DT presents: Important Proteins in Cancer that are also Related to Music!!!

MGMT:

• Popular indie band alleged to have given Bernice a cookie once, short for management
• Important DNA repair protein and tumor suppressor, short for O-6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase

Ras:

• Reggae record label
• Potent oncogene implicated in a large proportion of human cancers. Kinase located upstream in many signalling pathways

Myc:

• The Music for Young Children program
• Potent oncogene that stimulates proliferation and DNA damage among other things

P27:

• Seminal Swiss rap group, known to perform with a full funk band backing them
• Inhibitor of CDKs important to cell cycle progression. Subcellular localization has been tied to prognosis.

MMP:

• Polish record label. Short for Metal Mind Productions (robots!!!!!)
• Short for matrix metalloproteinase. Important protein in metastasis, cleaves basement membrane fibers releasing growth factors and clearing space. Secreted from tumor associated macrophages and transformed epithelial cells.

Slug:

• Rapper from Minneapolis
• C2H2 transcription factor. Down regulates E-cadherin. Implicated in cancer, probably through EMT.

Functional Death Receptor:

• Metal band from Green Bay. Claim to mix heavy metal with death metal as well as doom metal. Check out their Myspace!!!
• working cell receptor that binds ligands triggering apoptosis. Loss of function can lead to cancer.

P53:

• Imporvisational music group with weirdly extensive wikipedia page
• The gaurdian of the whole fuckin' genome! Probably the most important tumor supressor in the biz. Controls a wide variety of processes inculding apoptosis and progression through the cell cycle

Coincidence? I think not.

In other news the guy beside me in the library has been stroking his chubby girlfriend's enormous ass for the entire amount of time it took me to right this. What is up with that?

Curing loneliness with even more loneliness

Just over a year ago, I found a plastic card on the street. It was all black except for the words "EB GAMES" in big red type on the front. I put it in my wallet and assumed I would use it later. I had since forgotten about it.

Passing by an EB today, I remembered that the card had been taking up space in my pocket almost every day for the past year and a half, so I stopped in and asked how much money was on this dirty old gift card.

Turns out I've been carrying around a hundred bucks in video games for a year and a half.

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Since returning to the T-Dot from my formerly gregarious lifestyle of Maritime university friends and Quebecois high school friends, I've been able to literally feel the loneliness seep into my life. I recognize this feeling: I lie in bed until just after 12:00, I run the few errands I've set aside for that day, maybe perusing the city's many ludicrous fashion stores and revel in the disgust I can't help but feel when looking at mannequins wearing silly and colourful clothes worth more than my rent.

With any luck I'll start work soon, , but that won't fill the gap created upon leaving my cozy Halifax nook. Maybe I took for granted the ability to call any number of my friends and take the five-minute walk down to the Wardy for a $2.50 Keiths, but the knowledge that I could was what stripped me of the social void I fall into every summer.

That's what kills me: I know this feeling. Every summer, for as long as I can remember, I spend time alone in my basement, replaying old Zelda games, renting four movies a week, spending heinous amounts of time on Facebook. Wishing I could bring myself to read all the books I've been telling myself I ought to read, only to find that my copious lethargy makes me immune to sitting still and concentrating for longer than ten minute intervals. I get so clinically lazy that I can't bring myself to do something that requires any sort of disciplined investment.

I'm not depressed, just aimless.

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I bought six video games today, all used, sort of on a whim--short of buying Rock Band for absolutely no reason, I figured it was the best use of the hundred dollars. I could feel my summer degenerating into arthritis as he told me I had $15 remaining on the card.

This post turned out indulgently long only because I've literally nothing else to do. (I played two of the six games already; I'm just taking a break.)

Granted, I finished university a bit earlier than almost all of my friends; I anticipate the shared two-fours and Banquet Specials that will inevitably precede shouting "BRUUUUCE!" in a car to Manchester, TN. This summer will not be horrendous, and I know I have friends here.

Mostly, I'm just fucking bored.

easily influenced

my roommate left his copy of
bukowski poems
on our kitchen table.

i read it
and now i can't stop writing
like this.

Return to the t-town

sorry for the lack of real posts everybody.
schoolwork, lifework, yadda yadda.
I've been busy, we all have been.
Regardless, i'll be seeing Whirlwind soon, that'll be nice.
Today I'm hitting the rails with my girl, Icgyatbl, Rabbi, Weaselbag, (Astolphe? is astolphe coming?) and the ever elusive Mr. Sir. (Remember Mr. Sir?)
anyway, maybe there will be a train update when i get home, if something funny happens. I think I'll just watch UHF and take a nap.
For an update on the gang, in case anybody forgot:
Terry Collier is in Guatemala taking it Beliz-ey. A report should come, i'll force it out of him.
Thug Wrangler is in Sexico, as of this morning.
My Mom thinks i'm funny is still in Halifax, because he's lame (or planes are expensive, whatever)
Mr. Skylight is in Florida, taking in some sun. Correspondance is expected, if he can get to an internet box. good luck.
Icgyatbl is heading off to the proverbial American paradise, good ol' Santa Barbara, California. Correspondance is also expected, and i will be disappointed if it isn't there.
I think everyone other than that is either in T-Town as well, or sticking around in the Mo.
For those in the big smoke this week, there'll be an upcoming DT fest. details to follow.
Otherwise, Have a good break everyone, i hope to hear from you all soon.


yadda yadda rock DT.

"The Buses"

More for the image than the idea...

"Philosophy should stop
at midnight like the buses.
Imagine Nietzsche, Jesus
and Bertrand Russel parked
In the silent car barns."

-Richard Brautigan