More (old) Pics

I had a post written in my mind, then got in a conversation today where I ended up using my material. Now I have the internal debate whether it's valid to repeat conversations as blog posts. I have yet to decide.

So here are some more profile pictures:

For all you Columbi

I was studying the other day when a thought popped in my head: I shouldn't be studying, I should be making a list of all the restaurants I like!

Of course this is ridiculous, but it's the kind of thing that comes up while studying. And this being me, it's the kind of thing I did for the next 30 minutes.

I'm still working on a list of my favorite places in Columbus, but I quickly came up with the places in Columbus that I've been meaning to try. So if you're a Columbi (Columbusite or Columbian is probably more accurate, but I like Columbi)and want to try one of the following, consider it a done deal:

Masseys
Cheeseburger Paradise
Barcelona
Top hat
Thurmann
Spinellis
Bettys
Thai Orchid
Haiku
Blue Nile
Blue Danube
Indian Oven
Café Corner
Chef-o-nette
Iacanos
Chile Verde
Confluence Park
Ted’s Montana Grill
Pistacia Vera

Maximum Nerdage

I had no intention of doing so, but I ended up watching Terminator Salvation, Star Trek and Fanboys this weekend. If only I could’ve worked some Dungeons and Dragons in there somewhere.

Star Trek isn’t as good as you’ve heard. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty good, and I had a good time. The casting is perfect, it’s funny, the action is good; they did almost everything right to get the series rebooted. It’s just that the rebooting seemed to take the whole movie, leaving little room for a story. And that’s fine I guess. The story they had was so riddled with plot wholes I probably wouldn’t want too much more of it. I’m being negative, but it was a fun movie and worth seeing for Simon Pegg alone.

Terminator Salvation suffered from even more plot holes than Trek. And the cast wasn’t as good. But the action was pretty amazing. The homages to previous Terminator films was a mixed bag. On the one hand they were fun, on the other they reminded me how much better T1 and T2 were. James Cameron needs to get that Avatar movie done so he can make another Terminator (which he’s never ever going to do, not to get your hopes up. I’d rather have him make The Abyss 2.)

Fanboys is worth seeing because it has Kristen Bell in it. Otherwise, I thought it was just alright. I think I’d like it a lot more if I liked Star Wars, which, blasphemously, I don’t. It’s just never done it for me. Mostly because everyone else likes it, but also because I hate Mark Hamill. In any case, I don’t like Star Wars, so a movie glorifying it is obviously going to be a tough sell. But it was relatively well done, with a ridiculous number of cameos, and some quality nerd parody. And Kristen Bell.

I’ll watch something classy next weekend.


NSFW
(I learned a new acronym today. That's productive I guess.)

Like a surgeon, cutting for the very first time

I’m 3/8 done with surgery, which seems like the natural time to sit back and reflect. Things that happened:

- 3 minutes into the rotation I started getting yelled at. True, he was a security guard in an elevator, not a surgeon, but it wasn’t a good way to start off. (He thought I should have asked him to move so I could get off the elevator, which I did, and that I bumped him, which I didn’t.)
- 5 minutes into the rotation I met one of my attendings. He greeted me with a fist bump.
- After working with me for more than 2 weeks, my team couldn’t page me because they couldn’t remember my last name.
- I’ve put in roughly 3000 foley catheters. I’ve heard roughly 2999 references to masturbation while doing so.
- I told one surgery joke, which was greeted by cold stares. I haven’t told another.
- I was saddened one morning when I referred to getting up at 5:30 as sleeping in, non-ironically.
- I’ve heard more Coldplay and Linkin Park than anyone should ever have to.
- I’ve been praised for holding a camera still, and criticized for not reading a trained professional’s mind.

I’m not going to be a surgeon.

But in actuality, it hasn’t been that bad. I have zero horror stories, and if I can make it through surgery with no horror stories I figure that’s pretty good. I think surgery is an unfortunate mix of being bored and being anxious you’ll do something wrong, but it has by no means been the torture experience sometimes described. And the first time I saw a lap chole was pretty cool; the next dozen not so much.

I’ll be pretty happy come the end of June.

Some day soon

I'll write an actual post. This weekend most likely. For now, here are another batch of old profile pics.



Some people think this picture is creepy.



I'm not sure why, but I like this picture.



That's me.



That's also me.

ProfPicProj II

Yogi Chris



Red-head Chris



Tai Chi Chris

Collect them all!

Profile Pic Project

I'm in need of a new profile picture for my facebook.

I have this one up temporarily:



Funny, true, but not actually of me.

People have noted in the past that there are no pictures of me on this blog, primarily because I don't like pictures of myself. It's the Native American/Vampire/Witness Protectee in me. Over the next while I'm going to post some of my favorite profile pictures from the past, primarily so it looks like I'm updating my blog more often than I am. Let me know if any of them seem particularly ingenious, or spark an idea for a new profile picture. My facebook would appreciate it.

4L

My nephew wanted pictures of Transformers, so here are some Transformers who will not appear in Transformers 2, should not appear in Transformers 2, but are awesome nonetheless.

1. Astrotrain



At first the Transformers were simple. A robot that turns into a car/plane/blender whatever. But to sell more toys they got more and more complex, until you had tiny ones and giant ones and robots whose heads were other robots and looked like animals etc etc. Astrotrain started all this. He was a robot who turned into a space shuttle AND changed into a train. Yeah, the train is pretty ridiculous, hence the comic.

2. Grimlock



That's not a picture I found on the internet. I was there. I saw Grimlock, "in person." Grimlock changes into a dinosaur, which is obviously cooler than turning into a Camaro. And while it would be great to see him in a movie, it would be pretty silly, even for Michael Bay.

3. Laserbeak



Laserbeak is a cassette tape (that's probably not making the cut into a movie) who turns into a hawk. He's awesome.

4. Unicron



He's a robot that turns into a planet. Also, just a titch too ridiculous for a feature film. Except he is voiced by Leonard Nimoy, and it would be nice for him to appear in more than one movie a decade.

5. The Real Starscream



That jet from the first movie was fine, but he wasn't Starscream, the coolest of all transformers. He's got a great voice, he is always trying to betray Megatron, he even made himself a crown once. Also he can become a ghost (a robot ghost?) and time travel. Yeah. You don't mess with Starscream.

Texty Text

(The title was a HIMYM reference. WATCH IT.)

I was talking to The Spaniard about blogging the other day. I made the comment that my blog seemed to be nothing but videos these days. The right answer was “No Chris. Your blog has had a lot of videos lately, but they’ve all been highly interesting and thought provoking.” Her answer was “Yeah.” So here’s some text.

A danger of medicine is hypochondria. The more you learn about different disease states, the more you diagnose yourself and those around you. Some fields are worse than others. My infectious disease attending refused to have any pets so he could avoid toxoplasmosis, salmonella, tularemia etc. Neurologists start to look for pathological walking patterns in everyone around them at the mall.

I’m not very cognizant of my physical state. I remember as a 10 year old (FYI, I don’t really remember ages well, so almost always make up an age when I’m telling a story from my childhood.) In any case, I may or may not have been 10. But I took off my shoes after walking for several hours, to discover I had several worms on the top of my foot. Turns out, for those of you that are grossed out right now, that they were veins. My feet were hot so my blood vessels were dilated. Turns out, I’d never noticed that before. In March I looked down at my feet, only to discover that the toenails on my big toes were dead. Why? Because I had danced in high heel shoes for 6 hours on Halloween. At least, this was what I deduced. Halloween. 5 months earlier. I hadn’t noticed partially dead toenails for 5 months.

I don’t have either a foot fascination or aversion, incidentally. Those are just two ready examples of how little I pay attention to my own body.

Point being, I’m not really aware of physical symptoms I may or may not exhibit. But I’m pretty aware of mental ones. I was reading a child psych book a couple months and came across the following criteria for diagnosing Aspergers Syndrome.

A. Qualitative impairment in social interaction,
as manifested by at least two of the following:

1) marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such
as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures
to regulate social interaction;
(I have poor eye contact, lack facial expression, and sometimes unusual posture. My salutations are often questions and I’ve been known to walk away mid conversation when I feel so inclined.)
2) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental
level;
(27 year old single Mormon)
3) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests or
achievements with other people (eg: by a lack of showing, bringing,
or pointing out objects of interest to other people);
(At least some of the time)
4) lack of social or emotional reciprocity.
(Also not uncommon)

B. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests,
and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:

1) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and
restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity
or focus;
(I think many of my hobbies could be described this way)
2) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines
or rituals;
(Chris Rules (eg not texting, not ordering same food as others, defriending, etc etc)
3) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (eg: hand or finger
flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements);
(Admittedly, I don’t have this one)
4) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects
(I could make a misogynist joke here, but I’ll refrain)

C. The disturbance causes clinically significant impairment in social,
occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
(Again, single. Also wasn’t able to get a job at Blockbuster which is a high degree of occupational impairment)

D. There is no clinically significant general delay in language
(eg: single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by
age 3 years).
(To the best of my knowledge)

E. There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in
the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behaviour
(other than social interaction), and curiosity about the environment in
childhood.
(My self-help, adaptive behavior and curiosity are intact)

F. Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental
Disorder, or Schizophrenia.
(True)

Asperger's Disorder appears to have a somewhat later onset than Autistic Disorder, or at least to be recognized somewhat later. Motor delays or motor clumsiness may be noted in the preschool period. (Motor clumsiness, me?) Difficulties in social interaction may become more apparent in the context of school. It is during this time that particular idiosyncratic or circumscribed interests (eg: a fascination with train schedules) may appear or be recognized as such. As adults, individuals with the condition may have problems with empathy and modulation of social interaction. This disorder apparently follows a continuous course and, in the vast majority of cases, the duration is lifelong.

Folks, I may have Aspergers. At least I don't have toxoplasmosis.

69 Love Songs

I've been listening through the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs. So far this one is my favorite.

My favorite line is "I could smile all night at somebody new. Somebody not too bright, but sweet and kind. Who would try to get you off my mind." It got me thinking if there is in fact an inverse relationship to intelligence and kindness. Discuss among yourselves.

The video has the added benefit of looking like Salad Fingers. If you haven't ever seen Salad Fingers, prepare for your life to be changed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3iOROuTuMA

It may not be changed for the better.

Humor

Humor is a funny thing.

That wordplay for instance, is not very funny.

I've been thinking of a log thesis about types of humor, learning to be funny etc, but unfortunately I'm too busy to write it.

I wrote 58% of this skit and prepared the visuals. It was really my first experience writing jokes for other people to give. You may not find it funny, since it's very specific to being a med student at OSU, and you probably can't read the screen, but I consider it a successful experiment.

Best of the Worst

TopHat asked me the other day which video game movie was my favorite. In honor of him, of my brother who just returned from his mission (and loves video games) and of my love of making lists, here are my favorite video game movies. Keep in mind that switching from one medium to another is often a horrible mistake, with rare exceptions such as the Goldeneye video game or the Myst books. But for the most part, these adaptations are destined to be horrible. But some are enjoyably horrible.

1. Super Mario Brothers This one is awesomely bad. They tried to shoehorn so many ridiculous elements of the videogame into the movie. Truly a great watch.
2. Silent Hill I don’t play these games (mostly because I don’t play any video games any more) but this was a pretty good movie. Not great, but good. It’s a horror movie that’s not scary, but creepy and ominous for the full length of the movie.
3. Dead or Alive We're back to another awesomely bad one. Fighting games actually do pretty well translated into movies since fighting movies don’t have to have a plot to be successful. This one has a plot, that’s completely ridiculous. But it has some fun fighting, lots of girls, and it’s from a game I’ve actually played. The trailer is a pretty accurate representation of the movie. Thoroughly bad, and thoroughly enjoyable.
4. Mortal Kombat Annihilation - Many people would list Mortal Kombat as the best video game movie, in that it was actually a watchable movie. But I have to put MK2 above it because it’s mostly like MK1, but as an entirely random and unnecessary, and thus hilarious, mud wrestling scene.
5. Mortal Kombat - Watchable. Sad that being watchable gets it into the top 5, but that’s the nature of video game movies.
6. Final Fantasy: Advent Children - I never played the game (blasphemy among gamers) and I watched this movie in Chinese (I was in China) but I had a good time.
7. Resident Evil - These games are great, but the movies aren’t. But a bad zombie movie is better than a good . . . documentary about lint.
8. Fatal Fury/Street Fighter/Tekken - Every fighting game ever has an anime movie. They’re all the same. Adequately drawn characters having adequate fights.
9. Max Payne - Some cool effects, but I kind of stopped paying attention half way through. Not a good sign for a movie.
10. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - Doesn’t really relate to Final Fantasy at all, but it looks pretty.
11. Tom Raider - I’m really surprised I don’t like these movies more. They have Ms Jolie, which usually is all I require in a film. Guess they’re that bad.
12. Doom - The FPS (first person shooter) sequences are entertaining, but the rest isn’t.
13. Street Fighter - Bad, but not really awesomely bad. Just painfully bad.
14. BloodRayne - Beyond bad. In the right mood it can be awesomely bad, but most of the time just a waste of everyone’s time. It’s the kind of movie that makes you feel really bad for the editors and catering people and everyone that had to spend time on it.

Honorable mentions

King of Kong - Not really a video game movie, just a movie about video games. But a great one of those.
Red Vs Blue - Funny web series, based of Halo.
Sonic the Hedgehog - This tv show was pretty sweet because it was Sonic, but in a post-apocalyptic future. Don’t confuse it with The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, which is Sonic in a boring cartoon world.
Captain N: The Game Master - A guy get sucked into his Nintendo and has to fight video game characters. It was awesome. At least when I was 8 it was awesome.
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? I don’t need to explain why this was great.

Just for Husky

My Drive

I read What Women Want Men to Know yesterday. Why? Because I’m weird.

To be fair, I didn’t read it, I listened to the audiobook. Again, not normal, but normaller. And I didn’t go looking for it, I just looked online for what audiobooks I could download the fastest. I ended up downloading The Road (which I have yet to finish [in actual book, not audiobook] though it seems quite good), The Graveyard Book, Bonk, an episode of This American Life, Rescuing the Spectacled Bear by Stephen Fry and What Women Want Men to Know. An eclectic collection, and some commentary could be made as to my personality given the books that I chose to download.

I made the OH to NY drive yesterday. Normally I just make a 6.5 hour playlist and hit the road. But I decided I wanted to add one thing to the list of the things that I “did” this week, and “reading” an audiobook seemed reasonable enough. So I made a 2 hour playlist and hit the road.

To again be fair, reading this type of book is not entirely out of character for me. I read The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands in order to crash our Relief Society book club. I thought it only fair that since I had read the book, and many members of the book club hadn’t read it, that I be able to participate. They disagreed. I also read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. I had won it at a white elephant exchange and a girl said she wanted to discuss it after I read it. So I read it, but she was a liar and didn’t actually want to talk about it.

These books are silly.

That’s not to say they have no merit. That’s not even to say that I disagree with them, though certainly I disagree with parts. They just seem to point out the obvious. If there were a WWWMtK quiz, I think I’d get a 95% without reading the book. Admittedly, I wouldn’t know out of the blue that women need to feel safe, feel valued and feel connected, but I could certainly pick them out of a multiple choice lineup. After reading/hearing one of these books I don’t feel like I’ve really learned anything. I’ve been reminded of things, which is valuable, but I haven’t learned anything new.

The people in these books are SO DUMB. I realize they make exaggerations to make a point, but the exaggerations are so broad that it really just removes it from reality. They depict men in a certain way, when we all know that it’s some men are kind of like that some of the time. I think the way these books would be the most valuable is if you and your partner listened to them together. Then you could say point by point “yeah, that applies to us” or “that is ridiculous. The people in that story shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce.” That would be productive.

In any case, I can’t really recommend the book. If for no other reason because author’s jokes were really bad and she used the term “verbal intercourse” far too often.

* * * * * * * *

This American Life is one of those things that lots of people that I genuinely like and respect enjoy, but that I’ve never gotten around to experiencing. Which is silly really, since not only do people who share common interests with me highly recommend it, but I know for a fact that people I enjoy contribute regularly to the show.

The episode I downloaded featured 4 stories by Scott Carrier, and I thought they were all great. I’m biased because he talked about schizophrenia, amnesia, Utah and writing, topics I’d enjoy, but I think anyone would like the pieces. The last piece involved him interviewing his 11 year old daughter, and she said something that I thought was more insightful than the whole of WWWMtK.

“I think that people who love each other have to have fights sometimes, or they wouldn’t understand each other very well. Not everybody is exactly the same, so they might disagree about something. But two people who love each other have to understand each other, and to understand each other they have to know what they’re thinking.”

I think a lot of us spend so much time avoiding the fights that we lose the opportunity to understand other people. Fighting is a form of communication, and communication is necessary for intimacy. Fighting isn’t necessary for intimacy, but it can help us in that direction. That was my favorite message of the 6.5 hour trip.
If you have a recommendation for my next 6.5 hours of “reading” let me know.