Natural Evolution

Last year I bought a silver iPod Mini. I chose the iPod over other mp3 players because it looked good, it was easy to use, and it was just cool to have. Also, the iPod was supposed to change the way I listened to music. Well, I gotta tell ya, I still listen to music the same way but now I carry a lot more of it with me than I ever have. I use it at work a lot sitting in front of my computer. I even bought some cheap-o speakers for work for when I don't want to use the headphones (or earbuds or whatever the hell you call them). Now, after a year, in the interest of evolution and Darwinian theory, I've gotten rid of the old iPod Mini and upgraded to the Video iPod. Okay, not exactly Darwinian Evolutionary Theory, but the new video iPod is pretty fucking sweet. I've even started downloading video podcasts. I'm not going to give you a big review on the iPod, I'm just gonna say, if you're gonna get an iPod, screw the Shuffle, screw the Nano. Get the Big One.

3 Simple Rules

I really like crossword puzzles. Call me a nerd, call me a geek, just don't call me while I'm working on my crossword puzzles. There are some simple rules I follow:

1. I use a pen, never a pencil.
2. I never look at the answers while working on a puzzle.
3. I don't like having other people help me unless I ask.

Why all the rules? Working on the puzzle is a challenge and having the option of erasing answers or having the answers nearby or using someone else's brainpower is like cheating.

Things That Make You Go Hmm... Part 2

1. Why are hemorrhoids called "hemorrhoids" instead of "assteroids"?
2. Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?
3. If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest drown, too?
4. If the "black box" flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn't the whole airplane made out of that stuff?
5. The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
6. I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
7. If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?
8. If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?
9. Whose cruel idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have a "S" in it?
10. If God dropped acid, would he see people?
11. If a deaf person swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?
12. If you spin an oriental man in a circle three times, does he become disoriented?
13. What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
14. Would a fly without wings be called a walk?
15. Is there another word for synonym?
16. What was the best thing before sliced bread?
17. If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?
18. Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
19. Why do they put Braille on the drive-through bank machines?
20. Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all?"

After it All...

Who watched the Olympics? Did anyone flip to CBC and watch one event for like, 2 hours? And in that 2 hours, did you become an expert in that sport? I was watching luge once for about 10 minutes and I suddenly became an expert judge and coach. "Ooo, good positioning. Nice and flat on the sled, barely raising his head." During the summer Olympics I'm usually an expert on diving. Especially synchronized diving.

Lookalikes

VJ, Alexa and I were talking about this a couple weeks ago. Who else thinks Celia looks like a young Sandra Oh?

Who's Da Man?

Wow, in the past 8 months, I've had 4000 visitors to my blogsite. Granted, its probably the same people reading it on a somewhat regular basis. Plus I visit my own site so I can read the comments that people leave. I've been checking the stats on my site meter and there are people from all over North America, Asia, Europe, and one person from Africa that have visited my site. Weird. Now they know all kinds of crap about me. Its a good thing I didn't use my real name in the url. I'm guessing they came across it in with that "next blog" thing in the corner. I did a search once for something and one of the search hits was my own blog because I had the search word in the title of one of my entries. That's just crazy. I'm totally feeling like the man now cuz I'm so damn popular. Four THOUSAND. That's 500/month or about 17/day. God, I'm a egotistic jerk...

Everybody Has a Story Part 7

Last week I worked on the ward. We had to do a patient swap with another hospital and the new patient we got was a 40-something-old man that just had surgery on his ankle. Not a huge surgery but still pretty painful. The thing about getting patients from other hospitals is that we can't do anything until one of the docs at our hospital comes and sees the patient and writes orders. The doc we were waiting for was stuck in emerg so she was a little late seeing the patient. Normally, this isn't a big deal except the guy needed some pain medication. He was pretty pissed that he couldn't get anything especially since at the other hospital he was well pain-controlled. After a little over an hour I decided, "screw this, I'm going to give him the same pain-killers he was getting at the other hospital." even though he wasn't even my patient. This is kinda frowned on cuz I'm giving medication without a doctor's order, but I kinda knew the doc we were waiting for and I was pretty sure she would just order the same thing anyway. So I gave it to him and then left him alone to cool off and to let the medication kick in. A couple hours later I went in to see him and he was feeling much better and was in a better mood. He apologized for losing his temper and thanked me for helping him out. It turned out to be a good shift for me.

Milestones

No, not the restaurant even if they make a great steak. I'm approaching my 4000th visitor (and I don't mean I've gotten my period 4000 times - I'm a guy, I don't menstruate) and I'm going to celebrate. If you're reading this and you scroll down a bit, check if you're #4000. If you are and you send me a picture, I'll post whatever picture you send me. Unless its a picture of me doing something really embarrassing. Keep in mind that I get final say in all entries. If I get more than one entry, than one of you bastards are lying and I'm not going to post anything.

TV Series Review

This is a new first for me.

Grey's Anatomy with Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl and a bunch of dudes

This is a great show. I especially like how they always tell each other about interesting patients and they go running to see it for themselves.

Back in the Saddle

On Saturday I picked up a shift at the hospital. Its so weird going back there. Half the people I used to work with are all gone and there are a tonne of new grads hanging out. Back in my bedside days I would have been bossing them all around but now I'm asking them things like, "how do I fill out this new form?" and "where do you guys keep the heparin?" I felt like a new grad. Its fun though, to go back and work with patients again. The bunch that I had were really good. I got to make a few jokes with them, we made some progress in their care, told a few stories, and still got a lot done. It almost makes me miss working on the ward. Almost. I still wouldn't go back full-time unless I absolutely had to.

Pet Peeve: when I tell people I have a desk job and they ask, "So you're not a nurse anymore?" Get your minds out of that little tiny tunnel! Just because I'm not wiping someone's ass doesn't mean I'm not a nurse. You should be asking this: "So what area of nursing does that fall under?" or better yet, say "Sweet, dude. So you don't come home stinking like someone else's shit anymore."

Busy

I always know when I'm getting really busy at work because when I get home, I can't seem to write in my blog. Right now, I'm working on a couple of different projects at once. It's great cuz it keeps me busy but it sux because now I'm working my ass off without feeling like I'm getting anywhere. Oh well. I think I work a little better when I'm really busy. Or maybe I don't and its all in my head.

Last week I went to Cypress on Monday night. It was great! Even though the runs were all groomed and there was no fresh powder, it was still pretty soft (compared to night boarding last year).

Hmm...

1. When cheese gets it's picture taken, what does it say?
2. When someone asks you, A penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?
3. If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted?
4. When someone is impatient and says, "I haven't got all day," I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?
5. I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered, what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?
6. If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
7. What if there were no hypothetical questions?
8. Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?
9. Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.
10. Why do croutons come in airtight packages? It's just stale bread to begin with.
11. I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.
12. Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
13. If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?
14. I think it would be interesting if old people got anti-Alzheimer's disease where they slowly began to recover other people's lost memories.
15. "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?
16. If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?
17. Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
18. Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
19. I recently went to a new doctor and noticed he was located in something called the Professional Building. I felt better right away.
20. Why is the man (or woman) who invests all your money called a broker?
21. At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom.
22. The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.

Movie Reviews

40 Year Old Virgin with Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd

Funny, funny shit.


The Dukes of Hazzard with Johnny Knoxville, Sean William Scott, and Jessica Simpson

It sucked.

Book Review

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

A real heartwearming, tearjerking, smile-to-your-face-while-you're-crying kinda book. It was okay. If you like to get slapped in the face with meaning of life shit. I like stories with a bit more subtlety. If you ask me face-to-face how the book was, I'll throw it at you and say "did you like that? If you did, you might like the book."

Inadequate

I was reading the Cypress Mountain website and there is a shitload of snow up there. It just keeps snowing. Then I read: "good mountain tires are required". Oh crap. I don't have good summer tires! Can someone please drive me to Cypress Mountain?

It's Nice to be Home

While I was in the Philippines, I realized that I was spending a lot of time with my parents. Since I moved (almost 4 years ago), this was the most I've seen them at one time. Three weeks of mom and dad. Nice at times, but frustrating at the same time. Am I a bad kid?

What's a 4-Letter Word You Say When You're Frustrated?

I'm addicted to crossword puzzles. I used to cut them out of newspapers (or rip the page out of papers I find a Starbucks) but now I just go online and print them off. During my 14 hour flight to the Philippines I had a stack of about 30 of them. When I came home I only had about 3 or 4 left. My goal is to finish them, but I usually have a handfull of squares left. I always hate the ones where you're only missing one letter but you still can't seem to fill it in. Argh!

Sex and the City

I watch this show whenever its on TV and have been for the past 5 months. Its not really my idea to do this. Celia makes me. I don't know why she asks me what I want to watch, cuz I know what we're going to watch. I've seen just about every episode and I know almost all the stories. I actually find the show funny and it has some pretty damn witty jokes. If you've never seen the show, here's a quick rundown:

Samantha: the slut. she'll sleep with anyone.
Miranda: the "liberated" powerful lawyer. she is, however, a little insecure.
Charlotte: the smart but ditzy romantic. she's the spoiled rich girl.
Carrie: she's the one that keeps them all together.

If you watch the uncensored shows, you'll see everyone's boobs except Carrie's. Strange that I thought of that...

All Self-Centered Dorks Raise Your Hand

Okay, I'm a nosy geek. I added a sitemeter at the bottom of my blog to see how many hits I get. Right now I'm at about 3500 since the end of June. Sure, it helps my ego and all, but it also lets me see who is reading my blog at any given time. I don't mean that I know who exactly is reading it (ie, your name and address - but I do know that about some people). I mean I can see that someone from Konglungen, Akershus, Norway was reading my blog on January 14th at 6:14pm, using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP at a resolution of 1024x768 and their ISP was NextGenTel AS. I can tell they were reading and didn't just accidentally click on it and then leave because they spent 8 minutes on my blogpage. Creepy, huh? I'm just the kind of freak that would look at this information too.

I'm always amazed when I find out someone reads my blog. My friend at work (hi Rene and no, I don't care about your anonymity) mentioned something to me about something I had written in my blog recently. I knew she read it, but I had forgotten so when she said it I was thinking, "How the hell did you know that?" Then my ego kinda got all inflated and shit cuz I then I thought I was the most interesting guy in the world. God, I'm a dork.

Movie & Book Review

This is my first combo review.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden &
Memoirs of a Geisha with Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li

The book is always better but the movie was pretty good too. The 3 main actors are hot. I read the book while I was on vacation. I didn't care that the movie didn't have Japanese actors. Good read, good movie.