Just got back from the opening of Watchmen.

I’ll admit, in several posts, I have mentioned that I have superpowers…
you can read here or here if you’re bored.

But Watchmen was quite an interesting movie that put them in a new light.  One of the super powers I do NOT have is the ability to accurately rate a movie.  I love pretty much every movie I watch.  Ever.  Its a character flaw, I seem to see the good parts and forget about the bad.  This movie had visually stunning scene after scene.  It was also quite dark.  It had sketcy morality and gratuitous violence/sex all over, but the story was great.  Thus, like every movie I ever see, I liked the movie.

However, it also had some full frontal nudity.  Let me rephrase that.  Full frontal MALE nudity.  Ahem, let me rephrase that a third time…
Full frontal glowing blue schwang nudity.

Thanks DC comix, I’ll try to bore that out of my brain for the next three weeks, oh well.

OK, round 2.  Here’s the video of the pretty group of deer that were so happily frolicking in our backyard.  They have shown up regularly for the last year or so.

That’s my wife and I banging on the windows trying to get their attention.  I expected them to startle and panic and disappear in their characteristic jumping pattern.  Instead, they just gave me a look as if to say,
“What?  You got some corn?  No?  No corn?  Then stop banging the window.”

I have had a Ford Focus for the last decade or so.  It has treated me kindly and never broken down a single time.  It has never failed to start, nor has it had any mysterious problems in all that time.  One time it did stop running on the way to Church Brass group practice, but that was mainly because it had no gas.  I have a hard time blaming the car for it running out of gas.

However, with the inevitable approach of the small one, Gwen and I realized that we needed a larger car, preferably one with more than 2 doors, to transport a baby.  We got the new Subaru Forrester, which is awesome.  However, this is not about how incredibly wicked awesome the Forrester is, no, this is about nostalgia for the Focus.

The focus will be donated to my parents, who I expect will use it possibly twice before trading it in for a Lexus.  They will likely overlook all of its charm and personality and want the creature comforts they have come to love.  What a shame.

Here’s what I will miss:

1.  The magical hum.  I actually never noticed this before.  My brother Joel noticed it when I he rode in it one day.  It is a mix between an occasional grinding screech and Zamphyr playing the pan flute.  I believe his words were something close to “I’m never going to ride in that piece of crap again till you find out what is making that horrible noise.”  I am sure what he meant by that is that the overwhelming charm and spunk exudes throughout any experience anyone has with the Focus.
     Yeah, that’s Zamphir hiding with the 90 horses under the hood.

2.  No gas flap for added (removed) for speed.  You know that little cover over the gas cap.  Yeah, two years ago during a typical Michigan winter day it was about -40 degrees.  I had to get gas and pulled open the cover and unscrewed the cap.  After filling up for about half a tank I realized that I was still holding onto the retractable flap that covers the opening to the gas cap.  Ah well, just more charm.  Here’s the formula.

3.  Specialized Motorcycle turn signals.  You know how when you turn on a turn signal, then you turn, and then you turn the wheel back the other way the turn signal automatically turns off?  Yeah, the focus for some reason decided that it would be more streamlined and adorable if every time you turned the turn signal on, you had to manually turn it off.  Every time.  Thus, the amount of times that I had a blinking turn signal on increased exponentially.  It would just keep on blinking “dumb-guy dumb-guy dumb-guy” over and over unless you manually turned it off.  How fun.

4.  Reverse un-safety child locks.  Child locks prevent children from accidentally opening a door from the inside of a car.  The focus had reverse child locks on the passenger side.  This prevents anyone from getting IN the car from the outside.  Thus, if you ever wanted to get into the car, the driver has to lean over and manually open that door every time.  So actually it is about as unsafe for children as you can get… almost.

  
It’s safer that this… at least a little bit.

So I bid a fond farewell to the car that has served me so well over the last few years.  I know it will probably live for another decade or so (or maybe two weeks).  So long old friend, so long.

A smart robot-pirate-ninja-jellyfish once told me that sometimes it seems like our lives are like video games.  At first, I was confused by the comment.  Then I was confused that such a weird entity would be talking to me.  Then, I responded by wondering what would happen if I typed “robot pirate ninja jellyfish” into google images, this is what I found:
 

Whoa, that’s awesome!

But that is not the point.  The point, in case you forgot, is that sometimes our lives are like video games.

Now that I have finally rounded the corner of Life: part one (training), I am just at the start of Part 2: working your butt off.  I really liked the start of part 2.  The complex video game levels of life seemed to be behind me.  Granted, living in Michigan, I have to beat the intermittent icy/snow levels every year.  You know, driving in a blizzard and avoiding abominable snow men.  Sure it’s a challenge, but I such beautiful yeti pelts on the floors.

I realize as I get older, life’s video game levels become more challenging than ever.  Have you ever played any RPGs (role playing games)?  All RPG’s pretty much start off the exact same way.

In these games you start off as a crappy level 1 knight.  You then have to go outside your dumpy little village into the woods and beat up a bunch of fluffy rabbit (or other less than masculine monsters) for 5 hours so that you can level up.  You do this in hopes of becoming stronger and hopefully improving your starting weapon (crappy stick) into a slightly less sucky weapon (slightly pointy stick).  Also, you hope to get enough gold so that you can buy a few healing potions so that you can at least make it across the river where there are at least some good monsters to fight.  That’s what this part of my life is like, exactly like that.  Sortof.  However, during medschool and residency I had leveled up several times and learned to use my magical powers to the best of my ability.

Oh I was awesome.  I had obtained all sorts of magical items and mystical powers in training.  For example, I had the white-coat of protection.  This gave me +5 dexterity and partial invisibility, since everyone else around me also had white coats and I could blend in anywhere.  Not only that, but no one REALLY ever wants to find a med student.  Sometimes they need a resident, but if not, they always go to the attending.  That was another advantage of being a resident.  You had…

The Excuse of saving!  You could always say “I’m a resident, I’ll have to ask my attending and get back to you.”  Oh sure, I knew that person had cancer, or something terrible, but I could shirk off such details since often it was the job of the attending to at least give crappy news.  When the crap REALLY hit the fan as a resident, you always had backup.  It was like I always had Gandalf right behind me.

Unfortunately, now that I’m all grown up and an attending myself, I had to hand in all my cool weapons of power and magical abilities.  In fact, I had to start over as a level 1 sucky halfling.  Granted I am an attending level 1 half elf, not a resident level 1 half elf… But no one really wants to be level 1 half-elf.  What a rip off.  Not only that, but all of the monsters are now bigger and stronger, and I don’t ever get to have Gandolf in my party any more. 

My most recent adventure as a level 1 halfling went something like this…

I was fighting a level 73 obese Smoking-Troll.  This brutal monster had both the power of See-Aych-Eff, and See-Oh-Pee-Dee, a vicious combinations.  Not only that, but he also came from the HONDA tribe.  For those of you not in the medical field, a HONDA is
HONDA
H – Hypertensive
O – Obese
N – Noncompliant (never takes their own medications)
D – Diabetic
A – Alcoholic

So this level 73 troll was attacking and his saturation of oxygen was 41%.  That’s a powerful attack.  Not to mention that this troll did not have a neck, nor did the troll have any fully functioning braincells.  I looked for Gandolf to assist, but to no avail.  Thus as a level 1 halfling I had to conquer the beast myself.  Fortunately I did have the tube of breathing and the elixer of sux.  Granted, at the end of it all, the troll was slain and I sent him to the land of Eye-See-Ewe, where he could remain in perpetual slumber for several weeks, till he could recover and attack again.  It just seems that the battles are much harder now with less help.  Though, such is the path of the mighty half elf.

Whoa.  Did anyone else get lost in the analogy back there?  I know I did.

How can I make it up.  I know, I’ll go google Smoking troll…  Yeah, here is a close picture of the guy I had to intubate, though my patient actually was much fatter and had less of a neck, otherise it was the exact same.   

Ah well, I only have to beat 200 more trolls before I can level up to level 2.

Gwen and I have lived in our house now for 7 months or so.  We have had a wide variety of non-human visitors over that time.  I decided to get out my video camera and take a quick video of a few of our frequent flyers.  I get a little nervous about putting this up, since my brother my come over and blow them all away.  But, that is a risk I’m willing to take for your benefit.  Also, I like venison, so I’m good either way.

…

OK, so I tried to post the video a few times now, and I have had less than fantastic results.

Granted it was not nearly as dramatic as Bambi’s mom dying or anything. 

Maybe I have to give Xanga a bit more time… we’ll see.

Work has been exceedingly taxing.

I just took a big financial hit.

Many belligerent drunks, and angry staff.

Then in comes the beautiful little girl, with her wonderful words that made me feel all better.

I was discharging her, I made her all better and she was smiling and happy, so I was chit-chatting with the little three year old.  Then like a gorgeous sunrise over a darkened abyss, she said:

Little girl:  “When I go to bed I fart a lot!”

Me:  “Oh really?

Little girl:  “I fart every day!”

These comments came out of the blue.  There was a slight pause as I looked at mom and then we all started laughing.  It made an otherwise painful night tolerable.

My brother in law was comped a room at the Venetian for three nights.  I don’t know how, since he was not even a member of their players club at the time.  However he did it, we got to stay there for free.  The room was awesome, the view was sweet, and we had 4 nights to take Vegas for all it was worth.

We did not take Vegas for all it was worth.

Fortunately, Vegas said that I will be allowed to keep my unborn child if I continue to visit and hand over cash regularly to them.  I agreed with this.

Randy likes to play Craps which is a game I like as well, except for the part of me losing all my money really quickly.

Craps works like this.

You roll the dice and get a number developed (4,5,6,8,9,10).

Now you have to roll that number again before a 7 (the most common number) is rolled.

You can keep rolling and rolling until one of those two things happen.  Either you roll a seven (and you lose all bets you have out on the table) or you roll your developed number and everyone starts screaming and giving each other high-fives.

What normally happens is that you roll a number and you keep rolling and rolling.  Maybe you get one or two of your numbers, and then you roll a seven (crap out) and you start over.  However, Randy has a unique ability when he rolls.

It goes something like this

Randy “Listen, man, I’m really a terrible roller, I don’t know why, but I always suck.  I don’t think you should even bet on me.”

Me:  That makes no sense.  No one can statistically be that much worse than anyone else.  I mean, they are dice, it is just random chance. 

Randy: “I know, but I have seen myself roll before, I just crap out all the time for some reason.”

Me:  “Let’s do it.”

So then he rolls.  He develops an 8.  Eight is a pretty easy number to get.  I proceed to bet on a bunch of numbers and put money down all over the place.  Then, his very next roll, he rolls a seven.  All my bets are taken away and I lose.  Randy looks semi-apologetic at me, and semi-”I told you so you moron” at me.  I sigh, and we keep going. 

I don’t know how he did it, but of the roughly 20 times he rolled, I think he did the above scenario, or close to it all but 3 of the times. 

The one other person we went with liked to play Roulette all the time, and he also played 3 card poker.  Both of these games have awful odds and are for morons.  He was the only one who made money.  Punk.

I did make money playing poker, however, I quickly lost it back in all the other games.  Thus, I should only play poker, or not go to Vegas, however, due to my contract, I will likely go back, probably this year.

Oh well.

Next time, I’m hitting the roulette wheel.

I just checked my last several entries and I believe it has been a few (nay several!) entries since I talked about poop.  I apologize to anyone who may be a somewhat regular reader, since I truly try to keep about a third of my entries dedicated to feces, and I think I really dropped the ball here.  In penance, here is an amusing cartoon involving poo.

Alright.  Are you satiated yet?  No?  Well then let me tell you a story.

This story begins, like most stories of mine, in the emergency room.  It was a quiet night, no one was actively dying and time was slowly ticking by with me on cruise control and a little quirky after several large glasses of coke and an even larger glass of coffee. 

Then… HE came in.

I actually don’t have anything against the guy.  It would be impolite to say he was demented, but it is also impolite to punch drunk people in the face after they pee on the floor.  You kind of want to do both things, but in the long run it is looked down upon.  So he comes in.  Lets call him Mr. Frownyboom.  In fact, let me write it in a screenplay version, so that even the kids at home will be able to pay attention. 

I’ll play me, a street smart ER doctor (and rapper/gangsta) living on the edge.  Mr. Frownyboom will be playing the part of himself as a down on his luck pirate who is constipated.  If I remember the exact events, and I think that I do, it went something like this.  Mr. Frownyboom comes in saying (and yes I am slightly altering the dialog for both dramatic effect and to maintain anonymity)

  5…4…3…2..1…  <SCENE>

Me: Yo!  Wassap my piz-ashunt.  You gotz a mean case of brick-colon fo-shizzle?

Mr. Frownyboom:  Aaaarrg!  Aye matey, Saint’s and begorah, I be thinkin’ me bum is a dark poxy void full of the concrete, doncha know.

Me:  Diz-aam mistah eff-bee!  You trying to be smugglin diamond in that penut brittle in yo’ colon?

Mr. Frownyboom:  Aar!  I be trying to poo, and not even a cracker for me parrot be comin’ out my port-hole.

Me:  Shiz-nasty notz be ploppin’, yo.  Got it.

Mr. Frownyboom:  Yar!

Me:  Yar.

Mr. Frownyboom:  Yaaar, can ye be takin’ a cutlass and burrowing a line of freedom, matey?

Me:  Word. 

<insert scene here where I spend twenty minutes excavating about 5 pounds of brown rock-candy out of Mr. FB’s anus.  The fact that I am wearing an extra large glove does not quite make up for the fact that pretty much my entire hand has to go into the pirates anus to yank out a ridiculous feces-monster from this guys rectum>

Mr. FB:  YAAAR!  Matey it feels as if ye be pullin a Kraken from my keester!

Me:  Dude!  No serioiusly… DUDE! (it just keeps coming and coming)

Mr.  FB:  YAAAAAARG!  It feels as if ye be pulling my soul out me rudder!

Me.  Dude!  (keeps coming)

Mr. FB:  Yaaaar (a few deep breaths).  Aaaah…  Thanks matie.

Me:  Yo, now it be enema time biznizzle.

<><><><><><><>

so I really think this guy had about 10 pounds of crap that got out of him.  He was thanking me profusely after I finally finished, but… wow.  I would have taken a picure of it, but I did not want to blow anyones mind just yet. 

Yet again, I do not like bragging, but that is just part of of the fun at my work.  Whew, all this talk, now I think I gotta go to the bathroom.

Oh, update… up to 20k words.

RrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnWAAAAYOOOOWWW!!!

That’s the noise my brothers’ snowmobile makes.  Well, that’s the noise it makes after both my super-bros took a few hours fixing it.  As it turns out, now I see why all those idiots come in to the Emergency Room after crashing their snowmobiles going 80 miles/hr.  It’s really quite fun.  Also, I bet it is even MORE fun if you rode it while drunk, without a helmet, and while smoking and talking on your cell phone.  That’s probably what you would do, since your a moron and love to see me at 3:30 am after a long nights party.

We just finished Christmas with all the families (minus parents).  It was awesome.  I hear your cat like yowls already about how it is nearly a month after the fact.  Yeah, we know, but we did it on purpose to spite you people.  We don’t have to conform to your rules.  Big Brother won’t take us away.  Though, both my big brothers were there.

Sledding down a steep tree filled wonderland, then getting pulled back up by a 4 wheeler, yeah, that’s the life.

Wow.  Well, after that, I only have 1 Christmas left.  Neither my wife nor myself have gotten each other presents yet.  Is that weird?  Yeah, well your face is weird.  And your clothes are dumb.  And I just talked with your mom, and she said she never really liked you.

Sorry.  I just got carried away there, I’m sure your mom thinks you are very special.  I’ll ask the other kids on the short yellow bus and see what they say.

Sorry again.  I need to eat before I write these things, I seem to be a bit derogatory if I don’t.  You can look up that word if you have time, if you know how to, since your dumb.

Where was I?

Oh yes.  I need to shower my beautiful and gloriously glowing (round) wife with presents, so that we have all the Christmas things under wraps, er, out of wraps.

All in all, it rocked.

Time to go (sigh) running.

I just got done running for the first time in recent memory.

It was not pretty.

It was not far.

My body is sad.

I am glad blogs are of the written word variety, because if it required the spoken word, I would have to go back downstairs, scrape the tattered gooey blobs that are my lungs off the floor of the treadmill, and create a new type of speech that consisted mostly of “glaaaarch.”

On the bright side I finally got around to using the laptop I bought for its intended purpose.  I have actually started writing again, which is cool.  I actually have been pounding away at a story.  It is still in it’s infancy, but I figured it would be OK to give you a sneak peek…

you ready? 

OK

Here’s the first part (seriously, it really is the first part!)

Chapter 1:

      Jade…

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Ok actually have gotten much father than that in the story, but I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag until I have sold my story to the publisher for $300,000. 

My wife informed me that I could be a full time author as soon as the income from writing outweighed the income from being a doc.  Hmm.  She’s kinda clever in her deviousness.