menometrorrhagia

One of my favorite things when playing basketball is to defy expectations.  Like when the hoodrats in Waco said in disbelief, “That dude from the Monkeys is schooling you!”  Or when I hit a turnaround fadeaway to seal a Hoop-it-up game and Kenny’s friend Rusty (?) looked at me like I’d just shot fireballs out of my ass.  My favorite thing, however, is to do that on D.

My freshman year at Baylor there was a guy in my dorm that I played a lot of ball with.  He was around 6′4″, high school all star, a baller.  He used to get really pissed trying to take me off the dribble because about 50% of the time I’d pick his pocket.  One game I took it from him four straight possessions.  (Kind of like Sammy Robles did to me in middle school dribbling drills one day.)

He hated it because he was an obvious athlete and I was this slow scrawny white dude.  His pride told him he should be able to do whatever he wanted against me.

On Saturdays during the offseason the Baylor football players would always show up at the gym for pickup games.  I shocked the hell out of them.  I had long hair, weighed a buck-sixty at 6′1″, and wore Chuck Taylors.  By the end of the day they were calling me Pistol Pete.  The peak of the day came when the starting cornerback was bringing the ball up the court.  I moved to pick him up just before half-court.  He gave me a dismissive sneer and went to cross me over.  He’s a D1 athlete (at Baylor, but still), so he figures he’ll blow by me and throw down a free dunk.  At least that’s what he figured until I stole his candy and went the other way all alone.  He tried to call a foul to keep his pride but his boys started clowning him.

The point of all this rambling is not that I think I was ever more than a decent basketball player, but that I was good enough to surprise people who were legit athletes.  Two days ago I did it again to this pasty-white red-headed guy who looked like an Irish version of Roy.  He was clearly the best athlete on the floor and had obvious game.  He gave me the same dismissive sneer that the safety had years ago, and as he faked the crossover with a dip of his shoulder I picked his pocket like Chicago May (but without the prostitution).

I think I’m officially hooked again.  I’m thinking of skipping a lecture today so that I can shoot around to get warm before the lunch-hour pick-up games start. 

1. Number fourteen of the “things I nearly said” list would have to be: “Are kidding me?  You seriously don’t believe that global warming exists?  Man, gotta add ignorant redneck to the vulgar fascist title.”
2. I picked up a basketball for the first time in almost two years last Thursday.  For those who don’t know me well, that’s an astonishing period of time for someone who essentially credits basketball with keeping him alive for around five years.  Playing 3-5 hours of ball a day in college was the norm for me.  At any rate, due to whatever combination of circumstances I haven’t been playing at all for a long, long time.
   So I picked it up Thursday with some trepidation.  You have to guard against immense frustration at not being able to do the things you used to do on the court.  Well, I wasn’t as terrible as I had expected.  The handles never leave you.  I ran through the old Mike Smith basketball camp drills to warm up and was surprised at how fluid I was.  I guess three thousand hours of practicing takes more than two years to wear away.
   Of course I couldn’t shoot worth a damn, but by the end of my 45 minutes in the gym I was feeling more comfortable with my shot and actually hit 10/15 free throws.  Some of you may be familiar with the siren call that basketball can weave on those who haven’t played for a long stretch of time.  It goes like this: You expect to look like South Park’s Timmy on the court and with every made layup or jumper your amygdalas fire a little jolt of ecstasy – this primes you for returning quickly.  Now when you return the next day, or perhaps the day after, your expectations are higher.  You expect those little jolts of joy, but alas, no ecstasy as the law of averages catches up and you do indeed look like Timmy.
   Surprisingly enough, I managed to avoid the day-after let-down and did a little better on Friday.  I hit for 15/20 free throws at the end, finishing on an 8/8 streak.  (Okay, you all know that’s a lie; nobody makes 8 in a row and stops.  I was really 16/22: I missed the 21st, but just like you can’t quit on a streak you can’t quit on a miss, thus the 22nd.)
   Today was the comedown however.  I fully believe that a child with cerebral palsy could have whupped my ass today.  It was ugly.  U - G - L - Y, you ain’t got no alibi, you ugly, yeah yeah you ugly.  If I were a rapper I would have been “Less than fiddy percent”.
3. Enjoy.
4. This is the best article I’ve read on Apple’s new iPhone.  While it looks pretty f-in’ sweet in every facet, I’m not going to rush out and buy one anytime soon.  Which is no surprise to anyone who knows my reluctance to buy any cell phone, much less a six hundred dollar one.  I do anticipate, however, that my next computer purchase will represent a shift to the Mac side of life, setting me up to buy the second generation iPhone in about four or five years.  The big plus that I anticipate for me is that it could drive down the cost of high end iPods as demand wanes in favor of the phone.
5. So far so good on my New Year’s resolutions.  I’m working out 3-4 times a week, eating better (i.e. more than 1500 calories/day), and trying to do nice things for my wife more often.  I figure I’ve got six months to instill a life-long fitness routine.  Now or never.
6. I was going to do a separate “recommends” post, but screw it.  I’ve read some excellent mature fantasy in the past year.  Not “mature” as in barbarian chics with huge bare knockers and leather thongs, but “mature” as in complex, thoughtful novels.  Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell was simply excellent.  A very detailed look at how magic would change the real world in a practical manner.  While the ending certainly sets up for what I’m sure is an inevitable sequel, it is in fact a self-contained novel and not “volume one of the new epic trilogy”.  Multi-volume fantasy tales are completely cliche and rarely worth the effort.
   Another novel that did a fantastic job of looking at how gods and magic might impact an imagined society was Firethorn.  As you read this book you become surprised at the underlying feminism in a book about a culture that treats women as chattel.  Indeed, the main character is what’s known as a sheath in the book — a woman who is not quite a whore but who is kept by a warrior for his sexual enjoyment.  The main character remains at all times, however, a sympathetic and intelligent woman who operates with a sort of post-feminism feminism in that she refuses to subjugate herself while at the same time refusing to ignore her femininity.  The fictional world is lovingly rendered in great detail.  I am a sucker for mythology and a carefully crafted mythology permeates this book.  The one knock I have against it is that it is indeed the first volume of a new epic trilogy.
   The last fantasy book worth mentioning is The Stolen Child.  A novel about lost childhood, second chances, the struggle to survive and even thrive under excruciating circumstances, this book is the sort of thought-provoking and intelligent prose that fantasy should be.  It does suffer from a couple of inconsistencies in minor details, but in big-picture terms this may be one of the top ten fantasy novels I’ve ever read.  Part of the appeal for me is my penchant for coming-of-age tales.  Hence my continued devotion to Catcher in the Rye, the novels of Jane Austen, and the Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card (who has the politics of a douche bag).
   Since it’s not technically part of my 2006 reading list I haven’t included The Prestige, which I just finished, but if you haven’t seen the movie, read the book first.  Having seen the movie first spoiled much of the suspense Christopher Priest works so hard to construct, but this was still an excellent read.  Many thanks to my sister-in-law, who, if there is a God, will never know the existence of this blog, and who, incidentally, gave me the book for Christmas.
7. Accepting pesos at your business is an invitation to death threats.  Stupid Meskins.  Dollars.  Maybe if you’d learn to speak English you’d know what kind of money we use.  And we don’t take kindly to nobody encouraging them Spics to keep their Meskin money and Meskin talk and Meskin ways.  We just want ‘em to go back where they come from and take their stupid Spic money with ‘em.  [note sarcasm]
8. A weak stab at making this blog about something remotely related to medicine: Here’s a link to a story about finding a mutation that conveys high risk of developing Alzheimer’s.  The article talks about how this discovery is important for pointing toward therapeutic research, but the reason I’m linking it is because I think it succinctly and clearly explains the molecular pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s.  In case anyone was interested.
9. A non-fantasy book from last year worth mentioning is The Thirteenth Tale.  Oddly it has a bit in common with The Prestige. The real meat of this book, however, lies not in the clever plot stratagems, but in it’s careful dissection of the love of reading.  Normally I’m not a fan of this sort of navel gazing in literature, but in this case it’s simply exquisitely executed.
10. Finally, Kevin Durant would be the VY of Texas basketball if he stayed for his sophomore season, which he won’t.  If he had a seasoned little white dude who was money from downtown and quick enough to be a lock down defender on the team then he could at least be the Carmelo Anthony of Texas basketball, but he doesn’t.  He might get them to the sweet 16 though.

1. “You people are a bunch of vulgar fascists.”
2. “Make that piercing cattle call whistle directly in my fucking ear one more time and we’re going to have a problem.”
3. “Was the cost of the hotel included?” [having absolutely nothing to do with residency program search]
4. “I see the fucking vocal cords, bitch, but it’s hard to shove this tube through them from three feet away looking over your shoulder.”
5. “No, no, it’s fine, Phenie can take it.  But, just so you know, if he pushes her down one more time, he and I are going to miss the family photo this afternoon because of time spent at the hospital and jail, respectively.”
6. “Vince, I want to have your babies.  And an amulet of your semen for Jake, his birthday is coming up.”
7. “So doesn’t that enormous tongue stud actually interfere with fellatio, thereby negating the whole point?”
8. “If I have to stop this car you’re going to have something to cry about!”
9. “This Christian music sucks and I cannot in good conscience load it onto your mp3 player for you. I’m sorry.  Maybe Jesus can load it, or at least fill you with the spirit of basic computer literacy.”
10. “Turn down the bass!”
11. “Jessie, look, every time you come over here our conversation and good times grind to a halt so everyone can concentrate on not mocking you until you leave, at which point such ruthless derision of your character and physique as would make Heinrich Himmler weep shall commence.  Just, please, stop coming over here completely uninvited so that I no longer have to be a party to the shameful japes at your expense.  Cause damn that shit is funny.  Even Mamaw be clowning your fat ass for claiming to be an expert on exercise equipment.  Crazy ass, pizza-faced bitch.”
12. “If you carry my little girl out of a room where I am, do NOT walk back into that room minutes later without her.  You are fucking old enough to understand every young parent’s nightmare about person A thinking Person B was watching the baby while Person B was thinking Person A was watching the baby and NOBODY was watching the baby as she drowned in the goddamn swimming pool!”
13. “These socks feel nicer than the warm, slippery confines of a hot pussy.”

1. It’s been a while since I posted, but what with the holidays and then my grandmother’s birthday, the time just wasn’t there. I hope the two or three of you who read this thing haven’t forgotten where to find it.

2. VY fell just shy of the playoffs, but did land offensive rookie of the year honors. It’s just as well he didn’t go to the playoffs. Winning the Super Bowl as a rookie just isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Hell, getting to the Super Bowl as a rookie could be a terrible career move (see: Marino, Dan).

3. I was actually reading a medical journal the other day (*gasp*) and came across a couple of articles that will substitute for my long-ago-promised post on obesity. This one shows a correlation between increasing pathologic evidence of Alzheimer’s disease and decreasing body mass index (BMI). While this in no way implies any sort of cause-effect relationship, this is one of a very few instances where it apparently doesn’t pay to lose weight. This article shows a correlation between elevated BMI and the incidence of Parkinson’s disease. A BMI greater than 23 was shown to be an independent risk factor for the development of PD. A BMI of 23 is not that large a person: a man at 6 feet tall need weigh only 170 pounds for a BMI of 23. Yet another reason to keep a very close eye on your weight as you age. Parkinson’s can suck real bad.

4. The hiring of Larry MacDuff as co-defensive coordinator by Texas shows that most of the part of the non-porn internet content (and probably a sizable chunk of the porn content) is complete fabrication. This guy’s name was NEVER mentioned as a candidate by people with supposed insight into the situation. Still, this guy seems like a solid hire.

5. I still don’t know how I’m going to rank the residency programs I interviewed at, but here’s the top 3:

University of Virginia: probably would be my favorite place to live, solid old-school reputation but small

University of Alabama-Birmingham: up-and-coming program, large department with deep pockets, best group of residents that I met, but it’s in the heart of Dixie and there’s some question as to whether desegregation ever really stuck

UT-Southwestern: familiar department, close to family, poor reputation but on the upswing, but there are a few of the attendings I don’t care for and I don’t have much in common with current residents (not speaking Hindi and all)

6. Here’s an interesting email exchange I had with a program regarding a potential second visit:

From: llogg
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 4:33 PM
To: residency coordinator
Subject: Re: Interview for residency

Ms. [blank],
My wife and I will be visiting Charlottesville 1/26-1/28. I was wondering if you could recommend an affordable hotel near campus? Also, if possible I’d like to sit in on rounds with one of the ward teams on Saturday 1/27. Could you let me know how to arrange this? Thanks,
llogg

On 1/4/07, residency coordinator wrote:
Ted, I can recommend REd roof Inn (but I know you were having second thoughts as to whether we should put him up….do you think he is fishing? I’ll check with Ed on the rounding.)
residency coordinator

From: llogg
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 5:48 PM
To: residency coordinator
Subject: Re: Interview for residency

Ms. [blank],
I think I got the wrong email. I wouldn’t expect a second free hotel room from the department (of course as my grandfather says, you should never look a gift horse in the mouth). Thanks for suggesting the Red Roof Inn and for looking into the rounding for me. Do you have the address or phone number for the Red Roof Inn? Thanks, llogg

Almost needless to say, they ended up ponying up for the hotel room, at a nicer hotel than the Red Roof Inn.

7. I just watched the opening kickoff of the BCS title game. Ted Ginn, Jr. took it to the house, but there was a blatant hold that went uncalled. Probably the most blatant no-call I’ve ever seen. Ohio State is going to murderize the Gators.

8. There’s a cheerleader from Louisville who must have pissed off a boyfriend. Google can be your friend.

9. Florida just marched down the field and scored an easy TD. Maybe they’ll keep it interesting after all.

10. The assassination of Sadam Hussein is frightening on many levels. I don’t have much to say about that, but I would like to voice my opinion that trying to spread democracy is a flawed crusade. For one thing, we’re not spreading democracies but republics, but that’s just a semantic fault. The real fault is the failure to recognize that just about any form of government can be just. The structure is irrelevant; the people hanging on that structure are key. A humane, just monarch who truly has the interests of the people at heart can be every bit as just as our representative government. The odds are it won’t be, but it could be.  Just like a representative government manned by corrupt dumbass religious zealots can be unjust.

11. Writing a blog post while cooking dinner and watching a football game is tougher than I thought.

12.  Florida just went up on Ohio State.  The Buckeye defense looks totally weak.  And I look like a dumbass.  But it’s early yet.

13.  I’ll post later this week about New Year’s resolutions, recommended musicians, books, and movies.

14. Looks like the TD is getting overturned.  And the pasta is boiling over.  I’m out. 

I interviewed at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee yesterday. Some of you may know that Nashville is home to the NFL’s Titans franchise and that, as luck would have it, one Vincent Paul Young is the quarterback of that franchise. It turns out that many of the neurology residents are football fans and Titans fans in particular. Which is relevant because one of these fans is responsible for my elimination of Vanderbilt from my list of places to consider doing residency.

At the pre-interview dinner (at Blackstone, a cool brew-pub that makes an excellent Dubbel and Porter) a second year resident and I started discussing the Titans amazing string of comebacks behind the awesome force that is VY. This guy (hereinafter referred to as Dumbass) said that he was glad the Titans were winning but he still felt like Cutler was the best QB in the draft. He proceeded to remark that VY was “a running back playing QB” and that only the magic of Norm Chow had made it possible for him to complete a pass in the NFL. Incredulous, I had to stop and count to ten.

… 7, 8, 9, 10. “Vincent Young is the only player in college football history to pass for 3000 yards and run for 1000 yards in the same season. No other player is even close as he is also the only player in college football history to pass for 2500 yards and run for 1000 yards in the same season,” I replied. I should have read him the litany of players who have not reached the dizzying heights of VY — Jamielle Holieway, no; Tommy Frazier, no; Eric Crouch, no; Charlie Ward, no. I should have mentioned his completion percentage was higher (65.2 vs 59.1) and his TD to INT ratio (26:10 vs 21:9) were better than those of Cutler. But I didn’t think it was necessary as I had just pointed out how much better than anyone in the history of college football Vince had been.

I was wrong.

Dumbass stated that “all” VY’s passing yards came on screen passes and dump-offs to RBs. This dude obviously never watched VY play last year and the stats disprove him. Selvin Young and Jamaal Charles combined for 178 yards receiving last year, or just under 6% of Vince’s passing yards. I know that Ramonce Taylor played RB last year, but he also lined up a lot as a receiver. Even adding Ramonce’s 265 receiving yards into the mix running backs only accounted for 14.6% of VY’s passing yards, hardly the bulk of those 3036 as Dumbass suggested.

If this “fan” of the Titans can’t appreciate the greatness of VY after he has single-handedly brought the Titans season back from the brink of historic failure, then I can’t be associated with him or his neurology program.

 

But the Vanderbilt Valet program where servants basically do anything asked of them for employees of Vanderbilt with the (possible) exception of procuring prostitutes does seem awfully enticing.

Rant 1:  What stings the most about this season is that everything that needed to happen for the Longhorns to get back in the NC mix happened, except for them beating two weak teams.  K-State sucks, but at least they had to have a 50+ yard FG to win.  But ATM kicked the Longhorns ass with a high school offense.  I know the Texas defense lost the KSU game, but I have to believe that if McCoy hadn’t been injured they would have won that game.  Had he not still been feeling the effects of that injury against the Aggies, Texas probably would have scored a few more points and won that game as well.  The odd thing about that game is that the Mack Brown/Greg Davis m.o. is to protect their players.  Why, then, was the game plan not designed to protect McCoy — i.e., two tight ends or tight end and a full back paving the way for Charles and Young?

Rant 2: The Alamo Bowl is a shitty, shitty bowl, but one bonus to not winning the Big 12 is they not having to play Boise State.  I really wish the Horns could have landed the Gator, for recruiting purposes.  I’m not sure why the Cotton Bowl didn’t seem to even consider Texas.  The second team in the South is still the second team in the whole conference.  Nebraska should be in the Holiday and ATM in the Alamo.  Whatever, I just hope Texas manages enough interest to win.

Rant 3:  Gene Chizik did not earn his check this year.  Failing to stop the option, when you know it is coming and it is not being run by the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers, is ridiculous.  Letting K-State go off for 45 points is similarly ludicrous.  Having Baylor and Iowa State QBs carve up your defense is unpardonable.  I suspect he had been in contact with Iowa State for weeks prior to the announcement that he would be the new head coach.  That is downright treacherous and likely contributed to the two losses.

Rant 4:  Michigan would absolutely donkey punch Florida this year.  If you want to see the two best teams play for the title you want to see a Michigan-Ohio State rematch.  Instead you get to see Troy Smith go roughneck upside the Gators’ collective anus.  Playoffs are the only viable option, and since football does not allow for the number of games a traditional tournament would require, the conference championship games should be the first round of a 16-team playoff.   The champions of the ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big 10, Pac 10, Big East, C-USA, MAC, WAC, SunBelt, and Mountain West get automatic bids, with 5 at-large spots.  If an additional 8 games are not feasible, then an 8-team playoff of just the champions of the first six conferences (ACC through Big East) get automatic bids with two at large spots.  This is simple and eliminates controversy.  Bowl games should attempt to transform into pre-season games, like the early basketball tournaments are now.  Good nonconference games that don’t impact conference standing.  Q: Why is this not happening?  A: Because the people with money aren’t concerned about the integrity of the product they’re peddling.

Rant 5:  VY is an inhuman force of victory.  His presence in Nebraska pulled that game out this year.  Had he been on the sidelines for the K-State and Aggie games Texas would have won.  This is not even debatable.  He is already making teams that passed on him in the draft look foolish.

Rant 6:  I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about coaching college football, despite my more than slight obsession with it.  However, I still have an opinion on whom the Longhorns should hire to replace Chizik.  The names I’ve seen tossed around are Randy Shannon (DC Univ. of Miami),  Joe Kines (DC Univ. of Alabama), and Jerry Gray (secondary/CBs coach Washington Redskins).  I would like to see Bo Pellini (DC LSU) on the list, but I doubt he’s available.  Kines or Gray could be acceptable, if not huge hires, but I would stay away from anybody associated with Miami.  Gray is the most appealing choice to me because he’s an alumnus of Texas, his specialty is where the Horns need to improve, and he’s from the pros and black, which could be important recruiting pearls.  I’d also give consideration to the Virginia Tech coordinotor, but his name is Bud Foster, and dude’s named Bud are just not winners.  I don’t care what Steve Levitt says.

Rant 7:  I have read internet rumors that Greg Davis is being considered for the vacant head coaching job at UAB, where Mack Brown’s brother is the athletic director (and former head football coach).  Now, I put no faith in these rumors whatsoever, but I wanted to point out that losing Davis at this juncture is a bad idea.  Don’t get me wrong, I think Greg Davis sucks out loud at making game time decisions.  His worst trait by far is developing at least one personnel package that tells the defense exactly what play is about to be run.  For years it was the Bret Robin draw play.  Now it’s the Henry Melton 6-inch dive.  Why does he never use these packages as a decoy?  Had Colt run a play action bootleg run-pass option on that fourth and inches play against the Aggies, Texas would have scored a touchdown because every single defender would have bitten on the fake to Melton since everyone in the world knew what the play was going to be as soon as they lined up over the ball.   So I hope it’s clear that I think Davis sucks and has cost Texas multiple games, including some games with very big implications.

But.

This is not the year for Texas to replace an offensive coordinator.  The schedule next year is primed for a run at the title, and Colt will be in his third year in the offense and, presumably, have more leeway to audible out of the total dumbshit calls Davis is prone to sending in at crucial moments.  If the interior line can grow up quickly they should be good enough to overcome the Davis factor.  The only hope for that is if they are not learning a completely new system.

Rant 8:  If Davis is gone, though, I would want Gary Crowton from the University of Oregon to replace him.  Crowton has coached at the NFL level, which could help with recruiting, and he’s been successful wherever he’s been.  This season the Ducks ranked 17th in scoring offense, but this was only 5.5 points per game less than Texas, ranked 5th.  In total yards Oregon was ahead of Texas, but with the same 5.9 yards per play average, the big difference being the balance exhibited by the Oregon offense.  The Ducks averaged 5.2 yards per rush and 6.6 yards per pass attempt (10.9 per completion) compared to the Longhorns’ 4.4 yards per rush and 8.1 yards per pass attempt (12.2 per completion).

Rant 9:  None of the above discussion regarding the UT football team matters one bit so long as Joe Walker remains on the staff.  Fire him and send him to a Siberian gulag for the remainder of his life.  I cry out and thirst for justice, yet my voice is not heard, and my thirst goes unslaked.

Rant 10 (well, not so much a rant as just a list of miscellaneous crap that doesn’t fit elsewhere):  I’ve read the following books recently: Freakonomics, Mists of Avalon, Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer, Palindrome, and To Air is Human.  Everyone should read Freakonomics — it’s brilliant.  I have nothing to add to Chris’s discussion of it, except to point out that Dr. David Hillis, of UT Southwestern, is quoted prominently in the book.

Mists of Avalon did not stand up well to a re-reading.  I first read it over a decade ago and loved it.  Back then I believe I was moved by the power of the ideas (feminism and religious pluralism mainly), but now I see only the spotty character development, plot breakdowns, and outright editorial gaffes.  I hate it when that happens.  I’m never re-reading another book ever.

Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer is an excellent book detailing one man’s year spent RVing to an entire season’s worth of Alabama Crimson Tide football games.  His helplessly self-aware appraisal of football fanaticism is insightful and often humorous.  On a rare occasion the author gets bogged down in the philosophical ponderings of the meaning of being a fan, but on the whole it’s a great read.

Palindrome sucked.  I can honestly say that I could write a better book than that.  The author plainly did zero research for his novel and made blatant mistakes in discussing the following subjects: football (he had an NFL starting tailback listed as 6′3″ 185), medicine (the doctors in this book clearly never went to medical school), law (a lawyer managed a million dollar settlement from a professional football team and player in less than 15 minutes), and psychology (apparently all twins are psychic, I know because the psychologist character in this book studied twins and found that to be the case even though that fact would have little to no bearing on the plot).

I’m still reading To Air is Human but so far it’s pretty good stuff about internation air guiatar championships.  Apparently the big draw is getting to live the drunken life of a rock star without struggling to play a real instrument. 

I’ve never done one of these, but they seem to work for other blogs so here goes. My trip to Utah, by the numbers:

5 — hours spent in the air traveling from Dallas to Salt Lake City

4 — hours spent in the Phoenix airport waiting for connecting flight to Salt Lake City

35 — minutes spent waiting for my luggage to appear on baggage claim carousel in SLC before realizing that no more luggage was coming and my bag was nowhere to be found

1 — inch within taking a man’s life for losing my bag I came before they located my bag in a back room where it was stored because it came on an earlier flight while I was sitting for four hours in the Phoenix airport

70 — dollars, approximate cost of my meal with current residents at a Brazilian steak house

10 — dollars, approximate reasonable cost of the grilled vegetables, pineapple, and hummus I ate at Brazilian steak house

3000 — approximate number of times I had to decline servers entreaties to try one of their skewers of grilled meats

72 — seconds of conversation managed during dinner without interruption by servers with skewers of grilled meats

1 — Kleenex folded into a fan in my hotel room

0 — minutes the light rail train was late to go to the medical center, it was awesome

51 — degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature Friday morning, which was brisk, clear, and completely the opposite of the predictions I had read online

6 and 5 — feet and inches, respectively, of a girl interviewing for an internship spot at Utah

1 — internal medicine residents from Southwestern who tried to woo me to Utah and internal medicine

50 — days a neurology resident claimed to have been on the slopes last year during his internship

0 — people who did not mention how great and easily accessible the skiing was around SLC

0 — interest I have in strapping ungainly weights to my legs and dangling from a lawn chair 15 feet in the air as it carries me half a mile up a mountainside, but thanks anyway

5 — separate interviews by neurology faculty

1 — faculty interviewer who wasn’t a freak in some way; this also was the interviewer with whom I felt I bombed the most, which probably says something about me

1 — thick brown haze of smog overlying the entire city as seen from the medical center

2 — rides on Express Shuttle between hotel and airport

2 — overweight and slightly insulting drivers of Express Shuttle

5 — scary women sharing shuttle from airport on their way to a Xango convention

1 — of the five women who tried to convince me that Xango would be a great sideline business for me to pay off student loans while offering a great alternative treatment to my future patients

10^345434568796 — magnitude in kilotons of the strength of will I exhibited in not telling her what a moron she was

1 — gift bag containing saltwater taffy, honey, and Jello mix given by program coordinator; the taffy was for the Great Salt Lake, the honey for the state motto of industry (as in busy like a bee), and the Jello because Salt Lake City consumes more Jello per capita than any place in the world.

2 — number of drunken assholes noted in SLC airport waiting to board plane to Phoenix

1 — number of drunken assholes seated next to me during flight

16 — estimated number of tequila shots said drunken asshole had consumed prior to boarding flight based on the smell emanating from him

4 — number of little Jack Daniels bottles served to drunken asshole by flight attendant during flight

7 — minutes from touchdown in Phoenix until scheduled liftoff of my flight to Dallas

188 — beats per minute of my heart after sprinting to gate A2 to catch my flight to Dallas

38 — minutes spent sitting in the plane waiting for takeoff to Dallas with no word from crew as to source of the delay

3 — crying babies on plane waiting for takeoff

0 — amount of fun had by me waiting for takeoff

infinity — amount of joy experienced by me at getting in to the car with my wife and baby to go home

1. I’m flying out to Utah tomorrow for an interview. I think God does not want me to move my family to Utah because he has caused a storm to hit the area this week. Unlike the beautiful weather I encountered in Charlottesville, I can expect precipitation and low temperatures. Still, it’s a better outlook than when I checked on Sunday and it called for a “severe winter storm” of snow and ice with a high temp of 40.

2. Congratulations to the citizens of Farmers Branch, Texas for placing themselves on the intellectually unable to perform list. If Seinfeld did a show in Dallas, it would go like this:

Jerry: What’s the deal with racism?

Crowd: Hey, I am racist!

Jerry: Ooohh, didn’t realize the Farmers Branch folk would be at the show tonight. Would you like some seltzer for your salsa?

Crowd: Speak English!

3. College football: Okay, UT’s season now seems like a disappointment even though logic indicates it will end up exactly as most people predicted, i.e., with two losses. Colt McCoy’s spectacular emergence spirited everyone away to the land of fairy-tales and back-to-back national championships. The reason for this is that most people focused on the loss of VY, which was easy to do since he was the single most talented player to ever lace up cleats for the Longhorns, but they (we) failed to give adequate weight for the losses of Michael Huff and Cedric Griffin. The thinking was that Michael Griffin would just slide into Huff’s role, but that has proven to be egregiously mistaken. Not that Griffin has played terrible ball, he’s just no Michael Huff. And neither Aaron Ross nor Tarrell Brown is Cedric Griffin. On the plus side, you have to imagine that this season has cooled some of the suitors for Gene Chizik’s services. He could be on the short list for some big jobs next year. I’d be surprised if Bobby Bowden sticks it out for more than one more year. Joe Paterno, too. On a lower level, the Stanford and Virginia jobs could open up next year, though I doubt Chizik would be interested in Stanford.

Baylor’s season has been an unmitigated disaster. Instead of taking a big step forward and landing a bowl game, they took a couple steps back. They lost to a terrible Army team, failed to take advantage of a golden opportunity against TCU (apparently due to poor conditioning as players dropped off left and right with cramps in the fourth quarter), let a bad A&M team beat them, had their QB suffer a career ending injury, and suspended their most talented player on offense. One can only hope that next year the turnovers will be fewer, the conditioning better, and the bowl game existent.

The BCS blows. The notion that Texas wouldn’t destroy any team from the Big East is laughable. WVU and Rutgers especially would have no chance, unless they ran a dozen half-back passes and flea flickers, which would be automatic touchdowns.

4. Did you know that currently the law in Pakistan states that a woman who is raped cannot prosecute her attacker without four male witnesses? And that in the absence of these witnesses she could herself be prosecuted for adultery? That’s what this article from the BBC says. Hopefully the law will change. Props to Musharraf. America ain’t perfect, but we don’t dig on rapists.

5. Also from the BBC, the stupidest application of cool technology ever.

6. Check out this gem from McSweeney’s. Haha, everyone hates Ann Coulter.

7. The “McSweeney’s Recommends” section seems to be losing it’s touch. They recommend both Studio 60 and Heroes. Studio 60 is nowhere near the first season of West Wing, and not as innovative as Sportsnight. My biggest complaint is that Bradley Whitford thinks that Danny Tripp and Josh Lyman are the same guy. I wish that were the case because Josh Lyman in seasons 1 through 3 of West Wing is one of my favorite television characters of all time, right after the entire cast of Cheers, JD Dorian from Scrubs, and George Costanza from Seinfeld.

As for Heroes, I have to admit it’s not as terrible as I had at first thought. They still lose a tremendous amount of points for failing to get the basics of evolution correct, but this turns out to be a relatively small part of the show. It’s still bad, but not nearly as bad as the Captain America movie starring JD Salinger’s son. So there’s that going for it.

8. A quick read through this article brings up many of the issues that make me a conflicted Catholic. I’m totally on board with the position on Iraq, and, in fact, the Church’s overall view on war as outlined in this document from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. They really lose me, however, when they start talking about homosexuality and contraception. Stating that homosexuality is a disorder is foolishness. In so stating, the Church is overstepping it’s domain in the same manner that led to the persecution of Galileo. I fully expect to hear about the papal encyclical on hypertension any day. I will give every bit as much credence to that encyclical as I do to the Church’s stance that homosexuality represents an illness. The notion that every one of the 700 trillion sperm I have loosed upon this world deserves its shot at becoming half a baby is equally ludicrous. Here’s a clue: GOD DOESN’T CARE IF YOU USE CONTRACEPTION. Morons. Sex is not some precious commodity to be withheld for the very rare occasions when you would like to create some offspring. In fact, sex is about the only resource in this world that is prevalent in equal proportion to the number of humans on the planet. When someone goes on a spending spree, we often remark that they are “spending money like it’s water.” Water is not actually that common a resource. In fact a large percentage of the world’s population does not have adequate access to clean water. But every community on this planet has free access to sex. Which is why from now on, whenver I see somebody go on a spending spree, I’m going to say they are spending money like sex. Sluts.

9. I fully recognize that #8 above completely derailed. I think the point was going to be that Catholicism doesn’t have an official position protecting rapists, but I didn’t want to hear about the “unofficial position protecting pedophiles” that was sure to crop up from someone.

10. Here’s a joke I tried to make at a recent film committee meeting. I don’t think it went over particularly well and I’m not sure if people didn’t get it, thought it was too offensive, or just didn’t think it was funny. [Portion in brackets not stated at meeting.  Funnier with or without bracketed material?  Just not funny?]

When the med TV guy (who looks like Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons) says the script isn’t funny, say “You’re married right?” He’ll say, “Yeah.” You continue, “Well, you’re really unattractive, [so obviously not everything in this world is judged on its merits, so shut up and make our movie].”

I guess I should have just said to ask when the last time he opened at the Apollo was, or ask to see his Oscar for best comedy, or the transcript of his conversations with David Sedaris where David asks him for help with his writing. And a BJ.

This is a hilarious bit of satire that one would not normally expect to find in a respected medical journal.  It also may only be funny to med-folk in the midst of the evidence-based medicine revolution.  If you think it’s funny, you should check out the responses to the article as well.

My post this morning was mostly in jest.  My update was made with full confidence that the Horns would pull it out in the second half.  This update is made with disbelief that Joe Walker managed to cost the Horns yet again.  I call upon Ojo to post the litany of games swayed to the loss column by the swirling vortex of the Anti-Victory.  The loss of Colt McCoy hurt a lot, but Jevan Snead settled down and played well enough to win the game had the running backs not fumbled twice in the third quarter to set up easy touchdowns for K-State.  I certainly hope Colt McCoy is able to come back and play next week and that Joe Walker gets fired and his office burned.

Ohio State 42 — Florida 13 is the new national championship prediction.  Boise State might give the Horns a game if Joe Walker remains associated with the team.  Worst decision Mack has made as a head coach was hiring him.