Friday was an ultra-hectic day around Stanford. I awoke at 6:30am ... argh ... to make it to the Cancer Center by 7:30 so i could hear a lecture by our department's visiting professor for 2006, Dr. Paul Harari from the University of Wisconsin. He gave an excellent presentation on the pros and cons of the new wave of molecular-targeted anticancer drugs. I then had a spare half hour, during which i completely forgot there was free breakfast associated with the lecture and thus missed my morning meal, before heading off to our 9-10am monthly radiochemistry meeting in the Lucas Expansion. Then another brisk walk back to the Cancer Center for my group's biweekly journal club, this time attended by Kevin, a Castro Valley high school student eager to get some lab experience. The following lunch at the Linx Café between Ivana, Kevin, and i was accelerated so we could begin our 12-3pm imaging session in the Clark Center promptly. Kevin was awed with our mouse experiments, but perhaps moreso by the group of researchers next to us who were performing dissections. That had him downright mesmerized. We finished our experiments on time, with some very interesting results, and had a quick coffee before bidding farewell to Kevin. I was able to finally visit my office, where i found i had several pressing issues regarding registering for a meeting and finalizing a grant application. I put out those fires by 5:30pm and headed up to the city. Veronica had a couple of pairs of shoes waiting for me, a reward for the plethora of Perl programs i've written for her and her coworkers to analyze their inventory and sales data. I just realized that i now own two pairs of Bruno Magli shoes and one Bruno Magli leather coat. If, god forbid, Veronica is ever horribly murdered then i can blame it on OJ. Oh, i'm gonna hear it for that joke. The two of us then learned that Jenz and Brandon were having din-din at All You Knead over on Haight, so we joined them for a yummy meal (a stick-to-your-ribs plate of fried chicken for me, just like mom used to make).

We didn't hang around in the city for long, as i had to be up at 6:30am again on Saturday. The cause for my repeated loss of sleep was the resident symposium associated with our yearly visiting professor. I somehow made it to work at 7:30am, and miraculously retained lucidity and attention through the end of the Dr. Harari's final lecture (an excellent personalized summary of treatment of head and neck cancer, albeit with some rather gruesome photos) at noon. After a quick sandwich, i went home to change and grab V so we could Caltrain up to the city to fetch her Mini at her work, where she'd left it the previous night as i drove us home in the Jetta. We again hooked up with Jenz, this time for dinner at her favorite Italian place in North Beach, Franchino's. My caprese salad was pretty good, but the pasta and sausage special was fabulous. Afterwards we wandered around Chinatown and North Beach in search of dessert. I was thwarted in my efforts to get pork buns from a Chinese bakery as they were sold out. Doh ... those would've been nummy num num. We headed home around 10pm as my energy after two days of getting up early had completely bottomed out.

Today i again had to rise early, as i was volunteered to give radiobiology faculty meeting this morning. Preparing my presentation occupied the evening time slot after the not-so-Super Bowl yesterday. During that V put on Saturday Night Live from the previous night, which despite Steve Martin's mostly excellent performances continued the show's recent downward trend. Maybe i've passed it by, or it's passed me by, but i just don't find it very funny anymore. The recurring characters are built around quickly exhausted themes, like the Target employee who keeps leaving her register when seeing the cool things her customers are buying. As when i complained that the Simpsons had jumped the shark, my SNL complaints arrive just as CNN is praising the show for its continual reinvention. Dunno ... i think they're glossing over the fact that the show reinvented itself in the mid 90's because the writing had become abysmal. MTV2's indie video show Subterranean was also not so great on Sunday night. Perhaps the Super Bowl just put me in an awful mood.

I've picked up a bunch of great music lately. The advance of the new Wilderness album is interesting, while i finally found the old dark indie rock albums of Satisfact, which are wonderful. Spurred on by an Amazon list, i've discovered a great indie pop band in Human Television, who carry on in the jangle pop tradition of Let's Active and the Bats. I'm trying out the alternative rock/pop of Enon now, their 2002 album High Society is quite good so far. Got a bunch more to listen to ... experimental indie stuff by Thunderbirds Are Now!, Six Finger Satellite, and an advance of what is surely the next lovely Swedish pop record by the Concretes. In video games, i'm hoping that stores receive their copies of Winning Eleven 9 within a day or two of its proper release date tomorrow, so i can check it out. The videos i've seen on IGN are fabulous. I didn't get a chance to pursue Shadow of the Colossus any further over the weekend, but i'm excited to see what other visual goodies it has in store for me. I haven't played much PSP or SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo lately. The gameplay mechanics aren't as smooth as i'd like so i haven't been persuaded to spend a lot of time with it yet. I'm still slowly working my way through my pleasure reading, now consisting of both the Middle Ages-to-present account of conflict in the Middle East Holy War, as well as the much more lighthearted collection of short essays (in many instances bordering on poetry) Soccer in Sun and Shadow. I love the graphic from the cover.

Now it's lunchtime, and i'm ready to have a go at the proscuitto and salami sandwich i made myself with the leftovers of my big sandwich fixins yesterday. Mmmmmm. Due to yesterday's big sandwich, i wasn't able to grill the beef kebabs i bought from Whole Foods last night, so those await Veronica and i this evening. Double mmmmm.