zotz | CJ, Bmovie, Slimes.

Friday went quite well at work. I finally gritted my teeth and kludged my longest-standing project - bA383M4, to its friends. It's more formally known as RP11-383M4, and the current version of the sequence is probably available on all the best sequence databases as AL158154. I wouldn't go relying on that one, though - trust me, there's a lot wrong with that version. The new one's a lot better, although it'll still be submitted with a forced join. I've been playing with this for more than two years, which is almost as long as I've ever had anything.

The reason for this was our deadline for Chromosome 9, which is now, I believe, basically finished and ready for publication in the usual place. My other outstanding tile-path clone on 9 was yRM2039, which is unusual in not being sourced from the de Jong lab. Its a YAC, which we don't use very often because of their tendency to rearrange their inserts, and apparently it's from the "Reithman half YAC" library. The point of interest is that it is believed to contain the last bits of unique sequence on 9p, and the beginning of the telomere. Inevitably we couldn't find this in the usual libraries, so we had to resort to something silly instead - hence the YACs that we always end up using at this sort of stage. yRM2039 is also done, having been polished off earlier in the week. Yay me.

After work, I scrabbled about for a couple of hours and then caught a train into the Big Shitty for B-Movie, which turned out to be an utterly terrifying experience. Every bugger seemed to be there.

swisstone's account
here has an impressive list, but also there were

agent5,

nils,

dammerel, Brigid and Alan (cue usual toilet molecular-biology discussion). Simon and Oliver turning up was staggering;

sibelian being there was stunning.

kitty_goth was there, as expected, and as expected had brought

bootpunk but hadn't told him to expect me, so he was a little suprised. It's been too long. There was a Martin, too, apparently. At least, on Saturday I bumped into a Martin who said hello and that we'd met. And many others, I'm sure. Do feel free to harangue me for not mentioning you, or not having spoken to you (at all, or enough - your choice).

So, during the few hours I was there, I had a drink or two, made vaguely rhythmic motions to (among others) Age of Chance (it's been too long), got some Borges back off

zoo_music_girl - Cheers! (and didn't talk to her
enough, for which doubtless a light-to-medium haranguing is in store) and finally got dragged away at gunpoint back to Basilica Towers. A bunch of people sat up for a while talking - apropos of nothing that I'm aware of, Matthew Ringel was there (Ximena came up in conversation, of course, as did Ofer and

jehanna - include my usual rant about the incestuousness of society here, please), as well as a very personable chap who turned out to be

boyofbadgers.

And then I passed out, on the floor and then later on the couch. By time morning arrived it was Saturday. There was discussion about keys and things, and finally myself and CJ left the place last and headed over to Camden. After a brief trawl through some record shops yielded a couple of freshly-pressed Neubauten LPs to fill an embarrassing hole, we repaired to the Dev. We left a few jars later, just as people had started to arrive. This was due to a pacing error - and happily not mine this time.

By about ten or so we were rested, refreshed, and in my case better informed courtesy of Manchester's finest. And so to the Slimelight, for the first time in 18 months. It went quite well - I spoke to

voofy for the first time in a fair bit, and

drreagan too.

nils was there, naturally, and the aforementioned Martin, which was very odd. Seemed like a nice bloke, though.

kitty_goth and friends turned up later, and eventually disappeared a short while before CJ and I wandered.

I went to sleep again. It was Sunday. I sloped off before people had convincingly woken up - occasional forays were being made into daylight, but nothing prolonged. It was nearly three, though, so I left a note and wandered down to the station.

And for the rest of the evening, I listened to Neubauten and read the paper, and then a book on junk science, and the odd bit of Borges.

Update:
And I realised that I've double-booked myself for tomorrow. So I'm going to miss the Gin Palace gig after all. Stupid stupid stupid.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com

didn't talk to her enough, for which doubtless a light-to-medium haranguing is in store

Actually I think I talked to you longer than I did to anybody else, especially since everytime I came up to speak to you the next track played was a really good one.

zotz

Do you still suspect a conspiracy? Maybe the DJs are scared of you. "Oh no - it's Fiona coming this way again - play some more Birthday Party!"

Perhaps. People keep telling me I'm not scary any more though.

And yes, you are stupid. :p Fortunately the Gin Palace are playing lots more over the coming months so I'll let you off (again). http://www.ginpalace.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/upcominggigs.htm

devilgate.livejournal.com

It's a whole 'nother language.

One which I feel the poorer for not understanding, but despite the benefits of the broad-based Scottish Education system, you just couldn't do biology as well as physics and chemistry. At my school, at least.

Though actually, I don't think I'd have wanted to do biology at the time. And I don't suppose O-grade biology in 1980 would have had much about gene-sequencing anyway.

Still, I thought my SF reading had given me a smattering of an understanding, but clearly it's not even close to a match for the naked, raw professional language.

Naked singularities, on the other hand...

Not here, and not now. Over a pint sometime? It wouldn't take very long. I can explain things a lot better with diagrams and gesticulation.

inulro.livejournal.com

I have an arts degree (and arts MA), but I work with a genetic disease, so I've had to learn really fast.

Fortunately I went through the Canadian education system in which I got a good grounding in maths and sciences as well so it hasn't been too bad.