Are you kidding me?

Sanjaya? Really? You're just pushing it now, aren't you? You know you can do absolutely everything - talk your way through a song, wear bouffant hair, so why not an 8-ponytail mohawk updo?

At least he didn't REALLY dye the tips of his hair orange - that was just the lighting. Still, though. Ack.

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but ...

... I have something of a self-esteem problem, and I'm afraid what this particular troll is saying is true. I just wanted to make my readers aware of what's going on in the comments with this guy (or girl? Who knows) in case someone wants to disagree.

Here's what happened - I went to The Fake Doctor's blog, where he had a post listing his mail and responding to it. I commented something to the effect of, "I wish I had your traffic and readership - it would be nice to get mail!" So then Beepy the Troll came out from under the bridge, wandered over to my blog, and said:

The reason you get fewer hits than the fake doctor is simple: your blog isn't as good.
Beepy | 03.20.07 - 1:31 am |

I responded:

Well, that was uncalled for.
Kim | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 8:30 am |

Then it (the only pronoun I can use, since I don't know Beepy's gender) returned to my allegedly horrible blog for a second visit (hmmm?) and said:

Uncalled for? Maybe. True? Absolutely! Your blog is trite trash. If you've nothing interesting to contribute to the world, why bother? I suppose if you keep trying, maybe something novel will come out on accident. Keep up the crap work. Don't mistake my comments as hostility. Just pure truth.

In my next post, I wrote:

In other news, if you read the comments on this post, you'll learn from one uncouth commenter named "Beepy" that my blog is far inferior to The Fake Doctor. You know, in case you were wondering.

To that, it says:

Far inferior? I don't think I put it quite in those terms, but I appreciate your doing it for me. I'm not even a very big fan of the fake doctor, it's just that your blog is so cruddy in comparison to, well, virtually anything ever created by a person over the age of eight, that it got me all riled up. p.s. it worries me that you'll be a doc one day. Based on the mediocrity of your blog, I can only assume you subscribe to the C = MD plan. Am I right? Gotta be.

This makes me want to cry. Should I stop writing? I've been wondering this for awhile anyway, because medical school has stolen my creativity and sense of humor (by the way, it scares ME to death that I will be a doctor someday - and it was GREAT to hear someone else say that) and I feel that I don't have much to contribute anymore. If you're a reader who would miss my blog if it wasn't here, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know. Particularly in the comments.

Sorry - I have exams in a week (AGAIN) and I'm just stressed and sad tonight. Medical school does that to you as well - and it's also a lonely place sometimes. Textbooks aren't very good friends.

Only one prescription

Al Gore, on the fake global warming:

"The Earth has a fever and just like when your child has a fever, maybe that's a warning of something seriously wrong," Gore said on "Good Morning America" today.

Someone should tell Al that the only prescription for a fever is MORE COWBELL.

It had to be done.

On Tomato Residue and Runaway Waitresses

Michael, Todd, Christy and I went to lunch yesterday at Applebee's, and we had arguably the worst waitress on the face of the earth (for reasons other than the ones I'm about to document.) Michael, being a man of plain tastes (when it comes to food - I'm not trying to insult Kristen here) ordered a cheeseburger with only ketchup. Shortly after, we saw our waitress get in a car outside of our window, buckle her seatbelt, light a cigarette, and drive away. (We still didn't have any food.) A few minutes later she drove back into the parking lot and then brought us our food - including Michael's cheeseburger, laden with tomato/lettuce/onion.

Horrible Waitress: Sorry about all of the stuff on your cheeseburger - it's my bad. I told them. My bad. You can just take it off. Sorry - my bad. (Michael was picking off those evil vegetables like they were preparations of Naegleria fowleri that were carrying maps titled: "To Michael's Cribiform Plate and Beyond".)
Me: I think she had to drive to the mid-90s to get that phrase.

I hate that medical school has stolen my sense of humor.

In other news, if you read the comments on this post, you'll learn from one uncouth commenter named "Beepy" that my blog is far inferior to The Fake Doctor. You know, in case you were wondering.

What medical school exam blocks look like - in pictures

I was reading an article in Popular Photography some time ago (it must have been around Christmas, because I don't think I've had a chance to read one since then) that issued a challenge - on a particular date in January, I think - to photograph your day. One picture every 5 minutes. Well, I didn't think I could do THAT (flashing 10 times per lecture would not be cool) but I did want to do a sort of "day in the life" photo blog. And I picked one of the worst days ever - the first day of block exams. So on this day (which was March 12th) I had a patient care exam and then a pathology exam, and then I had to go to the apartment and study for pharmacology and genetics, which was given the next day. Here's what the day looked like:

8:11 A.M. - May not SEEM early to you, but it sure felt early to me. Note my trusty Propel by the bed. And a backup Aquafina.

8:11 A.M. - Particularly when I cram late at night (okay, that's ALWAYS) I fear that either 1) my brain will tag the information I've just stuffed in as useless and delete it while I sleep, or 2) it will leak out onto my pillow. So here's my pillow. It appears to be covered with flowers, not pathological central nervous systems, so we're okay. (By the way, don't you love those sheets? They're Toscano from Pottery Barn.)

8:12 A.M. - I wake up in a panic attack every single morning of my life. Very exhausting way to wake up, actually, with your body thinking it's being attacked by a cheetah or something. So I reach for my lorazepam (Ativan) first thing, to calm the racing heart and the shaking so I'll feel like a normal person again.

8:12 A.M. - In the morning I look like a greasy troll. You don't get to see that, so here - here's my eyeball. And Scott's camera, which he let me borrow for my project. It was much easier to tote around for the whole day than my suitcase of a camera bag that carries my baby Canon 30D.

8:13 A.M. - I always sleep with my TV on all night. Somehow it is an anxiety soother for me and always has been - having a TV on somewhere keeps my brain from focusing on scary things. A psychologist told me once that a lot of anxiety sufferers do the same thing. Speaking of scary things - look at that hair. Ack.

8:14 A.M. - Oliver helps me put in my contacts every morning. And by "helps", I mean "makes it take twice as long". He LOVES to drink the saline solution as it goes into the sink. Does anyone else have a cat that drinks contact stuff? If I try to shut him out of the bathroom, he can still hear the sound of the saline being turned upside down, and he sits outside the door and HOWLS until I let him in. A little fuzzy weirdo.

8:18 A.M. - Email check. Is the school still standing? Do I have to take my exams? Yes on both accounts. Drat. (Not that I'm going to destroy the school - stop looking at me, campus police!)

8:54 A.M. - I ::heart:: my Bare Minerals. They take away at least some of the troll-ness (see above).

8:59 A.M. - Slim-Fast - the breakfast of champions. Or fat people. Or fat champions.

9:18 A.M. - I clean up all right, I guess. (If it weren't for those pesky 60 pounds.) And then take blurry self-portraits.

9:43 A.M. - School sweet school.

9:43 A.M. - And look, I'm early for my 10AM exam. That probably means that I'll still have to sit in one of those miniscule desks that I think they stole from an old kindergarten class. They bring in these wee desks (most of them left-handed, even) on test days and put them in the aisles, because they make us sit every other seat, lest our academic integrity be challenged or some such crap. I hate those mini leprechaun desks, though.

9:58 A.M. - Two minutes 'till - and I actually got a real seat. Yay!

10:50 A.M. - One test down, one to go. This is the "between tests" period when everyone is cramming for the next one. Look at that poor girl, her face has become permanently melded to a Pathology grid book. Shame.

11:03 A.M. - More cramming. One of the best things about medical school is the other people who are going through the exact same thing you are. Puts a soft spot in my heart for them. Awwww.

12:59 P.M. - Patient Care and Path are a distant memory, and Christy and I are going to lunch it up at Taco Bell. Look at the sad amount of money that I fished out of my purse.

2:31 P.M. - Christy and I get into some anti-fungal pharmacology at my apartment. Great fun.

3:26 P.M. - Christy studies reads InStyle while I try to end it all by flinging myself off of the couch backwards. It didn't work.

3:53 P.M. - We hit a snag during our anti-viral review. Christy was following a printout of the powerpoint lecture, and I was reading the lecture handout. When we came to the drug "Foscarnet", we were trying to figure out a way to remember that it causes electrolyte imbalance. So I said, "When electrolytes are imbalanced, they need a NET under them - hardy har har." (Go ahead and make fun of me, but you'll remember that now.) And she was like, "Well - that's kind of a stretch - but whatever." Then we found out that there was a typo on her powerpoint - heh. I wondered why she was being all cool and pronouncing it "fahs-CAR-nay" - you know, with the silent "t". Whatever. It was hilarious at the time, while we suffered from delirium.

5:20 P.M. - Sophie and Ollie have grown bored with us and gone to sleep in their matching boxes. I'm jealous.

7:16 P.M. - More studying. That's Christy. That's my feet. That's also my Diet Coke.

7:22 P.M. - It's nice out, it's Daylight Savings Time, and people get to be in the park instead of trapped in an apartment surrounded by a mountain of notes. I'm jealous of them, too. Fie on them - fie on them all!

9:22 P.M. - Christy is gone and I'm skidding back into troll-land. I need a shower.

9:52 P.M. - I still haven't cracked open my genetics stuff. That's not so good, y'all. And that little card in the frame - I have to be reminded of that several times daily. When I try to handle stuff myself, I mess that mess up.

9:54 P.M. - Still on cancer chemotherapy - haven't touched immunopharmacology or vaccines yet, haven't started genetics. Yikes.

10:27 P.M. - A desperate phone call to Christy. She reassures me that I'm not going to fail. Too bad she's a pathological liar. (Just kidding.)

11:02 P.M. - I STILL haven't started genetics. I think I'll just take a hit on that one.

11:40 P.M. - Goodnight Scott. :-)

11:54 P.M. - Sophie could not care less.

11:56 P.M. - You know what? Me neither.

That is all. Hope you enjoyed it - should I do another day?

Maybe Basil's readers will find this interesting ...

Randomness

Well, this set of blocks went reasonably well. I got an A in path, a B in pharm, and an unmentionable grade in genetics (which was okay, considering I only read half of the genetics notes (once!) and only went to about half of the lectures. I put it on the back burner this time. You almost have to do that when you're juggling ~23 credit hours' worth of exams.)

Thanks be unto the Lord for all of THAT.

I had a humorous voicemail the other day at the apartment - I had been home for the weekend and was checking my messages on my way back on Sunday, and had three new messages. They were as follows: Christy, Christy, and some woman who was all, "YEAH. So I just wanted to let you KNOW, that I'm having an affair with your HUSBAND, and he can *bleep* so good, and he's mine, so *bleep* you, *BLEEP*!"

Eeek. The problem with that, of course, is that she's talking about my non-existent husband. I felt bad for her, you know, that she mustered up the courage (or maybe drank the courage) to make this confession, and then it gets delivered to the wrong number. That's just too bad. I felt so bad for her that I was going to get her number on my caller ID and call her back to tell her that the joke's on her, I have genital herpes! (KIDDING - I do not have herpes and I wasn't going to tell her that, either.) I was going to tell her that she must be looking for the other Kimberly [insert last name here].

Mom went to Kroger today, and went through this cashier's line who always feels the need to keep up a running commentary on what you're buying. She was buying a baby bottle brush for cleaning hummingbird feeders, and he asked her if she had a daycare. She said no, because - you know, she doesn't have a daycare. He proceeded to tell her that she should volunteer at Kroger's daycare, because they have "grannies" that come in to read to the kids. Poor Mom. Even if she had stark-white hair, a face like Keith Richards and was hobbling on a cane, you STILL don't call a stranger a "grannie". Sheesh.

Coming up next - American Idol Top 12 performance video clips (I'm just about to outsmart my Windows Media Center - but I only half outsmarted it this week - sorry, People Who Performed In The First Half fans) and A Day In My Life, this time with pictures. Wheee!

Thinning the downloads folder

So, I removed some files from my downloads folder - I also removed the link over in yonder sidebar. My server was down earlier for awhile (a problem with GoDaddy, it turned out) and I was afraid that I'd been pegged as a copyright infringer and yanked from the Internet. I got spooked. Also, I don't want to go to jail. Although jail might be better than these four exams I will be failing on Monday and Tuesday. Medical school sucks sometimes nearly all of the time.

Off topic (am I ever ON topic?) - SarahK, did you really think my MySpace quiz was "password to credit card / break into your house and steal your stuff / hurt you questions"? Eeek, I hope not. I re-read it and don't think I revealed any identifying information. (I also don't think that I'm so popular that I have stalkers - heh.) Also, MySpace may be for celebrities who want to think they have a blog, teenagers, and child predators (I won't argue with you there), but it also happens to be for me and about half of my medical school class - it's a good way to keep in touch with people from high school and college, too. I'm actually using it at the moment to contact people about a reunion.

An unfortunate guest lecturer, and Dave Matthews on House EEEEEE!

Hey, you know what I keep forgetting to tell y'all? While perusing my pharmacology lecture schedule (which is a completely interesting thing to do during class sometimes) I discovered that one of our required lectures (on dermatologic pharmacology) is to be given by none other than my ex-dermatologist who doesn't know how to use lasers or treat patients like real people. I will, of course, be completely professional and sit there and take notes like the good adequate medical student that I am, unless she tries to describe in detail how to use a hair-removal laser. Or how to deal with a patient that you have permanently scarred and left looking like Elvis, now and forever. If that happens, then I'll just quietly put down my Family Guy pen (thanks Joyce!) and think about kittens or something.

In other news, Dave Matthews was on House MD this week, in the episode Half Wit (there's an mpeg file in downloads) and it was so good ... I don't know, I can't come up with an analogy. It was just really good. When both House and Dave were sitting at the piano in Dave's hospital room, my head almost exploded. I couldn't handle having both of them in the same frame. It's a good thing I was doing my evil genetics homework and wasn't completely rapt.

I have two exams on Monday and two on Tuesday (and a nervous breakdown somewhere in there) so I may be scarce for a few days. Don't miss me too much.

Oh! Something else I meant to tell you. Harvey at IMAO is snarking on West Virginia, and it's terribly funny. Go read it. Here's a couple of my favorites:

The state motto of West Virginia is "Montani semper liberi", which is Latin for "Sister, daughter, wife... whatever".

The variety of apple known as Golden Delicious originated in Wellsburg, West Virginia, in 1775. It was greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm by a population who'd spent years being stuck with eating the Ochre Atrocious.

In May, 1860, the first oil well in West Virginia was drilled at Burning Springs. In June, 1860, the former governor of Texas invaded West Virginia and stole it.

In a recent survey, 95% of West Virginians report having checked out a book from their local public library within the last year. During the same time period, 95% of West Virginians also reported having found a way to fix that wobbly kitchen table with the short leg.

The state flag of West Virginia consists of a blue-edged white background, overlaid by an image of two men debating whether Fahrenheit 9/11 or An Inconvenient Truth was a bigger load of crap.

American Idol - Top 10 Girls

So, the top 10 girls sang. And I recorded it - with my good ol' VCR, since American Idol has apparently embedded some sort of "anti-record" critter into their broadcast (hence the weird colored lines that cover half of my screen when I try to play it back through Windows Media Center. Boo! Once again, Fox.Ruins.Everything.) I can still make mpegs from VCR recordings, though, and will have those in my American Idol download folder shortly. Here's a few thoughts on the girls from last night (this was a "live blog" that I didn't get around to posting until now. It was "live" in the sense that I wrote it during the show.)

1. Gina Glocksen - Alone (Heart)
   Cute stuff about her boyfriend in the clip, but I couldn't help comparing some of it to Scott and me. First of all, if I jumped on him like that, I'd knock him clean off of his feet. Not that he's unusually wee - it's that I'm ginormous. It would be like a hurricane hit him - or a runaway elephant perhaps. And he would NEVER put red streaks in his hair to match mine - he'd be more likely to say, "What in the world kind of red stuff is in your hair? Oh, you MEAN for it to be there? Why didn't you do your entire head? Did you run out of dye?" A fashionista he is not. And that, actually, is a very good thing. Because a boyfriend a la Christian from Clueless would not be very good at all. Oh, back to Gina. She was good - but I agree with Simon about the end - it felt as if she had run out of breath and was trying to yell the rest of the song.
2. Alaina Alexander - Not Ready to Make Nice (Dixie Chicks - ugh)
   Much better than last week - she almost makes me want to patronize the Dixie Chicks and buy that song. Almost. Still, her voice pales in comparison to most of the other girls - if she gets through another week, it'll be on her looks alone (see also Barba, Antonella).
3. Lakisha Jones - Midnight Train to Georgia (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
   Hee. I "luv" Lakisha's grandma. Her crush on Ryan Seacrest is too cute. And what else can I say about Lakisha? She's done really really well so far. And she even pulls off that skirt - I thought it was adorable that her outfit was "distracting" for Simon. Hee.
4. Melinda Doolittle - My Funny Valentine (Ella Fitzgerald / Frank Sinatra / eleventy billion others)
   Haaaa! She used the phrase "hot mess", which I would not known if not for Tamika and Rita. Ah, I miss our old MS-I studying days, girls. Those two really helped get me through my first semester of medical school. Anyway, Melinda was exceptionally good. I wasn't expecting that.
5. Antonella Barba - Because You Loved Me (Celine Dion)
   That dress is hideous. The performance is only slightly less hideous. Sounded better than last week, but still - ack. Oh, and being snippy with Simon after not one, but TWO lackluster performances? Not cool. You don't get to be a diva yet, Antonella.
6. Jordin Sparks - Reflection (Christina Aguilera)
   I like her even better after learning that she toured with Michael W. Smith and that he's pulling her for on his website. But ack - I don't like it when Simon stares creepily at Paula. Or maybe he's staring at Randy, which is even more disturbing. Perhaps he's just hypnotized by Randy's screaming shirt.

   Ah, Kellie Pickler is on the results show - heh. I'm sure SarahK is thrilled.

7. Stephanie Edwards - Dangerously In Love (Beyonce)
   Well, she had fun with that - and it was good. Pretty dress, too - I wish I could pull off spaghetti straps. And that's all I've got to say.
8. Leslie Hunt - Feeling Good (Nina Simone / Michael Buble) *I'm purposely avoiding any and all deja vu jokes*
   She has a very strange speaking voice. Or perhaps I have strange ears. Grandpa Bob would undoubtedly tell her not to be so hyperreflexic (i.e., flappy) too. Are leggings and skirts coming back? Please tell me they're not. And now she is not even singing words. Man, Randy loves "pitchy". He tucks it in at night, gives it a kiss and reads it a bedtime story. Get a new adjective, Randy. And please make this crazy girl and her "dee da doo" clicking language go away.
9. Haley Scarnato - Queen of the Night (Whitney Houston)
   Simon's not going to like this. Aaaaand, I was right. Aww, he made her cry. Boo. I have a harder time writing that she was a spastic CrimpMonster when she's standing there with a trembling lower lip.
10. Sabrina Sloan - All the Man That I Need (Whitney Houston)
    I don't like when I can see someone's ribs inserting on their sternum. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a fat cow. After her performance, I'm remembering an old TWoP T-shirt - "Loud is the New Good". Indeed.

DialIdol shows crazy results, especially for the guys. Craaaaaaaazy. America, you're being stupid. Don't vote for people who talk their way through songs, please!