I'm driving home to New Jersey today. I'm flying to DisneyWorld tomorrow. All is well with the world.

I bought a bathing suit yesterday for the trip. Upon finding out that I had gotten one in an AIM chat, my mom said, "Yipee!!!" She scares me sometimes. I haven't had to wear a bathing suit in about six years. No swimming, no ocean, nothing. It's possible that I won't even wear my new one on this trip. Very exciting stuff, I know, so I'll keep you posted.

I spent Thursday, yesterday, and today in my research lab. Doing what? Cloning. That's right. They've intrusted me with G-d-like genetic power, and let me clone. It was only DNA cloning from one vector to another for the purposes of protein expression in E. coli (whatever that means... lol), but it was cloning nonetheless. I figure I'll be working on cloning humans within a month. Nobel Prize and Catholic excommunication, here I come!

I made a new AIM buddy icon!

The new one:

The old one:

For the uneducated, SonicBeetle (TM) is my fake company, sometime screen name, and the name of my first car. That car was a black 1998 VW New Beetle. I have not had that car since August. It was obviously time for a change.

I've been sick again lately, so I went to extreme measures and took a drug called Lomotil that I know works well for me, but is a controlled substance and has some bad side effects. Some of the officially observed side effects of Lomotil that I personally experienced in the past 24 hours: abdominal discomfort, dizziness, dry mouth, exaggerated feeling of elation, flushing, general feeling of not being well, headache, lack or loss of appetite, nausea, numbness of arms and legs, rapid heartbeat, restlessness, sedation/drowsiness, and sluggishness. But how could he be both restless and drowsy? you ask. Over 24 hours, much can happen.

Another undocumented side effect of Lomotil is its ability to totally screw up dreams. I had some pretty vivid ones last night, including a depressing one in which I received a phone call telling me I had gotten a smaller part in Much Ado About Nothing. I'm pretty sure the character's name started with a "G," but when I went to look it up online, I found that there are no roles in that play that start with a "G." And that is the only way I know that this phone call didn't actually take place. Unless I got the name wrong, in which case it might've. I'm really not sure.

There's this new acting thing at Hopkins called the "Underground Shakespeare Company." They're putting on Much Ado About Nothing, and I auditioned yesterday, and made it to call backs today. (They, by the way, is two guys and a girl. Yes, the whole organization is three people.) They had me reading mainly for Leonato, Dogberry, and Antonio, mid-range parts in the play. I didn't get a good read on how my audition went, so I'm basically waiting around for the phone call or e-mail that lets me know. I would be very happy with either Leonato or Dogberry, so here's hoping.

I wonder if I'll ever get the lead in a play. I mean, Leonato, for instance, is number three for lines among men, which is pretty damn good if you ask me. I've gotten second or third male leads before, and they're normally wonderful parts, but I can't recall ever getting the lead. Maybe I'm just not the right kind of guy. Maybe there's some leading man gene required, and it isn't turned on in me. That kind of thinking terrifies me. Even if I keep auditioning throughout college, my casting history should show that my chances aren't very good. Once I get out of college, unless I actively pursue acting (which isn't going to happen), my chance effectively drops to zero. I really used to think it would happen at least once in my life, but even that seems to have fallen out of the realm of possibility. Man, that sucks.

When I went to the call backs today, I was driving around the parking lot, looking for a space, when something large landed on my windshield with a very loud thud. I freaked out, yelled, and honked my horn by accident. It was a windy day here in Baltimore. Windy enough, it seems, to turn a large branch of a tree overhanging the parking lot into a large branch on top of Dave's Jetta. I don't think there was any damage, besides the mental trauma, and the effect that might have had upon my performances today. That's right... if I get a crappy part, I'm blaming it on that branch.

So, when I came into work today, no one was there.

For the first half-hour at work, I was completely alone. I work in the Hill Lab at Johns Hopkins University. I'm not sure exactly what I could've done with all the chemicals I had sole access to in that half-hour, but I'm sure it would have been something very cool and very dangerous. But me, Mr. Responsiblility, the Eagle Scout of the world, I did nothing. It was like the willpower of Roald Dahl's Charlie had overpowered me, and all I could do was keep my hands to myself and wait for the other lab members to show up, so I could get to work. The imaginary world of high adventure from my grammar school years was shown to be long behind me. And when domestication sets in, there is no going back.

Yay, two updates in two days! Although my site technically fits into a 640x480 space, it wouldn't be visible on someone's computer with that resolution... all of the IE toolbars squish the available space down. But it wasn't even fitting in 800x600, so I moved the buttons over to the side. This gave me the opportunity to make a cool little sidebar in the remaining area. The hidden bonus in this update is that my page now half-works in old Netscape, granted that it does so without much text formatting or any working layers. Oh well. I guess if someone is just dying to read my page but only has Netscape 4, it can now be read. I'm not sure, however, how much of this demographic actually exists... what with only seven people using that browser, and with no one actually caring about my site.

Yay, site update! It's little things like "[+]" turning into "[link]" and a new archive format that will catch your eye. But, in reality, what I have done is rewritten the site's backend. No, that does not involve me having gay sex with my webpage. What it does mean is that it should be very easy for me now to make the versions for different resolutions and old Netscape browsers, while maintaining the integrity of my weblog across all versions. Plus, it reduces the total disk size of my site. Isn't this the best news you've heard all week?

So, I've been reading this other weblog called usr/bin/girl. It's by Zannah. She's all the way across the country in Seattle and she has a significant other... but otherwise I think she's perfect for me. Anyway, the way that everything she links to instantly captures my interest is uncanny. I'm certain that she tracks my personal interests and has created the site just for me. It's funny how easily the world falls into place when you're egotistical, huh? Anyway, her site inspired me to update my links section.

I should probably apologize for the fact that I won't be updating my webcam at all this week. It will be a sacrifice for all of us, I know, but making fun of Adam for a week is worth it.

You know, I hate to keep blasting on the Russians, but I read an article in the NY Times today about how they're spreading this propaganda campaign against US chicken legs. This might not seem like much, but the US provides Russia with like 61% of their chicken, about 1.28 billion chicken legs. And they're trying to ban its import, probably for a number of clandestine reasons. The campaign says how US chicken is injected with too many antibiotics and such. The really telling thing, though, was this newspaper headline over there that said "They banned chicken for doping." Vindictive bastards. Sore losers. Click here to read the article in PDF format.