Concupiscent Curds

Dunces

Patient:  The 5 milligram tablet makes me shaky and so I check my blood sugar and it's dropped below 100.  But the ten milligram tablet doesn't do this.  I want to take the 10 milligrams.

Me:  Okay, you are saying that you want to take MORE of the medicine that seems to be dropping your serum glucose too low?  That doesn't make any fucking sense.*

Patient:  No, no.  See, the 10 milligrams didn't do it.

Me:  I'm not refilling the 10 mg tablets.

Patient:  [Angry]  Why not?!

Me:  Because this ain't a fucking doughnut shop.  You don't just walk in here and ask for a dozen glazed.  See?!  I have to act in your best interests even if you are too much of a dumb-fuck to do it for yourself.

~ 

*Closed course.  Stunt doctor acting in a controlled environment.  Do not attempt.  No patient's feelings were harmed in this event even though someone oughta slap some fuckin' sense into 95% of 'em.

That's my kinda faith

Our local AAA club, the New Orleans Zephyrs had both "Faith Night" and "Thirsty Thursday" last night--in other words, $1 Beer Night!

I wish I coulda made it.  I'd have been more than thrilled to drink a beer for Jesus.

I have been clueless since Katrina.

Or, maybe I should say, I was clueless.  Until last week or so.

I'll admit it.  I only recently re-subscribed to The T.P. after suffering local news burnout during Katrina's aftermath:  "Road Home...We had 8 feet...It was the Ultimate...blah, blah, blah."

Other than email updates from The New York Times and some medical news email updates I received, I was pretty clueless for the world outside of Mike & Mike since then.  Now, with my renewed T.P. subscription, I've also added a Kindle subscription to The NY Times.

But what about other docs?  Instead of choosing to bury their heads in the sand like I did, perhaps many physicians don't have the time to actually read a paper. 

Maybe that's why Vytorin is still being prescribed by many docs.  Although steadily dropping in sales since January when a study suggested that it really wasn't a very good drug, 1.4 million prescriptions for Vytorin were filled in the U.S. in April.

I'm not sayin' I'm like freakin' Jesus or anything--but I will be your Messiah if you'd only ask, my son--but sometimes I wished I were less honest, and I'd fix me up some good cockamamie B.S.--like that lady did with the new placebo pill--and hawk it as a get-rich-and-lose-weight-quick pill.

Damned ethics.

Holy smokes! A smart politician! No, I'm certainly not talkin' 'bout Ray Na'

And a Republican, too!  Go figure.

Chocolate vagina time?

Ray Nagin is due to give his State of the City speech tonight.  And you never know what Ray-Na' is gonna say-say.

What does Krispy Kreme and the Universe have in common?

Like Krispy Kreme stock prices, they may both be finite.  And the universe may just be shaped like a doughnut.  

I'm definitely not smart enough to describe this.  You can read more here.

[Source: The New York Times.  An free one-time sign-up is necessary.]

WTF?

Me:  Hi, Dr. Curds, what brings you in today?

Patient:  I can't breathe when I yawn.  I'm worried about it.

Me:  Excuse me?

Patient:  When I yawn, I can't breathe.

Me:  It's only when you yawn?

Patient:  Yes, I can't catch my breath for about two seconds.

Me:  Uhm, by definition, yawning IS breathing.  You're not going to breathe extra.   What else is going on? 

Patient:  That's it.

Me:  Okay.  [Refer to psych; prescribe SSRI.] 

~

I bet if I asked the patient, she would also have retro-orbital pain on micturition.

This is but one example of my daily stroll in the paradise I call clinic.

Let's Go Crazy (abbreviated)

by Prince

....So when u call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
U know the one - Dr. Everything'll Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby....

....And if de-elevator tries 2 bring u down
Go crazy - punch a higher floor

If u don't like the world you're living in
Take a look around u
At least u got friends

U see I called my old lady
4 a friendly word
She picked up the phone
Dropped it on the floor
[Panting as during sex] is all I heard

Are we gonna let de-elevator
Bring us down
Oh, no Let's Go!

Let's go crazy
Let's get nuts
Let's look 4 the purple banana
'Til they put us in the truck, let's go!

We're all excited
But we don't know why
Maybe it's cuz
We're all gonna die

And when we do (When we do)
What's it all 4 (What's it all 4)
U better live now
Before the grim reaper come knocking on your door....

Space cadets

Did you know that the number of known planets is 287?  That's crazy!  I remember being in first grade when Pluto was discovered.  Alas, it's not even considered a planet anymore.

Now, if I could just figure out which planets 95% of my patients are from, maybe I'll understand them better.

Hurrah!

Google today tossed its hat into the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) ring. 

I hope it puts some less-than-scrupulous EMR companies out of business and that Google lives up to its name.

Oh my Darwin, Oh my Darwin

Shocker (not):  1 out of every 8 U.S. biology teachers pushes creationist nonsense onto their students.  From Nature:

"Although the survey is small...it is quite worrying that 13% of teachers thought an excellent biology course 'could exist without mentioning Darwin or evolutionary theory at all.'"

I'm as serious as bird flu

I'm all funnied out today so here's more serious stuff.  From Nature:

"The European Commission has approved a new vaccine against the H5N1 bird flu virus — the first vaccine designed to ward off a future pandemic. But how the drug, called Prepandrix, will be deployed by national governments remains unclear [emphasis added].

The vaccine...is aimed at the H5N1 strain currently circulating in birds as epidemiologists think that this is the most likely strain to cause a human pandemic...

...Vaccines and antiviral treatments might not be the only weapons...Last month, researchers at the Emory Vaccine Centre in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation unveiled a new method to speed up production of human antibodies that could fight back against a virulent virus. The technique, although expensive, could prove useful in responding to future outbreaks."

You say you want some evolution

Researchers at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California have demonstrated real-time evolution.  

They put micro-volumes of liquid onto a special computer chip.  In the liquid were RNA molecules that could hook itself onto fragments of RNA which were also in the liquid, thus causing more complete RNA molecules to form. When the RNA, in effect, replicated itself, the computer would suck up the newly formed RNA and dilute the population of "whole" RNA in the liquid to even lower concentrations.

After 500 dilutions, the whole RNA molecules had accumulated 11 mutations and performed 90 times faster than the original RNA catalyst. 

What happened here is that "the system created a selection pressure for more efficient RNA catalysts" and that, dear readers, is natural selection.





Source:  Nature Vol 452

Stoner News

The good news is that smoking marijuana calms people down and relieves pain.

The bad news is that smoking marijuana--besides the possibility of landing you in prison--causes memory loss.

The good news is that a prof at the University of California, Berkeley--wouldn't you know--has identified chemicals that inhibit enzymes which catalyze the destruction of two key compounds in Mary Jane's attack on the brain, in effect, increasing the pain relief and possibly decreasing the memory loss.

The bad news is that the chemicals are organophosphate nerve agents.



Source:  Nature Vol 453/ 1 May 2008

Rednecks

I read recently that another Louisiana legislating genius wanted to make it illegal to have one's pants hanging so low down that you see all boxers or butt-crack.

Whaddaya gonna do, arrest 67% of the metropolitan population'? 

I'm not sure what came of that bill, but I say that the legislators create a law which fines folks for something that is really repulsive, something I shouldn't have to explain to my 3 year-old son one day.  Namely, why do rednecks have those plastic scrotums hanging from the tailgate of their redneck trucks?

Now, there's nothing wrong with a pickup.  I used to drive one.  But I didn't have the Confederate flag on the back wender and I didn't have no balls hangin' down from the damned kruck. 

I ain't no lawyer but isn't there a federal law against someone putting pornography or, say, plastic balls in your face when you don't wish to see it?  Maybe that's only valid in the workplace.

If it's not illegal to hang balls from your truck, then why don't I hang a plastic va-ja-jay from my Maserati Porsche Honda?  I'll be expressing my fellow vagina-friendliness, that's all.

*picks up phone to call patent lawyer*

Hello, Shark. Curds Writer.  Listen, I want to put a plastic vulva on the back of my car. 

Why?  Because Da Mayor is vagina-friendly, and I am, too, that's why.  Can we patent it?

No, no that was my plastic poo idea before. 

*Lawyer hangs up*

Sheesh.

Note to son: Ballplayers are not necessarily smart

Will somebody tell Goose Gossage to shut the hell up? 

Not only did Rich Gossage blast Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain for a moderately-strong fist-pump that Chamberlain did last week after a big strike-out, but last night on-air in the White Sox v. Giants game in San Francisco, Goose also repeatedly said he wished baseball could go back to the "innocent times" of his day.

Really, Goose?  So innocent that you purposely hit "only" three batters with your 100 mph fast ball?  Couldn't you have eased up just a bit to, say, 91 mph in case you, oh, I don't know, killed someone who may not have been able to get out of the way?  (Nobody died so I guess it's all good, right?)  So innocent that the greenies many players took back in your day were not at all akin to today's anabolic steroids? 

Gossage went on to say that he happily took his ~$16,000 per year salary but he "probably would have played for nothing."

Goose, Goose.  That's bush-league.  You are about to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer.  Can't you come up with a more creative way to vent your jealousy?  It's okay, we're all jealous of major-league salaries now.

And for chrissakes, shave already.

Something in the Water

by Prince

...Does not compute (Does not compute)
Don't not compute (Don't not compute)
U think you're special, well so do I
Why do special women make me cry?
Does not compute (Does not compute)
It don't not compute (Don't not compute)

Must be something in the water they drink
It's been the same with every girl I've had
Must be something in the water they drink
'Cuz why else would a woman wanna treat a man so bad?

Some people think I'm kinda cute
But that don't compute when it comes 2 Y-O-U
It don't compute (Don't not compute)
Somethin' mama don't compute (Don't not compute)
What's the hangup? What's the scam?
Guess U think I'm just another 1...1 of your fans
It don't compute (Don't not compute)
Somethin' honey don't compute (Don't not compute)

Must be something in the water they drink
It's been the same with every girl I've had
Must be something in the water U drink
'Cuz why else would a woman wanna treat a man so bad?...

Robert Mondavi, R.I.P.

Robert Mondavi is dead.  Long live Robert Mondavi.

How about makin' those free one-way tickets out of town to about 67% of NOLA residents?

The V.F.* Mayor of Choc-o-late City made another great one-liner yesterday.  He said NOLA should give all of the city's homeless--estimated to be between five and twelve thousand people--one-way tickets out-of-town. 

Waaaa! Ahhhh, haaaa, haaa, ha, ha, ha.  Stop!  Stop!  I can't take anymore!  You're killing me!  Woahhhh!  Haaaa, ha,ha ha, ha ah aah  haaaa.  Haaa-ooohhh.  Ohhhhh. Myyyyy.  Ohh. Heeeeee--oooohhhh.  Shoooo.  Ooohhh.  Oh, me.

That Mayor Nagin.  He's a friggin' riot.

No, really, Mayor Nagin.  Stop.  You're killing me.  You're killing us all. 

Can't we just push him onto a bus?  Like, now?

*vagina-friendly

Gay couples can legally wed in Cali, maybe

From Time magazine online today:

A little more than an hour after the California Supreme Court ruled yesterday that gay couples can legally wed, one of the plaintiffs in the case, Stuart Gaffney, was exultant. Speaking for himself and his partner of 21 years, Gaffney told a press conference, "This is the happiest and most romantic day of our lives." Really?

Gaffney and his boyfriend should consider a gay cruise, or just a walk in the park before the weather turns hot. As sweeping as they can be, court decisions are not romantic

The Cali Supremes did not actually "legalize" same-sex marriage. They just said that a law banning same-sex marriage while allowing opposite-sex marriage is unconstitutional.  Check out Time's John Cloud--what a lovely surname, Cloud--for what "California's Gay Ruling Won't Do."

Just for the record, I'm really, really against same-sex marriages. 

But then, I'm against opposite-sex ones, too.

Too much doing-the-unstuck, too few Trojans

The biggest threat to safety and sanity for us humans isn't HIV or global warming.  It's the population explosion.  Dot Earth is a cool blog from the New York Times [a free one-time registration is required and they don't spam me nor tell the little green men hiding in my computer how to get out and steal my Apple Jacks like some other sites which shall remain nameless but start with the letter eBay!]

By 2050 or so, the world population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. In Dot Earth, reporter Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits.

Again, it is the consequences of too much doing-the-unstuck and too little birth control.  But nevermind Catholicism's following logic and changing their stance on birth control, right?  I mean, this is the church that refused to acknowledge Galileo was correct for over 200 years.  And it was another 150 years before a Pope said that the Bible might not be the best means of knowing the universe. 

Wait! I forgot.  Where was the Catholic church again during Katrina?  Ohhh, yeah, that's right, covering their pedophile-priests' asses.

Science is cool

Not only is white-coat hypertension now considered real, but some Italian reseachers have also found that folks with the white-coat kind of high blood pressure have less likelihood of having The Big One than folks with "real" hypertension. 

White-coat hypertension was defined as clinical hypertension [i.e., blood pressure that was high when checked in a clinical setting by a really hot nurse, but with] daytime blood pressure [checked by a machine at the patient's home, for example] <135/85 mm Hg...In this study, cardiovascular risk in white-coat hypertension was significantly lower than that in sustained hypertension and not significantly different from normotension both in the short and long term.

Isn't science super?  Teaches us a lot of really cool shit we didn't know from, I don't know, common fucking sense.  Why, just last year I did a study and learned that eating five Ball Park Franks smothered in onions, chili and cheese washed down by six or seven Guinness beers and topped off with a butterscotch sundae every day for six months will give you a really fat ass and increase your b.p.

And I can't even stand butterscotch!

You know--those franks--they plump when you cook 'em. 

True dat.

More NOLA same old same old

Pop Quiz! Put your books away and get out your pencils: 

Ready?  Okay.

New Orleans is to chocolate as Ray Nagin is to ________.*

~

Two aides of Da Mayor of Chocolate City, Ceeon Quiett and Kenya Smith, are responsible for over $80,000 of credit card charges--at taxpayer's expense--in a six-month period of 2007, the T.P. reported today.  One charge was for almost $3,900 at Morton's steakhouse. 

Thus saith Kenya,

"If you're lobbying a council member or a state representative on something and you bring them to an environment where they're more comfortable and they feel more at ease talking -- as opposed to the drive-through window at McDonald's -- there's a greater likelihood of being able to prevail on the issue," Smith said. 

Kenya, an apparent scholar-ethicist added,

"This is within the standards of how it's done around the country.  You don't take people to eat at a greasy spoon, or say, 'We're going to give you a turkey sandwich.'"

McDonald's drive-through?  Turkey sandwiches?  What ridiculously flawed logic.  But then, we simpletons aren't as edumacated and cultured as Kenya, I guess.

Smith said he wouldn't characterize the steakhouse as an elite restaurant. But Morton's is the second-most-expensive New Orleans restaurant...

According to the T.P., the city's new inspector general has not (yet) characterized any of the expenses as inappropriate but added,

"I would rather have people be reimbursed," Cerasoli [the inspector general] said. "It's easier to control, easier to watch."

Other seemingly egregious charges include expensive floral arrangements totalling more than $1K to out-of-state Democratic, African-American friends of either Ms. Quiett or Nagin. 

Just for the record, Ceeon makes $131,468 annually; Kenya, $134,775.

*Submit your answers via email.  First place wins abso-fucking-lutely nothing.  Yes, shit is too easy.  Come on.  You're better than that bush-league crap.    Ta-da-ohh.

More proof my wife is hotter than Angelina Jolie

Magnificent boobies?    *check to Hotty Wife*    *check to Jolie*

Lips to die for?    *check*    *check*

Sexy husbands?   *hmm, leave blank and come back to this one...naw, I must say check*    *check*

Too-hot legs?  *check*   *[blank]*

~

There you have it.  Hotty wife wins by a leg.  Me and she, we're ham and legs.*

*Yes, I stole this from a Moonlighting episode.  Yes, I hope this post gets me some tonight.  Don't you have some scut work to do?

Kiss

by Prince

Uh!

U don't have 2 be beautiful 2 turn me on
I just need your body, baby, from dusk till dawn
U don't need experience 2 turn me up there
U just leave it all up 2 me, I'm gonna show U what it's all about

U don't have 2 be rich 2 be my girl
U don't have 2 be cool 2 rule my world
Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
I just want your extra time and your . . . kiss

U got 2 not talk dirty, baby, if U wanna impress me
U can't be 2 flirty, mama, I know how 2 undress me (Yeah)
I want 2 be your fantasy, maybe U could be mine
U just leave it all up 2 me, we could have a good time

U don't have 2 be rich 2 be my girl
U don't have 2 be cool 2 rule my world
Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
I just want your extra time and your . . . kiss

Yes, oh
I think I wanna dance, uh
Gotta, gotta, oh
Little Girl Wendy's Parade
Gotta, gotta, gotta

Women, not girls, rule my world, I said they rule my world
Act your age, mama, not your shoe size, maybe we could do the twirl
U don't have 2 watch Dynasty 2 have an attitude, uh
U just leave it all up 2 me, my love will be your food (Yeah)

U don't have 2 be rich 2 be my girl
U don't have 2 be cool 2 rule my world
Ain't no particular sign I'm compatible with!
I just want your extra time and your kiss

Robert Rauschenberg, R.I.P.

Robert Rauschenberg is dead.  Long live Robert Rauschenberg.

A "titan" of American art, the New York Times calls him, Rauschenberg is one of my all-time faves.

A note on living in New Orleans

It's my own fault, really.  I'd visited New Orleans a few times, hoped to match here after med school, did, and moved here in 2000.  I found the culture and food--the whole city really--romantic and historic, and I romanced and married me a beautiful New Orleans lady who was bound on staying.  I welcomed the thought.

Things aren't always what they first seem.  Well, the wife's still beautiful, at least.

~

I forcibly gnawed the French bread and told myself I liked it.  Tried to enjoy the bread pudding.  With whiskey sauce.  Without.  Hated Bayona.  And Galatoire's.  Found Jacques-Imo's atmosphere dreadful.  Had better gumbo in Jackson, Mississippi.  Loved the bread pudding souffle but otherwise thought Commander's Palace vastly overrated.  Tipitina's?  Drab.  The Sazerac cocktail?  I've tried and tried--like when I learned to like Scotch--but it's just awful.  The weather?  (Do I really need to answer that?)  And courtesy?   Fuhgettaboutit!

No, I'm not Catholic, why does everybody ask me this? (By the way, where the hell was the Catholic Church after Katrina?)  And why is no one of Spanish heritage here but everyone has French heritage?  Isn't it really the Spanish Quarter?  And why are you Granger as in Texas Ranger but she is Granger as in Grand Marnier? 

The sales tax is how fucking much?

Please tell me again, why is this bar so cool?  Because it's a train bar, whatever the fuck that is, cuz I don't see any trains?  Because the roaches--sorry--palmetto bugs in here are big enough to eat the shoes right off my feet?  Because the whiskey sour is made with New Orleans bottled sour mix?  Or, is it because the walls weep a moldy effluent?  And no, I don't want to hear about your ménage à trois again; I already threw up once here last month, thank you, when you pointed out your threesome included the hot bartender with the ultimate package who was actually eating a palmetto bug while the drunken crowd roared.

~

Yes, I'm still crazy about some things here.  Barbecued shrimp.  The Saints.  Muffalettas.  Kermit Ruffins.  Fried oysters.  Snug Harbor (sometimes).  And I definitely love me some Abita Amber.   

But enough's enough. 

The whole city seems to have homogenized itself into a caricature of what New Orleans is supposed to be, to tourists, in hopes in won't go teats up and fold again (especially after The K Word hit) like it did at the turn of the 20th century when it seemed the World was but an Oyster and New Orleans, its Pearl.  Instead of offering us and the world something new and something old, something, well, New Orleans-y, it's more Bourbon Street strip clubs and more "Proud Mary" playing in the Quarter than you could hear at a Tina Turner impersonation contest.  Everything is fluer-de-freaking-lis.  Every restaurant has the same menu.  Every party has gristly stuffed artichokes.  Every wedding, a second line.   

But I thought those were for funerals.

I guess it's understandable.  To fall back on what you know and all.  But like those Wall Street types say, If you ain't growin', you're dyin'.

To an outsider--and I could live here for 185 more years and become Mayor of the city and I'd still be the Longest Living Outsider Ever in New Orleans--I know that it's the same old same old.  Even pre-Katrina.  The same crappy old blues players at Jazz Fest; where I get the added pleasure of hearing them interrupt their set and preach about the good ol' days and all of their dead blues players friends for the 25 minutes I'm standing in line to pee, a jam session (if you can call it that) for the thirty minutes I'm queued up again to get a warm, Louisiana-Proud Bud Light and watching a 15 year-old girl puke and nearly pass out while I wait yet another fifteen minutes for cold crawfish bread that has more wooly bread and neo-glow orange sauce than crawfish and wonder which is worse, the preachin' and singin', the standin' or the amazing food and drink. 

Of course, by then it's started to rain.

Earlier in the year, if I'm not excited about Mardi Gras it's as if I'd just told my 2 year-old son and all of his 2 year-old friends that there's no Santa Claus.  Yet Mardi Gras is the same recycled Mardi Gras floats in the same Mardi Gras parades only with different names--Yea!  It's Orpheus tonight!--with the same Mardi Gras songs by the same Mardi Gras bands--Ooh, ooh!  Move back!  Here comes Saint Aug!--and those same really old ladies in the same leopard-print leotards as last year doing the same half-ass high-steppin' to the same chest-thumpin' Whoomp! (There It Is) blaring from the same champagne Chrysler 3000 with spinnin' 24's behind 'em.  After each parade, I'm subjected to the same dried-out-is-this-unleavened cake doused in the same grainy, purple, green and Corvette-yellow icing washed down this time with Louisiana-Proud Coors Light, hoping I don't choke on the plastic baby because if I don't eat any it's an offense to all present when all I really want is a place to go wash myself.

Over and over and over and over for weeks. 

~

New Orleans, the City that Care Forgot.

Better, the City they Forgot to Clean.

But what's a hick from Arkansas know about great cuisine or important culture, right? 

Don't leave it to me.  Cooks and crooks--and very often very un-great food--is how world-renowned food writer Alan Richman summarized what New Orleans is most famous for. 

New Orleans fell in love with itself and acted accordingly, becoming a festival of narcissism, indolence, and corruption. Tragedy could not have come to a place more incapable of dealing with it.

And not simply because of a batshit crazy, racist Mayor who's vagina-friendly, I'd like to add.

But let's not even get into the crime.  The corruption.  The view on Veterans Highway.

~

Were it not for my son's wonderful grandparents here, my wife's attachment to this town would be completely irrational.  However, I realize that a person's home can make you this way, too.  Why, look at the Palestinians and Israelis.  They're so torn over losing the places they grew up in that they've been killing each other for millenia over it.

And I bet they don't even have Abita beer there.

Lately, I often picture myself in some sort of black-and-white dream, like on the tarmac at the end of Casablanca, and I'm a sad-but-determined Bogey in a fedora--but at Louis Armstrong International Airport in Kennah instead of Morocco--and I'm shoving my family (Grandma and Gramps, too) onto a shiny turboprop in a dense, stormy night and we fly, heroically, towards sunsets in a land of big yards, low sales taxes, and cornbread dressing.

And Lysol.

And we wouldn't come back for those goddamned parades.

O.J. did it. Wha'???

A new tell-all book by a former friend of O.J. Simpson says he helped O.J. beat the murder rap by telling him how he could makes his hands seem too big for the infamous bloodied gloves.  In an AP story, he also claims that Simpson, in a beer and bud haze, admitted to the murder of his ex-wife:

Simpson had smoked pot, took a sleeping pill and was drinking beer when he confided at his Brentwood home weeks after his trial what happened the night of June 12, 1994. Simpson said he went to his ex-wife's condominium, but did not bring a knife with him. Simpson told him Nicole Brown Simpson had one in her hand when she opened the door.

In a soft mumble, Simpson told him: "If she hadn't opened that door with a knife in her hand ... she'd still be alive."

What?  And all this time I was thinkin' to myself, IF YOU HADN'T FUCKING MURDERED HER THEN SHE'D PROBABLY STILL BE FUCKING ALIVE AND HER KIDS--YOUR KIDS--WOULD STILL HAVE THEIR MOTHER, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF PIG SHIT!

*Gathers himself*

Thank you and good night.

Hip: like new, squeaky clean, only $65,000

So you think your Tuesday is sucking?  Try being this cat who can't walk without his new ceramic hip squeaking like a mouse in an owl's gullet.

Of course, this ain't the first squeaky hip.  The ass-wipe company that made the ceramic hip replacement parts says “there is not any clinical evidence to indicate that the products mentioned in the [FDA's] Warning Letter [regarding multiple manufacturing and quality problems] present a safety issue to patients.”

Nevermind the hip, I say.  Where can I find one of those track-slash-clown suits, Pops?

Why don't I vent like this?

Maybe if I did, I wouldn't go home and kick the shit out of the dog (I don't have a dog, PETA) or drink a half dozen whiskey sours (don't do that either--uhh--usually).

Thanks to #1 Dinosaur, a solo family medicine specialist--like me!--who's blog post-rant against (some) pharmacists is better than finding a full tick on a sow's belly in August.

Yes, that is a good thing for you non-Arkansans.

Survey says

Maybe it's the anatomy lessons paying off, but according to Varsity, a University of Cambridge student newspaper, medical students have more sexual partners than other students.

Why the hell didn't I get that memo when I was in med school?

~

In another survey, sort of, I have received a few emails lately asking me Why are you such a dick?

Good question.

At times I might seem truly mean-spirited, and yeah, sometimes I wonder if I'll turn my reader(s) off, but you can ask my folks--they're just up the stairs here from the basement--and they'll tell you I'm good peoples.

Really.

For some people, religion is their Xanax and I should appreciate that.  Dare I admit that many times I've wished for some blind, nonsensical faith....Nahh, scratch that. 

But that doesn't mean I'm Satan's buddy or anything.

Really.

Mother of the Year

WTF?  Some NYC group picked Dina Lohan as one of their Celebrity Mothers of the Year. 

Sit on that one for a sec. 

The mother that gave the world Lindsey--the one that has bared her fire-crotch numerous times and has given us those, uhm, those, ahem, *gasp* voluptuous pair of....

Okay, I am seconding the nomination.

What?

Brad Pitts got a big one

Talkin' about his carbon footprint, silly.  One of Hollywood's Holier-and Greener-Than-Thou group recently jetted back and forth across half the continent in a private jet just to go to jury duty. 

Madonna?  She privately jets across the globe all the time.

Hippie-crites!

Sarah Jessica Pa....*HORF!*

As if this summer's movies weren't already going to be bad enough--Go fuck yourself, Speed Racer!--we are going to have to hear about the Sex and the City movie and sex with old chicks to the point that I'll probably hurl my Apple Jacks each morning reading about how well this garbage-fest is doing at the box office; especially when we are talking about sex with Carrie or Miranda or Samantha.

Now, Charlotte...Alls I got to say is Daddy likes!
~
Speaking of Daddy, er, Great-Granddaddy liking, Hugh Hefner's doc must not be getting the meds fine-tuned because Hef has said that he'd like Miley Cyrus to be in Playboy.

She's 15.

He clarified that, of course and added:

"To make such a big to-do over something as innocent as those [recent Vanity Fair] photos [in which Miley showed a bare back] -- I think it's a reflection of how schizophrenic America is about sexuality."

Nevermind that she's 15--that's ONE-FIVE--right Hef?

Sane or not, I'll overlook this one, Hef.  You are still, of course, my Messiah.

Let us just hope that by the time Billy Ray's little girl has done the Achy-Breaky a couple times with her cousins and gets to be 18 that she doesn't look like Sarah Jessica by then.

You know, from all the lye soap and all.

Beer

Oil prices, schmoil prices! If this doesn't get you to writing your Congressman, I'm not sure what will:    The price of hops is going up!  And dang nab-it, beer, too! 

In 2007, we learned of beer prices going up due to a shortage in hops because of freaky weather in Europe, a decrease in U.S. hops production, and an increase in the price of barley.  However, the lucky ones like us High Lifers --you know it is The Champagne of Beers...says so right here on the label--were spared because "industrial brewers like Anheuser-Busch and Miller [were] more insulated against the shortage because they have futures contracts with hops farmers."

Now, it seems that global-freaking-warming is the next threat to my daily twelve-pack, er, relaxing beer on the weekend.  Researchers are scurrying over the planet right now to find a hops varietal that thrives in a climate like, say, hell.

Whoever grows a nuclear-safe hops will be my new Jesus.

No, I don't feel the need to cut down on my drinking.  You, why are you staring?

Not now, honey. Moose is pitching

On depression in men and their resulting lack of libido.

Hardy-har-har

After swearing I'd never again read an email that is in gigantic font screaming, "DON'T DELETE!  PLEASE READ!"  I caved and read the following email today.

After being married for 40 years, I took a careful look at my wife one day and said, "Honey, 40 years ago we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa-bed and watched a 10-inch B&W TV, but I got to sleep every night with a hot, 25 year-old gal.

"Now, I have a $1 Million house, $75,000 car, king-size bed and plasma TV, but I'm sleeping with a 65-year-old woman.  It seems to me that you're not holding up your side of things."

Being the reasonable woman she is, my wife told me to go out and find a hot, 25 year-old gal, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa-bed and watching a 10-inch B&W TV.

Sent to me by my wife, no less.

Psychiatric disorders are more common among family members of people with autism

From The Wall Street Journal Health Blog: 

"Parents of children with autism are about twice as likely to have been hospitalized for mental disorders than parents of other kids, says a study published in the journal Pediatrics."

Medicine Sucks Sometimes

And this Boston doc is soon going to tell you why in his upcoming documentary. 

Thanks to Kevin, M.D. who is always better than a Boston baked bean.

Fuck the National Day of Prayer

Awesome post I wish I'd written on today's inane National Day of Prayer.

You should still drink your milk, C-

According to a Lancet study released online, researchers have identified two genetic variants which are linked with osteoporosis and bone fracture.  The variants are present together in about 20% of white women.

These two variants "can be measured with near-perfect precision ... years before the age at which fractures tend to occur — which could provide ample lead-time for preventive measures."

There was reportedly no data, however, on the 20% of white women in New Orleans with a restraining order against me for trying to save 'em a bone, iffff ya know what I mean.

 

Yet another overdone metaphor for Roger Clemens' trysts

Another of The Rocket's flames--See?! Rocket! Flames!  Get it?!--has surfaced according to New York's Daily News. 

This time it's John Daly's ex.

Allegedly.

How's this guy get out of bed in the morning?

Bad hair days

Check out MLB.com's look at the best worst lettuce of some of the 70's major-leaguers.

Damn!  I could hide a nice canned ham in that 'fro!

Penthouse Club endorses Ashley Dupre

Just kidding.  Shame on me!  Using blatant sex again to entice you to read this fine blog.

Okay, now for my endorsement for President and no, Wilford Brimley is not getting it again this year. 

So let's go through the rest of the knuckleheads running for Most Powerful [Wo]Man on Earth:

Obama:  Real simple:  Do I really want this guy "reforming" health care by injecting more bureacracy?   Answer: no.  Enough said.

Hillary:  Hillary, Hillary, Hillary.  *sigh* 

Some background re: my politics, dear reader(s):  I voted for Bush the First against Clinton.  Then voted for Clinton against Senator Viagra.  Voted for Gore.  Actually gave hard-earned coin for Kerry. 

That said, I was pulling for Hillary mainly based on Bill being in the background.  I mean, the guy had to learn something besides next time make her swallow in eight years, right?  (Ugh, I just threw up in my mouth a bit.)

But have you seen Bill speak lately?  No?  Well, last week Billy claimed on live radio that Obama played the race card on him:

“I think that they played the race card on me," Clinton said. "We now know, from memos from the campaign that they planned to do it all along."

The next day Bill Clinton denied saying this in his typical finger-wagging-I-did-not-have-sex-with-that-woman way.  (See the video here.)  But it was like he truly didn't think he said it.

One physician--obviously one much brighter and more successful than me--indicated that maybe Bill's noggin ain't firing on all cylinders because of his bypass surgery a few years ago.

No, matter.  Whatever the reason Bill is bat-shit crazy now, sorry; no dice, Hillary.

For me, it all comes down to who would I rather have a beer with? 

Can't believe I'm saying that I'm going Republican but it's Johnny-Boy McCain.

Now, where's that bookmark for Ashley's MySpace page?  I'll bet she'll be my friend!  Teehee!  Uhm, okay, maybe she will for five grand.  *Looks down at lap*  Whatever.  You can never have too many friends.