swerve and I had awesome seats for the Bruins-Leafs game last night. I swung by her place after work, hung out with Cricket a bit while she put her face on, then we hit the T for the trip to the Garden.

Blue liner Dennis Wideman opened the scoring with a slap shot from the point on the power play and then rookie Blake Wheeler, taking the ice with his new number for the first time, added another PP goal two minutes later on a nice tip of another Wideman shot. Five minutes into the second Wheeler added his second of the game on a beautiful feed from Marco Sturm. I looked at the clock, realized there was still 35 minutes to play, and started wondering. It's funny, swerve and I had been joking about stuffing old hats in her bag to have on hand "just in case" so we could toss hats but still hold on to "our" hats.

In the third period the Leafs made it a 4-2 game and pulled their goalie with about two minutes left in a last desperate attempt to tie the score. With a minute left Sturm found an open Wheeler on the blue line. Wheels skated it across the red line, got to about 20 feet from swerve and I, and fired off a shot.

I'm pretty sure my hat was the first to hit the ice and it settled nicely on the blue line in front of us. I really liked that hat, but it was lost to a good cause.

Perhaps both.

I wear contacts. Daily disposable ones to be exact. I love them and am glad I made the switch but sometimes I wonder about them. And me.

This morning when I put the lenses in the right eye felt a little weird. This is not all that surprising; sometimes one lens is not seated quite right or there's a speck of dust on it or whatever but normally it gets better by the time I get to work. This morning, however, it felt weird the entire trip in. I couldn't quite focus on the sudoku/crossword in the free rag that's handed out on the T. So I figured when I got to my office I'd pop out the lenses, put on my glasses, and go on with my life. Good plan, right?

So I pop out the lenses and put on my glasses (that was, after all, the plan) and head to my weekly lab meeting. Except something still isn't quite right. Things aren't quite as sharp as they normally are. I spent a few minutes taking off my glasses and looking at the journals across the room and comparing them to what they looked like with my glasses on. No noticeable difference. I am, however, surprised that I can read the titles without my glasses on. I try to read notes I've made and they're little fuzzy. But the main point is there's no real difference between glasses on and glasses off. Now I'm starting to wonder what could have happened to my eyes overnight. Am I just still not quite awake? I got my flu shot yesterday, am I slowly going blind? Did somebody secretly replace my glasses with Folgers Crystals plain glass? The point is that something was pretty obviously not right. Naturally I did what any true man would have done - I shrugged my shoulders and forgot about it.

So here we are 3 hours later and my eyes are really starting to annoy me. This is not just normal "I've been staring at Excel for too long" bugging either - I'm starting to get a little bit of a headache. So I take off my glasses and start rubbing my eyes ... and a contact pops out of my left eye. Ummmm. What? So I futz with the right eye and a contact pops out of that one as well. Interesting. Now I know I didn't have my coffee today but I'm pretty sure I remember taking out my contacts before I put on my glasses this morning. So to the trash can I go. Fortunately I've only thrown away a couple pieces of paper (I know, I should recycle. Bad me.) so it's easy to search the bag. And there they are - two dried up contact lenses. Very interesting. I ponder this discovery. I confirm that in addition to these two dried up lenses in my trash I have two freshly removed lenses in my hand. I'm left with only one conclusion.

Apparently last night I forgot to take out my lenses when I went to bed. And then when I went to put lenses in this morning I managed to put new lenses on top of old lenses. No wonder my eyes were bugging me, I had two lenses on both eyes. And then I somehow managed to remove one set of lenses while leaving yesterday's set on my eyes. That's a pretty neat trick. But now all is well and they lived happily ever after.

Current Music: Double Vision

Just got home from the Bruins home opener. Not a bad way to shake off last night's Sox game (bah). Tired and sleepy but a fun night (as always) with swerve. A pretty good game that the Bruins had every chance to win but couldn't quite get a second goal to pull ahead. And once again they lose th shootout. Sigh. It's a point which is nice but it woul dbe nice if they started getting that second point now and then.

But for now I'm tired and have a bit of ringing in the ears (great crowd!) so it's time for bed.

Behind the awesome left arm of Jon Lester the Sox knocked off the 100 win LAAofA last night to advance to the ALCS to face traditional division rival ... Tampa? Oh good. More cowbell.

The best part is I was one of the lucky winners of the ALCS ticket lottery and, because I have some smart friends, was able to get through the VWR hell in under a minute and score some sweet tickets to home game 1 (game 3) on Monday. Last year swerve and I were lucky enough to win the ALDS lottery but this is the first time either of us will be at an ALCS game. Also, the baseball gods really shined on us because the game will be on Monday. And because of the Columbus Day holiday it'll be a 4:30 start. Sweet! It'll still be chilly but certainly better than the last two nights at Fenway where the temperature dropped to the 40s. Good times!

Or, you know, not.

Science is so freaking cool. It's been more than a few years since I've had physics but it's always fascinated me. I don't pretend to understand all of what's going on with the LHC but I get a decent amount of it. And I can't wait to see what we learn. Also, The Science Channel (now in HD!) had a special on it the other night that I have DVR'd and ready for me to watch at my leisure. Possibly Thursday night since the Sox have an off night. (Other programs in my queue include "Secrets of the Moon Landing", the Dirty Jobs episode where Mike goes to an alpaca farm, and a special on the Dubai ski resort. I am such a dork.)

Related: The The LHC rap cracks my ass up (work warning - it's a youtube link)

In other news I managed to pull the wrong lever for my coffee this morning. Instead of my normal New England Breakfast Blend I have Blueberry something or other. That was a bit of an interesting discovery. At least it nicely compliments my blueberry muffin. (Hello, muffin, you look nice today. Looks like you packed in some extra blueberries this morning!)


In other other news life is pretty damn good. :)

So I'm sitting in my office doing science type things (And by science type things I mean talking to swerve and reading about Manny Ramirez) when my boss walks in.

"Hey Bowmaniac, we have some extra cervicovaginal tissue blocks. Can I get some HSV from you to infect them?"

This is normal office conversation, right?

In other news, life is very good and I'm an lj slacker. Film at 11.

If you are going to have a meeting in your office would you please, for the love of all that is good in this world, CLOSE YOUR FUCKING DOOR! ESPECIALLY if you insist on using the damn speakerphone.

Failure to cooperate may lead to the slamming of doors and/or your fucking phone being thrown through the window. Continued abuse will lead to me having fun with your computer. Don't test me. Unless you know how to remap your keyboard layout.

Current Music: a cacophony of voices

Hey look! I still have a journal! I've even been keeping busy and doing fun things in the last two or so months, I just can't seem to get myself to sit down and write about it. Bah. Oh well, maybe I'll go back and fill in details eventually.

The quick version:
Had a wonderful trip to FL in Feb. I had tried to plan it so that there would be a shuttle launch (my sister's new place is like an hour from the Cape) but because of delays it didn't work out. Instead we took a drive down alligator alley to the Everglades and spent some time communing with nature. Holy cow was that a fun trip. I'm kind of an astronomy geek and it was really cool to be in the middle of nowhere and see all the stars. The sunroof was a nice addition. If you ever get a chance to take an airboat trip through the Everglades I would highly recommend it. I would also recommend stopping at the observation decks and spending some time watching the gators. They're absolutely fascinating creatures and it's pretty cool to stand less than five feet away from them. Maybe I'll get off my ass and upload some pictures at some point.

The Bruins had a great end of season run and an even better playoff run. In a series no one gave them any chance to win they forced a seventh game and caught the attention of the city. And my Pens are doing pretty good for themselves as well (knock on wood).

The Sox traveled to two countries before coming home to pass out the new championship rings. This was the first time in seven or eight years I haven't been able to get tickets to Opening Day but swerve and I got together to watch at my place and with as cold as it was and the length of the ceremony/game we both agreed it wasn't necessarily a bad way to spend the day.

I replaced my (old and gross) blinds with fancy new ones that allow light to filter in but still allow for some privacy. They make such a huge difference; it's awesome walking out in the morning and having it be so nice and bright. (Big ups to swerve for some gentle nudging to finally do it and especially for coming up when the guy was here with samples. It's always nice to have another opinion, especially one I value as much as I do hers.)

Anyway, it's been a fun couple of months. And looks like things will continue that way too. Good times.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to pick up some strawberries to celebrate the merry berry month of May. Mmmmm. Strawberries.

Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday, dear swerve
Happy Birthday to You

Looking forward to celebrating with you! :)

This amuses me greatly.

Signs of panic over 'Chinglish' in Beijing
By Aislinn Simpson
For years, badly translated signs have had the Englishman abroad in stitches. But for tourism officials in Beijing, a city preparing for the arrival of millions of visitors for the Olympic Games in August, the problem is far from funny.
It has also instructed the city's 4,000 unrated hotels to translate their names, service hours, room rates, menus and notices into accurate English.
Restaurateurs have been given a list of the proper English names for the most commonly mistranslated items, including "virgin chicken" for a young chicken dish, "steamed crap" instead of crab, and "burnt lion's head" describing Chinese pork meatballs.



For the full article (and more signs!) click here