I'll spend most of the time at the Playstation store,
or the apple store,
or the lush store... erh... that one was only for a min though :P

Anyways gel is about to finish run, so other honorable mentions for the trip goes to Chippy and her taqueria tour in San Fran, Sis-in for the amazing soupand BDBioscience for my new poster tube.
I'll be uploading some pics where appropriately.

Design of GOO

Posted on their blog.


Design Tour - World of Goo from David Rosen on Vimeo.

Probably you didn't watch the entire thing. But if you did, he forgot to mention the importance of "-the sign painter" .
It was a cute, hilarious mechanic to help you navigate and figure out the individual challenges.
Since I have no idea how to edit such good videos, just buy the game from their site and experience the wonderful GOO.

Post turkey day lag

Sadly I'm no longer blogging from cool Pennsylvania.


The days of good food, awesome people, new sightseeing are over :(
It was a very enjoyable vacation that started with a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong 8 hour ride there. It was probably more since Ohio decided to throw some traffic jams and see how we handle it, and once we overcame the Ohio challenge, Penn decided to snow on us.
However we made it, we passed the individual state tests and we made it in one piece and a car smelling like curly fries (better than starving).
I have a mixed up timing in my head for the specific activities for each day (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) so until the girl clarifies I'll give you a brief summary of the experiences in not the exact time table as they happen.

The Incline. A trip up the mountains that surround the rivers of Pittsburgh.

we later went to see a first glance of Pittsburgh downtown where we found an insane amount of ginger bread houses followed by contemplating ice skating people in hopes of some people falling.

Mad Mex with a meeting the Father who saved the day with his mighty phone GPS that got us back on track after a small detour. I miss my GPS :(
Anyways dinner was good, at least mine :P and I get to hear her sister random spanish sentences and his father tales of amazing camping.

Turkey day was at the mom's house with a twenty something pound turkey which I'm still eating, followed by a desert party at a Italian neighbor friend who made the most magnifiscent deserts and let me play with two cute puppies who work in tandem to be petted, as the smallest one stands on top of the bigger one so I can reach him :)

A visit to the zoo, zoo, zoo, how about you, you you.
Petable Kangaroos decided to not come out until global warming makes winter weather more like Australian summer. Guess I'll have to come another time. However the mesmerizing display of medusas was hypnotizing.


Melting Pot to meet family friends, who interestingly one of them seem a grown up version of still childish silly me.

And finally the trip back home. I think we made a good time as I was told to slow down several times :P

All was good, all is well, I can't wait to go back home and keep on working with the leftover.

overdue post of the WoW expansion launch

Just a picture taken at around 10pm the day of Wrath of the lich king release day.
Even though I was playing this a year ago, I would never go to the midnight event! Its too cold

OH wells.

In a brief update: I'm BLOGGING ON PENNSYLVANIA WOHOOO!
More news later on.

MAC Death Aftermath

So the mac is back, there were a few replacements "upgrades?" done and it is now working well but yeah... I'm not a good person with backups so all my info is gone, I'm also surprised the claim nothing was recoverable.
Sadly the backup of my pics are a lower resolution images on facebook, my pictures I had saved on yahoo where trashed when yahoo setup flickr >.< I only have the Canada trip saved on picassa.
What about work data you say?
I always keep all my work in Purdue's PCs. Even if I work on the mac I eventually transfer the final files to their PCs.

So in the end my life has changed as follow:
-My memories have been downgraded to lower resolution.
-I'll have to revisit libraries... for the audiobooks I lost.
-I have no longer KeyNote or Pages. (Open office here we go)
-On the next laptop I shall have extended warranty.
-I managed to steal them a new Startup Disk (or so they say it will eventually arrive).
and finally:
-I am debating what my next computer shall be. No matter the computer I should be backing up. If it was windows base I might have more resources to fix it myself, and if I can't I have more choices near by to fix it.
If it is Mac I will probably have to resort to mailing it, depending where I'll be, and instead of saying goodbye to my earnings on repairs I should say goodbye earlier on warranties. The Mac service was prompt and good yet it still bugs me that I couldn't fix it on sight... and the PRICE!! ,and my PCs never died so horribly (But this could be more of a desktop vs laptop issue).
Maybe I just have to learn more about Mac troubleshooting, cause it will eventually happen no matter what Stynky and their adds say.

Or should I go Linux? Problem is, there is even LESS games for that plataform :P

World of Goo

Recently I've been playing WORLD OF GOO. This little gem came to my attention after the escalation of the DRM issue in gaming. It lacks any DRM, and if you purchase it from their site you get access to windows and mac versions (Linux coming soon) without having to buy a game individually for each platform.

But I fell in love with it because of actual gameplay and atmosphere. If you see the video from their site you will have a feeling about the music, and how it feels as if you are in some Tim Burton type of world. Some how odd yet familiar and a little bit magical.
Gameplay is fairly simple. Link the Goo balls until you reach the exit pipe trying to get as many of them through it; a little reminiscent of lemmings.

I've been having a lot of fun, the music and level design always have me smiling (The sign painter who gives you hints is hilarious), it is a really amazing game and you should give it a try. It was developed by an independent group, has no official publisher, it is only $20 (granted is a really short game, but re playability is quite high) and you will make the world a much much better place if you get it. Trust me.

Sonic Team

Nope, not the developers of the Sonic games, but the main team from the genesis era carved in pumpkins!!!

That is right, I finally got into the tradition of pumpkin carving thanks to the lovely guidance and geeky encouragement from the girl.
She actually found this sonic, tails and knuckles patterns and by her mom's wise advise: An entire MASTER CARVING KIT.

Now we were quite aware that with our lack of experience, it was going to be quite a challenge, so we just bought one pumpkin and decided to get Sonic in it.
After a surprise messy start, we managed to clear a nice top, and tape the pattern into the pumpkin. With the help of the pounce wheel from the kit, we managed to pass a pretty clear image of Sonic, into the pumpkin's skin.

I know its barely visible, but trust me. There is a sonic face in that pumpkin.

After quite some work, and surprisingly ZERO CUTS (hello kitty band aid of mine was a prior misadventure) we managed to make quite an amazing job.
Our supervisor was so proud of our work, that we had to test it immediately. Problem was with such a bright day the only dark place we thought on testing it was...



I was so excited and motivated by this amazing first attempt, that decided on getting two extra pumpkins. One for Tails, one for knuckles. And so I went and bought... THREE pumpkins (It was decided she will now carve Hello Kitty).

This other two required quite a great deal of work, maybe cause of exchaustion, maybe cause of the need to finish before desperate housewives, maybe cause it was just not meant to be, the other two don't look as bright as the first one. However I think it was a very VERY good job, and thus I will displayed them proudly.



While I was carving these two new ones, and begging for her help on the peeling parts, she managed to carve an amazing Hello Kitty without any patterns, follow by cooking of pumpkin seeds, chicken soup, and watch entire episodes of scandalous TV.
Don't ask me how, she just manages to multi-task like no one I know, or will ever know.

I'm feeling lucky.

They saw death, I saw love

And I thought I was the one that had lost faith in human nature.

Anyways, we went to our Wedensday International movie night. This time I was so busy, I didn't had any chance to read anything about the movie before hand. But at the very beginning I knew it was going to be on my top list.

The movie was REPRISE. A movie about two upcoming writers in Norway.
I knew from the very beginning I would love it, as the narrator interrupted the flow of the movie to tell us what would've happen if...
The "what if" was so crazy exaggerated and unpredictable that remind me of Amelie's imagination. I loved it and the "what if" was a recurring theme, which at the end of the movie when people discussed it, it seem a common understanding to everyone that every happy "what if" was never real, and the sad darker ones were.

What bother me the most was a special scene where one of the protagonists comes up with a way to make sure his love interest will finally fall in love with him.
Later on in the movie he uses the same trick (at kind of bad times with not so happy conclusions) yet, it was always a reminder of me that THEY were in love, and that THEY always had this little secret to make sure the other person would fall in love for one and other.
But noooooooo, for everyone it meant death wish and suicide just because things were not working as flawlessly as we wish love was.
WHY? OH why was that the general understanding of it.
I was apparently the only one that exit that movie wishing to use that same trick, and tell my grandchildren how after all this time the trick kept working.

Am I the only one that still believes in Truth, Beauty but above all Love?

Go see the movie please, and tell me.

P.S. yeah, yeah, I took freedom off the Mouling Rouge reference, cause... well... Freedom doesn't come for free ;) (Bonus points for catching that last reference)

Chocolo regains sight

I'm a terrible parent.
I grew accustom to Chocolo's condition, and carry one as usual not noticing his gloomy perspective on life:


However an amazing research scientist develop a synthetic eye, fully functional for him, and care for his surgery:














His recovery was a success:


and now with his sight back, he has thank the kind scientist that made it all possible, and started a new life with new friends:



LIFE IS SO MUCH BETTER KNOW.

The future should be IMPULSE

Penny arcade talks and jokes about SecuROM.
But as much as I like Steam, I prefer IMPULSE for the future digital distribution.

Now go help Stardock!!!

I stop being a ninja for a day to become:

You are The Cap'n!

Some men and women are born great, some achieve greatness and some slit the throats of any scalawag who stands between them and unlimited power. You never met a man - or woman - you couldn't eviscerate. You are the definitive Man of Action, the CEO of the Seven Seas, Lee Iacocca in a blousy shirt and drawstring-fly pants. You're mission-oriented, and if anyone gets in the way, that's his problem, now isn't? Your buckle was swashed long ago and you have never been so sure of anything as your ability to bend everyone to your will. You will call anyone out and cut off his head if he shows any sign of taking you on or backing down. If one of your lieutenants shows an overly developed sense of ambition he may find more suitable accommodations in Davy Jones' locker. That is, of course, IF you notice him. You tend to be self absorbed - a weakness that may keep you from seeing enemies where they are and imagining them where they are not.




What's Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

You are doing it WRONG... amazon

I have no idea how the recommendation system from amazon works, but I'm sure it could do waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better.




How many fans of the complex Ghost in the Shell series are also fans of Pokemon?
I would thought of them as separate crowds.
(Yes I've seen Pokemon, but I'm far from considering the remote possibility of getting the DVD set)

To make you quake in fear

The above picture was submited to Dr Horrible's facebook profile.
Just sharing it here since the usual person in charge of keeping us up-dated on Dr Horribles news, seems kind of lazy these days.

To create your own Threat Down you can go to http://www.threatdowngenerator.com/
and warn the world about the likes of:

Turtles can fly

This must be the "harshest" movie I've ever seen.
After seen the trailer I assume the usual "life can be beautiful even in the face of adversity", a common theme in "third world country" movies. Yet this one has left me in shock.
I recommend it , yet I don't think I have the courage to see any other of the Bahman Ghobadi movies.

From the first review in iMDB "A viewing of this film earlier tonight ... was immediately followed, in my case, by a trip to a bathroom stall where I stared blankly at a wall for fifteen minutes amidst a state of pure, and surprisingly prolonged, emotional helplessness"
I can relate.

Tears shed for video game charachters

WARNING: BUNCH OF SPOILERS IF YOU FOLLOW THE REDDIT LINKS.

This thread on reddit had me trying to remember which game had me so involved in their world and story that they actually toyed with my emotions.

I loved to see I wasn't the only one that was sadden by Shadow of the Colossus and the horse... it is amazing since I only played for 10mins but still the ambiance in that game made it so perfect that I was immediately attached to those in game.

Another of the comments I relate as well was the ending of Half Life 2 episode 2... which hopefully Stynky will finish one day so I could say more about it.
I'm not sure if it would have the same effect as shadow of the colossus, cause I think you really have to play through the first episodes to really get the most of it... so Stynky stop procrastinating and finish it.

Finally I had to add a comment for Baldur's Gate... for some reason I seem to be the only one genuinely enraged by the death of my dear friend Khalid. The game did great on creating party members who, given their unique personalities, you would actually end up caring for.

Any games that managed to do similar for you?
I wonder if adding Rome Total War after the death of Kanmi The Conqueror is valid.
After all his memory leaves on through my name in this Blog... I really honored such an amazing Leader that manage to take Elephants into the streets of Rome... how Hannibal should have done so.

YAY Deadlines

Now finally I will get to work.
Someone has read my crappy proposal and realized what a bunch of mediocrity it was and now I will be working with progressive deadlines starting with this Monday.

Wohoo, now I'm working... oh wait ... I'm blogging...craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap.

Turtle Race? Grad School Race?

http://jalansutera.dagdigdug.com/2008/02/04/rabbit-vs-turtle-who-will-win-the-race/

Slow but steady?
Why is it that a small success, a turtle step closer to my goal, puts me a bit at ease at the incoming Prelim in 2 weeks?

Today was a busy day, started with lab meeting at 8am
Followed by tissue immunohistochemistry
Continue with Cell culture plating for our new imaging system collaborator.
very VERY brief lunch
Supervised one of the kids doing RNA extract and cDNA preparation.
Finally prepare the media for MY experiment (yes, none of the previous one relates to my projects)

And when I was done I said to myself. "Thats it, today I write a good amount for my prelim" Never actually set the record straight on what a good amount was, but the thing is, while trying to rewrite my Abstract... I found a commentary that it is going to be my copy paste for the introduction. It has already some nice graphs that I can modify to put it in my proposed model.

I didn't wrote much but for some reason I feel this little finding as an excuse to tell my self "I've moved forward, for today it is ok, now lets go have some dinner"
No sense of guilt is with me while I procrastinate now making this post AND getting ready to go home.
Why is that?

2 years later.

It is done:
Dimerization of the Papillomavirus E2 Protein Is Required for Efficient Mitotic Chromosome Association and Brd4 Binding

And the only figure that actually has a result I remember recording, is the last one of microscopy...all the gels are from Jon.

At this pace my next paper would be in 7 years >.>

Oh well, such is the price of biology non reproducible, incomprehensible, anti-P.I-hypothesis results