What Do You Want To Do Tonight, Brain?

Same thing we do every night -- work late in the lab![*]

Yes, gentle readers, it is true. I am writing this journal entry from the comfort of my office, once again. Try not to act too surprised.

Actually, work is going rather well right now. After the successes of Monday and Tuesday, I opened up the cryostat today and added a radioactive alpha-emitting source. So now I am working late to close up the fridge again in the hopes of getting in a second cooldown by the end of this week. The alpha calibration source is in there to test the proto-detector that we are working on. We know what the spectrum from it should look like -- time to make some measurements and see if our little detector measures what we think it should.

In the evening -- in between work and, well, more work -- I went to St. Cross to practice my ringing with the OUSCR. The most notable progress was on Plain Bob Doubles, where I rang the #3 bell for the full extent of the method (120 changes). I also rang up in peal at the start of the practice and down again at the end... noticing that these skills have improved quite a bit, too.

Speaking of the St. Cross church, I recently learned that it will be ceasing to operate as a church soon and will be used by one of the colleges as space for file storage. I was sorry to hear this news. St. Cross has been a site of worship for over a thousand years -- an informational card in the church gives a brief history of the first millennium -- and it is a sad thing to see something so old come to an end. On a practical level, it does make sense; there are many parish churches in Oxford and the St. Cross congregation has become quite small. Nonetheless, I regret this bit of news.

After ringing practice, I cycled into the city centre to meet up with cheshcat at the Oxford Playhouse. We saw a production of Educating Agnes, which is an adaption of Molière's L'Ecole des Femmes. The performance was good and entertaining; it is not one of my favourite plays, but we did enjoy it.

In other news, my boycott of Brighton has now ended. I received word from the city today that the battle we were waging against them was successful -- go us![**] Between this and my victory against New York City last month[***], I am starting to feel that cities everywhere should rightly fear the Nomad![*]

Finally, does anyone on my f-list still read super-hero comic books? If so, is anybody currently following the "Brand New Day" story in Amazing Spider-Man?[****] If so, what do you think? I just finished OMD last night and started on BND; so far I am enjoying the story but am also appalled at the absurd retcon required to make it all happen. In a way, it almost feels like Heroes Reborn all over again. I suppose that I should just relax and go along for the ride... as it is unthinkable that Mighty Marvel will not return to Ye Olde Status Quo in good time.

---

[*] Cue megalomaniacal laughter.

[**] Especially cheshcat, who did most of the work.

[***] Admittedly a much longer and harder battle involving much higher stakes and a much more important cause (to me), but fought against a much more significant city.

[****] And the "One More Day" story that led into it.

What Do You Want To Do Tonight, Brain?

Same thing we do every night -- work late in the lab![*]

Yes, gentle readers, it is true. I am writing this journal entry from the comfort of my office, once again. Try not to act too surprised.

Actually, work is going rather well right now. After the successes of Monday and Tuesday, I opened up the cryostat today and added a radioactive alpha-emitting source. So now I am working late to close up the fridge again in the hopes of getting in a second cooldown by the end of this week. The alpha calibration source is in there to test the proto-detector that we are working on. We know what the spectrum from it should look like -- time to make some measurements and see if our little detector measures what we think it should.

In the evening -- in between work and, well, more work -- I went to St. Cross to practice my ringing with the OUSCR. The most notable progress was on Plain Bob Doubles, where I rang the #3 bell for the full extent of the method (120 changes). I also rang up in peal at the start of the practice and down again at the end... noticing that these skills have improved quite a bit, too.

Speaking of the St. Cross church, I recently learned that it will be ceasing to operate as a church soon and will be used by one of the colleges as space for file storage. I was sorry to hear this news. St. Cross has been a site of worship for over a thousand years -- an informational card in the church gives a brief history of the first millennium -- and it is a sad thing to see something so old come to an end. On a practical level, it does make sense; there are many parish churches in Oxford and the St. Cross congregation has become quite small. Nonetheless, I regret this bit of news.

After ringing practice, I cycled into the city centre to meet up with cheshcat at the Oxford Playhouse. We saw a production of Educating Agnes, which is an adaption of Molière's L'Ecole des Femmes. The performance was good and entertaining; it is not one of my favourite plays, but we did enjoy it.

In other news, my boycott of Brighton has now ended. I received word from the city today that the battle we were waging against them was successful -- go us![**] Between this and my victory against New York City last month[***], I am starting to feel that cities everywhere should rightly fear the Nomad![*]

Finally, does anyone on my f-list still read super-hero comic books? If so, is anybody currently following the "Brand New Day" story in Amazing Spider-Man?[****] If so, what do you think? I just finished OMD last night and started on BND; so far I am enjoying the story but am also appalled at the absurd retcon required to make it all happen. In a way, it almost feels like Heroes Reborn all over again. I suppose that I should just relax and go along for the ride... as it is unthinkable that Mighty Marvel will not return to Ye Olde Status Quo in good time.

---

[*] Cue megalomaniacal laughter.

[**] Especially cheshcat, who did most of the work.

[***] Admittedly a much longer and harder battle involving much higher stakes and a much more important cause (to me), but fought against a much more significant city.

[****] And the "One More Day" story that led into it.