Make it somehow all seem worthwhile

A few months ago I submitted a manuscript for publication in a scientific journal. For those of you who don't know how the process works, the manuscript gets an initial look to make sure the formatting requirements are met, and that the subject matter is appropriate for the journal. If both those things seem to be okay, then the editors send the manuscript to other researchers who are familiar with the subject for external review. Those reviewers will go through the manuscript, and produce a list of concerns such as problems they see with the analyses, problems they have with the conclusions that are drawn based on the results, etc. The reviewers then send those comments back to the associate editor who is handling the manuscript, along with a recommendation of whether or not they feel the paper should be published in the journal. The associate editor will also read through the manuscript and provide comments, and based on those and the recommendations of the other reviewers will make a recommendation to the journal editor. All of this usually takes a few months.

Last week I received comments for the paper I submitted, and they were all favorable. However, there are some issues that one of the reviewers felt needed to be addressed, so I've been revising the manuscript to deal with those. Some are more time consuming than others, and that's when I begin to wonder why all the comments can't be like some of those from the associate editor:

"Line 35: Please include references that support this statement.
Lines 311, 323: may be extra spaces at the end of sentences.
Line 408: Period at end of sentence is strange - possibly bold or larger font.
Line 415: large-water not large water"

Those are the easy ones to deal with. That said, I'm almost done revising, and the paper will be accepted once I resubmit it to the journal (which will hopefully be in the next couple days) . The only bad part is that it's merely a side project that should've been published years ago.

'Cause I know dreams are for those who are asleep in bed

It's a good sign that you're not going to have a very productive day when you're so tired that your eyes won't focus on your computer screen, but, you can't take a quick cat nap in your office because every time you start to doze off you snore and wake yourself up.

I'm just sayin'.

The longer you wait your decision will fade and wind up wasting this time

Because sometimes driving out to take pictures of the desert in bloom is more appealing than trying to write a manuscript on a Saturday:

So you say I've got a dirty mind, I'm a mean go getter

A list of seemingly innocent things you could Google, but might not get the results you were expecting:

- Easy-Off^TM
- Tang
- Trimmed hedges
- Lords
- Fruit
- Manholes (or manhole covers)
- Dangling participle

(And yes, I really am lazy enough to count this as a post)

Where's the shadow government when you need it?

Since I'm too lazy to put together a coherent post (as if that ever happens), I'm just going to retell a few jokes I heard over the weekend.

Q: What do George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush have in common?
A: Neither of them knows when to pull out.



Q: What is the difference between George W. Bush and E. coli?
A: E. coli has an exit strategy.



Q: Why is Laura Bush always on top when she and George have sex?
A: Because George can only fuck up.

Lazyhead wants to rest

Friday night when I was hanging out with some people from work a few of them ordered food. I was going to eat with one of my friends as soon as he finished his drink, so even though I was hungry, I didn't want to order anything. Instead, I took a few of my friend's fries to tide me over. A few minutes later, another friend, who happened to be sitting right next to me, got some food.

Me: Good. French fries that are actually close to me.
Friend 1: You could have had more of mine.
Me: I know, but in order to do that I'd have to stand up and reach clear across the table.
Friend 1: Was that too much effort to put forth?
Me: Yes.

And you all thought I was only lazy when it comes to microwaving things. I won't even get into the fact that I'd have also needed to dip the thing in catsup once I did all that standing and reaching. Just the thought of that is wearing me out.

Please pass the milk please

The other day my sister called me up and informed me that she and her husband wanted to go on the Native Minnow diet. I told her that it might not be a good idea as it seems I'm getting softer and softer around the mid-section. Not to be deterred, she proceeded to ask the following:

Q: When you make burritos how many do you eat? Are they big or small?
A: Two. Medium sized.

Q: What do you usually eat for breakfast?
A: Nothing.

Q: What do you usually eat for lunch?
A: I normally go out for lunch and order the veggie options on the menu (or at least low fat).

Anyway, I thought I'd help her out a little more than that by listing what I've had for dinner the past few days:

• Baby carrots and hummus + pancakes
• Scrambled egg beaters + a halibut fillet + chips and salsa
• Clam chowder + gourmet hot chocolate
• Chicken and broccoli linguine + oatmeal w/ brown sugar

You see, the key to the Native Minnow diet is to find things that absolutely do NOT go together and combine them into one meal. It will probably agree with your stomach more if you eat them at different times. For example, eat the carrots and hummus before you decide to fix yourself pancakes. Of course, the degree that the food is mismatched gets proportionally worse the longer one puts off a trip to the supermarket (I finally broke down and went shopping last night).

What's that blue thing doing here?

My mother used to have a saying she would use any time she was annoyed with our efforts to help around the house (or lack thereof). Come to think of it, that was most of the time.

No matter what the situation was, her response was always the same. If she walked into the bathroom and the toilet was unflushed? If the kitchen garbage was filled to overflowing? When she found the empty bowls of ice cream my brother had left under his bed? If someone stepped in dog crap and tracked it into the house without cleaning it up?

She'd look at the mess and say, "Now that is what I call the height of laziness."

I wonder what she'd say if I told her that when I reheat things in the microwave I do it for a minute and eleven seconds rather than a minute because I don't want to take the time to move my finger over to the zero.