December 4, 2006?? Seriously?!

So I was sitting on my couch tonight when a little e-mail notification box popped up on my computer screen. The e-mail was from a faithful blog reader questioning the nearly 9 months of silence from myself and my blogging partner in crime. Wow…. I had no idea it had been so long…

So what have I been up to since December 4^th? Well I’ve been to Sri Lanka (ok, that’s no surprise really, except that I was supposed to go twice and cancelled one of the trips due to a debilitating virus sweeping the country—that’s a more interesting story). I have now entered my 4^th year in the School Psychology program. I spent the whole summer, studying, writing, and did I mention studying?? The whole of August was dedicated to studying for my ridiculous comps exams. I hope I passed, and will probably go into hiding if I didn’t and the blog will once again be ignored.

Actually, to be honest there are two reasons why I ignored the blog. First, I read an article that said blogging was becoming a lost art and that people were giving up on it. I felt peer pressure to stop writing. Second, I became a slave to the Facebook. No, I am not too old for Facebook. Yes, I check it several times a day. No, I am not ashamed.

This should be an interesting year. It's the build-up year for the 2008 elections (I am currently watching the Republican debate on TV), and since Sudha is an ass and I am an elephant, you know there will be some interesting discussion. We have an agreement not to talk politics in person since we value our friendship too much, but the blog has always been a wonderful passive aggressive playground for our political thoughts :)

In baseball news, Barry Bonds may have broken Hank Aaron's record, but Hank will still be my main home-run man. The Braves are near the top of the pack, but probably will not pull through. And I still hate the Mets.

Ahh... it feels good to blog. Welcome back!

This is Umerica, dang-it!

Sometimes I think living in America and having a public voice sometimes obliges you to make a big hullabaloo about something that you "feel strongly about," but in reality just isn't that big a deal. The latest knucklehead to hit the news is Dennis Prager, who sits on the governing board of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Denny thinks that soon to be Minn. Congressman Keith Ellison should be required to take his ceremonial oath of office on the Bible and not the Koran even though Ellison is a practicing Muslim. His reasoning follows:

"Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible.....If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress," Prager wrote, adding that using the Koran "undermines American civilization."

Allow me to digress for a moment. But last time I checked you can't make a sweeping generalization about what "Americans" are interested in. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not have the Bible forced on me. I have no problem with it, but I don't get my spirituality from it and neither do a whole lot of Americans. I just don't think it's the States business to put it in my face. In fact, I think the State agreed on that a long time ago.

If you read the rest of the article it goes on to blow the whole situation out of proportion, talking about how we'll then have to allow people to swear on Mein Kampf if it happens to be their "favorite book." Does that mean the Bible is just a lot of people's favorite book and that why we use it? And as everyone would expect, anything that is proposed to be any measure of cultural fairness that happens to involve a Muslim all of a sudden becomes America bowing to terrorists, and becoming hypersensitive to Muslim culture and the crying liberal's way of making Muslims not hate us. Last time I checked, Ellison is not all Muslims, and if we didn't make a big deal about this, Muslims would really not give two hoots about it.

All that aside though, I have a few personal opinions on the subject. Denny fully admits that the real oath of office takes place on the House floor and the oath sworn on the Bible is purely symbolic. Symbolic of what? I'm assuming, of that person's willingness to serve this country honestly and to the best of his ability. Well, for being symbolic, that sounds pretty serious to me. In fact, I don't think there's anything symbolic about any oath. And if you want to say that the symbolic oath isn't as important, then why use the Bible at all? After all it is symbolic and therefore has no real bearing on your willingness to perform your duties. Somehow it doesn't make sense to talk about how important the Bible is and how important it was to George Washington only to force someone to swear an oath on it when they do not directly believe in its content. Doesn't the Bible become just any other book at that point? I don't know about you, but if someone is going to swear an oath to work for this country, I'd like that oath to mean something to that person. The fact that Ellison wants to swear his oath on the Koran (the book from which he will gather the tools to do his job), before Allah, tells me that he takes his oath very seriously and I don't think that's a bad thing.

Finally, I'll leave you with a portion of our Constitution. Although this passage refers to the real oath taken in the House, I think it captures the spirit of the whole issue.

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

http://redstateamerican.wordpress.com/2006/12/03/america-not-keith-ellison-decides-what-book-a-congressman-takes-his-oath-on/
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,234237,00.html

Oh the insanity

This article is so ridiculous:

"Robbers Prey on Play Station 3 Buyers"

I cannot believe how crazy people can be. This picture is from an e-bay sale which is currently listed as $1,950. A few of the more violent examples...

Andrew Templeton, 20, and David Wiggins, 28, of Sullivan, Indiana, were assaulted by two teens after waiting for 36 hours at a Super Wal-Mart, police said. They were unloading their PlayStation 3s from their car when two teens approached them carrying a chain and a tire iron and demanding their consoles,

Another shopper was beaten and robbed of his new PlayStation 3 just minutes after he bought it at a store in Manchester, police said. The shopper told police five men surrounded and beat him as he left the Shoppes at Buckland Hills with the new PlayStation.

Elsewhere, two men wearing black ski masks and sunglasses made off with five consoles after holding two employees at gunpoint at an Englewood, Ohio, video game store Thursday night, police said.

Things you can see from outer space

The Great Wall of China, Egyptian pyramids, the KFC colonel...

Yeah that's right. In order to promote their new brand image of the colonel in a chef's apron [as opposed to his former white suit jacket] the company laid out colored tiles in the colonel's image that can be seen from space.

Yeah that's right... outerspace.

Eat more chicken aliens.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,229308,00.html

So it wasn't just the frat boys

Looks like good ole Sacha got a lot of people fooled... check out all the other lawsuits coming his way.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2006-11-10-borat-lawsuit_x.htm?csp=34

Girls Gone Wild, Frat Boys Style...

Ok, so Borat is now the #1 movie in America, once again proving that Americans on the whole are stupid. Let's go out and support a movie that patronizes us, points to all our flaws, and generally makes us look like bumbling idiots. But hey, we're all about free speech and isn't Sacha Baron Cohen [a.k.a., "Borat"] just exercising his?

I'm not against this movie by any means, so don't misunderstand what I'm about to say. It's just that I can't help but feel a little bad for the stupid frat guys from good old University of South Carolina. The frat boys claim they were tricked and coerced into saying racist and sexist comments. Let's get one thing clear- NO ONE is ever "tricked" into saying those kind of comments in front of a video camera if they don't mean it a little at least. They claim they thought the video would be shown outside of the country, once again proving that Americans are idiots and have no concept of pride in our country.

My friends went to a theater here in Columbia last week to watch Borat [for those of you who haven't been keeping up, I attend the grad school here at the Univ. of South Carolina-- grad school, not undergrad, so don't blame me] and they said it was ridiculous. First there was lots of cheering when the students "picked up" a hitch-hiking Borat, but then dead silence when the comments were made. These guys are getting ridiculed left, right and center for what they said. Serves them right for being such typical Southern frat boy jerks. So you're asking why do I feel sorry for them? I feel sorry for the fact that no one seems to have taught them better and now they have to suffer with the whole country knowing how ridiculous and idiotic they are. But at the end of the day, they signed a waiver, and now they know how those poor drunk college girls feel after they flash the cameras :)

In case you haven't heard.....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/08/election.main/index.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,228219,00.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,227937,00.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,228173,00.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,228262,00.html?sPage=fnc.politics/youdecide2006

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/08/election.bush/index.html

Montana principal returns after 'wedgie'

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061024/ap_on_fe_st/principal_wedgie

I read this headline this morning and I had to bring it to the public's attention. Afterall, it is breaking news. Long story short, a principal (princi... ple... no, no he's my friend.. princiPAL) gave a kid on the soccer team a wedgie.... and got suspended... for 6 days. Now, I don't really think the whole wedgie thing is reason to get this upset about. I mean come on, the kid will get over it. And I don't want hear any softy parenting-type crying about how he was emotionally traumatized by it. But what is funny to me is how serious this became. For example:

Messerli cried Monday as he read a statement to the board and the public.

"I've made mistakes in my life, but none have had the impact that this one has had," he said.

Really?? Really???? For this, the principal had to make all these dramatic statements about mistakes in his life? Gimme a break! But I guess that's what happens when the PTA, filled with the same parents who decided to outlaw tag because it's a dangerous chase game and dodgeball because it's exclusionary, get involved and have their way. Their overall point was that the principal blurred the line between authority and student with the wedgie. Well, here's my question.... what example does it set to completely undermine the authority of the principal publicly? How much respect do his students have for him now? And more importantly, the principal's gonna have to second guess any disciplinary action now because he'll be under a microscope from now into the near future. Wouldn't it have made more sense for the schoolboard to say they'll handle it, give the principal a private reprimand and make sure he understands wedgies aren't appropriate and have the parents butt out?? Now all we're left with is soft-ass children who can't handle a little bit of hard discipline and who have even less respect for authority. Awesome!

Baseball: A cheater's game

Sunday night brought yet another smudge to the already dirty game that we call baseball. Tigers' pitcher Kenny Rodgers was found to have pine tar on his hand which he was using to get a better grip on the ball. The use of pine tar is of course, is clearly against the rules. I'll say it, it's cheating. And he wasn't even ejected from the game. He just washed his hands and pitched on. And looking back on film from previous games, shows that Rodgers had mysterious dark stuff on his hand during those games as well. Now, I'm not sure what's worse. The fact that he was cheating, or that no one saw the need to really call him out on it. Why was Tony La Russa content to let him keep pitching and after the game when asked whether Roders's cheating prevent fair competition say, "depends." He even told his team "we don't want to win that way." I'm confused. Win what way? The fair way where no one's allowed to cheat? This only makes me wonder whether La Russa's protecting some of his own players. And apparently plenty of other pitchers use something or other to get a better grip on the ball.

Whatever happened to the good old days? You remember. The days when Roger McDowell tried to flick the piece of sandpaper he had in his back pocket to his pitching coach when the umpires got suspicious? If I remember correctly, he was promptly ejected. Is baseball slipping into the abyss or moral relativity where nothing is really so bad so long as enough people are doing it?

The New MorningX?

So being that I am in Columbia, I was not aware of the regime change at the 99x Morning Show. Apparently they've been going on for a few weeks now and I'm curious as to how it's going. After the good old days of Sean Demery then Barnes, Leslie and Jimmy, things went downhill when the show went through the various phases of: The Don Miller Morning Show (arguably the worst phase); The Toucher, Jimmy, and Leslie Morning Show; and Mornings with Axel, Jimmy, and Leslie.

Yes, I am getting all of this information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNNX-FM and once again I marvel at how much that website knows. It was like a trip down the Atlanta musical memory lane to read that entry.

I'm intrigued to listen to the new show and shall be tuning into 99x.com some mornings in order to check it out. Just a heads up for all you misplaced Atlantans all over the country at the moment.

Oh and by the way, ever wondered what happend to Crash Clark and his traffic updates? Wonder no more....
Was suspended more than once while working at the station. Was fired at the end of November 2005 for a contest gone wrong. According to reports, Crash was hosting a remote at a club and had pairs of tickets to a private 99x concert by 311 to give away. A woman approached and offered to perform oral sex on someone at the club for the tickets. Crash assumed she wouldn't actually go through with it (noting that people had offered to do the same at previous events and hadn't) and was planning to give her the tickets even if she didn't. However, she did go through with it (in the men's bathroom), upsetting the club owners and 99x programming director Leslie Fram. Made a brief final appearance on air near the end of Toucher's final show (on March 17th, 2006), where Clark jokingly asked Fram to hire him back "for the fifth time". Currently involved in a radio show with Fred Toucher and Rich Shertenlieb known as The Toucher and Rich show on WBCN in Boston.

Clinician-Researchers: Not always the best researchers

JT and I were talking about clinician-researchers yesterday and we came to the conclusion that it's really hard to be both. Clinicians know the clinic and researchers know the lab. And here's a perfect example of why clinicians don't make the best researchers. I'm sure you all heard about the clinical trial gone horribly wrong in England in March of this year when people ended up in the ICU. Well, the article describing the trial came out in the New England Journal of Medicine last month. I read it as I was eating my lunch today and frankly, I'm baffled. How did the clinicians who designed this study not know something like this would happen?
Let me summarize without getting too sciencey. Basically, the drug they gave was an anti-CD28 antibody. CD28 is one of many proteins present on the surface of T cells. T cells are the worker bees of the part of your immune system that deals with for instance, bacteria that's not supposed to be there. But, too much immune activity can do more hard to the body than good. Like if you're septic, you can die from your body's own immune response to the bacteria, not the bacteria itself. So, that's where this drug comes in. It's function was supposed to be to regulate T cell response to infection. They knew giving this antibody would basically turn T cells on and leave them on so the body would keep making more of them. That's good to get the immune system going. Knowing this would happen, they gave another drug to stop T cell proliferation. That's all fine and dandy to stop the immune system from getting out of hand.
But here's where the clinician-researchers got stupid and here's why I think not all clinicians are cut out to be researchers. Anytime you make an effector T cell, but you don't let it proliferate, it will die. These cells don't just hang around. So, of course they observed a near total depletion of T cell numbers in these previously healthy people. And the kicker is that these clinician-researchers were surprised!! Now when I read the reports about this way back in March, I could have told you exactly why this study went wrong. It just didn't make and fundamental sense. These guys were Intensivists. Had they spoken to just one Immunologist before the trial, they would have gotten the right story. Which brings me to my point. Research is never so simple as hey there's too much of this so lets get rid of it and things should be better. But that's often how the mind of a clinician works. So indeed, clinician-researchers, not always good researchers!

Death of a President?

So I'm curious, what do our blog readers actually think about this movie? The award-winning movie is coming out of the Toronto film festival, but one of the largest movie conglomorates in the country will not be playing it on their screens. Their comment to the press:

But the country's largest theater chain, Regal Entertainment Group, has passed on playing the film, citing the subject matter as the primary reason. "We would not be inclined to program this film," Regal Entertainment Group CEO Mike Campbell said. "We feel it is inappropriate to portray the future assassination of a sitting president, regardless of political affiliation."

This type of comment is enough for the typical media frenzy we're used to, especially in light of the fact that this is election season. But I wanted both sides of the story, so I looked up the synopsis given for the film festival. You can read it here.

I don't know. The synopsis makes it out to be a moving film that will have you crying and questioning the meaning of life. Everyone is entitled to their own artistic expression, but I do find it particularly crass that someone would make a film about killing a specific person while they are still alive, nevermind that he's the sitting president. I guess that's what really bothers me. For years we have been watching movies featuring a "president" character that criticizes and mirrors the current sitting president. But this just seems to be taking it one step too far for me, and I don't like the artistic expression that it's encouraging. Even the 90's classic films, Hot Shots, the Saddam Hussein character was never actually killed if I remember correctly?

I'm gonna be an important person one day as I'm kind of a big deal and people know me. I don't know that I want to live in a country where people think it's ok for someone who doesn't like me to make a movie in which I die when I'm still living and walking on this Earth.

Read the article concerning the movie theater ban here.

Do you know wha today is???

…… It’s our blog-a-versary. Well, actually, it was 1 year plus 7 days ago that this blog was born. Ahh, yes another year, with so many things changing and so many things staying the same. What do I mean? Well, let’s look at what has stayed the same. JT continues to read the blog regularly, but still does not contribute. Mt. T probably doesn’t read the blog and of course still refuses to contribute. What has changed? Well, I moved to Boston for one, Sheara and I have talked on the phone about 2 times in the past week and a half. There is no insinuation of blame of course, but looking at our track record, that’s just crazy. What’s to blame? Why, her mind was being overworked by school and my body was being overworked by unpacking the lab. Otherwise, I confronted confrontation at work and I won…. Not with copious amounts of laxative, but with mature discourse. :-) But now to the point at hand. Happy Birthday to The Brilliant Thoughts of Overworked Minds. This makes me think how many more birthdays this blog will have while still active? Are we going to grow up and get too busy to blog about the very important issues that have been addressed here over the past year? I certainly hope not. But if this lasts for many years down the road, and I find myself opening a special MySpace account to spy on my own children, I’ll be spying on them not only for the things that they may be doing online, but I’ll be spying to make sure they steer clear of this blog. Afterall, there are certain things that children need not know about their parents. But rest assured, we’ll have many more years of guilt-free blogging ahead of us and we hope you’ll stay on for the ride! :-)

No more bull, it's time for the truth!!

It's 3:00 in the morning and I am very very tired. The reason I am not in bed is because a Neuroscience test is keeping me up late and very frustrated. As I feel like an undergraduate again, I decided to revert back to my undergraduate ways when placed in a situation like this.... break out the Red Bull!! It's my favorite way to stay awake while studying or to perk up during a late night out on the town. I personally like the taste even though I know many people seem to hate it. I recently heard that people had died after drinking Red Bull so I decided to search Wikipedia and see what they had to say. Judge for yourself, but all I know is that I am feeling very awake and energized-- clearly enough to write this entry and now I'm ready to get back to work!

In 2001, the drink was investigated by the Swedish National Food Administration after being linked to the deaths of three consumers. It has been subject to a number of other health concerns regarding glucuronolactone, a precursor of taurine. Sale of Red Bull as a normal soft drink is prohibited in Denmark, Norway, France and Uruguay. Due to the link with taurine, local authorities categorized Red Bull as a medicine and suggest customers ask for medical advice before drinking. Because of this, only energy drinks without taurine are sold in France. The official imported Canadian Red Bull is a caffeinated version of Thai Krating Daeng. Until late 2004, its sale was prohibited in Canada. Now a can must carry a warning label that says:

Cautions: Contains caffeine. Not recommended for children, pregnant or breast-feeding women, caffeine sensitive persons or to be mixed with alcohol. Do not consume more than 500 ml per day.

However, no such warning label is present on tins sold in the UK, though people who consume the beverage in excess (more than 2-5 250ml tins in a 24-hour period) have been known to express discomfort, such as nausea, stomach pains, gas, and/or sleeplessness.

Red Bull made the news in Ireland after two hurling players died after drinking Red Bull at half-time in a club game.

Doctors and nutritionists have warned of the dangers of mixing caffeine and alcohol in excessive quantities. Their warnings, however, are often unheeded as many people feel that the benefits of mixing Red Bull with alcohol far outweigh the risks and use stimulants such as caffeine in order to avoid getting drowsy while drunk. Mixing Red Bull with alcohol (most commonly Vodka and Jägermeister) has become increasingly popular among college-aged crowds and club goers. Heavier drinkers of alcoholic Red Bull drinks have cited "euphoric feelings." Many studies have been performed to determine the actual effects on the human body after consumption of Red Bull with alcohol, most finding solely that the mixing of a depressant with an energy drink can lead to abnormal heart rhythms and future heart problems.

The director of biomaterials research at the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore found the most wear to tooth enamel occurred, in descending order, from exposure to -- lemonade, energy drinks (especially those with citrus (i.e. Citric acid) flavors such as Red Bull), sports drinks, fitness water, iced tea and cola.

So granted it was my fault, but still....

Ok, so here's the deal.... Friday night, I go into one of my usual haunts to enjoy the fine company of my friends and a few alcoholic beverages. As the new social chair of the department, I had turned this into a department outing and was expecting phone calls from people asking where we were. Therefore, I placed my phone on the table to ensure that no call would be missed. After a few beer beverages, and a shot of Mexico's finest tequila, I was ready to pay my bill and head home for a night of relaxed sleeping.

The next morning, I woke up and realized that I did not have my phone. So I call the restaurant from my apartment phone and they say after about 30 seconds of looking, "No, it's not here, but leave us a contact number and we will let you know if we find it." But I'm not buying that, so I go there myself and ask the manager to look for it, and he says "No, it's not here, but leave us your number and we'll let you know if we find it."

So I go home, call Cingular, and generally waste most of the afternoon trying to decide whether to cancel it, deactivate it, etc. Since it's the weekend, whatever I decided to do can't be reversed until Monday so I had to make sure that I made the correct decision. So after all this, my friend calls around 8pm and and says, "Guess what, the restaurant just called me and said they had your phone." Ok. What the hell?!?

So they got my contact number twice, and instead of using that, they open up my phone and call the last number that tried to contact me? Let's not forget that this is the very same place where hours earlier, an entire management staff had never even seen my phone before. Where did it magically come from? I know it's my fault for leaving it there, but part of me wanted to suggest that maybe they get a better plan for handling things like this instead of ruining my day with their ineptitude for handling missing items. Sheesh. Well at least I still have my phone and all 75 phone numbers that were stored in it. You better believe that I'm gonna be making up a written list of those numbers before I pseudo-lose my phone again. It's amazing in the advent of the cell phone, how few numbers I actually know by heart these days.

Boozie Boston

As followers of this blog may or may not know, I'm moving to Boston in a few weeks to finish my PhD. And after finding this article, I feel like Boston has some pretty hefty expectations of me.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/18/cx_de_081806_nightlife06_drunkcities_slide_4.html?thisSpeed=6000

It's the 4th booziest city in the country. Topping the list was Minneapolis. Well, lets be honest, if I lived in Minneapolis, I'd be a raging alcoholic too for lack of anything better to do. But apparenty, Bonstonians aren't too shabby themselves. We all know that I'm big on traditions, and well I'm gonna want to make new friends. Everybody wants to fit in, right? All I can promise is to give it the good old college try, but something tells me that fitting in with the locals in this case won't be a problem. Who knows, it might lead to a blog post entitled "Musings from the drunk tank."