The R01 application packet, consisting of two cover letters and six copies of a 65 page proposal (for a grand total of 392 pages) was FedExed to the NIH yesterday, and should be arriving in Washington sometime around now. A job well done, i tell myself. In six months i'll get my first inkling of how the federal government feels about my scientific ramblings. In the meantime, i've got to revise and resubmit my R21 proposal on HIF-1-regulated reporter genes, and i should be getting word back on the three applications i sent out in March. I've also been invited to sit on my first grant review panel, this one for the Department of Defense reviewing breast cancer grants. One of my March applications was to the DoD on ovarian cancer, so i'm wondering if being asked to sit on a DoD panel is a good omen regarding the fate of my proposal. I've spent yesterday afternoon and today perusing the initial group of 30 applications in my section, reporting on how familiar i am with the subject matter of each and giving a brief indication of whether i think the grant is innovative or important. Fun fun fun, but that's the way academics roll.

i have found a way to bring the shakes down, gently
just one more means that i can drift away to safety
don't tell me that i will bring myself down, surely
'cause i don't care, believe me i know just what i'm doin'

But as previously reported, the R01 was all but done last week, so what have i been doing in the interim? Well ... the Xbox 360 has been prominently involved, i can assure you of that. I'm getting further sucked into the world of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. Now that i've attained some semblance of control over my squad, i'm discovering the joys of orchestrating a perfectly choreographed assault, making effective use of cover and surprise. I haven't acquired the grapes to try playing online yet, for fear of getting abused in a manner similar to what happened when i went online with Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. My sister's boyfriend Jeff is a frequent GRAW player though, so maybe i can have him take me under his wing. I did venture into the Xbox Live Marketplace the other day, and downloaded a trial version of the acclaimed 2D shooter Geometry Wars. Pretty cool ... Tempest-like retro visuals with assorted fluorishes, and simple but deep gameplay mechanics. Veronica however commented that she didn't buy me a $600 system so i could play Asteroids. Touché. Over the weekend i expanded my fledgling 360 game collection, picking up a used copy of Burnout Revenge as well as the latest EA soccer offering, FIFA 2006 World Cup. The former carries the torch of previous brilliant Burnout incarnations, adding the silky smooth graphics capability of the 360. Load times are a bit of a pain in the butt, but i'm managing. It also seems takedown techniques have matured since Burnout 3, as my side-ramming does precious little in Revenge. Time to rethink my strategy. FIFA World Cupdoesn't really do much to improve upon recent lackluster showings in the series, and as the title suggests the game omits club teams to focus exclusively on international competition. As is routine with the series, gameplay and tactics have been overhauled yet again, making it a bit easier to exhibit individual skill. However, for some reason defenses tend to play in a line. Coupled with strikers' general proficiency in avoiding the offside trap, this means you can repeatedly shred defenses with through balls. Despite these shortcomings the game is fun to play, although lacking the realism of Winning Eleven. One thing i can't complain about is the graphics ... holy god. Player models are exquisite. While some players are reconstructed more accurately than others, they all look beautiful, with detailed skin textures and realistic hair. Watching the better modeled players such as Shaun Wright-Phillips and Wayne Rooney, you feel like you're watching a live game. That statement has been overused in the last ten years ... my ex-girlfriend's mom once said that watching me play NBA Live 97, with its polygonal, faceless ballers. But it's getting truer all the time. What would it be like to be frozen today and awoken in ten years to play the game of the future?

seven forty five am, seven forty five am
i toss my soul, and i trick my heart
seven forty five am

I've been pretty good about keeping up with my workout schedule. Given that Fred and i are playing softball once a week now, things haven't devolved into daily trudges to the gym. Yesterday we expanded our athletic repertoire to include weekly basketball games with the radiology residents as well as MIPS colleagues Sandip and Andy. Thank god we started with softball ... b-ball is a whole other level. In days of yore i whiled away many an afternoon shooting hoops with friends from high school. At 5'11" i was the shot blocker and rebounder. Yesterday i learned that i have no dribbling skills whatsoever anymore, although as you might have surmised from my previous skills i didn't have much to begin with. I also get winded way too easily, something my new workout regimen will hopefully remedy. I did manage to execute a few good low post moves, getting down low and hitting turnaround hooks four or five times. Lots of fun, and lots to work on. Our first softball game is this afternoon, with me penciled in at first base. Since i can't throw for s@$# anymore but can catch well, that should work just fine.

V and i squeezed quite a bit into our long Memorial Day weekend. Naomi spent the night on Friday, and hung out Saturday morning while we cleaned. Our target was to clean off the shelving unit in the bedroom and move it out to the garage, freeing space in our bedroom so we can move towards getting rid of the carpet and unifying the house in hardwood flooring. We accomplished that by 7pm, including a reorganization of the garage so it could accomodate the sizeable set of shelves. The living room also got tidied a bit ... allowing me reason to show off the nice Frida Kahlo painting our good friend Danny bought Veronica for Christmas. However, the dust raised by this in-depth cleaning wreaked havoc on my fragile sinuses, which have been succumbing to seasonal allergies lately. Not something i've been prone to in the past, but i seem to be getting more sensitive all the while. V and Naomi had talked me into going to the evening's Leisure in the city, and i put on a brave face and readied. However on the drive north, somewhere around the airport i realized there was no way i was going to feel okay in a cramped, noisy club. As i couldn't just tell the girls we were going home, i continued on, dropped them off at the venue, parked the car, and fell asleep listening to Live 105's Memorial Day countdown. I fetched them at 3am at an after-club party, having a brief conversation with old friend Noel about the Champions League final. Some unknown quantity of people hopped in my car, and i dropped them at various locations around the SOMA area. V and i then drove home and passed out.

I slowly recovered on Sunday, but felt well enough that night to head to San Mateo with the de la Mora cousins to take in a showing of X-Men: The Last Stand. I'm no comics guru, but i certainly enjoyed the occasional one while growing up, and the X-Men were always a favorite. I liked the first two X-Men films, feeling that they did well to condense the complex storylines of the comic and do justice to the wealth of characters. The third ... well ... i believe "ham-fisted" is the correct term. New director Brett Ratner, taking over from Bryan Singer who has moved on to direct the new Superman flick, tries to cram so much drama and melodrama into the film that it ends up being a parody of itself. Jean Grey's resurrection as Dark Phoenix is more puzzling than apocalyptic, and the Rogue-Iceman-Kitty Pryde love triangle is basically forgotten. I can appreciate the difficulty of accurately representing the hopelessly dense X-Men universe and history in a two hour movie, but the first two films succeeded by generating a single coherent storyline and sticking to it. References to other characters and events aren't forbidden, but are instead a sort of easter egg for devoted fans and something unfamiliar viewers aren't left scratching their heads over. The third (and supposedly final) X-Men movie tries to do everything and succeeds at ... not much. What a disappointment. In trailer news, the head-slappingly bad premise of Jack Black's Nacho Libre looks like it might actually be watchable, while as successive trailers reveal more of the plot, the aforementioned Superman Returns is looking better and better.

On Monday V and i decided to see how Tara fares at a dog park. During trips to the park she's been aggressive towards other dogs, but we wanted to socialize her and get her more exercise. We drove her up to the Foster City public dog park, bringing a leash so we could see how she does without giving her the freedom to really make a name for herself. Tara whined frequently while there, although whether this was because she a) was embarassed to be on a leash in the midst of her free-roaming brethren, b) wanted to get away from us and pick a few fights, or c) wanted to get the hell out of there, we don't know. I'd go with a combination of a and b. We took her in with the small dogs as she met the weight requirement. We also noticed that she really doesn't like big dogs ... during encounters with them at the dividing fence she tensed up, the hair on her back sticking up and her dropping into an attack crouch. She innocently sniffed the other dogs in the small dog area, but we're not sold that she'll act as graciously when out of our control. Can an old dog learn new tricks? We'll find out.

Shevchenko		Crespo
Lampard
Robben		Ballack
Makelele
Del Horno	Terry	Gallas	Ferreira
Cech

Chelsea haven't let the impending World Cup distract them from their favorite summer activity ... spending gobs of money in a continuing attempt to create the roster of Roman Abramovich and Peter Kenyon's dreams. Lately i've been wondering if these dreams center on dominating the pitch or the pocketbooks of their fans, however. Germany captain Michael Ballack is now wearing blue, as is Ukraine skipper and former AC Milan all-world striker Andriy Shevchenko. If that moron Kenyon signs aging Brazil and Real Madrid left-back Roberto Carlos, then i'll know the management is primarily interested in selling more replica kits. I'm curious what strategy José Mourinho has in mind that will effectively integrate the brilliant and frequently overlapping abilities of his players. I've taken my best stab at a starting eleven given the current players, and am not particularly happy with it. Where will Michael Essien and Joe Cole fit in? What about Damien Duff? If Hernan Crespo gets his wish to return to Italy then Dider Drogba would play the second striker, but i'd really like to see Shevchenko and Crespo recreate the magic they conjured together at AC Milan.

One odd Chelsea thing that happened last week was the signing of twenty year old Feyenoord Rotterdam striker Salomon Kalou. Why is this strange? Because i sat next to him on a train from Paris to Amsterdam last summer! Good omen?

I'm anxiously awaiting the kick-off of the World Cup a week from Friday. I took in some of the U.S.'s warm-up matches over the weekend, including the comprehensive 2-nil win over Venezuela and the somewhat uninspired 1-nil win over Latvia. As always, it's all too easy to attribute a good performance by the Americans to an untalented opponent. The yanks' opening match against European powerhouse Czech Republic on June 12 will provide a good indication of our status among the footballing powers of the world. I have an unshakeable notion that we will find a way to squeek through the "group of death" and make it to the knockout stage. Or, as an ESPN.com columnist put it, "piss off the rest of the world". Although if that happens we would likely be welcomed with a brutal match against favorites Brazil. I also saw most of England's tune-up against Hungary on Tuesday. Despite the final 3-1 scoreline, England looked lost in their new 4-1-3-1-1 formation, with Steven Gerrard playing behind the lone striker Michael Owen. The England penalty curse continued, with new taker Frank Lampard relieving David Beckham, who was horrifically ineffective from the spot in Euro 2004. Chelsea kingpin Lamps missed a penalty late in the first half, putting the ball too close to the Hungarian keeper ... what is it with England and penalties? Headers from Gerrard and John Terry off set pieces provided two goals, while Joe Cole set up beanpole Peter Crouch for a turn and shoot for the third. Again, not a dominating performance by any stretch of the imagination. Can they penetrate the later rounds? Who knows? Whatever happens, it's going to be a great month.

I'm off to Atlanta tomorrow for a free trip to the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, provided as i've been invited to give a 15 minute talk on Tuesday morning. Sweeeet. Free trips and honorariums are very good things. While there, my colleague Sandip and i are going to take in a Braves game at Turner Field. I picked up great tickets on Ticketmaster, in the second row along the third base line, just past the infield. Although after buying them, i realized that is prime territory for foul ball line drives from right-handed batters. Better pay attention, for fear of getting nailed with an errant ball while lounging with a beer.