Tom Bihn Ego & Brain Cell

Seth — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:33:38 +0000

Posted early to help someone out with pics. Will add actual review later.

With the Brain Cell inside, fits two large textbooks and a paperback with no stuffing. Probably one more paperback if I stretched it a bit. The weight of the bag in this setup is 22.6 pounds. This is more than I would almost ever carry… usually one book and the laptop.

With that stuff inside, you can easily slip a couple spiral notebooks in the back as well.

It’s pretty fat with all that stuff in it. Ruler to help estimate height / depth.

Want to travel lighter? Just take out the Brain Cell. Whoa, look at all that space! These are the same books that were in the bag in the first picture.

Now that there’s no Brain Cell, I can fit a whopping four giant textbooks in there (I’m a microbiology major; all our books are like that.) Still kept the paperback around, and threw in a 1100-page French dictionary (my minor is in French).

It’s fat with 4 books too. Weighs way more than I’d want to carry around for a day. The moral is that you will get tired long before the bag does!

Here’s a shot showing how much bulk a Brain Cell adds to my laptop (answer: a lot). This is a 14-inch Vostro 1400.

Depth comparison of laptop vs. its Brain Cell. (This is a size 3S Brain Cell, the largest size that would fit in an Ego.)

Obligatory full-frontal shot. The seatbelt buckle has been worth at least double its cost in entertainment value! I just sit there and click it in and out like a happy grinning fool. Downside: it jangles as you walk.

I can fit all the other stuff I would normally take to class in the front, even while it’s artificially loaded with those four giant books: Palm Pilot, TI-89, response "clicker" thing, and some pens. 32-oz Nalgene in the side.

MCAT ahead

Seth — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 05:47:45 +0000

I didn’t get as much done this break as I’d hoped, but I still made good headway on studying for my MCAT that’s coming up at the end of January. The MCAT is the test you take that serves as a standard measure of how qualified you are to enter medical school; schools look at your scores as well as your GPA and application when determining whether to offer you a spot. The MCAT is divided into three sections: Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Verbal Reasoning; there are also two short essay questions. Chemistry can be found in both of the science sections (organic chem vs. physical chem), and everything is very passage-based so critical reading skills are a must. A perfect score is 45 (15 on each of the three sections), and I’d like to shoot for the high 30s at least to present a competitive application to med school. I got a 30 as a freshman when I took a practice MCAT, so I think that I’ll do much better with 4 years of college behind me.

I leave for OU tomorrow morning, right after church. It’s always nice going back when I have people riding with me, and Andrew Whiteside and Adam Junk are both coming. I certainly won’t lack for entertainment as they talk more than most anyone else I know. I have no clue how I’m going to fit all of Adam’s stuff in the car tomorrow, but we’ll see what happens. My laptop gets to ride in style in my new messenger bag I got for Christmas, which I’ll have to blog about sometime because it’s kind of a big deal

I’m ready for a new semester to start.

Seth Kinast's Blog » Tom Bihn

Tom Bihn Ego & Brain Cell

MCAT ahead