(no subject)

'War of the worlds' with Paul1 and Cody (who just would not stop squeaking in terror!) was decidedly average, though more-or-less true to the book/radio play. The concept was always worthy of a short film: aliens come to invade earth, but at the last moment succumb to the plethora of organisms on diseases on the planet. But a feature? no way. Word of the evening, as we exited the theatre, was 'dragged'. Funniest moment in the film was when, faced with "Dont go, son! But I have to, Dad! No, son! (etc)" Paul1 announced, quite loudly, "Oh for fucks sake just get on with it!". Cue much giggling and snorting from the audience..

Basically it's your typical Spielberg fare. A simple, moving storyline bound together with enough pro-american cheese to make a fondue that would keep Bjorn, Benny, Ann-frid and Agnetha happy for WEEKS.

Verdict: nothing spectacular, not worth seeing on the big screen. It's no 'minority report'. Save your money and buy it on DVD, you wont miss anything.

Sadistic

Everyone sing along:

I'm an asshole!
he's an asshole!
he's an asshole!
ye-o ye-o!

Is it irrational of me to dislike Porsches or, more precisely, the stereotypical mid-life crisis victim who buys a red convertible even though he doesnt know how to drive properly?

'Properly' is subjective of course, but there are a few fundamental skills, like the hill-start. If you were in stop-start traffic heading up a long, steep hill you *should* be able to start moving without abruptly rolling back 3 feet every time you set off, especially if you were driving a brand-spankin new red Porsche convertible with shiny, clean, un-marked red bumpers. For example.

Then again, what sort of sadistic asshole would notice your inability to drive and *deliberately* stop their car 1.5 feet from your rear bumper? Twice? What's wrong with a person like that? Dont they value their own car?

Or do they merely have 3 spare Piazza bumpers at home and an irrational dislike of Porsches with formerly-unmarked bumpers?

After he rolled back into me *twice*, my Isuzu's hard plastic bumpers had indeed made a satisfyingly flat and nasty black mark on his rear bumper. The first time he waved somewhat apologetically, the second time he whipped his head around, intending to glare at me for stopping too close behind his I-cant-drive-for-shit ass (I think he figured out I was doing it on purpose) but he suddenly decided *not* to get belligerent with the bearded skinhead in dark glasses, and his annoyed expression turned to apology...

Promising research...

Article on the use of Zinc Finger proteins to regulate genes

For the past several years, Carlos Barbas, who, at 36, holds the Janet and Keith Kellogg II Chair in Molecular Biology, has been pursuing one line of research aimed at answering a simple—but important—question: can one design proteins to regulate the expression of any human gene?

With zinc fingers, a common structural element found in proteins, says Barbas, the answer is “yes.”

Barbas has found a set of these small zinc finger protein "motifs" that each specifically bind to a particular three base pair sequence of DNA—a codon. By stringing several of these zinc fingers together, he can create a multiple zinc finger protein that can bind any sequence of interest, including unique regulatory regions, and to which he can fuse repressor and activator proteins to specifically down- and up-regulate those genes.