And then the sun left

There are stores being closed downtown. I went around yesterday and was informed that Scrapbook Alley's closed and moved away and there's a "For Lease" sign in front of Bogey's Books. It gave a depressing twist to the day since that book store is probably my favorite second-hand book store, complete with its strange chairs tucked into odd corners inside and a really awesome collection of photography art books.

Just please, don't let them close Newsstand. I've been getting my eclectic cards there since my freshman year and it's just such a neat little place...and this post is getting more depressing as I type.

Well, since I seem to be promoting things right now I'll post support for the WGA.

I've always wondered at what happens when an artist or writer signs a contract -- at which point does the publisher/company/whatever stop representing "you" and start doing whatever they pleased? (But then, I always felt like signing a contract / putting a set price on artwork is a little bit like selling your soul, so I guess there's really no expectation for an unbiased view point from me.)

On an unrelated note, we got a researcher from France yesterday in our lab meeting to answer questions about Frankia /bacterial symbiosis evolution. I found out that Dr. Berry (my mentor) apparently speaks French and I also got first hand experience of what the French accent sounds like (a lot more British than I figured, which is interesting). The plant-symbiont coevolution's intriguing to think about (kind of like endosymbiosis, except not). Clare gave us a demonstration on inoculation (getting the bacteria into the growth medium to start a bacteria culture), autoclaving (pressure & high temperature steam sterilization), and the lab next door will be getting a sequencing machine next week and we are allowed to use it (once or twice, but still)!

There might be a chance to sequence the short fragment that I'm amplifying (!) to see whether or not I've designed the primer correctly. Of course, since it's a one-shot thing, I better wait until I'm at the RNA stage before I try anything.

I also have to do a percoll gradient and we're out on the materials. Dr. Berry was looking into the PUF grant. ("Have you ever heard of 'PUF'?" She asked. "No," I said, "but it reminds me of the fungi..." and I bit my tongue to keep myself from adding "And Hufflepuff.") (Lucy, I think your influence is penetrating my subconsciousness.) The deadline was yesterday at five pm for the grant and we were talking about it at noon and Dr. Berry wondered if I can get the application and proposal written up by five...which, if I had done, probably would be my closest brush with "the extreme procrastination experience", through no fault of my own. But no, the thing involved a minimum and preferred budget proposal and a discussion on how the reduction of the budget will affect the quality of the experiment and I have no idea what's going on with that part so we're passing the November deadline and are thinking about the one in April instead. (Nothing like thinking ahead right after the threat of the doom of procrastination to distress.)

Midterm next Tuesday. Otherwise, nothing else.

[edit 10:18]
Have found a small glow in the dark star in the back of the car trunk. I wonder when it got there? In any case it made me grin like a maniac and it may very well have made my day.

[edit 10:26]
Remember the Second Life "game" I mentioned a while back? I just saw this article. And a LOT of companies are falling in line for a Second Life in-world representative and Mr. Gaiman's having a PRESS CONFERENCE in-world today.
This is somewhere between awesome and creepy.