Priority Number One: Avoid Irritation

Ugh. The Year of the Dog continues, and then some. I'm really hoping today can count as part of last week, and that the annoying streak will come to an end.

And sooner would be better.

Finally got the back-ordered shipment I was waiting for, but it took 2 weeks longer than it was supposed to, and now I have to thaw fresh cells. So I have to wait a few more days to even try the experiment.

Finally got the approval code I was waiting for- a week late. Not sure what kind of trouble that's going to cause, but I'm worried the whole thing I was trying to get approved will have to wait another month, since the committee that does the reviews doesn't meet very often.

Why, you ask, the snafu in the first place? Because the person left a message for me, and nobody gave me the message.

Went to a lab meeting today that basically consisted of evidence that an ongoing project (not anything I'm involved in, thank god!) has been complete crap for, at a minimum, years. Possibly longer. Possibly decades. All because of sloppiness. The poor person who figured this all out is wondering if they're now allowed to work on something else. I just sat there adding up all the tax dollars that went to this project.

Complete. Crap.

Meanwhile, I thought I made a new friend this month, but New Friend is having some personal issues that make me want to steer wide & clear for a while. There's only so much I can take of other people's bad moods when they won't even let you in far enough to at least explain what the hell is going on.

Was kind of hoping I had a new friend, though. Very sad. Got any suggestions for a nice platonic gift to get someone who is clearly having a rough time of indeterminate nature?

Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure WWIII is breaking out, between Lebanon, Korea, Iraq, and our impending economic doom.

Here's the new scenario I came up with:

I reach the brink of actually getting a faculty position, and then:

WWIII breaks out.

Most scientists will be out of work, because there will be no money. Since we don't believe in war and in particular find bio-weapons to be completely unethical, we refuse to use our scientific skills to develop weapons.

We sell all our stuff and move. We spend most of our time experimenting:

with new ways to cook beans.

The rest of our time we spend to collect ration cards. So we can buy beans.

Then, when the Men all come back from War, all the faculty positions go to Men.

Right?

On the bright side, I got a little zippy extension thing for my ID card, so that's kind of fun. You know, with the retractable stretchy cord so you can slide your card without having to actually take it off.

Yay, Zippy!

Yes, that was the absolute highlight of my day.