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1. Work on Friday was quieter and less hellish than it had been on Thursday, so I could've caught up a bit on stuff, but no.. I was lacking motivation and may come to regret not working harder/longer. Admittedly leaving only three quarts of an hour early was hardly wasting half the day instead of setting up hundreds of suites/specs, but still.
2. I was tired though, various aspects of fatigue from work and cold commuting, plus more importantly not sleeping well at my sister's earlier in the week. Yesterday evening I had a supermarket pizza, watched three or four episodes of 'Coupling', drank beer and slept twelve hours till noonish today. Overnight the fourth test was drawn at the MCG as Smith (again) proved untoppleable and guided Australia through to Travis Fieldyen Mills.
3. An hour or so of activity accomplished a bit after I finally got up - washing up, lunch, putting a load of books on to my online shelf (a load of books I picked up cheap for myself during my Christmas shopping) and tidying up. It's 101 years today since Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was murdered by a loyalist group led by Prince Felix Yusupov. His frozen, partially-trussed body being discovered in a Moscow river three days later.
4. Darcy Bussell is now a dame, and Nick Clegg has been knighted too. Helen Sharman, astronaut. Barry Gibb, Ringo Starr, Hugh Laurie, Jilly Cooper. An anagram of 'New Year Honours List' is 'Norway's Lust Heroine', of course - probably a reference to porn actress Vicky Vette being one of Queen Elizabeth II's closest advisors.
5. The pGLO plasmid is an engineered plasmid used in biotechnology as a vector for creating genetically modified organisms. The plasmid contains several reporter genes, most notably for the green fluorescent protein (GFP) and the ampicillin resistance gene. GFP was isolated from the jelly fish Aequorea victoria. Because it shares a bidirectional promoter with a gene for metabolizing arabinose, the GFP gene is expressed in the presence of arabinose, which makes the transgenic organism express its fluorescence under UV light. GFP can be induced in bacteria containing the pGLO plasmid by growing them on +arabinose plates.
6. In the football this afternoon, Swansea came from behind to win late on (Narsingh assisting Ayew's leveller and then scorong himself) and climb off the bottom of the table, and Bournemouth also got a late winner. Salah's fine form continued, it saw him score twice and Liverpool beat Leicester. Chelsea sunk a poor Stoke with five different scorers. No goals between Burnley and Huddersfield, and between Brighton and Newcastle, neither of whom have won in some time. Manchester United were poor against Saints, three draws over Christmas against sides they should've beaten.
7. Les premières recherches scientifiques, essentiellement menées sur des rongeurs, semblaient confirmer le caractère « anormal » de plusieurs pratiques et positions sexuelles. En effet, on observe que l'organisation neuroanatomique générale des organismes mammaliens est spécifiquement conçue pour la copulation hétérosexuelle : des phéromones sexuelles attirent réciproquement les mâles vers les femelles, puis le réflexe de lordose permet de bien présenter le vagin pour la pénétration, la lubrification vaginale facilite le réflexe d'éjaculation, les sensations vaginales, clitoridiennes et péniennes (via le système de récompense), favorisent la motivation sexuelle, etc. (voir le schéma ci-contre).
8. I finished one book today - Scottish crime, family complicated, fake abduction of toddlee, policeman and policewoman detectives acting like indestructible cunts with no respect for due procedure. I started another - F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories jazz era mini-collection stylish and chosen with awareness that I've already reached my 2017 reading target of 120 books and don't want/need to sorta cheat by half reading a book this year yet counting it as next year's achievement.
9. My half-baked ideas about delaying replacing my television, and in the interim connecting more with DVDs and on demand and reading and the like aren't going to come to fruition. My laptop play-back of on demand stuff is too laggy, I'm getting annoyed not being able to watch stuff like MOTD, and though I'm now not vegging out on the sofa all weekend/evening in front of the telly, I'm doing just as little on my bed with my laptop. Admittedly this week that's mainly been 'cause of the cold, but still - I will get my finger out and buy a replacement telly soon.
10. George Weah has been elected President of Liberia. Before his football career allowed him to move abroad (offered that opportunity by Arsene Wenger at Monaco), Weah worked for the Liberia Telecommunications Corporation as a switchboard technician. Apparently tomorrow Arsenal will wear red home shirts and special red shorts against West Bromwich.
11. The aza-Baylis–Hillman reaction or aza-BH reaction in organic chemistry is a variation of the Baylis–Hillman reaction and describes the reaction of an electron deficient alkene usually an α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compound with an imine in the presence of a nucleophile. The reaction product is an allylic amine. The reaction can be carried out in enantiomeric excess of up to 90% with the aid of bifunctional chiral BINOL and phosphinyl BINOL compounds, for example in the reaction of n-(4-chloro-benzylidene)-benzenesulfonamide with methyl vinyl ketone (MVK) in cyclopentyl methyl ether and toluene at -15°C.
12. Watched Frankie Boyle's 2017 show this evening, some excellent satirical points made my him and his guests. Boyle once worked as a library assistant, and also studied at Aston University. Philosophical pessimism is the related idea that views the world in a strictly anti-optimistic fashion. This form of pessimism is not an emotional disposition as the term commonly connotes. Instead, it is a philosophy or worldview that directly challenges the notion of progress and what may be considered the faith-based claims of optimism. Philosophical pessimists are often existential nihilists believing that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. Their responses to this condition, however, are widely varied and often life-affirming.
Bournemouth 2-1 Everton.
Chelsea 5-0 Stoke City.
Huddersfield 0-0 Burnley.
Liverpool 2-1 Leicester.
Newcastle 0-0 Brighton.
Watford 1-2 Swansea.
Man United 0-0 Southampton.
Middlesbrough 0-1 Aston Villa.
