Friday Silliness

I'm not a huge Will Ferrell fan because, let's face it, a lot of his stuff is derivative and overused. It's more or less the same character in a different suit. But I will admit that he has flashes of genius and I believe this clip is one of those flashes. This song has always personified my thoughts on the matter and I'm impressed by Ferrell's a cappella chops. Not to mention some bitchin' harmony by Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell and the dude in the hat.

Pacific Northwest Springtime Running

You should see the dog.

Happy Birthday Captain Kirk

In celebration of William Shatner's 78th birthday, I give you one of my favorite Star Trek episodes, "Spock's Brain," condensed into 4 minutes. I think they say "Spock's brain" about 58 million times. It also includes the classic line "Brain and brain! What is brain?!?" Uttered by a woman, of course. Go Gene Rodenberry, you misogynistic genius, you!

Huh. This may be referring to "evil speaking." That was not my first thought on seeing this. The Word of Life Church needs some advisors. And I'm going to hell.

(Ruthlessly stolen from Crummy Church Signs)

You know what we need? A federal law mandating an application process, IQ test and a license before one can reproduce. That's all I'm sayin'!

How's this for a change? When you are my clinical director and have actually said to the House Mouse when we were drowning in patients "I'm not competent to work the floor, " do not tell me we are overstaffed when there is not a bed to be had on the unit, the antepartum unit, triage, recovery room, or the three bed induction clinic. I somehow feel that if you are a clinical director you should be the most competent person on the floor, and if you feel you are not, then get some reorientation until you are at least minimally competent. Do not tell me how to do my job if you cannot actually DO MY JOB! When you have staff members that have sat down for the first time 7 hours into their shift, perhaps you shouldn't call patients in to be induced. If you ever were on the floor, you would understand what WORK FLOW is. And an anesthesiologist, who has worked here for over a year and is on the floor several times a month, wouldn't have to ask a nurse, "Who is that woman at the desk?"

It's been a rough week. And there is a Percocet with my name on it.



I want this life..where do I go for a reassignment?

I went to see Michael the Extremely Gay Hairdresser today and this is now my theme song:




Here's the proof (manifest in a rare self-portrait. In fact, any picture of me is rare. Kind of like the Red-Footed Booby. I don't know if they are rare; I just like saying "Red-Footed Booby"):




It may be made even more blonde by the reflection off the yellow stripes in the bathroom, but I'm not quite sure.

Vampires Need Help

Nope, sorry this isn't a Twilight post. One of the blogs I read is called Afghanistan Shrugged. They are known as the Vampires.
It's written by the leader of a Embedded Tactical Trainer team on the Pakistan border, way out in the middle of BFE. Or BFA in this case. These guys are doing an incredibly hard job in a very remote area. Now their job has been made even more difficult.

I was lazing on the couch, wallowing in freakish misery, and perusing the "deployed in Afghanistan" forum when I ran across a post labeled "URGENT Need for FOOD." Imagine my surprise when I read it and found out it was from the Vampires. The need was posted via Bouhammer's blog. Click on the link to read the email how these guys ended up in this situation. Between the 101st leaving and no longer ordering UGR-As (combat rations; think MREs) and the brigade not really feeling the need to supply these guys, they are living off whatever they have stockpiled from care packages. And running low. Definitely a Charlie Foxtrot situation here folks. And one thing guarenteed to launch my self-pitying ass off the couch. I already had some things ready for a care package to be sent, so I went and picked up some more food and hygiene items. Which meant I also needed to go and pick up some more Flat Rate Boxes.

So, if you, my dear friends feel the need to help please do. I'll be sending FRBs* until I get notice that their supplies have been refurbished. If you would like to do the same you can do so in a few ways.

A) Join Books for Soldiers (which requires an notorized application) click on the Deployed in Afghanistan forum and look for the Need for Food ETT team FOB Bermel/Boris

B) email Bouhammer at admin@bouhammer.com with "Help for ETT team" and he will send you the mailing address.

C) bring me anything that can be microwaved, canned foods with pop tops, hygiene items, propel or gatorade single services, etc...


*The Flat Rate Boxes are free and are a flat rate to send no matter how full they are or how much they weigh. The Post Office has APO/FPO boxes that are $11.95 to ship versus $13.95 for the regular FRB

Regret that tramp stamp no longer

The Ides of March

Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Caesar: What man is that?
Brutus: A Soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March
....
Caesar : He is a dreamer; let us leave him; pass.
...
Caesar: The ides of March have come
Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar; but not gone.

Wages of a misspent education. And something I take to heart, especially today which started out in a freakishly heavy snowstorm (that later abated and turned into a nice spring day before turning back into the last wrath of winter) and continued with a busy day of stupid people at work. Seriously, there needs to be an IQ test or a licensing procedure to procreate or this country is going to turn into Logan's Run where the government takes the newborns and raises them because the sheep can't handle the responsibility.

The worst part? As the soothsayer said, the ides of March may have come, but they are not yet gone. What fresh hell awaits me? I can at least be assured that I won't be stabbed 23 times by 8-15 of my friends. Only because I don't have that many friends who can lay their hands on knives and withstand the force of my high grade pepper spray.

Here's the deal with me and exercise: I get bored. Easily. So I gotta keep it fresh, gotta change it up, otherwise I get into this rut where I'm saying, "If I have to do (insert activity here) one more time, I'm going to lose my wig all over then next person/animal/inanimate object that crosses my path." My 10 minute trainer has been working well for me, and I always feel good when I'm done with it, but I could feel the ennui creeping up. I have been searching all over creation for a Wii Fit, alas in vain, until I found one this week. Oh, how my heart lifted! Something new and different, it will track my progress, and I can buy games for the kids to use on it as well, so I don't feel so indulgent dropping $90 bucks on this thing when I could always get off my fat ass and just go running. The set up on this thing is pretty involved. First, you set the date and time, your age, your height and then you pick a representative Mii figure. This is a little animated you that performs the activities on screen as you do them on the balance board. This little Mii is a fine figure. Then the Wii Fit calculates your BMI. BMI is a crock of malarky in my opinion, because it doesn't take into account muscle mass, water weight and other factors. This is not to say I'm not a little "fluffier" than I should be, I'm just saying it's not a completely accurate measurement of fitness. Having said that, this thing then asks for my weight and calculates my BMI. A Snotty Voiced Bitch informs that I am obese, the graph next to my Mii goes into the red zone and then my Mii gets exponentially rotund. This obviously depresses the hell out of her as she looks down at herself, slumps her shoulders and dejectedly shakes her head. I then have to perform some balance and muscle control exercises like some circus monkey shilling for a banana. With this information the SVB tells me my Wii Fit age is 47. At this point my Mii figure bends over, grabs her lower back and slinks off screen. Is this shit supposed to actually motivate me? Because, really, all it motivated me to do at 5 am is flip off the TV while yelling, "Fuck you, motherfucker!" And I haven't used my favorite word in some time. All it took was being insulted by a tiny white CPU and balance board. After this whole fiasco, I went to add some ice to my water jug and discovered that I had forgotten I had stuck a can of soda in the freezer the night before. I do like my sodas cooled to the point that they are more of a cola slurry than liquid. I looked at the mess all over the door, the food, the ice trays, the walls of the freezer, etc, quietly closed the door and mentally put "clean freezer" on my after work to do list.

I've never seen Battlefield Earth. Until tonight. I wish I could still say that I'd never seen it. It's so bad, I can't stop watching. It's like a train wreck.

Gone Home

And Godspeed.


Sippican Cottage: My Father Asks For Nothing

Weirdness

I had a triple shot of weirdness last week. It started with SoS informing that he and his friend Andrew, when they were old enough, were going to get their own apartment and some "hot ladies." He's six. Where does he come up with this? I shouldn't have to worry about this for at least 6 more years right? When I protested the "hot ladies" reference he suggested perhaps they would all move in here. At which point I informed the little angel Mommy didn't need any hot ladies around for competition and I was selling the house and moving far away anyway. So far, no further discussions.

The next delightful event was my mammogram. You may remember I was berated at my first mammogram because I was 40 and they "encourage women to get their baseline at 35." I couldn't seem to make this woman understand that I was no longer 35, there was no way to become 35 again, and she should just get over it. This time I was chastised because I, apparently, didn't have one last year; the last recorded was in 2007. I argued with her that I had had one at 40 and now I'm 41 so I couldn't have skipped a year. Until it dawned on me that I will be 42 in a month and...well...then I shut up. Whatever. As this woman flopped my breast around, squished it flat, put me through more positions than a circus freak and flipped this machine into an orbit that Mir would be proud of, I found myself wondering, once again, how it is in the 21st century that we haven't developed a better diagnostic tool for this sort of thing. Of course this rumination comes from someone who routinely sticks her hand in other women's areas to determine whether or not they are in labor. Let's talk about developing a better diagnostic tool for that. Don't mind me. I'm just cynical and jaded after 10 years of vaginae.

Lastly, I have become thoroughly bored with shaving and/or waxing. I hate stubble, I hate have to go back every 6-8 weeks for maintenance and wouldn't it be delightful to be able to have a permanent solution to this whole grooming thing? So I bought a laser package. Woohoo! Spring time deals, employee discount and it will pay for itself in a year. What's not to like here? Especially since waxing feels like something the Viet Cong wishes they would have thought of for POWs. I had heard that there is a slight "rubber band snapping" sensation with the laser, especially on the underarms, where sensations are a trifle more intense. Not to mention the heat. Laser. Heat. This should come as no surprise to someone with a science background, but okay it did. Sue me, we are all aware I have a deplorable lack of sense on certain occasions. But, I was informed it would not be that bad as they have an air cool option during the procedure. Well, bring that on! I was warned that it could feel a little too cool and to just sing out if I needed a break, because it could get a little "achy." Actually, the cooling air and slight achiness took my mind off the electrical shocks traveling up my arm and the involuntary muscle spasms in said upper extremities. The real trouble began down below when the "cooling air" being shot at some tender places began to be slightly cooler than the winter winds howling across Antarctica. You've seen the pictures of those poor penguins huddling for survival and the immediate freezing of any unfortunate egg that falls to the ice. Yeah, that cold. If I had dangly bits they would have crawled so far up my body they would never have been heard from again. Lucky me, only 8-12 more treatments left.


I may be a bit spotty with the blogging; plan on wallowing for a while. Not to mention needing to do taxes, contemplating returning to school, ja niin pois pain. If I only had some Ben and Jerry's....although we do have a scoop shop in town. I leave you with my girl Tina. The picture is fine and the song....well...one of my faves.