lumpage

If I wore ties more often, I would get one of these. So simple so awesome:

http://www.thetiething.com/product.aspx

Hooooooooooooooooooooooooraaaaaaaaaaay! What started out as a, let's just see if I can do it, type experiment. Has now turned in to a, "I've finally done it! I've been accepted in to medical school!" Type thing. I'm quite excited. May have shed a few embarassing tears of happiness (it was really weird and awkward for me to be emotional, especially in a quasi-public place - work.) I had to get a hug from Julie I was so displaced from my usual emotional dosconnection.  I've been able to stay disconnected from the whole experience quite sufficiently, for fear of rejection. I sat the gamsat without telling hardly anyone. I only told the parents by accident when dad accused me of being lazy for sitting in my room all day the weekend before when I was actually doing a bit of gam-cram. I got an interview and practiced the hell out of it thanks to Rowan,  Nyoli and Courts. And bam! I'm so happy and thankful and... and.... content? Weird weird year this has been. Fortunately because my undergrad days are behind me I know I'm in, whilst those still in undergrad have to wait for their results before they can be certain of anything. Phew!

Now I just need to wrap up my practical work before Feb 2011, so that after I've defered this spot for a year I can take it up and write my thesis at the same time. Hmmm, good plan in theory, here's hoping I don't die trying.

Thanks to everyone who supported me through this. It's been great to have your encouragement and friendship. It's really appreciated - especially from all of you who have followed the whole saga for such a long time. Cheers!

I've been doing... stuff. But the only thing I can think to write of is really uninteresting. Meh! Apparently, the bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created, for transport at least. From the food you eat, as opposed to petrol, a bicycle will give 3000mpg - or 0.078L / 100Km.

I rode today, and it was hot. A normal person would ride slower, but because I love the heat, I rode quicker. Also I'm an idiot. When I got to uni, at about 3pm, I was ridiculously thirsty and craving salt. I drank two powerades and my water bottle, and finished off a packet of salt and vinegar chips (they tasted soo good) before my legs stopped shaking. I was pretty desperate for ions, no doubt partly due to the fact that I've been crook this week too - gastro though is very cleansing. Gross.

So here's a video. I love these sorts of videos. It's just people racing bicycles, but in a fairly Darwinian fashion. It's like the Tour de France, in traffic and lots of people are on clolourful fixies. There are other videos from these crimanimalz people, my favourite one has the guy on the triple decker bicycle.

Wolfpack All City Race 2 from Bicykiller on Vimeo.

I find life confusing. For those of you have seen me try and interact with the real world, this won't come as much of a surprise. I feel sometimes as though I'm trying to fit a pentagon in to a square hole. And yes the square is smaller than the pentagon, so dont go getting any fancy ideas. What I'm obviously trying to get at is the issue of balance. Whether it's actually the case or not, I'm always short of what I perceive to be the right balance. I don't know what the right balance is - but somebody kept yelling at me that perception is reality. Hmmm.


I guess four out of five ain't bad, and as long as I keep shuffling the one, life keeps ticking along. Which is an interesting segue in to something more interesting. I think virology is an interesting area of science. It certainly keeps revealing new and exciting things. There's a captivating documentary, that you can catch up on iView, called Catching Cancer. It highlighted the fact that viruses are increasingly becoming identified as carcinogens. At this stage though, we're really only good at catching the viruses that can be caught in the act, i.e. stay around in the cancer long enough for us to say the virus. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next, given the large amount of speculation that surrounds the capacity for breast and colon cancer to be caused by various viruses. How we go about doing that will be for the next generation of scientists to decide. But the HPV vaccination going about will hopefully highlight whether some breast cancers are caused by HPV. Guess we've got 20 years to find out. Schmick!

I've written about the moon a lot this year. So I'll make this the third and final moon blog.

I think, if you lived on the moon, you would never get tired of looking up at the earth. It would be cool to look at that big blue ball, with its constantly changing surface. All the while knowing, millions of people are there going about their business, unaware that you are watching them.

I should probably be happy.

I've finally purified enough protein to immunise my mice. The mice are on their way, and I might even have this monoclonal production wrapped up before christmas (where have we heard that before!). It turns out the secret was to add 1mM DTT and 1mM GSH, and then dialyse in two steps over 24h, from 8M to 2.5M to 500mM Urea. There I was mucking about with salt and buffer concentrations, when all I needed was a reducing environment with a high pH to prohibit incorrect cross linking and agglutination! Fascinating I know! I wish I'd discovered that three months ago, before I crashed all that protein out of solution repeatedly.

All I feel though is tired.

I've really gotten in to triple J. It's so cliche I know. But the morning show is actually quite amusing. Providing they dont spend ages interviewing some random. Anyway!

Make it through the first minute and you'll love the first five. Trust me! I heard it before my interview the other day. Strangely relaxing!

im getting sick of the constraints of LJ again. it annoys me so.

Just thought you should know I'm still alive. Not sure if anyone is left to read this. So here's the vid i threw on facebook the other day. I like helicopters for the record...




Doing alright otherwise. talk like a pirate day was a bit of a fizzer this year don't you reckon? I guess thats what happens when you have these prestigious events on a saturday. Hardly any timbers were shivered...

This little meme thing was the best one I've seen so far, so topical, so hilarious.



This thing is also cool:

I bought a fixie.

The idea is to use it for local commutes, church, the shops etc. Places I want to go that don't require much pedalling, and thus don't warrent me putting on fancy cycling shoes. If I dont have to put the fancy shoes on, then I dont have to take a back pack with my walking shoes in. Thus making the whole A-B thing easier.

Sure, I could have just bought a bike with gears and left pedals on it, but fixies are popular at the minute. Now though I must go about making changes to it. I wish to replace the bullhorns with drops, skinny up the wheels (from 32mm slicks, to maybe a 25mm race tyre)  and maybe get a carbon fibre seat post/ better seat, to save some weight. Weight isn't really the driving issue with this bike, but because you control the speed directly with your pedalling, it's nice to lose a bit of the inertial load over the back wheel, allowing you to skid to a stop if desired.

I rode it today for the first time, and it was quite an experience. Firstly, i nearly broke my knees every time I tried to change direction, because I'm so used to dropping one foot and leaving it there, only to then have toe pedal smack my leg in to momentum again. Secondly, I haven't figured out how to smoothly get moving. You can't kick the pedal up to the top of your stride before you set off, as it is directly connected to the rear wheel, which means you have to put heaps of effort in with your second foot. And then once you are moving you are somehow meant to get your feet in to the toe clips whilst they are roatating proportionally to your speed.

I need to work on it, but its certainly fun. The gear ratio seems about right. I just managed to struggle up the hill, but going down hill my legs didnt have to go turbo fast to travel at speed.

I've not had all that much TV watching time lately. In fact it's an activity I've somewhat neglected. I haven't even felt compelled to put my tv tuner back in my computer... However!
The GO channel, is just awesome. And by awesome I mean, better than the other channels but still meh. I do however love the copious amounts of Seinfled they are going through. It's like coming back to an old friend. Good reliable entertainment, with a plot. Which is quite an achievement for an American TV show, yet alone a sitcom.
What I do want to know is how well it is rating. I have been known to peruse TV rating websites like TV rant, to see what the masses are watching, but getting info on these newer digital channels is proving difficult. Oh well, I dont really care. As long as I can still pirate the shows I want to watch off the internet.

Time for a cup of Tea. I wish the delivery man would come.

I'll post an entry seeing as I'm held hostage at work. I'm waiting for my column to spit out my protein. It's very dull. But it does give me an opportunity to catch up on things like blagging and listening to annoying music on the old iPhone.

So whats going on in the world of Mattos? Well, I'm teaching again. This time its third years, which is really exciting because the material is a bit more intellectually stimulating for me, and a lot less menial for the students. It will be an interesting semester I think. Also because I have taught some of these students before in semester 2 last year, and I have a 'conflict of interest' which puts certain limitations on me, which I find hilarious. Anyway! The upside of this all is, the undergrads are making hybridomas, which is something I'm trying to do in my own PhD so I'll get some practice in hopefully, under the guise of teaching. I haven't made hybridomas since I was in undergrad (see my posts from 2006 if you're keen) and good old Wendy was my demonstrator. How times change!

In response to the wonderfully probing question I got in response to my last blog. I was pretty keen on the tour this year. Fascinating stuff. I know I've said it before, but those guys are just incredible athletes. I'd really love to try riding one of their bikes though. I wonder if it is really that much of an assistance to ride an awesome bike, or whether it's just their freakish athelticism, and they could do it on a stock standard road bike.

The other thing that has happened in the last few weeks, is that there has been heaps of media coverage of the old moon landing stuff. The fact that I blogged about it a few weeks ago was purely coincidental, but its nice to see that others still have in interest. For those of you who have had a dabble on the nasa website, or in the science news pages, you'll know there is another probe flying around the moon at the minute. It's called the LRO, and it's returning images of the moon surface. It's still sufficiently high that they aren't uber detailed, but they have managed to snap a few of the old lunar lander sites. Which is oh so cool, and quite the crushing blow to the conspiracy theorists! Here's a sample of the images, though they promise more detailed pics to come:

"Although these pictures provide a reminder of past NASA exploration, LRO's primary focus is on paving the way for the future. By returning detailed lunar data, the mission will help NASA identify safe landing sites for future explorers, locate potential resources, describe the moon's radiation environment and demonstrate new technologies."

Anyway, my time has run out for this entry. I have to go collect fractions. Unfortunately this time it isn't automated so I'll have to sit there dolloping out 1.2mL every thirty seconds or so. Riveting stuff. Argh and its already 10pm. Nooooo! Oh, part of the deal with my teaching is that I have to make up my regular weekday hours some time else. Seeing as I'm a night owl. I choose now.

If only I had some handerpants for my night blogging.

Edit:// They're not as lame as smittens though. Oh yes, i went there. Believe it.

('Sif these weren't the most interesting links you've seen in a while.)

Now celebrating one month of inactivity. So much B grade material forever lost.

Excellent. Back to feeling better. The pick up has started. Now my mind know the days are getting longer, I have the will power to drag myself over the rest of this stupid season. And then Bam! Summer! And a break!

I had the stunning realisation that I will still be in the same place in two years, albeit hopefully finishing up. That caught me by surprise. I guess I just crave a bit of finality in my life. As if my eventual death wasn't enough! I think the constant cycle of exams, holiday, study has shaped my mind to expect certain things of the world. Now that I just have to work, the reality of the world is much more confusing and disappointing! Not really though, its been a struggle the last couple weeks but now I'm back to being optimistic again. Phew! I'll get you one day you stupid doctorate!

Given that people from work read this, I'm going to throw it out there. When you write a message in your bosses birthday card. With what style do you go?
a - serious generic sentimental
b - self depricating pun
c - flirtacious

I chose b, everyone else in the lab (more or less, except you Sarah) chose a. I just cant stomach cheap sentiment. Which is why I always feel bad when i dosh out my money to Mr. Hallmark. So I ask you, the reader. Is it wrong to go B? And is it ever under any circumstance right to go C or a D of your own choosing?

Personally, i think those people murdered the wrong Moran. They should have got that used car salesman for his decade long spree of terrible car ads.

Bob bob bob, bob bob Moran doo woo woo woo
Rock'n and a roll'n etc....
Bob bob bob, bob bob Moran.

I'm sick of being sick. Well, the thing is. I'm not classically sick, I'm just fatigued. I thought I'd worked so hard that I burnt out, which I did about this time last year. My threshold for motivation declines in winter you see, thus I burn out easier than in summer. And even though work has worn me down some, I'm pretty sure I've got some sort of lazy virus. It's like an entourage for my larynx*. It's hanging on in there, but I'm hardly coughing at all. It's like my virus has gone to a concert in Adelaide, sure the virus is there, but it sure won't go wild and storm the stage... Just so very tired.

This is the stupidest illness yet. What's the point of having an illness that people can't see. Dang nab it, make me mortally ill or get me better!

*(personally I think I could have extended the metaphor for my clingy virus a lot further, but I'm just not sure it would have be a good idea. It was already terrible. That's how sick I am, my metaphors are stinky like... something bad smelling)*

Hey retarded question before I go slip in to bed. Am I mixing up analogies and metaphors. I'm too lazy to use google so, I'm leaving it up to you to tell me the difference. Do it or I'll never learn.

I'm prone to bad music choices. I still defend my liking of early 2000 vintage coldplay. Even though its widely panned by many. One artist I do like is Regina Spektor. She has an intriguing thing going on there. Whilst I'm not here to analyse her style of music. There are plenty of other places that can do that for you. I heard a couple of her new songs on JJJ today. And they were good. Good sound, but lyrically, quite stimulating. This is Laughing with



( Lyrics under the cut )

I just don't get it. Is she trying to say that God is just one big joke to people? Or that God is only a relevant force when things are going wrong? Or is it more of a "we're not laughing at you, but with you." Type of thing...

Little help people?

Ummm.
Whenever I hear about a plane crash like that of Air France. All I can think of is, Lost? Anyone? Probably not likely. Though it's probably better than the realistic alternative.

So what's been going on? I went to the MBS biochemical brothers pubcrawl on Friday night. It's probably the first pubcrawl I've been on in years. For I am now an old man you see. It was good. Unlike my usual self I was outrageously social and talked to a lot of people. Perhaps due to the fact that there weren't any other immuno people there. Undergrads, biochemists, post grads, dougs brother, my former students, tweed jacket man. All were victims of my socialness. It's very worrying. Perhaps I'm not socially retarded underneath my sober exterior. It's an interesting prospect. Good times.

Then on Sunday, Limmy took me up in his light plane thing. It was awesome fun. I didn't tell mother dearest beforehand, she would have positively died. I'd love to go flying more often, in a recreational sense, but it is not cheap. Having said that, flying in economy class is no fun at all. At least in a light plane you have leg room.

Speaking of leg room. I went to the convention center today, and the seats were terrible. My freaking leg kept on cramping up from the absence of leg room and generally uncomfortable seating style. That and the often boring subject material. Perhaps the highlight was some Adelaide guy who won an Ig Noble, for something to do with smelling frogs. Actually here's the official award title: "for painstakingly smelling and cataloging the peculiar odors produced by 131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed." Apparently frogs release, amongst other things, smelly chemicals that keep mosquitos away, but they smell to bad for commercial use. Amazing.

And that was it, a couple people looked at my poster, the food was good, and I left early and during to go do something else. Woo!