Lab sysadmin recently announced that, due to excessive use and lack of server space, individual user directories were now capped…

… at 4 terabytes…

… per user.

On the program for this month, we have so far: two operas, three official Berlinale screenings, two music recitals and a couple exhibits.

Sometimes I do work too.

Now you know why updates are scarce around here…

At the local store, trying to pick hair styling wax and looking for the lightest one. Two strengths are available: “mega starker” and “ultra starker”…

The only question is: does either go up to 11?

Can we all agree already to skip the “Why research on cancer is useful” introduction slide from now on?

If your talk lasts 25 minutes and goes into the minutiae of protein-protein interactions with regard to oncogenic pathways, maybe spending half of it convincing an audience of biologists and bioinformaticians that cancer is a bad thing that needs curing is not the best use of presentation time.

End-of-year Japanese Music Quiz, over at KanjiBox’s dev blog: 10 tracks, 10 artists, many genres…

Guess them all and win a bunch of iTunes coupons for free installs of KanjiBox for iPhone (along with my undying respect for your extensive musical culture).

Today, the entire 3-month research stipend covering the cost of my stay in Berlin (living expenses, plane ticket etc), was deposited on my bank account. All at once.

Am I a bad person for even wondering how many years I could live off that, were I to accidentally end up on some remote beach island instead of Berlin’s Max Planck Institute for Molekular Genetics?

Japanese girl at local bar: Do your prefer Japanese girls or foreign girls?

Dave: Err… huh… dunno… Country doesn’t have much to do with it…

Japanese girl: Aaah, of course… It does not matter…

Dave: Indeed.

[...]

Japanese girl: Ok, so… Which type of girl do you prefer: long straight black hair or blonde with blue eyes?

Note to Self of Two Weeks Ago: Great foresight on that massive batch of bolognese sauce in the freezer! Should consider storing more Saturday-morning emergency food around the house.

Note to Self of Yesterday Night: Maybe not so heavy on the distilled sweet potato juice, next time. Should consider picking a recreational heroin habit instead.

So… the crowd of people standing near that building down the street, last week, with lots of people in all sort of suits and uniforms and a large blue tarp across the entrance… wasn’t a fire, as I thought it was at the time…

It was… MURDER!

The things you learn, chatting with your elderly neighbours, stark-naked and soaking in boiling hot water…

Yesterday, I completely forgot to remember, remember…

And now it’s already the 6th of November in Japan.

Maybe it’s not too late to go buy some gunpowder and have a celebration on my balcony tonight.

Yesterday night’s program included ample (and unexpected) display of full female topless nudity in a public place. For the second time in less than a week.

I must obviously be doing something right. (or very wrong, depending on which side of the ‘gratuitous boobage action’ moral debate you sit on).

You know what is worse than waking up to a water-heater that refuses to work when you go for your morning shower?

[...]

Having the fucking thing finally work, after you finished taking your cold shower.

There’s a poltergeist in my house, and it has a really stupid sense of humour.

My new apartment comes equipped with a pigeon coop: fresh pigeon eggs for breakfast every morning, straight from my balcony…

Note to the genius realtors who spruced-up the place before I moved in: enclosing the entire balcony in a metallic net to protect if from these flying rats, was a very good idea with laudable intent.

It would have been considerably more effective, had it not resulted in trapping an entire pigeon family on my balcony, inside that net.

Never congratulate yourself too much on where you are in life.

More often than not, where you are, has more to do with where you come from than who you are.

This morning, I tried to convince my advisor that I was the son of the Sun god and was going to prove it any minute now. He just laughed and said I still had to hand in my report by the end of the week.

Damn internet age.