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June 4th, 2008
12:22 am - my first fuck you to Apple Computers
my lady just bought a shiny new MacBook and I was excited because it comes with Leopard but SURPRISE! I cannot install it on my computer without using some genius .RAR move that sounds quite technical and likely to fail for me so I am stuck with Tiger. Hey Apple, I just bought a 1300 dollar computer... can I use the $100 software on the old 1800 dollar model I bought 2 years ago? No?!! Oh, you want another $100 dollars. I see. Well nice talking to you.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/blue/angry.gif) annoyed as balls
Current Music: all deleted for the big install...that failed.
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May 19th, 2008
11:29 pm - Jukebox the Ghost - Good Day Lyrics
To a street where we can be
Bodily free
And they would come in droves
Wearing their hearts on their sleeves
But Oh!
How good it felt to have em warm
Just like they should
But everybody here wants to know...
Did everybody say what a good day that it was for
Everybdoy who said what a good day that it was
Did they smile cuz they like it?
Did they smile cuz they like a good day?
Wha-oh
Suddenly we all got young
Running circles around ourselves just for fun
How good it felt to be young, in love and feel it in our bones
And everybody here wants to know...
(chorus)
Wha-oh
(chorus)
Wha-oh-oh
We go there when we're in trouble
We got old, and old age made us
You and I
Are alone
That it felt like this we were never told
That it felt like this we were never told
And it scares us bad so we'll have to be bold
But there's still one thing that we need to know
(chorus)
(chorus)
WHA OH
(chorus)
(chorus)
Current Music: Jukebox the Ghost: Hold It In
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December 1st, 2007
08:37 am - my love for a fictional world writ wrandom
Hey! Listen! Grumble, Grumble... spectacle rock and the kid who gets kicked by his friend in the dark world, first a rabbit and then a warrior, a kooky bat who tries to take me out but instead doubles my magic, a water palace of maddening levels, golden spiders of the curse hiding every which way, the clock running down in clock town, i journey to level 8 and find the magic book but with no wand, i make no fire. surely bouncing vampires and hershey kisses will not aid ganon in his quest, gerudo though he be, and malon works so hard for her horses and embarassing that fat prick on his horse is a day of glory, but if i have to push the ice block in palace 5 through the hole the right way it may be the end of me, or the end is near, ganon returns each time a rat with a boomerang or a pit of lava consumes my side scrolling squire of hyrule, down and to the right for the hammer, fear not, and pieces of heart and whole heart containers lie about strewn for any willing soul to collect, must i push rocks and hit switches and play songs and burn bushes and bomb trees for all my days or will that princess finally be saved, in this kingdom or another, for all time, from the hog nosed thieving brute who holds the power that will always bow to my courage and the delightful wisdom of my betrothed, with a silver arrow of light i say gone with thee.
Current Mood: legend of adventure of majora's ocarina to the past
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October 24th, 2007
04:28 am - ridiculous
terrorism is evil. killing innocent people is evil. and of course, despite being a tactic used by righteous groups in history, it is not righteous. it should be repudiated. but it's primary objective is to stop people from living free lives and to trigger fear that gives the enemy control over the trajectory of the victim.
driving cars is a dangerous way to travel, killing more people in the US than any other activity. very dangerous. but it makes the economy hum and travel possible for people (it has lots of negative side effects aside from crashes of course). so we keep it going. we try to make it safer and less deadly and limit the negative effects.
i wish our government and our media and our "leaders" could take this same rational approach. we want to live in a free society. we want to protect our freedom, our privacy and our way of life. we should of course try to investigate and stop terrorist attacks, much like we set speed limits and put safety belts in cars. but we don't want to destroy our way of life to "win."
we don't win on car safety when all cars stop driving. we don't win on terrorism when we are uninformed, spying on each other, and attacking blindly anyone who is brown or islamic. be smart for the love of fuck. it makes me crazy.
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August 27th, 2007
09:29 pm - USA
oh my gosh i found the queen of england! oh my gosh oh my gosh!
i hear sometimes how the surge is working in iraq. let me tell you i have my doubts because the surgery is not working for i, mike. it sucks. i wake up super early, enter a dreamlike trance for hours at a time in a tiny workroom stifled with dull sounds, stale air and a lack of cheer, mirth, frankincense and myrrh. i dont like being in the operating room that much either. all of it seems tedious and long and there are only tiny pinpricks of light that include talking to other human beings about the plight now that we have surgically repaired their bodies.
i have a nu apartment with meg and its pretty nice. we got a big ol TV for 40 bucks a month until 2010 that is beautiful and HD and plays all of my movies big time and also will play my macbook once i get my DVI cable.
other than that, not much is brewing over here. funny how a 70 hour a week job can soak up your fuckin free time, isnt it? the bdog gets married this weekend and i am going as the silver surfer, complete with pockets full of silver dollars and nickel plated nine millimeters. word.
also, come over on sep. 8th for fraternite and liberte!
Current Mood: slow
Current Music: moonbabies
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June 1st, 2007
02:26 am - dancing in heaven, i never thought, i'd ever get my feet this far
ORBITAL BE-BOP.
Hello friends and lovers and compatriots, purveyors of fine goods, and service people of all stripes/spots/polyester-blends. How are you?
I completed (hopefully passed) the first step of the USMLE sanctioned grueling beat down known affectionately as "the boards." There were lots of questions, I knew some of them, I didn't know many of them, and I guessed right on a few which felt good. This will probably be the first test where I get more than a hundred questions wrong. Thank my lucky stars there were 350 questions to answer, so that 100 wrong is still a good score.
The last few days have been wonderfully relaxing. I had a bottle of Nigiri sake and 40 pieces of nori for dinner. I watched the Good German (a wonderful little homage to Casablanca), and also the movie Venus (which is tender and affecting, funny and adorable). I played golf and I was pleased with my consistency. I only had one 8 (it's a par 3 course) and that was because I put two balls in the deep woods. When I put a shot in the woods, my next tee shot was on the green and two put, so I turned out some 5s after spraying a bad tee shot. Nice. I even had a pair of 3s, for a total of 43 (par 28). Good times.
I also finished a long and wonderful journey called "The Wizard of the Crow", a novel by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. At 765 pages, it is the longest single work of fiction I have read aside from the Fountainhead, which I think was a shade under 800. It was funny and tragic and surreal (like Murakami), I liked the political side of it. It reminded me of a Murakami take on "The King of Scotland" meets "1984". At five months of reading, it also took me longer than any fiction I have ever read.
In 4 short hours I am on a flight to San Francisco. Should be wonderful. I plan on finishing the new Chuck Palahniuk book ("Rant") and also the new Doug Hofstadter ("I Am A Strange Loop"). I love books and beautiful cities. It will be nice to see Peter and Lucas and Julie and to walk around one of my favorite cities in the world. I also get to see a Red Sox-Athletics game. My first baseball game as a boy was an A's-Brewers game in 1985.
Anyway, I wish you well if you read this, and keep your fingers crossed that I did decently on the test and that the love of my life does the same (or better).
Adios,
Monfrer
Current Location: space-time
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/blue/hopeful.gif) relieved
Current Music: corinne bailey - put your records on
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May 27th, 2007
08:42 pm - testing blows
i was thinking today how great robots are. for two reasons:
one: if we design a robot, than we can have some control of how to fix it when it breaks. unlike human bodies, which are beautiful, efficient and great but also complex and messy and prone to failure. while they have modular function and modular development, they are not hypermodular, like a computer, where you can remove and put things in easily. robots would be.
two: robots or artificial intelligence could do a better job evaluating knowledge than standardized testing, because you could find out how much people know through means other than random, multiple choice questions. (p.s. i hate when teachers call it "multiple guess"). like, an AI doctor could ask you questions and then when you explain your logic, they could award you partial credit instead of 0 or 1. I suppose the partial credit adds and subtracts up over time to have a null effect, but whatever. Also, the USMLE Step 1 is horrifying and scary and i hate it and i am stressed out for the first time in my life and it sucks.
love,
mike
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May 25th, 2007
10:47 am - owl's eye cells, sterile cystitis and numerous clusters of differentiation
learning is going well. i have already learned about heart, lungs, kidney, musculoskeletal, skin, endocrine, gastrointestinal, psychiatry, and fetology. today i learn more about hematology and oncology and then neuroscience. tomorrow i review microbiology and antimicrobial drugs. sunday and monday i test, test, test and review major correlations. i am filled with a deep and wonderful sense of terror and excitement that can best be described as foreboding.
following the exam tuesday i will imbibe some beers, watch some movies, and pass out and let my brain rest. i fall asleep, dream, and wake up with factoids, disease processes and buzzwords in my head. it reminds me of murph, who said he would dream that he was studying. i do the same. scary.
i am nervous that i might be the guy who doesn't study enough, makes dumb mistakes, and gets a 187 or a 192 and looks bad applying to residency. i hope i am the guy that learns enough, thinks hard, picks up on detail, and gets a 225. please offer advice if you have any.
Current Mood: forbidden faun
Current Music: we make thunder - bombs in NYC
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May 14th, 2007
03:51 pm - is this really happening? or a dream?
let me tell you how great USMLE Step 1 looks. Awesome! In fact, it inspires me to conjure up a more ridiculous test. First it will be written in 4 or 5 different languages. The subject matter will include fashion, rocks and minerals, woodworking, shipbuilding and deep sea wildlife, as well as some less significant topics like 15th century whaling, Biblical characters of middling importance, and the greater workings of mid-level management at the Target corporation.
When you do well on the exam, you get to be a doctor! My exam will prepare you for a career in either internecine shirtmaking or unicellular protozoan energy acquisition research.
Enjoy!
Current Mood: qbank'd
Current Music: not at the library...
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May 7th, 2007
07:02 pm - med school is really hard work 4% of the time
jeez. i have to learn 700 drugs by tomorrow at 1. at this point i would say i know 500 of the drugs at about 85% retention. still have 200 to go. jeez louise. it sucks. i could start typing drug names now and not be done for another 40 minutes of just names.
propofol, tiagabine, tizanidine, clomipramine, diazepam, lorazepam, flumazenil, baclofen, cocaine, crack, boom, pow, bam, whap, biff
i am tired and i must continue to study. this will provide no benefit to me other than to finish medical school.
Current Mood: agitated, tired, sweaty
Current Music: more wim mertens
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May 3rd, 2007
11:17 am - gumdrops and hoses and whispers and smitten
some favorites of mine:
Video Games:
1. Ocarina of Time--game play, replayability, music, characters, bad guys. The gold standard of gaming. I often have these songs in my head.
2. Tetris--if you play this enough you will see it in your sleep. enough said
3. Dr. Mario--poor man's tetris, but still brilliant
4. Final Fantasy 7--this is the closest I came to leaving this world for another
5. Final Fantasy 3--made everything in FF7 possible. i still "know" these characters like you would good fiction
6. Adventures of Link--totally reworked gameplay, and the world was HUGE for a 1980's game. Really opened the idea of having to walk FOREVER to get somewhere in RPGs
7. Faxanadu--similar to Link 2, sprawling worlds that are ONLY 2D--kind of like Castlevania. Also lots of fun things to collect
8. Guardian Legend--I have replayed this game dozens of times. Great creepy 8bit music, alternate between overhead shooter (aka 1942/43/44) and overhead first person (aka Legend of Zelda/A Link to the Past)
9. Adventures of Lolo 1/2/3--these are fun and frustrating and exciting (i still get goosebumps when medusa or king medusa kills me with death rays)
10.Dragon Warrior--the first RPG I ever played. Fortune smiled upon me, cuz I loved this game (and the 2 sequels I played as well)
11.Megaman 2--the clear cut favorite, though MM3 and MMX are also a lot of fun. More to do than the original but not so difficult you wanna quit.
12. Star Tropics--not appreciated for how great it is. Fun. Different. Nuprin.
13. Secret of Mana--little appreciated action RPG aka Zelda, kind of similar to Startropics in fact
14.Sim City--with a million dollars i can get LOTS of amusement parks, police HQs, and zoos and yet, i can only get to 485,000 people. move here!!
15. Goldeneye 007--first game with lots of funny deaths and shooting and holy balls it is hard as hell to beat anything on Secret Agent or 00 Agent. I got the golden gun. (Perfect Dark: I don't BELIEVE it! I never liked him anyway! He was my best friend!!)
16. Bully--music, gameplay, realistic, hilarious. just like being the punk kid you were too pussy to be in high school
I realized a few months ago that I devote myself pretty equally (time wise) to all forms of media.
I have read about 300 books x 8-10 hours a book = 2700 hours
i have seen about 1800 movies x 100 minutes each = 3000 hours
i have played about 50 video games x 40 hours = 2000 hours
i have heard about 8,000 songs x 4 minutes = 5000 hours
of course i listened to those songs 3-100 times each, so that's a lot of time devoted to that. movies also seen some many, many times. books i read only once so far (except Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby). And video games I have played a few for 100+ hours, and some 4-5 times (especially FF1,2,3, Zelda 1,2,3,4,5, DW1,2).
anyway, later I can write about my favorite authors.
Current Mood: studying my face/off
Current Music: wim mertens
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April 3rd, 2007
12:04 am - who loves the song "armpit vagina"
it is a classy gem. i used to have the mp3, its probably somewhere...
anyway, the lyrics:
i want to use your armpit as a vagina
it's an old custom i picked up in South China
let me use your amrpit
to totally satisfy the needs of my dick
i wanna push and pump and hump your shoulder
i put it in and squeeze that boner
i ejaculate at even the scent
of a girly brand of anti-perspirant
armpit vagina
armpit vagina
seriously ridiculous.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/blue/tired.gif) tired, confused, depressed, unlearned
Current Music: jay willet band
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March 31st, 2007
06:00 pm - studyfuck
oh how i love to study. really! its great! holy fuck it sucks. i have 139 drugs to learn, and if only it were as simple as that. i also have to understand the disease states that they treat, the receptors where they function, their side effects, and contraindications. that is monday's test. and then i am going to utilize my intestinal fortitude to learn 15 lectures worth of pathology on monday as well, when i will be tired, stressed and sleepless. perfect.
things to look forward to:
andy coming to town
the choice fundraiser next friday
the "parent's house" party next friday
golfing with andy
the bathroom being finished on the 1st floor of my house
being finished with CER part 87 or whatever
warm weather?
visiting murph in madison, ian's pizza, non-milwaukee time
visiting MPLS dan
in the wide world of media ingestion: finishing the Phillip Pullman series I started (the subtle knife and the amber spyglass await me..), finishing the Wizard of the Crow, recovering from Savage Inequalities
The Cineplex: Tideland is a very bizarre, but beautiful and confusing movie. Three days of the condor was another great 70s film (that sadly still reflects today's geopolitics), Coming Home has the best speech about war I have seen in my life, and Montana is pretty funny. The King with G. G. Bernal is also really good and really disturbing. Westworld is a cool concept but very 1973 with the special effects and blood. Borat was the funniest movie of the year. And National Treasure is like the Smithsonian adaptation of The Rock or something....wow.
Who do you guys want to win the Presidency?
And what do you think the best thing would be to change America?
My answers on the flipside.
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March 3rd, 2007
03:37 am - just a thought
everytime some crazy idiot says something ridiculous, evil, idiotic. etc. the other side or opponent ALWAYS releases a press statement that says something to the effect of: "XXX should denounce the vile, hateful rhetoric of ANNCOULTERXXXX which has no place in ....."
Why don't they just say "candidate X should embrace and promulgate the hateful rhetoric of shithead YYY, becuase that is what he truly believes!!"
This puts the onus more on them because it is a positive affirmation of their hatefulness, instead of a request for a denial.
Does anyone out there know how to deal with patent law and invention stuff? I have a great, million dollar idea that I have yet to see in action......
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February 18th, 2007
03:40 pm - debt blogs
I was reading an NYT article about debt blogs, where people, either publicly or privately, announce their debt and track their attempts to eliminate it. It was kinda interesting.
But then I saw this one blog where people listed their assets (which were pretty good, almost 40,000 dollars in savings of different types, and they are under 40 years old), and their debts were 133,000. What were the debts? Student loans. I mean, if they paid that much for some Comm Arts degrees or something, that sucks for them, but if they went to grad school/law school/med school, than they can go out and make some money. I had to laugh, because other websites had credit card debts in the 20-40,000 dollar range. That is debt. Serious debt.
Anyway, for fun I thought I would share:
Assets:
Lego Collection---$2500
Books---$500
Computer----$1100
House----$196-220,000
Debts:
Credit Card Loan---$22000
Undergrad Loans---$19200
Med School----$89000
Home-----$190800
If you balance it up, I am anywhere from -102000 to -126000. Serious.
The good news is that my credit card debt is shrinking and growing. It's all in a loan that is far away and deferred through school, but it's stacking up interest. I am done with getting more credit card debt though, which is a positive development.
i just hope that the housing market next spring is decent. Selling for 230,000 would be a LOT LOT better than selling for 210,000. So, anyway, buy my house.
Current Mood: rich and poor
Current Music: Sound Team - Born to Please
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February 1st, 2007
01:02 am - holla if you wanna rack up a whole gang of snaps
i had a fucked up dream last night about my fears for the USMLE Step 1 exam, this big ass test I take in May that determines (largely) what specialty I can do as a physician. In my dream, the small groups we were in for the test got disorganized and we had to find new groups, and I kept trying to find a new room but it needed a piano for the recital portion. Totally ridiculous and funny and terrifying.
I have been reading more good books. The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen is really great---he is funny and insightful and honest and I get the feeling he would be good to talk to. Fiction is all over the place, and you cannot really tell if the writer would be a weird recluse (Salinger) a misanthropic drunk (Bukowski) or whatever else, but his memoirs and essays are just awesome. I suggest How to Be Alone and this one whole heartedly.
Also read Memories of my Melancholy Whores by G.G. Marquez. Good, not as great as his other stuff, but he uses language well, and paints vivid, ethereal pictures. It's funny, when I was younger I yearned for mystery and mythos and supernatural stuff, and now I like it for different reasons, i.e. escape from my more rational view of the world, as opposed to which direction I prefer to channel my supernatural beliefs.
Also, I am really enjoying The People of Paper, it's similar in style (i.e. magical realism) but much more modern, which is intriguing. One of the reasons I like Murakami is his bending of reality in the modern world, versus GGQ's bending of reality in 19th and 18th century Mexico and South America.
Also reading Wizard of the Crow, which is fucking awesome.
If you are on netflix, add me as a friend. it's my gmail address which is m p oconnell at gee mail dot com. Forealz. Then you can see what movies I've been seeing lately....
Keep it real yalz, I gotta go to sleep so I can get up in time to help my pops make the downstairs bathroom well again. My dream of having water only in the pipes and drains is finally true---water runs not in the floors and walls. Perfect.
Adios.
Current Mood: medium
Current Music: of montreal
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January 22nd, 2007
11:48 am - Fictionmas
Things I want:
A Nintendo Wii
A big ol plasma TV
A Murph
A minus twenty pounds
A futon
A douchebag gun
A Republi-gun (TM)
A huge Friesema (not crazy)
A pile of cash
A new bathroom
and
A freaking iPhone. holy balls that thing looks RIDICULOUS. Apple me in the face, Steve Jobs.
Current Mood: studious
Current Music: shitty coffee shop rock
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January 15th, 2007
09:35 pm - communist books
I love the library. I don't know what the free market solution to books is, but I bet you the local library kicks it's fucking ass.
Since I joined:
Black Swan Green-David Mitchell (8.7/10)
Great book, very involving, really transports you back to childhood (even though I am not from the UK), characters well developed, sometimes hard to tell what is real, genius stylistically without being hyperbolic or overly literary or gimmicky.
Absurdistan-Gary Shteyngart (9/10)
Funny, saddening, informative, self-depricatiing. The main character is pathetic and great, like most complex people are. Pokes fun at America, hip hop culture, post-USSR Eastern Europe, and the fraudulent nature of international corporations.
Kangaroo Notebook-Kobo Abe (7/10)
For a surreal adventure that defies description, I could not put it down. I couldn't tell you what it meant (just like 20th century art) but I know that I liked parts of it and wanted to keep reading.
Beasts of No Nation-(8.5/10)
Intense, fucked up, horrifying, gratifying, insightful. A really good (and brief) look at the absurd and painful nature of guerilla warfare in Africa being done by children.
Next up:
Wizard of the Crow, The Children's Hospital and What is the What.
Anyone read any good books lately?
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December 23rd, 2006
03:54 am - please, please, please
be good. be good to each other. do the right thing to each other. do the right thing to yourself. help people. think about other people. think about the world around you. think, and feel, and care. love. do good.
Current Mood: crying
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December 6th, 2006
01:18 am - fucking mad
Two things, one company:
Why ebay sucks (the reasons it's great are obvious):
You order a golf club. It is 35.00 dollars. Shipping is 10.00. The fucking asshole cashes your check. You never get your club. Ever. After waiting and waiting for all these little deadlines (they guy would have responded if he cared) you get to, YAY!, file a claim.
The catch? There is a 25.00 fee and you get no reimbursement for shipping. Now the onus is on me to find some information and fax it to a guy so I can get $10.00 fucking dollars back, less than 25% what I lost. What a system!
You got half.com and order a book. The book does not arrive. You contact the seller and she says she will look into it. Weeks pass, no dice, so you go back to the site and see what your options. You look, and YAY!, you can file a claim.
Oh wait, no you can't, because it has been 60 days, and after 60 days the issue is closed, regardless of whether you got your book or trusted the person and waited and got screwed. Happy shopping!
Current Mood: ranty
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psychrofon's journal