Finger Lickin' Good

So today we got to tour the gross anatomy lab, aka The Dissection Room aka Cadaver Town. I have to admit, it was a bit creepy. It might take a day or two to grow accustomed to corpses. I kept imagining them moving and it was a little disturbing. Too many zombie movies I suppose...

Dr. Leadem says that cutting up dead bodies is not a natural act. He says that our society does not generally allow people to take apart bodies and gain from that action. My first thought was that President Shrub is currently encouraging it. But only if those bodies are from the Middle East. My second thought was, "I really want to give Leadem a hug."

More disturbing than the bodies, however, was a discovery in the lab. One of the instructors dissects a cadaver perfectly during the semester as an example of what the inside should like, when not dissected by a bunch of clumsy buffoons. He's an artist at what he does - it is very impressive. He was working on his "prosection," as it is called, while we were touring the lab. One of the other students suggested that I direct my gaze toward the instrument table at the feet of the cadaver under disection. On that table was a packet of barbecue sauce. I am totally serious - other students will back me up (I obviously made them check it out). This was a rather disturbing discovery. I suppose there are three explanations for this peculiar item.

First, the instructor may have a very dark sense of humour. This is the explanation I am hoping for, because it instantly makes him the coolest faculty member (remember, I was thinking of wearing a Let's get Crackin' lobster bib to my first day). He will add some much needed levity to the lab.

The second possibility is that he is so accustomed to working around corpses that he eats around them. I really hope this isn't the case. That would be pretty messed up. Especially if he was eating right next to the body. And I envision him working, then reaching over and grabbing a bite, then going back to work. Jibbly...

The third and final possibility is that he is a cannibal who has happened to find a job which lets him satiate his cravings. This is the most likely explanation.

Orientation, Shmorientation

Med school orientation was totally pointless. These are the things we were taught:

• Budgeting helps you save money. Wow, there's something I didn't know. Some other money saving tips: shower at the YMCA to save on water bills or just take a swim instead, cook a meal big enough for a month and eat the same thing every day, by used clothing and used food. I swear all those things were suggested.
• How to read a schedule. Seriously. I wanted to jump out the non-existent window at that point.
• How to use a search engine. Sigh
• Diversity means singling out minority groups and applauding them for getting in to med school. How patronizing can you get? They went through the same stuff to get in as the rest of us. It was horrible and ackward. And they didn't applaud Jews or Catholics. Way to go, semi-retarded diversity lady.

We did learn some useful stuff. For example - if a student dies, that student's Stafford Loan doesn't need to be paid back. Don't worry, I've already got a scheme forming.

I've also given a nickname to the Associate Dean of Admissions and Student Affairs, Dr. Chris Leadem (although his last name is already fitting enough, "Lead 'em"). His nickname is Huggy Bear. Why? Because he looks like a big ol' bear and you just want to hug him. And this sentiment is pretty universal amongst my class.

Bland Theft Auto

Whilst driving to my first day of Med School Orientation, I saw a yellow Mustang with a sticker in the window which read, "Drive it like you stole it." Apparently "driving it like you stole it" means waiting 5 minutes to accelerate when the light turns green and taking corners at 0 mph. Who knew?

Then I saw a car's license plate in which the last 3 letters were MLA. Sadly, my first thought was, "I sure hope that guy likes grammar."

Medical School Orientation Begins Today

Zoinks.

Bad Parenting and the Chocolate Factory

So I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this weekend with Becca, Jason and Jason’s friend Cristin. First let me say that the movie was good. I really enjoyed it. Johnny Depp is creepy and hilarious. And David Kelly (Grandpa Joe) was very amusing as well. I think I prefer the original – it’s creepier and, to its credit, I think it was unintentionally creepy. It also gets bonus points for the extra disturbing tunnel scene.

More disturbing than the boat scene from the original is the shockingly bad parenting going on around us. Our seating order was: Cristin, Jason, Becca, Montgomery. Both Cristin and I were seated next to some real winners.

Adjacent to Cristin was some little kid with a soda in a cup sans lid. I think you can see where this is going. So within a few minutes he spills soda directly into her purse. Not near it, not on it - directly into it. I felt really bad for her. And I later learned that she purchased the purse whilst in Ireland, which made me feel worse. My sympathy was quickly turned to disgust by the response of the parents. They didn’t apologize, they didn’t tell their kid to apologize, they didn’t scold the kid for being irresponsible, and they didn’t offer to pay for cleaning. They really didn’t do anything at all. They just sat there, continuing to shovel popcorn into their mouths. Popcorn which the kid later spilled all over the floor – again to no punishment. Good job folks. Don’t teach your kid any personal responsibility. I’m sure he’ll grow up to be the guy who gets fired from Taco Bell for shooting people with the sour cream gun.

My neighbors were a more subtle form of bad parents. The crazy religious nuts. They were having a discussion about Harry Potter (the new book being released the night before) and how it is corrupting children. Obviously by turning them into heathen little witches. Wow. Your bigotry and intolerance know no bounds, reaching all the way to a children’s fantasy book. A book for entertainment.

One of the women was outraged at the fact that “spell kits” were on sale next to the book. Which would further corrupt the moral fiber of their children, of course. Man, you are crazy. That “spell kit” (which was probably a goofy little book packaged with some string and candles) would do one of two things. It might show them spells don’t actually work when they tried to use it (if they took it seriously), which would send them right back to Christianity. Which has its own form of crazy mystical mumbo jumbo. Or it would allow them to pretend to be witches (if they didn’t take it seriously), fostering creativity. Now which one of those would be so terrible?

The other woman didn’t mind the spell kits. Her big problem was that the Official Harry Potter Website linked to real occult websites. Curious, I did a little research. The Warner Brothers site had no links at all. Okay, she must be referring to the JK Rowling website. My results were less than surprising. No occult sites at all. Unless Christopher Little, Literary Agent is the leader of some evil, Devil worshipping sect. Or maybe she was referring to such hideous charities as the MS Society, Amnesty International and One Parent Families. Actually, based on her ramblings, that last one might be considered an evil cult.

After their brilliant repartee, they summed everything up by saying, “You know, the devil’s stock is on the rise.” That’s just an amusing thing to hear. I didn’t think these people actually existed. I thought they were just invented by David Cross to make jokes about on the Mr. Show or during his stand-up comedy. So I looked it up, and you know what, you can’t actually buy stock in the Devil. And I got some funny looks from my broker when I asked. They might have been referring to Pinnacle Foods, owner of Duncan Hines, makers of Devil’s Food Cake mixes. But they aren’t publicly traded. Maybe the women were making a subtle jab at Microsoft/Bill Gates. Who knows.

And what’s so wrong with Wicca (the closest thing to “Witchcraft”)? According to Religious Tolerance, Wiccans follow the Wiccan Rede: "do whatever you wish, as long as you harm nobody, including yourself." The only drug they endorse is wine and they advocate monogamy. Where does the evil part come in?

So, those parents are also real winners. There kids will probably turn out to be super-bigots and maybe members of an Extremist Group (Neo-Nazi or KKK is my guess). Or they will be the ultra-rebellious type – dressed all in black, desperate for attention and doing anything to piss of their parents. Hooray for America’s Youth!

Sorry about the title of this post. I feel like one of those real cheesy, hackneyed movie reviewers. “Fantastic Four is Fantastic Fun!”

I sure do like pumpkins, Cotton.

Yeah, this is me on Wall Street taking the bull by the testicles. It's how I handle business. It's a metaphor.

But that actually happened, though.

Never eat spinach just before going on the air.*

As I said yesterday, I've started cooking occasionally. As a consequence, I've developed some strange eating habits. One in particular stands out: I now find myself snacking on spinach. Yeah, that's right, spinach. My girlfriend made a delicious Egg Flower Soup which contained spinach, and there's a big bag of leftover spinach in my fridge. So now I munch on it when I'm hungry.

At first it's a little weird to think that you're eating leaves, just like ants, giraffes and Welsh people. But eventually you get used to it. My greater concern, however, is that I might develop a tolerance. If I keep eating spinach, even in small doses, I'll start resisting its effects like a drug user. And as a kid, I remember watching documentaries about how spinach makes you strong and gives you great abilities.

Imagine: I'm tied up at the docks and some big beefy guy has kidnapped my girlfriend. I certainly can't count on my hamburger loving friend to help. He's pretty wimpy. The only items at my disposal are my trusty corn-cob pipe and, coincidentally enough, a can of spinach. With my knowledge of physics, I'll probably be able to squeeze the can with my feet in a manner such that the top of the can pops off and the spinach goes sailing into the air and funnels itself entirely into my pipe, which will force the spinach down my throat.

According to my calculations, in order to break free of the ropes I'll need the spinach to cause a World War II battleship to appear on my arm, at least. With a spinach resistance, the best I can hope for is a cruiser from the Spanish-American War. My only other option is to scoot my chair toward the edge of the dock and fall into the water, at which point I'll spin the pipe in my mouth, using it like some sort of make-shift propeller, which will allow me to chase down my muscled nemesis. With a spinach resistance? My slow spinning pipe will only serve to make my slow drowning death more comical.

So, spinach might be a delicious snack item which may or may not make people think I'm from Wales, but I can't go overboard on the spinach intake. If history is any indicator of future patterns, that big beefy guy will repeatedly attempt to steal my woman and I need the superpowers granted by spinach to save her. I advise anybody reading this to take into consideration my words of wisdom.

*Dan Rather

Don't you know the difference between seltzer and salsa?

Recently I've taken up cooking. The reason for this new hobby is mainly boredom, and because cooking is actually pretty fun. Except when you jab yourself in the hand whilst trying to slice up a bell pepper in front of your girlfriend, who normally laughs at you when you hurt yourself but this time it was just too sad and she felt sorry for you. Damn bell pepper...

Last night I made a delicious Pico de Gallo. In fact, it's too good. It's so good that when I'm finished with it, I'll walk straight into the kitchen and shoot the cook (myself). Because that's what I do. I restore the balance to this country....sorry. I was just temporarily possessed by the ghost of Johnny Depp. Who isn't dead, so I don't know how he has a ghost. He's just that cool.

Anybody who has spent any time in the Southwestern US knows that Pico de Gallo is a delicious salsa type mixture with tomatoes, onions, cilantro, etc. It's the nectar of the gods. The Mexican Gods. Except Coyolxauhqui. Oh Coyolxauhqui, why can't you be more like your brother Huitzilopochtli.

Now "The Gallo," as us cool kids are known to call it, contains only fruits, vegetables and spices. But according to the Babel Fish, "Pico de Gallo" translates as "Rooster Tip." What the hell. Either Mexican chefs are really weird or I missed an ingredient. And I don't think the dish would be as good with juicy bits of real rooster, but I could be wrong. Or maybe the salsa is meant to be used as a garnsih when serving rooster. Which is good to know for my next barbecue (not barbeque). Whatever the case, I regret looking up the translation. Now, every time I eat the delicious stuff I will be thinking, "I am chewing on Rooster Tip."

Kiss my C4H5As

So I was looking at a bottle of liquid soap the other day and a few things amused me. Before I describe those things, allow me to analyze how sad the previous sentence was (a realization I came to whilst typing it). First, it's sad that I was actually looking at a bottle of soap. Who does that? And who looks closely enough to find something amusing on it? And who gets amused by a soap bottle anyway?

Anyway, I think the soap was from Canada. I say that because the writing on the bottle was in both English and French. That's the first amusing thing. French people don't bathe or wash themselves - what's the point of rewriting the label in French? Unless the manufacturer has a deep love of irony. Even French Canadians are a filthy folk. Not as bad as the French themselves, but a close second. Where do you think the term "French Shower" comes from?

For you uninformed folk, a "French Shower" is the process of applying gallons of cologne or perfume in lieu of a shower. It's creates a wonderfully sickening scent which, according to the aroma chemists I hired, is composed of 38% B.O. and 62% terrible perfume. It's horrific.

Don't confuse this with a "Canadian Shower" - the process of standing over the sink, quickly rinsing your face and pits; again with no real shower or bath. I might be tempted to call a mix of the two a "French-Canadian Shower" - you know, the face/pit rinse of Canada coupled with the love of cheap cologne endorsed by the Frenchies. After my recent New York trip, however, I think this should be named a "New York Shower." Roughly 50% of the people there are drenched in awful cologne or perfume. And after getting over the intitial cloud of disgust, you detect a subtle hint of BO - the kind of BO which comes from a Canadian Shower. This mixture is about 15% BO, 85% cheap pefrume. So my apologies got to my smelly Quebecois friends - New York stole your trademark self-cleaning technique.

Anyway, back to the soap. As a recap, funny thing the first: stinky French people and the irony associated with a french soap label. The next funny thing was the ingredients. One list of ingredients had the common chemical names, while the other had the IUPAC* names. They actually went through the hassle of converting the naming conventions. Why would you do that? It was either torture for the chemists or for the graphic designers. Somebody got on the bosses bad side, and it amuses me.

I'll take another moment to admit how nerdy I am (if you didn't already get that from the title of this post (if you don't understand the title, Google the chemical formula (yes, I'm nerdy for remembering that chemical))). First, I recognized that the ingredient names were different. Second, I remembered the naming conventions from my Organic Chemsitry class. And third, I was actually amused by naming conventions. Sigh.

Well, that's it for my tale of mischief, mayhem and soap. I've got a bunch of stuff to say about my New York trip, but my brother still has the majority of my pictures (which I'd like to put online). He'll be down tomorrow, so I'll probably start ranting about my trip soon. Not that anyone cares.

*International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry

Stop Spreading the News.

I got back yesterday.