LOL

This was pretty much Eric’s exact reaction last weekend when I found out they were making a movie of SATC and exclaimed, “Oooo, Sex and the City! I want to see it!”

(If you can’t read it, click here.)

Why belief?

Can somebody please tell me why we are obligated to believe in God? This one really has me stumped.

Thanks!

Everyone congratulate Eric

So he can feel validated for graduating from med school. He wants to hear you say it!

Graduation was Friday AND today. I guess to feel like you’ve really completed medical school, you have to graduate twice. First you have to listen to a bunch of people tell you that you are crossing the threshold from student to medical professional, repeat the Hippocratic oath in a low, monotone voice, be hooded, and walk across the stage where your diploma is not waiting for you.

If you want your diploma, you have wait a couple of days, get all dressed up again, and listen to another whole slew of “threshold” speeches. I guess they just really want to pound into your head that you are now a real doctor. Then you can walk across the stage for a second time and finally get your hands on your certificate.

And thus the profession of medicine continues its proud tradition of torturing family members. Today’s  graduation didn’t even include CHAIRS! That’s right. Sitting, bored, while 85 names are read one at a time is bad enough. But standing through all of it in heels, in a small, hot room is a whole new level of persecution.

New name

Hm, maybe I should match my blog name to my domain name. Why didn’t I think of that before?

“Did you ever hafta make up your mind?”

Ah, Hillary. You entertained me so. It was so charming, how you couldn’t for the life of you hide your ambition. We need more poor actors in politics. And the way you clapped slowly and methodically. Clap clap, point point. Weird, but cute. Your name was so amusingly potent, so synonymous with the word “bitch,” that no republican in the U.S. will name their child “Hillary” for at least 100 years. That alone was reason enough to vote for you.

If only you hadn’t turned into a pandering fear-mongering Bush clone. Alas, you have betrayed me in the end. Or is it I who have betrayed you? Not that you had a chance in North Carolina anyway.

My struggle to understand sports mania continues

I know that many of you find this annoying but I am completely addicted to this mystery. I’m feeling positive about it right now. I think I may have hit on something that will really help me warm up towards all you sports-obsessed lunatics.

Thanks to an old friend who really made me think yesterday, I have a new theory: Sports is a form of truth-seeking.

Isn’t the BIG QUESTION on every true sports fan’s mind “which team is the best?” And by the end of each season, isn’t this question answered in a way that is final and irrevocable? Eureka! It’s like the most satisfying kind of truth-seeking possible, because by the end of it you are guaranteed a clear answer. Plus, you don’t have to do any real work.

So if I pretend that sports teams are conflicting ideas, engaged in a tournament against one another, suddenly the appeal is completely understood! The only way to know which team/idea is the best, is to test them - in a fair fight where everybody has to play by the same rules. Aha. Now this I can relate to.

Sports fans, please let me know if I’m on the right track!

Boston: a little overwhelming

This week we went to Boston to secure a place to live. As expected, we will be paying twice as much for half the apartment.

Our place is within walking distance of the “T” (subway), so we will be able to avoid quite a bit of driving. This is very fortunate because I am scared witless at the thought of getting behind the wheel in that city (I made Eric drive the whole time). The rhythm of traffic in Boston is: gas to the floor, break to the floor, swerve around recklessly, repeat. I’m willing to bet that your average Bostonian gets worse gas mileage than your average American, regardless of the type of car they drive. They also honk horns as casually as waving to a friend.

We shot video to record our impressions after each apartment viewing. Take a look, but don’t be fooled by the charming building exteriors. Most of the buildings are as old as Methuselah and smell like it too. We were lucky enough to find a seventies-ish place on the top floor, well-maintained, with no weird smells and a walk-out balcony with a nice view.

This is going to be one crazy experience!

Weird waiters

The Blue Corn Cafe is one of the only places around here to get decent Latin-American food, so we put up with the iffy service to dine there occasionally. It’s a sit-down restaurant, priced maybe a little higher than Olive Garden. The servers there are sometimes waaaay too hyper, but this past weekend we had a server who proved irrevocably that the Blue Corn does not believe in customer service training.

His opening spiel to us was not, “Hi I’m Doug and I’ll be your server tonight, these are our specials, can I bring you something to drink?” It was - I kid you not - “(deep breath) uhh . . . do you guys wanna . . . um . . . some food or . . . (trails off) something?”

That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the night, with us trying not to laugh every time he opened his mouth. But the food was spectacular, as usual.

I recently read a memoir called Service Included, written by a female server who worked in a four-star restaurant in New York City. Now the experience of dining there sounds absolutely divine (apart from all the foie gras and bone marrow). The wait staff is trained to make sure the customer never has to ask for anything (especially the bill). The author learned through her experience that true customer service is being so sensitive to each individual customer that you know what they want even before they do.

Me, my lungs, and my pocketbook: Mourning the electric car

As gas prices creep closer to $4.00, I am starting to feel resentful every time I visit the pump. I guess I’m just really sick of Big Oil drinking my milkshake. Especially now that I know they are largely responsible for slaughtering the best technology on the road: the electric car.

Anyone interested in finding out why consumers are denied access to vehicles that get (the cost equivalent of) 165 miles to the gallon? Cars that can be refueled using solar panels? If so, check out the film Who Killed the Electric Car.

For so long, I believed that battery-powered cars were a nice pipe dream but technologically infeasible. I believed they were too slow, too hard to refuel, and wouldn’t travel far enough on one charge. Who would buy an impractical car like that? I also believed the electric car was a relatively new idea and would need lots of scientists over lots of years to develop fully. But, as I was outraged to learn, I was grossly misinformed.

Electric cars were actually among the first cars on the road. We’ve had the technology to create battery-powered cars for decades. In fact, in the early 1900’s, the electric car was outselling gas-powered automobiles. Understandably, this trend reversed once the Model T was mass-produced and became relatively cheap to buy. As the internal combustion engine became more efficient, the electric car all but disappeared.

Fast forward to the 1970’s (probably earlier but my history is not excellent) when people got a wake-up call regarding our dependence on oil. Lines at the pump, for one - yeah, I wasn’t alive but I’ve seen the pictures. And have you ever noticed that buildings from the seventies all have little slit windows? I’ve heard this was a result of the energy crisis and a growing awareness of the need to conserve.

So here we are forty years later and nothing has been done. The demand for oil is skyrocketing, and Big Oil is growing fat on other people’s milkshakes, and wars keep popping up in the geographic region where this resource is most abundant. Is growing corn for fuel the answer? Maybe, if you want to starve several thousand people to create a substance that is less efficient and not much cleaner than gas. Then you have fuel-cell technology, which deserves attention, sure, but from what scientists are telling us about global warming, we need to stop polluting the air ASAP - not in a few decades when we will be able to mass-produce fuel-cell cars. And fuel cells cannot store energy like batteries, so you still have to buy hydrogen refills, after you’ve already paid between $50,000 and $1,000,000 for your car. Meanwhile, hybrids are all over the road. And fully-electric cars could be.

In fact, they were in the 1990’s in California, when GM grudgingly produced an electric car called the EV1 and let people lease (NOT buy) the cars. People were thrilled to drive the cars and were leasing them pretty enthusiastically, despite GM’s absolutely laughable effort to advertise and market the cars. Why did GM even make the cars when they obviously didn’t want to? Because the California government mandated zero-emissions vehicles.

EV1 drivers clearly loved their cars. It’s not hard to imagine why. They were able to feel great (and maybe a little smug ) about not polluting so much. The cars were perfect for city driving and met the needs of anyone who needed to drive 100 miles or less during the day. I don’t know about you, but I fit into this category. Electric cars nowadays can go up to 300 miles a day on lithium batteries. They can accelerate faster than gas, and they are also much quieter. And cheaper to fuel, obviously.

The EV1 was pretty expensive. It was $300 monthly to lease. Yes, electric cars cost more. Hybrids are more expensive than all-gas cars. But they are nowhere near as expensive as fuel-cell cars. If they were mass-produced, I guarantee the price would drop.

A few years after the EV1 was leased, the mandate was removed and the car was recalled. Every last EV1 driver had to turn in their cars. The customers begged to keep their cars and offered to buy them, which they had been dying to do all along. But they were denied the right to spend their money and the cars were snatched away and crushed to bits - destroyed - every one, while the drivers protested with signs and chants and exorbitant offers to buy the cars. One or two of the cars were disabled and placed in museums.

GM’s reason for this was low demand. WHAT? Not safety reasons, but profit reasons? Now you tell me: What is cheaper - crushing hundreds of cars to keep people from buying them, or selling hundreds of cars that people are more than willing to pay for?

It doesn’t seem logical, does it? I smell something is rotten in Denmark. So what was really behind this recall, and what is ultimately behind manufacturers’ reluctance to make and sell electric cars? Is it consumers, insisting on buying their gas guzzlers? Inferior battery technology? Oil companies buying up battery patents to keep them from being used? Car companies’ negative marketing and sabotaging of their own product? Federal government being in bed with Big Oil and joining the auto industry in suing California? Corrupt California Air Resources Board members? Superior hydrogen fuel cells?

The movie explores all of these possibilities and, I think, does a pretty good job. I learned something, anyway. If you watch it, be prepared to be amazed and a little pissed off.

Eric’s last day of medical school

Yeah that would be today. Congratulations Eric, you now qualify for your M.D.

Only four more years of torture to go.

Embarrasing public crying moments

I seem to embarrass myself a lot, don’t I. Besides misspelling words, another way I humiliate myself is by crying at inappropriate times.

I firmly believe that crying at the drop of a hat is one of the major bona-fide physiological differences between men and women. In a way, this is an advantage to women. What’s more cathartic than curling up on the couch in the dark and watching a sad movie all by yourself? It’s like a release. (Okay, please tell me that other people have done this.)

But sometimes, crying easily can be hugely annoying. Like if you’re furious at someone and you want to intimidate them. Or if you’re going to your professor or boss with a problem. Or anytime that you’re trying not to show weakness. I just have to tell myself that sometimes tears are as beyond my control as the “fight or flight” reaction, which neither men nor women can suppress in certain situations. You just gotta keep talking and ignore the tears.

I’ve had some pretty embarrassing crying moments in my day though. For example, when I was sixteen, I failed my first attempt at passing the DMV driving course. Getting my license ASAP was sooooo important to me. That day I went to school and all through art class I had my head down on the table and tears were dripping out of my eyes. I was hoping to appear asleep, but I don’t think I fooled anybody, despite the fact that I was one of the OHS champion class-sleepers. All day long, it was all I could do to remain in control of my emotions. I cried a little at lunch, a little in every class. Then I went home and cried in my room all night long. I’m sure people thought my grandma had just died or something! But no, nothing that significant.

Another was the first time I saw “Life is Beautiful.” I started crying during the credits. As I walked out of the theater it got worse, and I kept sobbing as my friends drove me home, and couldn’t quit until 15 minutes after they dropped me off. I was hysterical! Yeah, my friends were pretty freaked out, but I literally could not help it. That movie put me in shock.

My first experience with jury duty was a tearjerker as well. I was in summer class and about to get married. I was convinced that if I took on one more responsibility, my life would completely fall apart. While the judge was deliberating with the lawyers about who to put on the jury, I went in the bathroom and cried for about 1/2 hour. I thought I would miss the assignments, but I wasn’t about to leave that bathroom until I got control of myself. No worries though. The officials took FOREVER to deliberate (a little advice: bring reading material to jury duty), after which I was sent home with about 40 other relieved citizens.

The worst part about it is that I have really transparent skin. I blush effortlessly; my nose and cheeks flush with a single glass of wine. When I cry it’s obvious all day afterwards. My face swells up (even more than normal! :P) and I get all pale and my eyes get all red-rimmed and bloodshot. Bleh.

Of course, crying isn’t always embarrassing. There’s nothing wrong with crying out of true grief. But sometimes the situation just doesn’t seem to warrant the waterworks.

COOL! Black alien plants

Scientists are looking for life on other planets, according to this article, by seeing what color they are. Why? They are looking for vegetation.

But did you know . . . plants on different planets might not be green. On our planet, plants are usually green because green photons are not as abundant or as high energy as other colors, so the plant reflects them. But not every star gives off the exact same kind of light that our sun gives off, and not every planet will have the same atmosphere as Earth. (The atmosphere absorbs radiation.)

Plants growing under a very low-energy star might evolve to absorb all available light and appear black to us. There are many possibilities. I can’t wait to see what they find.

Not nice, Mr. Pope

When I heard that the Pope would be meeting with some of the U.S. victims of Catholic sex-abuse, I shook my head and muttered to myself, “This can’t be good.”

How do I say this tactfully? Let me put it this way.

There seems to be a conflict of interests here. What do you think the Pope (or any CEO in charge of a huge cash cow) is more worried about: the well-being of a few unsatisfied customers, or the reputation of his ginormous organization as a whole?

It seems to me that these victims need to be running as fast as they can in the opposite general direction of religious patriarchs, as portrayed in this funny but spot-on YouTube video.

True to CEO form, the Pope proceeded to spin his church’s little scandal into a blame-societal-immorality fest. Societal immorality, brilliant! The favorite whipping boy of all religions. He urged efforts to “address the sin of abuse within the wider context of sexual mores” and warned that pedophilia “is found not only in your dioceses but in every sector of society.”

He went on to say, “Children deserve to grow up with a healthy understanding of sexuality and its proper place in human relationships. They should be spared the degrading manifestations and the crude manipulation of sexuality so prevalent today.”

Uh-huh. It’s society’s fault for not teaching Catholic children to recognize warped sexuality. Nice red herring, Benedict. I’m sure that everyone has now been completely distracted from the fact that your church set itself up as these kids’ moral grounding, and were utterly, horribly betrayed by their religious leaders. Right. And you want to blame society for being immoral? I urge the Pope to “address the sin of abuse within the narrow context of your own religious customs.” Fix what’s wrong in your own backyard, then we’ll talk about society.

Trouble in Texas

Yep, it’s another polygamy post. Hey, is it my fault LDS Fundamentalism keeps showing up in the media?

So all this drama going on in Texas has got me thinking. Should polygamy be legal between consenting adults? Maybe legalization would put a stop to the FLDS persecution complex (oh, the government is out to get us, it’s us vs. them, circle the wagons) and get them to do business more out in the open. Maybe it could help law enforcement focus in on the child abuse aspect. Yes I’m talking to you, Arizona and Utah law enforcement - Texas apparently doesn’t need any extra help cracking down.

Then again, you have people like Flora Jessup and other escapees from polygamous compounds saying that polygamy itself creates an abusive environment. I imagine that most FLDS apostates would probably like to see polygamy stamped out as much as possible.

I saw Flora speak once. She is understandably very passionate about this issue, but then again so are those still living the lifestyle she ran away from. Is there a compromise in there? Would legalization be a step in the right or wrong direction?