Bull Moose Strikes Back

It looks like tomorrow might be the day some people around work get the ax. Despite the fact that the company has moved from a socialist commune that sold nothing when I got there to a fine example of capitalism with an actual income now, they still need to trim the fat. You see, as an evil drug company, we need a lot of money for advertising the obscenely expensive clinical trials required to develop our pipeline, and one therapeutic just busting into the market isn’t going to fund all of that.
Because this is the one instance in my life where I’d probably be happy about being laid off, my job is probably safe. At first I thought that because the heavy lifting of approval is done so I’m kind of overqualified for what they have me doing now, and the fact that they all know I’ll be looking for a law job in a year at the latest, they might put me on the list. Then I could coast into May on the severance, cash in my options, and start a summer position at a law firm, relaxed from three months off of work with a nice wad of cash in my pocket from stock options. (Of course, a hiccup in this cunning plan is that I haven’t secured a summer position yet, but someone will get desperate soon.)

But I think I’m too cheap and do too much useful work to be included on the list. If they got rid of one of the useless VPs they could pay for five of me. (Not including all the cash the shelled out for my son’s surgeries last year because they self-insured.) Plus they want to keep an eye on me since I vote Republican.

I thought about going to my department head and flat out telling him if he was looking for a name I’m his man. But then I thought if they didn’t need a name he’d know my interest in working for him had wasn’t very great. Awkward… (Of course, he should know that by the fact that they dragged me away from my old department kicking and screaming to help them, but they may have thought that.)
However, if they do lay me off I’m betting I’ll have quite a gathering, since I’m sure they’ll be expecting me to blow up. I hope they don’t think I’ve lost my mind when I go “yippee!” instead, ruining their show.

Stay tuned…

UPDATE: Nothing today, either the management never saw Office Space, or their waiting until at least next Friday. Maybe they watched Office Space during their long meeting this morning.

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I wonder who a Marine has to piss off and how badly in order to get stuck with the assignment of recruiting in Berkley, California.

First of all, what the hell kind of Marine are you going to get out of Berkley? You’re set up to fail from the start, unless you have some really good giant-puppet shows about how the Corps’ uniforms are made out of hemp or something.

And now as if the job of trying to recruit vegan hippie love children into the Marines wasn’t hard enough, the Berkley city counsel has decided that the Marines are intruders and has set Code Pink up with parking and noise permits right outside the recruiting station. A couple of weeks of listening to those shrieking hags and you’ll swear never to even look at the Commandant’s daughter again, I’d bet.

It looks like Berkley is also looking for some legal advice:

In addition, the council voted to explore enforcing its law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against the Marines because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

I’ll take this one, freelance: You can’t do it. That’ll be $500, please. Cash.

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This kind of sums up what happens when Washington State Democrats are put in charge of anything in a microcosm:

After a 20-year tug-of-war between the political parties and the state over the best way to pick presidential nominees, Washington sticks with an oddball hybrid – caucuses for party activists on Feb. 9, followed by a primary for the broader electorate on Feb. 19… But there’s a big catch: Majority Democrats are using only the traditional precinct caucuses and subsequent party conventions to allocate their national convention delegates, and will completely ignore results from the much more popular primary.

That’s right, it becomes a confusing, cluttered mess, and what the normal voter wants is ignored. It happens in Seattle city government, it happens in King County government, it happens in the state government, and apparently it happens within their own party.

So, why is the state running a $10 million dollar election for no reason? Oh, yeah, Washington Democrats run the state. (Yeah, I know Secretary of State Sam Reed is a Republican, but he only runs the elections the legislature gives him.)

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Last month, I asked readers: “Would you, could you, vote McCain?” How about now? At the moment, I’m with Rush: “I can see possibly not supporting a Republican nominee.” – Michelle Malkin

I have to stop listening to the radio and reading political blogs for awhile. I just can’t take any more crazy talk about not supporting the Republican nominee in the general election if it is John McCain, which looks all but certain now.

Now, McCain has his flaws. In fact, it’d hard for me to understand how he was my first choice for president in 2000 unless I knew that he fell in love with his own media created image as a “Maverick Republican” (as opposed to a Goose Republican, I guess) over the last eight years and changed. But come on. No matter how iffy he is on tax policy, illegal immigration policy, or judges, he would be much better than Hillary or Obama on any of those. And on Iraq, the war on terror in general, and a lot of fiscal issues he’s very much in tune with the Republican base where Hillary or Obama are polar opposites of the base.
It’s almost too bad the Democratic Congress hasn’t done anything. If they had I could ask Republican voters if sitting at home in ‘06 was a mistake they wanted to repeat. I’d wonder if it was part of a larger strategy, but I don’t think San Fran Nan and Pinky operate on that scale.

I hardly think turning over the country to a Democratic congress with no check other than a dyed-in-the-wool socialist like Hillary, or a left mystery like Obama is the move that Republicans want to make just because John McCain has been on the wrong side of some issues. I think Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are going to (or do) realize that and are going to look awfully silly in the late summer when they do a 180 and start singing John McCain’s praises.

If they don’t, I think it’ll be out of some bizarre belief that America could take such a beating for four years that it will prompt a true conservative hero to ride to our rescue in 2012, like Reagan did after four years of Carter. That’s taking an awfully big risk that history will repeat itself, especially when you consider that we haven’t even recovered fully, and likely never will, from FDR or LBJ, much less Carter.

There’s nothing wrong with supporting another candidate in the primaries, and pointing out John McCain’s flaws is fine. But conservative talking heads going out on a limb to declare they might not support a Republican candidate in the general election is just silly.

UPDATE: Bob at eCache thinks that falling in behind McCain against Hillary or Obama would make me a party stooge. (He didn’t quite put it that way, but I think that’s the thrust.) If that’s the price I have to pay to keep Hillary or Obama out of the Oval Office, I guess I’m a stooge.

UPDATE 2: I like this quote from an Althouse commenter on the subject: “The fit of pique that overcame the party’s better judgment in 1992 got us Justices Ginsburg and Breyer – seats that might otherwise have gone to Starr, Easterbrook, Kozinski, or any number of people who would have been preferable. People need to get a grip, focus on what matters, and confront the reality of McCain rather than a myth that is grossly disconnected from whatever his actual failings happen to be.”

UPDATE 3: John Hawkins has an article at Townhall.com that says the same thing about McCain. The emotional money quote: “May God forgive us if we condemn a million plus children a year to death by abortion because we’re angry at John McCain.”

The pragmatic money quote: “[W]hat’s our alternative? President Hillary Rodham Clinton or President Barack Obama, socialized medicine, losing the war in Iraq, allowing Al-Qaeda to run wild for 4 years, exploding deficits, huge tax increases, and a liberal leaning Supreme Court for the next decade. “

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• For some strange reason this is the most disinterested I’ve been in a Super Bowl since, say Super Bowl XXXIII. Which is to say I’m only extremely interested. But I’m a bit too let down to be ultra interested.
• This post is a perfect summary of why I tend to watch the Super Bowl alone at my own house since I moved away from my life-long Packer fan friends. The twice I made the mistake of having or going to a party I can’t remember much about the games, and they were both good games (Super Bowls XXXVI and XXXVIII).
• As a student of intellectual property law, I understand why the NFL forces advertisers have to say “The Big Game” instead of “The Super Bowl.” But that doesn’t make me any less sick of hearing their clever code. I wonder which big game taking place this Sunday they are talking about. Perhaps the pivotal mid-season match-up between the Montreal Canadiens and the New York Rangers?
• I performed an unscientific poll based on quizzing random people I saw walking around or that I talked to on Xbox Live as to why America wants the Patriots to lose. Here are some common reasons I heard:

1. Have a restraining order against Randy Moss: 1%
2. Are meter maids who were run over by Randy Moss: 1%
3. Are hot actresses impregnated by Tom Brady who then ran off: 2%
4. Parents put them through college working as sweatshirt sleeves: 2.5%
5. Enjoy cheering for hopeless causes: 7%
6. Are actual Giants fans who were not distracted by the market on Wall Street: 0.5%
7. Are Eli Manning’s brothers or parents: 1%
8. Are the ’72 Dolphins: 2%
9. Rushed a different frat than Tom Brady: 3%
10. Dislike cheaters who can’t avoid being caught: 3%
11. Are alcoholics and don’t want to hear about any Bruschi: 4%
12. That one dick at work who always wears a Red Sox hat even though he’s not from Boston really wants them to win: 1%
13. Are just really sick of Boston, Boston sports fans, and Boston sports teams: 76%

• A consolation for the Packers not making the Super Bowl? I don’t have to walk around in this ugly shirt:

The late ’70’s called. They want their cheesy star back. (Of course, a shirt can only be so ugly if it has both the Packer G and the word “Champions” on it.)

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It’s my birthday. I remember when I used to enjoy these things. I think I’d still enjoy them if people wouldn’t make a big deal about or even acknowledge them. Instead of taking a day to reflect on the year, I have to acknowledge someone wishing me a happy birthday so enthusiastically, you’d think that I was celebrating winning MVP of the Super Bowl rather than not buying the farm for another year. Not that I mind happy birthday wishes, it’s just I don’t like it overdone.

For example, yesterday my boss came up and said, “Pick a place; I’m going to take the group to lunch to celebrate your birthday tomorrow.” Hey! Great! Why would I want to go to lunch with my friends on my birthday, talk about our common interests and have a few beers when I can go to lunch with a bunch of people that I’d have to think about whether I’d pee on them if they were on fire and not drink because my boss and dotted-line-boss are there watching? I can’t tell him to piss off, because the goals ser for me was to be more “interactive” with the group. I’m pretty sure that’s going to be a “be careful what you wish for” thing for them.

At some point, unless the new age ends with a zero, it gets a little sad to get worked up over one’s birthday. I understand my daughter being excited about turning three in a couple of weeks. There’s a huge difference between two and three, and after all, this birthday thing is still novel to her. However, the difference between thirty-two and thirty-three isn’t that great, and the difference there is isn’t anything worth celebrating.

I’m old enough now where I remember my grandparents as active older people who gradually broke down until they were full blown falling apart old people, who always seemed to be in pain, or needing surgery, until two of them died and the other two are on the verge. I remember my parents as being vital early-middle aged adults and they’ve slowly turned to the forgetful, cranky, tired old people, who I won’t even talk to anymore. Another year closer to all of that? Hurray! Get out the Champale.

Of course, when you’re a kid you look forward to some presents from mom and dad and grandma. My wife got me something nice, I’m sure, but it’s not quite as fun when it’s paid for out of our community property checking account.

Hmm… In any case, I wonder if they still sell Champale anywhere.

While I find that out, here is my favorite birthday moment from The Simpsons:

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There is a threat (hope?) of snow shutting down Seattle tomorrow.

Back home in Wisconsin, it took a big storm to shut things down, here it only takes a few inches because 1) they don’t invest in snow removal equipment which they would need only a few days a year; and 2) people don’t understand that slamming on your brakes is the correct way to deal with a slide.

I’m really hoping to get shut down tomorrow. Call me lazy, I don’t care. I always seem to need more sleep these days. And more Xbox 360 time. Besides, I’ve kind of got post-approval blahs at work, which is kind of like post-Christmas blahs: the excitement is over and you realize you’re a lot worse off financially than you had hoped to be.

UPDATE: No such luck. Work is on, as scheduled.

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This is awesome:

I look forward to running from the mob/zombies/secret agents of an enemy government while having my GPS-plotted escape route displayed without having to take my eyes off what is ahead of me.

Or geocaching. It’d be cool for geocaching. Or watching a movie while I’m at a boring meeting. So many possibilities…

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God help me, I’m already craving another road trip.

I was thinking about this for spring break:

View Larger Map

Has anyone been to the Grand Canyon and/or Death Valley in March? I’d think that would be the time to go. Who knows when I’ll ever have a week in March when I can go somewhere ever again.

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I haven’t watched 60 Minutes in years, but I might have to watch this segment on Sunday:

Saddam Hussein initially didn’t think the U.S. would invade Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction, so he kept the fact that he had none a secret to prevent an Iranian invasion he believed could happen. The Iraqi dictator revealed this thinking to George Piro, the FBI agent assigned to interrogate him after his capture.

Well there’s an answer to the nagging question I had following the realazation that Saddam had very little (not no) WMDs: Why the hell was he acting like he did and why did he carry that bluff to the point where he ended up in a noose?

Hopefully the next two-bit dictator who is a thorn in our side will be more worried about the United States, less worried about the two-bit dictator next door and war can be prevented.

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Is this tax rebate plan really a good idea? When they handed out rebate checks last time, it wasn’t a bad idea because the government had a surplus that it was sitting on, allowing the money to stagnate. This time it feels like someone buying me a drink at a bar when they can’t afford formula for the baby at home.
I understand the reasoning behind it, but it seems like some targeted tax cuts would be a better idea. I guess it just feels like a half-assed, feel-good measure that’s not going to do much of anything to fight off a recession.

On the other hand, Sony would be brilliant to cut the price of the PS3 to $299 the day those $300 checks go out.

The $1200 my family will get will pay for one month of daycare. Woo-hoo! One month on San Fran Nan, Pinky Reid, and Dubya!

UPDATE: Wait… You only have to make $3000 a year to get $300? How is that a tax rebate when someone making $3000 a year isn’t paying income tax? That is free money.

Then someone making $75,000 a year gets nothing?

Socialism is alive and well.

I call shenanigans on this whole scheme.

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Still no word from that patent troll firm that I interviewed with. Which means either I have a rejection letter sitting in a to-do stack in the typing pool, they are doing a background check on me, or they are going to keep looking and see if they find anyone better before hiring me.

I noted something peculiar about Seattle employers from the first time I looked for a job here: They tend to urgently want to get you in for an interview and then you don’t hear from them for a long time. Even if you politely remind them you are waiting to hear they seem to forget about you.

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I can understand why Heath Ledger (likely) overdosed, whether he did it on purpose or if he was just trying to ease the pain of his life. I mean, being incredibly good looking, having millions of dollars, and having your choice of beautiful women who throw themselves at you must be a horrible, horrible way to live. I can see why one would need to turn to drugs.

What the hell is wrong with guys like him, River Phoenix, and the like? At least John Belushi and Chris Farley weren’t good looking. All four of those guys were talented, too. Why can’t we get some of those High School Musical kids to overdose instead?

Oh, I see, Ledger was upset that he’d miss his two-year-old daughter. How’s that plan working out for you know, Heath? I’m sure your daughter will be pleased with this turn of events.

I see so little of my daughter during the school year, I miss her. Maybe I should turn to drugs. Wait, I can’t afford a drug habit. I guess I’ll use some of my good looks and charm to get some for free. Nope, that’s not going to work either.

That’s just great.

And I was really looking forward to The Dark Knight. Now it’s going to feel creepy.

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My brothers are in Green Bay today to watch the game, freezing their asses off. Lucky bastards! I wish I was there freezing my ass off. I let my brother who lives in Miami use the ticket my youngest brother offered me. He’s not accustomed to the climate he grew up in anymore, so I hope he makes it all the way through. I figure we can all say we’ve been to a cold NFC Championship game in Lambeau now, so if the chance ever comes again, I’ll jump on it.

Quick prediction: I think the Packers train keeps rolling today, and heads to Arizona. Favre picks apart the banged up secondary, the Packers line holds against Michael Strahan and company the way they did against the Squawks last week. Ryan Grant continues his successful season, but keeps the ball off the ground today. Giants offense has a little bit more success than the Seahawks did after the first four minutes, but it’s not enough. Packers 34, Giants 24.

UPDATE: Or not so much. Congratulations to the Giants, but yet another Boston-New York championship is hard to take.
Problems today for the Pack:

1. They didn’t get the breaks they got most of the season. Honestly, the Packers could have been 9-7 in the regular season, but for some good luck. Aside from the fumble immediately after the first Favre interception they didn’t: The fumble on the punt in the end went to the Giants after a Packer had it in his hands (that is why you fall on it!) another Giants fumble bounced out of bounds, maybe Webster drops the interception. But that’s football. Sometimes you get the bounce, sometimes you don’t.
2. Play calling: For some reason, the lesson of the Dallas game wasn’t learned. Instead of sticking with 5-8 yard passes Favre tried to either go long, or they kept coming back to a screen that just wasn’t working. So many 3 and outs led to no chance to get the running game started.
3. The coaching staff was way to slow to accept that Harris needed help with Buress. It’s not like they were using an extra man to get pressure on Manning, so why not bring in another back to help him.

This one is tough to take. At least if that Pack had got to the Super Bowl and lost, hey, they were up against the perfect team. It was kind of a win-win.

I guess the only thing to do is take solace in the fact that the Packers weren’t really supposed to be in the conference final this year anyway and that they should be very good again next year.

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I must have passed this hot dog outside a hot dog stand in the ferry terminal hundreds of times:

Today I noticed something disturbing about him. Well, besides the fact that he’s an anthropomorphic hot dog. What I found even more disturbing than a hot dog with arms and legs is that he is applying condiments to himself.

What the hell is up with that? He’s preparing himself to be eaten. Kind of like the chunky girl in Silence of the Lambs was applying lotion in preparation to be made into clothes. But unlike her, he seems to be happy about it! Look at him. He’s smiling and squeezing the ketchup on. Worse, he’s licking his lips. What the hell? Does he think he’s going to taste good? Does thinking about how good he’s going to taste make him hungry himself? Or is it even weirder and he’s going to eat himself, and licking his lips in anticipation of that?

The hot dog guy – he freaks me out.

There was more freakiness at the ferry terminal tonight. Something I have never seen. A youngish, not bad looking woman was sitting at one of the tables, leaning back in her chair happily knitting, WITH HER SHIRT WIDE OPEN AND HER NOT GENEROUSLY COVERING BLUE BRA EXPOSED. And I don’t mean she had it unbuttoned a few buttons, I mean she had no buttons done up, it was hanging at her sides as she leaned back, and everyone was getting the full show. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a bikini top at the beach on the right woman. You might say I even enjoy that. But it’s just a little strange at the ferry terminal in January.

I got my phone ready to take a picture of her as evidence, but right as I did one of my law school classmates who lives on Lawyer (Bainbridge) Island walked up behind me. The last thing I need is a rumor going around that I’m a perv who takes pictures of women in their underwear in public places and posts them on a blog… even though that was pretty much the plan.

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There was a certain biotech company that I’m familiar with in the area today that received approval to market a drug. In all of the congratulations going around, one of the long-time employees said, “It’s been a long time coming. I first sequenced that protein twenty-six years ago.”

Twenty-six years.

Granted, that’s longer than the average time a therapeutic compound takes to go from discovery to being put into the hands of doctors, but by definition that’s the case with half of the drugs. Sure, the certain company could have done things more efficiently, and probably will next time. But it still took twenty-six years.

Twenty-six years ago I was in second grade. Now I’m in my third year of law school, which I started eight years after I finished my B.S. During all of that time an expanding group of people have been investing time, labor, and money to change a DNA sequence into a protein that is now a useful therapeutic able to help surgeons save a life.

The next time you think about complaining about “big pharma” ripping you off when you pick up your life-saving or life-enhancing medicine at the pharmacy, think about what you were doing 26 years ago, and realize that there might have been someone developing that drug since then.

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We’re having our first Trademark class right now, and the prof is handing out beer. Granted it’s beer that have had trademarks since the 14th century, but beer.

That’s either a really, really good sign, or a really, really bad sign.

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There’s finally a stamp honoring a biochemist, and the Post Office screws up the molecular structure of her discovery:

I’m glad that I can still look down my nose and scoff at that like one of the nerds in the Simpsons. Law school hasn’t drained out all of the science nerd in me yet.

This reminds me of the Wisconsin – Stanford Rose Bowl Game on January 1, 2000. We were sitting in the stands watching the pre-game show when it was announced that the Stanford Band was going to honor their opponents by forming the chemical structure of lactose with their band members. The tubas were individual carbon groups, oxygen molecules, and so forth with the other band members forming the bonds. Well, they didn’t end up coming even close to what I was taught the structure of lactose was.

I say “what I was taught” because obviously I was wrong because they were from Stanford, and therefore automatically right about everything, especially since they were the Stanford Band and way more enlightened than even the average Stanford student. So until I’m told different by someone from Harvard, I have adopted their structure.

UPDATE: Since someone will ask, the mistake is that the bond between the ring and the phosphate group attaches to the wrong “O.” It is trivial, but the thing that makes it stupid is that if you are going to bother to write the phosphate group as OPO3 instead of PO4 (like I would if I was jotting it down in my notebook or on an organic chemistry exam), you may as well go ahead and attach the bond to the right oxygen.

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Do the ACLU and PETA have the same people running their strategy? The ACLU filing a brief in support of Larry Craig arguing for the right to privacy when having sex in a public bathroom stall makes me think so.

I guess saying “The next thing you’ll tell me is that people having sex in a public restroom should have the right to privacy,” won’t be extending an argument to the point of absurdity anymore.

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I had my interview with the guy in the picture today.

I think it went pretty well. The only hang-up I could see is that since they troll in consumer electronics, they might want someone with more of an electrical engineering background.

I said, “Hey! They built me my own Best Buy! I think I know something about consumer electronics!”

I’m kind of going back and forth about whether I want the job. It’d be good experience, but probably not as good as summering at a real firm somewhere. Of course, I haven’t yet secured a summer position. A bird in the hand, I guess. (If the bird actually ends up in my hand.)

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