CItation Nation

Since citations have so recently and suddenly become a part of my life, I thought I'd direct you to an interesting development: The latest MLA handbook now has a style of citation for graphic narratives. Dr. K takes a look -- and comes up with a few improvements.

Rob

In Which My Dirty Mind Wanders

So I've been looking at scientific journal citations for eight days straight, and it's starting to take the color out of the world. And, as all the articles I'm dealing with are in the same field -- neurology -- I've been recognizing the same names for quite some time now.

So, as I see a familiar scientist listed as the author of yet another article, with many of the same people he or she has worked with in the past, but in a different order, with a few new names thrown in for good measure, I do what anyone would do:

I pretend they're all having sex with each other.

The history (dare I say the annals?) of neurological pathology and experimentation has some of the kinkiest partner-swappers the world has ever seen. In my mind, the citations read like this:

North, P., Jameson, J. Jeremy, R. Giovanni, A., and Lee, H. 1992. Repeated exposure of pizza girl and pool boy to latex, baby oil, and various syrups available at the International House of Pancakes: A study in endurance and stimulation. The Secret Journal of a Horny Housewife, Vivid: 69-L7.

You should see the abstracts.

Rob

More Exciting Citations From The World of Science!

This is the sort of thing I'm typing all day:

Rydmark, M., and Berthold, C.-H. 1983. Electron microscopic serial section analysis of nodes of Ranvier in lumbar spinal roots of the cat: A morphometric study of nodal compartments in fibres of different sizes. Journal of Neurocytology 12:537-565.

It is now all too clear to me why scientists go mad.

Rob

Rob Pokes Fun At Someone Smarter and More Accomplished Than He Is

While tooling around the Internet doing a work-related search, I found this guy's website/resume. And although he's written dozens of scientific papers and contributed to tons of studies that I--and I'm not joking here--have no doubt are making the world a better place, I am amused to no end that he's set the background of his professional accomplishments to a repeating-brain pattern. And, even better, he highlights the letters B-R-A-I-N in his name. In his defense, he's a neuroscientist--it's not just that he thinks that highly of himself and his mighty cerebellum. So those might not be *his* brains in the background. They could be anybody's.

His web page (updated as recently as 2007) looks for all the world like the old Chester the Smokin' Pig website I used to have on Geocities, which I would link to except apparently the Web ate it. But my website was centered on a cartoon pig. This is essentially his resume.

Rob

Rob's Temporary New Adventures

Yesterday, my mom told me I should blog more. Since my posting has dropped off, she has no idea what's been going on with my life. So, by popular-mama demand, here are today's Adventures in Temping.

It's my first day at this place, so I really don't want to be late. I wake up early (on my drive to the train station, the raido told me what time the sun would be rising) and take a train that will get me into the city an hour before start time, allowing me time for a leisurely breakfast at the shop where I would get my traditional Steve McQueen before going into work. New work, same shop -- I just turn left and walk two blocks. It's good to see the owners and cooks, and for once I have a coffee and sit down, and work on a little One-Eyed Jack to get to Mike. Then, sandwich eaten and coffee half-done, I stand up to get to work a little bit before on-time.

And the belt buckle pops off my belt. Or rather, the edge of my belt that's supposed to stay affixed to the buckle comes free, leaving the belt hanging awkwardly open around my waist. It's happened before, and ever since it was first fixed it hasn't gripped as well. So I leave the shop and pull the belt off on the sidewalk. I try to fix it right there, but can't manage it, so I stuff it in my bag, hoping to fix it later in the day.

Happily, my pants stay up.

I get to work, and to my relief, the job I'll be doing is a sitting-down sort of job. (Otherwise I'd be working all day to make sure no one saw my Simpsons boxers.) What I'm doing is examining neurological textbooks, going illustration-by-illustration, determining which of these charts and diagrams and photographs need to have their reprint permissions secured before the books are posted online. It's not hard work, but it has to be done with care, since the citations I'm transferring to the art log can come attached to five authors and are citing journal articles with titles like "Recovery from axial apraxia in the lateral hypothalamic labyrinthectomized rat reveals three elements of contact-righting: caphalocaudal dominance, axial rotation, and distal limb action." (My doctor pal Christoph knows I'm not kidding, and is probably shaking his head in recognition. He has my deepest, deepest sympathies.)

On the plus side, I learned the word "labyrinthectomised," (possibly with a Z, as it was spelled in that title), which as far as I can tell, means taught to run through a maze. Or maybe "removed from a maze" (since the ecto root means removed, if I recall correctly). Or heck, maybe "having had a maze removed from one's body". Which seems impossible, but I bet ER surgeons can tell you stories: "Yeah, last Friday this guy came in, he had two dozen word searches shoved up his ass. Not one of em completed."

So anyway, I did that for a while. Pretty much all day. Which is why when I got home, I cracked open a beer pretty much first thing.

Ahhh...

Rob