Weekend happenings.

I can't exactly decide whether I should find this cool or disturbing. Don't get me wrong. I have a great deal of admiration for Mr. Whedon and what he's managed to do with his life so far, but a whole branch of academia dedicated to Buffy, of all things?

Yes, I'm sure that you could find a fair number of cultural statements to make with regards to the series, but at the end of the day, let's face it, the series is about a blonde bimbo running around the california suburbs poking creatures of the night with pointy wooden things.

But far be it from me to condemn an entire branch of academia on the basis that I don't get it.

Again, it should not be assumed from my statements that I don't believe that this series has a lot of deep, very important messages to communicate to its viewers. Although I was never as fanatical a viewer as, for example, my younger brother, or an ex-roommate of mine, I admit that the episodes I watched impressed me with the quality of their writing, and frankly, their willingness to step a little ways outside the box. He filmed an episode which had no dialogue, and an episode which was entirely in the form of a musical. Both events which, to the best of my knowledge, had never been done on television before, and both of which could have been complete train wrecks. In short, as far as I can tell, Whedon is one of the few people in television who's willing to take a chance that he may royally fuck up.

But on the other hand, I have to admit that I (perhaps arrogantly) find it difficult not to snicker when I picture a professor giving a lecture on "Buffy and the New American Buddhism," even if I really have no clue what that means.

April and I took my little brother out to see Van Helsing this weekend. It's been getting rather heavily slammed review-wise, and frankly I can't decide whether or not that's fair. I mean, if you're going there expecting Oscar-worthy performances, or a spectacular, wonderful, greatest-movie-ever-made type of film, then I guarantee that you're going to be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you go to the movie looking for entertainment of the check-your-brain-at-the-door variety, it's actually not that bad. Admittedly; there isn't much which could be mistaken for a plot, the accents are annoyingly fake, the dialogue somewhat canned, and there are a few, shall we say, liberal interpretations of the laws of physics. But I'm willing to overlook all that for a little bit of mindless escapism. I was in the mood for, and needed, some entertainment that didn't require my brain to be active. That was good, because I've been doing too much hard thinking lately. I've got a PhD to worry about, and I've been more than a little frantic. So doing something which didn't require me to think was actually kinda nice.

On a similar note, some buddies and I watched Shaolin Soccer the other night. Another superbly fun experience, especially if you've done a little Kung Fu, and are somewhat familiar with the philosophy behind it. For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, it's basically one part Bend it Like Beckham, one part Victory (an old 1981 move which starred Sylvester Stallone), One part Kill Bill, and two parts every Bruce Lee movie ever made. Again, mindless entertainment, but the scary thing is that I can actually picture scouts going to Kung Fu schools all over to recruit soccer players. In a weird, bizarre, somewhat warped kinda way, it actually makes some degree of sense. Even the not-so-good Kung Fu students can kick like a fricking horse. The really good ones can do some things which would boggle your mind. Hell, after having seen my Shi fu in action, I still can't figure out how he's physically capable of doing some of the things he does as a matter of routine. As an interesting side-note, back in my undergraduate years, one of the subjects I was considering writing my thesis on was entitled The Physics of Karate. There were a fair number of martial arts being instructed at Ubish at the time, and I thought it would be neat to analyze some of them from a physical perspective; to understand how they worked. I wanted to look at the mechanics behind these martial arts. I thought it would be a relatively easy project. I was really, really wrong. I've taken Kung Fu for almost a year now, and I still don't get the mechanics behind it. I have been, quite literally, thrown across a room by someone who, it seemed, barely even made contact with me. My Shi fu is somehow able to generate what can only be described as a huge amount of force, but having watched him do it quite possibly hundreds of times, I'm still clueless as to how.

I fear I've strayed somewhat from the original topic. Suffice it to say, I had a pretty good weekend.

I just got run over by a car. How's your day?

Perhaps not the best way to start my day, but I imagine if you're going to get run over by a car, just outside a hospital is probably a good place to do it.

Now, before y'all get antsy, I'm perfectly fine. All my limbs are perfectly intact, and I don't have so much as a scratch on me, although damned if I can tell you how, exactly, I pulled that off. As I run over the event in my head, I still can't figure out how I managed to walk away from the scene without (at the very least) a broken leg. And, granted, if I'd had a broken leg, I probably wouldn't have been walking away from the scene, but you get my point.

I was crossing the sidestreet alongside the parkade to go into the medical school. I crossed behind an ambulance (which, I admit, may not have been the brightest move), when a black Acura RSX (moving way too fast) came around the corner. The driver obviously didn't see me stepping out from behind a big ambulance, and ploughed right into me.

Now, what exactly happened, I'm at a bit of a loss to explain, 'cause I felt his front bumper hit my right leg, but I somehow managed to roll across the hood of his car to land in a bit of an awkward crouch next to front, passenger side wheel of his car. He was moving at a decent clip, too, 'cause by the time he stopped, I was crouched next to the rear passenger side wheel of his car. How I got from the street to the hood of his car in one piece, I still haven't worked out yet. Suffice it to say that I somehow got off the street and onto the hood of his car after he hit me, but without actually getting hurt.

Weird.

Music and Drunken Debauchery (Not Necessarily in that Order)

So I had something of a (belated) birthday celebration at Aussie Rules Saturday night. Quite possibly the most fun I've had in a long time. Every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, they do what they call Dueling Pianos. Basically, they have three guys playing on a pair of pianos. They play just about anything from AC/DC to Zamphir. Okay, maybe that's exaggerating a little bit, but they have a rather impressive repertoire, and they're quite talented guys.

That, and it's a lot of fun. You can stand up in your chairs, sing along, even dance if you feel up to it. They take requests (and assign them priority depending on the size of the tip associated with said request). And, like I said, it's an awful lot of fun.

For the record, however, I didn't have as much to drink as it looked like I had. Yeah, I let my hair down just a little bit. I admit that. And I went a little more overboard than I normally do. Of course with Mike & Rose there, it's kinda easy to go a little wild. They're possibly two of my best friends in the whole universe and they're really easy people to go a little nuts around. They're just fun people. What can I say?

All in all, I think that just about everybody had a great time. Singing, dancing, making fools of ourselves and generally having a great time. I don't think it can get much better than that.

Girl Guides are Evil

Girl Guides are Evil. There's simply no other way of putting it. They're the sneakiest, most insideous organization in the known universe.

I'm sitting at home last night, frantically putting together a presentation for my PhD committee and there's a knock at the door. I figured it was the Jehova's witnesses again. They've been harassing me ever since I made the mistake of not slamming the door in their faces. Considering that the one time I didn't slam the door in their faces, I got into a heated debate about Evolution with them which I spent telling them (in my subtle, inimitable way) that they were idiots, I don't understand why they keep knocking on my door. I guess they think I can be saved.

But I digress. Suffice it to say, I wasn't lucky enough to have Jehova's Witnesses at my door. In fact, I rather wish I did have Jehova's witnesses at my door. At least I know how to handle them.

I open the door and there stand three girls who looked about twelve. All in their uniforms, all had trouble speaking clearly because they all wore braces, and all of them looked insufferably cute.

Nearby was (I assumed) their mother who looked really, really pissed off.

At any rate, they wanted me to buy some Girl Guide cookies.

First off, I'm sure that somewhere in the preparation of said cookies that they mix in a substantial quantity of Hashish. Girl Guide cookies are quite possibly the most addictive substance in the known universe. Ever notice that you really, really get the munchies after eating a few?

But I digress. I must get back to the original point. Namely that Girl Guides are EVIL.

So these three insufferably cute twelve-year olds are looking up at me, all with that look in their eyes that says "if you don't buy fifty boxes of cookies, I'm going to walk away crying my eyes out." And their mother is looking at me with a look in her eyes that says "if you don't buy fifty boxes of cookies, I'm going to come back here tonight and kill you in your sleep." Either that, or she wanted to be sure I wasn't some kind of child molester or something like that.

They wanted four dollars for a box of cookies.

Now, you can buy a much bigger box of Oreos for four dollars, so this is something of a rip-off. But you don't care about that because you have these three insufferably cute twelve-year olds looking at you with these big puppy dog eyes asking you for four dollars for a little box of cookies. Very addictive crack-laced cookies, to be sure, but a little box of cookies nonetheless. So, I quite literally dig around in my pockets (and the change tray in our front entranceway) and fish out a loonie, seven quarters, ten dimes and five nickles, and hand this handfull of change over to one of the girls. Because as much of a pain in the ass as it was to hunt around and find that much change, I knew that the instant I said "no," the girls' bottom lip would start trembling and their big puppy dog eyes would start watering and frankly, I don't know if I could handle that. Actually, I'm pretty sure I couldn't. Furthermore, even if they just turned around and walked away, I was pretty sure that almost before they made it to the bottom of the walk, I would have been frantically trying to track down four dollars then racing down the street to ask for a box of cookies from these three insufferably cute twelve-year-olds.

Plus, I didn't want their mother to kill me in my sleep.

See what I mean? Evil.

The skies have yet not darkened

The state of Massachusetts has upheld the decision to legalize gay marriage, and as of today, the skies have not darkened or fallen.

I'm not gay (of course, I'm not married either, so to some degree, I'm speaking from ignorance), so whether homosexuals are given the right to marry or not has absolutely no bearing upon me. The term sanctity of marriage has been thrown around so often in the last few months that it's almost becoming a catch phrase, and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure that those throwing it around really know what it means. I'm not going to get into that here, largely because I don't understand how allowing homosexuals to marry has any bearing whatsoever upon the sanctity of marriage, and I really have no desire to argue a point when I don't understand its counterpoint. However, the idea of limiting the freedoms of a specific group, frankly, worries me.

Consider this: according to the Census Bureau approximately 50% if marriages occurring in the United States today will end in divorce. Most of those within the first ten years. In other words, the supreme court of Massachusetts has given a right which the rest of us are in serious danger of taking for granted. Like drinking from a public water fountain, or using a public washroom. Sound familiar? As I see people marching in protest and screaming about the sancitity of marriage (whatever that is), I see us as dangerously close to the days when different races could not drink from the same water fountain, different races could not vote, or had to sit at the back of a public bus. I see us as dangerously close to the time when one's rights and priveleges were determined by one's skin color. Now, it seems, they're determined by one's sexual orientation.

Bush has said, openly, that he would support an amendment to the constitution which will specifically prohibit gay marriage. If such a bill were to pass, it would be only the second amendment to the constitution ever designed specifically to limit the freedoms of its citizens. The last one was prohibition. That turned out well, didn't it?

The laws of physics.

Just for the record. The laws of physics hate me. I'm not exactly sure why. What the heck have I ever done to them!?

Five Hundred, Twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes.

I went this weekend with my significant other and, interestingly enough, my mother to see a production of Rent which toured its way through Calgary last week. It's taken a few days for the experience to really percolate.

A number of words describing it come rather quickly to mind. Not the least of which being masterpiece. It was truly an amazing performance and one that I'd recommend to anybody (Just not in Calgary, since it toured its way out of here on Sunday). It's a powerful show, with amazing characters and wonderful music. We had good seats too. Main floor, center, close to the front.

Yes, I enjoyed it. The music is rather catchy, too. I've had it bouncing around in my head since Saturday afternoon, and it really doesn't bother me that much.

Saturday goes in the books as a good day. A good show, the company of a beautiful young woman, a nice dinner afterwards, a walk in the park... Really, what could make that day any better? I'm really trying to think of something that could be added to it, and I'm drawing a complete blank.

Well, we went to a movie theater, just because we could, to see The Whole Ten Yards. That put a smidge of a damper on everything. Not exactly a movie I would pay full-price to see. Which works out well, since we went to the cheapie theatres. It was just a truly, truly amazing day.

On a separate issue, Calgary wins a couple of hockey games and the whole town goes nuts. It's like the whole city has hockey fever. Everybody and his brother is dressed in a hockey jersey. There's a Calgary Flames flag hanging on every other car (mine doesn't have one, just because I refuse to let myself get swept up in the hype). The whole town went nuts when we ousted Detroit. Not that I'm not as excited as the next guy about Calgary's recent success on the hockey rink, but c'mon people, curb your enthusiasm just a little bit.

Although, admittedly, being a Flames fan has to have been somewhat rough over the last few (like, fifteen) years. This is the first time we've made the playoffs in eight years, and nobody gave us a chance in hell of making it far. The most common viewpoint was that Detroit would flatten us in five games. Instead we beat them in six. To say that this was not unsurprising would be something of an understatement.

Interestingly enough, you see a lot more people playing street hockey as a consequence. Driving home has become something of a hazard because you have these twelve-year-olds running back and forth in the street trying to score. I swear someone's going to get creamed by a car that doesn't see them coming around a corner. Darwinism in action. It's out of sheer paranoia that I don't travel any faster than about 10 kph as I get close to home. At that speed, even if someone magically appears directly in front of my front bumper, I should still be able to stop in time. I mean, heck, I don't want to dent the front of my car... and twelve-year-olds are so hard to clean out of the front grille.

Red Tape.

I hate beurocracy. That's really the only way of putting it. I really, really, really hate beurocracy. I hate that there seem to be people out there whose only apparent purpose in life is to make sure that as many obstacles as humanly possible exist between me and whatever I'm attempting to accomplish.

Yes, I hate beurocracy.

Don't get me wrong, I dislike a lot of things, but one of the few things I can actually use the word hate for is beurocracy.

So I get an Email from our animal care center asking me to clarify a few things about the use of animals in our experimentation. We get these every once in a while. I think it's just the Animal Care center's way of telling us that they own our asses. As much as we deny that fact. They really are the most powerful people in the building. With a select few exceptions, they can effectively shut down research in any laboratory in the building with the stroke of a pen, simply by denying them the use of animals.

Don't get me wrong. I'm rather happy that they do do this. It makes sure that we're treating our animals with humanity and dignity. This needs to be assured since our experiments have a 100% fatality rate. We're doing experiments on rat hearts. Since the procedure requires the removal of the rat's heart, the rat itself is usually somewhat non-viable, and we, as a lab, have often gone to what many would consider ridiculous lengths to ensure that the animal feels no discomfort. In part because any person in our lab has the power to pull the plug on any research being done here, and not one person in our lab would hesitate to do it if they felt we were being inhumane.

That part, I agree with. But every so often, we get a message from the animal care center asking us to clarify a few issues about our protocol. Ugh. First off, this usually occurs about five months after the protocol has been accepted. Which means, in a perfect world, we would have used approximately half the rats our protocol asked for. Likewise, they ask questions which are so assinine and so vague that you have absolutely no chance of ever responding to them in a satisfactory manner.

1) Justify the use of animals in your research.

Insufficient number of humans we don't like.

2) Justify the number of animals used in your research.

Large number of rats we don't like.

3) What happens to the animals after an unsuccessful procedure?

They die.

4) What are the criteria for describing a procedure as successful?

They die, and we get good cells from them.

5) Describe anesthesia.

Anesthesia: A state of depressed neural activity, often associated with preoperative preparation, or beurocrats.

6) Describe analgesia.

Analgesia: Absence or relief of painful stimulus, such as that felt when I am done jumping through beurocratic hoops.

7) Describe narcotics used.

THP, Heroin, Cocaine, MethCathanone... Oh, you mean for the rats? None.

8) Which antibiotic agents are to be used for this protocol?

Refer to Question 4.

9) Describe the anticipated condition of the animal following a successful procedure.

a) absence of breathing or heartbeat
b) absence of heart
c) exponential decay of body temperature from 37 C to room temperature as a function of time
d) total lack of response to painful stimulus
e) total lack of response to pleasurable stimulus
f) severe reduction of arterial and venous circulation
g) systolic blood pressure=0
h) diastolic blood pressure=0
i) anoxia in all tissues
j) cessation of digestive processes.
k) cessation of kidney function
l) cessation of hormonal activity
m) cessation of liver function
n) loss of pancreatic response
p) absence of measureable neural activity in central nervous system
q) absence of measureable neural activity in peripheral nervous system
r) rigor mortis

Unbe-fricking-lievable. And the questions don't get any better as you go along. It's annoying.

On Dru

So, I decided to start a blog, just because I've got a literal ton of creative energy to vent and decided that here and now is a decent place to vent it.

Also because I'm pretty sure that I'm starting to annoy my friends when I send out a mass Email that really doesn't say anything more important than my own musings on the universe as a whole.

So, who is Dru, exactly? Good question, and I really wish I could provide something which would be satisfactory as an answer.

I suppose the best way of putting it is that I've always been unlike just about everybody I know. I've always walked just a little be out of step with the rest of the universe. Not that this is a terribly bad thing, mind you. I just tend to favor doing thigs a little different than most people. In a lot of ways, I'm a very difficult person to put in any specific category.

I'm a scientist (hopefully a PhD. in biophysics before too long), but I also consider myself to have very strong faith. I'm a geek, but also sort of a cool guy to have around (or at least, I like to think so). I study martial arts, but nobody believes me when I tell them that. I climb walls on a regular basis, just because I can (again, nobody seems to believe it when I first mention it). I kill rats on a regular basis because my work requires it. I enjoy broadway musicals, but I possess a Y chromosome.

I believe that there's more to learn about God (or Allah, or Jaweh, or Vishnu or whaever particular higher being you ascribe to) by watching a sunrise than by reading a book (or worse, by listening to someone's interpretation of that book). I have nothing against organized religion as a path to spirituality, as long as those that practice said religion realize that there are other, equally valid, paths. It's those who are so set in their beliefs that they won't even accept the possibility that other faiths may be just as true as theirs that, frankly, scare me. In short, I believe organized religion to be a path, but not necessarily the path. To me, finding one's own spirituality outside any specific religious framework (which I have been trying to do for the last year) can be equally valid. And if I'm wrong, well, I go to hell. I'd rather be damned for who I really am, than blessed for trying to be someone I'm not.

I completed a Bachelor's degree in physics at Bishop's University in 2002 and have since been pursuing a PhD in biophysics. With a little luck, I will defend my thesis in June of 2005. After that, I haven't the faintest clue what's next.

I have been studying Bak Fu Pai (Kung Fu, White Tiger Style) for the last almost-year, and it has helped me rediscover my own spirituality which I'd been sorely neglecting for the last twenty-five years. I'm also, consequently, in the best health (physically, mentally and spiritually) of my life. In my twenty-five years, I don't think I can recall the last time that I felt this alive.

I've been seeing a wonderful young woman for almost a year now, and she's added more to my life than I think even she knows. She's my constant reminder of just how blessed I've been.

Anyhow, if you find my postings too boring, swing my my friends Mike & Rose, since they always have something interesting to say.

Signing out,
dru