in New Haven, the shopping carts rule the streets

This went down in front of the BHouse at 12:30am. My bedroom window faces the street and I saw it all.

First, there was a really loud clanking of shopping carts going down the street (not very unusual in our neighborhood). I looked out my window and saw two shopping carts, perfectly even but on opposite sides of the street, rolling slowly past our house. It was then that I noticed the car idling in front of the house.

Suddenly, a policeman and a rumpled looking person walk out from behind the house next door. It turns out the car in front of the house was a police car.

Policeman: (yelling) We'll get your DNA! Do you want us to get your DNA?! Tell us. Were you looking (licking?)in their windows?!

Rumpled crazy dude: (incoherent reply)

They talk together for a while; the policeman trying to figure out what the guy was doing behind the house next door. Then, another cop car shows up. The cop gets out of the car angrily. His voice sounds like one of the police dudes who came by the BHouse after the break-in.

Police guy #2: (very loudly) What were you doing back there? There's been a lot of burglaries in this area! (other angry words that I couldn't hear)

They talked to the guy for a while and in the end, I think, gave him a ticket or warning or something. The rumpled dude wandered away from the policeman and then walked up and down the block a few times yelling.

Crazy dude: You guys took it! What did you do with it! Where did it go? (etc.)

Policemen 1 and 2: (general confusion)

Eventually the police dudes left and the crazy guy wandered off down the street. A few minutes later, the rumble of a shopping cart echoes down the street and slowly gets louder. The crazy dude comes sprinting down the middle of the street with his shopping cart and his baggy T-shirt billowing behind him. It was intense.

This is about 2 weeks after an old man knocks on our door asking for the broken water heater in our back yard. Behind him was a young muscular dude with a shopping cart. weird.

fire?

David also just started stabbing me with a fire lighter, quoting Moby Dick, which lead to me yelling out 'David, don't light me on fire!'

what would you do...

... if I burrowed under the ground and started ramming the house from underneath?

Marina and David are having a water fight in the kitchen. It's getting intense. Moby Dick is being quoted. oy vey.

Not my thumbs!

Yesterday we watched the English Patient, in which there is a guy with no thumbs. Today, while making her lunch, Marina decided to not use her thumbs at all to see what it was like for that guy. For us who were watching, it was hilarious.

What?

David: [puts my important mass spec papers on Julia's back]

Marina: No! Don't put those there. Those are important

David: Maybe you’re worried about the papers being dissolved by julia’s acidic back fluid.

Marina: [indignant] Julia doesn’t have any back fluid!

David: Why would you be worried about the papers then?

Julia: [loses it]

also...

David: You guys can carry the bats. I’ll have the spunk… I mean balls.

JJJ is crazy

"You got to get the double orgasms, the doublegasms."

"BHouse, BBlog BOrgasms. you got to get the borgasms."

We had a party here tonight. All the cool people were there

The Bridgeport BLUEfish

Last night Michele and Marina drove to Boston to pick up Marina's sister, who is here to visit.
Also, yesterday evening, JJJ, Kate Kraft, her Hong Kong exchange partner Sammy, and I went to the Bridgeport Bluefish game against the York Revolution. It was pretty sweet. First, JJJ and I walked to the train station and saw a crazy person sitting in front of the station holding a baby doll and a teddy bear, rubbing hair gel into the teddy bear. Gross. Then when we got off of the train in Bridgeport, we got a little lost (aka, JJJ got distracted by the water and ran towards it, so we walked along the water which was not very direct...) but eventually made it to the game. When we bought tickets, the guy accidentally sold us tickets for the game on Saturday night. We didn't notice until the really old guy collecting tickets was like "Wait a second, these aren't tickets for this game..." and then Kate had to run back and get us real tickets. It was also Thirsty Thursday at the stadium, so JJJ had a good time with that. The mascot is a Bluefish (duh), but he was a weird looking mascot with two teeth. There was also the fisherman, who ran around trying to catch the fish for a while. The bluefish ended up losing, but it was still fun, especially explaining to Sammy what baseball was.

I learned to make cupcakes!!

Chris Young called me today. Highlights of the conversation - Chris Young: "Touching is a no-no. No, wait, I like touching. I do!"

And today I learned to make cupcakes, and they were quite tasty. I also decided I was going to pretend to be a kitchen aid blender, and had a lot of fun.
And at work today I did everything wrong: tried to assemble something backwards, spilled some peptide, and then snapped at my boss. oops.

Get over here, Elliot

Last night, JJJ and I tormented Elliot's stuffed animal Tanuki. Ransom message: Get to New Haven ASAP, Elliot.

Then we watched Jesus Camp at BHouse, with Kate Kraft and JJJ. It was scary.

And, on the way to Shaw's yesterday, some creepy guy in a white car decided to follow me, saying "Hello gorgeous, you are beautiful. Let's talk. Come on, just talk to me. Please? Talk to me." This continued for about a minute until he finally drove away. Good times in New Haven.

My God - she's huge!

Today we watched the movie Contact, which was fun. Then David was playing with these two pairs of glasses trying to make a telescope. He points it at me and yells "My God, she's huge." I gave him my death glare, and then we all laughed. That's about it for tonight.

Oh, and David is convinced that the leaving the flour and baking soda out of the cookies wasn't that big of a deal, because they did everything else right. Dubious.

Later, David discovered a bowl of dry ingredients that didn't make it into the cookie batter

that's about it

Scoot Over! Snuggle!

So right now David is learning how to make cookies by following his great-great-great aunt Athina's recipe. He is also teaching his friend Bildersee to make cookies. Some quotations from the experience thus far:
Sarah: Have they preheated the oven?
Marina: David, have you preheated the oven?
Bildersee: David, you might want to turn on the oven.
David: They should put directions in recipes in chronological order. Like put preheat earlier in the recipe, depending on your skill level.
Then, Sarah asked if they had batter yet. David kicked her out of the kitchen saying "Hey batter batter."
Later, when Marina was questioning their progress, David said "But you haven't seen this batter. It's dense, like a neutron star."

Earlier today, I was lying down on the couch. Marina sat down next to me, yelled out "Scoot over! snuggle!" and then we both napped on the couch.

There was also the time earlier this evening when David and Marina were arguing whether the skim chocolate milk tasted like chocolate milk or watermelon juice. David thought it tasted like watermelon juice. They made me taste it, and to me it tasted like both watermelon and chocolate at the same time and it totally freaked me out.

Latest quote from the kitchen:
"How are you not burning your hands off?"
"Something's gone wrong"
'Maybe it's just something that hasn't gone right"

The cookies just came out of the oven, and are kind of flat. Marina had to eat one by putting it in a spoon. As she was picking it off the plate and putting it in her mouth, she yelled "Hot hot hot in the mouth!' Now they're discussing adding more flour to the batter, because it's weird looking.
David: "Maybe we overstirred them."
Marina says: "They're tasty, gooey, nom nom nom."

sometimes i do things that make me wonder whether i'm a real person

Frank was here, but will be leaving tomorrow to go to Italy. So, we made him tasty kebabs even though it was raining and we had to hold an umbrella over the grill so it wouldn't go out. Then, he and David went to go eat free Indian food in Branford while the rest of us watched videos on the youtubes. Then, we all went to Ashleys for tasty ice cream foods. Julia got an ice cream cone of doom with three giant chunks of ice cream on it. We walk over to the front to eat it.

Julia: I am having issues with my ice cream (sets ice cream down and turns around)

Marina: NOOOOOOOOO! (two chunks of ice cream fall off the cone. one falls on the counter the other falls on the chair)

Julia picks up the ice cream, one chunk in each hand and stands there laughing holding two handfuls of icecream. We got her a cup and everyone finishes their icecream.

Julia: (while looking at her hands sadly) guys? can we go home now? my hands are sticky.

So, we leave and as we walk down York street, it starts raining.

David: Is it raining?

Marina: probably

Julia: (raising her chocolately sticky hands to the air) OH YES! (then a few seconds later) sometimes I do things that make me wonder whether i'm a real person.

yay!

We're brothers!

Upon me remarking that I had family near Newtown, PA, near where David is from, David claims: "It's like we're brothers. Except you're a girl, and we're not related." hm.
And David learned how to turn on a stove today. During the lesson, we were talking about the effects of gas being left on for too long. David told Marina and I about a story his chem teacher had told him, where some teenagers had been 'pretending to be dragons' by having alcohol in their mouths, then blowing it out, breathing fire and stuff. Apparently one guy then breathed in. David ends the story with 'It took him three days to die.' There was a stunned silence in BHouse for about a minute.
And when I was in Starbucks, some guy had to be kicked out because he came into Starbucks and was complaining really loudly about the heat. It was pretty funny.

you're so pretty. you can cook me dinner.

on Friday, i got my first ever bloody nose. it was interesting

julia, michele, and sarah all left for the weekend. only david, schwaid, and i are left. yesterday, we went grocery shopping, and stole a grocery cart to bring back all the groceries. now it lives behind our house. i went to the Mavis Staples concert, but then it rained and we went back to Emily's apartment until i remembered that all the windows in the BHouse were open. i ran back to rescue the house. it was okay. the only thing that had gotten significantly wet was my bed because it's right next to the window. at the concert, before i found JJJ, i had this conversation:

dude on the green: hey you're pretty. you wanna come home?

me: uh, no.

dude on the green: you're so pretty. you can cook me dinner.

me: uh...i already ate, but thanks.

dude on the green: come on, come spend the night with me.

me: ha uh no thanks. i'm just trying to find my friends (calling JJJ)

dude on the green: you're looking for your friends? they're not here?

me: no they're here. i'm finding them.

dude on the green: come on home with me. i'll sleep outside.

me: no thanks...hey JJJ where are you (locate JJJ and walk towards her)

dude on the green: damn. you're so pretty

You must call me...Grill Master

there was a cookout last night. i was the grill master. it was great fun and afterwards, we went out to Ashley's for tasty icecreams. yay!

Cookout!

Great success! Thanks for everyone who came to the cookout and witnessed the maiden voyage of the mini-grill. It was sort of awesome. I don't actually ever want to know how old those burgers from the BRoom were... but they were tasty nonetheless :)

In other news, I met the guy who I gave a free hug to (one of the physics/cosmology grad students who were mumbling about how we wanted something from them). It was way awkward. He just sort of glanced at me, then hurried out of the office as quickly as possible. His friend said that he was just really uncomfortable. I mean, what!? I almost apologized, but then thought better of it. Who are these physics people who so hate human contact? :(

Anyways, hope everything is just peachy wherever the Members Of are chilling... if you're in the Have, come visit!!

It's hard out there...

Marina: "I moved around lots..."
David: "Did you just say 'I moved around sluts'? Are you a pimp?"
Marina: "Yup"
David: "Was it hard out there? That's what they say about pimps. For the cadillacs and gas money spent, because a whole lot of bitches talking shit?"
Marina: "I'm pretty sure that's the case for all, um.. pimps"

Oh Bhouse.

you have no choice but to put it in your mouth

david believes that cream cheese and chocolate do not go together. yet, they do. david made julia taste the cupcake batter that was mixed with the cream cheese mixture. she didn't want to. he got it all over her hands because she refused to put the spoon in her mouth

heat wave

Today has been an extremely hot day. Like in the mid-nineties. So we've all been just kind of sitting around the living room doing nothing, trying not to melt.
At my work today, my second mentor just got back from his leave of absence after having back surgery, so now I think I'll have more actual experiments and such to do, and I'm really looking forward to that. Aside from that, today's been kind of a blah day compared to the excitement of yesterday's comic convention, avenue q, and crazy crazy people on metro-north (I think my favorite part was when we drove past a town, and one of the people yelled out 'Ah it's the courthouse. I don't want to go there again. Not again!' Or it could have been when they were talking about apartments that were really bad, and one of them said 'it must be better than when they tried to get me for murder' it was an interesting train ride).

Hopefully tomorrow will be cooler...

MoCCA + Avenue Q

everything today was generally awesome. at MoCCA, I met Randall Munroe, Jon Rosenberg, Ryan North, Chris Hastings, and Jeffrey Rowland. David got the five of them to create a combination comic strip where they each took one panel. it is the best thing ever. i asked three of them to draw me pictures and they did. I had a long conversation with Jon Rosenberg about biology and he showed me the new shirt that's on his website. i bought a lot of schwee from him. they were all really really nice. then we met up with Schwaid and went to Avenue Q which was good, too. on the train ride home, some people coming from the Puerto Rico Parade (or something) went insane and starting baaaaing like sheep because they thought they were going to get arrested. that is about it.

Darwin! Use your Ice Beam!

Recent quotes by various people in the BHouse

JJJ:

"I keep falling under David Klumpp. This chair could really help you out in life David Klumpp."

"Do you think if I pull on my hair, I'll get taller?"

"Ken only shaves the insides of his legs."

"I like how you're touching your hair. Do it again. Now, dance around in a circle."

"mmm. texture. I want to touch that (Julia's shirt)"

"It looks like there are goldfish in your ceiling light."

Ken:

(in a sing-song voice) "We are the crabs. We sit on your balls. And pinch your nuts."

David:

"Do you remember when log-a-log got pwned?"

Frank:

"Do they have the little house books in scenic locations? Like Little House in War Torn Iraq."

also, look up "bearded justice" on youtube. happiness will result.

Rainy Day

First off, yesterday JJJ came to visit. We were hanging out for a while, and then she and I and Brittany went to go see Sex in the City, which was very girly. And then Ken and Greg are both hanging out in the band house for this week, so there is much band all around.

Today there was much rain, which made the trip to science hill particularly unpleasant. Michele baked some excellent chocolate chip cookies. Band House is bustling tonight - there are 9 people staying here. Yay

this has been my day

dude, my fungal extract is awesome and killing things. michelle's office person thinks she's strange because she gave out free hugs this one time. he looks at her with disdain.
we went to shaw's. david klumpp did not get kicked out of shaw's. we have chocolate soy milk now. it is a success.
we ate pie for dessert. so we wouldn't have to do dishes, we all ate from the pie tin with forks. frank was here. we chillaxed, made puns, and a good time was had by all.
when i woke up this morning, it was 5:00. i think i have frostbite or something on my hand from the -80C freezer. i have not accidentally burned the hairs off my hand with a bunsen burner for about a week.
david klumpp is listening to civil war songs. greg mosby is here. he can send discuss posts from his brain.

Move In Day!!!!!11

Today we moved in. It was intense. Marina says: "The parents was intense. Except for David Klumpp's parents. They helped me make my bed." There was paint in the bathtub, and one person hadn't moved out yet. Our fridge had the most crazy mess ever. There were brownie chunks in tupperware and mango chunks in the freezer. Michele and I start work tomorrow, and Marina's already been working. She has an endophyte that smells like skunky beer. David Klumpp doesn't know when he starts working, but probably soon. If you're in New Haven come visit us!!