Blogspot, drunk heterosexual theatre major.

I once saw a documentary on the Discovery Channel about the psychology of serial killers. For many of these people, the desire to kill a random person and throw their dismembered chunks into the river is literally a medical condition. It is untreatable. Upon learning this I wondered: what does this imply about guilt?

A new study published in the journal Nature today suggests a strong correlation between IQ and physical brain structure in children. As much as expectant mothers blast Baby Mozart into their bumps in the hopes of birthing the next William J. Sidis, there’s little she can do about how far her kid’s medulla will extrude. So then, what does this imply about achievement?

I ask myself: Who really controls who I end up becoming? Just how much does biology inform fate? Then I ask myself the hard question, a reductionist neutron bomb: Am I just a controlled set of chemical reactions?

And suddenly it is 2003 and I am drunk in my freshman dorm with friends again.

Blogspot, reporting winds at 5 to 10 mph.

When I was five years old, I lived under a relatively busy flight path near Minneapolis. Every twenty minutes, the dull roar of an airplane would bubble up from the background noise until you could hear the screech of the wind right before it got sucked into the turbines. Once, this sonic bubble grew so huge and unstable that I was sure it was to pop, taking my delicate eardrums with it. This would be right before a hundred tons of twisted titanium alloy smashed through my living room, taking my television and Lego pirate colony with it. It was at that tender age that I realized that airplanes could, under the right conditions, fall out of the sky in a blaze of ruin.

There's no further development for this anecdote. I wrote it because I was thinking about Snakes on a Plane.

Also, concerning boyfriend:

Right?!

Blogspot, fried crown of meats.

A quick glance at the health section of today’s New York Times online reveals a headline that should have literate pork chop fans worldwide heading to their favorite meat supplier: Pork That’s Good for the Heart May Be Possible With Cloning. These cloned animals produce Omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease.

However, before you go on that 24-hour bacon binge, take some time to read about my experiences with genetic engineering and another of my favorite foods: rice. It’s a story that starts, oddly enough, in the Netherlands.

I remember my family’s Summer 2000 vacation to Amsterdam for many reasons, among them my initiation into the dark world of reckless European taxi drivers, Madame Tussad's wax statues and penis postcards. Oddly enough, another notable part of the trip was my visit to an airport magazine stand. On my last day in Holland, knowing that my remaining collection of Netherlands guilden (the Euro was still unfashionable) was too meager to be worth exchanging, I spent it on a deck of cards and a copy of Time.

The cover story for that issue involved “Golden Rice”, a genetically modified strain of Asia’s starch-du-jour engineered to express three daffodil genes integral to the synthesis of beta-carotene. This molecule, which also makes carrots orange, imparts a warm saffron glow to each grain of rice, hence the engineered strain’s appealing moniker. Beta-carotene is a precursor molecule to Vitamin A, so the hope then was that this new rice would alleviate Vitamin A Deficiency, which results in the deaths of between one and two million children per year.

It is a testament to my high school faith in the greatness of science that when I got back home, I did a little research online and became consumed in self-righteous fury that anybody would have reservations about the genius of Golden Rice’s creator.

However, like every apparent breakthrough technology that appears, Golden Rice had its share of problems. Genetically modified foods were (and are) considered suspicious for safety reasons. The question of who would benefit most from Golden Rice was complicated by economics. Furthermore, a skeptical populace in rural Indonesia might have rejected this new rice, no matter how pretty it was, because it was foreign and off-color. Not least of these flaws was that, according to one estimate, to derive a sufficient level of beta-carotene, a child would have to consume nine kilograms of Golden Rice a day. Consumer groups called it a hoax and a failure.

In an age when we are reminded constantly of the rapid pace of discovery, it’s sometimes easy to lose perspective. As anyone who’s ever conducted research knows, disappointment is part of the game. What's worse, even the most airtight protocol might not yield satisfactory results. Going back to the pigs, the New York Times article says that their health benefits are still theoretical.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t try to explore new technologies, which is what Laura Bush hinted at when she asserted in 2004 that stem cell research was too preliminary to allow for unrestricted federal funding. Paradoxically, her words obliquely mirrored those of groups like Greenpeace who refer to Golden Rice as dangerous.

So where has Golden Rice research progressed since then? Well, a year ago (almost to the day), the BBC ran an article detailing a British company’s creation of “Golden Rice 2.” Syngenta, the firm in question, claimed to have engineered a new strain which contains nearly 20 times the levels of beta-carotene as the original. There’s probably still an appreciable level of spin to Syngenta’s assertions and their claim to have no commercial interest in the whole affair seems fishy. In addition, their press release admits that it is uncertain how long it would take to work out the international legalities surrounding the crop.

Nonetheless, it is clearly a step in the right direction. Even if it’s not the silver bullet that obliterates worldwide Vitamin A Deficiency (it is unlikely to be), at least it is an addition to our disease treatment arsenal. It’s also a bit of a kick in the teeth to nay-sayers who thought the promise of Golden Rice was some lunatic’s fever dream.

So to those of you who fantasize about a day when eating pork tenderloin will be like taking a dose of Lipitor, that day is unlikely to come anytime in the immediate future. However, humanity has a long track record of genetic engineering. If polyploid strawberries, fluffier sheep and Golden Rice are any indication, that ham-based theme party you’ve always wanted is on the horizon. All you need is patience.

Blogspot, Norweigian stud.

I think I'm staying in tonight and repopulating my decimated hard drive with mp3s. My musical taste at this exact moment, this instantaneous slice of time, is for songs that are relentlessly, even brutally, sweet.

I want music that makes me feel like I'm watching my fourth grader singing a duet in the Riker Hill Elementary production of The Very Bestest Present.

Luckily, the malt liquor makes a lot of music sound that way.

Blogspot, honored guest at the pity party.

Eventually, I plan to go to graduate or medical school. In that sense, I’ve yet to permanently enter the real world. Nonetheless, applying to salaried jobs with health insurance feels at once like waltzing through a shining gate to my future and falling into a den of unspeakable horrors. This den is called Human Resources.

My ragged messenger bag, with a strap that fits uncomfortably across my chest, is my pathetic seat belt on this little trip down. I doubt the calculator, lysine lip balm and crushed ticket stubs contained therein would confer the adequate inertia to anchor me should I be blindsided by a truck, so it doesn't do much for my physical well-being. Still, as something for me to clutch in my old lady claws, it makes me feel safe. What I need right now is such comfort, because I am moving into another one of those high strung periods of debilitating self-doubt and I'm feeling very much alone.

In the two weeks since I started hunting a foggy notion of my figurative tomorrow, I've probably managed to alienate virtually all my friends. Annoying everyone with incessant pleas to 'read this cover letter' or 'edit that writing sample' in such a short span is a feat worthy of admission to some pantheon, to be sure. It strikes me as terribly sad that nagging is not a marketable skill.

Blogspot, messenger from the hunt.

(excerpt from "Letter to a Former Employer")

I’m a big fan of ending letters on a happy note and so I have attached a picture of adorable puppies for your enjoyment.

I am losing my mind.

Someone. Please. Hire. Me.

Blogspot, blog (how postmodern).

New York is a hotbed of perversion. My parents are quite set on that. As if prompting me to schmutz about for years with alcoholics (Everyone), queers (Ryan Kalb) and Nick Rizzo (Nick Rizzo) weren't enough, New York has convinced me that a career in science publishing is something I want to do. With the way my mom reacted to the news, I might as well have told them I was going to be a crack dealer, a helicopter pilot or a Commie. To your surprise, I'm not going to write about my arduous and freak-out inducing job hunt. It is on the topic of New York as Babylon that I would like to launch a narrative of my bus ride as I passed Stamford, Connecticut.

In the southbound direction on I-95, Stamford's mid-sized office towers seem to gleam in the sun, even on days when it's snowing. In SimCity 3000, these generic edifices would first prompt the City Planner talking-head to congratulate you for your efforts to support commerical interests. The entire financial district looks so fake that these buildings resemble nothing more than a detailed re-rendering by a graphic artist of a city built with Duplo blocks.

Nonetheless, I welcome Stamford's sight, as it represents an end to both the wilderness of Western Massachusetts and the quasi-urban squalor of places like Bridgeport, which, through the plexiglass windows of a bus, looks like a city inspired by the color scheme of Saving Private Ryan. I treat Stamford not as its own entity, but as the bus gateway to New York. In the Babylon metaphor, Stamford is a modular Ishtar's Gate. It's pretty, but not terribly inhabitable.

As I pass, I am in the middle of an article concerning Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane. Having just finished a four page article about shopping and a nine page article about an art auctioneer, I found this week's New Yorker to be decently gay. The was even before the two page photo spread of Slimane coaching his male model on how to look more like a girl slash rock star.

Despite two full years of Project Runway fashion camp and tireless coaching from Leigh, I can assuredly say I do not understand fashion. The only reason I know how to pronounce Slimane's name is because of episodic audio slideshows on The New York Times. In fact, whenever I read his name, my own internal voice is transplanted by Cathy Horyn's smug, yawning robot voice. 'Head-ee Slimannnnnnne.' This became a problem when the author quotes a song that goes like this:

I want pants like Hedi Slimane.
I wanna dance like Hedi Slimane.
Live in France like Hedi Slimane.
I wanna fuck like Hedi Slimane.

Had anyone been able to tap my brain's audio output, I would have sounded like a schizophrenia patient who's supressed ego was a middle-aged fashion critic. Either that, or Horyn's spirit was trying to possess my body through astral projection so she could commandeer a Chinatown bus and kill us all.

Yep. Those were the thoughts running through my head as I rode the Fung Wah bus this time.

Blogspot, first Apple computers to feature Intel processors.

When babies in ancient Judea inexplicably died in their cribs, stricken parents could always leave it to Rabbi to blame the supernatural (Lilith did it!). Hard drive failure is the Circuit City version of such a death-from-nowhere (we call it SIDS), making it especially ripe for wacky hypothetical jaunts into the eye of Fate. As such, I posed a number of questions to myself:

Did the so-called 'blue screen of death' herald the effective spiritual end of my college career? Is it why I've stopped hanging out with everyone? If it is, am I now a member of the real-world? Should I attempt fixing this computer, since, on the flipside of that metaphor, it would mean mucking through the real-world with the shattered shell of a collegiate mindset still dedicated to the ideal that 'Tuesday is the new Thursday is the new Friday'? Is it finally time for a Mac?

The memory of a freshman year alarm clock that died sometime during my last exam in the May of 2004 further buttressed my belief that, 'Yes. This means something.' After all, the ending of freshman year demanded the death of an alarm clock. The death of college logically demands an even bigger sacrifice*.

Unfortunately, the postal service doesn't operate on Sundays, which pushes back the expected delivery of a laptop restoration CD from California by a day. Toshiba charged me an insane 5-7 day shipping cost of $40, so I'm expecting more of a laserdisc than a CD. Ugh. Laptops are such a pain in the ass.

*In my mind, that sentence conjures a scene of an Aztec temple where a priest rips out the still whirring CPU from the bound laptop while a stream of liquid crystal flows down the steep temple steps for the dogs to lick up.