there are lots of words that become part of the fabric of the english language. where did the term 'wife-beater' come from? i'm talking about those wife-beater shirts. how did its use become so prevalent? when someone talks about clothing in terms of a wife-beater, most people know what that is. i just think it's funny that that shirt will be forever associated with domestic violence. i applaud whoever coined that one... cause it's funny.

have you seen the new clorox ad for germ killing products with the kids? i'm not really for our anti-bacterial kill all the germs mentality we have now, and i hope i don't shelter my kids that much if i ever have any... but i do like the commercial. it includes questions and statements made by little kids such as:
'i think salmonella is a dinosaur'
'washing your hands is STUPID!'
'what's an immune system?'

really cute, really funny.

here we are again being pig-headed americans. think we'll ever think about people other than ourselves?

shep... that's all.

don't you just love westernization?

i think i've replaced smoking with email. maybe that's why when i'm vacation the urge to smoke goes up?

this is actually a plan that i like. it'd really be neat to be able to bike/walk across the state along the canal. start @ the falls, end up @ battery park a couple weeks/months later.

did about 6 miles today blading with dr. jay. really out of shape. it's what sitting in the library for a whole semester does to you... plus no movement from walking around a large city. it was a great day to be outside though... hopefully saturday will hold out, i have to make a habit of this.

boston, buffalo, camarillo, kent, louisville, new orleans, pocatello, valhalla, worcester.

where would you like him to end up?

congrats to c & e!

forgot to congratulate dr. buckles... er... dr. michalak... i thought he would gradumacate with his doctor of audiology degree next month... but i was wrong. my apologies.

Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent. Remember to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all “mean it.” A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment, for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind. And always remember: Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

so there's a wedding over the weekend of jul 17th in new york that i'm gonna try and make it to. i just applied to 2 jobs today... one with the office of information resource with the dental school @ ub for a tech position, and the dept of biochem for a summer lab position. i'm wondering if i should apply for a position with cit and/or alumni dev. they kinda want people to stay for at least 2 semesters, but i don't know if i'll be @ ub next year. anyways i hope to have some positive cash flow in the coming weeks so that i can afford transport to the city, and a wedding gift.

here's a shout out and congratulations to my boy dr. pahade. wouldn't it be nice if the dr. title started to change your luck with the women? why don't you just import from the motherland? it'd be funny to see your parents or auntie's spring a surprise or 2 tonight =].

watch this (you may need the newest version of realplayer)... and hold your applause til the end. (wp link courtesy of kim)

what they should have done is contacted the people that put up the fence around the washington square arch in order to keep the arch from running away. so now they have to go looking for a lake... jeez... it could be anywhere!

human progression from dos/win 3x/mac os < 10 to unix.

i think the only show i've been semi keeping up with this past year is lost. i think it's a great show... all mysterio and stuff. it's also nice to see some asians on tv and not just cast as these super smart brainiacs... but actually have dramatic roles... and character development that delves deeper. plus daniel dae kim (nyu alum!) who plays jin and yoon-jin kim who plays sun are good looking to boot... especially yoon-jin kim... stong asian female character... totally hot.

my mom was diagnosed with cnv and macular degeneration today. she's going to start treatment with a drug/process called visudyne and lasers tomorrow. i guess she'll need to go through this treatment a couple times per year, and all it can do is slow down the process of her vision deterioration but not completely stop it or reverse it. i hope everything will work out though, i don't think she's taking this so well. so if anyone can send any good thoughts/vibes/prayers... i know she'd appreciate it (as would i and my fam). thanks.

i must have been pretty lucky in my guessing on the american chem society final for orgo 2... cause i was hoping for a b, b+ in the high range for the class. i was pretty surprised when i found out i got an a- in the class. rack up another a in cell/molec bio and what should be a's in my anat and phys lec and lab and i did pretty well this semester (for a stupid asian that is =]).

i just want to say... that at some point, i will go see episode 3. i will go and waste money to see this p.o.c. because i'm obligated to go see it. if i'm going to see this steaming pile of stuff, it at least has to be in a theater cause at least the sound effects will be good with the things blowing up and people dying in the intergalactic battleyness. i already know how i'm going to feel about it afterwards. i'm going to be pissed that i had to spend money to see it and feel cheated by george lucas. same thing happened with ep1 and ep2. the whole anticipation thing is nonexistant... not like when i was small and waiting for the original movies... now it's just kinda... crap, the next star wars is out... ugh, fine... i'll go see it.

and the winner is... "ginormous". ginormous is a fun word to say. it's one of those words that makes me happy when i hear it.

i was driving down jja pkwy early this eve... and i saw a muffler on the side of the road. kinda reminded me of the whole camping thing with leng so very long ago... good times.

i'm already settling into the summer thing with the lazing around.

june 10th, sloan @ the sphere in buffalo. june 13th, sloan @ bowery in new york. i wish there were more people around here. i miss going to the bowery shows with tc, and stocham.

perfect day for the 990, windows down, and treble charger.

it's been a really weird day.

The Beauty of New York

    Franz and Sabina would walk the streets of New York for hours at a time. The view changed with each step, as if they were following a winding mountain path surrounded by breathtaking scenery: a young man kneeling in the middle of the sidewalk praying; a few steps away, a beautiful black woman leaning against a tree; a man in a black suit directing an invisible orchestra while crossing the street; a fountain spurting water and a group of construction workers sitting on the rim eating lunch; strange iron ladders running up and down buildings with ugly red facades, so ugly that they were beautiful; and next door, a huge glass skyscraper backed by another, itself topped by a small Arabian pleasuredome with turrets, galleries, and gilded columns.
    She was reminded of her paintings. There, too, incongruous things came together: a steelworks construction site super-imposed on a kerosene lamp; an old-fashioned lamp with a painted-glass shade shattered into tiny splinters and rising up over a desolate landscape of marshland.
    Franz said, "Beauty in the European sense has always had a premeditated quality to it. We've always had an aesthetic intention and a long-range plan. That's what enabled Western man to spend decades building a Gothic cathedral or a Renaissance piazza. The beauty of New York rests on a completely different base. It's unintentional. It arose independent of human design, like a stalagmitic cavern. Forms which are in themselves quite ugly turn up fortuitously, without design, in such incredible surroundings that they sparkle with a sudden wondrous poetry."

                                     -The Unbearable Lightness of Being

so i've switched out of my low-key low-fi just plain low music this past week. currently i'm revisiting the treble charger discography... but more so the last two uptempo albums. i think wide awake bored is an excellent album. i think the tracks on it are a little more solid than detox (not that detox is a bad album)... but yeah, w.a.b. is a good lead in to summer. i'm waiting for the perfect day to unleash weezer's green album.

i need some recommendations for new rockin summer music... anyone have suggestions?

here's an article about new cancer drugs that multitask... kinda like unix. the best word in the article is 'fandangled'. all the big companies are in on the action... where is elan? when will my stocks recover?

buffalo's central terminal got its clock back.

what's next... tompkins sq park gonna get a facelift too? i think the only thing i agree with is the removal of the asphalt mounds. i was always looking @ them like... chef... in that episode with kevin... all looking and being all... 'what is that thing!' and the focus goes to kevin, and back to chef and chef's all... 'no! really! what the hell is that thing? it doesn't look like anything!'

you gotta respect favre's old school thinking.

and one of the new bioinformatics buildings is now open!

i should eat more fortune cookies (link by tc).

things i must do before too long. go blading before jp moves out to the city, hit up a bisons game, go to anderson's for custard.

today... my parents were totally shameless with the pressure. dropping not so subtle hints left and right, but thinking they were being covert.

this summer's concert series @ the square has some artists i will definitely want to check out.

the low are playing! jul 28th. sarah harmer's on jul 7th, and g. love's on the jul 21st.

i'm having one of those questioning days.

when a person goes through life... do they reach a point where they just throw up their hands and just let life come to them and accept what's coming, whatever that may be? there's just so much news out there that's horrible. i just watched some tv (which i haven't done in awhile) and a story on the lockheed martin meridian, 'bama shooting came on. it seems it was racially motivated, but lockheed martin hasn't done anything about it. they have been saying, along with the local and federal authorities so far that it was just work-place violence and was not based on race.

then i got to reading this just now. 40 states have laws barring same-sex marriage. it's not that i didn't expect that most of the US would have bans on same-sex marriage, but i guess reading it this time, the number just really stood out. that's a disappointing number.

so in my last public speaking class, someone gave a persuasive speech on legalizing marijiuana. it's a pretty charged issue i guess, there were a few people vehemently opposed to it. they called it a gateway drug, they were afraid of the consequences, they classified it as dangerous and it would be abused even more if it were legal, etc. i don't buy it. with everything we do, it is all about our own self control. people will do things that they enjoy, they may one day not find enjoyment in that activity, or they may have a bad experience with it and not do it again. no matter how many laws you place on it, people will do it. it just means that more people end up in our prison systems if they are caught, more people will be in our legal system, using up our tax money for things that it could be better spent on. it's all about self control, and in the US, we are spoiled and we have no self control. people associate legal with safe. legal is not safe, legal is safe if people have self control. we still have hundreds of people killed by drunk drivers, we have people abusing alcohol, people die from lung cancer because of cigarette smoke. these are choices that people make themselves. the abuse of prescription painkillers is increasing. those drugs are legal... that doesn't make them safe. instead of forbidding people to do everything, we must instead move to teach people to use things responsibily. people SHOULD have responsible sex, people SHOULD know the effects of drugs so they can make an informed decision on whether or not they will do it... it's kinda like when you were growing up all the things that you learn from your parents. how to use a knife RESPONSIBILY, how to mow the lawn without chopping your leg off, how you shouldn't touch the hot stove. some of us also need to realize that making something legal will not mean that everyone's going to go out and abuse it. there isn't going to be a run on weed... seriously. superfluous rules and regulations don't necessarily make a society any better. american kids are now DUMBER than ever before, and we have more rules now than ever before.

finally... the erie county budget deficit is now thought to be in great excess of $100 million. this region is literally falling apart. the city of buffalo is under a state control board, now the county may have to get a control board. why is this happening? cause people don't change, and because people don't want change. it's come to the point where we HAVE to change, otherwise there will be nothing here. now i love buffalo... i think anyone who knows me can attest to that. this place has been good to/for me, it's taught me a lot about life. i've gone through some usual, and unusual circumstances here, but they all shaped me for the better. so here is the crossroads... with everything falling apart, and change being forced on people as well as people realizing they have the power to change things... there will be more opportunity to create something good and new here from the ground level... to say "i was a part of building that". on the otherhand, things could quite possibily never get better. my old friends here are dwindling as each year passes. this place just isn't the same anymore.

you know... people always want to be a part of something... relationships and relating is what any life is about... but this can be done anywhere. when do you give up fighting the good fight and move on to something easier cause the situation you're presented with is something you think is hopeless. hope is something that has carried me for a long time... but i feel like i'm coming up empty a lot lately. how do you change things when the thing that needs changing is too big? i'm talking about everything that's wrong that's still happening now... even though people have been fighting it forever. what happens when most days of your life, you feel like you're banging your head on a wall? well... what happens is your head cracks open and your brains spill out onto the floor and you die.

so... it just goes to show... what i've thought all along. that life sucks and then you die.

at least for a little bit. no more movement of proteins through the endomembrane system, dolicol, clathrin, cop1 & cop2. no more adol condensations, enols, syn/anti, cis/trans, R/S, flipping imaginary molecules around in my head, nuc/electrophiles sn1/e1 sn2/e2. i don't have to keep it all straight in my head anymore! (not that i could keep it all stright anyways). all i have left are an anat & phys practical, and an anat & phys final. then... uhhh... i don't know what happens. i registered for microbiology and biochem for the summer... but i'll be dropping one i think. hopefully i'll hear back from mcp soon on whether i get a thumbs up or thumbs down. thumbs up... i take micro, thumbs down i take biochem.

i need to find a job... i'm leaning towards doing the tech thing again for now... it'll allow me to get a better wage.

so right now, i have a good feeling that i won't be going to pharm school next year. going into it i wasn't sure how this would all work out. there were 2 options. 1) get everything done, take full loads for a year and a half or so. 2) spread it all out over a longer period of time 2-2.5 years. it turns out the latter probably would have been better. everyone always says apply early... apply early. well... it was almost kinda impossible for me to research schools, write all the personal statements/essays, take a full load, and study for the pcats and apply early too. plus i had a full 16 science credits or so that i'm in right now, which is a chunk of the science prereqs. on top of that... all the programs have gotten significantly more competitive. i'm good at underestimating things... seems i did that again. so... i now have a gap year... that i'll need to fill with a masters... but most of the masters programs including the mph @ ub are 2 years. i will seriously be 90 years old before i finish the school thing.

eh. i've been averaging 3-4 hours of sleep over the last 5 days. i'm gonna crash. then after that, i'll wander around aimlessly in life some more.

we can't even be good at the snow thing.

ugh.. everything's this week...

here's a link tc sent... all funny walkin, teetering, tottering, waddling, wobbling, PENGUINS! at the central park zoo being all penguinEY on the webcam.

that's all... study study... be hardcore asian!

this one's courtesy of jay... a must see for people who like wine.

here's a fun puzzle that goldsmith sent.

that's all... gotta cram for orgo, cell bio, and anat & phys.

that the low may play a t.a.t.s. show this season.

plus, the bpo is playing t.l.o.t.r. symphony @ artpark.

i'll have to make an attempt to make it to this this weekend.