so the history channel is here filming and they are getting in the way. every time they want to film dr. peters they have to have everyone out of the shot which means that we cannot freely move around the lab and actually do work.

anyway typically dr. peters wears suspenders, dress pants and a short sleeved button down shirt. he also wears sandals with socks ... on a good day the socks will match ... on a bad day, not so much. today, thankfully he matched. so the history channel guys wanted him to look like he was doing bench work and working with viruses but he hasn't done lab work in a long time. so he walked around the lab trying to figure out what he wanted to look like he was doing for about 3 minutes. so finally he goes "who has some neutral red?"

neutral red is this red dye that you mix with things like agarose and then you put the red agarose in the wells of a plate and the red dye will stain all the live cells and so all the dead cells will stay white. then you count the white splotches to see what the titer of the virus is ...

anyway, it was only me and tomoki in the lab an tomoki works with much harder things than staining cells so finally, when i realized that tomoki was not going to help dr. peters, i go " i have some." and i handed him the neutral red bottle. so after he got it, he stood there in front of the fridge for a while like he was rethinking his plan so then i ask "did you want it in a test tube instead of the big bottle? i have some that i took out to use. it's sterile." and then i showed the test tube of neutral red and he said that the test tube would look better. anyway then i asked "do you need more in the tube?" because there was only like a tiny bit in there and he said no. anyway, he went back to the back room where the bio-saftey cabinets are and he pipetted some i suppose and then he came back and said that if the pipetter is sterile then the neutral red is still sterile ... i don't think i'm going to use that tube again because he didn't seem so sure that it was sterile.

anyway after he was done with that part of the filming, they wanted him to walk out of the back room, hang up his coat and then walk out into the hallway. it was ridiculous because they had to do it three times and the angle that they were shooting had tomoki directly in the line of sight and he could not keep a straight face. then when they finally left, tomoki said that i should have waved to the camera.