"the crack-cocaine of cheese"

all i have to say today is that Mrs. Renfro's brand Con Quesa is the crack-cocaine of spicy cheese dips...

and theo's back... how weird is that?

cheers,

tyson's, the cube guy, blog...

anyway, this beauty and the geek thing is really catching on... or at least it's bringing me great amusement...

check out tyson's blog for all the attention he's getting...

the email from the guy from tech just seems so ridiculous...

tune in tomorrow night for the next episode...

oh, god, and if you haven't checked out the thing about the parrot below, do yourself a favor and check it out...

Cheers,

Cowz?

When we used to use cows for money, how did we make change?

At least they're hard to steal...

pretty bird...

ahh... done with path... another class come and gone, passed and now past...

i'll miss that class... really interesting, great prof, great teaching style, and a fun class environment... no wonder it's widely considered to be one of the best classes here...

anyway, not too much else to report... still not able to post my pics because i'm still using a loaner laptop that i don't have administrator privileges on, but, whatever, that'll come soon... writing has slowed with the more and more classwork, but i'm finding it's a lot easier to enjoy a balanced existence so far in the second semester...

well, not much more to add, but you should check out the link above about the bird spilling the beans, so to speak...

be good, people...

cheers,

shock and awe...

it's 5:50 am, and i'm in our anatomy classroom studying for our path final, or, more accurately, I'm writing a Haiku on the board listening to my ipod, when dr. C pops in and scares the bejeezus out of me...

anyway, here's the haiku:

my late night pacing
adenomas, gliomas
squinting at the dawn

cheers,

MLK day?

Today was MLK day, but, from what the clinic had going on, you wouldn't know it... honestly, i found the whole thing really surprising--this for me was even more shocking than the whole notion of jewish foreplay in the academic presentation... I guess it's just a matter of it being such a different community here...

But nothing for MLK day? Not even a link on the Diversity page? it's really kind of shocking actually...

next year, we'll try to get some observational activities going--seems ridiculous not to...

anyway, i'm on a bit of an awful schedule again... up at 10 p.m. last night to begin my "tuesday" and for a big studying push...

well, on that note... gotta run... path final tomorrow...

gonna miss Dr. G's class though... he's a great teacher...

Cheers,

Beauty and the Geek...

So, one of my good friends here at the Midwest Med School is a Caltech alum... and me being an MIT alum, well, you can just imagine how things clicked...

Anyway, so that idiot actor from that 70s show and all of the poorly conceived romantic comedies is the producer of the show "Beauty and the Geek 2" and the second season has just started...

Well, my classmate/friend has a dormmate from caltech who's one of the contestants--he holds the worlds record for solving the rubik's cube... and, guess what, there's a dude who's an MIT alum...

alums + really big, socially awkward nerds + hot chixs + poor production = highly watchable event

and so the two of us and a bunch of our classmates are along for the ride... and the first episodes brought much of the promised spectacle...

anyway, the long and the short of it is that the caltech guy (Tyson) rocks--he's just a shy, polite and smart guy--and the mit guy (ankur) is a absolutely annoying tool...

duct tape tie???

come on, dude... get with it ankur...

but at least some really, really horrible guy earned everyone's ire by being a total ass... (that would be Chris)

we're all pulling for tyson here... and you should too...

tune in to see it... or check out the link above...

pure spectacle...

and remember, I put the "stud" in "studying"...

cheers,

(P.S. At least the steelers were redeemed in the end... good for them... go home colts... ahh, the schadenfreude of it all)

nfl officiating part two...

that "incomplete pass" by manning in the fourth quarter... unbelievable that they overruled that interception... you gotta feel for the steelers there...

and this only goes into the evidence file for the theory that the commissioner's office has their finger on the button for many of these calls...

i smell conspiracy...

whiny sports fan...

that pass interference call on samuel in the 2cnd quarter of the pats game was absolute garbage...

a total bogus call...

nice officiating, nfl...

"Massachusetts Nice"

anyway, so today in lecture, a patient being discussed came up, and someone was talking about how a person in question exploded...boston temper and all, and the whole thing came to define "Massachusetts Nice" and "Massh#l%"...

so i've been trying to think of analogs about the midwest that are equally edgy that can be used to stereotypically describe people around here...

I'm exhausted, but i think i've come up with something decent...

try this on for size:

"oh, so you're from the Midwuss"

what do you think? it got pretty negative reactions from locals, so i guess it's good...

also, be sure to check out the astronaut jones song... perhaps tracy morgan's finest work...

cheers,

how could this happen?

weirdest thing... there's a theta chi, beta chapter (MIT) mug for sale on ebay... somebody nicknamed muffy from '86...

but the problem is that this person doesn't exist... nobody has any idea who this guy is, not even people from that era...

i smell a fraud...

anyway, minnesota continues to serve up winter lite... it's ridiculous... must be 40 degrees around here... but who's complaining?

cheers,

new addiction...

the most difficult part about coming back from vacation was that over break i developed a new addiction--to watching the Iron Chef...

i can't stop... and the big problem is that it airs on the food network at 2 am, so my sleep schedule is all out of whack...

the good news is that the new schedule (w/o anatomy) is so much more managable that I feel like i've got much more time for this sort of nonsense... like wondering what Masaharu Morimoto's new restaurant or maybe where he was head chef (Nobu) are like... next time i'm in new york or san fran, i'll deinitely have to stop by...

i think, think i can maybe afford the sushi bar...

anyway, seems like the beginning of the semester always brings with it planning trips to get away from the semester... it looks like i'll actually make it to florida twice in march, which is great considering how awful a month i expect march will be weatherwise here... and going on a spring break trip to cocoa beach (or is it coco? I've got no idea...) with the classmates will really be my first stereotypical spring break experience ever... so i'm looking forward to it...

well, another parting inspirational quote from Dr. J is in order:

"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers." - Mignon McLaughlin

this one, this quote i really do like... see y'all later...

cheers,

medical spanish...

today i started taking an extracurricular medical spanish class with a bunch of classmates over at the hospital--seems like it's going to be great fun, but trying to wrap my old mind around a new language feels like such a chore... but i think it'll be worth it in the end...

which gets me thinking that i should see if i can get medical mandarin and medical french going... not that i could teach them, but rather that it would be good to review those languages in that context...

anyway, so a joke:

"what do you call cheese that isn't yours?"

"nacho cheese..."

oh, god... i love that one...

anyway, in case you haven't heard yet, i've replaced the bird with not one--but rather two birds... blue and charlie... i'd put up a photo, but i've got a couple technical issues to take care of first...

anyway, let's part with an inspirational quote from the quote lady and dr. j:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

cheers,

dermatology: dusted...

dermatology was finished off today, and we had the whole afternoon off--from 2 on... a rare pleasure for us, what with all of our classroom time and all...

how did i spend it? I actually went to the gym, and five other classmates were there... great minds... and i spent about four hours working on my novel, which, although i won't discuss with anyone other than my editor until it's completed, seems like it might come along fairly nicely...

if i could get it finished by the end of the semester, pass all of my courses successfully, and have a good time along the way, i think i would be pretty happy with the semester...

anyhoo, as promised, some more shots from the ugly sweater party/80s music sing along of last semester:



here's tushar and beth looking furious... about what i have no idea... probably the guy who lives on the first floor who complained about the murmurs coming from the apartment to the cops... sometimes, i really, really miss the tolerance of the city




this shot actually made its way into someone's pathology presentation... something about a healthy diet not consisting of regular helpings of me...



high kicks all around from the class of '09... i think this must have been a stirring number of "come on eileen" by dixie's midnight runners... a classic...



ugly, ugly sweaters...




that's right, kemosabe... the "jump on it" dance has invaded the midwest... I was a bit shocked that people had even heard about this... but here we are, rocking it to the sugar hill gang...

and that's it for now...

cheers,

i don't know if i complained about my beard yet...

many of you know that i've recently grown a pretty thick beard. And if you weren't aware of it, certainly the photos below might have tipped you off...

anyway, I grew this thing in Boston because I thought it would be great for keeping the icy Minnesota winds off of my face. The irony, of course, is that it's been nothing but temperate all week here... just ridiculous...

the irony of all of this, of course, is that as soon as i shave it off, those very winds will perk right up and freeze off my epithelium before you can say 'frostbite'

so my classmates are imploring me to keep it... especially the southerners... they think it's awful weather, but little do they know...

And the first of many inspirational quotes courtesy of Dr. J and the Quote Lady:

"Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."--David Lloyd George

cheers,

Blast from the past: Ugly Sweater Party!!!

if you thought medical students were incapable of having fun (admit it, you, like me, have hatched this thought before), I offer you incontrovertable photographic evidence of sed med students having a good time at the 1st annual Class of '09 ugly sweater party and '80s music sing along...



here's the old lovely lab group solemnly celebrating our final day of anatomy... it was an excellent group and our times together shall be remembered fondly... by the way, petrice's (left) sweater really had to be the ugliest sweater amonst the crowd, but priyanka and mine, well, not too bad as far as runner's up go...



here's john and margo in the foreground... note brandon in the background (yes, the brandon who oversaw the death of Dr. William Peepers, beloved parakeet and scholar)... his snowman themed sweater vest was really quite the piece of work...



here's brandon, petrice and i after i won that doll in my arms... i guess it was a door prize or something... i really don't remember too much about it, nor where it went, but it was pretty ugly... not exactly going to fit in to my stylish apartment decor, anyway...




here are the guys at kathy's pub after we got ejected from the original party site by the cops at 10 p.m.... i thought the whole thing was a bit ridiculous, but what are you going to do...

more photos to come later...

cheers,

some notes and some content...

hey all,

so, i've been back here for almost two days now, and it's been pretty easy to get back into the swing of it all, save for the sleep schedule--even a one hour time zone buffer can't cushion the transition of a 3 a.m. to noon EST to a midnight to 7 a.m. CST schedule... not even my horrific caffeine habit can mollify the experience of the morning...

i think the second half of the year will be a bit less packed than the first half, but maybe that's me just being optimistic... not having anatomy, and having mostly short organ system courses i think will help (especially with my diminishing attention span... even the first day of our dermatology course (i know--quite the privilege for medstudents) was incredibly interesting, although it still takes quite a bit of effort to keep attentive for three and half hours of lecture.

I guess the long and short of it is that i'm happy to be back in school doing something and seeing all of my classmates, but that the withdrawal from friends, family and cosmopolitan boston is acutely painful (getting on the shuttle was a bit depressing, but seeing everyone again was really exciting)... i'll keep you updated with my comings and goings as always...

and before i go, some interesting articles for those of you with a science background who are interested in some pretty inane topics (actually, the economists among you may enjoy these as well... and maybe anyone with some sense of humor).

the first is on spoons:

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/7531/1498

and the second is on hangover treatment:

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/7531/1515?ehom

cheers,

play the penguin game...

it's a little barbaric for the penguin lovers, but a nice little applet for those who love baseball and penguins...

this link comes courtesy of Laura in Boston... enjoy...

cheers,

happy new year...

happy new year everybody!!!

i made it back ok, and i want to thank everyone for the wonderful break--it was absolutely great seeing all of my family and friends... I'm ready to go for another 12 rounds here...

since i have none of my own photos, let me just share some of amanda's with you:



That's Amanda and Keith on the Staten Island Ferry... I think... I don't really know, I wasn't actually there...




and here's Lauren, Dan, Keith and I at Audubon Circle, a little restaurant/bar I can't believe I never heard about because it's literally 3/4's a mile from where I used to live... anyhoo, it's pretty good... cheap and hip... worth the trip...

well, that's it for now... some observations and news years resolutions next post...

cheers,