The Outlet

Moving on

2008-02-14T18:28:00.000-08:00

Dear all 30-40 people who look at this site every day,

I decided to grow up and graduate from Blogger. I got my own domain name and made my own site using wordpress:

The Outlet

It's got all the old posts plus all of my photos, and secret bonus features. Or maybe just photos...you'll have to check it out to be sure.
Sincerely,
Todd

Prototypes

2008-01-22T23:30:00.000-08:00

I'm consistently about 1-2 years behind the times when it comes to finding new music. It works out well though, because it allows time for all the Spin and Rolling Stone hype to blow over. That way, I can sift through what remains and pick up the best of what each year offers all at once.

Before I left for my Hawaii rotations, I did some musical research on 2007 albums. For the most part, I was unimpressed with what I found out there. I was a little indied out; I didn't want another Arcade Fire album or Feist's latest or another posthumous Elliott Smith cash-in. I wanted something fun, and hit a major home run when I picked up Prototypes' self-titled album.

This album is a blast. [The] Prototypes are a French synth-pop-handclap-punk extravaganza. Isabelle Le Doussal sings in well-enunciated French, most of which I could understand with my college freshman level language skills. Even if you don't understand a lick of it, you get the gist (i.e. dance to the shit that's on the radio). Don't take my word for it; check it out - don't know if this is legal, but they're only clips:

"Danse sur la merde"

"Je ne te connais pas"

"Medicalement"

Apprently this album was a mash-up of 2 other French albums Prototypes released over the last few years and re-released for American audiences. It's the best French export of 2007 in my opinion.

First Impressions

2008-01-21T22:40:00.000-08:00

I sat down to write a blog about how awesome my first 2 weeks in Hawaii were but found myself somewhat uninspired (read: lazy). So instead, here are some inane observations:

Drivers are very courteous and drive very slowly (60mph or less)
Honolulu traffic sucks both ways, especially when maniacs throw children into traffic
Weeks after the fact, people still lament Hawaii's trouncing in the Sugar Bowl
More people worship June Jones than any other major religious deity
You can find a beach or mountain to climb within a 15 minute drive of wherever you are on O'ahu
Anywhere you look could be a panoramic vista worthy of photographing
People really do wear aloha shirts as business attire. I look like a Mormon in my shirt and tie
People really do say "Aloha" when answering the phone
When talking, people intersperse "Yah" into their sentences. "It's really cold today, yah. At night it got down to the 60s, yah, and I had to close my windows." This isn't like the Fargo "yah;" it's actually more like "yuh."
Everyone born here surfs, and they do it well into old age

I've never been anywhere with such a rich mix of cultures, history, geology, plant and animal life, and opportunities for lying on the beach. Do I want to spend the next three years here for my Pediatrics residency though?

Depending on what I think of the program when I interview next month, it could be pretty high on my list. I'm ranking programs in other expensive cities (Boston, NYC, DC) already. I feel like I'd miss my friends and connections on the east coast though. It'd be hard to convince my buddies to fly for 10 hours just to visit me for a few days. Spending my post-call days sleeping here does have its appeal, though...

RIFFS OF THE GODS! - 1st Movement, 5th Symphony (Beethoven)

2008-01-07T21:56:00.000-08:00

Ludwig von "Dave" Beethoven wore many mantles: inventor of the telescope, founding father, convicted heretic. However, most people aren't aware of his musical exploits. Indeed, he wrote a ton of symphonies, minarets, and virtuosos. Many consider him to be the first metal god of the classical world. Others think he was a total pusillanimous dandy. I think he kicked ass, regardless of his foppish frilly cravates and powdered wigs.

The music speaks for itself. I mean, listen to his 5th Symphony. During this section, I bet ol' Ludwig Van was pissed at one of his out-of-tune oboists and started strangling him mid-symphony. Everyone else kept playing and upped their intensity, mimicking their conductor and creating the manic snippet we hear below:

In all seriousness though, I played the viola in Beethoven's 5th years ago, and it was a blast. And by blast, I mean blast like someone blowing up a mountain of harpsichords with TNT.

Paradise

2008-01-06T23:20:00.000-08:00

I've finally made it. After months of toiling, studying and test-taking, I'm finally starting my rotations in Hawaii. This place is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Everywhere you look is a scenic lookout and photo opportunity. Groceries are horrendously expensive, but that was expected. I finally got to start using my new camera today and unleash its power on unsuspecting plants and volcanic craters. Everything's getting uploaded to flickr here. Here's my best shot from today:

This is the steep path leading up to the top of Koko Crater, which is about 1o minutes from my place. I thought I was in shape until I climbed to the top in a half an hour after losing about 10 pounds of water weight. I'll be starting my dermatology elective tomorrow, which will set the tone for the next month...I'm hoping that tone will be "kickass."

In other news, I'm in the process of creating a new blog/website using my new domain name and wordpress. Seeing as how I have lots of other fun things to do right now, it may be a while before it's finished, but it will be within the next month at least.

In even more other news, I'm almost done reading Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore, lent to me by the lovely Jennifer. It's a hilarious page-turner about religion, alcoholism, penile trauma, anthropology, and medical malpractice. Oh, and it takes place in Micronesia...which is kind of close to Hawaii. How appropriate! When I get back I'm putting all the Hawaii Five-O seasons on my Netflix queue. Rock on.

So this is the new year...

2008-01-01T18:38:00.000-08:00

2007 turned out to be decidedly mediocre year. A few trips spruced up the year, including a little travel including a week in Jamaica and a weekend in San Diego. For the most part, I slogged my way through my mid 20s, transitioning from one short-lived dating experience to another with no long-term prospects in sight. My summer consisted of the one weekend between the third and fourth years of medical school. November and December were blown on Pediatrics residency interviews and taking my board exams. And here I sit, on New Year's Day, alone in my house, blasting Bondo do Role to cheer me up, and packing for my upcoming 2-month trip. Hawaii sure as shit has more photogenic camera fodder than my backyard.

and I don't feel any different...

New camera, PART DEUX!

2007-12-23T20:52:00.000-08:00

After two and a half years of faithful service, my Olympus C-770 Ultra Zoom finally kicked it. Well, not really. It turns on fine but never turns off, which means the zoom lens is constantly sticking out, and I need to take the battery out to kill it. And that just won't do.

What a great camera it was. It's been beaten, battered, drowned and resuscitated (Labor Day weekend 2005), and most recently used as a paperweight. It's provided beautiful visual memories of Peru, Chicago, Jamaica, and my medical school years. As I write this, I'm getting a little choked up...I'm going to miss my Olympus.

To fill the void, I've upgraded in a big way. It's time for me to join the world of big boy amateur photography. I went and got myself a Nikon D40x Digital SLR, along with an 18-55mm lens and a giant 55-200mm vibration reduction lens. I haven't had a chance to get outside and use it yet, but why bother? It's been gray and miserable for about 2 months now. I'll unleash its true power when I go to Hawaii in a few weeks. YEAH!!!

I never did finish that Worcester photo project, did I?

RIFFS OF THE GODS! - So It Goes (Unearth)

2007-11-20T18:42:00.000-08:00

Unearth holds a special place in my heart as Boston's best metal act of the day. The lead singer, Trevor Phipps, is my friend Dan's older brother, which means I've gotten to hang out with them backstage at the Palladium and on their tour bus, which was one of the coolest concert moments of my life. You can even see Dan and Joe in one of their videos...I know famous people!

They've come out with three albums, the most recent of which was with Terry Date of Pantera production fame. These guys are so much better than the typical nu-metal sludge that's out there. Trevor's mighty roar and never breaks into the generic clean vocal crap most other bands use. Their last 2 albums have been more metal than hardcore, with a twin guitar attack, non-stop solos, and blazing speed (though a few mind-blowing breakdowns are still mixed in - check out 4:00 into the song). Here's a piece from "So It Goes" off In The Eyes of Fire:

This stuff is like blunt trauma to the skull, and I love every minute of it. It doesn't get much more loud, vicious, and bone-crunching than this - without being a sloppy, disorganized mess of noise and screaming that is. Unearth's playing at the Living Room in Providence on December 8th. It's sure to be a dirty, intimate show, and you can bet I'll be there.

Blink or die

2007-11-20T16:49:00.000-08:00

Driving for the last 3 months has turned me into a monstrous, slavering lunatic on the road. My impatience as of late has gone from bad to horrific. Think: someone with the rage virus from 28 Days Later trapped inside a car with the ability to drive, spewing blood and smashing their head against the windshield. My biggest pet peeve on the road is improper use of blinkers, or directionals if you're a wiseass. Here are a few examples of why my head is dangerously close to exploding every time I commute by automobile:

Situation 1: Driver in one lane wants to get into another lane. Traffic is congested. Driver puts on their signal. Then they just wait to change lanes. And wait. And wait. This is not what blinkers are for. Blinkers signal impending action. Blinkers don't signal intent. If you put your blinker on, make your move quickly. Don't wait for half a mile, a mile, or two before you actually do something. Other drivers won't know when you're going to change lanes. It's as bad as not using a blinker at all!

Situation 2: Driver changes lanes, using blinker correctly. Then they keep driving along, blissfully unaware of their ticking dashboard as they pollute the air with their vapid, inane bluetooth cyborg wannabe headset conversations. Pay attention!

Situation 3: Driver is a total dickwad and cuts you off without using their directional. Ass!

All of these situations can be boiled down to poor communication skills. Isn't this one of society's biggest problems? Most of our global strife can be traced back to ignorance fueled by lack of communication. Our highways are a microcosm for everything that's wrong in the world. I'd rather be on the road with someone driving like a complete maniac while using their blinker than with a blinker-less conscientious driver. I'd prefer someone to say "I have a plan, and that plan is to punch you in the face," then does it, as opposed to someone who just walks up and decks me. BLINK OR DIE!!!

Late-night social ramblings

2007-11-18T02:43:00.000-08:00

It's 3:00AM on Sunday morning, I'm alone, and I despise living in Worcester.

Tonight I had the pleasure of hanging out with Dan, Jess and company in Boston. Dan and I first went to McFadden's in Faneuil Hall. The BC game was playing there, and I got to witness our first victory in a few weeks. I was pretty distracted by the non-stop parade of gorgeous girls, from the bartender to the bachelorette party to the cute, slightly overdressed pair of girls standing next to us at the bar. It hit me after my second beer that I'd never have the guts to make a move.

Why? What keeps me from even saying hello? Dropping a stupid pickup line? Offering to buy them a drink? Maybe it's because those are the best things I can do. They'll never know who I really am. Why bother, right? But what if, though? What if one of these random girls at a bar could wind up being the girl of my dreams and future wife, and the only thing keeping it from happening was me getting up the guts to say something?

Right.

Whenever I go out like this, I'm torn between wanting to lose my inhibitions and dance around like an idiot talking to everyone and just getting the hell out of dodge. Part of me wants to strike up random conversations, meet girls, and make out on the dancefloor. The other part realizes the [probable] futility of it all. What am I looking for, anyway? I don't want a one-night stand with a wasted 22 year old secretary. I don't want a long-term relationship. I threw away a perfectly good chance at that with a wonderful girl a month ago because I'm barely going to be around for the next 3 months. How could I start something meaningful at this point?

As all these thoughts fly through my head, my hatred of Worcester grows. Being out here has weakened or severed lots of the ties I had from college and high school. My group of med school friends out here are awesome, but they're all I have in Worcester. I've made some great friends here outside of med school, but they're few and far between. Now, at the end of school, everyone is splitting off, getting married, having babies, moving away, and starting new lives. My social network here is splintering.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, "A man is lucky to make it through life with a handful of good friends." Well, that's not a direct quotation. You could imagine him saying that though...then eating a grizzly bear. I feel like I need to work harder to keep the connections I have now, otherwise I'll just keep drifting farther away. One of my biggest fears is falling into a rut. I need to keep challenging myself on a daily basis. I need to make the call and try to hang out with people. It's easier to not call than it is to make plans. I know for a fact what would've happened if I'd stayed in.

When all is said and done, I'm really happy I went out tonight, even if I didn't go crazy on the dance floor, make out, and get numbers. I got to hang out with some great people I hadn't seen in a while, had a few pops, and got to see my alma mater put Clemson in their place. I just have to keep lacing up my cons and going out there, regardless of the outcome. Who knows where the night will take me...

RIFFS OF THE GODS! - Creeping Death (Metallica)

2007-11-12T18:04:00.000-08:00

I love old Metallica with a passion. In my mind, the only "true" Metallica albums are their first four: Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and ...And Justice for All. Everything after that is crap. Yes, this includes the Black Album, and especially Load. The heart of Metallica lies in those first four albums. Kill 'Em All was a lean, mean thrashfest from a bunch of zit-faced losers from So Cal. The next three albums constituted the "golden age" of Metallica. Cliff Burton wasn't dead, the band wasn't a bunch of assholes, their best album was yet to come out (Master of Puppets), and they were just starting to get huge.

Ride the Lightning was where they really hit their stride and established some song patterns and themes. Each album had a loose theme of its own: death, manipulation, and injustice. The song pattern goes as such:

1) Opening thrasher (Fight Fire with Fire, Battery, Blackened)
2) Thematic title track, usually 8-9 minutes long
3) Sludgy, chunky riffer (For Whom the Bell Tolls)
4) Slow start then explosive ending (One, Sanitarium, Fade to Black)
5) Relatively generic
6) Relatively generic #2 (except Harvester of Sorrow)
7) Long, operatic instrumental (Orion, Live is To Die, Creeping Death)
8) Closing thrasher

This formula suited them well from 1984-1988. I wish I was a high schooler back then: rich, junk-bond parents, easy coke, DeLoreans, Molly Ringwald, and...Metallica concerts. Yeah.

This clip is from Creeping Death, the 6 minute biblically-tinged shred-fest. Hetfied shrieks about the angel of death sweeping through Egypt, killing the first-born sons of the non-Jews. Wasn't that in Ezekiel or something? Whenever I hear it, I think of this painting I saw at the MFA. It was based on the Seventh Plague of Egypt, and showed fire and hail raining down. Badass!!! Check it out:

Adventures in Commuting

2007-11-11T19:15:00.000-08:00

My last year of medical school is flying by. As part of my fourth year, I've been doing electives at other hospitals to see what their pediatric programs are like. So far, I've worked at Brown, Tufts/NEMC, and Mass General. Sweet, huh? The only downside is that I've been commuting in from Worcester every day. WEAK. Here's the rundown of my travels, whether you like it or not.

September: Worcester to Providence
Leave: 7am/Arrive 8:30am/Car-Garage-Shuttle to Hospital
Cost: Gas alone (free parking)
This trip doesn't have too many options. Unfortunately for me, the Worcester/Providence rail line is freight only and 146 South is the only way down. Despite going down there during rush hour, the drive was never too bad. There are some nice landmarks, including Purgatory Chasm, a defunct drive-in, and an active drive-in. On Mondays and Tuesdays, traffic could get pretty nasty right outside of North Providence (around 8am), but the stop-and-go never lasted more than a half hour or so. Plus, the free parking Brown gave me made life pretty easy. Hoory for Providence!

October: Worcester to Boston's South End
Leave: 6:38am/Arrive 8:30am/Car-MBTA Lot-Commuter Rail-Walk to hospital
Cost: $250 (Zone 8 pass), $1/day parking
This was Commuter Rail month. I bought myself the Cadillac of T passes, the vaunted ZONE 8. This pass granted me access to any and all forms of MBTA transportation, including ferries, the train, subway, and buses. Having that potential was pretty cool, but I doubt I got $250 worth of transportation out of it. Anyway, I took the Commuter Rail from Worcester to South Station and walked from there to New England Medical Center. Door-to-door was about 2 hours. I was able to sleep for the hour-plus train ride, but the train was almost never on time. That, and there are precious few trains going back to Worcester between 12pm and 4pm, which is when I got through with work. Oh, and 4 hours of each day was spent commuting.

An interesting phenomenon on the Commuter Rail happens as the train gets closer to South Station. People will stand up in the center aisle to get a better "spot," allowing them to bolt off the train the instant it stops. Sheesh. They must really like their jobs...I prefer to sleep.

November: Worcester to Downtown Boston
Leave: 6:20am/Arrive 8:00am/Car-Alewife Station-Red Line-Walk to hospital
Cost: Gas to Alewife, $4/day subway, $5/day parking
This has been a hybrid month. I drive from Worcester to Alewife Station, pay $5 parking, and take the Red Line to Charles Street/MGH. It's usually a benign drive, but can get pretty hairy early in the week. It's given me a chance to listen to what Massachusetts blue-collar conservatives who like Disturbed have to say on the Hillman Morning Show. I know, it's a guilty pleasure, but oh so enlightening.

Alewife station also happens to be the site of mass hysteria. The parking garage only has one exit, so during busy evenings it can take up to 20 minutes just to leave. To avoid this, people will burst off the train as it pulls into Alewife and sprint up the escalators in order to be the first people out. If you snooze, it'll be almost half an hour before you're back to Route 2.

In conclusion, I only have one more week of this incessant travel before I can relax. I've blown quite a bit of money, but the hospital experience has made it well worth it.

RIFFS OF THE GODS! - Seabeast (Mastodon)

2007-11-04T17:51:00.000-08:00

This next riff is from Mastodon, the "experimental" metal band from Atlanta. By experimental, I mean their drummer packs their songs with weird time signatures and over-the-top, unnecessary fills that drive some people nuts (myself occasionally included). When I saw them in New Jersey on the Unholy Alliance tour, there were times I wished they'd stop beating around the bush and just lay down a kickass, headbanging riff. There were also times I wished the scary leather-clad bikers smoking in the men's room at the Meadowlands would stop making fun of my Anthrax shirt. Assholes. Here's the end of "Seabeast" from Leviathan. After a total sludgefest for most of the song, you're rewarded with this:

YES!!! Despite the experimentality, the album's pretty kickass . It's based on Moby Dick, with an ominous nautical theme and songs like "Blood and Thunder" and "Aqua Dementia." I'm actually in the middle of reading Moby Dick right now, and it's extremely slow going. Herman Melville dwells on every miniscule detail you can imagine. There are entire chapters devoted to descriptions of bowls of clam chowder and Ahab's pipe. Cripes. Come on Herman, just get to the whale killing and revenge! The novel's blubber could probably be boiled down to a 50-page action epic...or an hour long metal album.

Break your backs and crack your oars, men

Here's to you, old friend

2007-10-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

It's been an amazing 42 months with my Indi Blue 2004 Mini Cooper. The lease, an impulsive decision made in my youth after an abrupt '89 Chevy Celebrity breakdown/layoff/severance package, is almost up. As I reflect upon all of the good times, some tears comes to my eyes. This Mini's served me well. He's graced the streets of Manhattan and blazed his way through downtown Baltimore. He's worn a path down the left lane of the Pike and all over Storrow Drive. I've been T-boned in one minor accident (old fart not paying attention at a stop sign, his fault) and avoided countless others with Mini's trademark agility. Girlfriends have come and gone, but Max Mini has been there for me till the end [of my 42 month lease].

During his tenure as Todd's Chariot, Max has been a huge social asset. I've connected with other mini owners in the real world (my old roommate, multiple co-workers) and on the road. Lots of girls thought he was "cute." I also would've taken "super stud sex machine" or "fuel-efficient non-shitbox," but "cute" will also do. The "Mini wave" is alive and strong, and if you don't have a Mini, well, you wouldn't understand. (Actually, you would - Mini owners wave at each other on the road)

Max has also been the subject of stalker-like activity. Several months ago, one of our many weird neighbors left this picture and a message in a plastic baggie on my roommate's car:

This message was scrawled on the back of my neighbor's business card, along with the message "NO CALLS - page me." Next thing you know there'll be a picture of me doing my patented underpants calisthenics taped to our front door with the message "Neighbor, please keep pic. Nice ass, fellow co-worker a dude enthusiaste - do not call, page only, cash only."

I digress.

After reflecting on the golden years, I focused on the future. What would I do with Max? After careful deliberation I decided to purchase and finance the residual. While this isn't the ideal situation financially, I could always turn around and re-sell Max for a profit, as Minis retain their value remarkably well. In all seriousness, I don't think I could sell him. I've poured way too much work into him to back out now. It would be like if Michelangelo decided to stop carving David after finishing his head. I'm not done yet. There are more streets to carve out there, and the open road is my giant hunk of white marble.

RIFFS OF THE GODS! - Postmortem (Slayer)

2007-09-02T19:44:00.000-07:00

So I've been gone for a while, but I've been busy...mainly getting my own domain and figuring out how to publish mp3s on Blogger, with some help from Joe. To celebrate, I'm inaugurating a new segment called RIFFS OF THE GODS, in which I publish my favorite metal riffs of all time along with a blurb about what each riff means to me. If you thought my readership was low now, just wait! It can go so much lower!

This is the opening of "Postmortem" from Slayer's Reign in Blood album. When this song starts up, I can picture myself as an evil king marching towards a balcony in my castle's highest tower. As I come to the edge, my evil army goes nuts and starts beating their armor and smashing their swords against their shields. SLAYER!!!!

I heart blueberries

2007-08-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

Blueberries are my new favorite food. Now that it's the peak of blueberry season (July was National Blueberry Month), I can get pints for cheap at the grocery store - sometimes 2 or 3 pints for the price of one. When this happens, I usually go through a pint a day without blinking. Nothing's better than a pint full of primo, giant, sweet blueberries. Well, maybe an icy cold can of Coke, but blueberries are a close second.

This past weekend I took a trip up to Lancaster with my girlfriend to go blueberry picking. I've been apple picking before, but blueberry picking was completely different. First, blueberries are much smaller than apples. This means it takes a long time to pick my fill of berries (about an hour). Second, blueberries are a different color than apples. They are blue. Are you following all this? Good.

After picking for an hour and getting roasted, I sat down to enjoy the fruits of my labor (pun intended):

The raw berries were delicious, but deep down inside I craved more. I wanted a more creative way to express my passionate, somewhat disturbing love for blueberries. That's right, I decided to bake blueberry muffins FROM SCRATCH...including a sugary cinnamon crust on top. My first attempt was a failure, not so much in ingredients, but in the baking process. I didn't use the little cup things in the pan; instead I greased it. This was a mistake, as my muffins disintegrated when I tried to remove them. The second attempt was a monumental success, and my friends even complimented me on them...after the requisite 45 minute lambasting for making blueberry muffins. I was quite proud of my baked creations. Maybe I'll bake more often.

In the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, I've "taken [my] first steps into a larger [baking] world [of blueberry muffins]."

Powderkeg Thunderball is coming for you

2007-07-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

Over the last several years, we've had some major offensive operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Operations Enduring Freedom, Phantom Thunder, and the recent Arrowhead Ripper come to mind. I've been inspired...definitely not by the military aspect of it, but more by the creative naming. Do these names really come from top brass, military history, or from some government-funded PR machine? All you need to do is throw together some tough-sounding, nonsensical multisyllabic words, and bang! Phantom Thunder is knocking down your door, spreading freedom throughout the land. I've come up with some new names for future offensives, hopefully we won't need to use them:

Operation Napalm Buttblast
Operation Powderkeg Thunderball
Operation Hangman Slaughterhouse
Operation Chupacabra Stingray
Operation Super Desert Doppleganger
Operation Foxhole Carpetbomb
Operation Hawkeye Aquaman
Operation Scorpion Shitstorm

Applying these names to daily life can make you sound ridiculously important around the water cooler. For example: "Yeah, this morning I was engaged in Operation Porcelain Annihilation after the conclusion of Operation Rolling Jagerblast at approximately Oh-Four-Hundred hours, and let me tell you, Operation Wanting To Be At Work Today is failing miserably." Shock and awe, indeed.

Synthesized emotion

2007-06-28T20:08:00.000-07:00

I hate buying cards regardless of the event. Maybe it's the fact that I almost always buy cards at the last minute, squeezing my way between the other sweaty degenerates who forgot to buy them. Maybe it's because most cards are concoctions of the personal expression business, meant to inspire guilt and synthesize emotion. I spent a while in Walgreens the other day searching for a birthday card for my dad but wound up doing some research instead.

One of the first things you notice are the stereotypical themes in most cards. In Hallmark land, all sons have been pains in the asses their whole lives. They pump their parents for money and cause incessant mischeif, but in the end they're lovable scamps. That is, if they buy this type of card for their moms. If they don't they're just assholes. All adolescent boys have a common love for four things: car keys, pizza, diplomas, and soccer balls. As for dads, they love certain items too. Come Father's Day, they're all about golf bags, fishing, wearing ties, and teaching their kids how to burp. Fathers and sons often unite in these cards to do things that just drive mom nuts - they're still lovable scamps though! All middle-age women seem to enjoy guys without shirts and have snappy one-liners to impart to those unfortunate souls turning 40.

My least favorite cards are the gushy, overly emotional sap-fests that weigh about 2 pounds and ooze messages in graceful cursive: "For you, FATHER, the guiding light of the universe"; "Mother, without you I would be living in a DUMPSTER"; "Dearest Grandmother, I've always wanted to marry a woman JUST LIKE YOU." Does anyone actually mean this stuff? I feel like the more you care about someone, the less you even need to buy a card at all.

This brings me to my next point: why are cards necessary or expected anyways? If you're seeing the person on their birthday/special occasion, why can't a heartfelt in-person message suffice? A handshake? A hug? Hallmark has done a great job of making us think cards are important in some way. We can buy "belated" cards for almost any occasion - manufactured guilt!

Ok, ok, there are some cards I like. Shoebox cards are pretty funny, and I can usually find a card with enough of a bizarre twist to suit my needs. I occasionally pick up a card that enrages me because it actually makes me feel something. For example, there was a black and white photo of a sad-looking dog poking his head out of a house window, paws on the windowsill. The outside read something along the lines of "There's just one more thing I wanted to say" On the inside, in little letters, was "don't go." Good lord, I almost started bawling in the aisle. Then I listened to Slayer on the ride home.

In the end, I got a card with a money wearing a fez. Hee hee, monkeys with hats. I hope my dad isn't reading this.

Rosebud...

2007-06-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

This month the American Film Institute released an updated version of the "100 Best Films of All Time." As always, Citizen Kane topped the list. There were a few notable changes since the last version was released in 1998. For example, the Charlie Chaplin film "City Lights" soared from #76 to #11 and "Saving Private Ryan" made its debut at #71. Some older movies were added, as can be seen with #16 below:

10. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939
11. "City Lights," 1931
12. "The Searchers," 1956
13. "Star Wars," 1977
14. "Psycho," 1960
15. "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968
16. "Transformers: The Movie," 1986
17. "The Graduate," 1967
18. "The General," 1927
19. "On the Waterfront," 1954
20. "It's a Wonderful Life," 1946
21. "Chinatown," 1974

In all seriousness, Orson Welles, director of Citizen Kane, was the voice of Unicron in the Transformers movie. Gotta be worth something, right? "Fellowship of the Ring" jumped right in at #50. Come on, guys! It was a great movie, but better than Rocky, Jaws, or Silence of the Lambs? I feel like lots of the new ones added to the list will shift over the years. Also, I would've liked to see "The Shining" or "Metropolis" on there. Or maybe "The Big Lebowski." Definitely "Tron." Who really likes "Cabaret" anyways? And for the love of god, why is "Easy Rider" on there at all? WORST MOVIE EVER!

Dude, Maria is totally hot!

Roots

2007-06-17T17:04:00.000-07:00

I was able to spend some QT at home today for Father's Day. I got to talking with my dad about the fate of the old family house in New Hampshire and it got me all upset.

Way back around the time that Peterborough, NH was established, my ancestors bought a small chunk of land. Sometime in the early 1800s, they built a small 2-story house, complete with well and outhouse. It's persisted ever since with some yearly upkeep and TLC provided throughout the generations. My grandparents have been taking care of it for a long time now, cleaning the outhouse, making sure the place was locked up over the winter, and hosting summertime get-togethers. My grandfather has childhood memories of it, as does my father, and as do I. I remember the bumpy ride up the dirt road to get there and flinging crab apples into the woods with sharpened sticks on the Fourth of July. I felt like I was in a different world, surrounded by woods and forced to poop in a big, scary dirt hole.

Unfortunately, the world is getting smaller. Monadnock Community Hospital wants to buy the land our house is on to build...get ready...an assisted living center. The woods I used to think were infinite aren't impervious to progress. My grandparents still own the land the house is on, but another adjacent chunk was already sold to the hospital. Their foot is in the door. The house also has a rotting foundation that needs a lot of work. What it boils down to eventually is this: the hospital will want to buy, and if our extended family can't come up with the money and time needed for upkeep of this house, it could be history. Crap.

I had visions of having family gatherings there as an adult, complete with grilling, fireworks, and kids running around. It's times like these that I wish I were actually making money instead of wallowing in debt for another 15 years.

Will our species eventually reproduce so much that we blanket the entire earth? Will every inch of land be developed someday? Will the bottom of the ocean be the only wilderness left on the planet? We're pushing pretty hard and it can't go on forever.

Volleyball at the old house a few years back

Wiiiiiiiiiiiii!

2007-06-13T15:52:00.000-07:00

I finally found a Wii. I had always wanted one, but was too lazy to put the time and effort into tracking one down. The other day in Best Buy I walked up to the dorky (ok, dorkier than me) sales associate and asked if he had the Transformers DVD in stock. He kind of snorted and smiled and said "Uhhh, hey, that movie isn't even out in theaters yet!" I kindly reminded him of the animated 1986 version and a light went off in his head. "Oh yeah, in the family section!" he exclaimed. Once he found it, he decided to keep a copy for himself. Nerd!

I digress.

On a whim, I ask him if they have any Wiis in stock. Nope. Leominster got a shipment in of 30 that morning and still had about 15 left. Seeing as Leominster was a whopping 15 minutes away, the deal was sealed. I drove up there with my roomie and split the device. There were only 2 left by the time we'd gotten there. $150 well spent.

This is the most fun gaming system I've ever used. The gyroscopes in the controllers keep you honest. If you're not bowling completely straight, no strike for you. If you don't swing the baseball bat at exactly the right time, strike for you. Wii Sports is a lot of fun, especially with a group. You look like a pack of lunatics in front of the TV, thrashing and jabbing at the air. Even better is the Virtual Console, basically an online store that lets you buy old Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and Nintendo 64 games for cheap ($5, $8, $10 respectively). Needless to say, Punch-Out!! has gotten about 420 hours of playing time in the last week . That damned Soda Popinski gets me every time though. I need to get my timing right. Well, back to work...

Riker LOVES Punch-Out...

More than Meets the Eye

2007-06-12T20:05:00.001-07:00

I'm regressing. After seeing a trailer for the new Michael Bay directed remake of "Transformers," I couldn't help but go out and buy the 1986 animated movie. They recently released a 20th anniversary special edition DVD, complete with an interview with the director and original television commercials.

I absolutely loved the movie, but some parts were really disturbing from what I remember. In the television series we barely saw any violence. There was a lot of shooting back and forth, but nobody ever got hit. Occasionally someone fell off a cliff after the rock underneath them got blasted, but since all the Transformers could fly, it was no big deal. Come to think of it, what's the point in transforming into a plane if they can fly around as hulking robots anyways?

Ok, back to the violence. This movie had an agenda. It killed off almost all of our favorite characters, both Autobot and Decepticon, to make way for a new slew of toys. Unfortunately, these characters were annihilated in swift and brutal fashion within 20 minutes of the start of the movie. Ironhide was shot point blank in the face by Megatron. Prowl spewed flames out of his eyes and mouth before falling to the floor. Optimus Prime bit it after his battle with Megatron, and turned all grey afterwards. Blah! These images haunted me for years, and it was difficult to watch even now.

Aside from the violence, Transformers: The Movie was a mind-blowing acid trip. You had a planet-eating devil transformer, an Eric Idle-voiced robot who lived on a planet of junk, transformer-eating "Sharkticons," and the lovable mentally handicapped Dinobots. Add an amazing 80s soundtrack featuring classics by Stan Bush and a title track by Lion and you have a cinematic masterpiece.

After revisiting this 80s nugget, I went home and dug up my old Transformers. Most are in a state of disrepair, missing fists or guns, or un-transformable. Some come close to matching their former glory. Check it out, Ultra Magnus and Rodimus Prime are looking pretty good, all things considered:

Transform and roll out...

Cat Piano

2007-06-03T19:17:00.000-07:00

Turns out Boston College Magazine is good for something after all. My old history professor wrote a piece about Anathasius Kircher, a Jesuit who came up with all sorts of inventions and explinations for things back in the 1600s. The long and short of it is that he claimed to know a lot of stuff; some of it he truly did know and other stuff he just thought he knew (like Egyptian heiroglyphs). One of the inventions attributed to him is the cat piano. Guess what? It's a piano with cats.

Anathasius described the piano in Musurgia Universalis, but didn't actually invent it...the cat piano was designed to cheer up a depressed Italian prince. When you pressed the keys, an iron spike would poke the cats, each one producing a different pitched yelp. HA! If I was a 17th century Italian prince who hated cats and had no understanding of animal rights, I'd be laughing my ass off. As it is, I like cats. Here's a picture of Charlie in a bag:

San Diego

2007-05-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from a visit to the left coast, and boy was it a great time. It was my first time in San Diego, and if I could say one thing about the city, it'd be this: boobies. Ok, ok. Bikes and boobies. Everyone rides those big old beach cruisers, and I mean everyone, from the homeless, shirtless guys to the Dolce & Gabbana bug-eyed sunglasses girls. There's also some sort of genetic selection going on out there, resulting in a lot of people who look way, way better than I do. Whatever, I have brains and personality. Right?

The best part of San Diego was being with my friends, but some fun additions include the Cabrillo National Monument area, San Diego Zoo, and the Pacific...at all hours of the night.

Anyways, Joe and Eliza's bathroom featured some hanging framed albums. Simon and Garfunkel's "Bookends" hangs directly across from the shower, and this caused me some distress as I exited the shower, dripping wet and naked. I mean, look at these guys. Simon is giving a soft, emotionless but slightly disapproving stare with those big, black eyes. Garfunkel has the subtle smirk of someone who knows more than he should. Does he??

Simon: "Why...why are you naked?"

Garfunkel: "Hey...you're naked, huh?"

Tools of the Trade, Part 2

2007-04-22T18:43:00.000-07:00

What's the most important skill as a third year medical student clerk? Is it good communication? Is it an encyclopedic knowledge of the pathophysiology of all disease processes known to man? Is it good personal hygeine? No, no, and no.

The answer seems simple but it's actually an elegant art. It's a crucial skill that seems rooted in laziness but is practiced by only the most perceptive and cunning individuals. What is this skill? Looking busy. Here's what's in my toolbox of deceit and laziness:

1) Clipboard thing: This is one of the most crucial tools. It serves a utilitarian purpose; it holds notes, books, pens, granola bars, you name it. In the context of looking busy it's invaluable. Bustling about with this under your arm makes you look approximately 75 times more busy. It's also an excellent fidgeting tool. I've flipped the various compartments of this open and closed countless times just to look like I'm searching for something, shuffling the papers around endlessly. It also comes in handy for spreading disease. Awful, awful disease.

2) Beeper: Relatively useless. The last thing I need now is a reminder of the ball and chain that awaits me as a resident. I've used my beeper to check the time and set alarms to wake up when on call. It can also be a wonderful excuse to leave a room. All you have to do is scrunch up your face all serious, look at your beeper, and quickly stalk out of the room. Crap, maybe Todd missed a page! More like: Crap, maybe Todd left to take a crap and buy a soda but didn't feel like explaining it to anyone! I've recieved a few pages with this thing as well. I pictured using this as a phaser or a time-delay smokescreen grenade (for quick escapes), but I don't think mine has those functions built in.

3) Book:
Also relatively useless. I never actually read when I was on the wards; there were just too many distractions. I needed a few hours to devote to reading to actually absorb anything. Books provide a wonderful excuse to "go read." You can disappear for a while if your work is done and "enlighten yourself" for a while. They make you look like a responsible student who uses all their free time to learn as much as possible. In truth, I would prop one of these things open, look at it, and let my brain have a little field trip. The day before the exam, we'd usually get reacquainted.

4) PDA: This is almost as important as your clipboard. Again, while furrowing your brow and looking serious, poke around on this for a while and make it seem like you're looking up drugs on Epocrates. I'd do this all the time during down time or awkward pauses and play "Bubble Breaker" or Solitaire. Why make strained conversation with a wooden attending when you can look like you're researching stuff but be playing games instead? Genius! This was also my only calendar, and without it I'd have absolutely no idea where I was supposed to go. Like my beeper, I always thought this thing would make a good Type I phaser.

5) Powerbar: Ok, so Powerbars are actually useful. Lots of times you're stuck without any food for hours on end in the OR, and the only thing keeping you from eating your own eyeballs is one of these. If you scarf these down often enough and look really harried at the same time, it makes everyone think you're always on the go and never have time to sit down to eat lunch. Unfortunately, it's often true. The bar pictured has been sitting in my white coat pocket since early January, mmmmm.

This concludes my moaning and groaning about surgery and my obsession with comparing my tools to Star Trek inventions. The end.

Tools of the Trade, Part 1

2007-04-22T18:22:00.000-07:00

Being a good 3rd year medical student clerk is a difficult and daunting task. It's a blend of knowledge, communication skills, and appropriate brown-nosing. Of course, there are always ways to cut corners, and to do that, there are some basic concepts to keep in mind. Some ground rules are as follows:

1) Walking hurriedly wherever you're going is crucial. People won't question a student who's bustling about, bursting in and out of rooms, and frantically thrashing through patient charts. A student sitting slack-jawed in a charting room is a sitting duck, ready to be pimped or scutted to do some annoying and menial task. A harried, unshaven student scribbling away at something or pawing through a stuffed clipboard must be wicked busy and doing something that's undoubtedly important.

2) Another important overall principle is face time. By face time, I mean making sure attending doctors and residents see you doing something at some point throughout the day. That way, if you decide to leave early and take a nap at home, you'll have some degree of an alibi by saying "Oh, I was with Dr. So-and-so yesterday working on this-and-that." It's important to make sure your face time is in concentrated, brilliant bursts. For example, if you're in on a surgery case with Dr. S&S, make sure you know everything about that one specific surgery, nail all the questions they ask, then disappear on a high note. I would recommend having face time up until at least 2-3pm. This qualifies as "afternoon," and no resident or attending will suspect you've taken off for the day if you stick around at least that long.

3) Displaying what little you know is extremely crucial. There's so much information to remember that you'll never be able to regurgitate it all on command. Sometimes just vomiting up what you know, even when it's only remotely connected to what you're discussing with your resident can be helpful. It shows that even if you're dead wrong, at least you're thinking. Looking like you're thinking is much better than not saying anything at all.

4) Keeping your evaluators' demographics in mind is handy. Catty OB residents don't care about the Red Sox, but your typical familiy medicine one probably does. Vascular surgeons don't give a shit about the cost of different types of paper for wedding invitations, but those OB residents (who are perpetually getting married) would start squaking away if you brought it up in conversation. I'm not saying I ever brown-nosed to this degree, but it's something to think about. Dealing with people is half the battle here.

Next up: essential items for 3rd year survival

Sugery: The Bad (And the Ugly)

2007-04-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Time to unload. I absolultely despised this rotation. Each day that went by was a victory. My tires would squeal with glee as I sped around the hospital garage each afternoon, defiant metal pouring forth from my open windows. I'll summarize what I hated most (aside from getting up at 4am every morning):

Culture of Surgery: It comes down to this. Surgeons assume that all doctors want to be surgeons, except only some can actually hack it. Only some have the balls (or ovaries) to take on the most challenging residency, put their job above all else, and not shut up about it for the rest of their miserable lives. If I hear one more surgeon roll their eyes about how easy we have it after the 80 hour workweek and how tough surgery was back in the day, I may just go on a double-fisted bovie rampage.

Let's say a new specialty is created called Purgery. Just getting into the program involves a complicated hazing ritual complete with a curling iron, bars of soap, and a polaroid camera. As a Purgery resident you get 1 hour of sleep a week, vomit continuously, and are regularly injected with syringefuls of feces. Most of the people who would've gone into Surgery would go into Purgery instead. They need to be in the toughest specialty to justify their moaning and bragging about how tough they have it. About how they came into work clogged with tapeworms and toughed it out. About how their kids died of starvation because they didn't have time to go home and feed them and their wife had left them weeks before because they never spent any time together but it's okay because they're devoted to their profession and that's hard to find these days and any profession that doesn't have Q2 call is nothing but a bunch of pussies who don't know the meaning of hard work.

I've met only a handful of residents who seem to genuinely love being in the OR and operating, and I'm happy for them...once they get through the training, they'll be doing what they love and that's paramount. I've met plenty of other residents whose motives don't seem clear...people who'd be perfect for family medicine but are stuck in a specialty which has about 30 seconds of patient contact per day.

Another aspect of the Culture of Surgery is the rigid pecking order, nicely summarized in a certain blog I read. Sometimes this order is relaxed, but I've been called "student" by one surgeon who refuses to learn anyone's names except those of other attendings. Dick.

Lack of Education: So much of this rotation is spent doing what people expect of you. Much less attention is paid to what we're actually learning. A student is expected to stay in the OR until all cases are complete, regardless of how boring or repetative. For example, some days consisted of 5 laparoscopic cholecystectomies in a row. After the first two, things get really boring really fast. My time would be best spent leaving the OR and doing some reading about other topics. Unfortunately, the pressure to stay in the OR always wins. Who's going to be the student that says "Well, it's been a nice couple hours, but I know of a better way to spend my time!" Students aren't needed during these operations, and there's nothing new to learn. It's wasted time, and there's often lots of it.

In the mornings, the surgery team rounds on all its patients. This consists of residents racing from room to room with the students following behind with "the bucket," a collection of bandages and dressings in case we need to change them on a patient. The residents either don't have time to teach or don't want to because of the time crunch, and the students are nothing more than bucket-carrying drones buzzing about, handing off gauze pads and gloves, and collecting vitals signs. I never once was taught a specific point about a single patient or their disease during rounds. What a waste of my tuition and time.

Why do we even go on rounds?? It goes back to the culture of surgery and the expectation that we do everything that the team does, even if it lacks all educational value. Next!

Miserable People: I can't help it, some of the surgeons I worked with were just awful people. Some were dickheads, others were clueless, and some were outright abusive. I've had surgeons swear at me, at nurses, at residents, at instruments, and at the entire room at once. In my experience, surgeons behave more childishly than any other specialty I've seen. Who knows if it was luck of the draw or if this profession attracts more knobjobs than average; I really don't have time to analyze it. Ok, enough of the personal attacks.

What's most important about this rotation is that it's done. I've completed it, I wasn't completely incompetent, and I walked out alive. Now I can relish the fact that I'll never have to do this stuff again. Bring on pediatrics!

Surgery: The Good

2007-04-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

I've spent the past three months on my surgery rotation. The things my eyes have seen, the places my hands have been, and the things that have splattered on me would make your blood turn to custard if I described it all. Not really. Anyway, there's been plenty of time for me to think about all this stuff but almost no time to write about it. So here it is, whether you like it or not, a series on how surgery has left an indelible, soul-crushing impression on my fragile psyche.

The good things about surgery can be rattled off in a few tooth-clenched bullets:

Basically, for those not going into surgery, it's the last chance you'll have to be elbow-deep in someone's guts (legally). It was pretty neat to touch someone's brain, pull out their appendix, or take gobs of plaque out of their arteries and watch them live to tell the tale.
Surgery often makes people definitively better: they come in, an operation is performed, and they're cured. No more clogged gallbladder, no more disgusting, ulcer-covered foot. With inpatients in other fields, like internal medicine, patients come in with a huge series of chronic problems. Any one of them could be acutely flaring up. It's up to the medicine team to treat everything that's going on, and often it's just stabilizing a patient so they can go home. They don't cure the heart disease, they switch around medications and prolong the inevitable.
About 5-10% of the surgeons are cool people who like to teach, and if you get a chance to work with them, hooray!
You get to wear scrubs and act important (if you're a dick), and nobody can tell you're a student.
Most of the OR nurses and scrub techs are really nice.

That about wraps things up. Seriously. Next up, a world of shit!

Are these your bananas, Larry?

2007-02-05T19:44:00.000-08:00

Do you see what happens, Larry? Do you see what happens when you LEAVE BANANAS IN THE TRUNK OVERNIGHT??

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY!! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS!!

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LEAVE BANANAS IN THE TRUNK OVERNIGHT!!

BLAST-OFF

2007-01-13T20:31:00.000-08:00

Gasson Hall is the crown jewel of Boston College's campus. Its design inspired the neo-Gothic look on campuses around the country, including Duke's crappy building and Yale's crappy building. What most people don't know about is its important secret function.

Gasson Hall is a rocket ship of the apocalypse.

Yes, it's true. When the Jesuits finished Gasson in 1913, the country was in turmoil. Amendments 16 and 17 were added to the constitution, Woodrow Wilson began his tyrannical Presbyterian reign over our nation, and the start of World War I was less than a year away in Europe. To the Jesuits, these were terrifying events requiring a great deal of preparation. What kind of preparation? Why, constructing a building that was also a rocket ship capable of escaping planetary destruction, of course!

The Jesuits had developed rocket science far before that guy in Worcester. In a dank catacomb far below the Vatican's streets, they toiled night and day to perfect what they called "Heaven juice." A secret test flight of a gargantuan gilded Madonna was successfully conducted in 1909, resulting in the first man-made object in orbit. Whether or not it's still up there is anyone's guess. Once the fuel was perfected, the Jesuits began building Gasson Hall in Chestnut Hill. The clock tower is the main rocket, with the outlying structure being nothing more than crappy classrooms that are really hot in the summer and freezing in the winter with cracked linoleum floors. Somebody on that.

If shit really hits the fan (i.e. huge asteroid impact), the Jesuits at BC would set their plan into motion. All of them file out of St. Mary's clad in robes and hoods, reciting ancient Catholic dirges. They enter Gasson's rotunda and form a ring around the alabaster statue of Michael the Archangel. The University President produces his secret golden key and inserts it into the keyhole in Michael's secret alabaster butt. The floor quivers, then starts to rise...it's actually an elevator, lifting all of the Jesuits up into the rocket's control room! All of them don their golden radio earpieces and assume their stations: comm, ops, tactical, holiness, engineering, science, etc. After a quick systems check and countdown, the tower detaches from the rest of the building and blasts off into space, avoiding utter annihilation!

Gasson has enough supplies for several weeks' worth of orbiting, after which the Jesuits can touch down in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by maniacal, gasoline-obsessed bikers. With their divine love and patience, they will convert these heathens and together will rebuild a gasoline-free society. The End.

Gasson's test flight before its official opening ceremony (Photoshopped by me)

What I listened to today

2006-12-19T18:39:00.000-08:00

My MP3 player is a juggernaut. It's a Dell Digital Jukebox, forged sometime in late 2003 and coated with the finest brushed aluminum money can buy. It's nothing special to look at and weighs a ton. Its heft belies stellar battery life and can come in handy if you need something to throw at a would-be criminal. The best part is that it's outlived almost all of my friends' MP3 players (almost all iPods) despite the crap it's gotten over the years. Contrary to popular belief, it does not run on a complex system of gears and pulleys, and it is not powered by an ant running around on an exercise wheel. Anyway, I listened to it for the first time in months today as I prepared for the last test of the semester. I think my MP3 player read my mind today, either that or I deleted all the stuff I didn't like. After setting my 3000 song library to shuffle, this is what I got:

The Kills: Cat Claw
The Streets: Blinded by the lights
Social Distortion: It's the law
Johnny Cash: Send a picture of mother
The Black Keys: Just a little heat
BRMC: The Line
Reel Big Fish: Snoop Dog, baby
M83: In the cold I'm standing
Snow Patrol: Gleaming auction
Unearth: The great dividers
Canned Heat: On the road again
Minor Threat: Look back and laugh
Unseen: Fed up
The Streets: Get out of my house
Aerosmith: Mama kin
Iron and Wine: Angry blade
Pulp: Underwear
Tom Petty: Refugee
Iron Maiden: Wrathchild
Unearth: Only the people
Veruca Salt: Seether
Beatles: For no one
The Can Kickers: Cotton Eye Joe
Weezer: No other one
Ramones: Rockaway beach
Beach Boys: Wouldn't it be nice
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fancy
Metallica: Orion
RJD2: Silver fox
Anthrax: Metal thrashing mad
Bruce Springsteen: My hometown
Buzzcocks: Real world
Doomriders: Deathbox
Motorhead: Jailbait
Talking Heads: Born under punches
Prince: I wanna be your lover
Andrew W.K.: She is beautiful
RJD2: Cut out to FL
Beatles: I'm looking through you
Beasite Boys: What comes around
Wolfmother: Mind's Eye
Lamb of God: Laid to rest
The Vandals: I've got an ape drape
The Strokes: Soma
Stone Temple Pilots: Sex type thing
Police: Can't stand losing you
The Herbaliser: Geddim
System of a Down: U-Fig
Buzzcocks: Sixteen again
Metallica: Disposable heroes
X: The unheard music
Motorhead: Fire fire
Black Flag: Room 13

Moving on

2006-12-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

While I am sympathetic to the difficulties many people endure as a result of Lyme Disease, I don't think my personal blog is the appropriate forum for an extended discussion. I trust that people who want to know more about Lyme will do a Google/Ask/Wikipedia search instead of using this collection of drivel I've written as a primary source of information (for the record, I average about 25 visits per day). If they are, I'll be praying for their health and their eternal souls.

Blood-sucking parasites

2006-12-03T13:09:00.000-08:00

I've been working in an outpatient clinic for a week and I've already had 3 people come in for tick bites. That's pretty nuts, especially for December. Everyone's worried about Lyme, and considering what happens when it goes undiagnosed, I don't blame them. What usually happens when a tick bite is found is the person's sent home with some antibiotics and has blood drawn to check for Lyme. It's probably overkill, but better safe than sorry.

Anyways, a dirt biker came in on Friday and brought the tick into the office with him just to prove he was bitten. The doctor I work with is a nice guy, so he let me keep the dirty jar with the guilty parasite. Gross. I decided to leave it in its jar over the weekend to make sure it was really dead. I don't like ticks.

I flicked my camera to good old macro mode, and sure enough it was a deer tick which could spread Lyme disease. The picture below highlights how small it really was if you know how small my handwriting is (I threw in one of my index finger just in case).

Universal thinking

2006-11-29T20:32:00.000-08:00

I love National Geographic. This past issue had an amazing photo spread of Saturn taken by the Cassini probe as it passed by. Most of the pictures were composites of hundreds of stills, and man were they amazing. It reminded me of reading every single Seymour Simon book from the public library as a kid...each page was packed full of interesting facts. For example, did you know that Saturn's rings are only 150 feet thick? Or that we actually sent a probe to the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan? It looked pretty lonely down there.

At the beginning of the magazine, there was a blurb about stars that could support life-sustaining planets. They found a few within about 45-50 light years or so that fulfilled the "life criteria:" age (enough time to allow life to evolve), size, position in a stable arm of the galaxy, and chemical composition lending to planet formation. We don't know if these stars actually have planets around them, but the stars themselves are sun-like.

When I started to think about the scale of all this it completely blew my mind. Stars within 50 light years of us are in our own cosmic backyard, right in the same arm of the Milky Way. But 50 light years? It takes light 50 years to get there. Even if you were traveling at Warp 9, which is reserved specifically for interstellar emergencies, it would take a couple days to get there.

That's just one arm of our galaxy. For the record, there are billions of galaxies in the universe. This means there could be countless stars similar to ours that barfed out iron and metal and created planets that aged at the same pace as ours and under the same conditions. Maybe these stars are a few light years away. Maybe they're billions of light years away.

Well shit, does it matter? Even if we cross over into science fiction again and travel faster than light, it'd take so long to get to places in our galaxy alone it's mind-boggling. Even in Star Trek, in the year 2400-something, with warp speed, only 19% of the galaxy has been explored. That's only our galaxy!! Ahhhhhh!!!

After all of that stewed in my brain for a while, I started freaking out about life here. How could anyone participate in the farce that is society when we're billionths of the size of a grain of sand in an endless cosmic desert? How could you not be running down the street, naked and shrieking, when you know that we really are dust in the wind as Kansas said? Do people realize how little significance the Style network has in the grand scheme of this infinite universe? The entire existence of our species doesn't even register on the radar! We're absolutely nothing, just an exqusite end result of billions of years of uninterrupted evolution. I could die tomorrow after slipping on the curb and breaking my neck, and the universe would still chug on. The instant my spine snaps and severs my spinal cord, an entire solar system somewhere will be sucked into a black hole and destroyed instantaneously, shat out into the cold void as streams of energy.

It's 1AM and my head hurts. Time for reruns of What Not to Wear.

(Courtesy of National Geographic, if they had given me permission)

Who am I?

2006-11-11T21:07:00.000-08:00

There are a few things about the medical profession that rub me the wrong way. By a few, I mean a lot. My least favorite part is the way the medical profession can consume your identity if you're not careful.

Who am I? Am I Todd, the medical student? When I go out to bars with non-medical friends will I only talk about school? Will I have an MD license plate on my sensible Volvo in the future? Will I shatter my hip in a minor fender-bender because my beeper got wedged under my seatbelt? Will I be a shell of a person with only my job keeping me going then FLIP OUT when it's time to retire? Will I ever retire, for fear of said flipping out? Look at this blog, I'm already doing it!!

No, I'm going to be me first and foremost. I want the ability to quit my job whenever I feel like it without falling to pieces. I should be self-propelling in life without the crutch of a job holding me up or helping me define myself. I'm gonna be me, who does a bunch of stuff. "Being a doctor" will comprise the same percentage of my identity as "Eats a lot of Fluffernutters," "Dreams about exploding puppies," and "Secretly listens to Ace of Base in the bathroom."

I'm supposed to go back to my alma mater on Wednesday and talk to the premeds about applying to med school. I really hope I don't deter anyone...maybe shrieking "DON'T DO IT!!" would be inappropriate. Ooooh, maybe there's free food!

Honda is reading my mind

2006-11-10T21:20:00.000-08:00

In the latest advertising assault on nerdy 20-something white guys, Honda has unleashed a couple new Civic ads that make my dork-dar go crazy.

One of the ads features The Go Team's "Huddle Formation," with someone in a Civic drivinig happily all over this beautiful animated background. Then, all these happy hipsters drive to the polls and vote for the Civic for President! It was perfectly timed, but I sure as hell didn't see Civic on my ballot.

The next ad got me even more excited. Rewind to Halloween, where I caved and re-wore my Tron outfit from last year. At least a dozen people (all dudes) came up to me and told me my costume was awesome. One asked me if I was an art student. Another asked if my light cycle was parked outside. Honda made another ad with Civics racing around in place of said cycles:

Wow. They even have the "programs" like Tron standing up high, controlling the game grid. These ads have made me feel like I'm on the forefront of the music scene and obscure 80's sci-fi. That's also called putting a good spin on being a hopeless nerd. I really hope there are hopeless female music Tron nerds out there, otherwise I'm in some serious hopeless music Tron shit. Cheers.

Killer bee update

2006-10-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

I worry about killer bees.

The crises of the world often weigh heavily on my shoulders. War, famine, corruption, terrorism, greed, the spread of africanized killer bees into the southern United States, natural disasters, rampant disease...they all take their toll on my sleep. Killer bees woke me from a blissful slumber a fortnight ago. Are they still continuing their rampage, stinging and buzzing as they leave a path of dead pets in their northward march? Has any way of calming them down been found? Why are they so pissy? Why are they different from their European counterparts? Once again, PBS was there for me.

As it turns out, killer bees were brought over from South Africa to Brazil to help their flagging honey industry. The man we have to thank is Warwick E. Kerr. They began their migration northward by "pioneer swarming," with the hardiest and most aggressive bees migrating the farthest. Where have they spread to now? The National Atlas of the US has a great animated map showing their progression over the last 10 years or so:

The main thing keeping them from migrating into the Midwest and Northeast is their inability to adapt to the winter. Whereas the African killer bees swarm in droves of 15,000 or more at any time, European bees stick to the hive. This is good adaptive behavior for taking care of their home in the cold winter months. Killer bees live fast and die young, while European bees plan for the long haul...much like we New Englanders.

My region of the country is safe for a long time, and that brings me great peace of mind. Time for bed...with dreams of me as a 20-foot giant in the arctic circle, stomping on polar bears (real dream). Goodnight.

One-upping Tron

2006-10-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

Thinking about a Halloween costume this year fills me with dread. My Tron outfit last year took a lot out of me, both monetarily and spiritually. I mean, I poured my heart and soul into that thing. Come to think of it, I never wrote a blog about the costume creation. Ah, why go into it when I can put up photos instead:

Man, those galoshes made my feet hot. People made fun of me because they thought it was too obscure a costume. It apparently wasn't too obscure for Adidas, who recently made a shoe inspired by the movie, so back off! I may try selling this bad boy on Ebay next year if the spirit moves me. Anyways, this brings me to this year's task: one-upping myself. I just can't do it in two weeks. I've had a few ideas so far but they haven't come close:

Giant Coke Can Man
Giant Box of Nerds Man
Giant Jar of Fluff Man
Naked zombie
Pencil sharpener
Guy with a guitar
Walgreens pirate

I've got some free time this weekend, so maybe I'll make this my mission. Next issue: where will I go with my costume? Salem? Boston? Lurking behind my front door waiting for children? The world is my costumed oyster.

What I ate for dinner last night

2006-10-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

Just like it sounds. I've made an effort to start making food again and lay off the classic triples with cheese. This was a baby step, all things in good time, back off!!! First up is Hamburger Helper with Italian flavoring, whatever that means. I gotta hand it to Hamburger Helper, it makes a truly valiant effort to spice up dinner. When it comes down to it though, I'm still eating a big bowl of ground beef. Oh, and don't forget the Coke!

Next on the menu is dessert #1, which was a delicious Fluffernutter. I saw an article on Boston.com about a Fluff festival in Somerville celebrating Fluff's billionth anniversary and decided to buy some up at Shaw's. It'd been a long time since I'd had a 'Nutter, and I can say with confidence that my mom never made me these monstrosities for lunch.

Finally we have the icing on the Fluffernutter, which is dessert #2, also known as a box of Nerds. My nights always seem to end like this.

And there you have it. There was a time where this lineup would make me puke just thinking about it. Considering the garbage I've been eating recently this is quite an improvement. Pass the Fluff...

DEALBREAKER

2006-10-09T18:26:00.000-07:00

I'm throwing down the gauntlet. I'm laying claim to what's rightfully mine. Apparently another group from another local state has decided to call themselves "Dealbreaker" without my knowledge. I'm not even going to link to them through this site because they're hard enough to find online and I'd like to keep it that way. Supposedly they've been playing together since May of 2005, but I bet they stole their name from my blog in August of that same year.

How will we settle this dispute that only I care about? My plan is to offer www.Dealbreaker.com (some business blog) plenty of money in a bid to buy their name. I'll find the money later. At that point, our band's legitimacy will be solidified...how can you doubt a dot-com? Maybe we should become a small business too, just to cover all the bases.

In all seriousness, DEALBREAKER is now a band and has an arsenal of 4 songs. If we play them 3 times each, that's a full set. Is the world ready for the brutally pummeling yet inexplicably sexy sonic assault that is Dealbreaker? NO! We need a bassist. Aside from that, we're one sloppy demo away from Ralph's on a Wednesday night. Rock.

Motley tatüe

2006-10-05T17:25:00.000-07:00

I've been toying with the idea of a tattoo for a long time, but it was something I put a lot of restrictions on. It'd either have to be something about me that never changes, i.e. my heritage, or something completely ridiculous...nothing in between. The first design I came up with fell into the latter category. It was my own personal spin on the caduceus, designed to intimidate the weak and get the uptight dickhead doctors all in a huff. So I replaced the wings with bat wings, the ball with a skull, the staff with a sword, and the skinny snakes with venomous cobras. Check it out:

Once I finished drawing this in Photoshop I thought it was the coolest thing ever, perhaps worthy of covering my entire back. Then I bought Motley Crüe's "Dr. Feelgood" last week and realized the cover is the EXACT SAME DESIGN as my tattoo. I swear this was a coincidence. I felt like such an idiot afterwards for not being more familiar with Crüe's cover art. I guess there are a few differences...mainly the eagle wings, hairy skull, and single snake:

I kind of like mine better, but who am I to argue with Kevin Brady? HEAL OR DIE!!!

Bleeding ears and frosty beers

2006-10-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

That sums up a pretty awesome weekend, complete with a hot date and metal galore.

The musical highlight of the weekend was Saturday night, when I went to the Unearth show at the Palladium. It was the first time I saw them in action, even though I have all their CDs, I'm friends with the lead singer's younger brother, and I mercilessly annoy my friends at school by not shutting up about them. It took a few years, but I finally saw them live.

It was worth the wait.

Unearth was one of the best bands I've seen live. All of their songs translated from the album to the stage perfectly. During songs, they pounded beers from a funnel one of their roadies brought out, only the funnel was really a giant plastic skull. The guitarists would stick their picks in their mouths, spit them 10 feet in the air, catch them, and keep playing without missing a beat. The pit was pretty nuts, and an "old school" circle pit got going later in the night. Top it all off with plenty of ravenous fans and crowdsurfing and you've got a hell of a show. My ears were ringing till Monday...YES.

After the show, my concert buddy and I headed over to Ralph's. There was a hot rod show that day and tons of bands playing. We caught a great act as we walked in. It was a 4-piece all-girl band called Ghouls Night Out, and they were a great time. Their sound was retro/surf rock n' roll, with some Sleater-Kinney-ish vocals. It made you wanna dance, but it also made you wanna play what they were playing. The setup was really sparse, with a few mic'd amps and a small drumkit, but it filled up the whole place...it made me realize that our band could gig without having to buy a bunch of extra shit. So yeah, I bought their t-shirt.

Oh, I almost forgot...I bought another 5 CDs over the weekend, now that my loan check cleared: Dandy Warhols: 13 Tales, Postal Service: Give Up, Specials: Specials, Poison: Look What the Cat Dragged In, Motley Crue: Dr. Feelgood. More to come about that one...

The show was like this...except not as close. And not outside. And with audio.

Bill's story

2006-10-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

This is an addendum to the last post about my pediatrics rotation...

Bill explained his trip to iParty, where he purchased his Darth Vader costume. Apparently he walked into the store and asked for "the dorkiest costume [they] have." Well, they pointed him straight to the Vader duds he's wearing in the previous post. He had his 1-year old daughter when he came across a bear costume that the staff convinced him he just HAD to buy for her. Being the efficient intern that he was, he bought both costumes and headed home.

After getting home, he realized he'd forgotten to do some errand or another, left the bear costume on the floor, and headed out to finish up business. When he got back, he caught his cat red-pawed, humping away...on the bear costume. Weak. Looks like another trip to iParty is in order. That and a trip to the nearest neutering facility.

You should have listened to ME, Bill!!!

Candy, Yay!

2006-10-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

So I just finished up my second rotation, pediatrics. Before I started med school this was the specialty I thought I'd want to do most. I suppose I've learned alot since I started, and most of it didn't have to do with science at all. Here just a few of the pearls I came away with:

Having a sticker on your ID badge, a plastic action figure on your stethoscope, or a pocketful of candy doesn't make you a more kid-friendly person. You're the exact same person but with a sticker, action figure, or some candy.
Kids can hear you at your normal voice volume; yelling doesn't make you more "fun."
If a 2 year old is completely inconsolable and screaming, throw their socks in their face. Seriously, it works.
Kids love it if you dress up like a movie character. Parents get pretty weirded out.

Anyways, I'm gonna talk about point 4. The story starts back a few weeks ago when I met my awesome intern, whom I'll call "Bill," whose real name is also Bill. I noticed Bill had a bat drawn on one of his books to mark it as his own. I thought it was the Bacardi bat, so I asked him about it. "Oh no," he replied, "this is the Batman symbol, but not the new Batman, it's from the old Batman with Adam West." From then on Bill was a marked man. A nerdy marked man.

The other student I worked with was "Jeff," whose real name was also Jeff. Once we caught wind of Bill's dorkitude, things spiraled quickly out of control, with all of us reciting Star Trek quotes much to the chagrin of everyone else on the floor...

The pediatrics floor has "theme days" which are usually something like "Tiara Tuesday" or "We're all lame Wednesday," etc. Jeff, Bill and I decided that it was time for a truly fun and exciting theme day, and "Sci-Fi Friday" was born. It's a day where you can dress as your favorite sci-fi character, because there's a little nerd in all of us. Unfortunately, others didn't share our enthusiasm and decided to change Sci-Fi Friday to "Pinata Friday." Lame.

Undeterred, we carried the torch of our theme day. Jeff came in full Starfleet regalia as Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Bill and I both showed up as Darth Vader, though his costume was a little more complete than mine...and by complete, I mean totally creepy, with a skintight pajama uniform and a black cape. How many doctors have the balls to wear a cape when talking to patients? Not many.

In conclusion, it was nice to know we made a name for ourselves, even if it was an infamous one. Years from now, nobody will remember the pinata that was destroyed on Friday September 22, 2006. They will remember 2 Darth Vaders and 1 Picard with a full head of hair.

Goodbye, my chances at running for public office

Mississippi Queen, you know what I mean

2006-09-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting here listening to my new pirated music and "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain starts up. Holy shit, this song is amazing. Basically, I want to carry around a boombox with a tape of that song on loop. Whenever a blue-eyed floozy walks by, I could slap on my aviators, play it at full blast, and I'd be able to take her home on the spot, guaranteed. Not that I would. But I could. This song smells like stale beer. ROCK.

On a completely unrelated tangent, I've got the hots for that cartoon chick from the e-surance commercials. She's definitely replaced Sabine from the Overstock.com commercials as my TV love interest. I mean, she's always running around blowing up evil robots with her blazing pink hair and Barbie waist. What more could you ask for? Oh, except that her dickhead cartoon boyfriend is nowhere near her league. She's always saving the day and he's a hack, haplessly tagging along as she kicks ass.

Hold on a minute. I just Googled "e-surance girl" for my sign-off picture and she apparently has an entire blog devoted to her adventures. Apparently her name is Erin and she's been blogging for over a year. Weird.

Rah Rah Rah

2006-09-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was able to relive several years' worth of memories from college in the form of a tailgate at the BC/Clemson football game.

I parked over on Beacon Street and walked through Cleveland Circle and remembered when the cops broke up the huge party that started in our place on Sunderland Rd. and spilled onto the street. During the summer I worked on campus, I got to be a pro at sniffing out spots in the area...it's free from 6pm on Saturday til Monday morning.

I walked around the reservoir to the stadium and remembered all the nights I walked that route in reverse, meandering from parties on campus back to my apartment. I'd walk through the cold night in a drunken haze with that intense yearning and lonliness that only a girlfriend who's abroad in Spain for the year can inspire. Then I think about how I haven't heard from her in over a year.

On campus, I went to a tailgate that a friend of mine was at. As I walked through the mods and saw the crowds of rowdy college kids, I thought about how uptight I was in school. I worked way too hard and didn't have a fraction of the fun I should have. I'm in med school now, but at what price? I feel like I missed my opportunity to sow my wild oats and live the college life to the fullest. When's the next time I'll have to enjoy myself like that?

I've thought about that question alot. It makes the fact that I didn't go out last night all the more depressing.

OBEY

2006-09-08T22:14:00.000-07:00

When driving home from work the other day, a vanity license plate commanded me to follow the world's most major religion. That's right, "OBEY JC" was shouting at me from the back of a small Honda, compelling me to listen to Hey-Zeus himself.

I think this is the first time a license plate has mandated that I do something. Almost all the other ones I've seen have been cutesy or mildly annoying, telling the world a little something about the driver. For example, "SK8RDI," "GOPATS," "GOBC," "ILUVU," etc. etc. To be honest, I was pretty put off by this unwarranted command. To anyone else who thinks it's ok to tell me what to do, I offer you the following license plates (limited of course by Massachusetts' 6-characters): "EATME," "SHUTUP," "GO2HEL," and "DIENOW." That is all.

GABBA GABBA HEY

2006-09-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

Do you know what Gabba Gabba Hey means? I didn't before this past weekend. The answer was revealed to me in a series of coincidental steps:

Step 1: First thing I did was rented "Rock n Roll High School," the 1979 classic about the Ramones taking over school (thanks Netflix). Oh man, it was awesome...pure moronic entertainiment. The new principal, evil Ms. Togar, despises the power of rock and decides to burn all her students' records. Riff Randall, the token rebel chick/70s teenybopper/stoner/Joey-Ramone-sex-dream-haver gets the Ramones to come to her school and BLOW IT UP. Well, after plenty of music and shenanagins and hijinks that is.

Step 2: If the Ramones could blow up a school, I decided they deserved some of my money. Whilst in Dewey Beach, I picked up It's Alive, their live album from the UK. I listened to it about 4 times through on the way home. Holy shit, it's amazing. They shred through all of their hits and don't even take breaks between songs. You can hear Dee Dee (RIP) counting off in between, but it's more a "WAAHTAAHEEEOHH" than a "1,2,3,4." So yeah, buy this.

Step 3: By pure coincidence, my next Netflix rental was "Freaks," a 1932 creepfest about a circus sideshow's code of ethics...and murder. At a wedding between a midget and a "normal" trapeze artist, the freaks sing a song of acceptance to induct the woman into their society: "Gooble gobble, gooble gobble, we accept her, one of us!" I did a double take and realized this is where "Gabba Gabba Hey" comes from in the song "Pinhead" on my Ramones CD. The Ramones accept you, oh punks of the late 70s.

Step 4: I looked up "Gabba Gabba Hey" on Wikipedia and realized it took me a week to figure this out on my own by coincidence instead of just looking it up in a few seconds. Oh well, it made me pretty excited. It also clears up what Marge was talking about in Episode 306 of the Simpsons.

LOBOTOMY

I have a spending problem

2006-08-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

Of the many things I despise in life, money is in the top 3. It's been the source of personal anguish and will be the bane of my existence for many years after graduation. Despite that, it kicks ass to spend money I don't have. My vices are few but they cost quite a bit...namely music and food. Over the last month I've spent a few hundred bucks on CDs. It may not seem like much to you, Mr. Moneybags, but it'll equal a few thousand with all the interest stacked on so back off!!

So yeah, these are some of the CDs I bought:

1) Unearth, III: In the Eyes of Fire
This CD is like a sledgehammer to the skull. Vicious and brutal, this album is great for cruising around town hating someone's guts or putting someone's head through a wall. The song Sanctity of Brothers is incredible, check it out. The thing I love about these guys is that they're just regular dudes ripping shit up; there's no satanic theatrics or posing or eye makeup or melodic interludes. It's just straight up metalcore, with some help from Terry Date.

2) Dragonforce, Inhuman Rampage
These guys are from England, where it's apparently OK to have names like Dragonforce. I first saw these guys on Headbanger's Ball one night. This stuff is completely over-the-top progressive power metal, with plenty of synth, insane histrionic guitar solos, and lyrics featuring burning steel, firestorms, and eternal pain. Get on your knees and thank the metal gods in Valhalla for smiling upon us in the form of this album.

3) Descendents, Milo Goes to College
Some pretty sweet American punk from the early 80s. Milo's voice is all snarly and gritty and shit. My favorite song is "I'm not a loser," which is a big rip on a rich asshole...not original subjet matter, but timeless. Good for blasting really loud and sneering at someone you despise.

4) The Cure, Disintegration
Oh Robert Smith, I'm glad you're never happy. I owed it to the Cure to actually buy one of their albums after pirating so much of their shit. A classic, start to finish. And no, "Lullaby" is not about the Spider-Man, but a "spiderman."

5) Pantera, Vulgar Display of Power
Just what the title says. I call this "militant metal," because it inspires you to get organized, to rally your troops, and DESTROY. It's not mindless thrashing, it's more planned and premeditated. Another good one for pumping iron or killing someone to. R.I.P. DIMEBAG.

6) Death Cab for Cutie, Transatlanticism
Benjamin Gibbard has a strange power over me. No matter what he sings, whether it's in Death Cab or in the Postal Service, I want to weep. It seems like his songs were written based on my own past relationships and all of them have particular significance. Maybe that's the way it is with everyone and he's just done a good job of capturing that...probably the mark of a great songwriter. This is a good album for a post-dump pity party...before you start feeling bitter about your ex.

7) The Bronx, White Drugs
LA punk, pure adrenaline. This CD will make you want to play in a band, and if it doesn't you don't have a pulse. Wicked fast, wicked loud, and solid screamage from the lead singer. "Heart Attack American" is probably the best song on there.

8) The Faint, Wet from Birth
Time for a synth-punk hipster dance party! Invite all your Allston friends, score some coke, and let's get laid! Ok, there's nothing wrong with that. This album is fantastic, and it really does make you want to get down on the dancefloor and twitch all night. Although the "Erection" song makes me feel a little weird, but maybe I'm not comfortable enough with my sexuality.

9) Talking Heads, Remain in Light
David Byrne is weird. So is this album. When I listen to it, I want to dance the same way the fly girls in Stop Making Sense do. It's kind of like funk or world beat or something along those lines. Even if "Once in a lifetime" were the only song on the CD, it'd be worth buying. Yet another solid pick up in my "Great Album" puchasing quest.

10) Bad Religion, Stranger than Fiction
I love this CD. It's really intelligent punk/pop from the mid 90's. It's not brainy and unaccessible; the themes are all traditional punk (i.e. "automatons in business suits"), but the actual lyrics are really well-written (i.e. "the billions of tiny pinhole embers fade into a morning sky filled with poignant morose wonder"). Allmusic panned it as a sellout first major-label effort, but fuck 'em.

11) Girl Talk, Night Ripper
I just got this one today on Brian's recommendation and it sure is bizarre. Basically, it's hip-hop songs underlaid with samples from literally hundreds of songs and artists. The CD sleeve is just a list of tons of groups with a "thank you" at the bottom. You're shaking your Laffy Taffy, then there's some Weezer and Pixies samples, or maybe Boston or X-Ray Spex. You do a double take on every track, being all like "hey, I know that song! and that one!" Don't you like how I describe your reaction to this CD??

It may cost a shitload of money, but these CDs have gotten me through some tough times, whether it be with Benjamin's sad songs or Phil's venomous screaming. Thanks everybody.

Picture-in-picture guitar solos?? Yes please.

Orca Assault

2006-08-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

Well, the first rotation of my third year in med school is over and it almost killed me. I've been pulverized. I've wanted to die and I've wanted to drop out, but I've made it through. I can look forward to 6 weeks of 9-5 bliss in pediatrics. Med school is a topic for another day though. Or a topic for never.

After some searching, I finally found a decent clip of my favorite phenomenon in nature: orcas ripping baby seals to shreds. "Oh, how revolting!" you might exclaim. Revolting yes, but it is the way of the wild. It would not be wise to interfere. Check it out:

Whatever show this clip was jacked from must've been shooting for the lowest common denominator...like myself. Come on, 7 minutes of slow-mo orca attacks on baby seals complete with their pathetic cries? Watching the details of a pup's ordeal as young orcas toy with him for hours then eat him anyways? Sorry, but I'm always rooting for the orcas.

Machismo

2006-06-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

In the eternal words of Jim Anchower, it's been a while since I rapped at ya. However, according to my hit counter, "ya" is equivalent to the 4 people who visit my site each day, 3 of which are me. Whatever, I'm doing it for the art, so back off!

I'm getting tired of the advertising media glorifying idiots. Mainly male idiots. [Female stereotypes in advertising is a topic for another day]

The ad that pushed me over the edge was for Burger King's new Texas Double Whopper. It's the one that features a mob of guys complaining about eating "chick food" and show their hatred of minivans, quiche, and hygiene. Known as the "Manthem," it features new lyrics to the 1972 helen Reddy hit "I Am Woman" and is complete with throwback references to bra-burning, etc. Check it out:

Many would argue this ad is nothing more than a lighthearted jab at political correctness and a testament to the male appetite, if not an encouragement to get heart disease and die. While this may be what the advertising executives intended, it is simply not the case. This ad is the latest volley in a continuous media attack on real men everywhere. By "real men" I mean men who treat women with respect, men who have additional interests besides sports and beer, men who can string together complete sentences...you get the idea. By reinforcing the idiot male stereotype through advertising, we're doing society a disservice and propagating this unrealistic brand of "eat, drink, and bang out-of-my-league hotties" machismo.

Coors Light advertising is rife with the idiot male stereotype. Worst of all was their series of "Love Song" commercials, featuring the Coors Light Twins. According to the ads, guys love football on TV, Gina Lee Nolin, frat parties, and TWINS. [An aside: why is it assumed that guys love lesbian porn? Random girls on the street making out during Mardi Gras isn't sexy. They think guys like it, guys think they're supposed to like it, and they go nuts, throw beads, take pictures, etc. What's sexy is when girls make out with ME on the streets during Mardi Gras.] Anyways, these ads were co-opted by the NFL and featured in weekly segments last year. What better place?

Axe Body Spray features ads with average looking males attracting legions of gorgeous women after a single spritz of their product. Even if you look like a total dickhead, hot chicks will be all over you if you offer them Dentyne Ice. Other men look at you in disdain if you like BROCCOLI instead of MEAT at Chili's.

Men in relationships and fathers aren't immune from this advertising either. Another Coors Light ad features a man proclaiming his love...for the latest advancement in can technology, much to the chagrin of his commitment-happy, marriage-ready girlfriend. A child asks his father to read him a bedtime story while a football game is on. Uh oh! Instead, the father wows his son with the magic of digital recording by rewinding and fast-forwarding the game. Nothing like some good old-fashioned bonding. Television is rife with ads protraying husbands as inept at child-rearing, helping around the house, cooking, or cleaning. You know what? I clean my bathroom. I've never once seen an ad with a guy cleaning the tub.

This portrayal of men is getting old. The stereotypes hurt everyone. They hurt women because men grow up thinking these warped stereotypes are what manliness is all about. Women will have to deal with these drooling masses who think they deserve a supermodel and that lounging around watching sports isn't just OK, it's expected. These idiot men then go on to turn the stereotype into reality.

There will always be male idiots in the world, and plenty of them. There are also lots of nice, normal guys. It'd be great if advertising focused less on the dolts and more on the positive aspects of masculinity. You can still get a good laugh out out of a commercial and increase sales without ramming negative gender stereotypes down our throats. Oh well, such is the world we live in.

And now, your 10 day local forecast

2006-05-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

I'll be wrapping up the first half of medical school with finals on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. At least I'm not missing much by studying my ass off inside all week:

What's in a name?

2006-05-12T21:36:00.000-07:00

I came into this world with a name: Todd. It's been around as a first name for about 50 years, but comes from Middle English todde, which means "fox." Its popularity has been waning since its peak in the early 90s.

Advantages:

Easily shouted. When I announce my name to an audience or when someone screams my name in hatred, jealousy, or terror, it can be pretty powerful.
Unique. Not rare, but uncommon enough to be non-boring.

Disadvantages:

Difficult to spell and easily confused with other names. Is that Tom? No, Todd. With one "d"? No, two.
It sounds weird when you think about it for extended periods of time.
Origins: recycled. It came from a surname (remember Mary Todd Lincoln?)
Social stigma

It's disadvantage #4 that has been a stumbling block to coolness for my whole life. For whatever reason, society has chosen "Todd" as a name of weaklings, weirdos, and stock car drivers. Paranoia you say? Insecurity you say? Poppycock. Here are some examples:

The Simpsons. Rod and Todd, Ned and Maude Flanders' kids, are some of the biggest heels on the show. Maybe not as much as Milhouse, but they're pretty pathetic. Todd is portrayed as a sheltered, overly-trusting wuss.
"Todd and Lisa" from SNL. These sketches were from the late 70s or early 80s and are hardly ever seen anymore. It goes to show that the maligning of "Todd" dates back a while. Todd (played by Bill Murray) is a corny dork who tries to win over Lisa Loopner (Gilda Radner) while simultaneously being a huge suck-up to Mrs. Loopner. One of the catchphrases was Mrs. Loopner laughing at one of Todd's terrible jokes and exclaiming "Oh, TODD! That was so funny I almost forgot to laugh!"
"Wedding Crashers" Todd is the antisocial, homosexual, bondage-obsessed artiste who is best known for painting Vince Vaughn in the buff.
Beavis and Butt-Head. Ok, Todd was supposed to be cool in the show, but that's by B+B's standards. He's a gas station attendant who drives a beat-up mustang around and terrorizes the duo, sometimes using their place as a hideout from the law.
Channel 7 News: Todd Gross. Wasn't he fired for being an asshole or something?
Todd Bodine. Trucks too can go fast.

Anyways, as you can see the media is rife with stereotypes that give my name a bad name. We need more Todd Rundgrens or Todd MacFarlanes or Todd Benzigers in the spotlight to educate the public on what Todds are really like: wicked awesome.

Does YOUR first name have a coat of arms?

Pharmacology Est Mortuus

2006-05-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

It's all over. I blazed through my pharm final in about half an hour, not even stopping to check it over. I don't care how I did; it's done, and boy does it feel good.

Afterwards, I checked out the Audubon Society's park in Worcester. 400 acres of conservation land in the middle of the heroin capital of New England? Well, it's true. You can see civilization from lots of the trails and there are some power lines, but it was still a break from the grit of Route 9. I didn't see any beavers or fishercats, but there were lots of fiddleheads, gypsy moth cocoons, and skunk cabbage. Oh, and red ants. After a huge sandwich and a nap, all that pharm is out of my system. Ahh....

Weekend roundup

2006-05-02T19:48:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was one of the best I've had in months.

Friday: Went out to dinner at Wonder Bar for pizza, mozzerella sticks, and beer. After getting our fill, we headed to the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival (METALFEST) at the Palladium for metal...and beer. We missed all the crappy 20 minute sets at the beginning of the night and cut straight to bigger acts. Between the Buried and Me and Black Dahlia Murder were the best ones I saw. BDM was nuts...they all had white pants on with bright colored tank tops/half-shirts. I guess when you play this kind of shit you can do whatever you want and nobody's gonna question you.

Saturday: Slept until about 2pm. Ate breakfast on my balcony. I watched TV for the rest of the afternoon and headed over to watch some of the Sox game and a little curb your enthusiasm at Jeff's place.

Sunday: On a lark, I decided to run a road race in Marblehead at 2pm. I packed up all my junk in the morning and went for a road trip. Man, it was a nice day...a little hot for running but the sea breeze kept it cool. It was a 5-miler around Marblehead Neck, which is the little spit of land that juts out from the rest of the coast and has really rich people on it. I felt like complete shit, but I managed to get an ok time, and I brought home the bacon. My entire body is one huge knot right now. Anyways, I went to the park at the end of the Neck (with the lighthouse) and took a few pictures to wrap up the day:

Deli sloth

2006-04-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

Supermarkets have instituted a policy of shame and laziness that hurts the consumer and undermines the very institution of the delicatessin. For the last year, every Shaw's and Stop & Shop I've been to will pull the same trick. You ask them for a pound of roast beef and they slice one slice and hold it about 6 feet away and say "Is that thickness ok?"

What do you say? You could just say "Yeah, whatever" and just get the thickness you assume the deli slicer deems fit. Or, you can get all up in their grill and be like "Umm, actually...can I have it much thinner?" at which point the employee rolls their eyes at the customer's reasonable request.

The act of questioning the customer as to the slice thickness puts the burden of poor slicing on us. It's giving the customer too much power. In doing this, employees have covered their asses. If we're unsatisfied, it's our own fault. Not only are we pissed about our terribly sliced meat, but we're angry at ourselves for hastily OK-ing the thickness the deli lady proposed in the first place. When I walk up to the deli, I expect that the employee knows I don't want 3 slices of roast beef to a pound. I expect that they've had some sort of thickness training. I bet they cut out that training to put up their stupid plasma screen displays all over the store with the lady from Everybody Loves Raymond giving us cooking tips. THANKS.

I yearn for the days of yore , when being a deli employee was an art and a big responsibility. When I worked at the local Italian market in my hometown, the deli was run by several generations of men in the family. The patriarch (who I'll call "Gino") was the head of it all, and had seen his fair share of slicing. In fact, he was missing about 6 and a half fingers. When I started there as a cashier, he called me "joon-yee" ("junior" in MA Italian) because he did that with all the guys and he immediately remembered all the girls' names to hit on them.

Anyways, Gino walked up to me and said "Hey joon-yee, nice to meet ya" and held out his hand for a shake. When I went to grab it, he used the 3 finger-stumps to tickle the palm of my hand, which scared the shit out of me. Needless to say, he was howling with laughter, as was I the next time he did that to a new guy. Memories...

Elevator fantasies

2006-04-22T19:04:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason I have these bizarro fantasies whenever I step into an elevator, and they usually involve violent deaths.

Sometimes when I get into the elevator, I imagine all of the cables snapping right as I step on, so one foot is inside and the other outside. This way, the elevator car plummets and severs my legs instantaneously. A variation of this is the elevator car falling right after I've stepped in, so that I'm in free-fall along with the elevator, but a few feet above the floor. Then the emergency thingies in the elevator kick in and I splatter all over the inside. Those few seconds of free-fall would be pretty cool though, like anti-gravity.

When I hold the door for someone, I imagine a huge razor blade popping out from inside the door and the whole thing blasting shut, slicing my arm off neatly. Maybe that's how the one-armed man became the one-armed man in "The Fugitive." Maybe I got this idea from "Mission Impossible," which had its fair share blade/elevator violence.

HOLY CRAP. When researching my creepy elevator obsession online, I found this website: Poe News. It has an archive section with an "accidental deaths" category. For example, on 4/16/06, a worker was accidentally decapitated after peering into an elevator shaft. I don't think this will replace my morning perusal of the New York Times online, though "Boy Chokes on Live Fish" and "Dwarf Killed with Golf Umbrella" sound sickly fascinating.

One not-so-disturbing vision I have occurs right after the door closes. If there's nobody else around, I raise my leg at the knee and pump one fist in the air and go "DOING!" as the elevator starts to rise (If you couldn't tell, that's me making the Super Mario Bros. jumping noise). Oh man, I crack myself up.

In college, we'd wait till our elevator was full of people then smash the emergency bell which, coincidentally, sounded much like a boxing bell. Then we started dancing around like boxers from the 1800s with our fists raised, bumping into people as we traded blows. Sometimes people would laugh but you'd be surprised at how many people have no sense of humor. Come on people, work on that.

DOING!!

Beard-Off '06 continues

2006-04-18T20:06:00.000-07:00

That's right, I've made the cut twice in a row in BEARD-OFF '06. Over the course of the first week, I jumped out to a blazing start. My win in the first week was due to my quick growth out of the blocks. I achieved victory in week 2 without my opponent even present. The judges had seen him earlier that day and already knew he was defeated. The most important thing I've learned thusfar is that my beard starts to get gnarly after about 8 days. Before that, it's lovable scruff that the ladies seem to like but after it's more of an annoyance.

This is the first time I've made it to the "Elite Eight" in anything, so I'm pretty excited. Despite this, I may throw the competition and sculpt my beard to a "creepstache," mutton chop sideburns, and a soul patch. You know, a little of everything! Ok, back to itching my neck. Check out the shots:

Shaved that morning:

One week:

Two weeks (artist's rendition):

NEJM/JAMA #3

2006-04-18T19:17:00.000-07:00

So much for my informative kick back when I started doing these things...this is the first one since January.

NEJM 4/20/06
Images in Clinical Medicine: Bird-Mite Infestation

Finally, an interesting infestation with a gross picture. The story goes that this woman and her husband were awoken in the middle of the night itching everywhere...their armpits, groins, fingers, etc. They also found these mites crawling all over them. These things usually infest pigeon nests, so what's the deal?

Turns out they had a pigeon nest hidden on top of their air conditioner and the mites had sneaked through and had lunch with their new hosts. So, the moral of the story is to not have bird nests or anything else on top of your AC. Oh, and don't get bird mites because it's probably pretty gross.

JAMA 4/5/06

Morris Kantor: Baseball at Night (1934)

Usually when I get my JAMAs it makes me think of where the hell I'm going to put it in my room because my dusty stack is starting to teeter. This time, I got a little choked up because the cover reminded me of "Field of Dreams" and the impending baseball season.

Our friend Morris was a Russian-born American artist. He dabbled in a bunch of different styles, including cubism and futurism. Later in his career he focused on realism and used NYC as his inspiration, though I highly doubt this is Yankee Stadium.

BEARD-OFF '06

2006-04-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

Beard-Off 2006 has officially begun.

Beard-Off is a competition that has its roots in antiquity. It is an ancient testament to testosterone and the manliness conveyed by facial hair. Scholars continue to debate the exact origins of Beard-Off. Some say it was a tactic used by the Hittites to intimidate Ramses II's freshly-shaven troops in the Battle of Kadesh. Others claim the Vikings invented Beard-Off to stay warm during the arduous journey to Greenland. I, however, credit that episode of Cheers where Cliff wins the beard growing competition but it turns out he has a fake beard glued to his face.

I digress.

Beard-Off is a competition involving a bunch of guys in my school who will go without shaving for as long as possible to win cash and the respect of their peers. The 32 participants are grouped into a bracket NCAA tournament-style: 4 regions, each having 8 seeded positions. Brackets were sold for $5 a pop to classmates who picked their hairy winners. Each week, pictures are taken, beards are judged, and only half the participants advance. The winner of this month-long ordeal wins 20% of the bracket earnings (80% goes to charity) and the title of Grizzliest guy in school, big man on campus, or some crap like that.

I was ranked a 3 seed in my region, but I think a 2 seed would've been a little more accurate. So far my growth has been pretty outstanding (we started last Friday) and I'm confident about winning the first round. Past that though, I'm in uncharted territory as I've never grown for more than a week. It's a little nervewracking having people come up to you and be like "Hey man, hope you win this thing...I've got a few brackets riding on you." I feel like a Texas high school football coach or something. In the meantime, I've been slathering my face with vaseline and eating lots of butter to help with the glossy sheen. Genes, don't fail me now.

In conclusion, it's snowing out. This heinous atrocity of the heavens has been negated by the fact that "Dawn of the Dead" will arrive via Netflix tomorrow. ROCK.

Scott Ian BEFORE beginning Beard-Off

Spring has sprung

2006-04-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

What better way to work off a hangover than a stroll through a beautiful city on a gorgeous day? Well, there isn't a better way so back off!!

My path wound from the Park Street T stop, through the Common and Gardens, across Storrow to the Esplanade, then through the Back Bay. I decided to use my camera a little and wound up getting a few decent shots.

Every Time I Die/the Pogues concert reviews

2006-04-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

Between CDs and concerts, I've been spending a crapload on music recently. It sure beats a crack habit though. Or a Keno addiction.

Every Time I Die/Bleeding Through: Friday 3/10/06, Worcester Palladium

Upon entering the "Getlaidium," that old familiar stench of teenage sweat and zit contents assaulted my nose with the strength of a jock's sopping, yeast-laden towel. I felt pretty old, especially when I saw a 14-year old (or so) wearing the same Unearth sweatshirt as I was. Ugh.

Anyways, Bleeding Through played last as the headline act, but they weren't that great. The musicians were really talented technically (especially their keyboardist Marta) but they were lacking in the ROCK department. I think alot of it was due to their lead singer, who was kind of a tool. He'd yell things like "C'mon, show me the fuckin' horns!!" and "Lemme see those fingers, tell whoever it is that's keepin' you down to go to hell!!" Come on, man. Shut up and stop trying so hard. The whole California mascara metal thing can be pretty lame sometimes.

Every Time I Die was excellent. They were basically exploding off the stage for their entire set. Not only did they sound great (frantic, cerebral lyrics and driving metal-ish riffs), but their showmanship was incredible. The lead singer (Keith Buckley) looked like he'd taken mic-swinging lessons for years...either that or he was a majorette in high school. Speaking of school, I guess he used to be a teacher and gave it up when the band got big. Their guitarists did the synchronized metal poses and windmill riffs...they definitely did their homework.

The Pogues: Tuesday 3/14/06, the Orpheum Theater

Let me begin by saying I hadn't heard much of the Pogues before this concert, and I don't claim to be some huge fan. I was basically going in cold, and I think I was one of the few in the audience who didn't claim Shane MacGowan as an immediate family member. Anyways, the place was sold out beyond belief. The crowd was a nutty mix of old and young, prep and punk, more-Irish-than-thou, real Irish, and non-Irish. When Shane and company got on stage, the place absolutely exploded. For 2+ hours it was a drunken singalong on a grand scale complete with dancing, clapping, and swaying. Well, Shane did most of the swaying. He's the Irish Ozzy Osbourne...when he spoke, I couldn't make out a single word and he clung to his mic stand for dear life, but he was magically able to bust out every song flawlessly. Is he really that far gone? Is it an act? I'm pretty sure the answer is no...

DRUG-INDUCED RAGE

2006-03-27T07:55:00.000-08:00

My brain is boiling in a sea of rage. I want to destroy. I wanted to rip the seats out of our godforsaken dilapidated vomit-orange lecture hall and send them crashing down on the people below. I want to put on camo and sneak into the woods behind my apartment and kill cute litte forest animals with my bare hands then rip them to peices but not even eat them afterwards, instead I'd leave them in the parking lot so they won't ever decompose and everyone will have to see the hundreds of smeared bloody lumps of entrails every day and think to themselves "What would do such a thing??," and it's ME, I'M what would do such a thing, and I'd do it gladly, with squirrel blood pouring from my mouth.

And it's all thanks to pharmacology.

As I'd written in my post-test class evaluation, out of all the classes I've taken in school, none have made me question my decision to become a doctor more than pharmacology. What a shit class. What a grandiose waste of time and energy. The only reason the class even exists is because of 1) Salary justification for professors and 2) Some of the information from the class will be on the boards. Since ALL of the information from this entire YEAR-LONG class will be condensed into a program on our PDAs next year, everything we've learned is nothing more than a couple taps of the stylus. This is what makes me want to annihilate the wildlife that may or may not reside in the wooded area behind my place.

Since pharmacology is rote memorization, it should be replaced with a series of drug tables with everything we need to know for the boards on it. This would save shitloads of time, as I wouldn't have to pick out important points from terrible lecture notes. It would also save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts a fair amount of money, as we could can the professors who do nothing more than vomit facts at us and expect us to ingest that vomit and make sense of it. Saving time and money while preparing students for the boards? Brilliant!

Oh yeah, I probably failed that test. I'd say it's embarassing, but since the test wasn't a fair assessment of knowledge for anyone, I really don't care.

Spring Broke

2006-03-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

Time to dust off the cobwebs. This week has been our spring break, and the 2 weeks before that was our exam period, which, if I had to choose between "fun" and "not fun," would be "my face is being pressed against a hot waffle iron." Anyways, what have I done with my week?

1. Went to two concerts, to be detailed in another blog.

2. Ran my first road race of the year in Boston, and boy was it great. I had barely been running for the month beforehand but managed to get a pretty good time. To celebrate, I registered for the NYC marathon in November, which I'll probably regret in the future.

3. Slept alot at home, or at least tried to. My parents' cats have epic fights up and down the stairs around 1am or so, complete with hissing, thumping, and crashing around. It's like one's a sperm whale and the other's a giant squid...nobody's ever actually witnessed one of these midnight battles, but there are signs of it the next morning (gouges, blood smears, missing ears, etc).

4. Went to the dentist. I've never have a cavity but I still hate getting my teeth cleaned. I can deal with the metal scraping pick, but when it gets stuck or jammed between my teeth it makes me want to destroy. Getting polished with the mint bubblegum vomit flavored grit drives me bananas...it tickles my teeth.

So yeah, this has been a pretty thrilling spring break. I didn't have much money to blow, hence the title. Time to let March Madness whisk me away into a world of televised oblivion. Wait a minute, one more rant...the Cingular ads with the asian guy and the white guy drive me nuts. The asian guy is a total asshole cellphone elitist with his deadpan, snide comments and up-to-the-minute sports scores, while the white guy is a bumbling idiot with a cell phone that never works. I think the white guy should use his phone as a crime deterrent on the other guy to shut him up.

Paulus needs to shut his cakehole.

Wigs, senility, and bedbugs

2006-02-26T19:40:00.000-08:00

Where the hell have I been for the last 2 weeks? Mainly skipping class, sleeping in, and preparing for the biggest event to hit UMass since, oh, a month ago.

On Friday night my school held its annual class show, where the second year med students make fun of the faculty and the first-year students. We killed. We slayed. The audience was drunk, but who's counting? I played our Romanian anatomy professor who has a killer accent and uses ridiculous analogies in class. All I had to do was slap on a gray wig and POOF! I also played bass and guitar in 4 of our musical numbers, and wore some really tight gold [women's] pants during a few of them. They helped me hit the high notes on my guitar and garnered some unwanted attention from the first few rows of the audience.

It's safe to say that I've lost my mind and sense of who I am. When I got up there to deliver my performace, I was my professor, much in the same way that I am Smeagol or Wilford Brimley when I do my impressions of them. I bet when I go senile, I'll become nothing more than a collection of impressions and funny voices. All that'll be left is an empty shell of a man who asks his grandkids if they want "UNLIMITED POWAAAHHHH" in an Emperor Palpatine voice then hands them a dollar bill each. I'm pretty sure this is what happened to the guy who did the all the Hannah-Barbera voices in the 70's.

Oh yeah, the bedbugs. I had this hideous dream the other night that my place was infested with bedbugs. You'd press into the mattress with your finger and a stream of tiny white bugs would pour out and jump all over the place. Ian's place was infested too, but he lived in some bizarro Euro-loft with a roll-up orange mattress...which also contained bedbugs. Ever since I read a New York Times article about their sweeping the east coast I've never been the same. BARF.

Dia-beet-iss testing supplies for free? Would this face lie?

PJ Kilroy's rocks my world

2006-02-20T20:16:00.000-08:00

I've been to my share of Boston bars/clubs: faux swanky, faux Irish, faux declasse, college, breweries, sports, music, frat boy, etc. My favorite genre by far is the dive. My favorite dive? PJ Kilroy's on Beacon Street.

It was a cold and blustery night...this past Friday to be exact. I was at Avalon for the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and it turned out to be a pretty decent show. I don't own their older 2 CDs and they just came out with a new one, so I went in almost cold. They played some fun, straight-ahead rock n' roll with some gospel-y stuff mixed in. After a few shots of Jameson, we left Avalon and bolted across the Fenway parking lot in subzero temperatures to that toasty oasis of cheap booze, grimy brick, and plentiful coat hooks...PJ Kilroy's!

When we walked in, who else was on the internet jukebox but Lamb of God? HOLY CRAP! I was jumping out of my skin. It only got better, as about half of "Ashes of the Wake" was played and then some old school Ride the Lightning Metallica came on. I was in metal heaven. Interspersed throughout the night was some Tom Petty, but you gotta respect that.

The bartender was as refreshing as the death metal blasting in the background. While some joints have busty/busted floozies manning the bar, PJ's had a cute and chatty one. If you were to ask her out it'd be for that purpose, as opposed to a thinly veiled "wanna have sex??" She gave us a heads-up that the PBR was a little foamy that night. No problem, we're willing to take the risk. Mmmm, Pabst.

On to billiards! We got on the table after about 3 games and we dominated for the next hour. As the night went on and the pitchers were drained, fewer people wanted to play against us...either because we were that good or people were that drunk. Regardless, the on-site vending machine provided much needed snacky-poo's at the end of the night. Mmmm, Fritos.

Our DD was kind enough to take us back to Porter and we happily passed out with Killadelphia in the background, which we continued watching the next morning. It's the DVD of Lamb of God's tour, and it proves that dorky white guys can indeed be metal singers if they can howl like unholy hellspawn. I never would've watched it if PJ's hadn't reminded me of their punishing riffs. Thanks, PJ Kilroy's! You made my weekend.

$2 PBR's? Don't mind if I do!

Toy Story: Retail Wasteland

2006-02-18T19:24:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I ranted. I despise shopping.

Birthday shopping for my Chinese Little Brother tonight was a draining experience. After the Auburn Mall and Toys 'R' Us, I felt like I needed to take a shower with Borax. I also decided not to let my kids watch TV and instead have a home well-stocked with art supplies and sports equipment. I shuffled around the store for a while, so I have lots of material...here goes the rant.

1) Are toy companies trying to turn America's female youth into a bunch of hussies? Am I getting old-fashioned? The Bratz were bad enough, but now there are Bratz knockoffs like the "My Bling Bling" makeup head from Mattel. I'd have terrible nightmares if that mutant slut-head was staring at me in my little girl room, blasting me with self-esteem sapping ho-rays as I slept. Blaugh.

2) Legos have become ridiculously watered down. I think the average set has about 5 pieces, and if you don't know the dorktastic back-story to the lego robots you're up shit's creek. Battling dinosaurs? Rival robo-clans? What happened to castles and spaceships? Cripes!

3) The game aisle is wasting away. Sure, the old standbys of Yahtzee, Jenga, and Trivial Pursuit still represent. Do we really need a Desperate Housewives trivia game? Or Operation: Special Shrek Edition? "That's So Raven: The Game?"

4) A Stink Blaster? I don't even wanna what's in the ammo.

5) Why are there Ninja Turtles toys riding featuring Raph riding a Triceratops? Could LucasArts sell out any more with their figurine sets of battles that never happened in any movie with aliens who are never named? How much more money can be squeezed out of the Transformers franchise?

6) Mall in general: Hollister? Isn't Abercrombie enough for you O.A.R. fans? A mall rant is the subject of an entire blog.

Basically, our young'uns are going to hell in a handbasket and I'm a hypocritical old fart. There were a few cool things at Toys 'R' Us, namely "The Thing" smash gloves and feet, which make noise when you punch someone or stomp around. AWESOME. Nerf weapons are a solid standby which prove that nailing your brother in the face with a foam arrow never, ever gets old.

What can you get for 10 dollar? Any ting you want!

Cabin fever

2006-02-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

Spiky the Cactus

far from his Nevada home

suffers in silence

Tales of a hair-styled hussy

2006-02-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

I'm the dirty little trollop of Dellaria Salon in the Solomon Pond Mall.

First some background. Yes, I know going to Dellaria for a men's cut may seem excessive, especially when I'm not sure how long this hair will last. Unfortunately, I had some scarring experiences at the Cleveland Circle Super Cuts when I lived in Boston. You'd think you can't mess up the "short on the sides and back, a little longer on top" cut, but they did thrice. I'll gladly shell out the extra $10 for that shred of self-esteem, piped-in techno, and nice-smelling ladies.

Here's my modus operandi for haircuts. I always make an appointment, but usually it's within 2 hours of me calling anyways...merely a formality. I never ask for a specific stylist, so I get someone random each time. This worked out well last year; I only had one repeat stylist visit and I think he forgot he met me. My second year at Dellaria has been a little weird. I'm obviously a regular now, and I can't give the old "oh, I don't know if i'll be coming back because I'm so busy and there's a Great Cuts down the street" excuse.

Yesterday my unease reached its peak. I was getting my hair cut by "H," who had definitely cut my hair once or twice before, and even asked me how school was going. RED FLAG. Behind me was "J," who had enthusiastically and flamboyantly taught me about the dangers of shampoo+conditioner products several times. Across from me was "M," the sweet girl who was about my age who was always afraid to go too short on the sides and back but it's ok because I like it that short and I'm busy at school and don't always have time for a haircut ha ha ha oh I hear ya it's been really warm recently.

So I'm sitting there in the middle of my former stylists with H clipping away and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was cheating on them all. I felt cheap and ashamed. Why can't I be monogamous? When will I settle down? With the familiarity of one stylist, my haircuts would get better over time, but the thrill of a trim with fresh hands is too much to resist.

Linda Stouffer: You had me at "Hello, this is CNN Headline News"

2006-01-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

I'm crushing big time on two CNN Headline News anchors. Something about gorgeous professionals telling me the facts sends shivers up and down my spine.

This morning I awoke to find that Linda Stouffer had temporarily replaced Robin whatsername of "Robin and Company" on Headline News' early show. Oh, glorious day! Robin is cool I guess, but she lacks that certain je ne sais quoi that makes me go bananas. Linda has a bit of a cold, angular, professional edge, but not in that about-to-rip-a-producer's-head-off-Paula-Zahn-ish way. For example, when Chuck Roberts makes one of his doofy yuk-yuk segues, Linda gives a little laugh but immediately transitions into the next story. There's no jovial interchange between the two, but it's still very cordial. I'm inexplicably drawn to her aloof yet seductive demeanor. Maybe it's the matching powersuit and eyeshadow...¡ay caray!

Crush #2 is Susan Hendricks, who is filling in for Linda in the afternoon.

[For the record, Susan doesn't have a CNN bio webpage. In no way do I condone making photo collages of one's favorite anchors and posting them online.]

Susan has more of that attainable girl-next-door charm than Linda. Susan worked with Chuck today, so you can immediately see the differences in my crushes. Susan seems more sunny and open to Chuck's jibberjab than Linda was. Maybe it's because Linda has to work with Chuck every day and Susan is still new to his schtick. Who knows. Susan, like Linda, has amazing teeth.

For now, I'm in scrolling update heaven with two newsworthy beauties whispering sweet words of exclusive coverage in my ears. I wonder how long this back-to-back shift will last.

Sigh....

Oh, the places my finger has been!

2006-01-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

I have a sleeping problem. No matter how much sleep I get, there are a few situations that are my Achilles' heels, causing instantaneous drowsitude:

1) Public buses in Hamilton, Bermuda
2) Haverhill/Reading MBTA Commuter Rail line
3) Patient, Physician, and Society II (PPS), our touchy-feely course at med school

Yesterday I experienced Heel #3. Something about the combination of a warm, windowless room, 10 quiet students, a soft-spoken group leader and a very muted mock interview mixed together in equal parts to decimate my brain's sleep control center. Fortunately, I drifted along in the pre-head bobbing limbo of pseudo half-sleep: I was moving around like I was awake but my droopy googley-eyes would've given me away. Beware the head-bob, death-knell of attention-feigners everywhere!

The last couple days have made me feel a lot closer to being a doctor. Last night, my finger spent a while probing a standardized patient's prostate. I'll spare the details because I'm doing my best to obliterate this event from my memory. Let's just say I passed my genitourinary exam with flying colors.

Today was a blast because I got to head up to the hospital and interview/examine a patient cold, then present him to the hospitalist. The patient had every disorder known to man except lung cancer...5 strokes, 3 heart attacks, quadruple bypass, type I diabetes, an amputated leg, partial blindness, a transplanted kidney, nerve problems, you name it. Despite this he was pretty peppy and we shot the shit for about 2 hours. I'll be honest, I enjoyed learning about the dollhouses he built for his granddaughters more than checking his reflexes. I couldn't figure out the medical reason for why he was in the hospital (facial and rib pain), but what're you gonna do?

NEJM/JAMA #2

2006-01-24T18:07:00.000-08:00

Before I get to the informative crap, some venting. Wolf Blitzer wasted a full 45 seconds of my treadmill time, attention, and eye muscle energy to tell me that Harry Belafonte is buddies with Hugo Chavez and thinks Bush is the "greatest terrorist in the world." WHO CARES?? How does Harry Belafonte merit even a blip on CNN's radar screen?? I hate you, CNN!! What do most people even know about Chavez, Venezuela, or the rise of the left in South America? I learned nothing of value from Wolf's news brief. NOTHING. Instead of learning about WHY the US and Venezuela are at odds, we learned that Harry Belafonte:

1) Is still alive
2) Is a nut
3) Is another example of celebrities who need to keep their cakeholes shut unless they actually have something intelligent to say. Like Bono (clarification: Bono does have something intelligent to say). What a waste of my time. Harry: no link for you! On to the medicine!

NEJM: 1/26/05
Images in Clinical Medicine: Radiographic Evidence Linking Tobacco Use and Lung Cancer This is the Journal's attempt at a joke. Here's a CT scan, and we're looking at an up-and-down "slice" through the patient's chest. This guy was a lifelong smoker and has shortness of breath and a bad cough. The arrows on the scan indicate emphysema (bottom left) and a chunk of tumor (top left). The asterisk is the "evidence" the title speaks of: it's a cross-section of a pack of cigarettes in the guy's pocket. Ha-HA! Oh, the irony. This guy has lung cancer and probably won't live much longer. (awkward silence)

JAMA: 1/25/05
John Sloan, The White Way (1926) I enjoy this piece because it reminds me of my walk to school these days, minus the fact that it's Times Square. In Worcester there's more snirt. Anyways, John French Sloan (1871-1951) was known for his paintings of urban neighborhoods and for co-founding the Aschan School of painting. He's mostly recognized for his paintings of New York, but he's also painted in Gloucester (go North Shore), Connecticut, and elsewhere.

I wonder if the title is a double entendre: the snow, bright lights, and all the Times Square theatergoers are white. Perhaps Sloan is making a social statement, and the "white way" entails having enough money to go to the movies or theater. Who knows, just an idea.

Mousal abuse

2006-01-22T22:45:00.000-08:00

Just a few things to note:

1) It's a moot point, not a mute point.

2) I officially don't care about football for the rest of the season (as of last week), unless the Burger King actually plays in Superbowl XL, maybe as Cedrick Wilson.

3) Last.fm is a pretty cool site but it's ruined the spontenaity of music for me. I mean, do I play the music I think people will find cool or do I just throw my Media Player on random? So far it's been a healthy mix of random and album play, but the N is still too small. Maybe after a couple thousand more plays the world will be ready for my listening habits, not that anyone really cares.

For me, letting someone look at my music collection is like letting them stare at me naked on a bad day. I've never let anyone done it...look at my music collection that is. I'm so anal about what songs I include (not exclude, I have lots of work to do) that it would drive me nuts to have someone rummage through it. Maybe Last.fm is better for me: it's just a sampling.

4) Hotel Rwanda was an excellent and heavy movie. I made another movie faux pas when I watched Lord of War Friday then Hotel on Saturday. One makes light of arms dealing while the other displays the horrors of machete genocide and the French. I wanted to barf through most of the movie, but it actually inspired me to learn more about the atrocities. [Just for fun: read the IMDB description of Hotel Rwanda and see what errors you find]

5) I'm quitting Coke again. My quit date is February 1st, more details to come.

6) Studying pharmacology sucks.

7) My wireless mouse is about to run out of batteries, and a little warning keeps popping up on my screen to tell me so. This has inspired me to brutalize the battery until it truly dies. I'm clicking and scrolling unnecessarily like a deranged madman, squeezing the last drops of positive charge from that poor, weary AAA. Oh, if mice could scream.

End of line.

Hey sexy!

2006-01-19T20:04:00.000-08:00

The internet has done wonders for my confidence. At least every other day, I get a "friend request" on Myspace.com from some hot young honey who has a webcam! I also get random IMs from users like CutieMXrllptttstary2222 who really want me to check out their new pix. Man, am I popular.

Don't believe me? Check out this message I got just tonight from Alissa, a hot coed from Manchester, NH:

"Hey sexy! I saw your profile and I just wanna let you know that I think you are soo hottt! I would love to chat with you sometime ,and get to know more about you! My AOL screen name is cherryspotXOXO5. I hope I hear from you soon
sweetie!"

Hear that? She think's I'm cute! We have lots in common too. Here's her description:

"Well..as we all know...I love to party!! Im a PaRty gIrL!! Whats life without a party right?!?! I love hangin out with all my friends especially when they come home from college!! My new favorite hobby is to go run and work out!! Im always up for going out and meeting new people and just doing whatever!!! Im going to Tomball College to get my basics then going to Texas State to be a RN!! Go Bobcats!! If you want to know more just IM cherryspotXOXO5 "

Wow! She's gonna be an RN. It's so hard to find nice girls in the health professions these days. She's a PaRty gIrL and I'm a PaRty gUY!! (I mean, I dance at the FOO every weekend, lol!) I wear underwear as well and enjoy sitting in chairs. I'm excited about what our future holds.

I am, however, a little concerned about all the poor morons who think they can win Alissa over by posting comments on her site. All these fools think that by "stoppin by to show some love" that they've wooed my woman. Please, like she's ever messaged any of you guys. Hear that, Notorious Jay and Racin' Mason? Yeah, I'm talking to you. Step off.

Salvation

2006-01-18T22:06:00.000-08:00

A weight hath been lifted from mine shoulders.

Before Christmas break, I was pretty sure I had flunked my Respiratory exam by one question. I heard our grade letters had been delivered, so I rushed downstairs to my school mailbox. Frantically, I tore open the letter and sure enough...

I passed by 1.67 points. Ahhhahahhahahahhahhahahahahaaaa!!!

Looks like we were given credit for an extra question. Maybe a challenge went through on one of them. Who knows. Who cares. I'm back in the game, with no make-up test hanging over my head like an acid rain-dumping cloud. In fact, there was a break in the clouds right after I got home and a gigantic rainbow was hovering right over Plantation Street. A sign? You betcha!

I've been caught in a haze of mild depression for the last month, and I think I'm finally breaking out of it. Today I got caught up with a good chunk of my work, had a few beers at lunch, made myself a wonderful dinner with salmon and rice and stuff, wrote a blog, and I've cracked open one of my leisure books. I even watched 2 episodes of Scrubs last night, and I almost never watch television. All I need now is a date for Friday and I'll be all set. Excellent.

Balls and sticks

2006-01-17T20:56:00.000-08:00

Out of all the lazy man sports, billiards rules the roost. Bowling, darts, air hockey, ping-pong, Dance-Dance Revolution, and bocce may fun, but the very concept of pool sticks a figurative one in their figurative ears. Our student lounge has a lumpy, bumpy, slightly-too-small pool table that we've learned to love. One pocket has been deemed "the black hole," another "the lip" and certain rails are stickier than others. I am Kevin McHale and that table is my parquet.

On this battlefield, titans collide daily in epic struggles that will surely be recorded in the vaunted annals of pool history. Impossible shots are sunk. "Uncuttable" balls are cut. Banks are performed that would make the pool gods howl with disbelief on their thrones in Valhalla. We scratch alot too. From whence originate such displays of courage, mettle, and basic physics? Me. Ok, me and Matthew J. Furman. Matthew J. Furman and I.

It started off as a typical day last year. Class ended and the mad rush to the foosball table in the lounge began. I had to fight to play in the second or third game, and by then it was almost time to head back to class. At that point, the handles were drenched in palm sweat from Kevin getting too intense. I decided I'd had enough. The dusty pool table next to us had barely been used, so Matt and I struck up a game. Slowly but surely, people from the foosball crowd started drifting to our table. Fast forward to today, where we have at least 20 people signed up for an online billiards ladder with a ranking and challege system.

At this point, all of the important cues have been named. You can choose from Big Twig (brown 21oz.), Black Beauty (black 20oz.), Lil' Blue (blue, 19oz.), and "The Mallard," whose green and brown color patterns demand its name. One of them has been used as a murder weapon...any guesses?

Our skills as a group have progessed greatly from the early days. Banking, cutting, adding spin (side, top, bottom), and "annihilation" are all base-level skills at this point. Our next mission would be to master the jump, but that may be pushing it. The main obstacle is the fact that our table is really sticky compared to other ones at bars, etc. We'd need to go out on the town every once in a while to increase our adaptability. You never know when you'll be playing a billiards deathmatch on a slippery decrepit table in Great Brook Valley, with opponents giving you cigarette burns on your hands when you try to line up shots.

Pool can be a horrific sociological nightmare. If one could harness the power of trash-talk, I bet one day of play in the UMass student lounge would power Las Vegas for a month. It doesn't matter if you're good; you'll get cut down like you were the Stanford mascot standing in front of Paul Bunyan. Earning respect takes a long time and losing it takes one tough day. Sometimes it takes all my strength not to bawl my eyes out or run someone through with Big Twig.

I don't though. It's just a game.

Oh, Black Widow...someday you'll be mine.

Home

2006-01-12T22:50:00.000-08:00

I love Boston. I feel the city flowing through my veins, I feel connected to its past, and I plan on living there for the long haul. I can't get enough of it.

When I was a kid my mom and I would visit my grandmother who worked at Touraine's in Reading. I'd always think my mom was saying we were gonna take the train (i.e. the commuter rail) and I'd get all excited. The city comes alive in my grandmother's voice. Whenever I hear it, I wish I still had the tatters of an accent I was born with. College diluted what was left, and my accent only comes back when I talk to old friends from high school.

All the fun weekend outings in high school invovled piling in a car, driving to Oak Grove, and taking the Orange Line to the promised land. I'd get goosebumps wandering around the Common or Harvard Square or wherever we decided to congregate. Oak Grove was where I realized I'd fallen in love for the first time. It was my portal to the outside world and the source of countless tickets for not paying the $3 parking fee.

At BC, I experienced the wonders of the Green Line: Comm Ave, Coolidge Corner, Cleveland Circle, Longwood, Jamaica Pond, and the like. I ran all over Brookline, Brighton, and Allston and got to enjoy the savory delights of Anna's Taqueria once in a while. I'd sit on the 5th floor of the library the night before tests and take in the stunning Back Bay cityscape, wishing I was down amidst the lights, where the action was.

When I worked in the city after college, my excitement mounted almost daily as the central artery came down chunk by chunk next to the bus stop. Seeing Halftime Pizza without the dank shadow of the T tracks gave me the hibbidy jibbidies. I still can't wait to see what the city will look like in 10 years, with its new park snaking through the heart of the city. World-class.

Driving back to Wakefield, I like to cut through the city just to see how things are going. As I drive on the Pike eastbound, my heart skips a beat when the Back Bay skyscrapers come into view, right before the 128 exit. I slip past the New Balance building and remember the summer I spent driving from Brighton to Cambridge every other day to visit my girlfriend. Further down, BU looms on my left with its gleaming new dorms. People cross above me on Mass Ave. on their way to Newbury Street, Fenway comes and goes in all its glory, and soon I'm speeding into one of the new tunnels, on my way to 93 North. Before I know it I'm on the Zakim bridge bathed in purple light, passing the Garden and Spaulding and the HOODMILK smokestack and Boston Sand and Gravel. Like that, it's gone. I'm taken in by the Fells, spit out in Wakefield, and I'm home.

I can't describe how grateful I am to have roots. I don't know where will take me, but I know I'll always feel at home in Boston.

Taken during a leisurely stroll through the Public Gardens last summer

Damn you, Jennifer Connelly!!

2006-01-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

I made a huge Netflix faux pas a few weeks ago. When organizing my queue before Christmas, I ordered "Requiem for a Dream" directly before "Labyrinth." Big mistake.

I had never seen "Requiem," and I heard it was disturbing. Oh, the rumors were true. It had some of the most emotionally and visually revolting scenes I've ever seen in a movie. This was way more than your typical "druggie falls into a pit of despair" deal...and way more depressing, with no redemption for anyone. If you wanna learn more, go watch the movie, you weenie. At the center of the worst scenes was Jennifer Connelly, [one of] the heroin(e) [users] of the movie.

I had rented "Labyrinth" because I'd never seen it before and it contained the infamous David Bowie Goblin King "magic dance" that all the cool kids are talking about. Unfortunately, the movie also starred a 16-year old Jennifer Connelly. EW EW EW EW. I could barely watch the movie with those Requiem scenes emblazoned in my brain. She looked almost exactly the same too, with the almost-but-not-quite unibrow but way less strung out.

Jennifer Connelly is ruined for me, as are all of her movies. I blame this guy.

Professional awareness

2006-01-10T23:34:00.000-08:00

I realized after my last post that I definitely have a Todd-high stack of medical journals kicking around in my room, unread. Goodness, what a waste. I can't keep up with 2 whole journals a week, but I can keep up with small chunks. From now on, I'll have a weekly blog summarizing the "Images in Clinical Medicine" from the New England Journal of Medicine, and the cover art from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Each week, JAMA has a peice of artwork on its cover, so I'll make my own interpretation first then offer some actual cultural nuggets. Here goes:

NEJM: 1/5/2006
Images in Clinical Medicine: Black Hairy Tongue
Mmm, black hairy tongue...an unfortunate side effect of licking things with black hair? No, it's a benign disorder of the surface cells of the tongue. Nobody really knows what causes it, but smoking, poor oral health, and booze seem to have an effect. People with this disorder have terrible breath, a metallic taste in their mouthes (dysgeusia), and uh...a black hairy tongue. What to do? Stop smoking cigars, brush your tongue with urea. SWEET! If you wanna see more, there's plenty of black hairy tongues out there.

© 2006 Massachusetts Medical Society, so I don't get my kneecaps smashed by Dr. Louie.

JAMA: 1/11/2006
Frank Stella, New Madrid
My interpretation: A disgruntled former lab rat-maze designer fired for his lack of creativity starts pawning off his crappy maze ideas as art and makes millions.

The facts: Frank Stella is (1936-present) an American minimalist artist and sculptor. He's a local boy from Malden who went to Phillips Academy in Andover then on to Princeton. Since he was smart and it was after 1950, people bought his stuff. Here's some more of his art. A few years ago he donated a metal wall relief to the MFA's art exhibit. Ah, contemporariness!

I played bass for the first time yesterday and it was a chore. A bass is a heavy, clunky guitar that lacks the subtelty and grace of its smaller-stringed counterpart. It also shreds up your fingertips 10 times as fast. Sure is fun to play "My Sharona" though...

Amazon.com gift certificate: the burden of choice

2006-01-08T00:18:00.000-08:00

My grandparents gave me a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate for Christmas and I just got around to spending it. 5 albums, 5 books, and 13 days later, I was finished. Shopping on Amazon.com is exhausting, but most of it is my fault. I'm extremely picky about buying albums or books.

Books: I don't read nearly as much as I want to. When I buy a book, it needs to be informative/entertaining/thought provoking, or hopefully all three. It also needs to fulfill the all-important re-readability criteria, something my dusty New England Journal of Medicine stack failed to pass. If these conditions aren't met, it will languish in a dust heap on my shelf for another 3 years. Here's what I decided on:

1) "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis
2) "Cash: The Autobiography" by Johnny Cash
3) "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
4) "The House of God : The Classic Novel of Life and Death in an American Hospital" by Samuel Shem
5) "Mike Massey Billiards Congress of America Billiards Rules and Records Book" by Mike Massey

Lewis will give me something to ponder with his depiction of Heaven and Hell, the Man in Black's book is supposedly one of the best rock autobios out there, "Middlesex" won a Pulitzer Prize, "The House of God" is infamous among med students, and the billiards rule book is sorely needed in our student lounge, before we take our cues and go Hell's Angels at Altamont on each other.

Music: This is even harder for me. I've always loved music, but early last year my love shifted to passion/obsession, and I went through a huge musical explosion. I stayed up late downloading songs, spent countless hours looking up bands on allmusic.com, and traded a ton of mixes with a certain classmate. Around that time, I started buying albums in earnest, probably about 4-5 per month. I would agonize over which ones to buy, because like my books, I want my albums to pack a punch. I love the idea of album-centric music, with the album being a cohesive unit with a general theme (not necessarily a concept). I love thinking of an album in context instead of a collection of random songs, which is why I get original albums instead of "greatest hits" ones whenever I can. Since I spend so much time thinking about this crap, I'm still about a year and a half behind the curve for new music, so I attempted to catch up a little. Enough spouting. My new CDs:

1) "Funeral" - The Arcade Fire
2) "Speaking in Tongues" - Talking Heads
3) "Leviathan" - Mastodon
4) "The Futureheads" - The Futureheads
5) "Twin Cinema" - The New Pornographers

The Arcade Fire, New Pornographers, and Futureheads picks were based on the 1 track from each album I have and their consistently good reviews. The Mastodon CD is my requisite metal fix. It's a quasi-concept album based on Moby Dick and sounds crushingly awesome. Jazz-like drumming, metallic riffs, and nautical mythology did it for me. Finally, the Talking Heads CD was a must-buy. I watched "Stop Making Sense" with my dad over Christmas break and it was incredible. I can't get enough of the last track "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)." Compared to all of David Byrne's other stuff, what with psycho killers and paranoia and being a secret agent and stuff, this love song just kills me. The synth line burrows its way into your brain and doesn't leave.

"Out of all those kinds of people/You got a face with a view/I’m just an animal looking for a home/Share the same space for a minute or two

And you love me till my heart stops/Love me till I’m dead/Eyes that light up, eyes look through you/Cover up the blank spots/Hit me on the head"

Ah, I love it.

Truthiness, a perfectly cromulent word

2006-01-07T16:50:00.000-08:00

Here's a little something I adapted from CNN today (and the New York Times on Christmas):

The American Dialect Society is a collection of scholars who, once a year, announce "words of the year" in a series of categories. Basically, the society exists to give college students and those on the lexicon cutting edge a feeling of legitamacy. "Yeah dude, santorum really IS a word, the American Dialect Society said so!" Bennifer, the cliterati, metrosexuals, and those with blogorrhea can thank the ADS for recognizing their monikers.

Anyways, "Truthiness" is the winner of the Word of the Year 2005. First heard on the Colbert Report, truthiness is defined as "The quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true."

Other runners-up included the "muffin top," "podcast," and "jump the couch." The last is based on Tom Cruise's craziness on that episode of Oprah. I had never seen it, so I did a little poking around. When I finally found it, I was pretty shocked. I mean, Tom scared the crap out of me before with lines like "That's right, Ice...Man. I AM dangerous," and "You haven't seen me very upset." This takes the cake. Here it is, edited but unmolested:

JUMPING THE COUCH

It's been a couple years since I read US Weekly, so I'm a little behind on the celeb gossip. I went to Access Hollywood and found this story about Tom, psychiatry, and Scientology. Yikes. I'm deleting the special edition of "Legend" from my Netflix queue immediately.

THAT'S HOW I FEEL ABOUT HER!

A twentysomething crisis

2006-01-06T21:33:00.000-08:00

I'm paralyzed with fear. Figuratively.

All of my paranoia about missing out on my fun, freewheeling early 20's came to a head tonight. I smashed into the brick wall of what my future holds at 100 miles per hour, and my car was loaded with cliché dynamite.

First off, Worcester is sucking the life out of me. I'm sorry, but I can't help it. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough to get out there and find fun stuff to do, but I can't help but think how much different (yet more expensive) my life would have been if I went to Tufts of BU or Hollywood Upstairs Medical College.

Second, I have this overwhelming urge to accomplish non-medical things when I'm still young and energetic. These things include playing in a band, taking a 2-year medical hiatus and getting another degree, and going out and experiencing just a little more of the world before I commit myself to residency.

Conflicting with this is the guilt I sometimes feel in school. Not to toot my own horn, but it's pretty tough to get into med school. I busted my hump for a long time to get where I am now. Shouldn't I feel the passion of medicine flowing through me every day? I mean, that's what I made it seem like in my interviews, as did everyone else. Shouldn't I be more grateful for where I am?

I can't wait to be a doctor. It'll be one of my greatest passions and a huge part of my life. When it comes down to it though, it's a JOB. My profession is never going to dominate my life. It'll take up a large chunk of it, but it's not going to be the focus of who I am as a person, father, husband, secret liaison, whatever. Doctors I've worked with have said things like "If you want to be a cardiothoracic surgeon, it will be the #1 priority for the rest of your god-given life: over friends, family, you name it." Sorry, not for me. I don't even think being a doctor is the last job I'll ever have. I want to use being a physician to do more...politics, public service, etc. I get antsy very easily. Ambitiously antsy. Alliteratively ambitiously antsy. Annoyingly alliteratively ambitiously antsy.

So, back to the fear. I'm afraid I'll be 35 and single, driving a 10-year old Honda Civic that needs a new muffler, still paying off my student loans, living with my parents to save money, and drowning in a sea of self-loathing for not getting off my duff back when I was 24 and grabbing the world by the cojones, getting ready for the "next step." Let the grabbing begin!

A plan:
1) Write 5 songs by March. I'm a decent singer and guitarist, but I need to learn how to do both at the same time...let's say by the end of June. Once the songs are finished, post music classifieds on craigslist (Boston/Worcester area).

2) Research graduate programs in public policy/government that accept med students after their third year...preferably in Boston. This would give me 2 solid years off to broaden my potential job horizons later on down the road, play in said band, enjoy said freewheeling 20's, and stack up another cool $80K in student loans...then jump back into school. Note: try to get gigs that pay well.

3) Stop whining so much, Todd. It'll all work out. And go to bed.

Time to move: an unentertaining gripefest

2006-01-04T14:53:00.000-08:00

I've finally had it. The straw that broke this camel's back took the form of an overweight couple hogging both treadmills in my apartment complex's workout room, shuffling along at 0.003mph. I should commend them for getting in their car, driving 15 seconds to the workout room, and getting some physical activity in, but come on! If you're gonna mosey along, just walk in circles in the cavernous living room you're paying an arm and a leg for...or even up and down the hallway. Leave the expensive equipment to people who use it to its full extent (i.e. jogging/running on it). I know it's not your fault that the designers of our complex got a whopping 2 treadmills for, oh, about a thousand people. I've just run out of patience.

It's time for me to get the hell out of here.

When I moved here, things were grand. Our building had just opened and hardly anyone was around. There was a long winding driveway up our hill with woods on one side and a park on the other. Wildlife abounded: birdies, snapping turtles, fishercats, golfers, you name it. It was paradise. Then Puppy came. I shall speak his name no longer.

During my continuing struggles with him, conditions here gradually took a turn for the worse. Construction picked up on the other buildings and more people kept moving in, mostly the elderly with fat dogs and weird residents at the hospital who didn't make eye contact or say hello or respond to me saying "have a good one." My next door neighbors moved in and my sleep deteriorated. The Marriott Residence Inn tore down the pretty woods and put up an ugly hotel on our driveway.

I guarantee that infernal snausage hound had something to do with this.

At the beginning of this semester, I toyed with the idea of moving somewhere else after 2nd year. We're paying a ton of money to live in this hotel, and during our 3rd year we won't have time to enjoy any of the amenities...when they're unoccupied. I sit here now in my running clothes with nowhere to run, holding a letter demanding I pay my January rent (1 day overdue). I have yet to recieve this semester's loan check, so let's keep our fingers crossed for no bouncing.

Photography attempts: aperture/macro zoom

2006-01-02T23:09:00.000-08:00

Screw you, Geocities. I'm done with your "exceeding the transfer limit" crap.

I never really got around to reading the instruction manual for the camera I bought a few months ago. As always, I impulsively rushed to the part of the manual on autofocus snap-shooting (is that a word?) and left it at that. All of this changed when I took a whopping half an hour and realized some cool stuff my camera can do. Today I experimented with changing the aperture and using the super macro zoom with some pretty neat results:

Who knew the crap in my room could look like this? You can see the reflection of my lamp in the guitar body and the scrapes from my red picks. I think I'll try doing panoramas next...

Winter break roundup: Part 3

2006-01-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought my break couldn't get any better, I drove up to New Haven to visit a bunch of my friends from college. Boy, was it a blast. We hadn't all been together in the same place since graduation and it was great to relive the old days of 1999-2003 again. There was no drama, save a small revelation about a certain roommate who most certainly defecated in our shower, allegedly accidentally. Moving on.

One of my fears was that I had gotten rusty at beer pong after playing only a few games in med school. Apparently it's like riding a bike, because I did pretty well even after all these [3] years.

On a New Year's Eve beer run, we were milling about the coolers when one of our party found a Busch Lite 12-pack in a most unusual box: Busch Lite Special Hunting Package (see below). We were intrigued, so we asked the guy in the check out line what was special about it. After careful inspection, he informed us that it was the same beer, the same cans, but a different box - and no promotional items like a Busch Lite hunter's vest, floppy ear cap, or drunken accident first aid wilderness kit. We got it anyways for its novelty value.

My question is this: is the camo designed to keep you from being seen by animals whilst drinking during the hunt? Or is it supposed to keep other hunters from shooting your beer (with its big bold orange letters), thinking it a deer? It's only one letter difference!

New Year's Eve was great fun, with many games and fesitivities and fun had by all. I made it out of New Haven with minimal hangoveritude and got back to Worcester in time for the Patriots game at 1pm. The past 2 weeks have more than made up for my terrible holidays last year and my terrible end to the semester. I'm recharged and ready to attack...it's a good thing too, since I have afternoon class all week. ROCK.

Sure beats the special edition "Operating Heavy Machinery" package

Winter break roundup: PART DEUX

2006-01-02T17:29:00.000-08:00

Part two of my winter break was most notable for this:

I did not see Hilary Duff anywhere in New York City.

I drove down to Manhattan on the 29th to hang out with a friend from college, encountering very little traffic. I also drove around midtown for a while, which involved barreling through Times Square (2 days before New Year's Eve, mind you). I dominated those bulky taxis with my plucky pocket rocket, changing lanes with the agility of a gazelle and the speed of a cheetah, giving Massachusetts drivers everywhere a skilled and aggressive name with freakishly awesome surgical precision. ROCK.

We went to a Smith's Bar in Times Square - a really cool hot lunch/dive bar joint with relatively cheap beer and a waitress who winked at me whenever I got a drink. Then there was the male bartender who charged me $2 more per beer - didn't go back to him. The review in the link is pretty accurate.

I thought the cover band sucked at first but I ate my words when they busted out "Pride and joy" by SRV and the guitarist tore it up. They were workhorses too, playing on and off for about 4 hours. Sitting there drinking made for great peoplewatching, as people poured in with tuxes on after some brodaway show and proceeded to shake their 65-year old booties. One table was a "revolving door" as they say. 3 different couples came into the bar, sat down, started making out like crazy, then left - one after the other. Cheers!

The next day we did a whirlwind walking tour of midtown/central park which involved looking at the line outside the Empire State Building, looking at the line to skate at Rockefeller Center, and looking at the line in the Met to get into the Van Gogh exhibit. Despite this, I got to experience a good amount of the city in the 3 hours I had to spare, and it was a beautiful day. Oh, and I saw King Kong.

In conclusion, New York City is a loud, filthy, undulating sea of humanity in various stages of moral collapse - at least right around New Year's.

I'm pretty sure the building behind me is large.

Winter break roundup: Part 1

2006-01-01T14:31:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2005: 'Twas a good one. Here's some of the stuff that happened:

1) Slept excessively.

2) Got some nice Christmas presents: a new desk chair, CDs (At Folsom Prison, Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper), an Urban Outfitters gift certificate to get some nice hipster clothes, and a backup hard drive to save my pictures, music, blueprints for world domination, etc.

3) I saw the Chronic-WHAT-cles of Narnia with the family. It was pretty faithful to the book, but with some steroid-injected battle scenes to keep things moving. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver were much more believable in the new movie compared to the old BBC version. Basically, CGI beats the pants off full grown actors waddling around in beaver outfits. Disney's adaptation didn't try to spin the book's Christian allegory either way: Aslan still came back to life but he wasn't shoving the Gospel down your throat with his big, beefy paws. Everyone from the Christian Broadcasting Network to the New York Times seemed to like it. Bravo, C.S. Lewis.

4) A crowd of about 30 people witnessed my triumphant return to Kowloon on Route 1 in Saugus. What a homecoming it was. I hadn't eaten a pu pu platter there since the post-winter ball festivities of 1998. The dance floor with the ship was still there, and I ate in the Tiki Lounge next to the pool with the dirty fountains. Ah, memories...flaming blue memories with delicious fried food around them.

[Sidenote: tons of celebrities, from Hulk Hogan to Seinfeld to Frankie Avalon have left their John Hancocks in the entryway to the restaurant. It's wicked famous.]

5) Michael Vale, of "Fred the Baker"/Dunkin' Donuts fame, passed away on Christmas Eve due to complications of diabetes. Time to make the donuts no more, old friend.

To be continued....

What exactly is the late Pat Morita doing in this picture at Kowloon? Flashing bling??

Sweet dreams

2005-12-27T08:06:00.000-08:00

Ah, sleep. I've been doing more of it at my parents' house. Maybe it's because my politically opinionated neighbor isn't instructing his wife on how to add complex fractions at 6am in his big, booming voice or telling her about his sexual exploits back in the 70's at 3am or snoring so loud at all hours of the day that scientists get a Richter scale reading with the epicenter in our apartment complex. I don't try to listen, he's just that loud.

Anyways. Sleeping until 11 most mornings has been pretty gratifying, but I've been having some consistently bizarre dreams.

2 nights ago I dreamed that I was in the British army, circa a long time ago. Like, swords and shields long time ago. Unfortunately, there was a falling out between me and my army before the dream began. I was able to join up with the French army though, and they were more than willing to accept me as a general. I distinctly remember shouting "VIVE LA FRANCE" to my legion of troops and they went nuts. Looks like those 6 years of French paid off, huh? We French marched to our big castle on a grassy knoll and waited for the British to get there so we could destroy them with our snooty ways. The British never showed up, but some monsters did. They snuck in through a drainpipe a la "The Two Towers" or "The Rock" and started wreaking havoc. Luckily for us, we had some monsters of our own! They looked a little like walruses, and they beat back those other monsters no problem. At this point the dream unravels.

Last night I dreamt another keeper. The premise was simple enough: the Museum of Science or somebody's house (it kept switching) was hosting a massive cross-country running championship and I was the photographer. One of my friends from high school was in the race, so I wished him luck and promised I'd take some pictures of him. Before the race started, there was some commotion in the gift shop/front hall of the museum/house. Spectators were screaming their heads off as Devastator, one of the villians from "Transformers," smashed through the windows and knocked over some bookshelves. Devastator doesn't like books I guess. After that fiasco the race began. The runners raced through hallways and exhibits and true to form, I fumbled with my camera the whole time trying to get the shutter speed juuuust right. I never got that picture of my friend and I felt like a big jerk, then I woke up.

I should lay off the chocolate cake before I go to bed.

Hi neighbor, have a 'Gansett

2005-12-25T17:58:00.000-08:00

Beer moment #1
Ah, Narragansett. Nectar of the New England townie gods.

The night of my last final exam some of us went to dinner at the fabulous Wonder Bar on Shrewsbury Street. After a few pizzas, we headed to the liquor store next door to prepare for the night. I'm browsing through the cooler and lo and behold, I spotted Narragansett beer! The best part was that it was only about $5.50 for a 6-pack.

For me, Narragansett held no special meaning in particular, but I knew it was one of Rhode Island's most famous exports...ever. Call me a sucker for artificial brand loyalty, but it felt good to buy something that was probably a favorite of delinquent kids boozing at Castle Rock in Saugus back in the 60's. There's no better beer to offer during a Sox game on a lazy June afteroon: cheap, drinkable, and full of local flavor. I intend to have my fridge stocked from now on.

Beer moment #2
At a Christmas party on Thursday night, I had the privelege of drinking National Bohemian beer, fondly referred to as "Natty Boh." This staple of "The land of pleasant living," a.k.a. Baltimore, was fantasic as well. It disguised the fact that Baltimore is a sub-par city, and it disguised the fact that it was a sub-par beer. This stuff even has its own blog and merchandise site. Bravo! 5 stars for Natty Boh.

Christmas treats on a budget

2005-12-23T19:40:00.000-08:00

As a busy medical student and blossoming dessert chef mired in poverty, I was hard-pressed to make my usual spectacular Christmas treats this year. Fortunately, I was able to whip up some goodies in MacGyver-esque fashion using only the limited ingredients I had in my kitchen cabinets. Ready? Here goes.

Hershey's Fruity Yule-logs
Ingredients:
1) 4-block Hershey's bars left over from Halloween
2) Shaw's brand creamy peanut butter
3) Red and green Crunchberries (stale)
4) Chips Ahoy cookies with only green/red M&Ms

Step 1: Spread peanut butter

Step 2: Apply Crunchberries

Step 3: Add Chips Ahoy and enjoy!

There you have it! Some nauseating treats ready in mintues, straight from the dusty crap left over in your pantry or cabinet. BUT WAIT!! Don't forget, you can make a nummy after-dinner treat thanks to our friend Wolfgang Puck! What better than Wolfgang's holiday chicken with rice soup? NOTHING, so back off! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Froliche Weihnachton to you too, big guy!

Star Trek barf-o-rama

2005-12-22T21:04:00.000-08:00

So today I did a whole lot of nothing. I rolled out of bed around 11am and proceeded to schlep around my place all morning. I did some laundry, did some shopping, and watched a lot of telelvision, a luxury I can't usually afford.

Spike TV apparently has a couple hours of Star Trek: The Next Generation on every weekday afternoon. This made my day. I'm not a Trekkie or anything, but I really enjoyed the show when it was on. It was one of the first prime-time shows I ever watched, and since it was science-related and helped me "learn," my parents were okay with it.

An episode was on Spike this afternoon that brought me back to my WSBK-38 rerun-watching pre-teens. The episode was "The Conspiracy" from Season 1, and it was the most horrifically disgusting episode of anything I had ever seen on TV at the time. Like, over-the-top gross and traumatic for a 10-year old.

The episode involves a crab/beetle-like claymation parasite that crawls into your mouth and burrows to your brain, controlling your mind - only it's the size of a hamster. The upper echelons of Starfleet have been infested, and Picard and the Enterprise need to find out what's going on. They warp back to Earth, only to find that the maggot-eating parasite-controlled admirals are planning on infecting the Enterprise next. Leave it to Commander Riker to fake being infected then beam down and save the day. Picard and Riker track down the source of the parasites, and it's this one nerdy-looking lower-ranking officer who eats the other parasites. Riker and Picard blast him with their phasers and his head EXPLODES. Just like Indiana Jones, but grosser. This was pretty gut-wrenching for me, as violence on Star Trek is about as frequent as, well...violence in Newton.

So after his head explodes, the "queen parasite" bursts out of this guy's stomach, screaming bloody murder. Again, Picard and Riker blast it with phasers and it too disintegrates. What we're left with is the charred ribcage and legs of this poor bastard who the parasites chose to plant their queen in. At the time, this was probably one of the more sickening images I'd ever seen on television. Even now I was pretty amazed that they showed it at 8pm on a major network for all the world to see...it was almost as bad as that scene in Alien where the baby alien plows out of the guy's ribcage. I had nightmares for weeks.

In conclusion, Star Trek: TNG was a great show. Except when it scared the shit out of me.

On Failure

2005-12-21T13:37:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of the year, I figured that if I ever failed a test, it would probably be my Respiratory final. It was the last of 2 weeks' worth of exams at the end of December, and I figured I'd probably be mentally exhausted.

Sometimes I hate being right.

That's right, I failed my Respiratory final by one question. A 68 never hurt so bad. The consequences involve a make-up exam I need to take directly after Christmas break. Remember how I said Christmas was looking up this year? Now I have a test with only a few questions on it right after break determining whether or not I fail this block for good. If I screw up this exam, I need to take a make-up for the entire course.

I was absolutely livid with myself, because I find failure completely unacceptable. I'm not a failing student. In the grand scheme of things, I'm an average to slightly below average student at my school, and I'm OK with that. I got in off the wait list and I'm not expecting to be a brain surgeon or anything. My average in all my classes is around a B. I know I'm better than a 68, and I sure as hell knew more than a 68.

I think the problem is that I've finally maxed out my brain. I pushed it to the brink and it pushed back. My capacity to learn has a limit, and I found that limit after 2 and a half weeks of intense studying. No matter how much studying I do, there's a lot of people who will do better than me, and I need accept that. My inherent competitive drive that got me through college and into med school doesn't like that. I have some work to do.

From the depths of Hell

2005-12-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

It may look like I'm sitting in my blindingly fluorescent cubicle in the Lamar Soutter library hypnotized by the soft buzz of the light. In reality, my soul has crossed the river Styx and is now in the 9th circle of Hell, being continuously devoured and barfed up by Dr. McCullough, the high nether dÆmon of pharmacology.

I'm in the thick of it right now, writing this blog at the deepest depths of my stress and disdain for memorizing information. Yes, I wrote "deepest depths." Our test was moved to tomorrow afternoon (instead of morning) because of a supposed ice storm that's going to sweep through New England. This is extra study time, but potentially extra time to forget what I've stuffed into my head thusfar. I absolutely cannot wait until December 21st, 2005, at which point my Beatrice (a.k.a. going out to a bar) will rescue me from my pit ofdespairr and guide me towards test-free righteousness.

Aeon Flux

2005-12-11T17:52:00.000-08:00

I'm drowning in an allegorical sea teeming with every bug and parasite known to man. Worms crawl out of my nose in horrific nightmares. I will eat neither raw pork nor feces voluntarily. My future home will be far from the equator...really far. I'll be happy when my micro final is over.

In the meantime, I've been watching the first couple episodes of Aeon Flux thanks to Netflix. I was somewhere in my tweens when it aired, so I remembered it as one of those bizarre shows on late at night that my parent's didn't want me to watch, along with that show with the guy with the big head and the alien. I can see why I guess. This show had it all: gun violence, limb-amputating doorways, electro-stim, bondage, contortionism, foot fetishes, leather, nudity, apparent anorexia, voyeurism, spinal cord surgery-induced orgasms, ear-licking, domination, homoeroticism, puzzling early 90's gen-X dialogue, nonlinear plotlines, curly hair, crawling inside other people's bodies, you name it. This was in the first 4 episodes.

MTV sure sucks these days, but I've beaten that one to death. I need to start watching Adult Swim for some fresh cartoons.

Mission #1: Kill Trevor Goodchild. Mission #2: Eat a damn sandwich.

What are your elected officials doing?

2005-12-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

The last few blogs could be marked as "serious" or "boring," and so is this one. I swear I'll spew out something bizarre soon. This is nothing more than a glorified link. I don't know how I came across it, but this website is an awesome resource:

Project Vote Smart

This site lets you look up your elected officials, view their voting records while in office, and check out their statements around the time of the voting. I had no idea how little John Kerry voted on anything! This is the kind of resource I wish I used more often. People should really know what their elected officials do in office (or what they don't do) and this site has done an amazing job of consolidating all that information.

Sooo....exams start next week. In preparation, I've stocked up on a bunch of Healthy Choice frozen dinners, Chips Ahoy, and a few 12-packs of Coke. It will be an all-out pummeling that I'm not really looking forward to. My New Year's plans are looking excellent, including trips to NYC and New Haven with many friends to be seen.

In other news, I got buzzed at lunch again today. Went to Tatnuck Booksellers, which has a nice little restaurant built in. On the way back we saw this old lady drive on the sidewalk, hit 2 cars stopped in traffic, then pull into a parking lot and park like nothing happened. Adventure! My lunch tour of Worcester with Carrie is almost complete, as new (non-chain) places to go are running low. I guess it's time to expand to the surrounding suburbs. Rock.

Bookkeeping

2005-12-04T21:08:00.000-08:00

I've finally finished re-posting all my old MySpace blogs on Blogger/Blogspot/whatever the hell this is. Only 4 blogs have not been posted here due to insignificance and vulgarity issues. I will soon set up a "profile" post with links to all of my favorite posts since this thing doesn't allow me to categorize.

In order to make this a worthwhile blog, check it out: Man pleads guilty in horse sex case!

ha-HA!!!

It's a miracle!

2005-12-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

A holiday-themed theological question: Do miracles really happen?

A miracle is "a marvellous event manifesting a supernatural act of God."

Back in the day, when miracles happened they happened. I mean, Lazarus came back to life, Jesus walked on water, water turned ino wine, and all that stuff. Blammo. These days, statues of the Virgin Mary cry, televangelists smack people and heal them on the spot, and 70,000 people a year visit a grotto in Lourdes to cure themselves. People say these things are miracles, but without the Big Man saying they are, who are we to know?

My problem with miracles isn't whether they occur or not. I have a problem with how we as humans mark certain events as miracles instead of others. Why doesn't anyone look at the smoldering remains of a private jet crash on TV and yell "that's a miracle!!" I mean, it takes a long and improbable series of events for a plane crash to actually occur. It fulfills the definition of a miracle as written above: it's marvellous in a sick and twisted way. What if God interevened in the world with the express purpose of taking someone's life and had a reason to do so? Who are we to sort through the trillions of minute occurances in the world, using our human biases, and pick out only the best as "miracles?" What if right now I cheated death by writing this blog instead of going outside to wipe the snow off my car? This blog is a miracle!!

To be canonized in the Catholic Church (not cannonized), the deceased needs to have performed a miracle before and after death. The Pope ultimately decides whether or not what happened was really a miracle...it's a little something called "Pontifical Infallibility." Ultimately, a person sorts through all of these events and decides on what a miracle is:

"5. For the beatification of a confessor a miracle attributed
to the Servant of God, verified after his death, is necessary. The required
miracle must be proven through the appropriate canonical investigation,
following a procedure analogous to that for heroic virtues. This one too is
concluded with the relative decree. Once the two decrees are promulgated
(regarding the heroic virtues and the miracle) the Holy Father decides on
beatification, which is the concession of public worship, limited to a
particular sphere. With beatification the candidate receives the title of
Blessed.

6. For canonization another miracle is needed, attributed to
the intercession of the Blessed and having occurred after his beatification. The
methods for ascertainment of the affirmed miracle are the same as those followed
for beatification. Canonization is understood as the concession of public
worship in the Universal Church. Pontifical infallibility is involved. With
canonization, the Blessed acquires the title of Saint."
[Excerpt from the Holy See website]

In conclusion, I don't think small-scale stuff like this should be classified as miracles, as we can't assume to know God's plan. The Pope may, but I don't think he has any more insight into said plan than any other believer. God's reasons for healing some of His devout followers and letting other die should remain a mystery. Putting too much hope in miracles and divine intervention is a sure-fire way to lose your faith when your prayers aren't answered. Maybe I'll find out more about God's purpose when I'm dead, but I'm not going to try and interpret it right now.

This guy watched over me for 3 weeks in Cusco

METAL MADNESS

2005-12-01T18:16:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. I truly love music and I have a special place in my heart for most genres, but one in particular makes me want to explode.

I am a closet metalhead.

For the last 3 weeks, I've been painstakingly assembling the best in mid 80s to early 90s metal and thrash for a mix I called METAL THRASHING MAD, after the Anthrax song. Every song on this mix is an all-out nuclear metal assault, pummeling you into the ground with deadly riffs and double bass drums. I tried to get a group of songs that blew you away yet included a little requisite cheese. Anyways, here's the track listing:

1. JUDAS PRIEST - METAL MELTDOWN
2. PANTERA - MOUTH FOR WAR
3. ANNIHILATOR - ROAD TO RUIN
4. ANTHRAX - METAL THRASHING MAD
5. METALLICA - RIDE THE LIGHTNING
6. STORMTROOPERS OF DEATH - GO
7. PANTERA - COWBOYS FROM HELL
8. METALLICA - FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE
9. ANTHRAX - SKELETON IN THE CLOSET
10. JUDAS PRIEST - PAINKILLER
11. TESTAMENT - APOCALYPTIC CITY
12. SLAYER - WAR ENSEMBLE
13. ANNIHILATOR - RITUAL
14. MOTORHEAD - WHIPLASH [METALLICA COVER]
15. METALLICA - DYERS EVE

The "Painkiller" album by Judas Priest was a huge find. Their old stuff is amazing, but this one takes the cake. I mean, look at the cover! A winged metal warrior riding a flying demon motorcycle with sawblade wheels over the flaming remains of a post-apocalyptic city? Lyrics like "Faster than a lazer bullet, louder than an atom bomb! Chromium plated boiling metal, brighter than a thousand suns!!" How much more metal can you get?? ROCK!!!

[Note to purists: I left some stuff out because I listen to the albums on a regular basis: Metallica: Kill 'Em All, Anthrax: State of Euphoria, etc. Also, a few aren't from the specific time period i.e. Annihilator: Ritual and Motorhead's Metallica cover, but they sound damn good]

What's in YOUR colon?

2005-12-01T16:57:00.000-08:00

[Warning! Links to pictures in this blog are wicked disgusting. I mean it.]

Over the last year and a half, I've seen some pretty disgusting stuff as a med student: corpse genitals, gangrenous fingers, gut-wrenching STDs, etc. The lecture I had 2 days ago took the cake for the absolute nastiest stuff I've ever heard of or seen. Yes, it was our lecture on parasitology. I'm gonna keep this short and sweet, so here we go:

Intestinal All-Stars

Enterobiasis: First up is the common pinworm. These little suckers live in your colon then crawl their way out your butt in the night to lay eggs around your anus. When their job is done, they crawl back in where it's nice and warm. Those eggs cause lots of itching around your bum. Itching leads to eggs on the fingers, then those pesky fingers get in your mouth. You swallow the eggs and it all starts over again.

Cestodes: Next are tapeworms. Tapeworms are pretty disgusting, but definitely not the worst of these bugs. This picture shows a short one, but they can grow to be really, ridiculously long. Its head has some nasty hooks and it attaches to your small intestine and sucks away your nutrients. It grows segments full of eggs, you poop them out, and spread more worms to people through my favorite route...the ol' oral-fecal route. BARF.

Ascaris: Easily the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my entire life. These worms are benign but might be deadly if you have a heart attack after having one crawl out of your nose or mouth. Ever the adventurous travelers, these worms get ingested then pass through the bloodstream to the lungs, where they get coughed up, swallowed, and begin a fun life of swimming against the current. Unfortunately, swimming against the current can result in a 6-inch long worm swimming out your ass or up your throat to your nose and mouth. Surprise!

The worst part of these things is what happens when you're treated. All the worms die, and they need to come out somewhere. Guess where!!

Lesson to be learned: Please, PLEASE do not eat your own feces (called "refecation") or raw meat or both. Hope this helps!

Hadrian the fish: A life well spent

2005-11-27T17:12:00.000-08:00

My betta fish Hadrian is slowly dying and there's little I can do about it. The poor little sucker is swimming sideways (when he actually swims) and has stopped eating. Oh, how I marveled at his brilliance in Petco on that fateful day back in April. My experiment of feeding Sea Monkeys to Hadrian will never come to pass. Maybe I should stick with simpler pets like those that don't require feeding and still impress girls when they come over. Right? Here is an "impending toilet flush" Haiku I wrote just for my dying compadre:

Why must you leave me?
Swimming and eating have stopped
Farewell, little friend.

Nothing I can do but watch and wait. Perhaps hospice care is in my future.