Saturday, May 12, 2007

Caffiene, vampire movies, "Do Not Pipette by Mouth"




So I hatched a diabolical plan at study group last night. Instead of buying bottled ice tea, I'd save my money and buy a humungo barrel of cheapo Lipton instant ice tea -- pre-sweetened and lemon flavored etc. It's unclear how much of this evil, addictive brew I drank last night -- but it was way too much. The presence of tonnage of the product lead to excess.

The study group powered through some chemistry, but eventually Captain America and Big Chocolate hit the road due to early morning duties, leaving Lil Mike, Doc Oc and I to try and be productive at the house. We quickly succumbed to entropy and stopped studying. It was only like 12:30 at this point -- 2 or so hours earlier than our normal study stoppage, so Doc proposed watching a movie.

I was easily convinced to stay to watch this bitching Russian vampire movie called Night Watch. I was so hopped up on Lipton that I knew I wouldn't sleep anyway. Lil Mike resisted at first but once the movie started he got sucked in by how bitching it, indeed, was. He soldiered on through some of the movie before he was getting too tired to drive and had to bail.

The movie is an A -- lets just start there. So far all the movie reviews I've written haven't busted the B category, but this one really did. It's gritty, interesting, and most of all original. The depictions of magic are... the only phrase I can use is "down to earth." Gritty works too, but I used that term already. The storyline is typically European, in that you'd better pay attention. You aren't spoon fed most anything, which I dig, even if I have to see the movie twice. The special affects aren't overblown, but are definitely adequate to depict the story. If you have any interest in action movies, or vampire movies -- definitely see it. Apparently when it came out it was a sensation; but of course passed right under my radar.

Which leads to the pipette comment. [Now that I've retrieved an image off the web, I see that pipet is spelled differently -- I don't like their spelling so I'm holding firm, screw convention].

I was drearily thumping around the house this morning in my robe, having achieved about 3 1/2 - 4 hours of sleep after the disastrous Lipton Experiment (tm). T. and The Wife were, of course, cheerily having tea in the living room, spread out on the floor as is custom. I began talking about the vampire movie from the night before, and was looking for an example of "grittily portrayed" magic -- finally deciding on an opening scene where a witch (depicted as a gregarious old lady in a cluttered apartment) pricks the protagonist's finger with a pen to get some blood, and out of nowhere grabs a pipette and sucks some up. She dumps it into a shot-glass, where it is mixed with liquor and I think lemonade mix to make a potion. This was of course a huge geek moment for us Chemistry students -- as it's well known you do not pipette by mouth in a lab. It was convention back in the day, but you use devices (pictured above) to create suction now for obvious reasons.

Well T. and The Wife dropped the movie description line of conversation immediately and just couldn't get over the whole "do not pipette by mouth" phrase. The Wife immediately started pressuring me to steal a warning sign from the chemistry lab at school, so we could hang it over the toilet in the bath room. "You could do it slyly, just work the sign off the wall a little bit at a time, so that by finals you can just grab and be off with it." T. just kept saying the phrase over and over and laughing, while rolling on his side -- his trademark belly-laugh move. So if you visit our house and there is a big Do Not Pipette By Mouth warning sign over the toilet, you know nothing -- NOTHING I tell you.

And now I head out into the world.

Enjoy your day.

Bp

12 comments:

Iciyapi Tate said...

i loved that movie, was very freaky though.. i thought the birds circling looked very cool.
I did think that the "center of dispair" or whatever the fuck they called it was pretty lame...

i mean come on.... but all in all it was a wild ride

hmmmmmm stealing, overing, taking with out permission, one wonders what such a seemingly small act brings forth at a later date.... perhaps you could Buy, trade, ask for something instead....

2 cents neatly added to your story, Thank you...

Bpaul said...

Oh I'm just joshing about the whole stealing thing. "Poetic license" and all. No worries about my moral purity Tate :-).

Bpaul said...

Oh and the sequel, or first in a long franchise hopefully, will be playing at Cinema 21 (http://www.cinema21.com/) on Finals week. For you non students, that's June 12th or thereabouts.

Iciyapi Tate said...

well with the wife and T around eating at the very fibers of morality on never knows.....one never knows

Shocho said...

I love this story and I wanna see that movie!

Anonymous said...

I like your blog, it’s always fun to come back and check what you have to tell us today.

Bpaul said...

Thanks Janet -- I always wonder how this blog comes across to people I don't know.

I think (I may check this) you are my first totally "unknown" commentator!

Congradulations!

Unknown said...

I couldn't help but laugh...this was posted on our lab fridge at work tonight as an FYI.

http://www.members.shaw.ca/jdryden10/Pictures/pipette.pdf

Unknown said...

le sigh, it cuts the url
http://www.members.shaw.ca/
jdryden10/Pictures/pipette.pdf

Bpaul said...

Great poster Kate, geeks ftw.

"A simple monthly wife of the pipette's "home base" can make all the difference."

Wow, I ... don't know what to say LOL.

Micropipette said...

Hello,
Nice blog i like it
While many whose work does not take place in a laboratory environment may be familiar with pipetting only through the single channel variety of the instrument, perhaps during a cursory course on chemistry, those who have made lab work their career use a much wider variety of pipetting instruments.

Micropipette said...

Hello,
Nice blog i like it
While many whose work does not take place in a laboratory environment may be familiar with pipetting only through the single channel variety of the instrument, perhaps during a cursory course on chemistry, those who have made lab work their career use a much wider variety of pipetting instruments.