Diagnosis: Penguin

2008-10-05T00:34:00.001-07:00

blog alive...

ok, thanks to some clever mac widgets and ease of use, perhaps it's time to start blogging again...

cheers,

freedom...

2006-10-18T15:22:00.000-07:00

today, I closed on an automobile...

finally, i'm free to roam where i please...

photos to come...

cheers,

Young... Rich... Handsome?

2006-10-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

Definitely the first two... not sure about the third...

----------------------------------------------------------

With YouTube, Grad Student Hits Jackpot Again
Grant Hochstein for The New York Times

Article Tools Sponsored By
By MIGUEL HELFT
Published: October 12, 2006

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 11 — For Jawed Karim, the $100,000 or so he would have to spend on a master’s degree at Stanford was never daunting. He hit an Internet jackpot in 2002 when PayPal, the online payment company he had joined early on, was bought by eBay.

On Monday, still early in his studies for the fall term, he got lucky again. This time he may have hit the Internet equivalent of the multistate PowerBall.

Mr. Karim is the third of the three founders of the video site YouTube, which Google has agreed to buy for $1.65 billion. He was present at YouTube’s creation, contributing some crucial ideas about a Web site where users could share video. But academia had more allure than the details of turning that idea into a business.

So while his partners Chad Hurley and Steven Chen built the company and went on to become Internet and media celebrities, he quietly went back to class, working toward a degree in computer science.

Mr. Karim, who is 27, became visibly uncomfortable when the subject turned to money, and he would not say what he stands to make when Google’s purchase of YouTube is completed. He said only that he is one of the company’s largest individual shareholders, though he owns less of the company than his two partners, whose stakes in the company are likely to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to some estimates. The deal was so enormous, he says, that his share was still plenty big.

“The sheer size of the acquisition almost makes the details irrelevant,” Mr. Karim said.

On Wednesday, during a walk across campus and a visit to his dorm room and the computer sciences building where he takes classes, Mr. Karim described himself as a nerd who gets excited about learning. Nothing in his understated demeanor suggests he is anything other than an ordinary graduate student, and he attracted little attention on campus in jeans, a blue polo shirt, a tan jacket and black Puma sneakers.

Mr. Karim said he might keep a hand in entrepreneurship, and he dreams of having an impact on the way people use the Internet — something he has already done. Philanthropy may have some appeal, down the road. But mostly he just wants to be a professor. He said he simply hopes to follow in the footsteps of other Stanford academics who struck it rich in Silicon Valley and went back to teaching.

“There’s a few billionaires in that building,” he said, standing in front of the William Gates Computer Science Building. But his chosen path will not preclude another stint at a start-up. “If I see another opportunity like YouTube, I can always do that,” he said.

David L. Dill, a professor of computer science at Stanford, said Mr. Karim’s choice was unusual.

“I’m impressed that given his success in business he decided to do the master’s program here,” Mr. Dill said. “The tradition here has been in the other direction,” he said, pointing to the founders of Google and Yahoo, who left Stanford for the business world.

Mr. Karim met Mr. Hurley and Mr. Chen when all three of them worked at PayPal. After the company was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion, netting Mr. Karim a few million dollars, they often talked about starting another company.

By early 2005, all three had left PayPal. They would often meet late at night for brainstorming sessions at Max’s Opera Café, near Stanford, Mr. Karim said. Sometimes they met at Mr. Hurley’s place in Menlo Park or Mr. Karim’s apartment on Sand Hill Road, down the street from Sequoia Capital, the venture firm that would become YouTube’s financial backer.

Mr. Karim said he pitched the idea of a video-sharing Web site to the group. But he made it clear that contributions from Mr. Chen and Mr. Hurley were essential in turning his raw idea into what eventually became YouTube.

A YouTube spokeswoman said that the genesis of YouTube involved efforts by all three founders.

As early as February 2005, when the site was introduced, Mr. Karim said he and his partners had agreed that he would not become an employee, but rather an informal adviser to YouTube. He did not take a salary, benefits or even a formal title. “I was focused on school,” he said.

The decision meant that his stake in the company would be reduced, Mr. Karim said. “We negotiated something that we thought was fair.”

Roelof Botha, the Sequoia partner who led the investment in YouTube, said he would have preferred if Mr. Karim had stayed.

“I wish we could have kept him as part of the company,” Mr. Botha said. “He was very, very creative. We were doing everything we could to convince him to defer.”

Mr. Karim was born in East Germany in 1979. The family moved to West Germany a year later and to St. Paul, Minn., in 1992. His father, Naimul Karim, is a researcher at 3M and his mother, Christine Karim, is a research assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Minnesota.

“To develop new things and be aware of new things, this is our life,” Ms. Karim said, explaining her son’s interest in technology and learning.

After graduating from high school, Jawed Karim chose to go to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in part because it was the school that the co-founder of Netscape, Marc Andreessen, and others who gave birth to the first popular Web browser attended.

“It wasn’t like I wanted to be the next Marc Andreessen, but it would be cool to be in the same place,” Mr. Karim said. In 2000, during his junior year, he dropped out to head to Silicon Valley, where he joined PayPal. He later finished his undergraduate degree by taking some courses online and some at Santa Clara University.

Armed with a video camera, Mr. Karim documented much of YouTube’s early life, including the meetings when the three discussed financing strategies and the brainstorming sessions in Mr. Hurley’s garage, where the company was hatched.

In his studio apartment in a residence hall for graduate students, he showed one of them, which he said was filmed in April 2005. In it, Mr. Chen talked about “getting pretty depressed” because there were only 50 or 60 videos on the YouTube site. Also, he said, “there’s not that many videos I’d want to watch.” The camera then turns to Mr. Hurley, who grins and says “Videos like these,” referring to the one Mr. Karim is filming.

Mr. Karim, who has remained in frequent contact with the other co-founders, said he was first informed of the talks with Google last week. On Monday, he was called in to the Palo Alto law offices of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati to sign acquisition papers, and he briefly got to congratulate Mr. Chen and Mr. Hurley, he said.

Asked what he thought of the acquisition price, Mr. Karim said: “It sounded good to me.” When a reporter looked puzzled, he raised his eyebrows and added: “I was amazed.”

zebras...

2006-08-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

New York Times
January 24, 2006
The One-in-a-Thousand Illness You Can't Afford to Miss
By PERRI KLASS, M.D.
Evening session at the health center, three of us seeing patients in pediatrics. My colleague asked whether I would take a quick look at a boy with a fever and headache. In the exam room, the overhead light was off because it hurt his eyes. He was lying on the table, but he sat up and answered my questions, and he let me look in his throat, and he moved his head around when I asked him to.
We excused ourselves, my colleague and I, and went out of the room. We conferred. The boy didn't look good. Pronounced photophobia - avoidance of light - and severe headache and fever. And although his neck was not actually stiff, he did indicate some neck pain when we asked him to bend it.
He needs to go to the emergency room, we agreed.
What do you think, my colleague asked, would you send him by ambulance?
"Yes," I said. "I mean, if this is your meningitis, wouldn't you want him in an ambulance?"
She understood what I meant, of course. Sometimes it feels as if you spend your career in primary care pediatrics waiting for your meningitis, your leukemia, your dislocated hip.
The bad things, the things that cross your mind - automatically and usually fleetingly - day after day as you examine children, the diagnoses that statistically will come your way at least once or twice over the course of years and years of walking into one exam room after another.
Every time you examine a little baby's hips - and you always examine a little baby's hips - you are looking for congenital dysplasia of the hip, a hip that doesn't fit properly into its socket. Find it early, fix it early. Don't miss it.
Every time you find unexplained lymphadenopathy, enlarged lymph nodes, in a child, leukemia crosses your mind, at least fleetingly. Children have swollen lymph nodes all the time. But you had better not miss your leukemia.
Or meningitis. In winter especially, lots of children come in with high fevers. Most have flu or other viral illnesses or ear infections. Some look reasonably bright and bouncy, fever and all, and some look sick and miserable.
And as I go from room to room and examine those children and swab their throats for strep or dig the wax out of their ears, I think quickly about meningitis. O.K., the giggling 3-year-old eating crunchy junk food snacks while he runs busily around the exam room may have a temperature of 103, but he does not have meningitis.
But what about the hot-to-the-touch fretful 1-year-old who will not let her mother put her down? Or the feverish, headachy 12-year-old?
Fever, headache, stiff neck, photophobia - these are the clinical hallmarks of meningitis, an infection of the membranes that surround and protect the spine. It can be caused by a variety of viruses and bacteria, and the bacterial form, in particular, can be a virulent fast-moving infection, an infection that can devastate or even kill a child.
It needs to be treated promptly, and to treat it, you need to diagnose it, by doing a spinal tap, and to diagnose it, you need to think about it.
I have seen plenty of children with meningitis. I did my residency in the days before children were routinely vaccinated against Haemophilus influenzae Type b and Streptococcus pneumoniae, two bacteria with propensities for spinal infections, and I took care of plenty of hospitalized children with meningitis.
I worked in the emergency room and did my share of spinal taps, on the wards, where we took care of some children who ended up deaf or brain damaged, and in the intensive care unit, where the sickest children were on life support.
Nowadays, with children well protected against those two particular bugs, meningitis is less of a worry, but it has not gone away. I know my meningitis will walk in the door in primary care someday, one of those feverish hard-to-console babies or one of those flu-ish unhappy teenagers.
My colleague sent the boy to the emergency room by ambulance. By ambulance, because that way he got there as fast as possible. Because that way we knew he would receive attention immediately. Because that way, if by some chance he was her meningitis and his mental status began to deteriorate or he started to have a seizure - well, at least he would be in an ambulance.
So you worry about it with every sick child, week after week, winter after winter. Hundreds of cases of influenza and other viral illnesses, fevers and headaches and body aches and sore throats and general miseries will come and go.
But at some point, your meningitis will arrive, and it will all come down to whether you recognize it or not.
You stand in the exam room, worrying about this one particular very important child, mindful of the danger and trying to look the threat in the eye and recognize it - even with the lights off.

music evolution...

2006-08-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

check out this cool, free service from the people at the music genome project...

they'll design playlists/audiostreams around your tastes, and make suggestions as to what else you might like...

a very good time...

cheers,

Nice showing, MSP!!! ---- America's Drunkest Cities

2006-08-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

According to Forbes.com, Milwaukee has been crowned the "Drunkest" U.S. city.

Great work, everyone. Truly a team effort.

Here are the rest of the Top 10.

9. Providence, R.I.
9. Philadelphia
8. Pittsburgh
7. Cleveland
6. Chicago
5. Austin, Texas
4. Boston
3. Columbus, Ohio
2. Minneapolis-St. Paul
1. Milwaukee

good to see Beantown cracking the top five... guess i should feel more like home here than i do...

Cheers,

another winner...

2006-08-21T15:52:00.000-07:00

jrob is full of winning references this week...

check this article out on OBL dig for Whitney Houston...

unbelievable... and creepily weird...

enjoy,

a classic where are they now...

2006-08-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

oh, Boy George, you civic servant you...

News Flash: Red Sox Suck

2006-08-19T17:57:00.000-07:00

three reasons for a ruinous weekend:

yankees @ red sox
yankees @ red sox
yankees @ red sox

crazy medfield story...

2006-08-17T18:09:00.000-07:00

courtesy of JRob...

cheers,

Look who's coming to dinner...

2006-08-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

just a few shots of my dinner with Tomo and his wife... a lovely evening--we had Shabu Shabu in a department store restaurant near Shinjuku...

the food was great, but the company was better...

cheers,

News Flash: Red Sox Suck

2006-08-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything else to say about this right now...

pandas...

2006-08-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

Random vacation shots from Chengdu...

at the panda lab, where panda-ish research is carried out...

me and the panda... chilling on a scorching, humid sichaun morning...

at the movies...

the fam patting one of the remaining thousand pandas in the world... he seems pretty content with his bamboo...

a very uncomfortable, very hot, very sweaty me... the employees of the cafe pointed the fan directly at me, as i recall...

cheers,

Back!!!

2006-07-24T16:47:00.000-07:00

hey all my faithful readers,

I'm just back stateside from a whirlwind trip of asia for three and a half weeks...

I know the well has been dry for some time now, but I've got plenty of photos and anecdotes to throw up in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled...

it's good to be back...

cheers,

done...

2006-06-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

I'm done with my first year of medical school...

granted, there are a few loose ends to tie up, and things never really stop, but I'm done with class...

it's anti-climactic... very anti-climactic...

i don't know what else to say...

cheers,

seeing things...

2006-06-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

granted i haven't gotten a ton of sleep this weekend with the end of the year nearing...

and i am on a ton of coffee this morning...

but i'm pretty sure the Scooby Doo i'm watching pace up and down 2cnd Ave SW is real...

pretty sure...

cheers,

sportsmanship...

2006-06-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

i've been watching quite a bit of the world cup these days--ever since being in africa and watching it four years ago, i've found it to be quite interesting...

anyway, today i've struck by good sportsmanship in the world cup... i'm pretty sure it's just widespread good form, but when a player goes down and the opposing team has the ball, they'll out it, resulting in a stoppage of play to check on the injured player. But the team with the ball cedes it to their opponents with the downed man...

and to repay the gesture, after the downed man is taken care of, the team puts the ball into play to the goalie of the other team, returning possession in turn for the stoppage that was "granted"...

i just thought it was quite notable...

cheers,

bad sox...

2006-06-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

so, i went to two red sox games this week...

very much the wrong two... not that the other one would have been such a great drive home, but at least it would have been a game to watch...

but wednesday's game was a total rout with clement pitching absolutely horribly in his first start off the DL, and then on thursday, the sox just got beat behind wakefield... not his best pitching or anything, but silva pitched a great game, and the sox really had no answer...

on thursday, we had great seats--row nine, by third base... and it was rowdy in a way i never see the metrodome (ugly place by the way, and not so comfortable)... fenway rowdy--lots of sox fans made the trip or live in the area...

anyway, the three hours round trip in car are particularly dour sitting on those losses...

and those are the only two games i'll see all year...

cheers,

death...

2006-06-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

Death swept into the flat last night, and departed with the essence of Mephistophales the Blue Beta...

I found him this morning floating at the bottom of his bowl, and I was especially distraught given his recent improvement in health.

------------

A Teaching on the Nature of Death by Zen Master Hofaku:

Once master Hofaku called his monks together and said: "This last week my energy has been draining - no cause for worry. It is just that death is near."

A monk asked: "You are about to die! What does it mean? We will go on living. And what does that mean?"

"They are both the way of things," the master replied.

"But how can I understand two such different states?"

Hofaku answered: "When it rains it pours," and then calmly dies.

------------

All composite things are impermanent,
They are subject to birth and death;
Put an end to birth and death,
And there is a blissful tranquillity.
-The Gatha of Impermanence

------------

Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die
-Basho

cat vs. bear...

2006-06-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

cat wins...

check out the article if you like... but the photo speaks for itself...

cheers,

One word...

2006-06-12T19:43:00.000-07:00

hello all,

maybe i'm alone in this, but in watching the tele recently, I feel like there are an insane number of television shows premiering in the coming month that have one-word titles... slightly vague ones to boot...

things like 'justice' and 'saved'...

i dunno... just seems like this whole one-worder phenom has or is about to, dare i say, 'jump the shark'...

BoSox are in town... let's go, boyz...

cheers,

Review book whore...

2006-05-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the year--the time when second years all across America are sitting for their first Licensing exam... the stress is palpable, and when it's over, one of the most cathartic activities is to dispose of your review books--mostly to eager and pre-maturely nervous first years who will be sitting for the exam next year and are looking for steals on board prep material (which can be shockingly expensive)...

anyway, the long and short of it is that I am a total review book whore, and in the last couple months, I think I've accumulated nearly thirty review texts... That's three-zero... i think it's a shocking number...

it's almost evolved to a sport for me, where some recently relieved-of-their-burden second year sends out an email to our class list, and we all hungrily pounce on the texts before someone else can snatch them up... it's probably the fiercest competition our class has had relative to anything ever...

and i'm probably the worst offender in the class... i love getting these books--I love it... god knows if I'll ever use them, but having them is reassuring to me... if all that passing the boards involved was building a fort out of text books, i would be a total shoe-in for a snappy mark... but the problem is that i've got to get that stuff in my head--if only i could develop and similarly rewarding sensation for actually reading these tomes...

anyway, if any of my classmates are reading this, let me apologize... i'm sorry, but i can't help myself... it's totally compulsive...

and the real kicker to all of this is that our school library has every review book you could possibly want on their shelves... i think this is some sort of ailment...

well... hmm....

cheers,

Theo incognito... again...

2006-05-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

looks like Mr. Epstein is up to his old antics again...

thanks to fellow Pearl Jam fan and Yankee superfan, Dr. C, for pointing us to this article...

Watch out, beantown! I'll be back on Thursday for some of the regular 'ol antics...

cheers,

MIT in the Press... ; )

2006-05-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

From Slate's Interview/Q&A w/ Mr. Trudeau:

The Straw Poll about Alex's college future was supposed to end at midnight, Monday 5-21. So what happened? Where's she going to school?
-- G.J., Portland, OR

Interesting question. Pull up a chair.

The previous Straw Poll invited readers to choose among three academic futures for Alex Doonesbury: Should she go to Rennselaer, Cornell, or MIT? Voting was brisk. Wait, let us rephrase that: Voting was insane, rampant, ingenious, and impressively ruthless. An MIT student put up "Doonesbury Voting Hack", a web site (adorned with art borrowed from the Town Hall) which enabled would-be-ballot-stuffers to spew out over a million votes in a single night. "We're all running cgi hack scripts" lol'd one MIT blogger, "I've voted 3 or 4 thousand times!" Fortunately the prophylactic measures swiftly implemented by the DTH's crack tech crew kept most of the votes from making it into the poll.

The idea of outing the main culprit was briefly considered (a 5'8", 115-lb. freshman from New York -- it's amazing what you can find out about a person online), but as he left a clear trail and probably didn't expect the hack to be as successful as it was, it seemed enough to deny the MIT network access to our servers. Besides, we had to take his thoughtfulness into account: "Please," he cautioned on the updated version of his hack site, "only keep one instance of the program running at a time so we don't kill the server again."

Meanwhile Rennselaer had also stepped up to the plate -- or rather made their own attempt to move it. As campus blog entries indicate, token reservations were overcome ("It would be entirely unethical of me to stuff a ballot box, or suggest any others use the same, with command lines such as...") and a curl was disseminated, intended to accomplish pretty what the MIT script had done using Flash. The Rensselaer effort was less successful -- still, several hundred thousand votes bounced off our servers. By the time a handful of indy hackers made their run at the Straw Poll, the ballot box was adequately unstuffable.

Cornell blogage shows that students there were watching the fray ("Me thinks the site is being bombarded by a script war between Troy and Cambridge..."), but a higher, or more urgent, course was taken. ("We're at a disadvantage, because we've got finals now and presumably no one has the free time to write a Cornell spamming script.") The Cornell alumni office had early-on taken an above-board interest, alerting alums to the situation and urging them to vote, but this effort did not bring Cornellians to the poll in numbers sufficient for Big Red to catch up. "We're obviously not trying hard enough to cheat," lamented a dismayed blogger. However, students and alums managed to post many passionate, articulate, humorous, and convincing posts on our Blowback page, all making the case that Alex should head to Ithaca. In acknowledgement of this impressive and moving effort, the Doonesbury Town Hall is pleased to award Cornell the Doonesbury Straw Poll Congeniality Award.

As for the question at hand -- Where will Alex go to school? -- the will, chutzpah, and bodacious craft of the voting public will be respected. A careful check of the applicable rulebook indicates that queering the results was not specifically prohibited. And by tradition, engineers, hackers and techfolk will assume that in a problem-solving situation of this nature, there is no box out of which they are not expected to climb. The Doonesbury Town Hall thanks all those who took the time and trouble to vote, even those who voted only once.

Ms. Doonesbury will be attending MIT.

the latest dance craze...

2006-05-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure I can strongly recommend this, but if you've got six minutes and you're not sure what to do with them... and maybe you like dance? and are a pretty easy guffaw...

well, it doesn't live up to its bill as the "funniest six minutes you've ever seen"...

anyway, take it as you will....

cheers,

Red Sox Magic 8-Ball...

2006-05-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

Ask all of your Red Sox Nation related questions of this online magic 8-ball...

thanks jRob...

Cheers,

what we all strive to be...

2006-05-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

from allison...

what we all strive to be... her quote...

cheers,

Never too old...

2006-05-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

for a wild spring break...

Here's Petrice and I going bezerk one night:

in fairness to Petrice, I'm pretty sure this photo is entirely staged...

funny story about this night--we were going out to a local bar (actually, the holiday inn) to go kareokeing, and somehow, i got left behind. How you ask? As we were loading up the two cars, I went back into the house to make sure that it was locked up properly, and when I came back out front, no cars. Everyone had gone...

I figured it would be a few minutes before anyone realized that I was gone, so i sat down on the couch to watch TV...

An hour later, Petrice, Tom, and Ashlee stumbled through the door looking for me... imagine that, a whole hour... and a rash of funny photos ensued... including the one shown above... (don't worry, world, petrice's honor is intact)

Anyway, i still think it's pretty funny... I was mad about the whole thing until i showed up to the Holiday Inn to find the evening in chaos. I think I was better off on the couch...

Cheers,

No exit strategy?

2006-05-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

For the knicks fans, for the BBall fans, for the Yorkers, for anyone who enjoys political satire...

enjoy the parallels...

cheers,

MIT in Doonesbury...

2006-05-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

Hmm... suspect work by our faculty in the cartoon world...

Not that I could answer the question...

What's a current source?

cheers,

Wes Andersen AmEx Ad...

2006-05-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

As a big fan of Wes Andersen's films (Life Aquatic, Royal Tannenbaums, Rushmore, Bottle Rocket), I wasn't at all surprised at how much i enjoyed his new AmEx "My Life" ad...

Classic Andersen...

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Babies make everything better...

2006-05-16T11:40:00.000-07:00

well, except road trips...

in response to multiple requests to photos, here are a few shots of me hanging around with the Gutierrez children at various baby showers...

that's right, baby showers...

not that much to do here... baby showers are a popular friday night option...

these two are just so cute... and so well behaved... what a pleasure...

anyway, things are well here--hoping they're well there with you, wherever there may be...

cheers,

Smell ya' later...

2006-05-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

Imagine if all of your life, you couldn't smell anything...

and then all of the sudden you could...

check out this relative of a friend's blog...

cheers,

A farewell to Flutie...

2006-05-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

A real hero is leaving his arena today, as Doug Flutie announced his retirement today, deciding against returning to the Patriots to back up Brady for another season...

those of us who lived in the Commonwealth Annex used to celebrate him, as well as raise awareness of and funds for research of autism via consuming his very special cereal product, Flutie Flakes, shown below: (enjoy the wikipedia link as well...)

We'll always remember the drop kick, Doug... May retirement treat you well...

Cheers,

if you've been pained by my telling...

2006-05-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

of the aristocrats, here's the alternate version i've been telling--from the horse's mouth...

Warning: Not for the sensitive ear--highly graphic content...

enjoy!

also pointed to by JRob...

(oh, and if you'd like to borrow the DVD of the film, I'm newly a proud owner of the feature length film...)

cheers,

Read this, watch this...

2006-05-14T19:33:00.000-07:00

a hilarious case of wrong place, wrong time... and journalistic oversight...

feel the shock of the cab driver as he's introduced...

pointed to by JRob...

cheers,

"The physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient..."

2006-05-11T07:59:00.000-07:00

i've been tossing that phrase around for a little while now, and i stumbled across this little piece... i think it's really true in a lot of ways...

cheers,

what could be more penguin like...

2006-05-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

than a tuxedo...

which i bought online last night...

everybody needs a tuxedo? right?

I'm trying to rationalize this...

anyway, i'm the proud owner of a new tux...

so...

cheers,

No comment...

2006-05-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

I don't even know what to say about this thing, but i stumble across it, and it's the weirdest thing i've ever seen on amazon.com...

i'm not even sure if it's real or fake... but i know it's strange and worth a look either way...

if you've got the time, read the reviews... high comedy...

cheers,

Colbert at the WHPC dinner...

2006-05-03T15:49:00.000-07:00

i couldn't find this anywhere until slate pointed to it, so if you haven't seen it yet, colbert was quite good... but better is the audience--just aghast... good stuff...

cheers,

big papi...

2006-05-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

I could listen to David Ortiz be interviewed about anything ad naseum... the guy is just mesmerizing...

great game tonight--baseball really feels back--miss those playoff like atmospheres... even 1500 miles away...

goooo soooooxxxxxx!!!

cheers,

a belated spring break photo...

2006-04-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

hey all,

so some photos from spring break just came back... this is one of my favorites:

anyway, the fish was telling us the following joke:

what did the fish say when he hit the wall?

DAM!

cheers,

the aging game...

2006-04-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

today, in our into to the patient course, we played the aging game... the closest parallel i can draw to it is from back in elementary school where we all used wheelchairs and whatnot to gain an appreciation of what it's like to be differently abled...

so, today, pretty much the same thing, but with an emphasis on those changes that come with aging, like loss of vision, hearing, physical functionality, self esteem, independence etc...

anyway, for me, the defining moment was being fed applesauce by an inattentive and insensitive nursing aide while i was sitting in my wheelchair, gown, and wearing my "cataracts"...

really something else...

cheers,

HMO humor...

2006-04-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

An eye doctor, a heart surgeon and an HMO executive die and are in heaven. God asks the eye doctor why he should be let into heaven, and the doctor explains to God that he helped people save or regain their sight. God says, ''Welcome to heaven, my son.''

God then asks the heart surgeon what he had done in life that should allow him into heaven. ''I saved people from death from heart attacks and heart disease,'' the doctor replies. ''Welcome to heaven, my son,'' God says.

God then turns to the HMO executive. God asked him what he was, and the man replied that he worked for an HMO. ''Welcome to heaven, my son,'' says God, ''but you have to leave in two days.''

Bill Simmons on NBA Celeb Charity Fantasy Basketball...

2006-04-24T23:18:00.000-07:00

anyway, if you follow Simmons at all, i'm sure you're aware of his unbelievable participation in the NBA Celeb Charity Fantasy Basketball league... how he qualifies as a celebrity is beyond me...

but regardless, check out his victory dance of an interview at NBA.com--it's high comedy... especially his lancing of Kenny Smith...

i'll be shocked if he's ever invited back to the TBS studio, and, if he is, I can't wait to hear Barkley on the matter...

cheers,

chunky monkeys...

2006-04-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

A little joke of the day for y'all...

What do you call a trash bag full of mutilated laboratory monkeys?

Rhesus Pieces...

Oh god, that one gets me every time...

Cheers,

soul position...

2006-04-20T07:48:00.000-07:00

last night, diana, ashlee, tushar and i headed up to the triple rock social club in minneapolis to check out the Rhymesayers act Soul Position...

all i can say is that it was easily the best twelve bucks i've spent on anything this last year...

you can check out their myspace page... they've got a couple tracks to download... and i've got all their cds if you're interested in borrowing...

but, today, we're all paying the price... just exhausted and struggling to pull ourselves through renal and a musculoskeletal exam tomorrow... rough... weeknight trips to the cities exact a high toll... good to know for future reference...

anyway, back to the grind...

cheers,

Brick...

2006-04-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

last saturday, we tripped to the cities for two flicks at the uptown and lagoon theaters... one, Thank You For Smoking, I imagine is already on your radar, and it's really as good as the critics say...

but the other film we saw, Brick, is the one that I keep thinking about... just a really interesting spin on film noir set in SoCal with a youngish crowd--i keep thinking that it's the day dream of some uber creative guy just like the protagonist...

make sure you get the dialogue primer before you go (should be available in the theater lobby)... just an really interesting film...

you'll like it... check out the official site above...

cheers,

home star runner...

2006-04-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

somehow, when this whole Strong Bad thing was introduced to me recently by JChang and his beau, I just felt like I had missed out on something generationally...

anyway, I really enjoy these little animated shorts... weird, strange, and funny...

warning: not for the linear thinker...

cheers,

pan fried pea-snaps...

2006-04-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

a video-collage of a near-classic David Cross bit about a gay man ordering at the pizza counter with twenty people waiting behind him...

interesting, not super... but it take it for what it's worth...

cheers,

Take that, Kurtz...

2006-04-12T16:17:00.000-07:00

MIT-Caltech relations flare...

Point for MIT...

Take that, Kurtz...

Cheers,

Game 6 ala NES...

2006-04-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

again, from JRob...

enjoy...

cheers,

MIT Fraternity Accused of Robot Hazing

2006-04-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

I know, I know... those kids are far too attractive to be Techers...

and secondly, the thirsty was never popular...

cheers,

Epstein sucking up to Bellichek...

2006-03-23T11:46:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of jRob...

enjoy...

fun comic...

2006-03-23T11:41:00.000-08:00

oh, how we med students love to categorize things... why not take a look at how we categorize ourselves...

apparently, this strip was drawn by a friend's classmate(ish) at columbia med...

cheers,

One way: FL to MN...

2006-03-13T13:10:00.000-08:00

24 hours ago: 90 degrees in the florida sun...
Now: Snow, Sleet, Cold, No Sun...

Ugh...

Back in Minnesota... at least baseball is starting up, and netflix is picking up...

Cheers,

Play the McVideoGame...

2006-03-08T11:27:00.000-08:00

Funny, subversive, and a bit addictive...

Don't start it up if you've got anything to do...

Cheers,

The Art of Pimping

2006-03-07T14:16:00.000-08:00

The Art of Pimping
by Frederick L. Brancati, MD, Department of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh.
From JAMA 262(1):89, July 7, 1989.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's hard work becoming a revered attending physician in a university hospital. The task daunts the newly appointed junior attending as he strides down the corridor of his first ward with his first team. Oh, he's made some changes in anticipation of his new position. He's wearing a long coat now, an all-cotton coat with razor-sharp creases and knit buttons. The stained, shrunken polyester white pants and tennis shoes have given way to gray, light wool slacks with a cuff and polished loafers. Framed certificates bear testimony to his intelligence and determination. He should be ready to take the helm of his ward team, but he's not. Something's missing, something important, something closer to art than to science. When physicians talk about the "art of medicine" they usually mean healing, or coping with uncertainty, or calculating their federal income taxes. But there's one art this new attending needs to learn before all others: the art of pimping.

Pimping occurs whenever an attending poses a series of very difficult questions to an intern or student. The earliest reference to pimping is attributed to Harvey in London in 1628. He laments his students' lack of enthusiasm for learning the circulation of the blood: "They know nothing of Natural Philosophy, these pin-heads. Drunkards, sloths, their bellies filled with Mead and Ale. O that I might see them pimped!"

In 1889, Koch recorded a series of "Puempfrage" or "pimp questions" he would later use on his rounds in Heidelberg. Unpublished notes made by Abraham Flexner on his visit to Johns Hopkins in 1916 yield the first American reference: "Rounded with Osler today. Riddles house officers with questions. Like a Gatling gun. Welch says students call it 'pimping.' Delightful."

On the surface, the aim of pimping appears to be Socratic instruction. The deeper motivation, however, is political. Proper pimping inculcates the intern with a profound and abiding respect for his attending physician while ridding the intern of needless self-esteem. Furthermore, after being pimped, he is drained of the desire to ask new questions -- questions that his attending may be unable to answer. In the heat of the pimp, the young intern is hammered and wrought into the framework of the ward team. Pimping welds the hierarchy of academics in place, so the edifice of medicine may be erected securely, generation upon generation. Of course, being hammered, wrought, and welded may, at times, be somewhat unpleasant for the intern. Still, he enjoys the attention and comes to equate his initial anguish with the aches and pains an athlete suffers during a period of intense conditioning.

Despite its long history and crucial importance in training, pimping as a medical art has received little attention from the educational establishment. A recent survey reveals that fewer than 1 in 20 attending physicians have had any formal training in pimping. In most American medical schools, pimping is covered haphazardly during the third-year medical clerkship or is relegated to a fourth-year elective. In a 1985 poll, over 95% of program directors admitted that the pimping skills of their trainees were "seriously inadequate." It comes as no surprise, then, that the newly appointed attending must teach himself how to pimp. It is to this most junior of attendings, therefore, that I offer the following brief guide to the art of pimping.

Pimp questions should come in rapid succession and should be essentially unanswerable. They may be grouped into five categories:

1. Arcane points of history. These facts are not taught in medical school and are irrelevant to patient care -- perfect for pimping. For example, who performed the first lumbar puncture? Or, how was syphilis named?

2. Teleology and metaphysics. These questions lie outside the realm of conventional scientific inquiry and have traditionally been addressed only by medieval philosophers and the editors of the National Enquirer. For instance, why are some organs paired?

3. Exceedingly broad questions. For example, what role do prostaglandins play in homeostasis? Or, what is the differential diagnosis of a fever of unknown origin? Even if the intern begins making good points, after 4 or 5 minutes he can be cut off and criticized for missing points he was about to mention. These questions are ideally posed in the final minutes of rounds while the team is charging down a noisy stairwell.

4. Eponyms. These questions are favored by many oldtimers who have assiduously avoided learning any new developments in medicine since the germ theory. For instance, where does one find the semilunar space of Traube? Or, whose name is given to the dancing uvula of aortic regurgitation?

5. Technical points of laboratory research. Even when general medical practice has become a dim and distant memory, the attending physician-investigator still knows the details of his research inside and out. For instance, how active are leukocyte-activated killer cells with or without interleukin 2 against sarcoma in the mouse model? Or, what base sequence does the restriction endonuclease EcoRI recognize?

Such pimping should do for the third-year student what the Senate hearings did for Robert Bork. The intern, in contrast, is a seasoned veteran and not so easily rattled. Years of relentless pimping have taught him two defenses: the dodge and the bluff.

Dodging avoids the question, wasting time as well as a valuable pimp question. The two most common forms of dodging are (1) to answer the question with a question and (2) to answer a different question. For example, the intern is asked to explain the pathophysiology of thrombosis secondary to the lupus anticoagulant. He first recites the clotting cascade, then recalls the details of a lupus case he admitted last month, and closes by asking whether pulse-dose steroids are indicated for lupus nephritis. The experienced attending immediately diagnoses this outpouring as a dodge, grabs the intern by the scruff of the neck, and rubs his nose back in the original pimp.

A bluff, unfortunately, is much more damaging than a dodge. Allowed to stand, a bluff promulgates a lie while undermining the academic hierarchy by suggesting that the intern has nothing more to learn from his attending. Bluffs weaken the very fabric of American medicine, threatening our livelihood and our way of life. Like outlaws in a Clint Eastwood movie, bluffs must be shot on sight -- no due process, no Miranda Act, no starry-eyed liberal notions of openness or dialogue -- just righteous retribution.

Bluffs fall into three readily discernible categories:

1. Hand waving. These bluffs are stock phrases that refer to hot topics in biomedicine without supplying detail or explanation. For example, "It's a membrane transport phenomenon" or "The effect is mediated by prostaglandins." In many institutions, they may evolve directly from the replies of Grand Rounds speakers to questions from the audience.

2. Feigned erudition. The intern's answer, though without substance, suggests an intimate understanding of the literature and a cautiousness born of experience. "Hmmm . . . to my knowledge, that question has not been examined in a prospective controlled fashion" is a common form. Frequently, the bluff is accompanied by three automatisms: clearing of the throat, rapid fluttering of the eyelids and tongue, and chewing on the temples of the eyeglasses. This triad, when full-blown, will make the intern bear a sudden resemblance to William Buckley and is virtually pathognomonic.

3. Higher authority. The intern attributes his answer to the teaching of a particular superior. When the answer is refuted, the blame of ignorance comes to rest on the higher authority, not on the obedient, accepting intern. The strength of the bluff depends on just whom is quoted. An intern quoting a junior resident about pathophysiology is every bit as cogent as Colonel Qaddafi quoting Ayatollah Khomeini about international law. An intern from an Ivy League medical school quoting the "training" he received on his medical clerkship goes over like Dan Quayle explaining the Bill of Rights at an ACLU convention. The shrewd intern, however, will quote his Chairman of Medicine or at least a division chief, pushing the nontenured attending to the brink of political calamity. Did the chairman actually say that? The attending is powerless to refute the statement until he is certain.

Indeed, a good bluff is hard to handle. Sometimes the intern's bluff sounds better to the ward team than the attending's correct answer. Sometimes it sounds better to the attending himself. Ultimately, the cunning intern is best discouraged from bluffing by aversive training. Specifically, each time he bluffs successfully, the attending should counter by inducing Sudden Intern Disgrace (SID). SID is induced in two ways:

1. Question the intern's ability to take a history. This technique depends on the phenomenon of historical drift. That is, a patient's story will reliably undergo a significant change in the 8- or 16-hour interval between admission and attending rounds. The attending need only go to the bedside and ask the same questions the intern did the night before. Now the entire case is seen in a light different than that cast by the intern's assessment. Yesterday's right upper quadrant cramping becomes right-sided pleuritic chest pain. Yesterday's ill-defined midepigastric "burning" becomes crushing substernal heaviness radiating to the arm and jaw. Suddenly, the intern is disgraced. He will never bluff again.

2. Question the intern's compulsiveness. In less rigorous programs, this is easy. Did the intern examine the peripheral blood smear and the urine sediment himself? If the intern does routinely examine body fluids, a more methodical approach is required. In this case, results of the following tests, procedures, and examinations may be requested in rapid succession: Hemoccult slide test, urine electrolytes, bedside cold agglutinins and serum viscosity, slit-lamp examination, Schiotz' tonometry, Gram's stain of the buffy coat, transtracheal aspiration, anoscopy, rigid sigmoidoscopy, and indirect laryngoscopy. Once the attending discovers a test or examination left unperformed, he asks the intern why this obviously crucial point was neglected. (The tension may be heightened at this point by frequent use of the word "cavalier.") The intern's response will generally revolve around time constraints and priorities in diagnostic evaluation. The attending's rejoinder: did the intern eat, sleep, or void last night? The scrupulous intern at once infers that he has placed his own needs before the needs of his patient. Suddenly, he is disgraced. He will never bluff again.

Clearly, pimping -- good pimping -- is an art. There are styles, approaches, and a few loose rules to guide the novice, but pimping is learned in practice, not theory. Despite its long and glorious history, pimping is in danger of becoming a lost art. Increased specialization, the rise of the HMO, and DRG-based financing are probably to blame, as they are for most problems. The burgeoning budget deficit, the changing demographic profile of the United States, the Carter Administration, inefficiency at the Pentagon, and intense competition from Japan have each played a role, though less directly. Against this mighty array of historical forces stands the beleaguered junior attending armed only with training, wit, and the determination to pimp. It won't be easy to turn back the clock and restore the art of pimping to its former grandeur. I only hope my guide will help.

physician, know thyself...

2006-03-02T14:28:00.000-08:00

choosing a medical specialty is excruciating for a lot of people...

check out this helpful flowchart...

cheers,

moving & muppets...

2006-02-22T14:11:00.000-08:00

well, i've been out of it for a bit, but there's not much to say about it...

the highlights of the last two weeks are two-fold:

1) seeing the midnight showing of the muppet movie in minneapolis

2) prepping to move to another apartment in the coming days...

not much more to add... seems like we've hit a six week funk...

traveling a bit in march should hopefully be rejuvenating...

cheers,

useful anatomy...

2006-02-13T14:26:00.000-08:00

the first time anatomy was really useful this semester was on saturday night at Saint Sabrina's Parlor in Purgatory when I was asked what part of my ear i wanted pierced, and I said:

"you know, the upper ear..."

and they responded:

"the helix?"

to which i said:

"exactly!"

imagine that... the helix... how perfect...

anyway, for those of you wondering why, i guess i was just feeling a little rebelious... or following through on something i've been wanting to do for years at the last possible opportunity... or just feeling a bit masochistic...

take your pick...

they did a great job, though... you should see it...

cheers,

(oh, for those of you who are here, the Saint Sabrina's site is a blue-screen no-no... so don't even try... my apologies if you already did...)

Brokeback to the Future...

2006-02-09T10:46:00.000-08:00

a cheerful spoof...

this comes via the sportsguy's daily links and k-roo...

enjoy...

cheers,

despondent...

2006-02-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

i put together a whole presentation on the Physicians for Human Rights Colleagues at Risk campaign, and the total attendance minus me and the two officers:

one

ugh... sometimes this place is so frustrating...

go be a dermatologist or whatever has the hours or the pay... i guess that's why you started this whole thing to begin with...

not so...

cheers,

the new gillette 5-er blade thing...

2006-02-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

for anyone who saw the superbowl for the commercials (which were really the only highlight, if you can call them that, in that stinker) and thought the new gillette razor was a bit over the top, let me direct you to the onion archives...

the only thing that could make this product lamer would be it having been spoofed before even existing yet...

oh! there it is... a new low...

cheers,

rodeo...

2006-02-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

on saturday night, a bunch of us went up to saint paul for the rodeo... see the link above for the highlight of the eveninng--whiplash... as seen on sportscenter...

and the most surprsing thing about the rodeo was the fact that i spearheaded the trip...

also, we took in ethiopian, which was great... although Dr. B puked up his meal (we shared the same plate, so I'm pinning it on his own gastrointestinal incompetence)

and i found my first good irish pub experience in minnesota... the local, in downtown minneapolis... it's great... what scotch...

cheers,

(edit: link fixed)

horribly cruel video footage...

2006-02-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

ouch...

no comments...

2006-02-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

motorist...
disposed sandwich...
angry environmentally oriented cyclist...
street brawl...

what fun...

cheers,

two-week lull?

2006-02-01T09:05:00.000-08:00

wow!

two weeks without a post--my apologies... i've been, well, free, so i guess that spare time doesn't lend well to updating the blog...

what's the big news in my world? well, other than the fact that second semester is quite a bit more managable than the first, I will probably be moving from my one-bedroom apartment to a 2-bedroom apartment in my building that must be two and half time bigger than my place and has a bit more charm to it for only a third the increase in rent... a steal in my mind...

and with this move, it's probably fairly unlikely that i'll move again in my tenure here...

other than that, not too much has been going on with me... how about you?

i'll try to stay on top of the blog better...

cheers,

matt

"the crack-cocaine of cheese"

2006-01-19T23:32:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-18T16:49:00.000-08:00

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?

2006-01-18T16:08:00.000-08:00

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

At least they're hard to steal...

pretty bird...

2006-01-18T08:58:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-17T03:50:00.000-08:00

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?

2006-01-16T23:09:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-14T19:01:00.000-08:00

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"

2006-01-12T14:09:00.000-08:00

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?

2006-01-12T09:15:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-12T00:13:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-10T20:38:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-09T18:32:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-08T15:31:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2006-01-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-04T10:08:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-01-03T08:59:00.000-08:00

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,

1/8th a doctor!!!

2005-12-15T23:15:00.000-08:00

I made it!!!

The first half of the year is done and done!!! Time for some well earned time off back in the hub with family and friends!!!

It's been a super long week, but a ton has been accomplished--four tests, one newsletter, one big surprise for the class, a wicked party, a basketball game, and a bunch of other stuff...

since break is starting up, i'll be taking some time off from the blog, but i hope to put up a couple reflections on my five months here...

looking forward to seeing everyone...

cheers,

what is original?

2005-12-11T20:02:00.000-08:00

i was watching nbc tonight, and during their advertisment for "the office," a remake of a wildly successful british comedy, they claimed it to be an original comedy...

can a remake of a foreign success be consider original in any sense?

cheers,

voyeurism...

2005-12-10T10:39:00.000-08:00

i'm sitting in "my" starbucks... (actually, i haven't really been coming here enough to call it my starbucks) just sitting down actually, and setting up for a five hour haul of studying, and i get the pleasure of the following modern service-industry based incident...

the scene: starbucks
the players: "barista" (i think that's the word), and one particularly distraught and unskilled customer

anyway, apparently there's some sort of history between this customer and this barista, which i don't think actually exists--the customer apparently feels like the barista has had attitude in the past towards this particular customer, and, today, she decided to bring it up and confront this particular barista (a particularly cute asian one, incidently)...

it was hilarious to watch... maybe there was attitude, maybe there wasn't... who the heck knows... but who would even care about such a thing enough to turn it into a ten minute spectacle and turn their local bean-scene into dangerous ground? (like you'd ever order food again from someone or someplace you dressed down openly)...

god, i wish i got the whole thing on tape...

i'm not siding with either of them because i have no clue if one or the other is in the right, or something is being made out of nothing...

but, as a devout right-coaster, what's a quality joe-joint without a little sass from the servers? no place i'd want to be... where's the character without it? what would regina's pizzeria be like without waitresses moving into their fifth decade of service curtly demanding your order...

anyway, let's post a photo from tushar's bag of tricks... (i don't know if i mentioned it, but when i downloaded a photo I wanted from tushar, i got 399 additional unrequested photos, and they are solid gold) let's take a look in the bag...

I call this piece "i'm going to get you, sucka" (dedicated to Prof. H. J. Portlock), starring minneapolis male modeling sensation A-roop. Note the pumpkin and the bird in the background, and the photographer's interesting utilization of angles and unorthodox perspective--this is the height of current MSP mod photography.

cheers,

busybusybusy...

2005-12-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

this last week of class is killer busy...

we have four exams in four business days, plus i'm hosting an interviewee for two nights, i'm trying to pull together the class of '09 newsletter, and i've gotta get ready to get out of R-town for the two week winter break (which i'm highly anticipating)

first test went really well though--sat down, did all twenty-nine questions in a short few minutes, and walked right out of there...

that's right, we be gangsta....

cheers,

did you hear the one about...?

2005-12-07T21:07:00.000-08:00

last day of anatomy... some highlights:

Dr. C, the course director for anatomy, has a wry sense of humor, and rather enjoys cracking jokes during lecture... for weeks, we've been talking about getting a snare drum and crash cymbal to give him a little rimshot every time he says one--you know, the "ba-dum crash" you associate with the punchline... well, Dave and I pulled it off...

high comedy... everyone loved it...

here's the infamous table 11 doing a bit of the "dance of joy" now that anatomy is over... what a quality group...

and here's a shot of me sneaking into a shot with all of the beautiful people of the class of '09...

cheers,

three degrees of separation...

2005-12-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

in pathology, we're studying emboli...

for some reason, every time it comes up, I can't help but think of John Knowles A Separate Peace--you probably read it in high school... remember that Finny dies at the end from a marrow embolism?

And then my wandering mind lands of Sideways, the recent indie film hit about wine... miles' english class is reading it at one point, and he's sitting there dazed as the bell rings...

and then i can't help think of my favorite scenes--the golf scene, reclaiming the lost wallet, crashing the car... and i nearly lose it...

emboli are a real problematic subject for me in lecture...

ghastly cold...

2005-12-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

omg... the cold is just oppressive...

the thermometer reads -1F, but the net says it "feels" like -20F...

this is probably the first day, other than a couple days with torential downpours, that i'm truly thankful i live a mere forty meters from the nearest tunnel to school...

buckle up for a lot of posts about the temperature, specifically it being low...

anyway, here's a toasty indoor shot of the lot of us at Doc R's birthday a couple of weeks ago...

cheers,

baptism by dissection...

2005-12-06T07:33:00.000-08:00

by now, with only one anatomy dissection left, everyone in my dissection group has had the same experience...

while working intently upon a particular area, I, and some of my colleagues, occasionally get in rather close... and sometimes the forceps or a clamp slips, and all of the sudden you feel the splatter of cool...

and then you turn to your partner and ask,

"um, do i have fat on my face?"

ugh, it's just gross...

oneil...

2005-12-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

good news, good news...

the young and accomplished oneil, a fraternity brother and friend from tech, has been invited for a MudPhud interview at the clinic...

three huzzahs for bro oneil... an all-around tribute to the human race...

already something to look forward to this coming january...

cheers,

snow blows...

2005-12-04T19:57:00.000-08:00

all week long i've been looking forward to a trip to the cities with friends to check out a hip new fusion eatery, do some shopping, and paint the town red...

but what happens?

snow... a constant barrage of snow...

anyway, it wasn't all bad, as after helping the awesome albert, his lovely wife krista, and their beautiful and boisterous daughter bella (seen here below--Albert's expression is due to the shock of a his surprise b-day party being sprung on him at the student lounge)

move to their new home in southeast rochester, my body was due for a rest... and chilling at tushar's indoor pool party and watching the USC game (see below: sujit--the true usc fan--on the left and tushar--who's a UCBerkeley guy and I think lost a bet--on the right) with these guys was just what the doctor, who i guess is me, ordered...

anyway, even though my weekend didn't go as planned, it was definitely nice...

also, on friday, i went to my first baby shower--albert and krista are expecting again... ha!!!!

cheers,

love this photo...

2005-12-02T12:44:00.000-08:00

nothing to add today, but i just like this photo...

that's tushar in the backgound... we're at one of the local taverns post medschool ball, enjoying a drink and, me, a quarter of a cigarette before stubbing it out...

cheers,

burgertime and coldplay...

2005-12-01T22:47:00.000-08:00

when i look at the coldplay album cover for X & Y, i can't stop thinking that the burgertime guy is somehow the inspiration for the concept...

decide for yourself...

the bottom one is Peter Pepper, if you were wondering...

cheers,

urology...

2005-12-01T19:32:00.000-08:00

spent the afternoon with a consultant on the urology service in clinic--pretty interesting stuff actually... I'm a bit surprised at the diversity of stuff that they actually do... lot's of prostate (benign prostate hyperplasia mostly) stuff today... anyway, i was hoping to be in the O/R with Urology tomorrow, but that fell through...

just as well, though... i've really got to get some studying done...

and another photo...

this is brandon, ashlee, diana, and i at pizza luce (the first piece of good pizza i've had in the state) after the saves the day concert... that was a fun night...

and speaking of brandon, dave and i went to spectate the class basketball team, and they edge it out in a squeaker... good times...

cheers,