More funny doctor names

If you're ever in Northwest Arkansas and need your bones operated on, look up Dr. Peter Tang, MD.
He'll take good care of you.


I need sleep.

I live at the zoo

This is my Puppy, Gus Gus.
I got him from my cousin. He's half Black Lab, half Weimeriner. He's 6 months old, and already a monster. He weighs well over fifty pounds, eats a ton of food (and anything else he can get his paws on) and is taller than my old lady when he stands on his hind legs.
But he's also extremely well behaved. He follows my commands as well as I can expect him to. He will sit and stay, or lay down and stay for several minutes. He'll leave toys and treats alone when I tell him to wait. He's a really good dog.

And this is the Old Lady's dog, Ferris Bueller.

Ferris is a good dog too. He's just little. And a little well loved, at times.
I chose Gus for some of his best qualities: he's laid back, obeys well, big. The old lady chose Ferris for his best qualities: He's loyal, high spirited and little. Together they make up the canine Odd Couple.

Since Ferris has been around well before Gus came into the picture, he was, naturally, the one in charge.
Ferris quickly established his dominance over Gus while the puppy only out-weighed him by a few pounds. Now that The Gus is more than five times the size of Ferris, it's funny (and a bit safer) that Ferris is still in charge.
Here they are, wrestling. Ferris' determination, alongside Gus' inherent laid back state of mind makes for some funny living room antics.

And then there's Sadie.

She's just a big, fat cat. This is one of her rare living room appearances. You can usually find her sleeping upstairs in the guest bedroom, or on the most cat hair-attractive article of clothing I own.

Well, that's a run-down on the zoo that is my house. I can assure you all that there is never a dull moment in that house.

I'm worried about America.
I just finished watching tonight's episode of The Biggest Loser. A more accurate show title would be "The Most Mediocre Loser."
Please don't misunderstand me, I applaud these people for the work they've put into transforming their bodies. The thing that makes me worry for the state of our fair country is the fact that the people who actually have a chance to lose the most weight keep getting voted off.
After tonights episode, when the person who had lost the most weight ever in Biggest Loser history was voted off, (for losing the most weight that week) it occurred to me that The Biggest Loser (and all other "Vote-Off" reality shows) promotes mediocrity.
The "Vote-Off" reality show is the version of reality show which filters down the pool of contestants by having the contestants themselves vote off their contestant peers. This differs from "Vote-On" or "Vote-For" reality shows where the contestants or more often the audience votes for the contestant they would like to see win.
The "Vote-On" shows have such a better talent pool, in the end. The viewers are left with, arguably, the best contestants at the end of the competition. The "Vote-Off" contest is populated with the people who voted off the best and brightest the previous few weeks.
Obviously, in the first few weeks of competition, the worst contestants are culled out. It is in the middle weeks, however, that the mediocre take over. T
ake Biggest Loser for example. Neil, who was the last person voted off, lost a staggering amount of weight, (152 lbs, over 35% of his original weight) but his weekly weight loss of 10 lbs (again, the most of all contestants that week) wasn't a big enough percentage of his previous weight to advance. Three of the other contestants had lost a much smaller percentage of weight to date. These contestants a) had more fat to lose, and b) since they started lighter, needed a smaller actual weight loss to keep themselves in the game.
It is the ability for contestants to exploit one single falter in the performance of a superior opponent that rewards mediocrity in "Vote-Off" reality shows.
And now Neil, who is literally the biggest loser ever on Biggest Loser, will never have a chance to hold that title. Because mediocrity always wins out on the "Vote-Off" game.
If they want to do this right, they should have the trainers vote off the contestant with the worst results. They're the ones who actually see the effort put in at training sessions and can see past a small hiccup in weekly weight loss.
That might fix things. Then the winner of the ever-so-awkwardly Nabisco-branded Biggest Loser Award might actually be the biggest loser.

And now for something a little lighter

Now that I've got the long post about work out of the way, let me share something I found in my Google Reader this morning.


This first guy should have read the second guy's article.

I'm also writing from my ipod. I have the 30 gig fifth gen video, and a paltry 8 gigs worth of media to put on it. Then I realized (with the help of a few LifeHacker articles) that the ipod is just a portable hard drive with a couple of buttons that let you play media contained inside the drive. (Provided it was imported with the proprietary software and in the correct format...) And here I was just sitting on 20+ gigs of portable storage space.

So I downloaded the PortableApps Suite, and a few other programs, and now I'm the proud owner of a 30 gig, usb-powered hard drive, with media playback capabilities, and portable versions of all of my favorite Mozilla apps, the open office suite, pidgin for multi-client chat, a few programs for privacy and fun little Mario Bros.-like game featuring Tux.
I'm using a few gigs to store some ISOs of Linux distros I'm wanting to try out, a copy of VMWare so I can play with them and an encrypted backup of several files I want to keep with me.

So far so good. Now I can turn my $15 2 gig black friday thumb drive into a linux on-a-stick/ recovery tool.

Working like crazy.

I've had some changes in my job situation, all for the better. I'll excerpt from an email i sent to Jim on this subject:

I've had a pretty good job for the last 9 months. I really enjoy it, it treats me pretty well.
But i'm not quite making the money i would like to make (paying down debt, buying the old lady a ring and making an honest woman out of her, etc...) so i've been shopping for a part time job for quite awhile.
I was totally transparent with my first job about looking for more work, and they were ok with the situation.
so i get hired at target, tell them about it, they're ok with it.
later that week (while waiting for target to get the results of my drug/background tests) my primary job gets two more big clients. this means a whole bunch of work is going to need to get done.
So i took a day off from the primary job to go into target to do the orientation, and got my over-worked schedule.
it was going to be pretty rough. I would work from 8-4:30 at job #1, then from 5-midnight at target.
But the next day at job #1, i was summoned to the VP's office, where i was essentially "bought back" from target.
I got a raise and plenty more responsibility. but i only have to work one job now.
I'm still working late into the night, but it's at home, where i can at least hang out with the old lady and our dogs. so things kinda worked out in my favor a little more than i thought they would.
I did have to go in and resign the day i was supposed to start training. that was awkward. but i quit before they had invested anything more in me than the hiring process and the single orientation session. i feel kinda bad about it, really, but it was never my intention to skate out of a job like that.

I was actually looking forward to working at Target. I don't get to interact with many people at Job #1. And the rare occasions I'm able to talk to someone outside my office, it's to have them answer a question for me. So I was looking forward to getting to talk to people and help them find some good electronics.

I've put in 60 hours this week, and have more tomorrow. Most people ask why i put up with it.
Why do I put put up with these huge hours? I believe in the company. I believe in the people, I believe in the concept behind the company. I also believe I have a future there. And that's something I've not really had yet. It all means I'm an adult now.
Eh. It's not so bad.