90% True

Or
“A Quote Good Enough To Share Once More”
“These are so I don’t kill myself. These are so I don’t kill you. And these . . . well, long story short, let’s just say I can’t vote.” - Oscar, explaining his medication to me

Or
“Science For Dummies”

.: From Wikipedia:

Capillary action, capillarity, or capillary motion is the ability of a substance (the standard reference is to a tube in plants but can be seen readily with porous paper) to draw a substance up against gravity. It occurs when the adhesive intermolecular forces between the liquid and a substance are stronger than the cohesive intermolecular forces inside the liquid. . . . The same effect is what causes porous materials to soak up liquids. (emphasis added)

.: And now you know why it’s a bad idea to use, in lieu of a coffee machine, a mug stuffed with overflowing paper towels to make your coffee.

.: I’d show you a picture, but I already cleaned up the mess and don’t want to do it again.

Or
“Things That Make You Go M’Hay!”

.: My sister’s textbook, Molecular Biology of the Gene, 5th edition, sports this sexy cover:

.: Those of you who are biologically-inclined will have to squint to see what’s wrong, since this was the largest picture I could find. What you can clearly see, though, should be enough: an uncoiled chromosome . . . with ribosomes attached to it . . . making proteins.

.: Yikes.

.: By the way, that Watson guy on the cover? He’s the one on the left.

.: In an unrelated science topic, my sister pointed me to the Calbiochem Interactive Signaling Pathways website. There’s lots of geeky stuff there, like this pathway poster for Alzheimer’s Disease:

.: Now, that picture’s cool enough, but if you go to the website, they will actually send you a free poster! Not just for the Alzheimer’s Disease pathway, but for lots of other things too:

AKT/Protein Kinase B
Alzheimer’s Disease
Angiogenesis
Apoptosis
Checkpoint Signaling and DNA Repair
Cytokine Network
GSK-3 Signaling
MAPK Family
mTOR
NF-kB
Nitric Oxide
p53
PKA Activation
Protein Kinase
Protein Tyrosine Kinase Related Pathways

• GPCR
• Insulin
• VEGF

Protein Kinase C
Ubiquitin-Proteasome

.: Collect them all!

Or
“Vernal Rest”

.: I’m staying with my brother and grandparents for spring break. Several little thoughts and events have occurred since Saturday, among them:

• Marioushia, Mariaosa, Mariosha Oscar’s Russian friend thinks my blog lacks those all-important personal stories, containing instead too much geek stuff. Well, this post should show her. My guess is that it’ll show her why I opt for geek stuff.
• My friend Oscar met my friend Geoff, and Geoff’s friend Chris met Oscar’s friend Bryant. My brother was also there. Many things were said, most of those things were heard, and I wasted $6 at a parking garage.
• If I ever get around to making a movie, I want one of the scenes to be a neurotic guy and a normal girl out on a first date at a fast food restaurant. The cashier says, “For here or to go?” and at the same time the guy responds “For here” while the girl says “To go” — and instantly the next scene is the guy explaining to his friend, “It just wasn’t going to work.”
• Wikivandalism, when done right, can be hilarious.
• Late one night, about a week or so ago, I struck a car seat in the middle of the road. I don’t mean the kind of car seat you put a baby in; I mean a literal seat from a car — metal parts and everything — in the middle of the lane. It did some pretty nasty damage to the front of my car, including a small dent to the radiator. Naturally, people want to know why I hit it. I think my response from now on will be, “Well, I was driving 85 mph so I could get home faster, my headlights were off so I could conserve battery power, and while I was on the phone asking my brother which song I should play on the iPod I had in my hand, I saw a car seat in the middle of the road and thought to myself, ‘Eh, might as well.’” For some people, that explanation is far more believable than an explanation that contains a concept as bizarre as an accident.

.: My sister should be in town any minute now. Maybe I’ll tell her all the geeky stuff I was going to put into this post.