I’m all over the place today – it’s getting to that time of the year when my two jobs converge, meaning that I have two play two roles in an equally half-assed manner. In my role as lecturer, I had to cancel a practical this morning because we couldn’t find any human DNA to use. In a School of Pharmacy and Medicine. So, I scooted over to Pharmaco* to get a jump on my work there only to find that all the work I’d done on the drastically urgent project at the end of last week (and over the weekend) had been superceded by a new drastically urgent project today. I’m protesting by intermittently writing this blog post.

Thus the erratic nature of this post. Rather than trying to force together a coherent narrative, I’m going to address some questions you’ve asked, questions you’ve not asked and things that you probably don’t need to know.

Smoking or lack thereof…

Eight days and counting. Champix does what it says on the tin. I do not want a cigarette. The times that I’ve caved and smoked one, I’ve gotten all the pleasure that I imagine I would get by smoking rolled rat feces. There were some side effects – quite bad nausea, creepy dreams, a nearly overwhelming desire to throttle Dr. O’C for her lack of navigational skills – but they’ve largely passed now. I hate to pimp for Big Pharma, but well done Pfizer.

The house hunt…

We found what I believe to be the most beautiful rental house I’ve ever seen in my many years of renting. It’s almost literally next door to Dr. O’C’s workplace and the hospital where she’ll be giving birth. It’s all wood and glass with fruit trees, a pond and a sea view. A sea view, gentle readers. We’ll hopefully hear ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ by tomorrow. In the interim pray to the baby Jesus, Vishnu, Buddah, Allah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster for us. Sacrifice a virgin or behead a chicken or whatever it takes to get this house for us.

UPDATE: WE GOT IT! Good work on the chip thing, Agnes.

How’s Dr. O’C?

Pregnant. She’s past the morning sickness of the first trimester and is keeping the whinging to a minimum. We’ve got another scan in a couple of weeks, as I’ve just been reminded. She wants a pregnancy widget. I think it’s a bit creepy, but pregnant women get what pregnant women want around here. Thus, if you’ll look to your right – a creepy 3D pregnancy widget.

UPDATE: Creepy 3D widget replaced with Dr. O’C’s (in my opinion equally creepy) widget.

The Decemberists!

New album, “The Hazards of Love” is out and absolutely fantastic. Easily the best release so far this year and the best Decemberists album thus far. My first ever blog post was a defense of progressive rock and The Decemberists. Colin Meloy and Co must have liked the taste of prog rock on “The Crane Wife” because they’ve gone all the way on this one. It’s a beautifully textured concept album. Meloy has wisely brought in a new female voice – Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond – to play the part of heroine. “The Hazards of Love” is The Decemberists’ “Thick As A Brick” and, yes, that is a very good thing. The album is out today on iTunes, for whom I’ll no longer shill (long story), and will be available tomorrow from Amazon and much of their back catalog is available from eMusic.

A guest has not to thank the host, but host the guest.

I guess all those guest posts I finagled while I was away means that I have to return the favor. I paid Rassles off and my guest post over there will be up today and I’ve got another due at the end of the week for someone else. I kind of have a crush on Rassles (Her writing! Her writing! I don’t even know that she’s really a girl. She could be a guy for all I know. Or a penguin. Hell, I could be a penguin who is stalking some nice Australian family and putting their pictures up on the internet). Where was I? I’ll put a link up when my post goes live. It’s actually one of the best I’ve ever written, and really should be up here, but it’s rated R for drug use and moronic behavior. And my Mom reads this blog. Hi Mom.

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* For fairly obvious reasons, not really the company’s name.

I used ‘thus’ no fewer than three times in this post. Quite pleased with that.

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Image credit:

Stubbed

 
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