I always thoguht of myself as one of the most awful excuses for an artist. And then to my surprise, I scribble out a diagram labelled of a vacuum pump, and everyone is really impressed by my abilities. What does this tell you? It tells yout hat people who get into science can't draw for shit- even by my standards.

Of course, scribbled in my lab notebook, I had labelled "Your Friend, the Vacuum" for one label, which caused much jolity amongst my fellow cheesies, as well as a very light talking down to from the boss, who is such a Cat, it's not even funny.

I swear, my vaccuum pump will never be complete. There was the week of changing the oil. Then there was no real oil available. Then the pump was fine, but now the stuff I need for the setup for the traps and such are missing.

It makes a ratty wanna cry.

So there I am, burning my paws on hot oil as I change the oil on two vaccuum pumps, and suddenly a thought occurred to me. I narrowsed my eyes, and perked up my ears and said in my best Doc Bones imitation "Dammnit Jim! I'm a chemist, not a mechanic!"
 
Sigh. My humor was, alas, not greastly appreciated. The amusing thing is that I've never changed the oil on ANYTHING before.  But, I still had a better idea of what I was doing than anyone else. When I hear someone say "What's the purpose of the oil, anyway?", I push them aside and just take over and fix for them. That's why I did two. I was of course figuring it out as I went along, but it really wasn't all that difficult.
 
So, aside from some minor accidents, everything went peachy. Of course, then we discovered that we had enough cleaning fluid to drown an elephant, but only enough actual oil for one pump. Of course. Because god hates me.

Mwa ha ha ha ha. Not only did I get my paws on a pair of sets of brass weights form a hundred years ago ro so, but a balance, a glass pestle, two glass mortars (I don't know which is which tho), and a centrifuge. I always wanted my own centrifuge.

If you want something done right, don't do it yourself- get someone else to do it with the appropriate carrot in front of them. Thus yesterday I came in in the morning and met with David, a fellow cheese-eater. He says to me that we have been offered a paper if we do a good job with our work. Well. 14 hours, several thousand dollars worth of chemicals, two take-out dinners, 3 packages of ramen noodles, 4 chemical spills, 6 cups of coffee, one hyperdermic needle through a finger, and endlessly re-played versions of "Can't Touch This", "Africa" by Toto, "Holding out for a hero", "The Thong Song", and, of course, "Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer later, we finish, happy and satisfied and head for home. When the results came in, I let out a rebel whoop the likes of which have not been heard for a hundred and fifty years.

What are we doing tonight Brain? The same thing we do every night, Pinky....

The theme song of the night became "Don't touch that" by MC Brok.

This is the way it is. That is, this is the way it really is. I know what you imagine it is working where I do, but let me paint you a picture of me today. Here I am, hunched over a light bulb wrapped in a towel, whacking the thing with a hammer trying to bust it. Not doing so, trying. It's harder than you think if you want large pieces- the hammer kept bouncing off.

Now, why was I doing this? This was no ordinary light bulb, but a special red one. The red was dark enough that it oculd be used in a darkroom. Upon shattering, it turned out that the bulb was not colored that red, but had a thin plastic layer upon it (a gel) which gave it it's magical color. Anyway, that plastic had to be swept off to the spectrofluorometer to be analysed by fourier analysis to determine the exact wavelength that the color absorbed. This was done so that we would know what color gels we later wanted to order the next time we do.

All this ran through my head as my paws scrabbled with the hammer, brigning it down repeatedly on a lightbulb, thinking "This is the way it is. This is the way it really is."

Peanut butter will never mean the same.

"What do I remind you of?" (a beautiful, bikini-clad blonde)
"Skippy peanut butter."
"Skippy peanut butter?"
"Yea. So spreadable, it's incredible"