On nights like tonight , I wonder just how much my PhD can really be worth...
Tonight, on her way home, my wife asked if we could go out to eat. I was the bad guy, citing a heavy workload, but I offered to prepare a frozen pizza if she would walk me through the steps...
Set the oven to 400 degrees.
Check.
Remove the pizza from the plastic.
Check.
Put the pizza on the shelf 6-8 inches above the oven floor.
Check.
Set the timer for 20 minutes.
Check.
I know what you're thinking. She neglected to mention one of the most important steps: Remove the pizza from the cardboard tray. As in, DON'T COOK THE CARDBOARD.
She didn't tell me. Tonight we had four cheese corrugation. Delish.
(for my wife's account, click here)
Showing posts with label pizza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pizza. Show all posts
Monday, August 25, 2008
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Practice makes perfect
Two anecdotes about two beginners in two different fields.
1. A medical doctor recently joined our laboratory. He is a skilled physician but is still cutting his teeth at the lab bench. He recently learned how to perform a western blot, a
basic biochemical technique used to detect specific proteins within a cellular extract.
This is an artist's rendition of what a good western blot looks like.
This is what the good doctor's first western blot looked like.
We had gotten off-topic during our most recent lab meeting, somehow discussing the myriad complications and maladies that can arise with human health and during childbirth. My ever-wise advisor (click here or here) commented, "It's a miracle a baby ever comes out normal."
The young doctor replied, "That's how I feel about western blotting. Childbirth is nothing."
2. We had lunch today at CiCi's pizza buffet where a new pizza chef was being trained.
I watched as the novice removed a pizza from the conveyor oven and attempted to divide it into eight proportional slices. He failed at this task, and this is roughly what his pie looked like.
The manager, displeased with his protege's poor sense of symmetry, took a deep breath and explained (as though this wasn't the first time he'd said it), "You need to visualize the center of
the pizza." He paused to demonstrate, carefully cutting eight pieces in a sample pizza. Proud of his perfectly divided circle, the manager added, "This is an art form."
The neophyte retorted, under his breath, "Mine is an abstract pizza."
1. A medical doctor recently joined our laboratory. He is a skilled physician but is still cutting his teeth at the lab bench. He recently learned how to perform a western blot, a
basic biochemical technique used to detect specific proteins within a cellular extract.This is an artist's rendition of what a good western blot looks like.
This is what the good doctor's first western blot looked like.
We had gotten off-topic during our most recent lab meeting, somehow discussing the myriad complications and maladies that can arise with human health and during childbirth. My ever-wise advisor (click here or here) commented, "It's a miracle a baby ever comes out normal."
The young doctor replied, "That's how I feel about western blotting. Childbirth is nothing."
2. We had lunch today at CiCi's pizza buffet where a new pizza chef was being trained.
I watched as the novice removed a pizza from the conveyor oven and attempted to divide it into eight proportional slices. He failed at this task, and this is roughly what his pie looked like.
The manager, displeased with his protege's poor sense of symmetry, took a deep breath and explained (as though this wasn't the first time he'd said it), "You need to visualize the center of
the pizza." He paused to demonstrate, carefully cutting eight pieces in a sample pizza. Proud of his perfectly divided circle, the manager added, "This is an art form."The neophyte retorted, under his breath, "Mine is an abstract pizza."
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