Conference and Video!

Day 2 of Galveston conference today!  Very exciting, great talks and an interesting poster session.  Had some major stem cell players come by and see my work.  Bit nerve wracking but definitely worth it.  Best part is still the FOOOOOOOD though.  OMG YUMS!

OMG breakfast yum!  And I never eat breakfast.  But OATMEAL OMG!

Lunch of make-your-own baked potato, salad, broccoli and cheese, and BBQ chicken and beef.  

Sooooooo, dinner was Asian food (Asian coleslaw, pad thai, general tso's chicken, etc.), but I was reaaaalllllyyyy hungry so I ate it before taking a picture..... *ahem*.  ANYWAY!

With today's 2 hour break I got around to editing my latest video, arguably my favorite one thus far.

Today's video is about board games that work well to transition people who are used to games like Monopoly, Trouble, the more casual family type games, and introducing the more heavily strategic and with more complicated mechanics.  Enjoy!

Hope you liked it!  See you next time!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh......... SCIENCE!!!

It's another awesome conference time for me!  This week I get to be in our very own Galveston, TX for the Gordon Research Conference on Reprogramming Cell Fate.  Mouthful?  Yes.  Awesome?  Also yes.  2 particularly fun things about this conference: the venue and food.  Absolutely amazing.  Not to mention the incredible big-name scientists that were able to come.  Not only from all over the world, but major institutions, as well.  It was a blast 2 years ago and this year's goal is to find a post-doc position.  Here's hoping!  Everyone cross your fingers!

The pleasure pier, just down the street from our venue, complete with Bubba Gump Shrimp and decked out in Mardi Gras/Carnival style!  Festive!

Panorama of the Hotel Galvez, where the entirety of the conference is happening.  Aside from the 'field trips' to various places nearby, including NASA at Houston... *sigh*... to have money....

WATER AHOY!!!!!!  Aka the gulf coast.  Huzzah, I suppose.

Science-ing in style.  I mean not.  This is terrible and should be the minimum level of room quality at all scientific conferences ever in any location.

Told you.  It's horrendous.  Bleh.

Like so many conferences of the type, this one is incredibly densely packed.  9 am - 9:30 pm each day, with lunch, a free time break, and coffee at a couple points.  Tons of information and social events.  I'm hoping to hit the socializing as best I can, gotta schmooze for those jobs.  Until next time, later!

Videos, Videos, Videos!!!

It's been a pleasantly busy few weeks for making videos.  I went on a bit of a binge after getting my awesome camcorder for Christmas, needless to say much recording needed be done.  For those keeping track, I have been spending a decent amount of time playing Gazillion's new-ish action RPG, Marvel Heroes.  It is an incredible game and I have had a wonderful time playing.  Like many games, however, it comes with its fair share of issues and confusing mechanics not easily explained by tutorials or simple help menus.  As such, I started a bit of a series of videos on the game, beginning with a fairly comprehensive general guide and adding on an additional video for the most recent game update.

I understand this is not most people's particular cup of tea, so feel free to skip down to another new one!

I posted this video on the Marvel Heroes forum here.  If you're even remotely interested in trying the game, my obviously biased opinion would be to start with my video to see what it's all about.

A nice quick vid on the latest (2/13/14 patch) for MH.  New features and whatnot.



I also felt the need to return to form for another video.  This one quicker than most of my board game ones, simply a quick list of awesomes for a specific company (and my personal favorite one, at that).

So a little bit of something for everyone.  Well.... all gamers, anyway.  And Marvel fans.  And people who like sushi and The Walking Dead.  We'll stick with everyone.  Hope that you enjoy and see you next time!

A video that saves you $$$$!!! (sort of)

It's been, at the very least, an interesting year with my videos/blogging.  Blogging being in ginormous quotes.  I've found a small thing that I really enjoy doing and it seems that some people appreciate some of the stuff I have to say (126 subscribers as of today, huzzah!!).

To celebrate in my own way, I'm taking us back to a time (or, as in my case, currently) where we have very little money but would like some entertainment.  This is a favorite category of games for me, personally, inexpensive games that give a wonderful experience.  Enjoy!!

Thank you all very much and I'll see you next time!

More Delicious Science!!!

It's been a great winter break for me, for the most part.  A little bit unfortunate, but overall pretty good.  Sadly my lab work has not been going well at all; cells not growing, torn asunder and whatnot.  Because of this I sought out other avenues to be awesome.  One was making my recent videos, the second cooking.  In particular, for Christmas this year I got the incredible gift of a large capacity KitchenAid stand mixer:

So shiny it is!!!

So the other day, after a particularly unpleasant day in the lab and bad news, I thought to myself "I should use that fancy mixer of mine".  So I thought to myself "OMG CAKE!!!!"  So I made cake.  With science!!!  And the mixer.  But mostly SCIENCE!!!  And lemons.  Soooo many lemons.

These will make cake.  Because yum.  

Dry ingredients for cake, after sifting through a metal sifter.

Initial "batter", just butter and sugar, simply a base for everything to be added to.

Proteins from the eggs smooth everything out, giving a nice consistency. Dry mixture adds all the happy volume and needed chemicals for baking while the buttermilk keeps the batter liquid-esque.  Also lemon juice and peel because how can you have lemon cake with no lemon?

See?  It's like magic.  We go from a bunch of random stuff on the counter to ready to bake cakes!!  Also on the counter.  But still!!

Since this is an awesome fancy layer cake, we need two other things.  Or rather want two other things.  First is a filling for between the layers and the other a frosting for outside.

Filling is a lemon curd.  Very simple.  Sugar, corn starch (to thicken, similar to a gravy or soup), water, lemon juice and peel.  Heat and stir stir stir.  Water evaporates, allowing starch and everything else to thicken up the curd.

Egg yolks for the curd.  Proteins always help stickiness and thickness.  Add half curd to this, while back to pan.

Back to the pan with you!!!!!!

Keep up heat and stirring, nice and thickened.

Yes.  Butter.  Because butter makes everything more delicious.

After adding butter, still nice and thickened, but now needs to cool.  To the refrigor-migator!!!

As I mentioned, cake needs an outer coating, aka frosting.  Because frosting delicious.  And proper for layered cakes especially.  In this case, we've got lemon cream cheese frosting.  Very awesome sort of thing.

Just toss it all in!!!  Cheese, butter, lemon juice and peel

Mix-a-licious!

Adding powdered sugar (aka confectioner's sugar) has a similar effect to adding starch, thickens and, or a sort, strengthens.  We're at 'hard peak' when strands stand straight on their own, perfect for spreading.

No wire racks for cooling :( .  Assembly takes place on table of awesome!

OMG FROSTING!

2 Stacked with curd in between.

Ready for curd!

Second layer of curd, ready for top layer now.

Mmmmmm.... frosting time!

Not too bad.  I can say with confidence this cake is frosted.

Told you!

OMG CAKE!!!!  It has LAYERS!!!  Like and ogre!!!  Or a parfait!!  Or an onion!!  Either way OMG!

Bit crumbly, but by no means bad.

This piece is gone now.  I don't know where.

Baking is certainly an interesting cooking technique, and there's so much science behind it that my mind tends to boggle a bit.  The now humble cake is a surprising achievment brought by knowledge of primarily chemistry and, most likely, the simple idea of "I want something NOMS!"  If you're interested, please let me know if you'd like the specific recipes for everything, definitely not very tough to make at all.  Thank you all for reading and I'll see you next time!

A Gear Change is Finally Here

Hello all!  After many videos of board games (mostly due to being less time intensive), I've gone a bit back to form with a new video game video!  I've recently had the great opportunity to have a decent amount of play time again and took advantage to do a general review of an often overlooked and misunderstood genre, the aRPG.

The particular game is Marvel Heroes, unsurprisingly based in the Marvel Universe (Earth-616 for those that know and care) where you get to play as the superheroes.  Each one of them has their..... own..... you know what, I'll just let the video talk instead.  Enjoy!

Thanks very much for taking a look!  I'll see you next time!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hooray!  So it's been a very very very long and busy few weeks since my last video.  Between my work not going correctly in the lab to my fiance defending her Master's thesis (yay!) and numerous other stressors (*cough* puppy *cough*) I've had very little time for my hobbies.  Thankfully I found some time to record and set up my latest video, Games that you can Learn From!!!  Yay nerdness!!  Please enjoy and have a wonderful Turkey day!!

P.S. Incidentally, my cells cot contaminated the other day, so my time for the holiday is split unfortunately unevenly between a sickly fiance and cooking turkey and stupid cells the pick the worst time to be stupid.  Hopefully it'll all work out in the end!  Bye until next time!!