Bragging Rights Central V

New archive post!

Remember that there's an annual vote and prize for the best comment of the year - coming in mid-December to a very silly blog near you!

Dates represent date of archiving - it's just easier that way.

VWXYNot? Comment(s) of the week: 
 
Oct 1 2010: Ricardipus for "What I like best about the pelicans I've seen (Brown Pelicans, in Florida) is how they wheel and glide overhead, obviously delighting in the wind, and then

WHUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they fold their wings and absolutely PLUMMET into the ocean after a fish.

Graceful aerobats and psychotic daredevil bombardiers all at once. Love 'em."

Nina for "google translator solely exists for the purpose of a good laugh every now and then. A friend of mine translated a persian abstract into french, but since no one spoke enough french to see hilarious mistakes, it was a wasted effort. So he put the translation into his thesis."

and Microbiologist XX for "For a second I thought maybe you found this guys Dungeons and Dragons CV."

Oct 8 2010: sooo many this week! It's the hockey pool trash talk that does it.

Thomas Joseph for "my agency recognizes papers by letting you keep your job!"

Professor in Training for "How does my dept recognize my achievements? They don't. Most of my colleagues avoid me because the more I do, the worse they look."

Pika for "we have a "mandatory"* departamental social event about once a month - just for fun. [...]

*Mandatory, according to my boss: "fun is not optional""

Bob for "And of course the imaginary answers are

1: martini,
2: University (it's in Oz)
3: computer (the computer fish is a more evolved electric eel)
4: IO (yes, that moon does have life on it)
5: DOD,
6: Stupidity (political science),
7: trousers,
8: money (as in "a fuel and his money are easily divided"),
9: jazz,
10 is rover"

Alyssa for "Damn - I was kind of hoping you'd forget about the NHL pool this year so I wouldn't feel obligated to kick ass again ;)

Seriously though, I'll have to think about it because of the whole baby-coming-in-November-thing, but will let you know!"

then ScientistMother for "Alyssa - what can't watch hockey AND give birth, talk about lack of multitasking :))) "

then Chall for "if Alyssa can be more "like all the rest of us" we'll have a chance this year (slaughter might be too big a word for what happened last year - or not ;) ) "

Oct 15 2010: soooo many good ones again! You guys are outdoing yourselves lately!

Cromercrox for "I have a theory about fuckwits, though. I don't think they are as stupid as they seem. It's all a front. I think they are all members of a secret worldwide conspiracy called S. T. O. P., the Society for Tiresome and Obstructive Pedestrians, whose members might include (but are not limited to)

1. Little old ladies who, while they seem small, walk in such a way as to monopolize the whole sidewalk;

2. Italian teenagers who are ostensibly in UK studying in English, who hang around in shop doorways;

3. Ladies with prams who suddenly stop and gossip with each other.

And so on and so forth in like fashion. I hypothesize that S. T. O. P. is obscurely allied with S. C. U. M., the Society for Curmudgeonly and Uncooperative Motorists, whose members include men driving white vans, people towing caravans, boy racers and so on."

(very meta, this one) Ricardipus for "I believe I deserve a special award for Most Reasonable Usage of the Term "WHUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" in a Blog Comment About Seabirds During September of 2010.

Also, that comment was possibly the most useful thing I wrote all month."

following on from last week's hockey pool-related trash talk between Alyssa, ScientistMother, Chall and me, here's what happened when Alyssa and Pika won the quiz last week:

ScientistMother for "No fair, some of us actually have to do IMPORTANT things like drive to work, dress, drink coffee, oh and feed small child before we can get onto our blogs. Those damn EST folks have a head start."

then Alyssa for "Tsk, tsk, tsk - so many excuses. It's all about priorities, people! I mean, how is research, feeding your kid, or sleeping more important than THIS? I figure either shit or get off the pot!"

then Chall for "Alyssa> that goes for the hockey too, right? "feeding your kid" vs hockey picks. That's a clear priority ;)

(sorry, couldn't resist.)"

then ScientistMother for "Ayssa - Chall beat me to this. But note, I had to drive, drink coffee AND feed the small child. You were complaining about just giving birth and a hockey pool. C'mon now, how hard is giving birth anyway?"

and finally Alyssa for "Oh, crap, I didn't realize you had to do all those things! My most sincere apologies. Giving birth and then learning to take care of a newborn obviously does not compare to that!"


Oct 22 2010: Chall for "Sounds like a fun thing to do, keeping the notes I mean. You do know it's the power.... to write what you want them to have decided ;)"

and Mermaid for "Maybe the solution is having one really horrible bus commuting experience to switch you back to the joys of cycling. Perhaps sitting beside someone with personal space and body odour issues....along with a cold, sneezing fits and a lack of tissue?

That would make your bike seem like a luxury!"

Oct 29 2010: Mel for "i voted for hockey shootout/curling... drunk new years hockey only lost because you admitted already that you took your skates off (very UNcanadian) and also you did not say that it was below -20 degrees (which is critical to the Canadianness)!!!"

Mermaid for "Oh, there was curling, but we never really paid attention. As kids, it was far too tame and the good looking boys played hockey :)"

Professor in Training for "I only recently saw a picture of poutine - it looks like it could very well be my favourite food of all time as it contains all of my favourite ingredients that aren't Doritos."

and Bob O'H for "I like the status quo - I hoover up the easy answers, then retire to bed and leave the hard ones for you people in the Colonies."

Nov 5 2010: Microbiologist XX for "We have a weekly group meeting that four PIs attend. Sometimes I get the feeling that if one person weren't standing in front with a laser pointer, that we would never get the hell out of there."

and Bob O'H for "I liked Clippy. Primarily because I could swear at him.
"It looks like you're writing a letter."
"No, fuck off and tell me the full reference for [redacted] et al. 1967, wanker"
"I don't understand what you're asking"
"Of course not. You're a useless tosser who should go back to Seattle with all the other idiots who live there"
etc etc"


Nov 12 2010: Hermitage for "I'm such a wimp, I got the spooks just from reading about a frequency that resonates my eyeballs. Aiiiiii, abomination! Not of the lord! Squee, squee."

Ricardipus for "You know, I think I will go through the whole pool without changing any picks at all. Think of it as a negative control."

Chall for "of course, we all know the saying - up like a sun, down as a pancake - right?!"

and Antipodean for "Ooooh. I'm as excited as a kitten in it's very own paper bag..."

Nov 26 2010:  Massimo for "I think it's true, you may be becoming more and more Canadian every day but... you're still a Brit at taste buds :-)"

and Massimo again for "I think they are looking for a high-level administrator at my institution... I am sure they can make him a competitive offer. We only want the best, when it comes to bs."

Dec 3 2010: Bumper two week edition!

EcoGeoFemme for "My friend's husband went along with her to a meeting once. He went to the poster session and pretended he was an ecologist. I guess he had picked up enough from my friend that he was pretty convincing, even though he said he was in a somewhat different subfield from her. For some reason, this irritated me more than it made me laugh."

Hermitage for "You love melancholy air? You are SUCH a Brit!" (hey, a little melancholy now and then is good for the soul!)

Nina for "I am delighted to see grey misty gloomy November weather in other places when I can finally go to work on flipflops and colleagues throw spontaneous wine tastings around afternoon teatime."

Bob O'Hara for "I think that's Chinese for "flower horribly infested with smut"."




Post(s) of the Week:
 
Oct 1 2010: CromerCrox for "Ancestral furniture" (in CC's family, "when the elder male of the clan reaches his mid-forties, he is seized by an implacable urge to make pine dressers". There are some impressive furniture making genes in this family!)

and Scicurious for "The lab your lab could BE LIKE!" and "The Old Spice lab: Does YOUR lab smell like an Old Spice lab?" (fantasizing about Isaiah Mustafa turning reagents into data. I’m on a stool. HYAH!)

Oct 8 2010: KJHaxton for "Lady Lab Coat Ga Ga" (the frustration of trying to find a practical lab coat for a woman that doesn't leave you looking like "a rectangular polycotton yeti")

Masks of Eris for "The teaching-assistantial mind at work" (messing with students' minds through the medium of URLs)

and Eva Amsen for "No-one cares about your blog (part 2)" (a very funny tale of a t-shirt, and an excellent reminder to those of us prone to MEta-blogging that really, no-one cares). 

Oct 15 2010: travel and reading hilarious comments cut into my blog-reading time this week!

Prof-like Substance for "Job vacancy: journal club killa" (there's one in every department!)

and Alyssa for Misery wars (Four kinds of oneupmanship. Can you think of any more?) 

Oct 22 2010: Thomas Joseph for "#UnK3rn3d: Life Outside the Lab?" (excellent rebuttal to Scott Kern)
Anthony Fejes for "Science blogs and Caveat Emptor. A comment on an Analytical Chemistry editorial" (excellent rebuttal to Royce Murray)

Eva Amsen for "Technical paper: home-made mocha optimization" (Abstract: "I made instant mocha at work and am now writing a silly blog post about it.")

Kimli for "False advertising" (Kimli's experience with the iPhone Facetime video calling feature does not quite match the one promised in those commercials)

and Alyssa for "My eyes! My eyes!" (I don't have a formal award for "most hideous furniture of the week", but maybe I should start one?) 

Oct 29 2010: Jenny Rohn for "In which I defend a bit of honest ignorance" (does it matter that most people don't understand technical scientific terms?)

Chall for "...not in Kansas any more..." (an encounter in the "wrong" neighbourhood opens up a new career option that could be so, so right...)

and Information is Beautiful for "The true size of Africa" (some stunning maps that put country & continent sizes into perspective) 

Nov 5 2010: Nina for "In the fume hood" (Nina continues to crack me up, this time with an explanation for why she got to experience a large aftershock from inside the hood)

and The Digital Cuttlefish for "My place in the dance of the universe" (I have to admit that I've been neglecting ol' Cuttle lately, but this post made me realise what an eejit I'd been not to keep up with his blog) 

Nov 12 2010: It's all Hermitage all the time! Check out this awesome series on "How Gaming Makes me a Better Graduate Student": Glossary, Intro, PvE vs PvP, and Gear (with more to come next week, I think). I know next to nothing about gaming, and thought the whole series was fantastic!

Oh, and Beth gets a shout-out too, for the awesome Vegetarian Lady Gaga costume she wore to my Hallowe'en party last week. 

Nov 26 2010: Bob O'Hara for "Why Libel Needs to be Reformed" (funny post (hee hee! Just noticed the URL as I added the link) about a serious subject. Please sign the petition, wherever you may live, because English libel law affects YOU).

and StyleyGeek for "Remind me why we are using a wiki again?" (almost too familiar to be funny. Almost). 

Dec 3 2010: Bumper two week edition!

The Bean-Mom for "What's important" (very sad but beautifully written tale of loss)

Prof-like Substance for "But those grant reviews are unreasonable!" (how even ridiculous reviews can improve your proposal)

Chall for "Tale of two languages" (fantastic post and comments thread about living, working, thinking, and dreaming in more than one language)

Jennifer Rohn for "In which I correspond" (the story behind getting permission to use the poetry quoted in her new book. Canadian authors FTW!)

Cromercrox for "Guinea pigs for a guinea pig?" (the story behind the next global publishing phenomenon: Defiant the guineapig: Firefighter!)

Richard P. Grant for "Onlooker" (geeky googly goodness)

and Ugliest Tattoos for "Tomorrow, on Springer" (excellent visual pun)