Sweeties!

Isn't this amazing?! Thanks to http://dna-protein.blogspot.com/ and everyone should go and visit her blog :)

Haha!

An elephant walks into a room with a naked man.
The elephant says to the man, "how do you breath through that?"

Ohhh...

...Sherlock!

Given the ending of this series, I'm so glad there's a third series. in thew works.

I'm a little bit in love with Moffet's interpretation.

Merry Christmas!

I am currently having to CTRL+V every time I want an s in whatever I type. Because my keyboard has stopped working. It is infuriating. And I hadn't realised how much I rely on that one letter. so (sorry,  I didn't copy a capital s) Does anyone have any ideas as to how to fix it? The little soft plastic nub under the plastic key isn't working either. so the key is not just stuck.

HELP ME.


In other news, merry Christmas. This year, I feel festive :D.

Also, I have gotten used to CTRL+V remarkably quickly. Interesting how easy it is to adapt. Not that I don't want my s fixed though...

Some Things.

1. See there is a new link at the top of the page? I've decided to start reviewing the books I'm reading. Go have a look :)

2. on a trip to Morrisons yesterday three things happened that made me smile.

         a) I met the nicest and politest counterman. It was all Madam and an enthusiastic how can I help you? And then he complimented me on my fabric water drop badge. That is first time anyone noticed it, and it was just nice.

           b) As I wondered past the socks and tights I passed a man looking so very confused. So I helped him. The look of relief on his face was pronounced.

           c) Morrisons have those huge two compartment revolving glass doors. As I was leaving, I had to join a queue. A queue to exit the shop. Does that get much more British?

You know you´re ...

... a biologist when

You open the toothpaste with one hand.
You wash your hands before and after using to the washroom.
When you hear tween, you think of the surfactant not the age group.
For you, media is something which increases your culture.
You can identify organs on roadkills.
You have a callus on your thumb.
You use the word "aliquot" in regular sentences.
Sometimes you momentarily vanish from social activities because of a timepoint.
You've never worn a clean lab coat.
You don't fear rodents, rodents fear you.
You say "orders of magnitude" in regular sentences.
You flinch when you hear the word "significant".
Showing up at 10AM and having a coffee is a productive day.
You can't stand god-like physicians, while secretly wishing you had their job.
You're very good at diluting things.
You're also very good at transferring small amounts of liquid between containers.
You are fed up of people saying alcohol, when they mean ethanol.
You hear the word ‘Molar’ and teeth are the last thing on your mind.
You say “conjugation” instead of “sex”, and "pili" sounds dirty. (giggle)
SOB is not an insult, it's what you grow your bugs in.
You say "mills" and "megs".
No-one in your family has any idea what you do. (not quite true, but the ones who do, do the same thing :D)
You can make a short film in power point.
You consider a green laser pointer to be science bling.
A falcon is not a bird....
... And you have 5 of them with different types of water
When your fruits go bad and you get fruit flies, you can't help but check their eye colour
You own invitrogen t-shirts and actually wear them.
You think that drosophila geneticists have a good sense of humour.
You refer to your children as the F1 (I LOVE this one:-)).
You've suffered carpal tunnel from the pipetman.
You've used kimwipes as kleenex.A timer clipped to the hip is not only practical, but dead sexy.
You've played Battleship using tip boxes.
The front pages of Science is your light reading.
You think the following is a quality insult: "I've seen cells more competent than you!".
The scent of latex reminds you of work, not play. (snigger)
You're looking for a cooking book by maniatis.
You've made dry ice grenades.  (no, but I have made a TV mad Scientist's Lab with dry ice :D)
You've lost many friends to ice grenades...

I don't usually do these, but it made me laugh.

(edited: the you know you're a biologist when courtesy of http://dna-protein.blogspot.com/2011/07/you-know-youre.html?spref=fb&m=1 (thanks!) )

Also, for fun:

 Play battleships with a 96 well plate, and put clear starch solution where your ships are and plain water every where else. and then use iodine as the bombs!

Family trees

Now that I've caught up with Iplayer, and Charmed and, oh everything else time wasting I could remember, I've decided to have another look at the family tree my granddad sent me. I must admit, I was quite overwhelmed at first with the sheer number of people that he and and my Granny Ann have put on there. Going back through my mams paternal ancesters, I soon found lots of cases of what I can only assume are family marrying family, or marrying out of the family and their children marrying back in^^ 

All I can say is it doesn't seem to have done any damage. Plenty of Age-at-deaths of 85+, but it really brought home the differences in culture, at least my culture and that of my parents and grandparents, I guess that is just about the age of mass transport, when it was available and really for the first time, in the case of my grands and great-grands, widely available as well. With all the world to see, why look in your own backyard?

So really, my mother's side of the tree is (heavily) populated, so I decided to turn to my fathers side. Now I never knew my granddad, he died at the start of the 80s and I was born at the end. I do know he had tightly curled red hair as a boy though, and that it lost only a little of the curl when he grew up - much like my father, in fact. And I know that he was tall. 6 foot 6. With my nana being at the (very) short end of 5 foot, I've had to smile at the pictures of them both. I can't help but wonder what he was like, this tall military man. I wish I'd known him.

I guess in a way doing this, and listening to the stories of my granddad, and finding his family, is a way of getting to know him, and it gets me talking to my nana about her parents as well. That's nice. And well worth it just for that.