I know that Layne’s appeared in the comic before, but he’s never gotten an official introduction. He’s my boyfriend, and he’s currently getting his PhD. In what, you ask? Well… The short answer is “science”.
The long answer, at least when he was writing his Master’s thesis, is how “hsp47 is co-expressed with type-2 collagen in in-vitro chondrognesis “. You can see why the short answer in necessary. (Though, in the right company, “developmental biology” is usually sufficient.)
Anyway, his current research involves zebrafish. If you haven’t seen one before, they are small, nearly transparent fish with streamlined fins (though, there’s a variety of mutants in his lab with long, flowing fins). They’re easy to breed and relatively easy to look after which makes them excellent candidates for research science, though I know from personal experience that they enjoy nothing more than evading nets and leaping to their dooms on the floor.
Occasionally, Layne will ask me to help feed them. The fish facility is row upon row upon row of little plastic tanks, each with a tiny school of fish inside, so there is a lot of fish to feed! We do, indeed, feed them brine shrimp, which are measured out into the tanks via a dropper. The zebrafish go crazy any time someone walks past their tank, thinking that it’s now dinner time.
Your Science Quotent for the Day:
Here’s a video of a developing zebrafish embryo. Look at that cute little notochord…
If you don’t understand why I’m so excited about that, then you’re probably haven’t heard just how awesome this thing is going to be. Imagine all of your favorite webcomic artists in one place, just hanging out. That’s right. No busy cons. No giant exhibitor halls. Just a ton of people who love webcomics, all in one place. Oh, and did I mention that attendance is FREE?
That is just a small portion of the people who will be attending this. (Go check out the website if you want the complete list! There’s dozens of names) I’m not kidding. This thing is gonna be awesome!! I should mention, though, that if you’re interested in coming out, you need to pre-register first. It’s quick and easy, and will give the organizers an idea of how many people to expect. Anyway, hope to see some of you out there!!
Ok, you know how I mentioned that my family’s Native? Remember those black-haired little cousins I drew when I was hanging out on the reserve as a kid? Yeah. I don’t look like that, so much…
Oh, I’ve got the Official Native Cheekbones, and the mystical walk-through-the-mists racial bonus, but skin-wise? Nada. Nothing. Not a trace of melanin. I don’t walk through the mists so much as I just kinda get lost in them. I’m pale. Uncooked bannock. Flour, even.
That’d be my biological dad’s contribution to my genes. Some rather Skandanavian genes, I might add. I’m pasty. But, on the plus side, I am not lactose intolerant, like most of my family. Hooray! Milk! It’ll do a body good!
Unless that body is, say, trying to get a tan… Grr.
OK, OK. That’s an old joke. But this is an old comic. This is THE first Moosehead Stew comic I ever drew. I scribbled it after blurting it out, pretty much verbatim as seen in the strip, while watching Mythbusters one night. It was the episode where they are testing to see if you can use explosives to tenderize meat, and we had to pause the tape while Layne glared at me and I laughed my ass off over my own joke. I’m like that sometimes.
That’s kind of how watching T.V. with me goes – I’ll even provide ‘witty’ and completely unnecessary commentary while watching M3K epsiodes.
Also, I am a huge Mythbusters fan. It’s pretty much the greatest, geekiest show ever. There’s explosions, robots, medieval weaponry, chemical reactions, and science. Plus, they once built a giant animatronic shark, which ranks pretty high in my list of “coolest things you could do, ever”. (It’s just below building giant animatronic dinosaurs.)
My friends, K & H, are two of the funniest, cutest indy game guru chicks that you will ever meet. And they have impeccable taste in dim sum. We met them for breakfast just yesterday morning, it being Sunday, and Sunday being the day for dim sum. We managed to beat the crowds to a dim sum place that we’d been meaning to try, even if it meant getting up early for a Sunday. Some sacrifices are necessary to get good dim sum!
Dim sum with the four of us (Layne & I, K & H) usually goes something like this: We all sit down, talk for a while until we realize that we should be flagging down some of the circulating carts, and then there is a great flurry of ordering in between more gaming anecdotes. This continues in cycles until we are all full and the waitresses are giving us and our odd conversations funny looks.
We cover immense conversational ground over tea and dumplings! We are also terribly, hilariously politically-incorrect in a way that only good minority friends can be with each other. K riffs on being Chinese, I riff on being Native, and the three of us riff on *all things rainbow. Layne contributes his share of terrible puns, witty quips, and cringes at appropriate times. In the end, great silliness occurs, and we all laugh until our sides hurt. (Though I’m sure we probably make other tables around us cringe.)
This above conversation occurred pretty much verbatim, a few dim sum Sunday’s ago, and quickly devolved into a competition to see who could come up with the worst reality show idea.
*I really do mean all things rainbow… Today’s discussion about whether or not there is a “bear” community among the furries, and exactly what that would entail, will haunt me for some time now.
Ok, ok. I do, on occasion, wear nail polish. I have a terrible habit of biting my nails, and I find that putting a clear coat on my fingernails will keep me from chewing on them, or at least remind me not to whenever I get a mouthful of horrible chemicals.
I will also occasionally will go crazy and paint my toenails ridiculous colors. Preferably in the wintertime, when few people will see the lime green, orange, fuchsia and neon blue rainbow that has somehow haphazardly landed on my feet. (I tell you, for all that I’ve got a steady hand with a brush pen, I am total crap when it comes to painting my nails. Not even those weird foamy toe separators help.)
Maybe I should think about wearing colored nail polish during February, though. There’s nothing quite as disturbing as watching an episode of CSI and discovering that the carefully made-up corpse has fingernails that are less purple than yours. But I guess that’s what you get for living in Alberta in the wintertime. -40 C is not kind anyone, and even with three layers of gloves on, the winter chill still manages to make my hands hover a few degrees above freezing until about May.
I know that Layne’s appeared in the comic before, but he’s never gotten an official introduction. He’s my boyfriend, and he’s currently getting his PhD. In what, you ask? Well… The short answer is “science”.
Hey everyone! I will be attending the 
Ok, you know how I mentioned that my family’s Native? Remember those black-haired little cousins I drew when I was hanging out on the reserve as a kid? Yeah. I don’t look like that, so much…
OK, OK. That’s an old joke. But this is an old comic. This is THE first Moosehead Stew comic I ever drew. I scribbled it after blurting it out, pretty much verbatim as seen in the strip, while watching Mythbusters one night. It was the episode where they are testing to see if you can use explosives to tenderize meat, and we had to pause the tape while Layne glared at me and I laughed my ass off over my own joke. I’m like that sometimes.
My friends, K & H, are two of the funniest, cutest indy game guru chicks that you will ever meet. And they have impeccable taste in dim sum. We met them for breakfast just yesterday morning, it being Sunday, and Sunday being the day for dim sum. We managed to beat the crowds to a dim sum place that we’d been meaning to try, even if it meant getting up early for a Sunday. Some sacrifices are necessary to get good dim sum!
Ok, ok. I do, on occasion, wear nail polish. I have a terrible habit of biting my nails, and I find that putting a clear coat on my fingernails will keep me from chewing on them, or at least remind me not to whenever I get a mouthful of horrible chemicals.