Stung!

I think I just literally experienced the sharpest, most intense physical pain that I have ever had in my entire life (and my fingers were once slammed in a car door, so that's saying a lot).

I was walking merrily along to get a smoothie for lunch, and some insect stung me horribly in my right pinkie right in the bottom spot where I bend it. The stinger went all the way through and poked another (smaller) hole through the skin farther up my finger.

I ending up apologizing profusely for my salty language to the two nice ladies who stopped their walking to ask me what was wrong.

That was close to 30 minutes ago, and my hand is still shaking a bit (and I can't make a firm fist, and it really shakes when I force myself to make a fist). And it still hurts like Hell, though not as intensely as during the heated moment. The pain is very slowly dulling.

I hope that insect dies a slow, painful death (maybe nailing me was its last act of defiance?), and then I hope it gets experimented on. I know biologists --- I could make this happen.

I have been stung before --- on the bottom of my foot, even --- and it was nowhere near as painful as this time.

As some of you know, I have a history dating back to not just my Caltech days but all the way to Beverly Hills. (I never did get stung by one of the Caltech hornets, even though they harassed me a lot.)

My smoothie was well-earned.

In conclusion: Ouch. And Fuck.

A New Rejection Record!

Fastest. Rejection. Ever. (I wonder if this is a new world record?)

Today, Nature Communications desk-rejected our paper 2 hours and 1 minute after we submitted it.

OUCH!

What The Reviewers Say

Reviewer #2 concludes in his/her final sentence: "The results here represented a substantial step backward in terms of value and sophistication from the many published analyses that have already been published in ..."

Ouch. Yes, not only does this referee not like our paper, but we have devalued the work that already exists. (To give some context, let me point out that reviews of Tom Lehrer's work have included comments such as "Mr. Lehrer's muse is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste.", "More desperate than amusing", "He seldom has any point to make except obvious ones", and "Plays the piano acceptably".) We will survive to improve the paper and submit it to another journal.

Well, at least there are also comments that we can use to make our paper better when we submit it somewhere else.

Today's fortune

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.