Reading

People are calling this Obama's best speech ever.

Remarks of President Barack Obama - As Prepared for Delivery

Memorial Service at Fort Hood

November 10, 2009

I wholeheartedly agree.

3 Rivers Liveblog

So, I'm watching this show so I can talk about it at work. And it is already painful to me.

We're toward the beginning and they're going into their "Transplant Committee Meeting." I haven't really been paying attention, primarily because if the idiot kid in the tie who was surprised that livers could be split turned out to be the transplant coordinator, I was going to throw Tom's laptop through the television. Let's take it from there.

21:17- OMG do they have their staff meetings at CNN headquarters? What is up with that CRAZY technology?! Also, projecting patient histories onto a glass wall seems like it would be a pretty big HIPAA violation.
21:18- It takes longer than "how about right now" to decide to put in a VAD. How about some workup people? She walked in off the street 20 minutes ago. Cripes.
21:19- Who is this random woman in a lab coat asking about organ donation at the bedside? Make it stop!!!!!!!
21:20- I can't liveblog this anymore. It hurts me so badly. Also Counselor Troi has aged terribly and isn't really great at doing an accent other than her own.
21:21- Okay, so Troi's husband is going to donate...the pregnant chick gets the heart...what is up with the kid who swallows things? I am confused.
21:24- Nobody spouts off their doctor's credentials to them. They are well-aware of their abilities.
21:26- All of these patients look totally great for needing a heart transplant.
21:26- Umm...your son eats metal. This is obviously a problem.
21:27- Via Tom "Also, his name is f-ing Auden! Auden Drinkwater?! There's no way he would've lived long enough to eat metal because he would've already been pummeled to death!"
21:28- Oh lord I think the woman who got consent at the bedside was probably the donation coordinator. Auuuugh.
21:29- Yup. The idiot is a transplant coordinator. I will cry soon.
21:30- Ummmm....jet is on standby? Really? Also, what a kickass tablet. We don't actually have these.
21:30- Good thing that dude fell off the ladder. Otherwise his wife wouldn't be having a c-section and a heart transplant all in the same day.

Commercial break: I love that now when people ask what I do for a living I can say, "You know that kid on 3 Rivers who has the IQ of an amoeba and fetches donuts for the staff meeting? That's me." Awesome. Way to totally de-glamourize the role of transplant coordination. Aaand we're back.

21:33- Of course the doctor identifies with the metal eating kid. I'm sorry, but no physician is going to tell her boss that her father wasn't home enough waaaah.
21:34- Alfre Woodard, I liked you better in basically everything else you've ever done.
21:35- Aaaand, we're back to the donor side. Time for the daughter to pitch a fit about organ donation.
21:36- CALLED IT! Also, why are the surgeons getting on a jet when the wife had already said that she didn't want to do anything til her daughter got there? The timing on this is so unrealistic. Also I want to punch the coordinator kid in the face.
21:37- omg omg omg omg that kid has to get out of there. Why would he be within 100 feet of a donor family, let alone speak to one? Who lets the cooler guys into the unit? Nobody. That's who.
21:38- How is this kid not fired right now? What is their screening process for hiring transplant coordinators? Do they go to the nearest high school and pick the dumbest kid they can find?
21:39- Is this kid going to need a transplant or is this all back-story for the whiny doctor with an absent-parent complex?
21:40- "My brain itches." So of course I swallowed tweezers and a pair of scissors. Makes sense.
21:42- And of course the pregnant chick crashes. If the solution is for the transplant team to talk to the donor family I will just die.

Commercial break: This is unrelated, but there was just a Kohler commercial where this guy flushed like 30 things down his toilet. Call me crazy, but that seems like the worst idea ever. I don't care what brand of toilet you have.

21:46- "Given everything that Terri's been through today..." You mean, her husband falling off a ladder, and then her heart stopping like 12 times?
21:47- Holy crap is she going to be a donor too? This show is depressing.
21:47- Oh Jesus please don't talk to her again. I knew they were going to turn this into a good thing. Stupid show.
21:49- This child should not be talking to this poor donor family member. I really want him off of this show. And I kind of want to choke him. A lot.
21:50- Also, way to break patient confidentiality. Yes...tell the donor family everything about the recipient. We totally do that. NOT.
21:51- Those are some pretty healthy lungs on that kid. Ah, the miracles of television.
21:52- LOL the donor's breathing tube isn't hooked up to anything.
21:53- I'm still confused why the metal eating kid is on this show. He's not getting any new organs or anything. And he's not a very cute kid. Plus he eats metal. Did she just confiscate a railroad spike from him?
21:54- Seriously...the doctor is going to be holding her hand when she wakes up? Where is her HUSBAND? And child?!
21:55- "Hi. We stole your baby and implanted you with a new heart. That'll teach you for bringing your husband into the ER with a minor scalp lac. Next time use a band-aid."
21:56- Oh Jesus. There is a satellite uplink into the nursery? They couldn't bring the baby into the room with her? The husband didn't want to be there when she woke up? Worst. Family. Ever.
21:57- I do not know a single male surgeon who would wear powder blue scrubs.

Wrap Up: Okay, so it's over. And my TV and the laptop survived. Primarily bc I needed the laptop to convey my dissatisfaction to the masses. There were some pretty glaring inaccuracies in the portrayal of the transplant process...like the timing...and some medical mistakes...like how he said her "injection fraction" was low (it's EJECTION fraction)...but overall it was just terrible. Plus really what the heck with the metal-eating kid? He didn't give or receive a transplant! Also, most doctors would've figured out that he had pica way before assuming that mommy going away for meetings once a week was making a teenager swallow tweezers.

I'll probably pop in next week to mock it again though. Because I've gotten too lazy to have original thoughts for my blog, and this show is easy to mock. Although not as easy as this show:



Til next week!

In Which Meatloaf Conquers My Fear of Death*

I've always been totally freaked out about dying. Not really the best fear to have when your job is dead people. I'm constantly spending time with the family members of people who are dead/dying in the hospital, and it's awful. I enjoy it, because it's my job to give meaning to death. Yes, your loved one died, and it totally blows. Now, let's use this senseless tragedy to save someone else's life, and tell the Grim Reaper to go screw himself. I have to have these internal monologues to do what I do, and it works. I love my job.

But, when the eye turns inward, things are a little tougher. When I watch a fiance falling apart at the bedside of her future husband's deathbed, I can't help but be a little selfish. I think that if it were my fiance in that bed, I would die. I would just die. And I'm sure that's what she's feeling. When I see parents at the bedside of their child, I think that when I have kids, they will live in a padded room, wear a helmet, and drink their meals through a straw. I know how incredibly easy it is for something simple to kill someone. And it freaks the living hell out of me.

And I've always wondered...when you're like 70 years old, do you just constantly think about death? I know a lot of really happy-seeming old people. They enjoy themselves, don't seem to have a care in the world, and I think if I were them I would be on constant death-alert. You see it on television and people say "I'm ready" or "let me go" and I've always thought, "YOU'RE CRAZY!! BREATHE!!!" I really don't understand people that are okay with death.

So last week I was watching "House." And yes, the show is ridiculous and it's never lupus and all that jazz, but I love Hugh Laurie and find the show diverting. So I'm watching, and the story is that Meatloaf is going to die of lung cancer. In the opening scene. He's on his deathbed, he's telling his wife goodbye, I'm thinking what a waste it is of a perfectly good Meatloaf cameo, and he looks like he's slipping away. And I mean, it really looks like he's going. You know when you're sooooo tired that you're falling asleep in spite of yourself? And you know how good it feels when you finally give into it? Like when you're sick and you knock yourself out with Nyquil?

That is the exact look that Meatloaf had. I felt that peaceful sleepy feeling just looking at him. And then I realized. That's how you feel when you die. (You know, unless you have some horrible traumatic accident and in those cases you're gone so fast you never feel anything anyway.) It's like the longest nap ever. And I thought, I love naps. This is how older people deal with death. They're so tired from doing their jobs, cooking, cleaning, and dealing with a-holes at Dunkin' Donuts, that death looks like a vacation. And now when I think of that wonderful slipping off to sleep feeling, I think that death will eventually be okay.

And that is how in one brilliant guest appearance, Meatloaf conquered my fear of death.

*This post is dedicated to Donny. The only person I know who appreciates the true genius that is Meatloaf.

Talkin' About My Generation

I'm at the grocery store waiting at the seafood counter. There is a well-dressed woman in her 40's yapping away on her cellphone behind me. All of a sudden an announcement comes over the PA system about some sale they're having.

Yappie McGee: "Could that announcement have been any FUCKING louder?! Jesus!"

I look back at her, wondering who she's talking to and thinking that Jesus probably doesn't appreciate that kind of language. Unless Chris Rock is using it...then he probably finds it hilarious like the rest of us.

The guy working the seafood counter comes up and takes my order. I ask him for salmon and to please remove the skin (because I am lazy.) The guy smiles, says sure, and starts to work. As he's procuring the fish and the instruments necessary for its denudement, he starts chatting with his coworkers. All of a sudden, I realize Yappie McGee has sidled up to me.

Yappie McGee: "Doesn't that just make you crazy?"
Me: "What?"
YM: "The fact that he's having a conversation while he's servicing you*."
Me: "No...he's getting my stuff...as long as I don't have to take the skin off that fish, I don't care what he does."
YM: "Hmph. Well...I guess that just shows the difference between the younger and older generations."

I'm thinking that the difference she's sensing is actually that of nice person vs. total bitch, but I'm ready to make a break for it. Seafood guy smiles, hands me my fish, and asks if I need anything else. I say no and walk away as quickly as possible to the sounds of:

Yappie McGee: "Why is that fish so white?"
Seafood Guy: "It's a whitefish. It's supposed to be white."

Poor Seafood Guy.


*I had to stifle a major giggle when she said this. hehehe servicing :-p

WOW!

It's late, and I have to go to bed, but I just had to tell someone:

I totally love Bela Karolji. Watching him watch the female gymnastics portion of the Olympics is probably the single greatest thing in sports broadcasting ever.

Oh my God I love him. So adorable.

Thinking

Is it just me, or is the person who takes this bag as a carry-on a total jackass?As if the line isn't long enough without some moron trying to prove a point. And a stupid point at that.

Apps

I sign into Facebook pretty frequently. I play a *lot* of Scrabulous. So, when I signed in this morning and was greeted by this in my mini-feed, I was a little disturbed:

"Molly has made a baby with Michelle! Click here to make a baby!"

Facebook now has an app to make babies. Lesbian babies? It's possible! Options are "Make a baby alone", "Make a baby together", and "Adopt a baby." I know because I just added the app to figure out what the hell is going on. Answer? Creepy baby-making.

"Edit Your Genetic Profile, it will be used when you Make A Baby with friends.Your genetic profile, along with your mate's, is used by our application to determine the features of your baby."

Apparently this is what my baby will look like. I'm glad she'll be 3 years old at birth. I'm sure that'll save me some trouble. I think my favorite thing about this app is the options. You get to name it, talk about its activities (mine really enjoys rock climbing and sodoku), and then you can give it away! Perhaps best of all is when you're done creating this thing, you get to click a button that says "SAVE MY BABY!" That's pretty hilarious.

So I guess what I'm saying is that soon you won't have to do anything off-line. Including procreate. And though the app is wicked creepy in principle, what comes out isn't nearly as creepy as these bad boys. Because holy crap really who buys those?

Clean Slate

Why does Slate Magazine suck now? Slate used to have articles about everything- current events, health, movies, shopping, you name it. Now they have categories for everything, but not necessarily articles. A lot of what I loved about Slate has been mangled into what I assume they think is a "hipper" online magazine.

Now instead of launching right into political commentary, I get to try to close down a full-page pop-up ad for a new American Express card. When I'm trying to surreptitiously read a movie review at work, I'm instead greeted with a video window that won't play on my computer. And I haven't seen an article by Seth Stevenson in forever. (This is probably unrelated to the redesign but dude? He was hilarious. Where did he go?)

Then today I saw this and wondered: is this the way of the future for Slate? Because:
1. This isn't funny.
2. This isn't smart.
3. I want my money back. (And the fact that I didn't pay is beside the point. I deserve reparations for having sat through this. Particularly the chase-scene. If you think you could call it that.)

Bring back Slate! If I'm online to read something, I want to read it! If I'm looking for something funny to watch, I'll search for "baby evil eye" on YouTube.

(Also, make Dear Prudence a column again instead of a stupid video feature. It's like Jerry Springer for the literate.)