Late Shift : We're just clowning around

04:39 / 06.05.06

Oh, I'm not going to bed. I was just wishing Keggers a good night. It's only 1:30 here. I wouldn't even be done mopping the floor if I was employed. But I would have had a comparable amount of adult beverages, so mopping would be fun.

04:59 / 06.05.06

I need $3,000. Anyone wanna buy a Denfeld poem for $3,000?

05:15 / 06.05.06

Here's a sample for free.

Uppy down,
Like a clown,
With a brown,
Booger town.

05:46 / 06.05.06

Wow,if I had the loot.

Tell you what, I'll give you a delicious Steel Reserve Lager for it.

If I ever meet you.

Seriously, though, I almost cried.

05:49 / 06.05.06

Jake if you ever hand me a Steel Reserve I'll punch you square in the nose. That stuff is poop in a bottle (and used to turn our buddy Bret into a violent little psychopath).

05:52 / 06.05.06

I call it the "crack cocaine of beers."

And it's delicious.

05:54 / 06.05.06

Ewwwwww. I'll buy you a shot of Jager and a couple of PBRs.

05:55 / 06.05.06

Hey Jake, you know magic right? Wanna check out my thread in temple? It's about Tarot, if you know anything about Tarot card stuff.

06:08 / 06.05.06

I'm a bit into the magic thang, as it were- I own a couple books- Phil Hine, Pete Carroll and the Disinformation Book of Lies (sort of the occult primer for novices like me), besides all the Grant Morrison shit. I've spent more money on GM TPBs than I'd like to think about.

I'm not that familiar with the tarot, really, although I found the Promethea issues about it to be very thought-provoking. I had a deck in high school and it got me laid a couple of times with some foxy goth girls, but that's about it. That's probably terribly sad to anyone with a serious background in the occult, eh?

05:43 / 07.05.06

Hello, Barbelith! It seems to be a tomb around here. Anyone up?

Saturn's nod

05:59 / 07.05.06

Yes, but I don't have much to say. Brain still in 'recovery' mode from a long week of full-on learning to do some new science stuff.

06:05 / 07.05.06

What sort of science stuff?

Or is your head too burnt out to discuss?

Saturn's nod

07:21 / 07.05.06

I'm learning how to annotate a genome. The nucleotide bases of the organism have been read and assembled into one long file; then a heap of tasty algorithms add notes to the gene file about where there might be genes (coding sequences - from which proteins get made) on the genomes and where there are particular motifs in the amino acid (primary protein) sequence, and how well the amino acid sequences matches other sequences already known.

That's the point I start work: reading through the potential genes one by one, checking the results of the automated processes, looking at the un-populated fields, thinking about the biochemistry and context, comparing the outputs of the finder programs to various online database resources, working out what we can definitely say about which genes are present and how similar they are to other known genes. (I get to use linux machines (not M$ Windows!) full-time, which I love.)

Spaniel

07:54 / 07.05.06

Denfeld, I need to ask, were you responsible for the Wolverine vs All Comers thread of yesteryear?

I loved that thread. I think it's been put in the bin.

07:57 / 07.05.06

Christ! Nothing like having your mind boggled right before bed.

The closest I get to hard science these days is this fantastic book, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, by Harold McGee, which is all about explaining how the process of cooking food (or fermenting booze) changes the molecular structure of it, and how that translates into the way we taste and enjy the things we consume. It's quite fascinating, but it might be a bit pedestrian for someone with the background you've got.

22:09 / 07.05.06

Just clownin'

alas

22:36 / 07.05.06

I leapt immediately to the last page of this thread. Oh my god all these clown pictures freak me a bit. How are things, barbelith?

22:40 / 07.05.06

I can't speak for barbelith itself, but I feel pleasant and... um... chirpy? I dunno. It's pretty weird, to be honest.

How are you alas?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:48 / 07.05.06

I'm a little sleepy, now - but I saw a goddamn mechanical elephant, and that counts for a lot.

22:50 / 07.05.06

Oh, I so wanted to see the elephant. Was it good?

22:51 / 07.05.06

Wow, it sure does.

Can I ask you to elaborate on such things? My mind is full of questions. That need answers. Like... where does one come across such a thing? Also: did you buy it?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:52 / 07.05.06

And: how many people know about the elephant?! I feel so left out.

23:17 / 07.05.06

The Sultan's Elephant.

I'm really pissed off that I missed it.

23:18 / 07.05.06

By the last day, the audiences were huge - the Mall and St. James' Park were quite packed - I'd say thousands or tens of thousands of people.

Elephant:

23:18 / 07.05.06

Did you Orlando Bloom it?

23:20 / 07.05.06

Quite hard.

alas

23:24 / 07.05.06

Holy crap I'm totally jealous! And, in answer to Suedey's polite query, I WAS fine and dandy, and about to take my dogs for a walk, but now I'm despondent. My life has no meaning since I haven't seen the mechanical-fucking-40-foot-tall elephant. Woe is fucking me.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:26 / 07.05.06

Well, I was sad about merely that, but now I realise I missed some acrobatic Elvish action in addition to that... and well, I don't quite know what to think.

Does my life have meaning any longer?

Hoho, it's ok, I know it never did! All remains well. Just with an elf/elephant deficiency.

alas

23:28 / 07.05.06

You should try having sex with woe.

23:29 / 07.05.06

I've been being taunted by pictures of the elephant in all the papers for the last four days, knowing I wasn't gonna be able to see it...

23:29 / 07.05.06

Woe, which apparently, and to my surprise, looks like this...

Would google image search lie to me?

23:31 / 07.05.06

Sorry, Stoats. I'm afraid that even cynical old me ended up being pretty wowed by it. There's something about a twenty-foot high child on a pushbike moving up the mall that does the heart good.

alas

23:35 / 07.05.06

Wait, Suedey, what's that image of? "Fucking woe" reveals entirely different things to me...

23:38 / 07.05.06

That, alas, is MISTER WOE himself. I didn't search for fucking woe because I was scared for my innocence.