Category: Pharmaceuticals

Posted on

What It Is: 5/26/08

What I’m reading: Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad, and vol. 1 of Cromartie High School, an incredibly funny manga.

What I’m listening to: That new Portishead album again.

What I’m watching: Kung Fu Hustle, which remains one of the most entertaining flicks of all time, and The Big Lebowski, which I need to write about.

What I’m drinking: Blue Point Brewing Co.’s Blueberry Ale (a gift from this weekend’s houseguests).

Where I’m going: Maybe out to see Iron Man today, but otherwise, nodarnwhere special this week.

What I’m happy about: Having a nice, long, relatively relaxing weekend. (“Relatively,” because Saturday involved a lot of cleaning and cooking, as we had those aforementioned houseguests. Also, I was a nervous nellie because one of the sets of guests had a 1-year-old child, and I was afraid Rufus would get overstimulated and eat the kid. Everything turned out fine.) Oh, and taking a vacation day on Tuesday, just to get a little extra time before diving into the big Top 20 Pharma and Top 10 Biopharma issue of my magazine.

What I’m sad about: Last night, Rufus appeared to have developed a case of Ringworm in Ringwood. Fortunately, we already had a vet appointment scheduled for tomorrow.

What I’m pondering: Why the Coen Brothers use voiceovers in some of their flicks and not in others. Also, how long the natives will let the new Mars probe transmit.

What I’m updating: Rufus’ status! The vet says that they’re just “mayfly” bites, nothing that requires any treatment! Wanna see all the gories? Glad to oblige!

Posted on

Final Tale of Hofmann

When I was a student at Hampshire College, the annual Halloween tradition was known as “Trip or Treat.” Being a total square, I never partook. For a variety of reasons, I wish I’d tried acid, but it’s a bit late in life for that.

Anyway, Albert Hofmann, the man who first synthesized LSD, has died at the age of 102. But, as Acid Archie sez, “ACID NEVER DIE!”

(written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Steve Yeowell; not sure who holds the copyright, which is 1990)

Posted on

Magaziner

I’ll be pretty busy this week, getting the May issue together. We launched the magazine in 1999, and I’m a little embarrassed that I’ve yet to do any sort of redesign since then. But dammit, Jim, I’m an editor, not a designer!

Except that we all do our own designs at my company, which is why the mags tend to look like they were laid out by editors. Anyway, to make myself feel even more inadequate as a designer, I read this long, engaging interview with “British editorial design icon” David Hillman.

To compound my sense of half-assing things, I read this insanely in-depth article about the design of Monocle’s magazine and website.

I’m glad I was able to get some laughs from this gallery of The Onion’s Sunday magazine covers. (link via macCulture)

(If you’re interested in what magazines I subscribe to, here’s the list.)

Posted on

Outerphex

Sorry for the postlessness, dear readers! I’m down in Philadelphia for the Interphex conference and been busy getting things set up.

I’ve been attending this annual event since 2000 and this is the second time it’s been in Philly; all the other years have been in NYC. Not sure why it got bumped this time around, but hey.

The “fun” thing about these conferences is finding out what state our booth is in. Every company has horror stories about their booth materials (their stand, handouts, etc.) being lost. In this case, all of our things arrived, but the conference administrators forgot to tell the decorating company that we were supposed to have carpeting, two tables, and four chairs. Which is to say, I arrived yesterday to find our stuff — a pop-up booth in its crate and 24 boxes of magazines — sitting in the middle of a 10′ x 10′ concrete square.

So that took a little time to get resolved.

I always marvel at the scene on an exhibit hall floor 12-15 hours before an event begins. It’s absolute chaos, but somehow it all gets put together in time for a 10am opening.

Posted on

What it is: 3/24/08

What I’m reading:Little Nothings: The Curse of the Umbrella, by Lewis Trondheim

What I’m listening to: Drunk with Passion, This is How it Feels, and Pure, all by the Golden Palominos

What I’m watching: Blades of Glory, unfortunately

What I’m drinking: Not a durned thing

Where I’m going: Philadelphia, for a pharma conference

What I’m happy about: Getting to see some of my pals down in Philly (both locals and work-friends who I tend to see only at conferences, but would hang out with in non-work scenarios)

What I’m sad about: Being away from my wife and my doggie for a few days.

What I’m pondering: How to describe the multiple levels of messed-up-edness in Sunday’s visit with my uncle, who had bypass surgery a few weeks ago. On the plus side, he seems to be recuperating pretty well. On the minus side, it appears that, in addition to my having to worry about hereditary cardiovascular issues, I’ll also have to be on the lookout for the mental instability that my dad and his brother share.

Posted on

Pflogged

Those wacky animal rights maniactivists get up in arms because they think animals are being tortured as part of the pharma R&D process. I’m more concerned about how their executives mangle our language, as illustrated by this morning’s gem:

We are proactively managing our total cost structure to do what is necessary to size the company appropriately to align with our revenues so that we deliver growing profitability after the Lipitor loss of exclusivity.

–Frank D’Amelio, chief financial officer, Pfizer, Inc.