Newsgroups: talk.bizarre From: dhalgren@netcom.com (dhalgren) Subject: biochemist's journal Date: Fri, 16 Dec 1994 06:40:42 GMT - December 9. Mmm, delicious fish paella for dinner. Threw tuna, clams, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, ginger, garlic and lemon peel into blender. Blender chopped it -- HA HA! On a whim, dumped it into rice cooker, atop cooking rice. Best rice dish ever. Bottom of cooker caramelized and even that tasted good. Hard to clean cooker. Strike that -- "interior rice cooker surface now well seasoned." Honey on buttered bread, fresh baked, with lg. glass milk for dessert. Sip of Glenfiddich before two delicious Rolling Rocks to end perfect culinary evening. Experiments still not working for shit. Try again on Monday. - December 12. Homemade potato gnocchi tonight -- a touch of Snow's clam juice in with the tomato paste, garlic, and basil to top. I certainly hope the E. coli will co-operate tomorrow as I don't need any more of their shit - HA HA! Two rolling rocks and 200 articles of t.b finished the evening. I managed not to post anything, despite temptation. - December 13. Healthy kick tonight -- baked bread with Crisco instead of butter. There goes the timer. Be right back. Funny -- it's not *bad* qua *bad*, per se; but it's, well, flat. Maybe wheat flour could fix it up. Oh, fuck that. Frankly, a goddam stick of BUTTER would have fixed it just fine. Not a drop of protein, as I suspected. But I GOT YOUR NUMBER, YOU DAMN CELLS -- YOU CAN'T HIDE FOREVER! Reminder -- do not test acrylamide solution with bare finger. Arm still numb. - December 14. Goddamn Christmas music everywhere you go at work. I broke veggie and had a ham sandwich for lunch. The chick behind the counter told me it's Polish ham -- I think she likes me. While running gel to find that elusive protein, walked across the street to escape "Jingle Bell Rock" on endless replay. Got into argument with Beck -- he claims he's about to prove that intelligence is governed by one gene. We'll see about that -- I dipped my shirttail into his biohazard waste and am now running PCR with brain-expression-tag and consensus three-prime untranslated region primers, plus and minus respectively. Prego over spaghetti tonight with lots of cheap domestic Parmesan. While sprinkling oregano over dish, licked my finger -- suddenly realized a) I really don't like oregano. b) Shouldn't test acrylamide with finger. Tongue still numb -- thankfully. - December 15. Found the protein, hiding in the fifth wash. You bastard cells. Now I shall make you pay. Positive amplification off my shirttail! Ligated it into expression vector and shuttled it into hybridoma cell line, just for laughs. Will sequence tomorrow along with final sample for publication. Snow peas, carrot coins, bean sprouts, broccoli, and pineapple over rice in peanut sauce. Still can't figure out what went wrong -- nothing blended. Well, next time don't scorch carrots, I guess. Depressed and out of Rolling Rock. Went to store for six of Carta Blanca -- immediate red card. Mexico puts out some real pisswater these days -- figured I'd better finish all of it so I wouldn't have to drink it tomorrow. Couldn't refrain from posting to t.b. - December 16. Was it just my imagination, or did the "intelligent" hybridoma line flinch visibly when I went to passage it? Sequence data good -- paper goes for peer review next week. Twiddled thumbs; played 'nethack' on sequence processing computer. Planned feast for tonight: pate to start, duck l'orange with wild rice and asparagus spears as main course. Dessert chocolate mousse. Turned out horribly: in the middle of pate, thought "Why am I eating animal flesh?" Seized by desire to slick down hair with liberal tongue coating of duck grease. Wild rice stuck to cooker -- clam flavor lingers, I should mention. Asparagus overheated -- mushy. Mousse heavy and too-sweet. Chianti bitter and woody, plus -- I realize now -- wholly inappropriate to the dish. I see how this works -- put in a perfect day of experimenting and I'm too tired to cook right, or else my luck runs out before I get home. You in the back laughing -- stay after class, there's a battery of testes I'd like to administer. - December 19. Hybridoma bit me when I opened the incubator -- it was the size of a large dog and had contaminated every culture in the place. I slammed the door shut, barred it, and turned the temp up to 95 Centigrade. As it died it was offering me women, power, fame, eternal life. I rendered it down for dinner -- mmm, protein. Took it intravenously and went to bed without beer. - December 20. I am quite intelligent now. Unfortunately the world is revealed as a pit of despair and I wish to depart it. The warp-speed E. coli broth is almost at semi-log phase; when it matures, I will transcend both food and science to escape the galaxy altogether. Of course, this is my last journal entry. My regards to t.b (HA HA -- YOU'LL FIND OUT!!!) -- dave, this is all true (groan)