I had a splendid time at the concert yesterday and I am more than convinced that sighting 5 (e:peeps) in one day is the secret recipe to that day's quota of perfect happiness. If the (e:peep) sighting number (EPSN) shoots up to more than 5, the levels of euphoria increase exponentially. I often experience it after (e:) strip parties. I catch myself unconsciously grinning ear to ear for more than 24 hours at a stretch.

The weather was so perfect that the popular song by the Carpenters got stuck in my head. I had to listen to some angry flamenco rough and raw music to erase that ridiculous song. The first (e:peep) sighting was of course (e:imk2) at work. I thought it was weird that she was tip-toeing it into the printer/mail room. I actually checked to see if she was wearing new shoes and had a shoe-bite or something. I learned later that she had been risking her life and limb by going in there. Apparently, a huge wasp was hiding in that room somewhere and the chair of the department had been trying to swat it dead. I am super glad I didn't see it. Who knows what I might have done to (e:imk2) with my tendency to throw extreme drama freak-outs. I saw (e:boxerboi) on the way home and we had a very soul-purging talk about how high-school has an annoying tendency to persist sometimes. :)

I persuaded a couple of my friends to walk to the concert but I omitted to tell them that it was a good half an hour's brisk walk from downtown to Bidwell. We were somewhat dehydrated by the time we reached the concert venue and dashed into Cafe Aroma to get something to drink. A bloke dressed as a huge Target dog entered and in a proper touristy fashion, we got all excited about being clicked with **the target dog**. However, before we could shoot, the target dog made a beeline for the bathroom and was decapitated by his target-mates. It was probably the most disappointing moment of the evening.

We ran into (e:James) at the Bidwell crossing. I was all worked up about missing the photo-op of a lifetime with **the target dog** and all I could remember was (e:James) had been recently promoted to a power position as a deputy commander of something political. That title stuck and I had to struggle not to introduce him as "The deputy commander!". A second title of "James, the terrible (multi-translation poet)!" suggested itself, but I choked that one down as well. Instead, I introduced him to my friends as a "very powerful politician". I could see (e:James) through my peripheral vision looking at me as if I were from planet loony but it was too late! I admit that it was a desperate and poverty-stricken moment for my brain and those are the times I say the weirdest things. So, you all better tell me in advance what you would like to be introduced as! Your profession choices range from God of the Mountains to Ruler of the Land of the Dead. Take your pick.

We finally made it to the frontlines and plonked down on the grass. The Buffalo Philharmonic played some very popular tunes in full regalia.


However, this charming young couple stole a huge chunk of BPO's limelight by waltzing away in abandon in front of the stage. Their dance became more elaborate with every song and my friend and I were half expecting them to break into some crazy whirls and rock and roll dancing...


That didn't happen. At the intermission, I was somewhat bothered by the fact that I could probably never play this cello because it was taller than I was.


A thousand kids invaded the space in front of the stage. The concert was triple the fun just because of these little dancers. :)


However, some stuffed up people were bothered and the primary conductor tried to rein in their exhuberance for a couple songs.


But thankfully, was not very successful. :)


This pretty young artist from Williamsville High School played as part of a scholarship to the BPO. Her oboe solo was pitch perfect and wonderful. I think her whole family was in the audience to cheer her on. It was very sweet.


They had a raffle for this HUGE (and somewhat scary looking) stuffed dog sponsored by Target. No one claimed it for a very long time after the announcement.


I was sorely tempted to go up and lie my way into getting it. It might have made a fabulous chair and totally made up for the missed photo-op with **the target dog***. Much to my disgust, I found that I did have a sneaky little conscience that prompted me not to pull off the smooth con act.


I don't know if kids were losing their balloons or someone was intentionally releasing them every 15 minutes or so. They were so cool to watch in the cloud streaked sky.


The band struck up the chords of the most covered and yet the most perfect song ever recorded in the history of pop - Yesterday. Here's a choir version to give you an idea of how heavenly it sounded.

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

The sunset was gorgeous.


On our way back, just as I was telling my friends that it would be so cool if they got to meet (e:drew) and (e:janelle), I walked almost right into (e:drew)! He and (e:Jason) were folding up the chairs. We walked halfway home with them. Enroute, I heard about the heroic story of Roberto Clemente Walker I was told that my lurid suspicion that his plane might have been sabotaged was not really true. Oh well. I guess real life imitates inspiring tragedies rather than spiffy spy movies. The excellent alliterative phrase "mediocre medium" was mentioned in relation to a video game called "Guitar Hero" - I think by (e:Drew).

After (e:Drew) and (e:Jason) turned into Lexington, we ran into none other than (e:fellyconnelly) and the king of (e:) strip, (e:RRRAAALLPPPHII)E! The excitement of finally seeing Ralphie was a like a shot of a crazy drug and my already fried brain could not recall (e:fellyconnelly)'s real name. If you thought (e:James) got a raw deal, hear this. I introduced her as Raphael. Raphael! Holy crackers, I couldn't even think of a modern name. I had to pick something from the 1600s. Don't ask me why!

All of (e:fellyconnelly)'s recent blogging was enacted in real life. My friend and I went down on our knees and cooed all over the little guy. (e:fellyconnelly) rules Ralphie's world. She held out some magic potion and Ralphie stood still for a photograph!


Special thanks to my friends who tolerated my non-stop brainless jabbering and came out with me to enjoy the evening and to all the (e:peeps) who made it even better! It was an awesome official grade 5-EPSN yesterday. :)

Dances bring people together.
So do LD blocks and HapMaps.



An inspirational cross-continent dance video with a number of analogies in genetics that I won't bore you with. :)

Almost everyone has a story about their avatars - those 125 X 150 pixels of online identification that stay with your readers through the thick and thin of your posts. Since my posts have dropped to the extreme triviality level of picking arguments about comic book fonts and posting pie-charts from arcane web-gadgets that nobody uses, I am under some pressure here. The immediate challenge is to achieve the nadir of triviality and set the bar even lower for the most trivial post on (e:strip). This entry to the "Who-wants-to-be-most-trivial?-I-DO!"-contest is the nausea, triumph, obsession, and nitpickiness-filled story of the evolution of my 18750 pixels. Start holding your breath, the lower boundaries of a tonload of totally unnecessary fluff are about to waft your way.

Anyone who has walked through the Cancer Cell Center (CCC) at Roswell, and has even a fractionally functional olfactory apparatus, can recall the all-pervasive sickly and somewhat homely smell that hangs about in that building. I have heard people make all sort of wild guesses about the source of this smell, ranging from imported transatlantic ducks being slaughtered alive in the building to cell-culture media rotting away to yuck-tastic glory. When your imagination is not up-to-creative-snuff with the almost-hallucinogenic peak of glory that your companions seem to have, you usually have three choices: a) Accept the most entertaining conjecture and hurry away from CCC, b) Make a mental note to not recall the smell while you are eating your lunch and hurry away from CCC and c) Decide in an unhinged moment that you will find out the source of that yucky smell and thrust your already unimaginative mind into the deeper doldrums of absolute, annoying and certain knowledge.

Needless to say, I took the third route. (Now, don't tell me you didn't see this coming!!) Though the exact source of the CCC smell still remains elusive, I do have a fair idea... and also my very own avatar. If you cannot see the relationship between between the last assertion and the rest of the sentence, then I guess you can safely assume that you are sane. (Yeah, breathe slow. You can cancel that shrink appointment today.)

Late last year I took the "Working with the Laboratory Mouse" course in the Animal Lab Facility in the CCC/Library building. It was then that the sickly smell hit me full force. It invaded my senses and took over whatever grey matter I had left, when I got out of the stairwell and headed toward the Animal Lab Facility. At this point, countless crime novelists over centuries might have hastily scribbled, "The realization dawned on her." Since these cool novelists were not around to make their erudite observations, I took on the responsibility of playing up EUREKA moment by shouting, not the eponymous "EUREKA!" but the painfully obvious, "IT'S THE MICE!!!". I quite understand why the veterinarian of the facility smiles in sympathy at me even after all these days. I earned the smile in extreme style.

I spent the better part of the practical training sniffing around the facility in what I thought was a discreet and sophisticated manner. But unfortunately, my discreetness was mis-interpreted as an incipient cold and a precautionary mask was thrust into my hands. Being masked put a damper on my detection capabilities and thus the mystery of the exact source of the omnipresent smell remains thus.

I came home, and did what any disappointed graduate student would do - wikisurf. I discovered fascinating details about the life and times of numerous members of the rodent family, hit the wikimedia commons road and fell in love with this magnificent image of the wood mouse.



I resized it and adopted it as my 18-odd-k pixels of online fame. Days passed, and at a party someone remarked that seeing a mouse reminded them of me (actually, they didn't really say this, but my brain came to this euphoric interpretation). My avatar had finally arrived! It was thus time to embellish it with idiosyncratic accessories. I chose a starred neck-tie. As any movie enthusiast would agree, drawing montages are always rolled out to the background of music. My music of choice for the nitpicky tale of avatarolution is the genre better known to the mainstream listeners as rap and to the classicist snobs as poetry.


With ball-point ink and felt-tip pen, I fell to sketching
But captured with a flash, it didn't look so fetching



Under lamplight the eyes were perfectly beady and filled with vice ((e:libertad,41910))
But I had an issue with brightness and I said, "No Dice!"



Tweaked brightness and contrast in PAINT.NET
A software so free that it is not a financial threat



At this point it lacked a certain punch
The oil paint and ink filters gave it the furry scrunch.



But alas, it didn't gel well with (e:strip) so I tinted it red.
However, in the comments background it looked rather dead.



The magic wand and colour inversion came to my rescue
OH NO! I had neglected the neck-tie with the stars askew



Added the sparklies and lightened it up a bit
Behold the 18750 pixels of the TinyPliny image-split.



But those 18750 pixels make it so hard to see
The eye on the right, won't you agree?



Looking out my window I found the perfect antidote
The rich blue of summer skies with a hint of creosote.



'Twas too much of colour and one too many alteration
Got sick of 'em all and opted for a modified third iteration.

I need to sketch graffiti.



Does Buffalo have an official free-to-all-artists graffiti wall?

Not surprisingly, my daily airplay breaks down into quite a heavy dose of metal of various flavours along with a smattering of other genres:



My "open mind index" that apparently measures how open-minded I am when it comes to music is 102.



To get this silly graph, you need to:

a) have a last.fm profile
b) have played and scrobbled a sizeable chunk of music
c) Go here: and enter your profile name, type in the security code and choose your preferred colour craziness.

And Voila, your musical tastes are neatly broken down into a pie-chart in eleven different colour schemes ranging from tame to frank-epileptic-fit inducing. The epidemiologist in me cannot help but plot a population musical-taste study with such detailed statistics...

Happing Musickuming! :)