from the desk of stinkpot

last night, christina and i went to the middle east here in cambridge and learned that the architecture in helsinki are disingenuous folk. they are neither from finland nor are they a particular style of building. and, their laid-back, lullaby-like recordings totally belie the energy of their live shows: watching the architecture in helsinki is […]

i blame my undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering for why i’m a hypochondriac. when you learn about how complicated things like renal clearance, action potential propagation, or even cellular duplication are, it’s not hard to imagine some small biological cog coming loose and your body’s processes slowly grinding to a phlegmy halt. come to think […]

some people when they get stressed eat chocolate. others kick fluffy bunnies. when i get stressed, i look for bikes on craigslist. and unfortunately, when it comes to resisting buying new bikes, i fold faster than superman on laundry day. (if you thought that was corny be glad i didn’t write: “i == 1 ohm”) […]

i took this picture the other weekend at a lab bbq. it’s of a labmate’s daughter; i feel like i did a good job of finding movement, perspective, and depth of field.  so what if it’s out of focus – i caught the moment.

sorry things have been so slow here lately. i’ve been super busy – i’m trying to prepare my thesis proposal, which i get to defend in front of a bunch of really, really smart mit professors on june 15th. scary stuff. i’m also infirmed: i got shingles last week and it’s been a bathtub of […]

spied this morning: deflated dead rat lying on sidewalk in front of entrance to my lab building. in spite of mit’s notoriously robust rat population, this still struck me as odd.  sick animals don’t go playing on the sidewalk; don’t they tend to rest somewhere safe? maybe it’s one of those wacked-out animal rights groups […]

i just found this video on youtube, taken at precisely the same vantage point christina and i had. chris and i even make appearances if you look closely; my chin and its ugly chin hair appears from the left frame when win is singing. reliving that song and the stage’s energy through this video makes […]

after 23.9 years, i’m ready to blow this popsicle stand. i saw the arcade fire live in concert this week and i can now die happy. [if you've never heard of the arcade fire, be like ex-lax and perform this smooth move: go to the library and take out their albums. or buy them if […]

christina’s birthday was on april 22nd. since she had midterms the following week, we kept things pretty low-key that day. however, we did celebrate in true filipino fashion: we had a breakfast of canned-meats and rice. (spam, corned beef, vienna sausage … say these words aloud to some filipinos and you’ll be accused of trying […]

i spent a lot of time puttering around my grandparents’ house in the philippines, poking into corners and rummaging through bookshelves (i lived there for about 3 weeks in february, earlier this year). one interesting book that turned up was a wacky self-help tome written by a german psychoanalyst around the turn of last century. […]