True Story

I went out this past Saturday night with some friends and things got a little OOC. We ended up closing out a bar somewhere in Lakeview after which I stumbled home. Good times were had by all.

However, I woke up the next morning with a very sore forehead. It wasn't a headache - it felt like I had hit my head on something. Since I couldn't remember doing so, I asked my friends about it. They replied, "Maybe you hit your head on the tap." I gave them a confused look. Did I throw up in the sink at the bar? Nope. "Don't you remember what happened after you took that shot of Goldshlagger?" I don't remember drinking Goldshlagger.

My friends then had to fill me in. Apparently, we got friendly with the bartenders after most of the other patrons went home. At some point, my friends picked me up and held me under the tap at the bar while the bartender poured beer into my mouth. I remember none of this.

Stunned, I asked how much beer I drank. "You drank a lot of beer dude. Like a champ." At some point the bartenders also brought out a funnel, but I wasn't involved in that (I don't think). Also, I became irate when my songs wouldn't play on the jukebox. Somehow I had forgotten to put money in the machine before making my selections...

*shame*

Life As A Grad Student

I don't know which chronicles my life more these days...

PhD Comics:


Or Garfield Minus Garfield:

Cigarettes and Bars

A weird thing happened to me at the bar the other night. I was out on the patio of a bar with two friends who smoke. A representative from Camel cigarettes came over and asked if we wanted free cigarettes.

My friends said yes. The cigarette girl pulled out a Star Trek-esque scanning device and scanned their cigarette cartons, and driver's licenses, then entered their names and contact info into the same device. Then she scanned packs of Camel cigarettes and gave them each two packs of their choice.

I was asked if I wanted some for myself. I said no, but my friends wanted me to get some for them (I actually felt a lot of dissonance doing so). However, after looking at my driver's license the girl said she couldn't give me cigarettes because I was Canadian and therefore couldn't confirm that my license was valid. While I joked about this being discrimination against foreigners, a dude in a suit came over and said he could in fact give me some cigarettes.

All I had to do was print and sign my name on a form. I don't think I even had to declare that I was of legal age to smoke. Then I was handed one pack of cigarettes, not two. Let's review:

* They can't give me two packs of cigarettes because they can't prove I'm legal age.
* They can give me one pack of cigarettes without any proof at all.

This makes total sense. Also, is this legal?

Match Day

My Reaction Every Weekend

Mental Health Care in the USA

One benefit about living in the United States is you learn a lot about their health care system. We all know the gist but I'm studying the ins and outs: access to medical coverage, specific policies regarding access to psychotropic medication, and availability of services. It's an ugly scene. Although I have always supported universal health care, it has been possible to further sway me in that direction. Unless you are filthy rich and exceedingly misanthropic, there is no way anyone in Canada should want to have a health care system like the US.

Specifically, mental health services are appallingly bad. How bad? The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) decided to grade US mental health service provisions state by state, and as a country.

Check out the results.

Note that Illinois has improved from an F to a D! Woo!! Also, not one state received an A. USA! USA!

Unfortunately, I suspect that Canada's mental health care system is in similar shape. This is because psychological and psychiatric services have to be paid for either out of pocket (which is virtually unaffordable for many people) or through insurance (which not everyone has). I'll have to look into this further.

Where Am I?

Sometimes I feel like I moved to Canada and you guys became America. As most of you have probably heard:

(From Norm Park) CANADA: ELECTION DID NOT GO WELL ABOVE THE 49TH PARALLEL.
Stephen Harper, newly elected Conservative-Party Prime Minister, named Gary Goodyear, an obscure Member of Parliament, to be Minister of Science and Technology. Already this year Goodyear oversaw a series of massive science funding cuts, including zeroing out the Genome program. A chiropractor and acupuncturist with no science background, he is known for opposing same-sex marriage and favoring full legal rights for fertilized eggs. Asked in an interview if he believed in evolution, he objected to being questioned about religion. Later that day he said he believed in evolution. He should have stopped there, but expanded with an example from chiropractic about women’s shoes and the spine. He clearly confused genetic inheritance with adaptation of an individual, or perhaps he believes in Lamarckian evolution.

Contrast this with Obama's recent steps toward progress by lifting bans on stem cell research, making findings from studies available to the public, and naming his science advisors.

Sorry dudes.

Predicting Political Preferences

I came across the results of an interesting psychology study the other day:

When participants were in preschool, they were evaluated on a variety of personality dimensions by their preschool teachers who had been trained in personality assessment. Twenty years after preschool, the researchers asked these now young adults to complete some self-report questionnaires assessing political beliefs.

Children who were described by their teachers 20 years previously as being easily offended, indecisive, fearful, and rigid were more likely to be politically conservative in their twenties. Children who had been described as being self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating, and relatively undercontrolled in preschool grew up to be more liberal.

Memory Like A Sieve

Some of you may have noticed that I have some difficulty with memory...maybe. I just read this brief New York Times article on why people tend to forget jokes and why it is difficult to remember things when anxious. Although the article doesn't encompass the full spectrum of my memory deficits, it starts to explain a few things. Enjoy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/science/17angi.html?th&emc=th

* The link might not work because you may need a password...let me know if this happens (if you care)

Happy St. Patrick's Day - Chicago Style!

Apparently, Chicago celebrates St. Patrick's Day early. Last year I was fooled and showed up to the party a few days late. Not this year, dear readers. After muscling my way downtown in a mob of green party hats, beads, and way too many 'kiss me I'm Irish' shirts, I made it just in time for the annual river dyeing ceremony.

Because of environmental concerns they used a new dye this year. Interestingly, it looks orange/yellow when it goes into the river but quickly turns a healthy neon green. As the boats dumped the dye into the river, a band of bagpipes and drums played while crowds cheered.

Here are some photos in chronological order that show the process. Look out for the Canada geese who decided to join the party. Judging from the radioactive glow of the dye, I bet they're partying in bird heaven about now.

The Next Surgeon General

I read this interesting blurb about how Barack Obama has chosen CNN celebrity Dr. Sanjay Gupta as the next US Surgeon General. There is a petition going around to get someone else elected - Dr. George Lundberg. I won't post the whole petition but please compare two (albeit biased) blurbs about each doctor's credentials which are both humourous and sad:

Dr George Lundberg not only is a consummate public health scientist who knows public health issues, he strongly embraces the above three priorities in words and deeds (1. getting insurance for all Americans 2. decreasing unnecessary and expensive medical tests 3. Rebuilding public trust in the FDA, CDC, etc). As Editor- in-Chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association’s journal, commonly known as JAMA, between 1982-1999, the most widely read medical journal in the world, Dr. Lundberg earned the respect of a worldwide readership of JAMA. In 1999 he then went onto become(until January 30, 2009) Editor-in-Chief of MEDSCAPE, the leading source of online health information and education for physicians thus establishing himself as genuine pioneer in e-medicine work a trend he recognized very early and began at the AMA. He was dubbed “Online HealthCare’s Medicine Man” by The Industry Standard. He excels in both professional and patient medical education.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, conversely , trained in neurosurgery,-named in 2003 as one of the sexiest men in America-,shows little to no evidence of embacing the three fundamental priorities outlined above in this petition. Quite to the contrary Dr. Gupta has been a voice for the status quo in our very broken, profiteering based, bloated, bio-medical complex. One medical journalist described Gupta’s reporting as an “unquestioning –almost cheerleading approach to health news” most often reporting on the “the issue, or worse, the breakthrough of the day”. Gupta’s ties to the pharmacutical industry and medical testing industry need to be further investigated in his vetting process. We the signers of this petition demand this. And Gupta’s on–air attack of Michael Moore’s data contained in Moore’s movie Sicko requiring formal retraction by CNN and duly noted by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman of The New York Times was a disgrace (I remember this...sooo awkward).

When I looked up Dr. Lundberg on Wikipedia, this is what it had to say:

One month before joining Medscape Lundberg was dramatically fired from JAMA by E. Ratcliffe Anderson, who was then executive vice president of the AMA over a research study report from the Kinsey Institute that Lundberg had selected for publication. The JAMA article reported, among other things, that 60% of college students surveyed in 1991 considered "oral sex" as not "having sex," which Anderson said was "inappropriately and inexcusably" timed to influence the debate over the Impeachment of Bill Clinton and "to extract political leverage." Lundberg subsequently successfully sued the AMA and was awarded an undisclosed settlement.

****UPDATE****

Dr. Gupta has apparently withdrawn his name as a candidate. Whatever. The comparison between the two doctors is still pretty funny.

Interview Woes Pt II

My Attempt at Positivity in Cartoon Form

Interview Woes