philosophical question of the day

Why do humans have a neck? It's so vulnerable, all fleshy and exposed. It houses important veins and arteries, the cephalad portion of the esophagus, almost the entire trachea, the thyroid, and the spinal cord. Such an important structure should not be protected by a sheet of skin and the platysma muscle. And what with the females and their dainty little milk-white necks, gracile, lean: an invitation for disaster. Granted there aren't too many beheadings these days (rest in peace, Mr. Pearl - your death will not have been in vain), but the neck seems such a superfluous structure. But this poses a problem - evolution has not removed the neck, so it obviously has a biologically helpful mechanism. Without it, the digestive system would be shorter - no problems there; the major blood vessels to the head would be better protected; the spinal cord would be shorter, and it would eliminate the need for any pesky vertebrae there; the thyroid would either be displaced to another part of the body, perhaps within the thoracic cavity, or buried deeper in the head-shoulder junction; and the trachea would be drastically truncated, providing less of that darned mucus, fewer cilia (thus making humans more susceptible to respiratory infection, hmm), and would also completely prohibit tracheotomies. So...

I can logically conclude the evolutionary purpose of the neck is so EMTs can perform tracheotomies.

 
a very moooving article

Update to the penis story of 2/13... The Independent of Grand Island ran a follow-up to the story. You'll never guess what it really is.

 
i am not amused

 
"everyone is medicinally happy"

More medical mischief:
"Mental status examination showed an ill kempt girl with loss of hair" - a case of "Rapunzel Syndrome," in which the patient eats his or her own hair. Mmm mmm good.
Get updates about Ass British Foods (not medical, but I think it belongs here).
Man Eats Eye on Reality Show - Says "Like Eating a Squash Ball"

 
the hasty pudding incident

So I was making this hasty pudding in my cooking class today, and Chad goes and tosses a chunk of butter in it. The hasty pudding decides to form Corn Pop-sized lumps around the melting fat, and the molasses has sunk to the bottom of the pan. No one wanted to try our cornmeal slurry, so I poured it down the drain. But it wouldn't go down the drain. Arrr. I spent several minutes fishing hasty pudding chunks out of the sink and then I had to wash the pan. Grr. Gripe gripe gripe. Worse things happened today but I won't get into that.

 
hooray for political science?

Why oh why am I taking this class... I don't care about your damned statutes! I'm anti-life, I like guns, I think there should be stricter regulations on immigration, the age of consent should be higher, I like the death penalty and I really don't care if the guy is retarded or not, and the government should stay out of my damned business. Stick the Supreme Court in your ear.

Hey! Based on the above information, WHAT IS MY POLITICAL ORIENTATION?
Why do I bother asking? No one reads this anyway.
Another one: Is this Blogger.communism? It's "push-button publishing for the people," the proletariat with buttons to push. Certainly epater le bourgeoisie, if anything. No one wants to hear the lunatic ravings of rich people. They achieve with cash - we achieve with words.
Uh oh. Am I a Communist? If I am it would really piss off my teacher, her being a hyperconservative Republicana from Texas.

 
oh yeah. duh

NEVER, never, never read more than 2 books simultaneously. These are the books I am currently attempting to read:
Uncle Tungsten, Oliver W. Sacks
Either/Or, Søren Kierkegaard
The Plague, Albert Camus
I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
Confessions, Leo Tolstoy
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
Living Terrors, Michael Osterholm
What Is Existentialism?, William Barrett
Great Russian Short Stories, various
The Essential Chekhov, Anton Chekhov

Hmm. Which shall I pursue... which shall I leave till the summer...? help :(

 
i forgot what i was going to talk about

Here's some medical mayhem for your curious, diseased minds:
Dermatology in the movies (Britney Spears has worse acne than I do! ha ha ha ha!)
Tragic, non-humorous fireworks accident
DiseaseWorld!

Uhhh. That's enough of that. I think I'll ramble nonsensically because I'm ill again.. spew:
D. Carleton Gadjusek
synesthesia
behaviorism
proteome
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, author of works such as Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, The Sickness Unto Death, and The Seducer's Diary
high-density lipoprotein
huge
unusually moist
vermicelli
omnis dubitatum
verb
backseat of a candy apple red '67 Mustang
tic
heavily wooded area
implosion
string theory

I should write a story using all these terms.. hmm...
Late one morning, an unusually moist test tube containing a vermicelli was involved in a huge implosion in the backseat of a candy apple red '67 Mustang. Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, author of works such as Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, The Sickness Unto Death, and The Seducer's Diary began speaking of string theory and synesthesia when suddenly, with a flourish of high-density lipoproteins, D. Carleton Gadjusek stepped out from a heavily wooded area. No exponent of behaviorism, Gadjusek was ostensibly verbed when he noticed the worm had a tic. To Kierkegaard he peremptorily stated, "My proteome has become disturbed." His pointed, and indeed it was for the fasciculating worm felt an edge to the speech, retort: "Omnis dubitatum, sir."

 
more anti-valentine's hijinks?

I found an article about a guy who lost his penis in Hastings. I've heard of leaving your heart in San Francisco but this is ridiculous.

 
squishy salty hearts-n-bubbles day

The Anti-Valentines Manifesto

An angry diatribe
by none other than
me,

someone bitter
about never having
a date on 2/14

I dislike St. Valentine's Day, though no one calls it by that name anymore. You might even say I hate it. Since when is it acceptable to commemorate the martyrdom of a saint by tossing about sugary treats and cards with insipid puns ("I Choo-Choo-Choose You") and lots of sweet lovin' for those so inclined? Why would anyone willingly submit to such debauchery of spirit? I don't care about the religious aspect of February 14th, the day on which the alleged St. Valentine was martyred. What I do care about is the slothfulness and commercialistic ravings of the American populace. I decline to speak about other countries because their affairs do not concern me. St. Valentine's Day is a boon for candy-makers. When did candy become a show of affection? Why is it that almost every major holiday has been degraded to children and adults stuffing themselves silly with sucrose-laden snacks? I don't like watching obese Americans gorging themselves on chocolate like little deer ticks slurping blood. Deer ticks guzzle blood until they drop off the unwilling host, satiated and unable to move because they are so swollen with food. Likewise, we Americans fill ourselves with enamel-rotting candy and sumptuous dinners for two and get drunk off our collective ass. Hallowe'en too contributes to the general crapulence. Hallowe'en, a corruption of "All Hallow's Eve," is in turn our corruption of the Celtic end-of-summer celebration, Samhain. They feared those who died that year would come back to haunt them, so to foil the efforts they extinguished their fires, dressed up in ghoulish attire, and romped about the city making noise. There was no candy involved. Why should there be now? Why do we still celebrate an antiquated Pagan ritual by dressing up as the Powerpuff Girls and Scooby-Doo and Gohan and go door-to-door like beggars? Haven't we got enough in this country? I won't even go there with Christmas or any other corrupted holiday. Anyway. Another gripe I have about St. Valentine's Day is sloth. Why is there only one day each year that everyone gets to be romantic? If someone truly loves someone else, shouldn't they take each and every day of the year and make it romantic? I realize most guys are too stupid to realize this (but not good 'ol Andrew, thanks for that wonderful article). Ah hell. I wish I could get a date.

 
get your laws off me, you damned dirty ape

Ok, so I'm at www.nerdalert.org, and now I'm all pissed off about abortion. I'm politically homeless, I don't have much of a grasp on governmental matters (my apologies to Jesse, looks like I won't be running the country after all), but I know damn straight where I stand on this issue. I am so sick of all this politics bullflop. I'm so pissed off I can't even think straight. I'm anti-life and proud.