Whose Faulty Vision

Christmas and Long Island

All of my devoted readers, send some sympathetic vibes in the direction of Christmas. For a while, it looked like she was going to be taking a second postdoc at a lab out on Long Island. This would have had the dual benefits of being a good career move for her and of putting her only an hour away from me, rather than the current five hours.

But, thanks to complications that I won’t get into here, the position went to someone else, and she has six months or so left that she can stay in her current position.

She’ll find another good position, of course, but it’s hard in the meanwhile, so send some positive thoughts her way.

Quote of the Whenever

Quote of the Whenever:

“The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can’t have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir *instantaneously*. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles — kingons, or possibly queons — that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.”

-Terry Pratchett

Quote of the Whenever

Quote of the Whenever:

“Nothing says ‘Jewish ceremony that has endured for thousands of years’ like sweaty men in leotards.”

–Me

Ex Moving to DC

I talked with Ex for a little last night. She’d decided, a little while ago, to leave Ann Arbor (a decision I made three years ago) and switch jobs. She just went for two interviews a couple of weeks ago, and ended up with two offers! Can’t say I’m surprised, as she has an impressive job skill set. She’s accepted one of them, and will be moving to the DC area in the fall.

Serenity

Envy me. Thanks to knowing a guy who’s on the right mailing list, I went to a free preview of Serenity tonight! (If that doesn’t make you envy me, you need to get your hands on the Firefly DVDs and watch them ASAP.)

Of course, I don’t want to give anything away. It was very good. Thinking back on it, I have a couple of minor nitpicks, but nothing that interfered with my enjoyment.

Go and see it when it’s released.

Quote of the Whenever

Quote of the Whenever:

“People say they want to see more healthy food in vending machines. And that’s exactly what they mean. They don’t want to buy it, they just want to see it.”

-I read this quote in Hippocrates magazine years ago; sadly, I don’t know who wrote the article.

This quote actually relates to something I’m working on at work. I work on a food brand, and so we have to keep informed on the latest food industry trends. Recently, all of the fast food chains, responding to all of the news about obesity, started promoting salad and fruit and such things. The problem is, though, that nobody’s buying them. McDonald’s is running a lot of ads for its fruit salads, but what people are buying is hamburgers.

Is anybody surprised by this?

Snazzy New Office

Here’s a picture of my snazzy new office, taken with my snazzy new Treo:

Okay, the picture doesn’t really play up the snazziness of either one, but trust me, they both are.