Sometimes you don't want all the bells and whistles

The benchtop microfuge (small centrifuge) I use broke last week. Sort of. See, most of the microfuges we have in the lab are old and look as if they had been made in someones garage out of spare parts from a 54 Chevy, but they work fine. I'm not that vain. Well, the person that shares my lab bay used some of her excess fellowship money to buy a new one, an ultrafancy one, the one we both use, the one that broke. I was spinning a plasmid prep, the rotor was spinning down when an error came up on the display "Tacho - Error". A tachometer error, fine, whatever. But no amount of shutting off/on or unplugging could get it to reset. I had to use the emergency "fuck you" release to get my samples out. I screwed around with it a little, said forget it, and emailed our lab manager. The microfuge was back today and working. My lab manager sent me an email containing the email she got from the tech support. Now, I want you to bear in mind, this is a brand new, less than one month old, ultra fancy high tech piece of sophisticated lab equipment. How do we get it to reset? I quote:

"open the lid
turn power off
spin the rotor by hand in a counter-clockwise direction
while the rotor is spinning, turn the power on.
You should see the RPMs counting down in the display. If you can do so without hurting
your hand, go ahead and halt the rotor from spinning. You should now get the operating
display."

....the fuck? The way to fix a high end machine is to manually spin the rotor? Why don't they just write in the manual "if you get an error message, pound the machine firmly with your fist until it corrects itself."

But wait, there's more. How did this error happen you ask? Well the tech support guy speculates:

"A Tacho 1 error occurs when a mis-count of the rotor recognition pulses generated
under the rotor occurs. This is kind of a soft error, and I can't really account for
why it happens. Usually something like a power sag or Radio Frequency interferrence
may cause it to happen."

Um, what? Radio frequency interferrence? You have got to be fucking kidding me. Most microfuges I've worked with are so old that I'd be lucky to have any kind of LCD display. Most just have knobs on springs. This damn thing is so fancy that moving too fast past it with my cell phone in my pocket can screw it up. Honestly, that's too much. I find it too fucking hilarious. I'm fighting the urge to make the machine its own personal tinfoil hat and sending an email to the lab letting them know how the foil is there to keep out them pesky alien signals. Seriously, is this thing equipped with Bluetooth? If I start getting text messages from my microfuge at 3 in the morning telling me how lonely it is, we are going to have a "talk". With a sledgehammer.

Well, what do YOU want?

Cause I know what I want. I want the cute girl in the stockroom. I....want...her.

Just sayin'. Want.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas

Mission accomplished

Top 5: Night of the Living Top 5

Top 5 people I'd like to have over for a dinner party

5. Robert Osborne

4. Socrates

3. Martin Scorsese

2. Jesus

1. Roger Ebert

Honorable mentions: David Hume, Abraham Lincoln, Nikola Tesla, Martin Luther, Alfred Hitchcock, Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Maggie Gyllenhall (ok, so it'd be a big dinner party)

Top 5: Marriage of Top 5

Top 5 songs that aren't played at weddings but probably should be.

5. "Coming Down" - Anders Osborne

4. "Blues On A Holiday" - Susan Tedeschi

3. "Fall Too Fast" - The Wood Brothers

2. "Baby Your Love (Is All I Need) - Eugene "Hideaway" Bridges

1. "Don't Tell Me" - Taj Mahal

Honorable mentions: "Loving in my Baby's Eyes" by Taj Mahal (Eric Bibb version also acceptable, "Please Call Me, Baby" by Tom Waits, "Little Trip To Heaven" by Tom Waits, "The Staunton Lick" by Lemon Jelly, "That's What Angels Can Do" by The Wood Brothers, "Lola" by The Kinks, "Couch Potato" by Weird Al Yankovic