Friday, May 09, 2003

I decided to make teriyaki hamburgers and fries for dinner using my George Foreman minigrill and it was good! That thing cooks food faster than anything I've ever seen and the flavor was delicious! I used the recipe my mom sent a couple of months ago. Of course the measurements she gave me were somewhat vague for the ginger and garlic portions but it still turned out good. I bought hamburger buns that were a tad bit too big but the small ones looked too wimpy. Anyway, I'm full now so I guess I'll study some pharmacology.
~me~ at 7:07 PM

Thursday, May 08, 2003

let me just say that I think car alarms have become more of a nuisance than an aid in our world. There's a van in the parking lot for the apartments behind our condo and it's going off constantly. And it's loud and annoying. The funny thing is that unless you go right up to it, it looks like it's my car with the annoying alarm and so Cathy came to tell me my car was going balistic and so I went down to check. And sure enough, from a distance it looks like my car is the thing going off. I had to go close up to see that it was indeed the van in the other parking lot. I mean, I know I don't have a car alarm installed but for all I knew it could be an unknown feature of my car that honks repetitively to let me know that in 60 seconds it will blow up. You never know...
~me~ at 4:35 PM

I wish I knew how to get the city to paint in right turn only arrows in certain lanes. It constantly annoys me that people who plan on getting onto the freeway will not get into the left hand lane before the traffic light and I'm sure it annoys people in the right hand lane who want to turn right on red but can't because the person ahead of them is going straight (who then annoys me because I can't switch to the right lane after the light unless I slow down or they speed up or I speed up or they slow down and then you gotta hope that we don't do the same thing because that solves nothing). It wouldn't bother me as much if they were turning right at the corner after the light but if they made that lane before the light a right turn only lane then even that wouldn't be a problem because the only cars you'd have to watch out for are those on the cross street turning right and there aren't too many of those. But to stay in that right lane, go straight, and then get in the left lane after the light?!? Why?!? That's just selfish! maybe I'll get some white paint and solve the problem myself...i watched them do it at other spots so I know it doesn't take too much effort and even if it is faded and not as bright, it will match other street markings and people will think it's been there for awhile. I wonder how big of a fine it is if someone does such a thing. Hey, I was doing the city a favor and they didn't have to pay for the paint or the labor!
what else...oh even though I'm not rich and sometimes wish I were so I could buy stuff I want when I first see it and know I want it, I think there are benefits to having to wait and save. So a few days ago, I posted about the ipod and how excited I was about it. Well, sure enough there were those people with 3 or 4 computers and other high priced items that they seem to buy on release dates that bought the ipod and are now discussing their problems. I did get to play with the ipod at compUSA on monday (reward for the genetics test) so I saw one of these issues. The one that many are bitter about is some tick heard between tracks. Let me say that these people must listen to songs on the ipod at 100% volume because it was only at that max sound level that it was an obvious sound to me. At the level I was testing the model at for the rest of my play time (75-80% max), the only time I heard it was when I was actively listening for it. It's kind of fun though since I was the only one there so I didn't have to limit my play around time. I guess if I were rich then I would know to be sad that the ipod didn't have some of the features on other models (that many say they've played with or had...how rich are these people and will they adopt me or give me a grant to buy fun stuff as frequently as they do...one guy said that he's constantly buying the newest apple powerbook and desktop when they come out and then sells his old one to pay for part of it...why?!? It took me lots of time to move over all my stuff I wanted from my old computer to the new one and then to back up other files from floppies to cds because my new computer doesn't have a floppy drive...I'd hate to do that every year just so I won't have an old model). There are some other things that seem bad though (sound not working on some peoples ipods after being paused, skipping tracks, etc) even for my tastes so while I figure out what I don't need to pay for in the future or at least until my next financial aid check comes in july, I'll just hope that these problems get taken care of. Afterall, it was my indecision to buy my computer that led to the purchase of a computer that had stuff added to it in the 4 months I debated about buying. So it pays to be so cheap that I squeak when I walk.
EcoChallenge: Tonight is the final night but it comes on at the same time as ER so I'll have to do channel surfing during breaks of ecochallenge.
~me~ at 3:25 PM

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

Ugh! i don't believe this! Because some of my classmates didn't take the extra second to locate the correct answer that had been to the right of the 4 other choices, they're throwing out that question...I got that one right! I can accept it if they accepted all the choices as correct but to throw it out? The question, I must say, was one of the easiest since it was a simple plug and chug math problem using the hardy weinberg equation and if they did it right, there could have only been one choice. I'm guessing that they did the problem, got it right, and didn't look carefully for the right choice (though I saw it immediately...the man did say to look carefully at all the choices afterall) and then second guessed their math and then chose the answer that was wrong. I'll bet anyone a million dollars that they chose the answer that was 1/1250 because they couldn't find (and I thought I had vision problems) choice E: 1/5000. Here's how easy it was: it was an autosomal dominant disease with an incidence of 1/2500. You assume that people homozygous dominant (AA) for the disease die in utero so the incidence is a reflection of 2pq (p=A, the bad gene, and q=a, or the normal gene). You can then disreguard q because you assume that it's near 1 and the equation ends up being 2p=1/2500. And solving for p: p=1/5000 not 1/1250 (but like I said I think they didn't see choice e so they went back and multiplied both sides by 2 instead of dividing both sides by two). Instead of giving everyone, including those of us who can see, the points, they reward the blind and screw the sighted. Most of the other classes just give everyone the points. It was a simple problem! Instead of choosing the obviously wrong choice, they should have asked Dr Andersen and he would have announced the mistake to all of us! This exact problem was in the noteset so if they either read the notes or went to class, they would have known how to solve the problem. But, whatever, the only time I'll be mad is in the end if this screws my final grade. It's working on a 1 point/question=1 percentage point in the final grade so they decided to make the final exam 71 questions to make up for this question that they dropped. I better get that one right or there will be hell to pay.
~me~ at 11:05 AM

I realized one bad thing about where my desk is located. The AC vent is located right by it and happens to direct air right at me. And since that air is mighty frigid, I get cold but if I turn it off, it gets really warm in here (i guess summer heat is fast approaching). What to do!
I watched the first night of EcoChallenge Fiji. So far so good. There's a bunch of Survivor cast members. Yeah, they're pretty bad at it and don't seem to care that they're completely off course. The Playboy Bunnies are doing better than they are but one of them may have hurt her ankle badly. One of the Brazilian teammates cut her finger and then decided to play the "how many parasitic, viral, and bacterial infections can I get in 24 hours" game instead of getting the medic to patch her up and give her prophylactic antiparasitic and antibacterials. They showed a preview of tomorrow's show and she's sick. Surprise surprise! Hey! I hope they say what she was infected with! One of the leading teams has a navigator that doesn't know what he's doing and when he does, he's so unsure of himself that his teammates think he's an idiot and followed the australian team that went the wrong way but since their navigator is some expert navigator, they followed him instead of listening to their own uncertain mapguy. Oh and Annakin Skywalker (heyden christiansen) and his older sister and brother are on a team but apparently he gets sickly as well. 80 teams started but they said only 10 finish. Yikes! It should be good!
~me~ at 8:25 AM

Sunday, May 04, 2003

Okay, how sad is it that the notesets on the Urea Cycle from last year and this year have the same stupid spelling error. The diseases are Organic AcIdemias and yet all the notetakers are instead writing about Organic AcAdemias. Hmmm....Organic Academic communities...didn't know such things existed. Do they eat free range chicken eggs and only buy overpriced food from the organic food stores? And what exactly is the relationship between these communities and the urea cycle...do they prefer to discuss the world of enzymes used in the urea cycle? Come on people! You get paid $50/lecture, at least check your work! Well, it's the last notesets they'll have to do since we only have 1 more week of lectures left and with a large stock of notetakers, most are already done with their commitments. We're getting refunds if we paid for notes...I wonder if it's substantial or pathetic. Last year the refund was about $20 or so. Not bad I guess! But with all the bonuses the notetakers have gotten this year, who knows how much is coming back to us.
~me~ at 4:32 PM