Hugs and Kisses

Instead of my usual Gothamist Health posts, where I talk about HPV positive promiscuous women having fatties and then those fatties going on to have asthmatic babies, let me share with you a story to warm the cockles of your PC bleeding hearts. The Daily News tells the tale of a Long Island woman who was given a second chance to breathe and, therefore, live. This past weekend, doctors were able to find a suitable donor to kick-off and kick-over a pair of lungs to Jennifer Lanzaro, a cystic fibrosis sufferer whose own bagpipes were on their last gasps. Because of her relatively rare blood type, Lanzaro got seriously lucky this past weekend thanks to a Brooklynite with compatible blood and a little worse luck who died - freeing up their lungs for transplantation. The surgery, which began Friday night and finished early Saturday morning, went well and Ms Lanzaro should be coming off the respirator today. Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disorder (the patient's sister died from it) where ion channels throughout the body malfunction leading to thicker bodily secretions. In the lungs, this leads to decreased mucus clearance which causes airway blockages and create a suitable petri dish for recurrent infections. Outside of conservative medical therapy, that only staves off the inevitable for some time, lung transplantation can be curative.

We Meet Again

I know that it seems like I almost write about nothing but 24 but I just can't seem to get through this damn season. It seems that crazy internal fire that made me watch 12 episodes in a row has been put out and getting through a season takes the better part of an actual season. But tonight, as I sit here recovering from the second of my two-part dentist appointment to mend a broken tooth, I plan on getting through the penultimate disc. If I post again tonight it will be because the Netflix'd DVD fucked up and I'm weeping like a baby. See you then.

By the way, I have no idea what the caption in the photo means.

Damn you Netflix

So I've become a serious shut-in lately. I've always been a touch anti-social but lately its been out of hand. And as I mentioned in my (not at all gay) Kiefer Sutherland post earlier, Netflix is a serious enabler. But the problem is, once you get hooked, the product quality slides in a serious way. There's rarely a disc I receive that doesn't skip, pause, or just simply refuse to play. And with a show like 24, its the 4th episode that refuses to play. And, according to a computer nerd at work, this actually makes sense because the later information on a DVD is stored near the outer edges of the disc, the regions more prone to scratches, wear and tear. At any rate, this sucks. So I'm in the midst of season 4 when, faithfully, disc 3 decides to not play its 4th episode. So, I file a complaint with Netflix who ships me a replacement disc. But when I opened my latest mailing, what's in the envelope for 24 - Season 4 Disc 3, SENTINEL! A movie that stars Kiefer Sutherland. Clearly, someone at Netflix HQ doth have a sense of humor. But I am hella pissed.

Boxing Day

Just got my laundry back from the cleaners and it contains a pair of boxer-briefs that aren't mine. How do I know they're not mine, you ask? I've never owned a pair of boxer briefs IN MY LIFE. The question I have for you, sports fans, is what to do with them. Wearing them is out of the question (well now it is - I kicked the idea around for about a nanosecond). So throw them away or return them to the cleaners? I mean, how're the good people at the cleaners going to track down the rightful owners? Or should I just throw them away?

To Eat or Not to Eat

I became a vegetarian about 3 years ago. I was at dinner with some friends in Miami at a ridiculous surf n turf sort of place where everything on the menu had had parents. The meal was fantastic: ribs, lobster, steak, porkchops. If we ate it, it had a zoologic name. But at the end of the meal, something happened. I sat back and looked at our work. The table was covered in shells, bones, and claws. As I glanced down at my full belly and back at the table, I was grossed out. Maybe I was more disgusted with my own gluttony rather than the fact that we had consumed things that were gluttonous consumers themselves. This was 3 years ago and except for rare ingestion of sushi at big social gatherings, I've been pretty conscientious about my diet. I even kept vegan for about 8 months this year. But I like what happened in Florida. I like having made decisions based on strong gut feelings and not the overthinking that I'm ever so prone to do. I stopped being vegan because it didn't turn my stomach to eat eggs or dairy. It made sense on the overthinking plane that if you didn't animals, you probably shouldn't eat anything ejected by them. But then it happened again. Yesterday, I was cooking up some eggs when after cracking one open, TWO yolks came out. I'm not sure if anyone has ever experienced this, but I was utterly grossed out again - the feelings of Miami rushed over me. This is the kind of base response I want. I want to make decisions based on strong gut feelings not vague, I should do this because of a, b, and c. Anyway, needless to say, I'm off of eggs for a while.

Happy Birthday, Mr Resident

They say that GWB woke up with such a terrible hang-over after his 40th birthday that he never drank again. The morning of my 30th (yesterday) was greeted with similar symptoms but also the reminder that I've made that promise to myself innumerable times over the years. So I doubt it'll hold for too long.

In additional growing older and more batty news, while nursing my hangover in the shower yesterday, my brain was flooded with songs that I hadn't heard in years. Included in this hit parade were Michael Jackson's "Black or White" and the Psychedlic Furs' "Pretty in Pink." I'm pretty sure my head is just overflowing with superfluous info and this is my brain's way of performing a q decade memory cache dump to make room for new crappy songs.

The Habits of Highly Effective People

After watching the first three seasons of 24 over the course of a few days like a strung-out junkie (pusher: Netlflix), I took a few months off - I quit cold turkey. But it didn't last. I couldn't stay away from the thrill of the thrillers. During those months, a friend introduced me to MI-5 - a smarter substitute with a mellower high and less of that "must stay up all night and watch next 12 episodes" feeling. So today, as I spend time unwinding before yet another big board exam, I've returned to my first love: 24, season 4. It seemed dumb at first in comparison to the BBC show, as their handling of political intrigue and inter-office bureaucracy is comic bookish at best. But then I saw quick-to-anger Jack Bauer back in action and remembered what's so great about the show:

Kiefer Sutherland + gun = results

Update: 4 straight episodes of 24 still go down as easily as I remember - like sweet, sweet gin. But as expected, I need another fix. Now.

Welcome, humanoid.