2008
Jan 2008 Feb 2008 Mar 2008 Apr 2008 May 2008 Jun 2008 Jul 2008 Aug 2008 Sep 2008 Oct 2008 Nov 2008 Dec 2008Jan
- Jan 1
- separate spheres
If things had gone differently, I might've actually become a computer programmer. Although it's questionable as to whether I would've survived such a decision.
· Read more… - Jan 1
- beginnings
If there are no endings, can there be beginnings?
· Read more… - Jan 1
- how PHP is destroying Rails
From Zed Shaw's rant as to why the Ruby on Rails community sucks:
· Read more… - Jan 1
- passion (and the lack thereof)
I suppose that dull, drear apathy is preferable to suicidal depression, but I keep thinking that there's definitely something missing from my life. The apathy, I'm sure, is merely a symptom, and not the thing itself. (And I guess I've become some sort of expert about what things aren't, although I'm still pretty sucky at telling what things are.)
· Read more… - Jan 2
- radiohead "videotape"
The underlying, repeating, melodic theme—four notes descending down the scale, the second and the third exactly the same, the last one barely audible at times—arrested my attention as I skidded to a stop at the end of the offramp from the 805, and I found myself mesmerized. I couldn't really catch any of the lyrics, but reading them here, I find them disturbingly apt for my frame of mind.
· Read more… - Jan 2
- time: out of sync, in a daze
I don't really believe that it's 2008. The number looks ludicrous. I'm disappointed that we don't have regular shuttle service to Mars and Europa. That alien species haven't tried to contact us. That we don't have flying cars.
· Read more… - Jan 3
- woot! · Read more…
- Jan 4
- i've got obama fever
The blogosphere is a-twitter with Barack's unlooked-for win in Iowa last night. Obama may not be as progressive as Edwards, and on certain positions he is definitely to the right of where I stand, but symbolically speaking, he is ideal.
· Read more… - Jan 5
- remembering my ties to the body of christ
Since 2001, I've been struggling with a crisis of faith. I was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church as a baby, participated in the Eucharist, and was Confirmed. I went to a parochial elementary school and junior high. I went to a high school that is run by the Jesuits. In college, and in the beginning of med school, I participated in the Catholic Community.
· Read more… - Jan 5
- scrawling on the wall
…
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- Jan 6
- markets
I stumbled upon this debate about the future of markets. Part of the problem is that “market” is so poorly defined. Instead of digging through centuries of capitalist tracts or recycling paleomarxism, my understanding of markets is that they are simply the mechanism by which transactions of resources, manufactured goods, or financial instruments take place. Anywhere there is supply and demand for a particular thing, that creates a market.
· Read more… - Jan 8
- nelly furtado "wait for you"
I'm sure I've heard this song before, but it felt like it was the first time as I drove away from the ocean and made my way onto the freeway.
· Read more… - Jan 10
- john kerry endorses barack obama
I wasn't expecting this.
· Read more… - Jan 10
- social progressive/fiscal conservative
I like to think I take a progressive stance on several issues: for example, universal health care, women's rights for choice, same sex marriage. I want us out of Iraq now. I want us to work on alternative fuels, and to add stricter regulations to the consumption of hydrocarbons. On the other hand, I'm all for a small government. Maybe Reagan successfully brainwashed me as a child. If I lived during the time of the foundation of the Republic (and I wasn't a person-of-color), I might have been a Whig. I'm all for weak executives, paralyzed/gridlocked legislators, and strict constructionists. Let the people in power play their futile tug-of-wars. It will let the rest of us get down to business. To me, states' rights are paramount, and local politics are key.
· Read more… - Jan 12
- lost in time and space
‘“Who am I? What am I up to? What have I achieved? Am I doing well?”’
· Read more… - Jan 13
- plans
It's 3 a.m. Usually not the best time for making plans and changing directions.
· Read more… - Jan 18
- to wish impossible things
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- Jan 19
- loneliness
Loneliness is both painful to experience and potentially deadly. “It's actually a greater risk for morbidity or mortality than cigarette smoking is. Being lonely is a bad thing for you,” he said.
· Read more… - Jan 21
- technical difficulties (mephisto failed to start properly)
So I can't seem to log-in to my blog currently. What I ended up doing was trying something that may have untoward side-effects. (Which reminds me, I should probably backup my database.)
· Read more… - Jan 21
- giving up on rails on dreamhost
Since I'm only averaging about 500 hits per day, shared hosting should theoretically be sufficient for my purposes. Alas, Mephisto continually dies on Dreamhost, and since I couldn't get my kludgery to work (mostly because I can't seem to install the
· Read more…mysqlgem on my local setup), I gave up completely and found a host that actually supports Rails. - Jan 21
- avatar: the last airbender
Cartoons on Nickelodeon have always sparked my imagination since I was a little kid. From Dangermouse, to Belle and Sebastian, to the Seven Cities of Gold, I found myself transported to remote times and places.
· Read more… - Jan 23
- disoriented to time and space
I've been rifling through my own blog entries and trying to index them. That's one of the things that I liked about my old hacked-together system (see exiled by fate, foobar, lunacy, and congestive soul failure) that Blosxom lacked. And while Wordpress, Simplelog, and Mephisto all support excerpts, I haven't really used them. (I suppose that'll be the next project once I get through the several hundred entries I posted through Blosxom.)
· Read more… - Jan 23
- version targeting (firestarter)
As Microsoft develops Internet Explorer 8, the idea of version targeting comes to the fore. Two articles from A List Apart, one of the premier web design web sites, ignites a firestorm, with different camps backing backward-compatibility, standards-compliance, and progressive-enhancement. Version targeting is introduced by Aaron Gustafson, and is seconded (surprisingly!) by the standards guru himself, Eric Meyers.
· Read more… - Jan 23
- mephisto, rmagick, and hostingrails
Got bit in the ass with this bug when I migrated Mephisto to another host. Looks like you have to explicitly define what imaging package you have in
· Read more…config/initializers/custom.rb.:nonewill definitely work, but so far:rmagickhasn't caused Mephisto to crap out either, although I have yet to upload an image. I don't really have any experience with:imagescience. - Jan 24
- adventure?
There was a time not too long ago that I would've jumped at the chance for adventure.
· Read more… - Jan 25
- messages in a bottle
It finally occurred to me (or I just remembered) who I'm writing this for. Me.
· Read more… - Jan 25
- small epiphanies
At this moment, I'm right where I want to be.
· Read more… - Jan 26
- an end to empire
No, I've learned everything, and I've had to learn it on my own. Growing up we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow the war was somehow our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness, they hate us. And we deserve it. We have created an era of fear in the world. If we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.
· Read more… - Jan 26
- limitations of taxonomy
This elliptical rant about a failed taxonomy for computer users gets me thinking. We (as in, those of us who have been exposed to Western metaphysics) have noted the failure of taxonomic structures for a long time now. While it is sometimes useful to see things in terms of hierarchical relationships, this is likely a relic of our primate ancestry, and it is clearly a kludgy shortcut in terms of understanding the universe.
· Read more… - Jan 26
- version targeting: the new bugaboo
Jeff Croft brings up [version targeting][0] again, and casts it in the old "The Right Thing™" and "Worse is Better" debate.
· Read more… - Jan 26
- happiness is meant to be ephemeral
I decided a long time ago that asking if I was happy was a pointless exercise. You either are, or you aren't, and whatever the answer is, all you can count on is that things are bound to change.
· Read more… - Jan 27
- version targeting: render unto microsoft what belongs to microsoft
I agree that Microsoft should have to deal with their own backward-compatibility quagmire without burdening web developers. The author brings up the IE-dependent components of Windows and other legacy, propietary software solutions (for example, the emergency department at one of the hospitals I work at uses an IE-dependent computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and charting system) and these are less trivial to upgrade to standards-compliance than a web site would be.
· Read more… - Jan 27
- macbook air
The MacBook Air is clearly not meant to be a primary machine. Understandably, there are many of us who do use a notebook computer as their only computer, and we are not going to be the target demographic. But there's something to be said for a computer that only weighs 3 lbs. Face it. Minimalism is beautiful. Why do you think European sports cars sell so well?
· Read more… - Jan 29
- version targeting: apple says no
Maciej Stachowiak, who is on the Apple Safari development team, has no intention of breaking the web (seen on Daring Fireball)
· Read more… - Jan 30
- 9iu11ani is out
I remember watching (and eventually becoming nauseated by) the news coverage of the WTC attacks back in 2001 and thinking how Rudy G was totally posing for a presidential run. I'm actually surprised he managed to fuck it up so badly. He managed to piss away his position as front-runner, and he even turned 9/11 into a sad, pathetic joke.
· Read more… - Jan 31
- technical merits of microkernels
After switching from Linux to Mac OS X and after playing around with Ruby a little bit, and getting a feel for the philosophies of Objective C and SmallTalk, I guess I'm coming around to Andrew Tanenbaum's thoughts about microkernels.
· Read more… - Jan 31
- breaking even
Down to my last $20, I decided to hang out at the 1¢ slots, betting a measly 18¢ a pop. Over the next hour or so, the slots whittled down my 2,000 coins to a pathetic 200 coins. This was not without its ups-and-downs, though. At first, I kept telling myself that I would quit when I got down to $15. This actually took a while since the machine would intermittently give me 50-80 coins back. But when I hit $15, I decided to keep going, telling myself that I would stop at $10. Again, it was this slow game of attrition. At $5, I moved over to another machine. The slow trickle of coins lost continued. I found myself mulling over the miserable failures and disappointments in my life.
· Read more… - Jan 31
- clawing to the surface
Wow. It's been a while since I've felt this way. As I gazed mesmerized by the spinning barrels of the slot machine, I felt suddenly suffocated by an awful feeling of despair and loneliness. It was almost as bad as being short of breath. The feeling eventually passed, but I just feel spent, and my muscles are all tight with anxiousness.
· Read more… - Jan 31
- night
The roar of traffic, the murmur and thrum of the crowd
· Read more…
and the mournful winter wind, scouring the desert sand
and the inside of my soul is silent and still
like a raging river flash-frozen in mid-torrent
and eons have passed, the axis of the earth precesses, and still there is no thaw.
Feb
- Feb 1
- eastern sky before dawn in the desert
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- Feb 3
- the underdog has his day
The narrative of the New York Giants appeals to me. They started the season 0-2. They were the wildcard team. They were expected to lose by 12 points to the seemingly unstoppable, undefeated Patriots. Talk about David slaying Goliath.
· Read more… - Feb 4
- acute gastroenteritis
Man, driving 6 hours while you have the runs sucks. And the Grapevine is closed.
· Read more… - Feb 6
- branches, lines
this trigger
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sending millions of
particles of light
laser beams
gamma rays
sunshine
starlight - Feb 7
- violently ill
It's been a while since I've been this sick. I've gotten sick over the past few years, usually with some kind of upper respiratory illness, and I even missed at least one day of work, but it was usually just something I could power through, and eventually shake off. A speed bump, if you will.
· Read more… - Feb 8
- the failure of vista
It seems to be conventional wisdom that Microsoft Vista sucks, and most Windows users are not going to be comfortable with switching to a Linux distro. (Mostly because they can't play their games, but my advice for them is to invest in a PS3 or a Wii, or buy a Mac and install Parallels so that you have Windows around whenever you need to get your game on.)
· Read more… - Feb 9
- 40 year symmetry
My sister reminds me of the 1968 Democratic National Convention which ended up erupting into riots. 1968 was a crazy year. Both MLK and RFK had been assassinated. The Vietnam War was still raging and sending body bags back at an obscene rate, and the American public was in an uproar. LBJ had announced that he would not seek re-election. The front-runners of the Democratic presidential nomination were Hubert Humphrey (who would end up losing ignobly to Nixon), the more status quo candidate, and Eugene McCarthy, whose platform rested heavily on an anti-war stance, with the goal of rapid withdrawal from Vietnam. The undemocratic manner in which Humphrey won the nomination without having participated in a single primary ended up being a liability in the general election, and resulted in permanent changes in the nomination process.
· Read more… - Feb 10
- nerdy tasks for today
For the last three years now, I've been trying to build GNOME on Mac OS X using Fink, but I always end up bailing out long before I get through the myriad of dependencies. Now I realize the easier thing would be just to bail on Fink and go with MacPorts, but I had already taken the trouble to learn Fink's packaging format. Moreover, while MacPorts has a *BSD heritage (as does Mac OS X itself), Fink has more of a Linux heritage, which I'm far more familiar with.
· Read more… - Feb 10
- time marches on
This week's I-5 playlist, featuring cheesy love songs and songs to commit suicide to:
· Read more… - Feb 11
- something inside me may have died a long time ago
I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if I've just lost my capacity for friendship. For love. For caring.
· Read more… - Feb 14
- fire and rain
should my soul catch fire again
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(the embers smolder, glow bright in the darkest hour)
not a wildfire streaking through the fields
up the mountainsides
leaving smoking disaster and ruinous ash - Feb 15
- dreaming like water trickling through my wall of cynicism
- Feb 15
- the market share myth: why mac os x will never be completely open source
Some people just don't get it.
· Read more… - Feb 16
- desktop linux
All sorts of theories have been proposed about why Linux has not taken a significant chunk of the market for desktop OSes. While there may be merit in some of the psychosocial economics presented, it ignores big, more concrete reasons why Linux hasn't seriously eroded Windows market share, and why even Mac OS X is outstripping it on the desktop front.
· Read more… - Feb 17
- google reader
I find it really ironic. Despite the fact that I'm drawn to technology, I find myself resisting dominant trends. When everyone had CD players, I was still hanging on to cassette tapes. When the world was dominated with x86 clones, I was still banging away at my 8-bit Commodore 64. When Windows 3.0 came out, I stuck with MS-DOS.
· Read more… - Feb 17
- cerebral malaria
Erythropoietin protects children from the cerebrovascular ischemic effects of cerebral malaria.
· Read more… - Feb 20
- worst president ever
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- Feb 20
- not finding
were I not to find
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that which I most desperately seek
what would this life be worth?
not nil, I pray
even in this half-existence
can I not steal a few drops of
reflected sunlight
from ghosts and phantoms
of things that could never be?
like a half-starved cur
begging at his master's feet. - Feb 21
- trying to avoid misogyny
Now I've been an Obama supporter since he ran for Illinois State Senate. I definitely want him to win the Democratic nomination so that he can kick McCain's ass and win the presidency.
· Read more… - Feb 22
- urban warfare
Apparently the Glendale Freeway is closed right before the exit to my parents' house because some guys started firing on cops with automatic weapons, and the LAPD shot a few of them back and killed one.
· Read more… - Feb 24
- random walking through pubmed
I'm a sucker for cross-disciplinary, cross-age demographic topics, and Grand Rounds today was given by Martina Brueckner, M.D., a pediatric cardiologist and scientist from Yale.
· Read more… - Feb 24
- serious geekery
Well, this is a fun little puzzle from Google Blogoscoped
· Read more… - Feb 24
- quiz: what punctuation mark are you?
- Feb 25
- genetics: only the abnormal is interesting
One of the things that drew me to the field of genetics when I was an undergraduate was the fact that geneticists seemed to value the abnormal over the normal. Genes are named for the "abnormal" phenotype, rather than the wild-type phenotype. So you get names like hedgehog, a gene, which when mutated, causes a fruitfly to develop "lawns" of prickly denticles, and fringe, which makes the fruit-fly have, well, fringes. And geneticists aren't afraid to appropriate facets of sociology and popular culture. So one of the better known mammalian analogues of hedgehog is sonic hedgehog, named after the video game character.
· Read more… - Feb 28
- strange
Not good.
· Read more… - Feb 29
- can't sleep, clowns will eat me
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- Feb 29
- a sickness
This is probably getting a little obsessive.
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Mar
- Mar 1
- this is a house of a crazy person
I surveyed the chaos and squalor that is my apartment and quickly stopped because I didn't want to vomit. This is how insane people live.
· Read more… - Mar 1
- only now, at the end, do i understand
A movie (that I have yet to watch) produces a memorable catch phrase that is destined to be used and abused to no end, and which has already spread across the blogosphere like the way wildfires spreads through San Diego County:
· Read more… - Mar 1
- flashback (the hazards of having gone to berkeley)
A week ago, it was sunny and warm, and I headed up to L.A. I was wearing my "Barack the Vote" T-shirt that my sister gave me for Christmas. I didn't realize I was running on empty until I got to Carlsbad, so I got off the freeway and stopped at the nearest gas station. All of the sudden, I got self-conscious about wearing the shirt. North County San Diego is notorious for being rabidly right-wing, and I wondered if anyone would react. But I finished filling up my tank, got back in my car, and got on the freeway. Somewhat fittingly, the next song my iPod decided to play was "Get Together" by the Youngbloods.
· Read more… - Mar 2
- uncool
Well, that was a little creepy. Some dude started knocking on my door around 3:55 a.m., calling out for Greg or Martin. I wonder if he was just so trashed out of his mind that he thought he was somewhere else completely. I did contemplate whether he would try to crash through my door, and figured that the only two thing I could fend him off with would be my kali sticks and my wrought iron coat hanger. I ended up not being able to go back to sleep and just camped out in the living room playing on my laptop with my kali sticks at hand. Stupid drunk people.
· Read more… - Mar 2
- alternate solution vis-a-vis version targeting
I looks like the version targeting debacle is still very much a heated topic.
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- Mar 3
- profession: astrophysicist/neurosurgeon
I'm sure you've heard the phrase "it's not rocket science" to describe something that should be easy. So Raymond Chen asks what actual rocket scientists say when they want to describe something easy. The common answer seems to be "it's not brain surgery."
· Read more… - Mar 4
- franklin delano roosevelt and barack hussein obama
This morning NPR's Renee Montagne interviewed Donald Ritchie, author of Electing FDR: The New Deal Campaign of 1932. He seems to implicitly, tacitly compare FDR to Obama, noting that when FDR was campaigning, he stuck to a message of optimism, without getting mired in the specifics. He also pointed out that in 1932, the choice seemed to be between FDR's message of hope and Herbert Hoover's message of fear.
· Read more… - Mar 4
- unix: it's fan-tastic
The great thing about running UNIX is that it's like running around with a loaded
· Read more…gunrocket-launcher with a hair trigger. One of the things that frustrated me the most with Windows is that if something broke, the only reasonable solution was to reformat your hard drive and reinstall. - Mar 8
- one man's slack as another man's creative meditation
There is a meme floating around on the blogosphere, promulgated by Duncan Riley's spin on a post by Jason Calcanis of Mahalo fame, and seconded by technophiliac Robert Scoble. The idea is that startup companies cannot afford slackers, so anyone who is not a work-a-holic needs to be fired. (Note that Calcanis has eased off on this statement.)
· Read more… - Mar 9
- ho
(Sardonic flag on. Don't take any of the following too seriously.)
· Read more… - Mar 9
- folly
cracked, but still I've got to keep it together
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time out of joint, the sunlight seeps through the window pane
am I coming or am I going
hope is like a little gnat, biting and buzzing
that I can never swat away. - Mar 11
- looking back at the last decade of my life
It seems like an infinitely long time since I last claimed to understand what love is. There was a time in what seems like another lifetime when I thought I got it. In nerd slang, I grokked it, once upon a time.
· Read more… - Mar 12
- the long stretch
Man, I thought I was done with these. I don't have another day off until nine days from now, and I'm already exhausted. I ended up being stuck at work until 7:45 p.m. today. I knew I should've just gone home and gone to sleep, but instead I went to Tommy's and had a chili burger, which guarantees that I'm going to have a rough night of GERD symptoms. So I'm trying to postpone that moment of lying down supine.
· Read more… - Mar 14
- semantics of time
I must admit that I like the fact that the sun is still up when I come home from work. It gives me the illusion that my time off from work is much longer than it actually is. Waking up in the morning sucks big time, though. Nothing makes you want to pull the covers back over your head than waking up to your alarm clock, looking outside the window, and finding it pitch black.
· Read more… - Mar 14
- wound care
not every wound heals
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some fester and drip
leaking poison into your blood stream
infiltrating your very being
even sometimes invading the chambers of your wounded heart
hiding in the scars of your memory
or in the pockets of darkness within your soul - Mar 14
- through the gate
Out of the desert
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I am come to thine gates
I bring the emptiness of the wilderness
and the silence of the bitter wind
unlooked for, I crossed that threshold
no one cared whither I went or no
among the teeming masses
I am but one man
alone
voice drowned out by the bazaar
the moneychangers
the tax collectors
the merchants
the con artists
I tread the worn-down road
a million footprints
turning the soil into concrete - Mar 14
- wind
Where do I go from here? Isn't that always the question?
· Read more… - Mar 19
- my god, it's full of stars!
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(from Deadly Computer Blog) - Mar 22
- racism is part of american culture
His opponents on both sides of the aisle are trying to make hay with Obama's comment about the "typical white person" who is afraid of black men. But they miss the point entirely. He's not throwing his grandmother under the bus, as some are wont to say. He's not trying to insult white people. He's merely illustrating an unfortunate truism about American culture, which Chris Rock touched upon a long time ago:
· Read more… - Mar 22
- crisis of faith
It is interesting that Arthur C Clarke recognized that physicians are more likely to be atheist. The first story of his that I ever read was "The Star" which describes a Jesuit astronaut coming upon the blasted remains of a civilization that once orbited the star that supposedly went nova in order to announce Jesus' birth. In other words, the Christmas Star. The question asked is, how could God destroy an entire civilization just so that the shepherds and the Magi would know where Jesus was born?
· Read more… - Mar 22
- how to: lose the faith of your customers
So I used to have an array of external hard drives attached to my Mac Mini by Firewire. Most of the hard drives were encased in Venus DS3s. Like many Firewire 400/IEEE 1394a hard drive enclosures, it's based on the venerable but reliable Oxford Semiconductor 911 chipset.
· Read more… - Mar 22
- os timeline
- Mar 23
- reading material
Jean's post about how her parents did not think fiction was appropriate reading material got me thinking about how I got sucked into the written word. As long as I can remember, I have this image of my dad reading something: the newspaper, Time magazine, the latest New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, or American Family Physician, or dime-store type paperback spy novels. If he wasn't watching TV, he was reading, and sometimes he would do both—the book/magazine/or paper would get him through the interminable commercial breaks. It's obvious that this impacted me greatly.
· Read more… - Mar 29
- all at once
It seems like this week has been filled with bad news. S's grandfather died. My neighbor was recently diagnosed with metastatic small cell lung cancer. JdG—one of my closest friends from college—just recently found out her mom has breast cancer, and both the sentinel node and the margins were positive.
· Read more… - Mar 29
- beast's curse
It is interesting that the dark night will arouse strange thoughts that you can't imagine thinking during the day time. Maybe it's because of the fact that I'm excessively sleep-deprived and not-a-little delirious. Maybe it was because it was 1 o'clock in the morning, and we all know only crazy people are out on the open road at that hour.
· Read more… - Mar 31
- escape from the black iron prison
Philip K Dick coined the phrase "black iron prison" to describe the illusory world that we are trapped in, forever living and reliving the first century anno domini. It is an instrument of the tyrannical Empire, initially identified with Rome but also identified with any wielder of imperialist power descended from Rome, culminating with the tyrannical elements that rule the United States. Dick identified Richard Nixon as the apex of this tyranny. (God only knows what Dick would've thought of George W Bush and Dick Cheney.)
· Read more… - Mar 31
- swears like a sailor
Apparently, I'm a foul-mouthed bastard.
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Apr
- Apr 3
- random quotes gleaned from the web
Twitter is an exercise in simulating Brownian motion in a network. It's kind of like the example of the drunkard trying to find his way from the bar by choosing a random direction at each intersection he crosses. Or, technically, I guess, it's a random walk on a graph, where instead of merely choosing cardinal directions, you could just as easily choose walking through a tunnel, down a diagonal, or up a freeway on-ramp.
· Read more… - Apr 4
- hoping against
I have this fantasy that if I hold my breath and Valsalva real hard, that nothing will come in through the emergency department that they'll call me about.
· Read more… - Apr 4
- weird, lucid dreams
I dreamt that I was trapped on a planet in a colony star system that had sort of descended into barbarism. Magic was real, and one of the main centers of government was the School of Magic, highly reminiscent of Hogwarts, without the forest around it. I believe there was an alternative community that opposed the magicians, and that relied on old 20th century technology.
· Read more… - Apr 5
- a song in my head
As I finish off my residency, I realize that no matter how awful some of the remaining hours and the minutes can be, this experience is finite and bounded. My senior resident on my very first in-patient intern month took a sardonic aphorism from the seminal medical novel "The House of God" and added a hopeful corollary which has become something of an unspoken mantra. "They can always hurt you more, but they can't stop the clock."
· Read more… - Apr 6
- sing your melody
…with longing and wistful hopelessness, he parted from her reluctantly, out into the cold darkness. The bejeweled stars of Orion dipped headlong into the sea, and the night air made him shiver. Sometimes, the right song plays at the right moment, crystallizing a brief memory, forever remembered half-wrong and askew. But he remembers her smile.
· Read more… - Apr 6
- valediction
I haven't made up my mind if I'm going to stay or if I'm going to go. The reasons for going are obvious. The reasons for staying are not so clear, but in brief moments, they are incredibly compelling.
· Read more… - Apr 6
- complexity of the global economy
This song by Wyclef Jean, Akon, Lil Wayne, and Niia seems pretty straight-forward: it's about a girl who seemed to have it all together in high school: all the guys dug her, she was in sports, and did well in school. But she ends up having to become a prostitute, in order that she and her kid can survive.
· Read more… - Apr 7
- it's made out of people!
I could say something snarky about the passing of the legendary Charlton Heston. (On Twitter, I saw someone ask if we could finally take his guns.) I still find myself highly amused by his lines from "Ben-Hur" about being peace-loving and some such.
· Read more… - Apr 8
- stuck in the '80s
My iPod took me back, way back, on the drive home from work today:
· Read more… - Apr 8
- randomly walking through YouTube
So my trip down memory lane keeps going:
· Read more… - Apr 8
- inspiration and sacrifice
So talking to S has inspired me. And reminded me of all the things that I've given up to follow this path that I'm on.
· Read more… - Apr 9
- ever heard of opportunity cost?
This article in the Washington Post tries to argue that prevention is more expensive than intervention. The only problem is that they deliberately ignore two preventative measures that have clearly been demonstrated to decrease costs: immunizations, and colon cancer screening.
· Read more… - Apr 12
- answers
In that moment, as I leaned on the railing and watched them all dancing, the unasked questions buoyed my heart, lifted it up with the tide, and I smiled, knowing for that one moment the answer.
· Read more… - Apr 13
- self-doubt
For some reason, old songs I haven't thought of for a while suddenly sprang forth from my memory.
· Read more… - Apr 13
- here
my heart misgives me
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and yet this vigil I must keep
through the long dark night alone I gaze upon the stars - Apr 14
- small tasks; simple promises
Even as I grow torpid and still, I remember that I promised myself that I would see the ocean today, come hell or high water. The temptation to just crash out on my bed is immense, but I know I will be a lesser person if I give in.
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- Apr 14
- consequences of the sunlight/the dream of the wave
Oh man, I let myself get burned. Despite my brown skin, even I am not immune to the effects of the California sun.
· Read more… - Apr 16
- light chasing away the darkness
This song always makes me go a little teary-eyed.
· Read more… - Apr 18
- brain splat
What is going through my head?
· Read more… - Apr 18
- the way is not straight
To find the way, you must search for it
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but you cannot search for it without losing it first
and how can you lose the way if you have never found it? - Apr 18
- all water, all light
The water that falls upon the arid plain
· Read more…
was once the water that flowed in waves upon the deep dark sea
the water from the well that you drink with great thirst
the water that flows through the river, rushing down rapids swirling in eddies
the water that is your perspiration, that are your tears
and blood is made up mostly of water, and so is urine and bile - Apr 19
- sacrifice
If I could guarantee the happiness of a certain someone whom I think is the coolest person in the world at this point, I would sell my soul at a pinch. No matter how much misery I must endure, if I know that she is happy, then whatever I suffer will be bearable.
· Read more… - Apr 19
- man's best friend
Grasp him tightly, try to carry him
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and he will squirm and struggle
snap and bite and cry out
trying to get free - Apr 19
- type-a personality
that which you seek to perfect
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fussing and worrying over
will come to ruin
too much force
and the thing will break
too much care
and you will wear it thin
and all you're left with are the little pieces
useless debris, detritus - Apr 19
- fortune telling
There is nothing external to yourself that can tell you about the future, because you already know what's going to happen. And if you don't know it now, you'll never know it.
· Read more… - Apr 19
- the way
I
· Read more… - Apr 19
- simple action
XVII
· Read more… - Apr 19
- trying to characterize what makes me sick
The irony is, I'm terrible with details. I can't figure out the right threshold, the right setting. Either I actively ignore the minutiae and pretend they don't exist at all, or I end up mired in the trivial, and I end up taking hours when it should've taken minutes, and every task becomes a variation of Zeno's Paradox, getting halfway there, then halfway again, then halfway again of that, but still no closer to the finish line. This leaves me extraordinarily tired and frustrated, with a bunch of half-finished or maybe three-quarters finished projects lying around.
· Read more… - Apr 20
- hourglass/urgency
I reached inside myself and found
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nothing there to ease the pressure of my ever worried mind.
All my powers waste away.
I fear the crazed and lonely looks the mirror's sending me these days. - Apr 21
- already the moment has passed
Driving from work. Nothing as wearying as watching the sunrise, as you're pining for your own bed.
· Read more… - Apr 21
- waybread/an overliteral dissection
II
· Read more… - Apr 21
- not the first time I've heard it
A man's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.
· Read more… - Apr 22
- anticipating karaoke night
J™ reminds me of this classic chestnut, one the great theme songs of unrequited love.
· Read more… - Apr 24
- hiatus
I accidentally nuked my blog, so it'll be a while before I get back up and running again. Stay tuned!
· Read more… - Apr 25
- fixed
While I had stay at work all night until the morning, I really didn't do much besides get Mephisto up and running again. This all started because I got sick of the Scribbish theme (which is, nonetheless, a great theme—I dig the hAtom support). I tried to install the Clarity-Orange theme but because Safari irritatingly always decompresses files, I ended up with a folder instead of zip file.
· Read more… - Apr 25
- how i hate the night (reprise)
Now the world has gone to bed,
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Darkness won't engulf my head,
I can see by infrared,
How I hate the night.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
Try to count electric sheep,
Sweet dream wishes you can keep,
How I hate the night. - Apr 25
- shh!
III
· Read more… - Apr 26
- don't let's start
iv
· Read more… - Apr 30
- serendipity never disappoints
So apparently I've had this song sitting on my iPod for years, literally, and Sunday was the first time I ever heard it.
· Read more… - Apr 30
- dimensionless
wanting starlight
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sunlight
sunrise
gold glimmer
warmth
you make me think of home
and a deep longing buried within the frozen chambers of my heart
thaws
like darkness arising
monstrous awakening
madness stirring
May
- May 2
- cause is not reason
It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that causation means intentionality. Lots of things happen where you can trace the chain of events, see exactly how one thing leads to another, and all of these things could be devoid of intention. While each decision may be made by a rational agent, the sum is not greater than its parts.
· Read more… - May 2
- all there is
lightning strikes
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end points and infinities
waves and foam
the clouds coruscating against the setting sunlight
a gull takes to wing
fluttering, fading beyond the horizon - May 2
- difficulties with obtaining a full physical exam
A man was seen by his doctor.
· Read more… - May 3
- epigastric abdominal pain
It could just be acid-reflux. I could just have a gastric ulcer.
· Read more… - May 4
- at the edge of the sea
there is no one left in the world
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that i can hold onto
there is really no one left at all
there is only you
and if you leave me now
you leave all that we were
undone
there is really no-one left
you are the only one
—"Trust" by the Cure - May 4
- all i need is a map and a set of wheels
Fear and panic in the air.
· Read more…
I want to be free
from desolation and despair.
And I feel like everything I saw
is being swept away
when I refuse to let you go. - May 5
- killing me softly with her song
A little more than a week ago, I watched Lea Salonga perform at Harrah's Rincon.
· Read more… - May 6
- get this right
I don't know. Maybe S. is right. Maybe the last 3 years 10 months have finally caught up to me.
· Read more… - May 6
- color me frustrated
I first found this test (or a variation of it) back in 2002 while I was in the throes of studying for Step 1 of the USMLE and dealing with the fact that E didn't like me in That Way™. I'm not sure if this test is even vaguely validated by any sort of study, but it's entertaining nonetheless. I can already tell that it's highly susceptible to the Forer effect, but whatever. You can find meaning wherever you want to. That's what the human brain does, after all.
· Read more… - May 6
- risk-benefit analysis
It all comes down to this: how much does this matter to me? If I can't survive without it, then I've got to reel in all my lines and just aim straight for the target. Do-or-die. No quarter given.
· Read more… - May 7
- bizarre stimuli
How did this all begin? That's probably too much to figure out in one night, particularly one where I'm at work. I'll just pick at a single thread in the tapestry. Eventually it'll all unravel.
· Read more… - May 8
- hypothesis about population genetics
OK, well, I haven't really done integrative biology in a long time, so I'm probably grossly misusing terminology.
· Read more… - May 9
- 3 am eternal
I really should sleep, but the sensation of burning acid in my gullet makes me wary about lying down supine again. I suppose an extra pillow should suffice, but I'd have to dig through the disaster that is my bedroom.
· Read more… - May 9
- on the other side of the burn
I tend to pinpoint my inability to trust people on a single catastrophic event (the dissolution of a relationship), but now that I think hard about it, I wonder if I've always been distrusting. Some would say perhaps paranoid.
· Read more… -
- May 11
- the intersection of pop music and medicine
There are two units in the hospital that tend to get a particular song stuck in my head.
· Read more… - May 11
- layers not versions
Josh Catone writes against the existence of Web 3.0, arguing that the version numbers don't really depict any specific discontinuities the way that real major version changes would.
· Read more… - May 12
- nothing too terrible/still irritating
The Lakers fought a pitched battle against the Jazz, despite their captain and MVP being injured early in the game. Twice they closed a ≥10 pt gap, only to fall behind again due to some bad breaks and insanely lucky shots on the part of the Jazz, and the fact that Kobe's game was totally whack because of that back injury. I think it would've been less disappointing if they had gotten blown out instead. Then I would've just turned it off in the second quarter
· Read more… - May 12
- pacific coast highway
So I just got back to S.D. from Harbor City, where my uncle and my godmother live. The quickest way back would involve backtracking to the 405, and then heading south directly to the 5, or via the 73 toll road:
· Read more… - May 12
- wrong city/wrong season/wrong weather/no matter
This is from Brooklyn…
· Read more… - May 12
- reminiscing/high school days
Whenever I hear this song, I can still feel those cold autumn early mornings after pulling an all-nighter, writing an English paper or a History paper, fully saturated with caffeine (a total of 230 mg would usually tide me over), with no one but Sluggo on KROQ to keep me company.
· Read more… - May 13
- easier said than done/15 years/too little, too late
I seem to be stuck in a time warp.
· Read more… - May 13
- brain on fire
OK, so maybe it was a little counter-productive to only sleep for four hours last night. I felt compelled to finish my blog entry, even though the ending of it was probably too rushed, and a little forced. So it wasn't until 2 a.m. that I finally surrendered and went to bed. Unfortunately, I had to wake up at 6 a.m. today. (It's going to be even worse tomorrow.)
· Read more… - May 13
- time/chance
15 years: 5,480 sunsets
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the days spin by, the hours whirl
blurring into infinity
and I can't remember where I've been
nor all the answers that I figured out
falling out of my hands
scattered wildly like spilled grain
as I was, so I will be
upon this path to nowhere
to anywhere - May 15
- infectious diseases and other medical conditions as a source of band names
While I was writing a consult note today, I was highly amused by the word "mucormycosis." There is something lyrical about it's dactyl-trochee stress pattern. "Myxomatosis" (which features most prominently as a Radiohead track from Hail to the Thief) is also a dactyl-trochee combo.
· Read more… - May 16
- small revelation
I have been concentrating very hard on the Art of Not Wanting, and despite all my effort, my brain is still wrapped around a lot of crazy and insane ideas that are completely out of my control. My stomach gurgles with the sound of reflux, and I get bouts of epigastric abdominal pain. I can't sleep very well. My eating habits have become even more unhealthy than before, which I didn't think was possible.
· Read more… - May 16
- choose life/too long for a twitter blast
Even if you believe in the afterlife, that's no excuse to fuck things up in this life. Telling people that it'll be OK when we get to heaven is a cop-out. If you really cared, you'd make things better now
· Read more… - May 18
- amanda chapel is a racist!/my 1st racial incident on the web
OK, this is what I get for feeding a well known, long-lived internet troll.
· Read more… - May 18
- bullshit diversity/code triage/first against the wall
Wow. Just, wow.
· Read more… - May 18
- random thoughts on ip
I have, curiously enough, been thinking about IP for quite a long time. It all started when I had my 8-bit Commodore 64 running at 1 MHz (that's right 1 megahertz. More than 1,000 times slower than the slowest computer you can buy new today.)
· Read more… - May 19
- memetic transposon/yay area in da house ftw
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: How the Valley put Obama over the top, via hellofriend, via cajunboy, via caro, via claudia, via britticisms, via soupsoup, via seriouslythough, via poortaste, via ayÅŸe.
· Read more… - May 19
- crazy pills/we'll run out of roads before we run out of internet
I'm not even gonna mention a certain fucktard's pseudonym, because you all know who I'm talking about. It irks me that people take sock-puppets seriously. But what are you gonna do. Some people just enjoy being lied to.
· Read more… - May 20
- the public is unmerciful/origin of the health care crisis
I learned about the sordid history of health care and health insurance while writing a paper in college for a two unit class that was pass/not-pass (and therefore useless to my GPA.) It forever opened my eyes to the lunacy that we loosely term health care in America.
· Read more… - May 20
- bad patient registry
The idea of being able to review your primary care physician and leave a comment online is a little unnerving for me. I know for a fact that not everyone can like me, and many patients will just be put off by my approach no matter what I do. But you gotta be true to yourself, and you can't please everyone all the time.
· Read more… - May 20
- trust
Throwbacks stuck in the '80s seem to have a hard time accepting the Brave New World™ we find ourselves in. I'm not preaching some magical transformation of human nature. It's just that the game has changed. There's a transition under way, and we are slowly weaning ourselves from the past.
· Read more… - May 21
- why end-stage liver disease patients should not take viagra
Found on my iGoogle page, with elaborations:
· Read more… - May 21
- trust revisited
Having a brief conversation with @anodyne2art on Twitter with regards to my post about trust, and while it's true, the buzzwords are authenticity and honesty, I think these are only tangentially related. Trust probably has more to do with transparency, but it's not quite that either.
· Read more… - May 25
- chart abbreviation or not?
- May 25
- institutionalized racism in the 21st century
Disturbing blog post about how white blue-collar workers supposedly won't vote for Obama if HRC doesn't get the nomination.
· Read more… - May 25
- web 2.0 and disintermediation
Now, Amanda Chapel's agenda is pretty transparent. She (or, more precisely, the anonymous people that created her) is trying to keep her job relevant.
· Read more… - May 26
- twined
chewing on the frayed ends of old, worn threads
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of choice, of chance, of fate, of hope, of dreams
wondering where my free-will ends, this cup
passing, where destiny begins, takes shape
takes form, did it not matter, or do these
things still shift, still split, still slip, twist, and bend
this far out, this late in the game, now in
overtime, with seconds to go, and still… - May 27
- this way lies madness
Cassandra whispers to me of disaster and catastrophe:
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"Harden your heart, o wanderer
the road is long, the horizon far
no surcease of sorrow shall come to succor thee,
no hope of rescue, of salvation, of love
through the grey desert thou shalt tread
alone, forsaken, unlooked for, unwanted, unmissed." - May 29
- jacta alea est
the die is cast, the cards laid down on the table
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the flop, the turn, the river, but it's the pocket that matters
and you don't know what she's got
you're crossing your fingers and holding your breath
trying your damnedest not to give away a tell
Jun
- Jun 1
- neglect
Ever since I got addicted to Twitter, I guess I haven't been blogging as often as I used to. There are just so many ways to express myself besides the long form of a blog post: Twitter, Facebook link posts, Google Reader shares with notes, del.icio.us. I am Web 2.0-ed out.
· Read more… - Jun 3
- mentally checked out
Man, my brain is currently occupying another dimension entirely.
· Read more… - Jun 4
- like the weather
The weather really does make me want to crawl back into bed and call it a day. I'll try again tomorrow.
· Read more… - Jun 4
- small triumphs/on the other hand
Given all that tripe, I did have a decent day today. I managed to get in an arterial line after three tries. The attending that I'm working with—who has a reputation for making interns cry—thinks that I'm probably no dumber than a box of rocks. (Which, believe me, is a complement.)
· Read more… - Jun 5
- to a crisp
I am thinking that 26 years of formal education can really burn a guy out. I'm like beyond slap-happy. I'm this close to raving lunacy.
· Read more… - Jun 7
- time
The problem is that if you think too far ahead, everything always ends in disaster. This is the ugly reality.
· Read more… - Jun 8
- more multivalent medical jargon
- Jun 10
- turn
found on ayşe's tumblr
· Read more… - Jun 10
- yet the arrow of time
I randomly went home on Sunday. I woke up around 6 a.m. outside my own volition, without any alarms, and decided it would be a good idea to hop on a train and head up to L.A. I pretty much just ate something like six meals and watched cable TV with my dad. We watched a bunch of westerns.
· Read more… - Jun 10
- unlooked for
Just when you think all is lost, sometimes you're pleasantly surprised. After struggling futilely to find some kind of jerry-rigged solution, sometimes all you have to do is turn the power off, and then turn it on again, and miraculously, everything else takes care of itself.
· Read more… - Jun 10
- well worn paths
It's déjà vu all over again.
· Read more… - Jun 11
- ¡ay caramba!
Coherence is probably a little too much to ask at this hour, after this much to drink. Today I have come to another bitter revelation, and I have a good idea of what my trajectory is going to be.
· Read more… - Jun 11
- the stark glare of dawn
I need to count the number of times I've used the phrase "Tomorrow is another day." I keep hoping that each day will bring some magic change inside me, that somehow I'll manage to snap out of it, and somehow all the things broken inside my soul will have mended themselves.
· Read more… - Jun 11
- it's not science fiction, dude
The current meme circulating on these internets is whether or not we should trust someone who can't use a computer to lead the nation.
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- Jun 12
- acid
Well this is pleasant.
· Read more… - Jun 12
- loneliness vs heartbreak
The unholy combination of Twitter, Google Reader, and raging insomnia brings me to this blog post about weighing the pain of loneliness vs the suffering of heartbreak. I kind of wonder if it just isn't the distinction between chronic disease and acute disease. Isn't loneliness just a more diffuse, protracted form of heartbreak? Loneliness is what heartbreak turns into, given enough time.
· Read more… - Jun 12
- 17 days
What does it really mean to be done? I've got 17 days of formal education left. I'm trying to be as optimistic as I've ever been about the future, but I'm just not an optimistic type of guy. I don't know. I'm more of a giddy cynic. A hopeful pessimist. The mantra of my profession seems to be "Hope for the best, but expect the worst."
· Read more… - Jun 14
- there are no happy endings, because nothing really ever ends
I don't remember the last time I wept tears of joy. Tonight—even though I have 16 days left—I felt that, at the last, it was truly, finally, over.
· Read more… - Jun 14
- light: salvation, damnation
I just watched a sweet, low-key film called "Infinity" that stars Matthew Broderick as the renown physicist Richard Feynman and Patricia Arquette as his first wife Arline Greenbaum. Despite the fact that it covers the period of time when Feynman worked on the Manhattan Project, it is mostly really a love story.
· Read more… - Jun 14
- 3 of swords, reversed
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- Jun 15
- i'm not here, this isn't happening
An incredibly haunting piano and vocal re-interpretation of Radiohead, entitled "How to Disappear Completely", found on Kid A
· Read more… - Jun 16
- i guess that's it
So it occurred to me that maybe that's my only purpose on this Earth, to ease the suffering of at least a small handful of people. Nothing fancy, nothing glorious. While sucky, loneliness is only one of the multitude of varieties of suffering available on this planet, and it is certainly nowhere near the worst. I guess. That's how I get myself through the day, at least.
· Read more… - Jun 16
- so you see, lonestar, evil will always win, because good is dumb
We all want the good guys to win. Most major religions prophesy that Good™ will triumph in the end, even against overwhelming odds, even if it seems that most folks are playing for the dark side.
· Read more… - Jun 17
- not well, no, not well at all
Internet traditions?!?! WTF?!?!
· Read more… - Jun 18
- love
Mark 12:28-31, New Revised Standard Version
· Read more… - Jun 19
- so transient
Truth be told, I am hoping for something terrible yet wondrous. Awful, joyful things.
· Read more… - Jun 20
- ab reductio absurdum
man. so i'm reduced to this. blogging on my phone. no a/c. no writing utensil. brain barely functioning. maybe i should just go home.
· Read more… - Jun 21
- mining time
Skipping merrily along the random fractured paths of the Internet, I somehow found my way from the sad fact that Cody's Books on Telegraph and Dwight has closed (hat tip to Jamie Grove to the revelation that such a thing as a Twitter political debate exists, and that it sucked immensely (with commentary penned by the lovely Jennifer Van Grove) From there I discovered that there is now a patron saint to Twitter: tweetjeebus.
· Read more… - Jun 21
- the pirate ship "unmerciful disaster"
…some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
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Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never—nevermore."' - Jun 21
- effexor withdrawal
So I gave up on my psychiatrist because she's been pretty adamant about me making timely follow-up appointments. Unfortunately, part of my problem is that my executive function is seriously fucked. I'm just not very good at making plans. Seriously. It must be at least a minor miracle that I've made it this far without ending up dead.
· Read more… - Jun 21
- post-mortem while the body's still warm
Wow. Just, wow. Good thing I'm a little drunk.
· Read more… - Jun 22
- set adrift on memory bliss
The Dragonfly Initiative suddenly took me back to those halcyon days of yore, when I could just sit for hours studying things that I find are of little-to-no clinical relevance. Chronic renal failure? Obsolete. It's Chronic Kidney Disease. Congestive Heart Failure? Obsolete. It's just Heart Failure, or Decompensated Heart Failure, now. There is no such thing as Non-Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus, either. It's either DM type I or type II. Beta-blockers are standard of care in Decompensated Heart Failure. Digoxin is almost useless, except as a way to achieve rate-control in atrial fibrillation. The difference between Q-wave Myocardial Infarctions and non-Q-wave Myocardial Infarctions are academic and don't make a difference in terms of treatment. What we care about are ST-elevations: STEMIs vs NSTEMIs/unstable angina. And it's all called Acute Coronary Syndrome now.
· Read more… - Jun 22
- unroofing
It's terrible, really. Times like these, when it's sunny and calm and blissful and quiet, is when I worry the most.
· Read more… - Jun 22
- an exhortation
I know you. If I leave you to your own devices, you'll pick the path of least resistance. You'll stay in San Diego because it's the easy thing to do. Or you'll go to L.A. because your parents are there and you have a fool-proof backup plan. But I think it's time you took an active part in your fate and not just let chance decide where you go.
· Read more… - Jun 22
- beauty and the beast, revisited
I keep thinking about the cruel arbitrariness of the back story—how a beautiful fairy shows up dressed as a hag, and the prince is disgusted and throws her out. OK, so judging people by their appearances is not a good thing, but to use it as a pretense for turning a guy into a hideous monster makes me want to kick the fairy's ass.
· Read more… - Jun 22
- apocryphal medicine - episode I
My dad relates this anecdote to me:
· Read more… - Jun 23
- confundor, exfundendus
Non certior ubi omnes illi inceperunt. Fuisset ubi ea et meus laboramus pariter, ante omnes res quid ea subire. Pro nonscitarum rationalibus, ea meum accrediderat.
· Read more… - Jun 24
- realized
OK. I'm too exhausted to make up a video. I know it's crappy, and I must warn you, there's a possibility your tympanic membranes will rupture, and you might be enraged and/or disgusted by dropped notes, off notes, and screwed up timing, but I just had to post it.
· Read more… - Jun 24
- worn down to little bits and pieces
It is weird to observe new beginnings without actually being part of it. Like when A+E first got together, for example.
· Read more… - Jun 25
- always struggling against gravity
I woke up with this song in my head
· Read more… - Jun 26
- i'll follow you into the dark
This song, which recaptured my imagination a few months back, popped back into my head today.
· Read more… - Jun 28
- timeline runner
So I woke up at 2:30 a.m. because of some excruciating left upper quadrant (LUQ) abdominal pain, with some referred pain to the neck. The abdominal pain was a burning, almost boring, continuous sensation. I wasn't short of breath or diaphoretic, and this was pretty typical for the problems I've been having with my GI tract, which I've basically written off as either really bad GERD or quite possibly some peptic ulcer disease. I blithely entertain the notion that I'm having a heart attack, but since the only symptom is this quite caustic sensation in my belly, I don't buy it. In any case, the neck pain goes away after some Tums and ranitidine (Zantac) 300 mg (4x the over-the-counter dose.) But the acid pain is still there, and I figure I may as well eat. And since I'm eating, maybe I should go to the grocery store.
· Read more… - Jun 28
- wall-e
No, I haven't watched it yet, so there aren't any spoilers. I just read the review in the L.A. Times from yesterday, and it seems like it would be very much my movie, the way, I suppose, I got obsessed with "Beauty and the Beast", even.
· Read more… - Jun 29
- clinical medicine
That is most of it, being a physician—listening and seeing. The rest is technique.
· Read more… - Jun 29
- happy ending
Even this late out into the game, I find myself still hoping for a reprieve from a life devoid of tender companionship, a life destined to loneliness and continued struggle.
· Read more… - Jun 30
- eve
Quite predictably, I am in love with a robot.
· Read more…
Jul
- Jul 2
- mathematical catastrophe, revisited
the slow, legato silence, by intervals, by measures
· Read more…
frame by frame, ignition, combustion, explosion, boom boom
that's my soul up there, in particles and all aerosolized
like an ashen rain falling upon my haunted visage
I taste the firestorms of the fall, and the endless winter
that followed, on its heels came spring and that harrowing
catastrophic thaw, now the floodwaters crest, come summer
sun burning and my soul withers, my soul crumbles to dust
and still there are no endings, just fraught nerves, the pain reminds
you are still alive, against all reason, beyond all odds
* * * in this echoing silence, I am forced to ask myself,
was this thawing worth the inevitable disaster?
my words unspoken, my song stilled and silent,
already I can see it coming like a wave rushing
washing upon the shore, foaming and spraying, gurgling, roar
on the verge of breaking right upon you, crashing down like
a shattered, suddenly shorn mountaintop, cut down mid-rise.
Are the days awaiting, the nights laying awake, alone
in the cursed glow of the full moon, or the mocking glare of
the shimmering stars or with all the lights in your room lit,
striving in futility because the dark is too much
its unbearable weight crushing you with your self-doubt, your hidden shame
wondering if mistakes were made, or if you failed because you suck
or if you were driven by fate, unable to avert the speeding arrow of time - Jul 3
- winds, tides, luck
The first instinct has always been—will always be—to flee from impending disaster. As far as I can tell, I've played this game as tight, as taut as I might ever play it, given the circumstances, given what shape I'm in, and I really couldn't have hoped for more. It wasn't about not being enough (although that may be true) nor was it about not being true to myself. That's all there is, there ain't no mo'. I've been down this road so many times, the thought of even one more trip makes me utterly sick.
· Read more… - Jul 10
- now?/never?
I'm not really sure if I'm ready to abandon my last blog yet, but I felt like I needed a change of some sort. Actually, I probably need a lot of changes, but we'll start with one at a time.
· Read more… - Jul 11
- Go crazy? Don't mind if I do!
I only had two simple tasks to complete today: complete my MacBook/iPod Touch/Apple Care rebate, and complete my Palm Centro/AT&T wireless rebate. Somehow it happens to be 11:10 p.m. and neither have been done.
· Read more… - Jul 13
- the joy of repetition
I am still waiting for the veritable hammer to fall. I can only expect that it will happen exactly when I'm least expecting it.
· Read more… - Jul 13
- and yet another change
Trying to decide on a Rails-based blog engine/CMS. I wish permalinks were easier to customize
· Read more… - Jul 13
- software release terminology
People shouldn't be mucking around with software release terminology. I just read Rob Diana's rant about the abuse of the term "beta" on the Internet on Mashable! and the terms really shouldn't be as fungible as that.
· Read more… - Jul 14
- there is such a thing as being white
I think Kevin Drum almost gets—but ultimately misses—the point in his brief analysis of an article about Stuff White People Like, a blog that collates different cultural characteristics applicable to the young urban professional white person. What is novel about it is not that it targets a particular demographic that has been depicted by Hollywood as Normal™, but that it explicitly associates this culture with race.
· Read more… - Jul 15
- abandon in place
It's about 3 a.m. and I'm utterly exhausted. I've pushed myself to the brink for no good reason and I can barely keep my eyes open. I'm not entirely certain what I'm trying to prove here. I try a reconfiguration to see if it will make a difference, and I guess I've proven to myself what she knew all along once upon a time, that my attempts at fixing things end up being mere rearrangements. I don't so much clean as reshuffle. Things move around, but nothing really changes.
· Read more… - Jul 16
- more than a pump/the implementation is important
I'm reading I am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter right now, which is a sequel to his widely popular book Gödel, Escher, Bach. Hofstadter concerns himself with, among other things, the software of thought.
· Read more… - Jul 17
- emergent phenomenon
I am more at ease with the direction Hofstadter is taking his argument about how the actual architecture of the brain and the actual molecular arrangements of proteins on neurons do not need to be fully explicated in order to at least think about thought processes. This is the same way how you don't really need to know how a microprocessor actually works in order to program it in assembly.
· Read more… - Jul 18
- 15 years of eternal september
Today is September 5435, 1993, according to the Eternal September Date Converter. In honor of 15 years of being September 1993, I think we ought to create a few more cryptically insulting acronyms/initialisms to keep up with the times.
· Read more… - Jul 19
- comic book geography
I find it slightly weird that "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" use Chicago to represent Gotham (while "Superman Returns" uses NYC to represent Metropolis!) I've always associated Chicago with Metropolis, and New York City has been Gotham City long before the Batman was around.
· Read more… - Jul 21
- the past comes bubbling up to the present
Apparently one of my neighbors is either reminiscing about the past, or feeling heartbroken, or both, because he/she was playing this song from TLC from yesteryear:
· Read more… - Jul 21
- don't follow me/i'm lost at sea: a status update
Brand New "Millstone": a punk rock retelling of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
· Read more… - Jul 30
- Chino Hills quake
Now don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of social networks and microblogging/nanoblogging, but I'm not really ready to buy into the hype about the obliteration of traditional media.
· Read more… - Jul 30
- earthquake retrospective
- Jul 31
- the wound
As I sit here procrastinating, irrationally hoping that I can somehow, someday figure out how to stop time, it occurred to me that I will probably never be whole again.
· Read more…
Aug
- Aug 1
- people still don't grok Open Source
Interesting that KDE appears to be going through what GNOME went through back in the 1.4 > 2.0 transition. There's all sorts of bitching and moaning going on about the recent KDE 4.1 release. Some writers have even employed the hyperbolic description of a civil war.
· Read more… - Aug 5
- loneliness
Is it a bad sign that I have to keep reassuring myself that it's not going to kill me?
· Read more… - Aug 5
- in threes
Somewhat inspired by this diatribe about 2008 thus far on a random blog I clicked through to, I realize that I had pegged my hopes on three things to happen this year, in order of estimated probability from highest to lowest:
· Read more… - Aug 9
- off
I haven't been able to shake this feeling that nothing is right with my world. Everything is in chaos. And everything I try to do to fix it ends in stagnating failure.
· Read more… - Aug 9
- what is "real"?
One of the books I'm currently reading is A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein by Palle Yourgrau. Essentially, it concerns Gödel's conclusion that the Theory of Relativity naturally leads to a universe where time isn't real. I also started The End of Time by Julian Barbour, who comes up with a similar conclusion, though his formulation is much more recent, and in the few pages that I have read, he necessarily bases his ideas partly on the way that the brain processes information (without actually going into the messy neuroanatomically and neuromolecular details.)
· Read more… - Aug 10
- charm (and my appalling lack thereof)
There is a woman whose name I don't even know for which I have this desperate, raw attraction to. I see her from time to time, as we occupy opposite ends of an extremely large social millieu, as friends of friends of friends of friends. I don't know what it is about her, but I find my eyes wandering toward her if I don't monitor myself, even as she's hanging on the arm of some guy. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I've never had an attraction like this before.
· Read more… - Aug 10
- positivism and God in the gaps
I know that this stance has been refuted a long time ago, but I can't help but enjoy the delightful symmetry of it.
· Read more… - Aug 11
- screen sharing/vnc over ssh in mac os x
I don't know why only this particular invocation worked for me, but I finally figured out how to share my desktop screen over the Internet
· Read more… - Aug 12
- completely insane
So I was this close to getting to sleep at a reasonable hour last night, but then I heard that the Perseid meteor shower was supposed to peak the evening of Aug 11/early morning of Aug 12. I tried to think of the darkest place within a reasonable distance. The Anza-Borrego Desert came to mind, but that was a good two hour drive into the middle of nowhere, so I figured driving through the Temecula Valley on the way to L.A. would suffice.
· Read more… - Aug 15
- mushrooming beyond my comprehension
not just loneliness weighing gravid, doleful,
· Read more…
becoming this furtiveness rooted, still
seeming in the light to be seen, yet unseen
amidst the hundred thousand voices seething, roiling, teeming
the faces, the gestures, all worn-down by rehearsal
words spoken by rote, by habit, stripped of meaning - Aug 16
- route
in this voiceless silence interrupted
· Read more…
by the whirring internal combustion
engines, rubber running across worn-down
concrete, these assemblies of metal growl
past, slashing through the air like two-ton knives
at 70 miles per hour, almost
like the tumult of a rushing river
or waves crashing down on the silver shore
my mind lost in the eddies and whirpools
of wind and debris, as the sunlight streams
in, vainly trying to evaporate
the dark mood crouching upon my soul like
a gremlin ready to ambush and havoc - Aug 20
- smooth sailing = FAIL?
It occurs to me that each of the previous board exams I took have been taken under somewhat adverse conditions.
· Read more… - Aug 20
- not in this timeline
a phantom lifestyle imagined by my fevered mind where there would be someone at home who would wish me luck and send me out with a hug and a kiss, and there would be someone to look forward to seeing once
· Read more…
it's all over - Aug 21
- dyssynchronous ventilation
Questions that had answer choices that all had something wrong with them, leaving me to pick the answer that seemed the least wrong.
· Read more… - Aug 21
- in fits and starts
So I finally met my neighbors the other day, after living next to them for several months, and hearing all sorts of snippets of conversations as they smoked their cigarettes outside my open window. It's kind of funny that I plan on moving out at the end of the month, but, oh well. After four years of living in this pit, I'm about ready for a change.
· Read more… - Aug 23
- 8 minutes
I'm not sure where I pulled the number '8' from, but it may be from pathology class from the second year of med school. 8 minutes is the amount of time you've got before the lack of oxygen starts causing permanent damage (such that if you do manage to restart the heart and/or reopen the blocked vessel, you may actually cause even more damage than what has already been done—so-called reperfusion injury.)
· Read more… - Aug 24
- faze/phase
Bewilderment spins mercilessly around my heart
· Read more…
weaves/binds/patterns/stitches, embedded like magical runes
threads of fate, minutest of imperfections becomes a message
that I cannot decipher, much less interpret - Aug 28
- it was never about the guy (or gal)
The powers-that-be will always try to tell you that you can't make a difference. But that is and always will be bullshit. This year, the Dems grok it. The promise of America has always been about the little people. This isn't some brainwashed mob following some messianic figure out into the desert. These are people who have been kicked into the ground for the last eight years, who finally realize that, by banding together with like-minded people, they do have the power change things. Obama is only one person. At best, he can only try to get the doors open. It has always been, will always be, only ourselves who can get us over the threshold.
· Read more… - Aug 29
- or, more succinctly
Obama is the standard-bearer.
· Read more… - Aug 31
- just like a game of craps
I understand John McCain likes games of chance, and I guess selecting Sarah Palin is his way of saying "jacta alea est." Statistically speaking, McCain's chance of mortality—even though ostensibly, he is at the peak of health for his age—is significant. So what this might suggest is that the Republicans are actually willing to elect a woman to the presidency. While I disagree with just about everything she stands for, that's kind of impressive. I didn't think it would happen in my lifetime, that the party that has been trying its damndest to preserve patriarchy and has at times even openly professed misogyny would actually allow even the slightest possibility that a woman would lead our nation.
· Read more…
Sep
- Sep 2
- now I definitely can't sleep
I think I was supposed to learn something from this. I wish I knew what it was, though.
- Sep 5
- a song I wish radiohead would play again
Blowout
· Read more… - Sep 5
- song dedication
To a woman whom I failed to communicate how I feel about
· Read more… - Sep 6
- reviewing the fat man's rules from the house of god
The House of God is a satirical novel written in the mid 1970's by a physician who goes by the pseudonym Samuel Shem. The book is about the experience of an intern physician trying to survive the rigors of the residency program associated with the mythical Best Medical School (a thinly veiled reference to Harvard.) The Fat Man is one of the senior residents in this residency program, and he came up with a set of rules that I find terrifyingly useful.
· Read more… - Sep 6
- misconceptions of mental illness
A blog post critiques a throw-away line from "The Dark Knight"':
· Read more… - Sep 7
- a frank assessment
Now his failure is complete
· Read more…
—Darth Vader - Sep 7
- subito
there was never anything more than fine gossamer threads of hope
· Read more…
fraying and tenuous, breaking, snapping, tearing with the slightest breeze
the merest whisper
more like a dream than anything else
so that awakening came like a disaster
and the dawn brought nothing but dread - Sep 7
- she leaves with someone you don't know
I'm a sucker for these song about unrequited love and failed relationships, failed attempts at connecting. I don't remember when I first heard this song, I just remember it was while the sun was shining down upon me as i drove south on the I-15 somewhere between Corona and Temecula, a lot happier than I am right now.
· Read more… - Sep 7
- 2 for the price of 1
I don't know why it grieves me so, when I knew this was lost already.
· Read more… - Sep 7
- lacuna
The mornings are the worst,
· Read more…
when all of the sudden,
you are reminded of all that
failed to come true, of all that is not there
all that has never been, and all that will never be - Sep 11
- said it was the only solution
Sometimes I try to do things and it just doesn't work out the way I wanted to.
· Read more…
I get real frustrated and I try hard to do it and I take my time and it doesn't work out the way I wanted to.
It's like I concentrate real hard and it doesn't work out
Everything I do and everything I try never turns out
It's like I need time to figure these things out - Sep 19
- where did september go?
How fitting.
· Read more… - Sep 21
- the last day of summer always feels so cold
It's been 8 years since this song was released by The Cure. I remember that the first time I heard it, I felt that it captured perfectly my despair from that moment my heart shattered 13 years ago.
· Read more… - Sep 23
- when all you've got is a hammer
It's odd, but I'm starting to look at the disaster that has befallen Wall Street like something akin to a person having a stroke or a heart attack. Sure, the symptoms are most dramatic during the acute phase, and it's the acute phase that's probably going to kill you, but it's important to recognize that what a stroke or heart attack means is that this person has been sick for quite a while. Coronary artery disease and cerebrovascular disease don't just develop over the course of a week. It takes years of unhealthy living to get you to the point where you are vulnerable to having a heart attack or stroke.
· Read more… - Sep 23
- does it make sense to mourn what never was?
Since you and I never came to be—
· Read more… - Sep 27
- it's too late now, let it all go
It's never gonna be all right.
· Read more…
Oct
- Oct 4
- fall
I seem to be running in this card a lot.
· Read more… - Oct 11
- at odd hours
It's a terrible thing, not being able to sleep. Tonight is the second night I've woken up around 2 a.m. in a semi-panic, not knowing where I was or how soon I had to get to work. And I don't know what's worse, the initial disorientation, or the coming to terms with hard reality.
· Read more… - Oct 13
- crux
I don't know if it's just the time of year. Maybe it's the waning sunlight, heralding my impending succumbing to seasonal affective disorder. Maybe September has never been a good month for me, and October is always about trying to figure out where I went wrong.
· Read more… - Oct 18
- reform vs revolution
It is 17 days until November 4th, which—one way or the other—is a day that promises to be epically historic. I predict that we will see record-high voter turn-out, that's for certain. And I won't say anything more than that. I can only hope for certain outcomes, but we all know where hoping has gotten me this year.
· Read more… -
- Oct 19
- the land of what will never be
Don't wish. Don't start.
· Read more…
Wishing only wounds the heart. - Oct 19
- random walk through spacetime
I've been thinking a lot about the trajectory of my life lately. I haven't really come with any good answers, and I feel like I'm working against the ever-ticking clock for some reason. It seems like the only time I can really make definitive decisions is when I'm put on the spot. Otherwise I just end up ruminating endlessly over increasingly worn-down ideas without ever coming to a conclusion.
· Read more… - Oct 21
- negative convergence
For various irrational reasons, I'm feeling quite forlorn and abandoned. Such is life.
· Read more…
Nov
- Nov 11
- infinite regress
Hope is not always warm and fuzzy. Sometimes it is cold as ice, and harder than steel.
· Read more…
The mood of my entire day has been driven by a nonsensical dream about an impossible situation. Even after all this time.
The mind understands that time cannot be undone. Somethings are out of your control. It wasn't chance. It was destiny.
Some of my darkest dreams relive the essence of this moment. I lie helpless as fate turns aside from me. It will never be.
It was not, is not, will never be, world without end. And yet the heart still yearns. - Nov 12
- milestones
What are the little worries of our lives, against the backdrop of tumultuous history?
· Read more… - Nov 13
- light my candle
I am burning the candle of my life in the dark
· Read more…
with no one to benefit
from the light.
The candle slowly melts away; soon its wick will be burned out and the light is gone.
If someone will only gather the melted wax, re-shape it, give it a new wick…
for another fleeting moment my candle can once again
light the dark,
be of service
one more time,
and then… goodbye. - Nov 26
- the storm
Disclaimer: I do not own an iPhone, although I do own an iPod Touch.
· Read more… - Nov 26
- helvetireader
OK, I know Input Managers are notorious for causing system instability, but I'm crossing my fingers with SIMBL, the Smart Input Manager Bundle Loader, which hopefully really will minimize the possible collisions.
· Read more…
Dec
- Dec 2
- doesn't seem like it's going to be today
This is my life, and it's ending one minute at a time
· Read more… - Dec 3
- album leaf "always for you"
This song has apparently been sitting on my iPod since 2006. I'm sure I've accidentally listened to it once or twice, but I guess it never really registered on my consciousness. For some ill-articulated reason related to the socially-avoidant state-of-mind I've been in, I've been skipping this song whenever it came up.
· Read more… - Dec 4
- more pointless lists of random thoughts
I am not feeling well. Not feeling well at all. Apparently my GI tract is on strike or something. I am not even factoring in the depression, as it is pretty standard for this time of year.
· Read more… - Dec 5
- friend zone
I should probably just show this to every woman I meet to save both of us time.
· Read more… - Dec 5
- illusive elusion
the days fall like dry, dead leaves
· Read more…
even in this land of no seasons
time winds its way
the signs of the zodiac
do their slow, courtly dance
through the heavens - Dec 13
- the violence of translation
A copy of a copy of a copy…
· Read more… - Dec 29
- the open sea
Surprisingly, there have been moments where I realize that being lost at sea isn't necessarily the most terrible thing in the world.
· Read more…