Gene identified for spread of deadly melanoma | Newsroom | Washington University in St. Louis

Gene identified for spread of deadly melanoma Newsroom Washington University in St. Louis

Last christmas, I traded in my '92 Honda Accord (with 197,000 miles on it) for a sparkly new 2010 Honda Civic. Last week I finally noticed the manufacturer's plate on door jam long enough to read it, and saw that my car was built at Honda Manufacturing of Indiana, LLC. Curious about where my new pet was born, I found the address to be outside of Greenburg, Indiana – I also found that there are a lot of cities in Indiana that start with "Green" – and went over to Google maps to see if they had satellite imagery of the plant. They did not. So, I tried Bing maps (formerly Live maps; formerly Microsoft maps), but their satellite image was no better:



So, I switched over to Bing's Bird's Eye View aerial imagery, and there it was!

I would like to believe that the plant is so new, and the satellite imagery so old, that they just missed it, but the conspiracist side of me wonders if it will always look like farmland in the satellite photos.

Two friends emailed me the RoboGeisha trailer; whatever it says about me that more than one person would see RoboGeisha and immediately say, "I'd better send that to Mike," I'm not sure, but it's right. It certainly is the most all-inclusive trailer I've seen, from Geisha Chainsaw to Tengu Milk to Handicap Gun. I love the voice work, and I laughed at Fried Shrimp being jammed into someone's eyes, until I was looking for a Chinese eye journal today on the InterTubes and found the World-Eye website, which features a picture of fried shrimp. As if I didn't waste enough time on Tengu Milk, now I have to know whether Fried Shrimp Attack is symbolic or ironic.

My clan have always fancied ourselves capable singers and musicians — my father used to bemoan our not forming a family choir like the von Trapps — but none of us have been quite willing to quit our day jobs. So, it's good to see that two Onkens have continued the pursuit. My sister Katie has formed the Katie O Combo and created its own MySpace page; and my neice Julia has recently started her own YouTube Channel. Maybe there's hope yet.

Here's something we don't get to do every day:
As part of a massive, ongoing renovation, MoDOT closed (completely) the West half of Interstate-64, the main artery running through the central corridor of St Louis County. Yesterday, before the ribbon cutting ceremony that simultaneously opened the West half and closed the East half, MoDOT opened the new highway to pedestrian traffic only. "Let's go walk on the new highway" was The holiday event this year.