Shoots and Ladders

By now everyone knows how much I love craigslist, and this turned out to be a freakin' red-letter CL week! I actually saw, in real life, a Craigslister! Tuesday night I was perusing the "Casual Encounters" section - looking at the ads that have pictures attached - and I saw this MW4W ad. Then, yesterday evening while grocery shopping, I SAW THE GUY at the San Marcos HEB!! HA HA HA! (I really wanted to ask him if he'd had a good time on Wednesday night. . .)

Well JoeToes MBRG Terror Seige is officially over. He returned to the lab today and actually had the CAJONES to ask for a timesheet so he could get paid for the last two weeks! Hummer (formerly known as Soduc) told him to go see RW about that, and RW told him that he had been officially removed from the payroll three weeks ago, after he was told to finish up and move on. Oh man - JT was shocked - SHOCKED I tell you! A series of but, but, buts was uttered, but RW just told him that's the way it is, and if he had misunderstood that, then that was his problem. Bah-ha-ha-ha! What added so much more class to it was the fact that I baked a shitload of cupcakes to celebrate "the end times" and we were in the middle of chowing down and ceremonially erasing his height marker from the wall when he walked in.

(A friend called last night and asked what I was doing - I told him I was baking a batch of cakes to celebrate the termination of an employee. He thought about that for a while, then said, "You have found the perfect place to work, haven't you?")


Friday links are back, but they are seriously weak. . . I'm giving you two themes today, Religion and Cute White Things.

I've been holding this one for a while, and I should have put it out earlier, 'cause it's all over the damn net now. The great (worrisome?) thing about that one is that your first instinct is to think it's real, not a parody. The thing is, you know this would be a big hit with the freaky republi-christians that are running amok in this country! (Uh oh, getting political here. . .)

If you're into transubstantiation (and math), here's a site that's right up your alley. A link from the comments led to this fun one. (I thought I wasted a lot of time. . .)


Okay, if you haven't died of boredom, here's some fucking painfully cute shit:

White dog

Polar Bear Cub

Kittens

Bastards

More Bastards


Always,
S

I've got NOTHING

Fishface Bambino does Fat Tony: "I'm afraid I must insist. You see, my wife has been most vocal on the subject of the pretzel moneys 18s... Where is the money 18s? When are you going to get the money 18s? Why aren't you getting the money 18s now? And so on. So please. . . the money 18s."

Best quote of the weekend: "My boyfriend was telling me that his friend Cindy always swallows because she doesn't like the mess. I told him that that was fine, but I like a BIG OL' MESS."

Runner up: "Are you going to be there, because I'm celibate now, so there's no need to worry."


This girl from work is getting married in June so her Matron of Honor threw her a bachelorette party this weekend, but no one came!! Isn't that sad? It sounded like it would have been a wonderful evening too - apparently there were plans in the works to rent some chick flicks, drink some lime sherbet/7Up punch (alcohol-free) and play Uno. UNO, people! No one parties harder than those Uno playas! HARDCORE!
(See, this is why Baptists don't often make good friends. . .)

Last Friday, a friend ("Breeze") and I were talking about how hooking up your friends (for dating) always turns out to be a crap-fest. Breeze told me that a mutual friend of ours ("Dingbat" - a chemistry professor who ONE of you did a M.S. Thesis under) set her up with some guy that she and her husband ("Bulldog") had known for years. So Breeze goes out with him and he's okay, but her Gaydar is just going off. He had highlighted hair, kept his bathroom so clean that you could prepare food in it, had an apartment in Oaklawn in Dallas (the gay area), and drove a RED MIATA!! So Breeze went up to Dingbat and Bulldog and said, "Look, he's nice and all but, uh, I think he might be gay." Ding and the Bull just laughed and said, "Yeah, we were wondering about that - we've known him for twelve years and we've never seen him with a woman, so we thought we'd try and find out by using you." (They did add that they'd never seen him with a man either.) As you can imagine, Breeze got a touch pissed. . .


(Sorry about the drivel. I guess someone with talent could weave all this together into a coherent and interesting tale, but --- all ya got is me.)

S

Don't fuck with me motherfucker.

Well friends, this may be the last JoeToe update ever! (happy dance, happy dance!)

Recall that he is in our lab for a senior-level biochemistry class where each student is supposed to do an independent project in one of the research labs. Last Friday he was bitching about how he thought he'd have an "advantage" working in our lab as compared to the other students, but he realized that everyone else was being spoon-fed and he wasn't. He complained that he had to be too independent and that no one was helping him, and that he was having to go to Dr. B (the professor for the class) for help on his project. I reminded him that he was warned that this was precisely what he was to expect when he started in this lab - warned not only by us, the techs and grad students, but warned by RW himself. He whined that he didn't think that by "independent" we meant that he'd have to be doing everything himself. (Well what in fuck's name do you think. . . oh, nevermind.)

I mentioned to him that we had just given a prospective grad student the same lecture he got when he started in here, and that she was excited about the prospect of working with us. He just whined more about "not getting any help". Ugh. Then I guess he finally processed what I said and he asked about the new grad student. He seemed very perplexed that she was a female, because "...this just doesn't seem to be a field that women go into." (What in fuck's name? Biochemistry? No women? Whatever, dude.) Anyway, he asked me what school she was coming from, and I told her that she got her BS at UT-Austin. He looked aghast, and hollered, "What?!? Why the FUCK would anybody get their Master's degree here??" Man, my head exploded instantly! I yelled (real names warning), "Well I don't know Drew, WHY THE FUCK DID I GET MY GODDAMN DEGREE HERE? WHY DID DXB GET HIS HERE? WHY ARE CAKES, HELLBOY, POOPIE AND TQO GETTING THEIR DEGREES HERE? I GUESS WERE ALL JUST A BUNCH OF FUCKING DUMBASSES IN YOUR FUCKING BOOK. IS THAT RIGHT?? AND RW? HE'S ON THE GRADUATE FACULTY. WHAT A FUCKING IDIOT, RIGHT?" I stormed out of the room - he just fucking totally sent me off the edge. Every goddamned time he opens his oversized yap, something fucking offensive, stupid or insulting comes out. JESUS! (okay, it's not like I think the degree program here is that freakin' outstanding, but seriously - you just can't go saying shit like that!)

After he went to lunch, we were all standing in the lab just saying what the fuck. . . How are we going to get rid of this turd?? I was feeling like a shithead, so I went over to the thermal cycler where he had his experiment going, and I took his precious samples out, threw them in the trash, and replaced them with plain old water! His experiment was kind of pointless, and he hadn't gotten anything to work yet anyway, so I figured what the hell? Everybody was like, "HELL YEAH!!" when I did it. Unfortunately, I had to leave, so I wasn't able to see what happened when he ran his gel only to see NO BANDS, but my lab mates said he was in there looking VERY agitated, and he left the lab in a huff. He hasn't been back since!

I was all ready to tell him that the reason no one was willing to help him was because of shit like the degrees remark. He's managed to piss off every single person in this lab on multiple occasions and there was NO WAY he could expect people he'd treated so horribly to turn around and be helpful to him. Oh well.

Always,
S

Oh Abandoned Blog!

Man, I hate it when RL interferes with my internet time. . .


Here's some random crap remind you what it's like to read this "blog":

1. Sunrise was right about people with names that end in "y". (Mean girls.)
2. Personally, I'd rather be Calypso than Circe. (Obligatory Odyssey reference.)
3. Strunk and White's Elements of Style slit its wrists in my bathroom last night. (Veiled apology to students of English.)
4. I really need to choke on some cheese. (Inside joke.)
5. WTF??!! OMG =w=z BH is teh SUX0R!!!!!!! (Idiotic IMspeak)
6. "Out of the way! I will ruin this bird with my ANGER!!" (Unexpected Snail courtesy ATHF)
7. And sentences that begin with "and" and this - and this . . . and "Speaking Of" (Sheilisms)

Okey dokey. Ready?


The Great Communicator

JoeToe is taking Speech Comm and was very excited about giving his first speech last week. He practiced a bit of it in front of me, and best I can figure it was about new treatments for depression? I could be totally wrong about that though. All I know is that it was peppered with a lot of those words that don't really mean anything, like "paradigm" and "skill sets". At one point he was describing various conventional treatments for depression, using highly clinical terms, so he "brought it down to their level" by making the following analogy: "Pharmacological suppression of symptoms is fine, but what it comes down to is, 'How do you get the lobster to walk on the earth?'" (sssssssszzz. circuits fried.) He asked me if I thought that analogy would go over "their" heads - I told him I had no fucking clue what (if anything) he was trying to say, so YES - his audience would be tres confused.

After he gave the speech, I got the whole play-by-play description - including hand gestures and podium thumping. (Again, I had no real concept of what he was talking about - isn't that kind of a bad thing as this was supposed to be an "informative" speech??) He told me what a great job he'd done and how his communication skills were his absolute best asset. (I am NOT making this shit up - I really wish you guys could meet this wack-job.)

So yesterday, he came in very depressed (guess he didn't get the lobster to walk the earth?) because he's gotten his speech grade. Guess what he got?? It was a "D"!! A "D"!!!! Who in fuck's name gets a "D" in Speech Comm? At SWT? Sweet Jesus! Then he told me that class average was 85 and that there were "obvious grading discrepancies". I was feeling snarky, so I suggested that perhaps his professor was biased against him because he was a "scientist". Boy did he jump on that! He concluded that his professor was against him because he presented "real science" whereas everyone else's topics were just so much bullshit. I jokingly told him he should complain to someone about discrimination. Of course, he took it seriously and right now he's composing a letter to the university ombudsman. . . (I know that karma will get me for this!)

That's enough for today. I don't know what in the hell I'll write about after JoeToe leaves - IF he leaves. . .

Always,
S





Russell J. Heater
September 17, 1926 - April 20, 1990

Life through the TV

Last night's Simpson's episode:

Marge started working at Moe's bar and started to become really good friends with Moe, making Homer very jealous. My favorite scene was where Marge was about to kiss Homer when the phone rang. She jumped up to answer it and it was Moe (in a pink robe, wearing curlers and doing his nails) and they had a lovely conversation about work.

Now, why would I find that funny???


Always,
S

Warning! Real names have been used.

Ho-ly fuck. JoeToe has really fucking gone off the deep end.

Wednesday, DxB got after him about not having his stuff ready for his poster presentation in Dallas next week. JT threw a hissy fit and got really, REALLY pissed at DxB. He was literally red and shaking, but he had to go to class, so he left in a fume.

During JT's classtime (noon to 1:00 pm), a bunch of us were going back and forth between the lab and the conference room where Hellboy was going over a presentation. Sometime between 1:30 and 1:45, someone walked into DxB's lab and stole his laptop and his backup data CD. They didn't take anything else, not even the power supply for the laptop, and there were two sets of keys, two cell phones, a backback and another laptop sitting right there.

JT was hanging around and he asked me what happened. I told him, and he quickly announced that it "had to be an inside job." Then he blamed some random guy who works in the stock center (a very improbable possibility) and emphasized again that the theif must be someone who works here, "because why else would DxB be specifically targeted?" Now, I don't know, but all that talk of his just made me suspicious of him.
Update: Hellboy just told me that JT had been emphatically telling him it was an inside job, but this time he said he "knew" that it was Special K - another one of our stock center workers (not the same one JT blamed when he was with me.)

Then JT started telling me how he had been "on the verge of a serious depression" that day, and how DxB "attacked" him and started "screaming" at him for no reason. He told me that DxB was a big jerk and that someone should tell him (Yes, he's telling me this. . . can we say dumbass?) He said DxB was "holding him back" and "trying to keep him down." What the?? We all know DxB can be a bit on the uh, harsh side - but he's really not an asshole (at least to other people!!) DxB was stern, but certainly didn't "scream" or even raise his voice a little. And all he told JT was to get his stuff to RW before RW had a screaming fit about it - really, DxB was just trying to save JT from an RW outburst.

But, JT just kept telling me how he felt like a victim in this lab and how everyone was against him and how everyone held him to a higher degree of expectation. (Huh?) As if that wasn't stupid enough, he lit into Cakes, telling me that her writing SUCKED and asking why she always gets "her way" in the lab - even went so far as to say she had an easy time of it because she's "a Mexican who relies on special treatment." (I was too shocked to get pissed right then.) He's made forays down this road before, but he'd never actually come right out and said it as he did then.

AND THEN, because the fire was not hot enough, he told me that it was "unacceptable" that Okashii's name was on our manuscript and poster because "He does NOT have the proper qualifications." FUCK?? Goddamn - Okashii did the fucking work - if that's not "qualifications" enough then I don't know what is. (This all stems from the fact that JT CANNOT understand how Okashii has a career in science, yet has a Master's in English.) What makes the whole "qualifications" thing even funnier is that fuck-head JT doesn't even have a fucking degree. sonofabitch!

So, JT leaves for the day, and I'm SUPER-PISSED off because he's just insulted DxB, Cakes and Okashii. I start to tell everyone what he said about everything, and we ALL start to think that maybe he stole DxB's computer. Everyone was getting tense thinking that the guy is certifiable. RW tells DxB and me that he wants to meet with us and JT the next morning to get this straightened out.

Okay, so now it's Thursday morning. JT comes in, I tell him he needs to talk with RW, so we all go into his office. RW told JT that he was dissapointed in his performance for multiple reasons and went on and on describing the things that he was displeased with including presenting other people's data as his own, not getting the poster done, wasting time and resources on the project he's working on, and not having any results for the poster. (All the data on the poster was supposed to be his, but he didn't have any, so we had to use mine.) JT got very meek and was calling RW and DxB "sir" and whatnot - it was pretty funny. RW told him to forget about getting the poster together, because he was going to have it removed from the meeting agenda, and that meant JT was not going to Dallas with us. Then RW said, I think what you should do is finish up your work for your class (he's doing undergrad research in this lab for a senior level biochem lab class) and "move on." It was pretty obvious that "move on" meant "get the fuck out."

We leave the office and JT pulls me aside and tells me he feels "dejected" and actually asked me if that meant he was only here for another 5 weeks (ie to the end of the semester.) Well, duh. Then he was almost crying, telling me that he didn't know what he was going to do, blah, blah, blah. I guess he had decided that he was going to have a job here when he graduated - where he got that idea I'll never fucking know. I told him that he should have made alternative arrangements - what the hell else could I say?

He leaves, and later on I was shooting the shit with RW - talking about his kids (ages 7 and 12) and maturity vs. immaturity. Somehow (ha!) JT's name popped up, and RW decided that since JT had some distinct Froot Loop characteristics, we should limit his access to the lab. So, RW had the door locks reprogrammed to prevent JT's access.

On to Friday. JT came to the lab, found he couldn't get in and got VERY UPSET. We had a long talk - here are the salient points:
1. He's planning to write a "research proposal" for RW about his project.
2. Upon reading such proposal, RW will be so impressed (he actually said that) that he will have to reconsider what he said Thursday. He said he was sweetening the deal by offering to work in here for FREE for the month of June, and only after that would he ask for a salary.
3. RW should be careful, because JT could "easily ruin his career" by going to something like the Dallas meeting: "I could go to Dallas, portray RW as an ass, present totally made up data, and destroy his whole establishment."
4. I asked if that was a threat, he said no, but he was "just saying."
5. I said most people would perceive that as a threat.
6. He didn't mean it as a threat, and "...they would be wrong if they perceived it as such."
7. I told him that one piddly undergraduate acting like a vindictive bitch could never even make a dent in Ron's career, and all he would succeed in would be making himself look like a little ass.
8. He said he couldn't understand why his access to the lab had been cut off and that "...it seems like RW is trying to sabotage me."
9. He got mad at me because I was not supporting him. (Hello? I gave him an entire manuscript's worth of data to present as a poster with him as first author? Hello?)
10. I gave him a lecture about "the real world", "independent research" and acting like an adult.
11. He concluded by telling me that none of what I said mattered because his proposal was going to be so impressive that it would "...change everything around this lab - the whole structure." (Does it sound like this little cocksucker thinks he's going to be taking my job? HAHAHAHHHAHAAAHAHAA)


Fucking hell man. I thought Karyn was insane. . .


So now that your eyes have fallen out of your skull, here's your Friday links!
Today's theme is "Looking for Love". Do not ask how I find these. I mean, it's not like I'm trolling the singles ads or anything. . .

This is Charlie. Charlie posts the same ad (more or less) to craigslist every Friday evening. I wonder if things ever work out for him? I don't know whether you should laugh at Charlie, feel sorry for Charlie, or applaud his efforts, but I like the desperate/hopeful/self-effacing characteristics of his ads.

Still wandering around craigslist, I found this lovely number. The add says she's 32. I don't want to say she's a liar, maybe she just doesn't photograph well. And what the hell is that thing on her hand? Is that something people in Nashville do? (EasyE? Okashii? Answers please.) All I could think is she was getting her lip (and by lip I mean her beef curtain) pierced and she chickened out at the last minute, put her hand down there to block, and got stapled between the thumb and forefinger.

She's obviously waaay to cool for this crowd, so here's a profile for a nice boy who is a fashion design major (you can tell from the clothes, right?) and is NOT a homosexual. Riiight. Added bonus? His screenname is "Jenius"! Get it? (I can't resist. I gotta post Jenius' pic right here. . .)





And last but not least, here's Diane (this is a sorta SFW Windows media player file, turn up the sound)
I guess I can appreciate her acceptance of herself, but seriously. The catsuit?
(Oh yeah: 44 stone is ~615 pounds)
Edit: Something seems to be wrong with the link above - try this one: Diane 2


Sorry for all that. . .

Love to you all,
S

P.S. If you don't hear from me or DxB and suspect foul play, give this name to the police: Drew Sowersby