So about that vague non-announcement last week. And the occasion is ... after three and a half years of slaving over preparing grant applications and being disappointed when they weren't selected, i got a completely out-of-the-blue message from the National Institutes of Health telling me that my R21 application for developing hypoxia-inducible reporter genes was going to be funded. It's my first successful government grant (allowing me to now refer to my operation as a "federally funded laboratory"). I've been on cloud nine since getting the news.

I was a bit shocked last week when i contacted Dell to inquire about getting my loose laptop hinges replaced, and the next day a technician showed up at Stanford to give me a brand new LCD screen. With hinges, even. However, this good-natured shock was then followed up with a less welcome surprise on Sunday when the new screen went kaput while Veronica was working on my laptop. Terrif ... got good hinges, but they came with a bum monitor. I imagine all these replacement parts are refurbished, so it's not really surprising that the new unit crapped out. Dell is returning tomorrow to replace my screen ... i wonder if i'll get my old loose-hinge screen back this time.

Finally convinced myself to temporarily set down the PS3 and return to Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 on the 360 for a bit. I love that game. Great play mechanics ... i love scoping out my enemies' location using the drone and then holing up in a good sniper spot ... and the HD graphics look amazing on the Sammy.

So Chelsea's challenge for a third consecutive Premiership title appears to be finally dead. In typical Blues style, we went from suddenly having the upper hand (being four points down and having a game in hand after United's unexpected draw against Middlesbrough last weekend) to blowing our chance in the span of a week (recording two successive draws while United won on the rebound to extend their lead to five points with three matches to play). The fact that i called this last fall doesn't make me happy, either. In retrospect, it would've been a crime if we had stolen the title from the Mancs, who have been head and shoulders above every other English team all season long. I foolishly held out hope that despite our domestic failure we could potentially drown our sorrows by reaching the Champions League final by finishing off Liverpool tomorrow. But with injuries over the weekend to Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Ballack, and Andriy Shevchenko, we could be primed for disappointment. And against those annoying scousers, no less. Freakin' wonderful. We've got the FA Cup final in a few weeks against champions-elect United, so perhaps we'll add another trophy for the season to complement the League Cup. But overall, i'll remember this year as the one where Roman Abramovich's experiment boiled over. Not in a grand exploding sense, but in a clash of egos that was enough to derail a team's quest for immortality. Now the question is who will be at Stamford Bridge next year? I wouldn't begrudge Mourinho if he got the hell out of Dodge. He may not have a choice, anyway. But Frank Lampard and John Terry? It would be catastrophic to let them go, and there are plenty of signs that Peter Kenyon and Abramovich have no great loyalty to them. Apparently the Englishmen want salaries commensurate with those of Ballack and Shevchenko, which is plenty reasonable given that Lamps and JT won the team two consecutive titles and the imports have done f@$#-all this season. But the all-world squadmembers brings in the royalties that the Chelsea bigwigs apparently value much more than results. Oh, what a clusterfuck. Maybe i'll focus on Barcelona. They're locked in a battle with Sevilla and Real Madrid, you say? Oh, fucking hell.

I've added a collection of recent show reviews to the music page. My nights on the town continue with this evening's LCD Soundsystem performance at Mezzanine. I've successfully adopted Veronica's strategy of going to shows with minimal expectations, however that may prove impossible tonight given my fawning of LCD's "Someone Great". Recipe for disappointment?

I read an anecdotal description of caffeine addiction online a few weeks ago, and now whenever i get a headache i'm paranoid that my fondness for coffee has done me in. I typically have a medium (ok, fine Starbucks ... "grande") in the morning, and either a cup of tea or another coffee in the afternoon. Too much? I'm having visions of Fry's 100 coffee binge from Futurama. I did get mildly ill this weekend, although not enough to deter my show-going, and was wondering if my response of cutting out the coffee was a wise decision. Hrm.

My session logging code has gone wonky recently, as there haven't really been a hundred unique visitors per hour over the last few days. Either one of my browsers is continually refreshing fac13 and acquiring new session ID's, or my code is doling out new session ID's to every new page request, or things are just generally screwed. Detailed investigation forthcoming.