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tinypliny’s journal

Posts from February 2010

We are creatures of carbon.

· · 🌡️ 32°F



We evolved through our carbon interactions.
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We migrated lead by our carbon needs.
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We reproduced guided by our carbon culture.
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We engineered our carbon environments.
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We sheared the fabric of our lives with carbon based hostilities.
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We continue to interact and change our carbon dynamics.
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To carbon we all shall return.
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  • C Graphic:

Organic milk - hating it!

· · 🌡️ 26°F

I finally caved in and bought a carton of Amish Organic Country Farms 1% Milk (well, mainly because they were out of the fat-free milk gallon). I really had high expectations from this milk - seeing as how it is organic and all. I could not have been more unrealistic about my expectations.

This milk tastes like it came directly from the cow or buffalo or whatever bovine they were milking. I know some of you are smirking and saying. "It's milk. What else did you expect?".

Let me tell you, I did not expect the farmyard cow/bovine smell. It completely throws my milk drinking experience. It taints my coffee and makes tea unbearable with its heavy heavy cow-ish/bovine odour. My tongue is now coated with the same odour and I can feel it slowly creeping up my sinuses. Ugh. Ugh. UGH.

I am DONE with this Organic Amish milk business. I am going back to fat-free mass-produced possibly hormone tainted neutral-smelling milk. I think I will deal with the devil and trade a little undue cell proliferation for the urge to throw up everytime I drink my favourite black tea with milk.

Maybe boiling will do away with the smell? What do you think?

China = Italy = Information Oligarchy

· · 🌡️ 20°F

I can't believe how similar they are. One has a paranoid stuffy government who monitors any anti-political comments like a hawk. The other has a prime minister who owns every traditional broadcast media in the country and is now moving to crush internet freedom so that his broadcast media would profit and thrive at the cost of the net.



How do people vote in these autocrats?

Italy may be one of Europe's favourite tourist destinations, but I bet very few scientists would actually want to live there. How close-minded and disturbing is this latest news?! Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.


Pastele Paper Vs. Parchment Paper

· · 🌡️ 29°F

I went hunting for Parchment paper today (and by hunting, I mean wandering about aimlessly through the aisles at Pricerite till I see something vaguely interesting that I can pore over). I didn't exactly find Parchment paper but I found a roll of something called Pastele paper.

Someone had put a produce sticker on the roll of paper so that it was priced by the pound, had an expiration date and had directions for refrigeration. I thought it was curious, and was carrying it around to ask someone what it was.

However, in a moment of absent-mindedness at the checkout queue, I forgot about how weird it was and bought it before I remembered I didn't know what it was. Does anyone know what it is, though? Can it serve as a Parchment paper substitute? Or is it just wax paper in disguise? Should I return it?

Chowhound has a thread on Pasteles - apparently they are a Puerto Rican specialty comfort food. But it doesn't tell me if the paper is inflammable in the oven.

Anyone have a clue about the combustion physics of Pastele paper?


Mr. Deadlier to the rescue.

· · 🌡️ 29°F

I was having a particularly dead-wall time at work today with the Roswell network dragging its amoeboid appendages, my reference-manager hanging like a choking seaweed, frequent and unexpected power outages that managed to erase my drafts several times in the morning and none of my literature searches going too well.

The straw that broke the frustrated camel's back could well have been the Inter-Library loan request form that refused to submit.

BUT, like all crazily structured bewildering films with indescribably happy endings, an (e:strip) peep came to the rescue and ironed a long-standing 8-month annoyance out.

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It is time for an especially loud round of applause for @mrdeadlier :-)

Thank you, Pricerite.

· · 🌡️ 29°F

I know some folks view Pricerite as an evil walmartish-variant grocery but I am writing this journal to thank the store for setting up shop in downtown Buffalo and being there for me heavy rain or yucky snow. The employees at the store beat even Wegmans at being super-nice and courteous.

My fridge was completely empty and depressed-looking half an hour back and now I have extremely fresh, large and juicy tomatoes.
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For 89c a pound without the pain of waiting for a bus in the cold, without owning a car and without planning the trip for an hour. This is what a perfect daily grocery-shopping experience should feel like. Thank you!



PS: They have more Latin American produce and stuff than any other major grocery. I do wish they had more Chinese greens though. I guess they must have done some intense market research and decided that west and east Buffalo would be their most prominent clientele.

Update on the Going Bald Experiment

· · 🌡️ 29°F

I checked and I am mildly shocked to see that I seem to have raised $475 for cancer research simply by promising to go bald in 2 weeks.

I am experiencing a warm fuzzy feeling despite the treachery of deviant Lake Erie which seems to have unfrozen again.



PS: Apparently, they won't shave my head to the bone and will leave a smattering of hair. I am going to request that they really shave it all off. I have got my department paying for my most expensive hair-cut ever so it better be technically perfect.


Search on. and yawn.

· · 🌡️ 23°F

The Original.


And the Super-Originals.


Hah, you believed that?


What *really* happened...


Or maybe starting an international mess was not really your cup of tea...

Thinking of going bald...

· · 🌡️ 21°F

for bucks.

But mainly because I want to see if I can tackle a fraction of pain and the serious blow to vanity that the patients I study are going through everyday.

March 3 is the D-day I don't know if I can work up enough guts to go through with this and bear being absolutely bald for the rest of the winter.