I finally got some vacation photos edited and uploaded this weekend. Cross-posted to facebook, which means, help us all, my dad may show up in flickr comments.

Tonight I had brownies and soy milk instead of dinner. If you'd had my day you might have done the same.

Also, they were delicious, gooey brownies make from scratch. M. - not an unbiased audience - was appreciative.

( Delicious pictures behind cut. )

The central dogma - DNA is transcribed into RNA is translated into protein, this is the flow of information in a cell and that is what will be on the test - is a convenient lie told in high school and freshman biology to simplify the complex:

( It's diagram time! )

In biochem 3 the prof drew the central dogma on the board and proceeded to break it. I don't have the full diagram any more, but I think there was more stuff on it. I'm not going through my entire notebook reconstructing it, but I'm kind of tempted, because it was pretty cool.

I'm way behind my f-list, and may not catch up tonight, or before this weekend, but know that's it's in a good cause: I have vacuumed my room and retyped my class notes. Trip pictures and summary to follow sometime this weekend, maybe? I hear there's a thing on the mall I may want to attend. The very short version: I had a great time, did museum time and outside time, got slightly sunburned twice, saw my sister, and accidentally drove up Russian Hill in the dark. I had an adventure! Now I'm locked into adventures with genetics until the end of the semester.

On further consideration, I like about half of one album of Jordin Sparks. Also, I didn't realize she sang "Tattoo", which I loathe nearly as much as "Teardrops on my Guitar". I am not in high school, and I was a cynic when I was.

Today's adventures: thunderstorms, rainbows, biking to the library on damp streets, picking up holds, getting drenched in the second line of storms, and getting called in for roommate whatever nearly before I got the bike back in the house. I'm not sure if M wanted a wingman for her drive to Border's, or if she sincerely thought putting more books in my path was a favor, but at least I got to wash the road spatter off before we drove to Border's. M. walked out with a journal, and I walked out with The Best Science Writing of 2007, discounted to $4, which pretty much encapsulates the roommate vibe.

Rainbow pictures are pretty similar, but have ( today's rainbow. )

Biking was absolutely the right thing to do; I may need to get back on the library exercise program (put book on hold, bike to library for pickup) to make myself do it more often.

In a nearly unprecedented display of faith in humanity, I went to see fireworks with bio!J, her friend D, and D's roommate J, and crashed at D and J's afterward. (I hate changing my plans only slightly less than I hate imposing for crash space.) I am very pleased with my pictures of the fireworks, which came out very well considering I didn't have a tripod, and include some moments that are suitably Apocalypse Now. Sunday I drove home, napped, then got back out the door for the Nats-Braves game downtown and had the unusual pleasure of seeing the Nats not lose.

Yesterday I went to work and had the unique pleasure of being reminded that the annual safety video review is, in fact, annual and mandatory. For day two I intend to beg people to play hangman during choice moments of How Not To Die By Tripping Over Power Cords and Disrobing Your Coworkers After a Chemical Spill.

Locals, I appeal to your knowledge: I am supposed to make dinner plans for early next week with someone who's staying in Crystal City. What are the good restaurants in that area? Please keep in mind that it's possible neither of us will have a car, so anyone who suggests anything on the orange line will be mocked.

Okay, it all makes sense now: Teardrops on My Guitar was written by Taylor Swift when she was seventeen. Love Story has no excuse. But the arrangement stands up in piano and cello mashup.

(It turns out I like my country a little bloodcurdling, like the Dixie Chick's Goodbye Earl and SHeDAISY's A Night to Remember.)

Also known to show up on my music playlists: Lonestar ("borrowed" from my sister several years ago), Big & Rich, LeeAnn Womack. It turns out I really like country-pop crossover.

I left my mp3 player at my desk when I broke for the door today, which is probably for the best, since I'd just load it with ridiculous quantities of guitar.

I went looking for a topically appropriate picture and found nothing. I need to go to more concerts. In the meantime, can I break for an ode to macro settings? I use mine to fake depth of field all the time when I'm taking small-scale pictures. Macro is my favorite setting on my camera. So have a pretty flowering plant of known species. If I just killed your bandwidth dead, tell me and I will stop posting 640x480 pics unless they're behind a cut.

What M. did not say is that we were getting enough free sushi to feed three people. Neither of us wants to eat ever again.

( Pictures! )

I've only taken 400 pictures with my new camera! I've had it... okay, almost a month. But I must use my camera more!

According to reviews, the SX-110 is programmed to shoot a bit warm, but I am biased toward cooler casts - especially in winter - so I tend to use the "full sun" and tungsten white balance presets a lot. I'm also prone to shooting a bit dark, since I blithely assume I can recover details and brighten shots in Photoshop. Just about the only thing I leave to the camera is the focusing, because trying to manually focus a point and shoot doesn't seem worth the effort. Dad has agreed to let me borrow his camera "for a weekend" at some point, so I'm going to try to kidnap it sometime before May.

In the meantime, pictures.

( Four for starters. )

I went to New York City, and I had a great time, and I had a camera! In no particular order, I lost (and found) my day planner, forgot my PIN and found myself at Penn Station with about $0.06 and a credit card, discovered my cell phone recharger was 200 miles away on Sunday night, walked most of the way up Fifth Ave next to Central Park, criss-crossed Midtown, left Forbidden Planet unscathed, then visited the Strand; saw a tiny bit of the beautiful New York Humanity and Social Sciences library (the 5th Ave branch), completely failed to make it to any museums; did karaoke and Rock Band with limnrix and friends; caught up with scifantasy, and took a nap on the southbound bus before finishing my cheerful holiday reading. I owe limnrix and scifantasy huge thanks for rearranging their weekends to see me.

( Four quick pictures from the camera's second outing. )

Hypochondriac and prone to TMI, maybe, but probably not suffering from chemical imbalance.

How long does it take to eat a pound of strawberries? If you're me, about 18 hours from arrival in kitchen.

The week-long search for the DVD remote unearthed a missing chain and pendant that disappeared right after Thanksgiving. I'll be wearing it this weekend. For the record, midnight is not the time to suddenly wonder if hostels carry 1.) towels, 2.) bedsheets, and realize 3.) your overnight kit does not commonly include soap.

I offloaded my first batch of pics from the new camera, from Friday night's party, and - wait, what party? The party I thought was Saturday night, until I got home from work, and thought to check the address on the evite. I persevered in the face of tragedy, called a cab to meet me at the metro, called the hostess twice to get directions when the cab driver got lost, and got to the party, where I had a really great time, but the pictures that looked fine on a 3" LCD are unacceptably grainy on the laptop's 15.4" screen. So the ISO 800 and 1600 settings are right out except in times of crisis. (I guess I'm going to have to get past that flash hate. Way to destroy the sneaky party picture-taking.)

Also, my camera's movie mode has no audio. Since this is supposed to be my all-purpose camera, this is a big problem for parties. But hey, cheap camera today, expensive bells and whistles with flourishes camera in 2010.

I object to academic writing. Fine, your discipline has no useful vocabulary, so stop repeating the same words with different emphasis and invent some vocabulary. I encourage the lit-studying crowd to make like science and steal words from dead languages. If you have to, make portmanteaus and other mashups, though I will mock you in the margins. (Science has its own problems, like the linguistic path that gave us metabolome, or like when the syndrome and the gene and the protein are all named different things, and you wind up with equals-this tables on stickies peeling off the sides of your screen, but I digress.) I guess I fail at academic writing, because I am entertained to a certain point by interrogating the narrative, and then I say, "So, feminism, activism, other isms, but do you know what would be awesome? What if there was an accident with an alien device, and Johnnie Rico and the rest of his platoon grew wings?" and I'm back in popcorn-throwing mode.

(For the record, if Johnnie Rico grew wings, you be out of Starship Troopers aca-mode and into Gundam Wing fanfic. 'Tis a far, far better thing I do in anime fandom than I have ever done in the Western SF canon.)

Off to catch a bus, or try to. I will have my cell phone but no internet access until Monday night.

My camera is here! I bought it Tuesday night, and it's here today. So far, I am thrilled by the point-click instant gratification but the auto and programmed modes are hideous. Eliminating three positions on the preset wheel in 20 minutes makes me wonder if I made a horrible mistake by cheaping out. On the other hand: cheaper camera + 2-year accidental protection warranty (will pay for itself the first time I crack the LCD) + rechargable AA batteries + 1 GB memory card + carrying case (the big ol' ten times zoom lens making the sx110 too fat for my old case) + storage space = quite enough money, thank you. So I will make nice with the sx110 and see what falls out of the $400-$600 (plus accessories) market.

However, it's electronics fail week. My external hard drive is dying fast. I didn't realize how much I'd moved to using it as primary storage until Windows "fixed" nine thousand invalid or cross-linked files. Copying all my precious detritus across USB 2.0 makes me completely understand the importance of eSATA and Firewire to the future. My super-cheap DVD player is missing its remote, which is unfortunate, since the player has no menu navigation buttons. My work headphones (RIP) are getting replaced tomorrow. And the baby laptop has its lot of special and unique snowflake history.

Now that I've gotten the book log out of the way, I feel I can make more frivolous posts again. For example: Trader Joe's has an Oreo lookalike, the Joe Joe, which incorporates candy canes in the filling. Those lasted about three days in my possession, and should've lasted a lot longer. Yum, junk food!

On a sadder note, I dropped community chorus. It meets the day before my class, I don't like how the director warms the chorus up (briefly, and then stops for half an hour of announcements), and I can't do two super-long days back-to-back. Not those two items, not in that order.

But the important thing is, I have a camera! And tomorrow I'm going to buy memory, so I can take more than seven pictures at a time.

Dear beloved external hard drive (late April 2007 - about now),

When I named you after Rosalind Franklin, I had no idea what I was intimating for your lifespan. Please cough up my music mixes. Now.

Sadly, A.

---

Now that I have my bonus in hand, and have hit my minimum savings goals, it's hardware time. Since I can get a 1 TB external now for the same price I paid for 350 GB in 2007, the only question is: can my ancient desktop handle modern peripherals?

The other big hardware purchase is the camera. (Camera!) I'm looking at the Canon SX110is with a thoughtful eye. ( Angst by analysis follows for the photo junkies. )

If anyone has anything to say about the SX110, now would be a really good time to weigh in.

This week at work: evaluations, announcement of bonuses (actual numbers to be revealed next week), discovery that the interface on the Canon PS SX110 IS is way more intuitive than the last Canon I touched, student sort-of-intern originally hailing from Canada. Is talking really fast a particularly Canadian trait?

Dear internet, I have finished all 585 pages of Regenesis. There is so much I want to say about this book, but briefly: I still think Victoria Strassen was on to something. And this is an atevi novel with Ari as Bren. Since I don't like the atevi series, this is not a strong recommendation. Unless you like the atevi series, in which case, skip Cyteen and read about the household staff.

There's another cultural appropriation fight going on (iteration umpteen; I count it as a standing drama since WisCon 30, in 2006) and I have nothing particularly politic to say about it. I'd much rather pick apart Union's power structures, which will go in the Epic Regenesis Post of Epic.

Someday today I have to 1.) beat my laptop into submission, and 2.) call my grandmother, and 3.) figure what I'm eating next week.

California is burning, but DC saw flurries this afternoon. Reactions at work spanned the gamut from horror to gleeful organization of snowball fight teams. My moment of horror today was roommate M. revealing her lustful thoughts about Michael Weatherly. Apparently there's an entire fanbase among my age cohort who don't think he's an annoying frat boy? If only House weren't on opposite NCIS, M. and I could bond over TV!

Yesterday I did not buy film. I called my roommate at the mall and asked her to buy me film, because the grocery store I was standing in didn't have the ISO I wanted, unintentionally sending her to a loving interrogation by the sales clerk / photo hobbyist. I am torn between shame and bemusement that I own such a quasi-hipster item. It's, like, vintage. Vintage happens to other people. I just thrift it. (Except when I realize I haven't thought through the cost of film and development. On the other hand, now I have a camera that gives me manual control over depth of field, which I've been jonesing for since about 3 seconds after I discovered non-automatic settings. This is known as impulse shopping, and is bad and wrong. And yet. Am I ebaying this sucker? No. Instead, I'm buying film!)

My little Kodak film camera is a lot like an inkjet printer: the initial outlay is low, but the consumables will kill your budget. I bought this mostly as an exercise in exploring manual settings, which should keep me occupied until I snap and go digital. If I could control digitized f-stops, exposure times, and the rest on a cheap digital, I would so be there. Unfortunately I've either flunked Manual Focus 101, or it's really hard to get that sort of control on a cheap digital point and shoot. Until then, the arcane mysteries of loading film, setting the exposure, and trying to remember what settings I used when (notebook, here I come) should keep me distracted from the momentum-destroying cold and dark of November through January.

Saturday I lost my mind at church bazaars and thrift shops, returning home with, among other items:

One dry clean only vest
The obligatory black desk lamp (note to ashcomp: it does work!)
One folding side table turned laptop stand
A Kodak Retina 1b (little b)
The tchotchke change-bank, Mr. Soccerhead, which would be more appropriate in a soccer-mad eight year old's room.

The desk lamp was on purpose. Everything else sort of happened. The Kodak was a classic example of why I shouldn't be allowed to impulse shop; however, I now have a working camera. And in a worst case scenario, I can ebay it without loss.

I also ate an open-faced sandwich, a danish, and half of an apple dish topped with whipped cream, and had to stop when the dairy vs lactase GI battle started. It's getting to the point that I want to spit out anything that tastes like dairy, even when I'm not on antibiotics, and I'm thinking that's not a bad reflex.

Friday evening I saw Amy Ray perform at the 9:30 Club. I mentioned my plans to my roommate Friday morning and she elected to come with me. We met up at Busboys and Poets, and grabbed dinner at Ben's Chili Bowl, which wins for adding the Obamas to the list of people who eat free at the restaurant (previously: Bill Cosby and.... Bill Cosby) and delivered to us M.'s burger and french fries just out of the deep fryer, still crispy on the outside and hot on the soft inside. They needed salt, which I added along with pepper, but were awesome otherwise. I had gotten out of work later than expected, so we missed the opening act, but got there in time for the main act sound check and milling around. M. had no clue who Amy Ray is, or who Indigo Girls are, so the small but enthusiastic crowd of obviously non-straight people was a bit of a surprise. However, she really enjoyed the set list; as M. remarked, Amy Ray sounds a lot like protest songs, of which M. would be an excellent judge.

Herself and the band came on to cheers. This is not a woman given to intraset chatter: it's pretty much, "thanks, y'all", a stab at retuning the guitar, and on to the next song. Ray played a bunch of her solo songs, including Let It Ring and Johnny Rottentale, which caught my attention for being performed on mandolin.

This was totally my crowd: doors were at 6 PM, and we were kicked out at nine; wearing Office Chic (no-heels boots and skirt, plummy button-up shirt) I was overdressed. So M. and I had plenty of time to walk back to the red line by way of Busboys and Poets and Adams Morgan. B&P was packed with humanity, and is so left-leaning it's about to fall into self-parody, but it seems to welcome browsers. Adams Morgan was just packed: fun to visit, but I'd probably snap if I lived in any proximity to that many night owls. I tend to forget that DC is tiny, so walking "off" the green line and back to red is not only possible but more fun than messing with transfers.

Also, about 10,000 bills hit last week, so I'm really looking forward to payday. A lot.

Today I went to work happy hour and downed two margaritas, then bought one hardcover (The Iron Dragon's Daughter, Michael Swanwick; $4, used) and two flashlights, and finally hit Best Buy to try out cameras. Conclusions:

1.) The Canon Powershot user interface has a learning curve I have zero desire to climb. Just give me a physical dial for the exposure and shutter, please. Now.
2.) I'm disgusted and not yet resigned to $200 cameras with 10 mpix and no viewfinder. That would be, you know, pretty much every $200 digital camera on the market.
3.) If I have to have a camera that I'm resigned to but not thrilled about, why not get on ebay and spend $100 on my old camera?
4.) The third-hand Powershot S40 I thought had died isn't dead. Camera shopping postponed until its next death. (Note to self: you can't name the camera after fictional characters prone to dramatic fake deaths. Even you don't think it's all that funny. And you are never allowed to name anything after John Crichton. Ever.) I am relived I have a working camera, because limping along beats impulse shopping. It's kind of painful to be using a camera that was top of the line when it hit the streets the year I graduated high school, but obviously, if I cared that much I'd buy a new one.

Work today was incredibly mixed; the "yay we moved a department" party was awesome, but the 8 1/2 hours before that were me limping along on ibuprofen and wishing for midol. Am seriously considering taking a mental health half-day. But 8 hours of sleep would probably help a lot with that.

Tomorrow I'm doing the restaurant week thing and going to Poste with Perky K. I am wearing a skirt and strappy black sandals, so someone better appreciate the non-denim lengths I've gone to. (Things I love about my job #57: "well, you're cleaning your workspace with bleach solution" dress code! This leaves me with very little motivation to upgrade my clothes.)

Pursuant to shirts, this weekend I walked into Macy's looking for a camisole-type thingie and walked out with... a blue v-neck t-shirt. Yes, I know: you are all shocked by this break from tradition.

Also, shopping appeal: I'm breaking down and buying a digital camera. I'm soliciting opinions. HOWEVER, comma, I am on a budget. I'm looking in the $200 - $250 range, with an absolute limit of three hundred fifty dollars ($350) for the camera and basic accessories (second battery, larger memory card, etc). I really would like a digital SLR, but it's not happening this year. CNET has a real crush on the Canon Powershot series; does anyone else have nice or nasty things to say as I reach for the sales papers? I want instant gratification at high resolution, but I'll settle for decent warmup and shot-to-shot time, good picture quality, 7+ mpix, and an optical viewfinder.

Last night I gave myself a treat: lost night in DC! I decided that I needed food and art, so I took the metro to Dupont, got turned around and found the Dupont Second Story Books, then walked the opposite way on P Street and had dinner at Bua Thai. Then I took the metro to the New York Ave station and hit Artomatic. Metro; it does a body good. I like Artomatic because it's very... what's the appropriate Latin for "money"-cratic? If you pay the entrance fee and volunteer time, you get to show your art. (The occasionally-radical feminist in my soul compels me to rant about leisure time and privilege, but she went down for a Saturday afternoon nap and never made it back to consciousness.) Sculpture, bondage photographs, traditional 2D oils, less racy photography, fire dancing, it's all there. I'd planned to start at the top and do a quick pass through to get my bearings, and instead spent hours on the 12th floor. High office buildings with art where cubicles will be in a few months are a great venue for watching a cold front rip apart rain clouds as DC rolls away from the sun. Between perusing exhibits, I spent time people-watching photographers who had brought cameras and were in the process of making new art from the people looking at the installed art, and chatted up artists.

I have no camera, and I really miss it, even if my Kodak c875 had several flaws (no optical viewfinder; just small enough to make pocket-carrying seem possible, but it didn't really work; ate high-energy AA's like there was no tomorrow. And then there was the camera door that cracked, and had to be held shut with masking tape). My paycheck is burning and writhing in my pocket, a live coal, a hot potato, a glass of halcyon water in a noisy desert, but I will not be reckless. Much. (Hi, Jason Mraz! At $13 for the pair, I can totally buy both of your CDs. And hi, amazon mp3 downloads. Amazing how fast n*$0.99 = real money.) So if anyone hears about a (digital) camera sale, let me know; if you've got a camera you're trying to get rid of, likewise. Caveat: I'm not messing with film unless you're dumping an SLR - because I'll be able to afford a digital SLR about when the sun swells up, scorches the Earth, and dies - but for a stopgap camera, I'll start at "yes, please" and negotiate from there.

I have been missing eclipses since my elementary school science project got rained out. So tonight is a winning night.

Today the words have ran out of my mouth instead of my fingers. Have someone else's instead.