Whatever happened to Robin?

Whatever happened to Robin Himmler, Donald Trump’s old assistant? She had a big fan base, and she was even popular enough to pose in one of those tasteless men’s cheesecake magazines.

She was demure and coquettish, and I think that appealed to a lot of guys. Why haven’t any of Trump’s other assistants garnered similar attention, though? Is it because they just didn’t stick out as much, or because they didn’t get as much air time? Or is it because Trump’s star is waning?

And why in the world did that gal leave the Trump organization anyway? I suppose she could always go into modelling.

Asian male heartthrobs

On occasion, I’ve lamented the lack of Asian male heartthrobs in the media. There are plenty of male white, black, and Latino sex symbols, but there aren’t really any Asian men who are elevated to that status.

Is this a reflection of societal preferences? Or is it simply that Hollywood doesn’t think that women go for Asian men? I think it’s a combination of both.

Women in the USA seldom find Asian men attractive. For proof, simply visit any singles dating website where people are allowed to specify their racial preferences. White and blacks will typically be the most popular, and Latinos will have more than their share of admirers. Asian men are out of luck though, for much fewer women (less than 10%, in my observation) express any preference for them or willingness to date them. And among those who do say that they’d be willing to date Asians (or more typically, “all races”), I have to wonder… are they saying this because it’s true, or because they don’t want to be perceived as being racially discriminatory?

As for Hollywood, I have no doubt that they are giving the public what they think they want. Ditto for magazines and other print media. They’re in the business of making money, after all, and if they felt that the public would go for an Asian male heartthrob, you can be sure that they’d given Asian men a lot more attention.

When I ask people to name an Asian male sex symbol, they almost invariably give two answers: Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee. Jackie Chan, of course, is primarily a comedian and an action star. While he does have his female admirers, he’s not a popular heartthrob by any stretch of the imagination. As for Bruce Lee, he was primarily an action hero as well. His posters adorned the bedroom walls of teenage boys rather than love-smitten teenaged girls… and of course, he’s been dead for over thirty years!

You do have the likes of Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat, who some women consider to be quite handsome. They most certainly are not at the heartthrob level though, and I daresay that few Americans would even recognize them at first glance.

More’s the pity.

Robot grippers

I once saw these grippers that some poor, misguided soul had designed for a chess-playing robot. The grippers would grasp onto the chesspieces using these locating pins that had to be precisely aligned to within half a millimeter or so. The result? If the chesspieces got nudged by even the slightest bit, or if they were not set down with the greatest of precision (thereby causing them to rock), the grippers would not work.

This designer could have learned a thing or two about pose-intolerant fixture design.

Flow Cytometry

Flow cytometry is a method for optically enumerating components or structural features of cells. In effect, it is used for counting the number of cells within a fluid stream that contain a particular feature. Thousands of cells can be counted in just a few seconds.

Found a very nifty tutorial on flow cytometry here. Very impressive indeed.

Flow cytometers are frequently used for performing complete blood cell counts in clinical laboratories without using fluorescence. More versatile instruments use fluorescence, giving them more flexibilty when it comes to distinguishing cell types.

Flow cytometry when dealing with cellular responses in high frequencies. For low-frequency responses, the ELISPOT method is more sensitive. These two techniques can therefore complement each other in terms of sensitivity and effectiveness.

PBMC

So I was talking to someone today who needs a large supply of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from a single donor. The idea is that her team needed to ensure that the cells would perform in a consistent manner, without the variability that multiple draws from different individuals would produce.

I recommended this source of cryopreserved PBMC samples. This source uses a serum-free preservation technique that ensures high recovery rates, allowing multiple blood draws to be taken from the same donor over time.

One of her colleagues asked if HLA-typed samples could be obtained. I said, “Yes.” It felt good, knowing that I could recommend a solution for them.

9/11 and stock investing

Just wanted to recommend this article here. It talks about investing in stocks during times of economic hardships and draws an interesting analogy to the post-9/11 days. The advice is nothing new, but it’s worth repeating. Oh, and he makes a few stock recommendations that are pretty good, too.

That Mannequin gal

This page reminded me of the classic 1980s movie, Mannequin. It featured Kim Catrall in what I consider to be her definitive role. (Maybe that’s because I don’t watch Sex in the City and have no intention of doing so.

That was a funny movie. Some of the content is arguably objectionable, but it’s pretty mild by today’s standards. Oh, and I thought it was pretty clever and darned romantic. Yeah.

The sequel, Mannequin 2, was pretty wretched though.

I’ve had a tough day

I’ve had a tough day today. Had a lot of trouble getting to a customer site. I’m in a small town that apparently does not have a reliable taxi service. All the taxi companies in town are owned by the same group expect for one. When I called for a taxicab, the first group said that there would be a 45 minute wait. As for that other company? They didn’t even pick up the phone.

Well, I wound up waiting for an hour. At that point, the first cab company said that their cab broke down and that there would be further delay. They were sending another van over to pick that fella up, and that this van would later drop by for me.

I asked, “How long will that take? Another hour, maybe? I might have to start walking instead.” She said, “Oh, no. Not that long. Maybe half an hour.” So I said, “Okay, I’ll be waiting.” I had no choice, since the other company wasn’t answering the phone.

After another forty minutes, one of the hotel personnel offered to give me a ride instead. I was very grateful. I called the cab company up and said, “Please don’t bother sending anyone my way.”

I’m not blaming anyone at this point. I realize that stuff goes wrong. Still, the whole situation did stink.

A TJ Thyne sighting

Last night, I spied actor TJ Thyne in an old episode of Angel. It was the season five episode in which a sleep-deprived empath demon, Lorne, had started to project actions and emotions onto the people around him at a company party. Thyne played one of the office drones at Wolfram and Hart.

You may know Mr. Thyne best as Dr. Jack Hodgins from the hit TV show, Bones. Hodgins has the kind of brilliance that I’d like to aspire to. Heck, half of the main characters on that show look like they would totally clean up on Jeopardy. Dang.

Mister Roper

My gosh. I haven’t thought about Norman Fell in years. What a funny guy!

I remember the short-lived spin-off, The Ropers. What a terrible shame that it didn’t last very long. I think he was even funnier in that shown than on the original show, Three’s Company. I also remember my father commenting that Mr. Roper’s face along was enough to make a guy burst out laughing.

That guy should have had his own show. I don’t know many comedians who can even touch this guy.