Da HELL is THIS?

I was taking exams from 4 to 8 tonight. I finish the last one, head on over to the dining hall...and apparently they all close at 7:30 on weekends? PHOOEY ON THEM!

Chem was amazingly easy, and I am all the happier for it. Physics seemed easier than I expected; Blue Haired Kid had to go and explain, on the walk back, why everything I put was wrong. Oh well. I was able to understand all the questions perfectly clearly, which is more than I could say at the beginning of the semester.

SO, genetic engineering. Are you aware how severely we can screw with stuff? Oh yeah. I always thought it'd be pretty cool to be able to mess with genes, play God a little, that sort of thing. There's the negative side, of course; remember that scene in Alien Resurrection when Ripley 6 sees Ripleys 1-5, horribly deformed and monstrous, and one of them gurgles "please...kill me"? That was awesome, yet it gave me the jibblies.

So in MCB we were talking about a certain gene, called "eyeless". Contrary to what you'd expect, it's the gene that gives you eyes. More specifically, since all cells have all the genetic code in them, it turns on the eye genes in places where there should be eyes, like...you know...your face.

What does this mean? You can stick "eyeless" in any cell group and, you guessed it, you get eyes.

Would they really...no they wouldn't...

OH YES THEY WOULD

There are pictures of flies...flies with eyes. Eyes on their legs, on antennae, on wings, wherever the hell you want them. There are also pictures of flies with legs stuck in strange places: let's replace the antennae with legs! How about a couple legs on the wings? Seriously.

I don't care about the flies; flies suck. It's crazy, though, how much control we're starting to gain as a species. Used to be we could build things, we could destroy things, but we couldn't really manipulate them. So much for that! Looks like genetic biology is going to be the place to be in coming years. I might want to get in on it, but I might fancy that I hear little fly voices asking me to kill them, and then torch the lab. Got napalm?

No, I guess I don't really care that much about it. Yay science! Just...keep it away from babies. Oh, and kittens.

WE INTERRUPT THIS QUASI-MORAL DISCUSSION TO BRING YOU AN OUTRAGE.

I took all my and my brother's CD's and uploaded the music to Lappy 2.0 this past weekend, so I could hear a playlist of more than 8 songs. ANYWAY

I love Breaking Benjamin; they've been top of the list for almost a year now. However, they subscribe to that minor annoyance that I mentioned earlier: each album comes with a sucky slow song, the most egregious of which is "Stay in Love Forever". Gross.

That one's a "hidden track", but not the normal kind. It comes on if you wait 2 minutes or so after an AMAZING song, "Shallow Bay", meaning...it's on the same track. I did not know this until just now. So my least favorite song ever is BIOLOGICALLY ATTACHED to one of the best. WHAT DA HELL, MAN? No food, and now THIS?

...At least I only have 2 eyes! SORRY FLIES!