where physics and life collide
Archive for September, 2009
How I did NOT find an apartment
02 years ago
Everyone that moves to CERN gets to experience it: the apartment hunt. Missed appointments, shitty furnishings, and questionably strange landlords are just a few of the guaranteed spices one tastes when sampling the Housing Buffet in Geneva and its nearby French villages.
Recently, I expressed interest to a certain CERN engineer who was advertising a studio in St. Genis for a reasonable price. I visited, and told him immediately that I would take the apartment. After informing me that there was one other competitor in the queue to visit the unit, he said that he would contact me at the beginning of the following week with information about applying for the apartment. It was CLEAR that day that both myself and my rival would be applying, and that it would be up to the rental agency as to which of us got to start a lease. Needless to say, I was skeptical…
By Tuesday of the next week, I had not heard from said engineer, so I wrote him a message:
Engineer,
Is there any news about the apartment? Will I still be able to submit an application?
Regards
lovehurts
…no response…
Wednesday, Thursday…no response…
On Friday, I received this e-mail from my engineer-friend:
Dear lovehurts,
the studio is renting now
have a good day
best regards
P
(NB: This was NOT in response to my follow-up e-mail. Nay, he sent this e-mail as a response to my initial message to him, in which I expressed interest in visiting the studio…)
In case that’s not clear to the readers, allow me to translate:
Dear lovehurts,
Hey asshole,
the studio is renting now
Fuck you!
have a good day
Fuck you again!
best regards
Do not ever speak to me or attempt to contact me again,
P
–The Engineer
The Lepton is broken
12 years ago
by biglove
in E-mail adventures
A CERN research scientist recently sent me this email:
Conference room Lepton is broken, please take a look.
Thanks.
the Lepton
To learn more about leptons, see the Wikipedia entry.
Mr. Electric Brushy Bear
02 years ago
Science doesn’t always take place in a circle of fawning women as you tune up your Tesla coil. Sometimes there is nothing to do but sit in nature’s ventilation hood (“outside”) and scrub critical high voltage boards with acetone. But sometimes the novelty of nature and the sweet caress of solvent fumes is not enough to take away the tedium of scrubbing hundreds of boards. This is where one needs a carefully selected tool to maintain the highest scientific standards while at the same time speeding your work along.
Critical circuit boards cleaned with acetone and Mr. Electric Brushy Bear
Case in point: Mr. Brushy Bear. This cute guy (you’ll probably need to click and look closer at the photograph) brings happiness while his little condiment-colored motor does the work for us. Isn’t science great!
CERN coffee man
02 years ago
CERN coffee man,
a cup of CERN espresso
I enter the courtyard.
CERN coffee man,
you make eye contact from behind your reading glasses and maintain it as I approach.
CERN coffee man,
your glasses are always on your face but you never use them for reading.
CERN coffee man,
your eyes are halfway behind your glasses and your expression is … quizzical.
CERN coffee man,
when I order coffee in French you answer in English.
CERN coffee man,
when I order coffee in English you answer in French.
An inexplicable scene in the lavabo
32 years ago
stairway descending to the lavabo
Restaurant 1 (R1) is the main CERN “restaurant” (but let’s be honest here, it’s a cafeteria). Around the corner, underground, is a lavabo, a beautiful French word meaning “toilets.” I hopped down the stairs and breezed in to what is probably the largest men’s room at CERN, heading for the urinals, when my nonchalant progress was checked by a considerable pool of water covering the entire floor. As I re-assessed my surroundings, I saw a 10-year old boy holding a baby on his arm while standing at the urinal.
My eyes processed this scene quickly; I felt confusion, then looked again to make sure the boy wasn’t a woman, as if a woman standing at a urinal in the men’s room makes more sense. Becoming flustered, I jumped over the edge of the water and locked myself inside a stall, where I attempted in vain to comprehend what I had just seen.
It’s too bad they don’t have CERN toilets on Diaroogle yet, or else I could have avoided this scenario.
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