Somebody Else's Blog

My Latest Adventure

2010-09-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

So there I was, in a far away land with seven or eight of my fellow black-ops commandos. It was night and we were running through a dark field near a ditch. We ran past anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan. Seeing the opportunity to impress my fellow commando, Sean Hannity, I caught up to him and explained that although I'm not a big fan of Sheehan's, she has helped the conservative movement by demonstrating that the media definitely has a liberal bias. He asked me to explain so I did: when Bush was President, every time he went on vacation to his ranch she was there protesting and had all the major networks there with cameras in her face. Now that Obama is in charge, she travels to his vacation spot, Martha's Vineyard, where she continues to protest the wars but all the mainstream media ignore here. Why is that? I can tell Hannity thinks I'm smart.

We keep running and eventually find ourselves in the apartment of a known terrorist. We're snooping around looking for evidence. Just as we're getting somewhere we hear a door close at the end of the shared hall. Somebody has left the apartment door open and the terrorist knows he's not alone. He slowly enters his doorway - I'm around the corner to his left, Hannity to the right. The terrorist enters the room and we see each other. I notice he is holding a large hunting knife, which he raises in the air in preparation to swing at me, but without missing a beat, Hannity grabs the man's arm and restrains him. All I have with me is a sharp #2 pencil but I seize the opportunity and plunge it into the terrorist's chest. Repeatedly. After putting several holes in the evil man's torso, my fellow commandos and I vacate the building and head off for our next assignment.

here's the thing about condiments

2010-06-03T00:48:00.000-07:00

Ketchup and a little mayo are good, because they bring their own flavors to the party but they don't go around thinking they're all awesome and taking over.

Mustard and relish, on the other hand, bring more than their fair share. If you add mustard to the hot dog, every bite will taste mostly of mustard, only slightly of hot dog. Some people may respect that in a condiment. I don't. I'm sitting back in the corner with ketchup and a little mayo thinking, "Sheesh, who invited those guys?"

Somebody had to say it.

wait, I have a blog too?

2010-04-08T20:28:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah. Sorry there little blog - forgot about your for 6 months.

You'll notice I've made a couple minor changes around here. 10 cool points to the first person that can name two changes to the blog.

Well, I guess I should write about something. Health care? No. I'm just as lost as everyone else, so I wouldn't have much to say.

All the great happenings in my life lately? No. That's what my wife's blog is for. Ask her for an invite if you aren't already on her list.

Some of my great new ideas, like "New Deli" - the Indian food restaurant idea I had? Nope. That's pretty much the idea - there's not a whole lot else to explain.

I know! I know!

"SEVEN POUNDS" WAS THE WORST MOVIE EVER.

And thus begins my rant. I actually had the idea for this post about a year ago when I saw the worthless movie, but haven't been the bloggiest blogger lately, so I forgot.

And since it's been a year, all the crappiness isn't as fresh in my mind, so this won't really be as powerful of a rant. I'll summarize with bullets. heh heh, that kind of makes me sound like a bad-A. Maybe I'll use that line in a screenplay about a corporate lackey who's tired of giving presentations so one day he flips out and yells, "I'll summarize with bullets!" just as he begins his rampage.

Back to my rant, in bullet points:
(PS don't read it if you haven't seen the movie and you still want to. Also, if you haven't seen the movie, this won't make any sense.)

It took WAY too long for the love story to develop. I found myself wanting the movie to end faster.
Suicide. I'm not a big advocate of it. The next few points will illustrate why the protagonist was NOT a selfless hero, but a selfish bat-turd in doing what he did.
He'd caused an automobile ACCIDENT (not on purpose) that took the lives of several people. He thinks he can atone for this accident? He thinks improving the lives of a few people and saving one, and then taking one more (his own) will even the score? 6-1+1=6. Or is it ok because he was so sad anyway so death was a nice way out for him? Guess what? That's the coward's way out. That is not heroic.
The people who's lives he had "improved" had already been dealing with their disabilities and were leading good lives. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if they lived out the rest of their lives that way, or just waited until the next natural death resulted in some organs being available.
Are you still reading this? I probably would have stopped by now. In fact, I haven't really been reading any blogs lately. Sorry.
Let's consider that he traded his life for the woman's at the end. Each of them had people in their lives who cared about them, although the movie didn't really focus on his loved ones. Consider, for a moment, the social lifestyle of such a charismatic individual as the protagonist was - he built up a HUGE company from nothing. That type of personality would likely also lead to many rich and enjoyable relationships with the people around him. I'm not saying his life was more valuable than hers, but if you could somehow quantify the sorrow brought about by his suicide compared with her passing of natural causes beyond her control, I think his actions caused much more suffering, not less.
MOST IMPORTANTLY (I typed that in case you were just skimming for the important part) - consider the alternative. This man was rich, and he accidentally took several people's lives because he was texting while driving. Should he A) kill himself and donate organs to people who need them or B) set up a charitable foundation to raise awareness about the dangers of texting and driving, begin and ad campaign to reach millions and change their behavior, use his political influence to outlaw the practice in the entire country, fund research and development of a technology that prohibits phones from working (except emergencies) while inside a motor vehicle, and thereby prevent any further loss of life due to this stupid behavior. I guess A makes a better movie, but B would actually make a difference.
Killing yourself with a jellyfish? That part was actually kind of cool. I'd never thought of that.
I felt that I needed to write this because of so many people who, before I saw the movie, told me how amazing it was and how it made them cry. I couldn't disagree more. This movie made my think of all of the things the man could have done instead of killing himself. Heaven forbid I ever find myself responsible for the deaths of several people, hopefully my love for the people who are a part of my life would give me the strength and courage to get through it, overcome my sorrows, and go about my life with renewed resolve to make a difference in the world.
This is the only Will Smith movie I didn't enjoy. (Note- I never saw "Wild Wild West").

End Rant.

Next post will be more positive.

All I Wanted was a Pepsi

2009-10-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

So there I was, in the kitchen trying to get two Pepsis my wife had put in the freezer for us 15 minutes earlier. She had warned me that one was probably going to fall out and I should be careful but did I listen? Nope. In fact, her warning totally went under my radar until I saw the blurry blue cylinder dropping towards my feet.

The very same second I heard the thump of the can hitting the ground, I was blinded by the sweet, sticky beverage which had wisely used it's first strike to take out my sight. Standing there with eyes closed, I felt a cool swath across both knees and thought, "Oh crap, this isn't over." Straining to see, I caught a glimpse of the can and the three Pepsi streams it had shooting in three different directions. Also, I knew that with my impaired vision I couldn't be sure, but the can appeared to be break-dancing.

After cleansing my eyes as thoroughly as one possibly can with the back of one's hand in .5 seconds, I dropped to the ground and apprehended the rogue Pepsi. After putting a halt to the spinning nonsense, I cupped my hand over the "business end" of my newly discovered enemy and ran it to the sink, where I learned that 50% of the content was still intact. The other 50% I discovered was evenly spread throughout the bathroom and kitchen. The whole incident took all of 3 seconds, but I spent the next 3 minutes assessing the casualties. The more places I looked, the more teeny tiny Pepsi spots I discovered. Ground zero had a diameter of 15 feet, and would have been even larger if we had a bigger kitchen.

All I wanted was a Pepsi.

My new favorite song

2009-08-31T22:43:00.000-07:00

You know this is good if it brought me out of my blogging semi-retirement. Thank you, hip new band Owl City, for making dental care almost cool. Thank you very much.

Lyrics, for your reading pleasure:

I brush my teeth
And look in the mirror
And laugh out loud
As I'm beaming from ear to ear

I'd rather pick flowers
Instead of fight
And rather than flaunt my style
I'd flash you a smile
Of clean pearly whites

I've been to the dentist
A thousand times, so I know the drill
I smooth my hair, sit back in the chair
But somehow I still get the chills

Have a seat
He says pleasantly
As he shakes my hand
And practically laughs at me

Open up nice and wide
He says, peering in
And with a smirk he says,
"Don't have a fit, this'll just pinch a bit"
As he tries not to grin

When hygienists leave on long vacations
That's when dentists scream and lose their patience

Talking only brings the toothaches on
Because I say the stupidest things
So if my resolve goes south
I'll swallow my pride with an aspirin
And shut my mouth

Golf and alcohol don't mix
And that's why I don't drink and drive
Because, good grief, I'd knock out my teeth
And hafta kiss my smile goodbye

I've been to the dentist
A thousand times, so I know the drill
I smooth my hair, sit back in the chair
But somehow I still get the chills

Cool Guys don't Look at Explosions

2009-06-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

If you have not yet seen the sweet new Andy Samberg/Will Ferrell Music video, check it out:

As I walked home from school today, I felt like a cool guy. Not because the school exploded, but because I reached 1850 - the clinical point requirement for graduating. I'm hoping I have that feeling again in a couple weeks after I take the regional board exam. To help you better understand the feeling, I made a collage:

Disclaimer: I have no intention of exploding the dental school. If the school happens to explode in the next couple of weeks, it just happened to coincide with this blog entry. I don't want this to be like one of those incriminating google searches where they find out the defendant searched for "how to shoot yourself in the abdomen and survive" just days before claiming he was shot and that he killed someone in self-defense. I have come to know and love many of the people in that building and it would be a shame for the building to explode, although, if I were ensured that there would be no injuries or financial losses, it would be pretty awesome to see as I walk out of town. But then again I wouldn't see it. Because I'm cool.

I'm 27, why do you ask?

2009-04-26T17:29:00.000-07:00

There are two things I've been spending my time on lately that are worth sharing with the world.

First, Trackmania nations. Go there and download the free game found on the upper right side. It's half of a gigabyte so the download might take a few minutes, but it's totally worth it.

The game has a really fast learning curve. You race cars using the four arrow buttons on your keyboard - that's the only instruction you'll ever need for this game. Even though it's so simple, it is super addictive because you are always improving. I'm currently ranked 244,212th in the world (613th in California).

When you create your account, add me (dentalninja) to your buddies list then you can see when I'm online and join in the same races I'm doing. Six of my dental school friends are on my buddies list.

Here's a couple screenshots I just took to give you a sneak peek:

My son likes to watch and point out whenever there's a blimp.

The second thing I feel obligated to share is adultheelysshoes.com. Earlier this week I got a killer deal on my very own pair of Heelys. The website is run by a friend of a friend who has a huge warehouse full of them in Idaho. He orders very large quantities and is thus able to sell them for cheaper than what people pay on ebay.

I wore them to school on Friday but didn't dare put the wheels in while working on the clinic. Maybe one of these days right before I'm outta here I'll be brave enough to cruise around the clinic floor all dentisty-looking in my scrubs, gloves, mask and dental loupes! For now, I'll just be content to cruise around in the lower level of the dental school where the linoleum floors satisfy my NEED for SPEED!

For those of you who don't have a clue what I'm talking about, here's a video of Brett Favre demonstrating how to ride Heelys. At the airport. Without pants. As cool as the "Heely Dentist" sounds, Brett has set the bar pretty high. I'm glad to see he's enjoying his retirement.

C'mon spellchecker, really?

2009-04-19T22:08:00.000-07:00

After writing all about ninjavitis on my other blog, I just wanted to shoot a quick email to the guy whose comic I used and I must have had writer's fatigue or something because I seriously had to ask my wife how to spell "put" as in, "put the red line under the misspelled word."

Spell checker, you were just messing with me, weren't you:

Yeah, that's right, I was trying to say "I pew the story up" or "I poo the story up." Thanks for keeping me on my toes anyway, spellchecker.
P.S. I've noticed you still don't recognize "Obama" and would like to replace him with "Obadiah." You must be part of the extreme "religious right" I'm always reading about.

Books should be free

2009-04-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been re-discovering my love of audio books. Several years ago when I had a job that required me to be all by myself in the middle of nowhere for 8 hours at a time, I found that my library card and a $5 cassette player were great company. The fact that I also had a 4-wheeler and a truck with endless muddy marshes to explore made me happy as a clam. When I tell people I used to work in mosquito control, they never realize what an awesome job that was.

Anyway, since Jordan loves playing in the park we try to get there on a daily basis. Initially I would always bring a book but found it distracting to constantly be looking up to check on him, so I broke out the ipod and finished listening to "Angels and Demons." When that was done, I stumbled across the site booksshouldbefree.com which has free mp3 downloads of classic books that are now in the public domain. The good part? They're free. The downside? They're done by people like you and me instead of professional narrators, so you have an occasional chapter that's really tough to pay attention to.

Just in the past few weeks I've found all kinds of time to "read" while I walk to school, do lab work, and of course while I swim! I've cruised through "The Island of Dr. Moreau," "The Art of War," and I was about to finish "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" last night when a massive cramp in my right leg cut my swim a little short.

Next up in the queue is "Treasure Island" and "The Man who knew Too Much." I'd appreciate any recommendations from that site or if you happen to know of any other quality free audio book sites let me know!

Of blimps and tanks

2009-04-05T23:04:00.000-07:00

Recently I conducted a poll regarding which of these two super awesome vehicles you would rather own. I took this poll because I'm not entirely sure how I feel, and someday if I'm ever offered a blimp or a tank, I'd like to have a well-thought-out answer. You probably should too.

This all started several years ago when I realized I wanted a tank and a large area of otherwise useless land on which I could go tanking. Lately, however, my son has me thinking that maybe our future hypothetical wealth could be better invested in a blimp. (Don't ask me why in this fantasy I have enough money for one or the other but not both, that's not the point.) The kid is obsessed with blimps, and if you manage to get him chatting he's likely to tell you all about the blimp crash. "Huge... blimp... pop.... .crash.... happen.... fire..." all with a very enthusiastic expression. He's only witnessed this event in his bedtime stories - which are often guided by his interjecting ideas to help the plot progress. Recurring themes include blimps, waterfalls, pirates, Jessie, and basketball.

Back to my dilemma. Do I dream about someday being able to squash sage brush while firing my tank-bombs at unsuspecting rocks? Or would I be wiser to spend a day leisurely drifting along with the clouds while reading a book and sipping lemonade? Here are the original poll results:

Seems like blimps win, right? Not so fast. Since the results were so close I used an old trick to keep the contest going. I made a facebook page for blimps and a facebook page for tanks, and I launched them at the same time without personally becoming a fan or letting anybody know about them. It was interesting to see them compete. Blimps jumped out to a very early lead with one or two fans who didn't stay long. Then they stayed at one or two and have slowly risen to six. Tanks, on the other hand, didn't have any fans until very recently, but in a matter of a couple weeks the fan base has grown to 18.

By now you probably have a preference in the great blimps vs. tanks debate. If not, I urge you to decide now before you jump into the very lively and heated debate that is sure to take place in the comments section below. Seriously, I want to know which you would choose and why.

The Internet just got a little bit cooler

2009-03-31T21:33:00.001-07:00

You may recall that my favorite books are all "choose your own adventure" books. I just stumbled on this awesome piece of work from the geniuses known as Chad Matt and Rob. So far I've died once and then I won. I'll probably be living this adventure for a couple more hours tonight. Enjoy:

(you click on the little gray square next to the decision you want to make.)

Happy Birthday to my Blog!

2009-03-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

That's right! March 23rd, 2008, I started this little operation with a few explanations. Here are some other noteworthy things to happen on March 23rd:

"Give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry uttered this phrase in in 1775.
Lewis and Clark turned around and began the trip home in 1806.
The first version of the modern elevator (the safety elevator) was installed in NYC in 1857.
The University of California was founded in 1868.
The Wright Brothers applied for a patent on one of the first successful versions of the airplane in 1903.
Benito Mussolini founded Fascism in 1919.
Adolf Hitler officially became dictator of Germany in 1933.
Jason Kidd was born in 1973.
Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donoldo Colosio was assasinated in 1994.
The first major conflict in Operation Iraqi Freedom happened in 2003.
And finally, I'd like to think that someday wikipedia will also state, "Benji's Blog was launched in 2008."

Also, Poland and Hungary observe the day of Hungarian-Polish Friendship.

The Spoonful of Cinnamon Challenge

2009-03-18T19:58:00.001-07:00

This week I tried Cinnamon Life cereal for the first time. I couldn't stand it! I've only mentioned this to a couple people but so far seem to be alone in my opinion. This may have to do with an experience I had a few years back - an experience worth sharing. Indeed, an experience that could save your life.

The time was summer 2002, the place was my friend's basement. A younger and thinner Benji was still a little disoriented due to his recent return from a two-year stint preaching the good word in a far away land. While sitting around wondering what to do with our evening, one of my buddies mentioned that he had heard somewhere that it is impossible to swallow a spoonful of cinnamon. None of us had ever seen it done and he didn't know what the difficulty was, just that it couldn't be done.

I immediately jumped on the challenge. Perhaps it was because after two years of losing myself in a work that can best be described and challenging and intense, but above all rewarding, I felt I needed a little excitement in my new life. Indeed, at the time I identified with Tommy Lee Jones' character in Men in Black II, where he trades his life of saving the galaxy from aliens to being a postmaster in a quiet town.

Whatever the reason, we quickly drew up the terms. I had to place the spoonful in my mouth, say aloud the word "cinnamon" three times, and then swallow it. If I were successful in said task, everyone present agreed to carry me around everywhere we went that night! (This might be an appropriate time to introduce my theory that small towns produce creative minds.)

So there I was, large spoonful of cinnamon in hand, emergency glass of water nearby, determined to will the cinnamon down my throat. I placed it in my mouth and, not surprisingly, was overwhelmed with the taste of cinnamon. This I had anticipated so it didn't phase me. What caught me by surprise was the almost instant change in the environment of my oral cavity. Instead of the dark, moist food-softening compartment I was used to, the inside of my lower face became a dry, arid, desert wasteland - completely bereft of even a hint of humidity.

I spoke my first "cinnamon" and saw a little brown poof come out of my mouth as I spoke. I felt like some sort of dorky cinnamon dragon-boy. I couldn't help but laugh at the sight of my words being visible, and as I let out a little chuckle I discovered that my laughter was even larger and more visible than the word cinnamon. Thus ensued the positive feedback mechanism of me finding humor in my own laughter and creating bigger and bigger brown cinnamon clouds with each burst.

The cycle finally broke about two seconds later. Completely oblivious to my impending doom, I drew the breath I expected would enable me to continue my verbal quest of glory. I found instead that the air which now filled my trachea, bronchioles, and alveoli, contained a very generous portion of cinnamon, and that they were designed for no such thing. I experienced an urgency known only to those who at some point have found themselves thinking, "Wait a second, I can't breathe."

I quickly began assessing options and realized how inadequate my emergency glass of water was. I ran to the sink and turned on the faucet and coughed as violently as anybody has ever coughed in the history of the world. My friends ran to my side - not to assist me but to inform me that the dirty sink water wasn't for drinking, that's why we'd poured a glass of special drinking water from the fridge. They must have thought I'd somehow forgotten that information in the one minute that passed since we went over it.

I can't blame them too much, though. Seeing as how I had temporarily lost my ability to communicate with the outside world, they couldn't have known that I wasn't just a little thirsty from all the cinnamon, but was actually trying to remove my lungs and turn them inside out so I could give them a good scrubbing and put them back where they go. The next few minutes consisted of coughing at the sink, occasionally inhaling a little water and coughing it back up in hopes that it would do some internal scrubbing, and gasping "can't....breathe..." so everyone felt like they were in the loop.

Bless their hearts, later that evening my friends carried me around to a few places even though I had failed. The next morning when I woke up I tasted cinnamon. Every time I blew my nose for several days, I smelt cinnamon. Several months later when I poured myself a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I remembered the taste of my near-death experience. Now that several years have gone by I've learned to tolerate and even enjoy the occasional cinnamon treat, but I think I have a valid reason if I'm the only one who doesn't enjoy Cinnamon Life. I've already tried Cinnamon Death.

These guys should go to Loma Linda University

2009-03-11T20:33:00.000-07:00

Allow me to explain why, in pictures:

They're good at making manholes!

Do Birds Blink?

2009-03-05T21:57:00.000-08:00

This week I got my first issue of Montana Outdoors. I was given the subscription by my dad for Christmas. Within minutes of opening it I learned something I had never thought about. I'm passing along this tidbit in it's entirety for your enjoyment:

Q. Do birds blink?
A. Yes, says Krisit Dubious, FWP native species coordinator in Missoula, but not quite the same way humans do. Birds have an extra eyelid, a transparent membrane that lets them blink without closing their eyes. This "nictitating" membrane helps keep a bird's eyes moist without blocking vision during flight. Birds usually close their main eyelids only when asleep.

Who knew?

At what point will they stop calling it "News"?

2009-03-03T19:32:00.000-08:00

Begin Rant

Is the local Fox News this ridiculous everywhere, or just L.A.? Seriously, a music video promoting the news? Sassy. Silly. Sharp. Sexy. Spot on. Addictive. Vibrant. Excited. Brash. So Dirty. So Fine. Which of these would you like to describe the program that is supposed to give you information about what's going on in the world? I'd argue that words like "accurate, reliable, timely, informative, true" would be better suited for a music video about the news, but then I'd remember that it's the L.A. area local fox news so I'd change the whole song to "I hope there's a car chase tonight so I can watch the bad guys get pummeled and tazed" - which is really the coolest thing about the news here.

It's always interesting to compare the local news programming in L.A., where all the celebrities are local, with that in Washington D.C. where politicians are local. Sometimes Washington seems like a breath of fresh air.

Seriously, try watching this video again but picturing the likes of Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams. During "The Simpsons" this week I've seen the video several times, so I've had the chance to do it. It's kind of funny.

End Rant.

Everything's amazing, nobody's happy

2009-02-26T23:10:00.001-08:00

Oh shoot. Embedding is disabled. I'll have to direct you to youtube to watch it here.

Just had to share this. I saw this today at lunch and it made me laugh so hard! Enjoy.

Introducing the 10-word movie review. Happy Oscar Night!

2009-02-22T20:14:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't live in the L.A. area, it really is a big deal around here. I had to laugh when I was new here a few years ago and the evening news signed off by wishing me a happy Oscar Weekend. Melissa and I decided to really get into it this year and we've filled out our Oscar picks. Move over March Madness.

I thought it would be fitting for tonight's blog post to review the movies I've seen lately. I'm actually a little behind and have 19 movies to do, so to keep it interesting I'm restricting all my reviews to 10 words. That should be enough to let you know how I felt about each film. If you'd like me to elaborate just say the word!

It is worth noting, in true Oscar fashion, that I am wearing a "VF Imagewear" Philadelphia Eagles t-shirt and a pair of "Finish Line Athletics 365" basketball shorts. This outfit was really a fabulous choice for me.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my reviews:

Australia
Well done but too long. Would be better as miniseries.

Serenity
Good movie, better TV show. Watch "Firefly" for free here.

Wanted (edited)
Like a superhero movie but not. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Valkerie
Like watching favorite team lose close one to bitter rivals.

Traitor
FBI vs. Terrorists from terrorist point of view. Really good.

Tropic Thunder (edited)
Offensive and wrong but I couldn't stop laughing. Nicely done.

Burn After Reading (edited)
Disappointment. Expected more from such big names. Wasn't very funny.

I am Legend
Will make you jump. Can't go wrong with Will Smith.

The X-files: I want to believe
Wondering if it was this crappy when I was younger.

Swimfan
Free on hulu. Better than expected. Thought of better ending.

Max Payne
Don't give up. Gets really good after a certain point.

Ghost Town
Funny Dentist movie I would recommend to just about anybody.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
I must be old. Asking where parents were. Darn kids.

Lars and the Real Girl
Really weird. Melissa shared my thoughts on her blog here.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Dogs wear people clothes. Glad I fell asleep on plane.

Taken
Holy cow, this movie was freaking awesome! Intense and violent.

Lakeview Terrace
Like "Meet the Parents" but drama, not comedy. Somewhat irritating.

Smokejumper
Laughed so hard, but not supposed to be funny. Fail.

Henry Poole is Here
Redbox description was wrong. Made boring and stupid movie confusing.

Benji's Blog Movie Review Archive

Too funny not to share

2009-02-18T21:37:00.001-08:00

On the flight home from Washington I was watching Comedy Central and was introduced to this comic genius! This is his best bit that I found on YouTube. Seriously I love his style.

House of Representatives Fun Fact

2009-02-15T21:44:00.000-08:00

I just returned from my third and final trip to Washington to lobby on behalf of my dental school. I worked on some important issues and did some sight-seeing, but I'm not going to bore you here with all the little details. I will, however, share with you what I thought was the coolest "tour-guide" moment of the trip.

After our first appointment with a congressman, my fellow "legislative liaison" and I had a couple hours to wait so we went to the House Chamber in hopes of seeing some of the debate regarding the stimulus package. When we got there we had just barely missed seeing the action because they had recessed for lunch, but we were informed that the pressing matter they had been discussing was whether or not to congratulate the Pittsburgh Steelers on their Super Bowl victory. Nice work boys.

Since there wasn't anything going on, I struck up a conversation with the security guard and asked him if he had any cool stories or information that most people wouldn't know about the room. He shared with us his version of the United States Capitol Shooting Incident in 1954, although the wikipedia version is slightly different[citation needed].

The gist of it is that in 1954 some Peurto Rican Nationalists smuggled weapons into the House Chambers. They were supposedly there as a film crew, but it turns out they had weapons in the bags, not camera equipment! Oh Snap! Six congressmen were injured (wikipedia says 5) but nobody was killed. The interesting part is that they never fixed two of the bullet holes in the room. One can be seen in the ceiling just a few feet from the huge stained glass decorative thingy. Since cameras aren't allowed in the chamber and I haven't been able to find an image on the interwebs, I'm just going to ask you to picture a little hole in a ceiling. That's pretty much what it looks like. Neat-o, huh? Ok you can stop picturing it now.

The other went through a desk and drawer. They repaired the desk and it's noticeable where the stain on the wood is a little bit lighter. They never repaired the desk drawer. Here's the approximate location of the flaw in the desk:

I asked the guy why they never repaired the holes and he shrugged his shoulders and explained that there wasn't any structural damage done so there was no need to repair them. What did I gain from this experience? The desire to write my name in the ceiling of the House Chamber with an Uzi - avoiding any structural damage, of course.

Quick thoughts from DC

2009-02-13T05:34:00.001-08:00

Last night around 11:00 I found myself in front of Barack Obama's house. There wasn't a lot going on so I struck up a conversation with the security guard hoping he might have some cool stories for me. I was disappointed. He had only been working there for a year and during his shifts things generally stayed calm. He did share with me, however, something that always makes him chuckle. From time to time, someone will approach him and say, "excuse me, I don't speak very good english. Could you tell me where the White House is?"

It's right there.

This story probaby has a better effect if I tell it to you right smack in fron of the White House.

I have a few other stories to share from my DC trip but don't have enough time right now to do them justice, so, stay tuned.

The Coolest Shirt in the World

2009-02-08T21:19:00.001-08:00

Last night my lovely wife and I got together with a large group of dental students and spouses to play "The Newlywed Game." While we didn't win, I was sure proud of us on several questions where our answers were a little out there but we had exact matches. Twice, we both wrote "The coolest shirt in the world" as the answer. The questions were, "What is your husband's most prized possession?" and "What is one article of clothing your wife wishes you would get rid of?"

Needless to say, we got a few funny looks and I decided it was time to tell the world the story of what has come to be know as "the coolest shirt in the world." This is that story.

So there we were one afternoon, looking for some great finds at the local Goodwill. The shirt was displayed on the front of its rack for all to see. It caught my eye and seemed to be calling my name, beckoning me to try it on. I took it to the dressing room and found it to be a little big, but surprisingly comfortable. One glance in the mirror and I knew the shirt was to be mine.

I walked out to show my wife, hoping against hope that she would be as excited as I was, but was disappointed to learn something new about my wife of over 2 years: she possessed virtually no fashion sense. She told me it was hideous and that she would never let me wear it.

It was time to weigh my options. If I made the purchase I would be out $4 for a shirt I could never wear. On the other hand, if I walked away there is a good chance I would spend my life wondering about the shirt that got away - indeed, the coolest shirt in the world. It was one of the easiest decisions I've ever made.

I took it to the counter and handed over four dollar bills while the nice Hispanic gentleman rung it up. In his thick accent he shared with me his lamentation that, as a Goodwill employee, he was not allowed to buy the shirt - otherwise he would have done so earlier that day. I knew it! The reassurance I had failed to receive from my wife was given to me by this international fashion expert, who was formerly a high-end clothing designer in his home country but had to settle for a job in retail when he came to this land in search of freedom. He didn't say any of that, but you could kind of tell by looking at him.

Naturally I was a little curious as to the origins of the shirt, as well as what mysterious message was written on the side in what I presumed to be Korean characters, so when I got home I googled the brand name on the tag, "Solo Loco, animated." What did 15 minutes of google searching tell me? Absolutely nothing. Whoever made this shirt had no internet presence. That's when it hit me - this was no ordinary peasant shirt that you can simply "google" at will. This shirt is special, and although the origins of this shirt may forever remain a mystery, the super-natural powers bestowed upon the wearer of this shirt will have to wait until my wife decides to lift her ban on the coolest shirt in the world.

Here are a few pictures of me modeling the coolest shirt in the world:

I know what you're thinking. As handsome as I am, I don't really do the shirt justice. That's why I took the liberty to photoshop this image of the coolest shirt in the world wearing ITSELF, thereby making this the coolest picture in the universe!

It's like staring into eternity.

Lastly, I need your help. I need everyone to become a fan of "The Coolest Shirt in the World" on Facebook. If the page gets 200 fans, my wife has agreed to lift the ban on the Coolest Shirt in the World. Every fan counts.

Funny News Bloopers

2009-02-05T15:30:00.000-08:00

Melissa and I were totally cracking up watching news bloopers the other night. Here are our favorite gems, beginning with this one that just happened this week:

This one is only funny in the first 20 seconds, after that they just make fun of her a little. A perfect example of the media trying to make the news bigger than it really is:

You might want to keep your kids away from this weatherman:

This guy has a contagious laugh:

Here's another good one:

The runner-up for my favorite:

And finally, this one which is definitely my favorite. Worth watching a couple times to see the co-anchor's reaction:

My Super Thoughts

2009-02-01T19:21:00.001-08:00

Some thoughts from the super bowl:

Remember when beer commercials were funny?
James Harrison might miss the first couple of pre-season games next year because he's still catching his breath from that 100-yard interception return. Actually I hope he gets suspended for the first two regular season games because of his cheap shot on Aaron Francisco. What a jerk.
Anyone else hear Al Michaels say "Yes he can!" refering to a wide receiver's efforts to get the first down? You can't escape the Obamamania.
G.I. Joe movie? Awesome! Another Transformers movie? Ok.
I've seen lots of people getting hit by buses lately. Twice in a movie I just watched, once in the Doritos commercial, once in the Jack-in-the-Box commercial, and a few times in the commercial for the next episode of "Chuck." (Get it? That scene where Jerome Bettis levels him? Jerome Bettis was nicknamed "the Bus"). I don't know about you, but I'm watching out for buses.
Can we young 'uns have another chance at a halftime show? The last lineup that would have appealed to anyone younger than 30 was 5 years ago with Jessica Simpson, Nelly, P. Diddy, Kid Rock, and let's not forget Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. Since the infamous wardrobe malfunction, we've seen Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty, and now Bruce Springsteen. Booooooorrrrring.
The one commercial that made me laugh was MacGruber becoming PepsGruber, but I think you need to be an SNL junkie like me to appreciate it.
I would like to have seen the Cardinals win, but I really don't have any strong feelings for or against either team.
Free Grand Slam at Denny's next Tuesday from 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Awesome.
What is up with not showing the blimp??? I had to write that in behalf of my son, Jordan. That was the only part of the game the 21-month-old was looking forward to. Incidentally, he learned the word "dangit" from me during the Super Bowl. I guess it could be worse.
I wish the Cardinals had gone with the same helmet design as the Philadelphia Eagles, so everyone could see what a wussy mascot the cardinal really is:

Horny Change

2009-01-28T19:35:00.000-08:00

With all the talk about "change this" and "Obama that" we've been hearing about lately, I haven't heard anyone mention something I think needs changing. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention my killer idea. The change I'd like to see this year is in the auto industry. As long as we're making efforts to go green and become safer and all that, why not offer the driver more options for honking his horn? Seriously, for how many years have we been given only one choice?

Hear me out. How many times have you been driving and have seen someone you know and you wanted to honk to get their attention so you could give a friendly Hello, but you didn't honk because there were other cars around and you were worried they would think you were honking at them? Or perhaps you went ahead and honked, and then felt like a fool when your friend kept walking but you noticed the driver in front of you check his rear-view mirror, and you weren't quite sure but you think based on what you saw of his eyes, he was mad at you. Perhaps he looked a little crazy.
It's really a simple solution: two horn sounds. One is a friendly horn, the other is an angry horn. Keep the angry horn in the middle so it's easily accessible if you need to warn someone of their impending doom, and put the friendly one on the ceiling - after all, if you're about to wave your hand will be in the air anyway, right?

Both horns should also have an option of aiming the sound. I'll let the auto industry figure that one out. Yes we can.

The Future is Now - Finis Swimp3v2 product review

2009-01-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

Aside from being a hectic week at school, this week brought some good news and welcome changes. Specifically, my swimming pool opened up after being closed for cleaning since early December. (It still looks dirty, but at least it's open so I'm not complaining).

Also, a belated Christmas present arrived in the mail and I got to go try it out. I'd like to introduce you to the Finis Swimp3 - the mp3 player for swimmers.

I didn't think such an awesome thing existed and I always told myself that sometime in the future they would invent some sort of waterproof headphones. Ladies and Gentlemen, the future is here. Before decideing on this model I researched a few different options. For example, there is a company that can waterproof your ipod for about the same price as the swimp3v2, but the online reviews I read weren't very positive. The Swimp3v2 works better in water because the sound doesn't go through your external auditory meadus (fancy word for ear-hole), but instead it sends the sound vibrations into your cheek bones and they pass it along to your eardrum. Every review I read online about this product seemed positive. During my maiden voyage I was really impressed with several things:

First, it was extremely easy to use. You just plug it into a USB port and drag the mp3 tracks into the folder. That's it. There is optional free software from the company website to help manage your media, but I didn't really find it necessary. There are three little buttons to use while swimming and they allow you to skip forward/backward, adjust the volume, pause, shuffle, and turn on or off.

Second, it worked. The sound quality wasn't superb but it was pretty good, and considering that I was swimming laps I'd say it was downright amazing. I would compare the quality of sound to having a small stereo system across the room. When I was listening to my rap music the bass wasn't incredibly powerful, and when I was listening to an LDS general conference talk I missed one or two words every couple of minutes but it was good enough for me to follow along. I even lost track of my lap count and just swam until I was tired! That is so much better than just staring at the bottom of the pool counting and thinking for an hour. (And yes, my playlist has a little variety to it).

Third, the design of the Swimp3 made it so I didn't even realize it was there. It looks a little weird but while I was swimming it didn't add any resistance or pull on the goggles at all. I should also point out that while I was doing the breast stroke (where your whole head is underwater and then above water) I noticed that the sound quality was much better underwater. How 'bout that?

With the Swimp3, you too could look this good:

Update: After reading some more reviews, I feel it would be helpful to remind you that you need earplugs while you use this or it won't work very well. Most serious swimmers swim with either a swim-cap or earplugs anyway, but if you're new to the sport, now you know.

"Kernkraft 400" by Zombie Nation

2009-01-18T20:21:00.000-08:00

That's the answer. The question is one you've probably asked yourself if you've watched football regularly the past several years, and it goes like this:

What's that one song they play in the stadiums? It goes like this, "Dah nuh na na nuh, da na na na na nuh na na na na na na nuh."

Because googling those lyrics is pretty much fruitless, I found the answer by simply asking everyone around me any time I ever heard it. After over two years someone finally had the answer. Sort of. He didn't know off the top of his head but he said he had it on his Ipod at home so I emailed him and he got back to me with this vital information.

The reason I decided to blog about it is because NOBODY knows this. Aside from the fact that it took me so long to figure it out, I recently saw a sports segment on the local news where they discussed the song and none of the news people had a clue what the song was.

Here's some trivia:

The song is based on a small song called "Stardust," from a Commodore 64 game, found here.
It was released in 1999 when it became an underground hit in European clubs, but you can credit the Wake Forest Men's Basketball program for popularizing it when they played it on February 13th, 2003, and beat Duke in double overtime. (I guess it worked).
Most people mistakenly call the song "Zombie Nation," probably because those are the only lyrics. Picture Bon Jovi releasing a hit where all they say is "Bon Jovi" over and over again. THAT is how cool this song is.
"Kernkraft 400" is German for "Atomic Energy 400."

Lastly, here is the original music video, featuring a couple bikini girls in what appears to be an infomercial for both microwaves and tanning beds, hosted by a man who is quite obviously the coolest man on the planet:

Someday when I'm rich I will dress just like him every day.

The Haiku Rebel

2009-01-14T23:40:00.001-08:00

ahem....

the haiku rebel
everyone follows the rules
except for this loose canon

Taking an Unpopular Stance

2009-01-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

We like to have fun here at the Benji Blog, but every now and again it becomes imperative for me to voice my opinion on an important issue. What I'm writing about today is something that lies very near to my heart and, unfortunately, it's an opinion that none of even my closest family or friends share. I have yet to find even a single person in any of my social circles who feels the same way I do. I am truly alone in this world.

In an attempt to help you the reader see this issue my way, I first want to paint you a picture. Suppose you were the heir to a large sum of money and an empire at a young age. Suppose that your good looks and charisma had given you celebrity status - along with its fame and the ability to be easily recognized in a crowd. Try to think of people who might fit this description - perhaps Paris Hilton or Ivanka Trump.

Now suppose that for whatever reason, you wanted to go about secretly doing good things and stopping bad things from happening. You are so driven by your cause that you even break the law from time to time. You are, in fact, a vigilante, so naturally you don't want anyone to recognize you. A disguise would only make sense. Picture that time that Tyra put on a fat suit and was appalled at how mean people were to her. (No, I don't watch Tyra, but I happened to see part of that one).

Ok, so there you are, a celebrity in disguise and a vigilante out to change the world, and it comes time for you to interact with someone. How are you going to talk? In your normal voice? The one that people know really well from all those times you've been on TV? Really? Good luck with that. You'll be outed in your first month.

Or, would you perhaps try to disguise your voice? If so, why not try to use a voice that somehow compliments what you are wearing?

Mad props to Christopher Nolan for making Batman yell every time he speaks, and mad props to Christian Bale for doing it. The Bat-Voice was exactly the way it should have been. Honestly, If I were suddenly grabbed by a great big bat-like person and instantly zipped to the top of a tall building, and then that man was growling at me - I wouldn't stop and think "Hey, that's just cheesy..." No, I'd probably pee my pants and so would you. At a time when adrenaline is pumping through your body and all your senses are heightened, the experience would be burned into your memory. Had Bruce Wayne used his normal voice, the next time you heard him on TV you would instantly know it.

One thing I learned in film school (which is what I call the film class I took in regular school) is that the true way to measure the quality of a movie is in its believability. The Bat-Voice makes the Bruce Wayne/Batman character seem more real and therefore more believable, whereas a regular voice would only make the scenario less plausible.

By the way, Christian Bale lost his voice three times during the filming of Batman Begins. That's dedication.

Introducing Crutch Boy: the Superhero with Crutches

2009-01-05T23:05:00.000-08:00

At some point in every man's life, he needs to come up with his own original Superhero. This one is mine, loosely based on myself.

I first thought of this idea several years ago. For those of you who don't know me personally, I've been through a total of 5 knee surgeries. My condition is another story for another time, but suffice it to say it wasn't an injury and I currently have an important knee-part that used to belong to someone else. All but one of my surgeries required 6-8 weeks on crutches as well as a significant amount of time in physical therapy. At the age of 24, I had spent over 2% of my life on crutches.

Those of you who have had similar experiences can appreciate that crutches become an integral part of your life - almost an extension of you. They go with you everywhere you go, including your dreams. You learn to become an expert in using them not only for getting around, but for other things as well. On more than one occasion I've missed my crutches. One example is that with them I could easily reach the light switch from the bed. Without them I have to get up and take a few steps. This background should help you understand where I'm coming from with my superhero: Crutch Boy.

After jotting down my ideas, I quickly realized that I can't fit all the aspects of this hero into one post. For now I will introduce you to Crutch Boy's key feature: his crutches. You'll notice in the illustration above that with them, he can fly.

Here's a more detailed view of everything Crutch Boy's crutches allow him to do:

The colors are just for the illustration. They're actually much more discreet and look like any other set of crutches to the casual observer.

The two crutches are slightly different. Both are equipped with little rocket boosters that enable flight, as well as hollow chambers to store the jet fuel. The throttle is near the handle and responds roughly the same as the throttle on an ATV or dirt bike. Not just anybody can pick up these bad boys and fly - the control and balance require the upper body strength that only comes with having spent years walking around with crutches. Also, Crutch Boy has the option of using the jet fuel as a makeshift Rocket Propelled Grenade. He just has to swivel the end around so the rocket booster is facing him. He must use discretion in using this because once the RPG is gone, he obviously can't use that crutch for flying.

Both crutches also have a main weapon that fires a sort of souped-up tranquilizer. There isn't a needle - it works by blasting micro pellets into the skin like a shotgun to allow quicker absorption, but without doing any permanent damage. It instantly paralyzes the enemies (notice the irony) rendering them incapable of any movement for specified amount of time. One of the crutches also has a pop-out scope and is capable of firing long distance tranquilizer darts.

Both also have retractable claws. I'm sure they'll come in handy.

The main difference between the two crutches is the alternative weapon. One will be equipped with a compact version of the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) and the other will have a mini Electro-Magnetic Pulse gun (EMP). Not sure what those are? Check out these videos from the Discovery Channel's "Future Weapons." Here is the LRAD demo and here is the EMP demo. Pretty flippin' sweet.

The LRAD (pronounced "el-rad") continues with the ironic weaponry theme. Set to a certain power, the noise becomes so excruciating that the enemy is forced to cover his ears with his hands, thus he essentially loses the use of his arms. This is also a really spiffy ninja weapon because it can cause sound waves to bounce of of nearby surfaces and thus Crutch Boy can confuse his enemy. It's like a really effective way of throwing your voice or any other sound effect. If you didn't click to watch the video, go back and do it because it's seriously awesome, as is just about everything else on the Discovery Channel.

I chose the EMP because it's 2009, and to be an effective thug, you need to have at least some technological savvy. Many of Crutch Boy's foes will rely on gadgets, and an EMP can disable any electronic gadget.

So there you have it! Stay tuned to learn more about Crutch Boy, including the story of his origin and a list of his arch-enemies. One of these days I'll even get around to writing specific episodes. Here are a few parting thoughts:

Don't anybody steal my idea. All my blog followers are witnesses that I thought of it first.
Feedback is welcome. Specifically, I don't really like the name "Crutch Boy" but I don't know what else to call him. Maybe the comments section can be a "name the Super-hero" contest. Winner gets a credit in the movie.
If you couldn't already tell, I need an illustrator. This is an open invitation to anyone. Just contact me and we'll get to work on our first comic book. If not, I'll figure it out.

Taking you for a ride

2008-12-29T18:01:00.001-08:00

I haven't been online for a while, mostly because I've been doing this:

Also because I've been playing with my new Christmas toy (the video camera).

My brilliant snow removal invention

2008-12-23T22:46:00.000-08:00

Why hasn't anyone thought of this? Here's the idea I had when I was shoveling snow this week:

That's right, a flamethrower/driveway de-snower. If I worked in research and development somewhere, this would be happening all over America. Driveways would be clear in 30 seconds flat, and families would have more time to spend together sledding and building snow-men. Family relationships would improve, kids would get into less trouble, people would just be happier all around, and eventually all the world's problems would be solved.

I should be in charge of more things.

Demotivation

2008-12-19T20:43:00.001-08:00

While I'm on the subject of irony, I'd like to share with you what I feel is one of the most ironic news stories I've ever heard. You know those motivational posters that are all over the workplace in an attempt to somehow keep employees motivated? Well the company that makes them had to lay off 34 employees.

It happened about three weeks ago and you can read about it here in the Dayton Daily News. I'm sure you've also seen the parodies known as "Demotivators." I'm sharing this story now because the past two days were some of the most de-motivating I've ever had. I'd spent several weeks getting ready for my dental board exams and thought it would be a good idea to schedule it in Salt Lake City for the first two days of my Christmas break so I could get it out of the way and just relax. Well, turns out my plan had a few kinks in it - mainly due to mother nature and her desire to keep Californians out of Las Vegas for a couple days.

Eventually we made it, and I took the first half of the test today and feel pretty good about it. In an attempt to share my de-motivation with the world, I've created my own posters. These won't make any sense by themselves, but together they tell our story.

Go here to create your own demotivational poster. Also, special thanks to Joe and Stephanie for their excellent internet and cellular telephone skills and helping us find the one place that still had any vacancy, and special thanks to the Desert Mirage Inn for the wonderful accommodations.

Needles.

2008-12-17T22:20:00.000-08:00

There is just too much irony here for me not to write about. I'm blogging to you tonight from a place called Needles. The next time I hear anyone say "I hate needles" - a saying I actually hear quite frequently in my line of work which involves poking people's gums with a needle - I can tell them, "Oh yeah? One time I was stuck in Needles!"
If this doesn't make any sense it's because I'm exhausted from driving all day and getting nowhere.

I hate Needles.

Children's trip to the north pole

2008-12-15T22:32:00.001-08:00

Just to offset my Christmas Rant, I thought I'd share this touching story about how United Airlines teamed up with Children's Hospice International to make some sick kids really happy. Way to go United. When I can afford to fly places, I'll keep this story in mind.

Google - is there anything they can't do?

2008-12-11T18:30:00.000-08:00

I was browsing through available blogger widgets and found the little gem I put near the bottom of my side bar. It's a slide show of pictures that were recently uploaded to other blogs. I've been watching it and whenever I see something that looks interesting, I click and read. The problem is, many of the blogs look something like this when I get there:

Hei. Tervetuloa blogiin! Finally - te tiedä, miten käyttää tätä löytää oman erityisen salainen viesti! Arvaa mitä? There's piilotettu Ninja pelin tällä sivulla. Osoita, että kuvan alareunassa tämän sivun mennä leikkimään Ninja käsine. Ja älä kerro kenellekään, ne on löydettävä se itse.

That's where google translate comes in. It will translate among 34 different languages. It's a fun way to read blogs because when sentence structure is all messed up, everything sounds either really deep and poetic, or just stupid, depending on the subject matter.

Recently I was curious to see if I sounded as stupid when my blog is translated as everyone else does. I translated one of my recent posts to Indonesian and then back to English and it was hilarious! The best example was that "All I wanted was a hot dog" was changed to "I wanted all of the hot dogs."

To demonstrate, I'm re-capping a certain event in my life and translating it from English to Czech to Indonesian to Filipino to Swedish and back to English:

So there I am in a small town in Mexico, confusion, how it will look like a city from the top of the bell tower from a local church. Sonny and I decided to learn how we batter creeping into the night Catholic complexity. We Circumnavigated whole building looking for the best way, and finally decided we should set up a ladder in front of the building, making it possible for us to have access to the lowest part of the roof. I take several steps in the stairs, and I believe spid kick in. I know that there is something wrong. Even spread to the right of the platform, only to find my people, I sneak around the building. That we can come into contact with eyes, and I decided my best bet is to run like mad. Sonny and I passed the door and impossible to walk several blocks we stop. Then we have perhaps a good idea to tell people waiting for us outside, so it should not get in trouble, or to give us. We are divided so that a person to see me might not recognize me. When we approached the building we heard sirens and we all ducked into a dark room and HID. He was furious, we will see at least 10 policemen for Trucks unit, each carrying police behind 5. What we sneakily running the upside, and finally back to where we live.

Finally, a way to play the telephone game all by yourself! Your challenge? You have to translate your comments at least twice before posting them.

Enter The Dental Ninja....

2008-12-09T16:44:00.000-08:00

My blog has gone the way of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Pink Flloyd, Led Zepplin, Guns 'n Roses, and the Smashing Pumpkins. It has split up.

The topics "Dentistry" and "Ninjutsu" decided they'd be better of forming their own blog, leaving this site to "journal," "movies," "politics," and "random." Mostly random.

Why? They say that in order to write a quality blog you need to picture your readers and focus on them. I found myself going back and forth between addressing two groups of readers: those who care what I do on my vacation and those who don't.

Enter The Dental Ninja. This blog will contain very little details of my personal life but will be a repository of the more amusing side of dentistry, mostly from the news. In fact, you should go there now to read the interesting account of a 3-year-old who injured 7 teeth in a failed attempt to get out of a cage. Gad Zooks!

PS, which entry page do you like more?

Ninjaland

2008-12-06T01:04:00.001-08:00

There are at least 3 groups of people against whom Disneyland discriminates:

#1 - Muslim Women

#2 - Certain Facial Burn Victims

#3 - Ninjas

Notice a common theme? More on that later.

First, I want to re-cap our successful commemoration of "Day of the Ninja" yesterday. We chose to celebrate the holiday at Disneyland and had a great time. I need to explain that I've heard rumors that Disneyland frowns upon their adult patrons dressing up in costumes. This makes sense because suppose I were to spent the day dressed up as, oh, let's say Donald Duck. People would probably want to take pictures with me and this might really get on my nerves and eventually ruin my day. After all, I just came to go on the rides dressed as a duck, but every time I turn around kids are swarming me and the parents trying to get that perfect photo for the Christmas card. Aye, aye aye!! I'd then decide to demand my money back and get in a big argument with some poor window lady. Nobody wins. (I'm sure they have their other reasons as well, like maybe creepy old men dressing up as Tinkerbelle? There's a mental image you wanted.)

Therefore, I decided to attend the park as a double ninja: while on the rides I was a full-fledged ninja. Walking around, however, I was using the "blend-in" ninja technique and tried my best to look like a normal guy who happened to be wearing a ninja shirt. Success? You decide:

Now to my accusation that Disneyland allegedly discriminates. As soon as we got to the park we went straight to "Splash Mountain" and I got on within 5 minutes using the single-rider line (wahoo!) and got in the back seat.I was so excited to be showing my ninja pride that I considered doing something I've never done before: paying $15 for a stupid roller coaster photo. After boarding the ride, I frantically put on my ninja garb. This was going to be the coolest splash mountain picture EVAR! I tapped on the shoulder of the 12-year-old boy sitting in front of me and let him know how awesome the picture would be because I was dressed as a ninja! He said nothing and ignored me the rest of the ride. (He's probably had bad experiences with ninjas before.) I didn't care. I was still having the time of my life. When it came time for the big drop, I quickly located the camera and did my beast ninja pose - death stare and all! Boo-yeah. A couple minutes later we floated up to a large monitor that would display our photo. I was so excited for that family to get the surprise of their lives - they had been riding with a ninja all along and didn't even know it! What did I see instead?

This:

Oh Really? A digital photo washed away? Right. I quickly caught up with my family and vented for a while.

We continued with our ninja plans and went to "California Screamin" at the other end of the park. My wife was able to take these just before blast off:

This time the official roller coaster camera actually showed me all ninja-like. While Melissa and I were talking to each other deciding if it would be worth $15, the kind lady at the counter informed me that she actually wasn't allowed to sell me the picture. Here's the gist of the ensuing discussion:

Me: Really? Why not?
Her: Because your face can't be covered when you're on the ride.
Me: Oh, ok. I understand. But wait! (whispering) What about Muslims?
Her: What?
Me: (leaning in closer and whispering a little louder) What about MUSLIMS? You know, the women who can't expose their faces in public. What if they wanted to ride?
Her: Well they aren't allowed to ride this ride with anything covering their faces.
Me: REALLY? Even though that goes directly against their religious beliefs?
Her: Yeah, but you know, that issue has never come up the whole time I've been here. It hasn't happened at all in the past two years.
Me: (looking around) I guess you're right, I don't see too many of them here. Well next time I come here I'm going to bring all my Muslim girlfriends and we'll be in the news! (but I said this with a smile so as not to scare her)

So there you have it. No face-covering while on roller coasters at Disneyland. Because I don't consider the Buzz Lightyear ride a roller coaster, I figured the rule didn't apply and we were able to get these beauties (notice my little ninja-in-training):

Also, I was able to email myself the official Buzz Lightyear photo:

All things considered, this was my best "Day of the Ninja" yet.

Day of the Ninja

2008-12-04T22:19:00.001-08:00

I've mentioned this a couple times already but now that "Day of the Ninja" is almost here, I thought I'd pass along a few ideas of how you might celebrate. Be sure to send photos or your ninja stories to me to be included in the Day of the Ninja Re-cap.

Ninja idea #1 - find a new hiding place in your home. Look around and think like a ninja. Then, when an unsuspecting family member or roommate wanders by, sneak up and scare them and kindly remind them that you could have killed them if you wanted to, so they owe you - big time.

Ninja idea #2 - Perfect the art of Ninja sneaking. Practice walking in such a way that your toes never lose contact with the ground. If you go slowly, this makes much less noise than regular walking because you won't step on any crunchy leaves or twigs.

Ninja idea #3 - Dress up like a ninja. No ninja clothes? Not to worry! Just grab an old t-shirt and follow these instructions. Or, try my makeshift method of just putting on a hoodie and tying a scarf around your head, like this:

FYI, you should know that ninjas don't always have to wear ninja suits. In ancient times, ninjas were known to dress as common farmers or peasants. When they're not out at night doing their ninja thing, ninjas often dress in such a way as to blend in with they're environment, like this guy:

See if you can find the ninja in this picture. Scroll down when you give up.

There he is:

(Tomorrow morning I plan on wearing light blue scrubs so I blend in with all the dental students around me.)

Ninja idea #4 - Using the makeshift ninja garb from idea #3, get out and be seen. I realize ninjas aren't supposed to be seen, but on the "Day of the Ninja" it's ok to make the world aware of your presence. Personally, I am inspired by this video and would probably do the same thing in the local parks if I weren't afraid someone would shoot me. I've got something else planned for tomorrow afternoon - check back in a few days.

Rhodesian Ridgebacks

2008-12-02T22:15:00.001-08:00

One thing that helps me and Melissa get through dental school is to think (dream) about what the next stage of our life will be like. One thing I'm most looking forward to is having a backyard. Once we get a backyard, it only makes sense to get Jordan a puppy. I decided long ago that our first dog would be a Rhodesian Ridgeback. This video helped me convince Melissa it was a good idea:

And Jordan was on board once he saw this video of some puppies playing.

I first learned about these dogs when I met Jack, a Rhodesian Ridgeback living on a US army base in Germany. The funny thing is that I totally forgot the names of the family he lived with! Here are some fun facts about Ridgbacks, mostly from wikipedia:

Another name for this breed is the "African Lion Hound." How cool is that?
The distinguishing feature is a ridge of hair on it's back that runs opposite the rest of the coat. Thus, a ridge-back.
They can be "aloof to strangers" but seriously, who among us isn't? He may not be much use against a burglar, but that's a decent trade-off for not annoying the neighbors.
Ridgebacks posses a "sensitive side." This should come in handy on the weekends when I just want to watch a chick-flick but Melissa's too busy with her stupid football games.
The breed originated in South Africa, just like Charlize Theron, but unlike Charlize Theron, the dogs were used in packs to hunt lions. They would keep the lions distracted while the hunter would make the kill.
Ridgebacks have well-developed teeth. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds appropriate for the dog of a dentist.

Lastly, I'd like to remind you that this Friday is the 5th annual day of the ninja so make your plans now. Coolest ninja story gets a prize.

Christmas is Canceled

2008-11-30T21:23:00.001-08:00

If I were in charge of America, today's headline would inform everyone that Christmas was canceled. I don't mean "in charge" like Barack Obama, I mean it like if I was America's father and America was my 9-year-old child. (On a totally unrelated note, when are the spell-checkers going to start recognizing the words "Barack" and "Obama?")

Why would I do such a heartless thing? Because of how disgusted I am with this story, which I'm sure you've already heard, where a 34-year-old New Jersey Wal-mart employee was trampled to death by eager customers. The article says "the exact cause of death has not been determined." Here's my guess - greed.

I read about this story just before heading out to do a little shopping at the Costco and it put a real damper on my day. The store was jam packed and people weren't really being considerate of each other. All I wanted was a hot dog.

Melissa and I agreed that if our children ever get too caught up in the selfish, materialistic aspects of Christmas, we'd have no problem doing a reality check and significantly limiting the gifts for the year, or "canceling" Christmas, if you will. This led me to reflect on my childhood Christmases and trying to remember the "stuff" I got. After trying for 5 minutes, I can remember:

1. A motorcycle track me and my brother got to share. I loved it because it had a loop-de-loop.

2. A trophy. Yup, as a child I asked for a trophy for Christmas. I remember walking around with my mom at the local D.I. (a second-hand shop) and looking at trophies. She convinced me that Santa's helpers were watching and that if I acted like I really liked one of them, they'd know which one I wanted. (She then convinced me the small silver baseball trophy was much cooler than the giant golden one).

3. A bicycle. I actually remember getting two. A BMX when I was little and a huffy mountain bike a few years later.

4. A radio.

5. Roller blades.

I'm sure if I really tried I could think of more things, but it would take some effort. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I think Homer Simpson said it best when he said:

"...every time I learn something new, something old gets pushed out. Remember that time I took that home wine-making class, and I forgot how to drive?"

I think learning how to do root canals is what pushed out my Christmas memories. Stupid root canals.

My point is that after all these years I don't really remember much of the "stuff" I got. On the other hand, I will always cherish the traditions my family had. My parents were really good at helping us focus on those around us. I don't want to reveal too much about what we would do, but suffice it to say as a teenager I learned that the rush from sneaking around like a ninja doing secret nice things was just as fun as sneaking around doing mischief.

I feel bad writing such a negative post when many of my blogger friends are listing things they are grateful for. I am looking forward to Christmas and don't think all of American needs to have it canceled. Also, I can't lie, I'm really excited for the day when my children are older and I can enjoy the looks on their faces Christmas morning. Who knows, maybe all those people involved in the Wal-mart stampede were just so selflessly caught up in getting something nice for their children that they didn't realize they were trampling someone.

Probably not.

My next post will be about puppies.

Ninja cat!

2008-11-26T19:00:00.001-08:00

Now that you know about my ninja obsession, I feel obligated to share with you the joys of "ninja cat." Watch it come closer without moving. He has truly mastered the art of stealth.

A real "Role Model"

2008-11-23T23:10:00.000-08:00

There are now two reasons I cheer for Tony Romo.

1. His college football coach was Bob Spoo, and that's just flat out one of the coolest names out there. Bob Spoo:

2. This story, which reports how Tony paid for the movie ticket of a homeless man to see the show "Role Models" and even invited the smelly guy to sit next to him and his buddy. The article also mentions an incident earlier this year where Romo stopped to help a couple change a tire on his way home from a game. How cool would that be?

These two reasons are enough to out-weigh my only reason to cheer against him - he plays for the stupid Dallas Cowboys.

It's so rare that you see a world-class athlete who also happens to be really classy. I'm convinced Tony is a genuinely nice guy and it would be nice to see him win a Super Bowl. Besides, you still have to sort of feel bad for him about this:

Zerberts

2008-11-21T22:10:00.001-08:00

When I was a kid we called them "zerberts." I thought everyone called them that, and didn't hear the term "blowing raspberries" until I left home. Over the years I never met anyone else who called them zerberts so I started thinking maybe that was just a made-up family thing. (Although to be fair, this isn't a conversation that comes up regularly in my social circles). Then I googled "zerbert" and found the Urban Dictionary definition of the zerbert. Apparently the Huxtable family also called them zerberts, so it makes sense that we would say it because I remember watching The Cosby Show all the time as a kid.

Melissa's family calls them fobees. I'm thinking her family made this one up because google doesn't give us any relevent results, although she's not exactly sure about the correct spelling of fobee. (Phobee? Fowby? Faux bee? Fobi?)

Anyway, the reason for this informative dissertation on zerberts is that this little guy recently perfected the art of a zerbert:

We taught him how to do one and were both amazed that his sounded so much better than ours! They sound just like farts! I've convinced Melissa that we need to continue the tradition and keep calling them zerberts.

Also, Jordan thinks he can fly:

Some more movie reviews

2008-11-19T16:53:00.000-08:00

I have some good ones and some bad ones to report on this time. Also, I've taken it upon myself to make a complete movie review archive. (Wow, I've seen a lot of movies since March).

Legend of Butch and Sundance

I'd never heard of this movie but it was at the local redbox during a time when not much else was, so we tried it. I actually really liked it simply because watching a good wholesome western was a nice break from a lot of the high-budget crap that comes from Hollywood. The Movie was very similar to "American Outlaws". I liked both of them. My biggest (and only) complaint is the casting. The two main characters seemed too much like pretty-boys from the valley and not tough rugged cowboys.

Recommendation: Like I said, it's a nice break from the typical hollywood movie. If you enjoy westerns at all you should see this one.

Rudy

I re-watched this to get myself all psyched out for flag football. It worked because I got all excited, but it didn't work because we had a losing season anyway! This is one of my all-time favorite movies. Inspiring story, inspiring music, and football. It makes you almost wish Notre Dame didn't suck so bad.

Recommendation: Own it.

Eagle Eye

This was intense. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It has excellent writing and twists that keep you guessing until near the end, yet it's not so vague that you have no idea what's going on until the end. This is as engaging a movie as there is out there. Intense.

Recommendation: Watch it, especially if you just feel like taking a break from reality for a couple hours.

You Don't mess with the Zohan

I don't walk out of movies very often, mostly because I have enough judgement to avoid those types of movies or because I have friends who can warn me not to see them. Wow, this one was bad. We stopped it after about 35 minutes because the plot was going nowhere and the sexual innuendos were getting worse and worse as the movie went on. It was filthy and disgusting. I can't even recommend the edited version of this because not only was it awful, it didn't make me even chuckle a little bit even once. In my opinion this is a new low for Adam Sandler (and that's saying something).

Recommendation: Don't mess with this movie.

A River Runs through It

Another one of my all-time favorite movies! I used to watch this every year at a small motel in Lima Montana. We'd stay there on fishing trips and the people at the front desk would either send this one or "The Sandlot" to our TV. I think those were the only two movies we had. I recently saw this at Wal-Mart for $5 so I picked it up. The thing that surprised me was how much more I gained from seeing it now compared to 12 years ago. This made me want to live in Montana. Anyone who loves fishing should definitely see this, but it's not just about fishing. This is such an amazing movie about life and relationships. Not many movies make me cry. (That's all I'm going to say).

Recommendation: Own this one too. Seriously, it's only $5 at Wal-mart. There's no excuse to not have this in your home.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

This was kind of a fun family film. I forgot that it was 3-D in the theaters. That probably would have made it even more fun. Either way, lots of family fun to be had here. Fun fun.

Recommendation: Good movie to see with kids.

The Incredible Hulk

This movie delivered. There have been so many super-hero movies done lately that we have certain expectations whenever they make a new one. This movie didn't let me down, and it was about 10 times better than the over-promoted 2003 version. Lots of movies will end with a hint at a sequel, but this movie ended with me really excited about the "sequel."

Recommendation: It's a good super-hero movie so, if you're into that sort of thing, you know, see this one too. Especially if you enjoyed Iron Man. Not that this is as good as Iron Man, it's just that, well, it's pretty good too.

Quantum of Solace

Vrrroooooommm.... kapow kapow kapow, eeeeeaaaarcchhh! vreeeeeooooooooommmm vrooooooom crash! That's how this movie starts out. This is a move I would recommend to a blind person. Also, I would recommend seeing the fast and furious part IV trailer that came on right before the movie. I guess I'm thinking this because about two minutes into the movie the screen went blank and we were treated to about a minute and a half of just the audio and it really made me appreciate all the sounds that go into a car chase involving guns. Wow. Anyway, about the movie - I loved it. Like any other Bond Movie, I think I need to see it a couple more times to really understand all the intricacies of the plot. It would also help if you rented "Casino Royale" before seeing this one. Daniel Craig is an awesome, rugged Bond and is the only person I know who can pull off the "popped collar" look without being a total weeny. See:
Recommendation: Great 007 movie. See it if you have ever liked any 007 movie.

Kung Fu Panda

I think grown ups will get a few chuckles out of this movie. The "Jack Black" style of humor comes through in the main character's mannerisms. I was excited about seeing this because my 18-month-old son now has the attention span that he can sit down and pay attention to things he's interested in for about 5 minutes at a time. I thought this movie would be a good one for us to try and watch together. I was sort of right. He watched about half of it but, as my wife pointed out, he was disturbed by a lot of the violence. What a tender little guy.

Recommendation: Kind of funny. It might be a good choice to watch with kids who are a little tougher than mine.

It could be worse

2008-11-18T21:55:00.001-08:00

There's a book up for auction this week. It was written in 1770 by Thomas Berdmore. Never heard of him? He was the dentist to King George III. This is likely the first ever English textbook on dentistry. Personally, I find Berdmore's insights to be priceless! Here's a few gems, from this article:

He writes of a 23-year-old woman left in a “terrible state” by a “barber dentist”.

“She went to a barber dentist to have the leftmolaris tooth of the upper jaw on the right side taken out,” he says.

“On second attempt he brought away the affected tooth together with a piece of jawbone as big as a walnut and three neighbouring molars.”

He says the “barber dentist” embarked on the ill-fated extraction because he was “uneasy at disappointment”.

Ha ha! I would also consider myself "uneasy at disappointment" but I'd like to think I'll stop before ripping out half of your maxilla!

Berdmore also possessed a rudimentary understanding of orthodontics, instructing fellow dentists (and barber-dentists) to "Pass gold wire from the neighbouring teeth on either side in such a manner as to press upon what stands out of the line." Either that, or you could try to “break the teeth into order by means of a strong pair of crooked pliers”.

He also observed that sugar and smoking were harmful, and that for this reason peasants suffered less dental disease than their noble counterparts.

Anyway, I just wanted to pass this along as a reminder that dentistry has come a long way and you really don't have a lot to be afraid of (relatively speaking).

100 posts - time for a DTR

2008-11-16T12:58:00.000-08:00

100 posts, wahoo! I've been racking my brain trying to come up with something worthy of this historic occasion, but no single idea stood out as the clear winner so instead, lets just have a DTR. (If you're wondering what that means, it stands for "Define the relationship". It's a pleasant talk that young couples have when the try to figure out how committed the other person is to the relationship. It can be very rewarding and lots of fun. It usually includes questions such as "where do you see this going?" as well as lots of questions about feelings.)

First off - last week's poll about music: 3 of you voted that you like automatic playing music. 6 of you voted that you don't like it, but 3 of those votes came from this house, so it's still sort of a tie. 7 of you voted for Barack Obama - probably so that if he does really well and everyone likes him you can also claim to have voted for him. Anyway, for now I'll stop forcing my music upon you. I'll put it back on the bottom of the page where you can go click if you really want to hear it.

Now lets talk about content. I've looked at the titles of my first 99 posts and done a quick tally of exactly what it is this blog is about. Here are my results:

My experiences/thoughts/journal....35
Random intersting things..............19
Current events/politics.................12
Dentistry (me)............................9
Dentistry (news)..........................9
Movie Reviews...........................8
Random funny things....................6

I think I like that balance. Ever since my wife started blogging and then really really started blogging (like several times per day) I have felt less of a need to talk about my family because she takes care of that. Feel free to share with me what you want to see more/less of. I might take your suggestions into consideration, I guess it depends on how committed I am to making sure this relationship works.

Lastly, I'd like to change gears and discuss the phrase "scattered like ice from the spoon." Sound familiar? Bonus points if you can tell me where it's from before reading on. Ok, time's up, it's from Black Balloon by the Goo Goo Dolls. People from the internet say that it's a drug reference - but before you go wandering around in San Bernardino suggesting things like, "Hey guys, lets all go scatter some ice from a spoon!" you should know that "ice" refers to methamphetamines and "spoons" are used with heroin, so people don't really use "spoons" and "ice" together. The mystery remains. I'd like to think that something so innocent sounding as a "goo goo doll" wouldn't condone drug use and that they are simply talking about putting ice cubes in spoons and just scattering them around. How fun would that be?

A couple years back I was telling a story and near the end I said, "and then the cops showed up so we all scattered like....." and I was at a loss for words. The first thing my mind wanted to say was "ice from the spoon" but I knew that didn't really make any sense. The second place my mind went was to a memory I had as a teenager when I was on my back porch and stepped on a huge, HUGE wolf spider to kill it. When I picked up my foot I saw tiny dots scattering in every direction and had no idea what had just happened. Later I learned that when wolf spiders give birth, the tiny babies will stay on the mother's abdomen for a while. (Some sources say a week, some say longer. Either way, click here if you don't believe me or if you just want to learn more).
Alas, I digress. I wanted to end the story with "we all scattered like baby wolf spiders on the mama spider's back!" but figured not many people in the room had seen it actually happen, which is a shame because it was a really good description of what we looked like and the way we all scattered when the cops showed up.
Eventually, I ended my story by saying "we scattered like ants!" That was probably the worst choice. Ants don't scatter - if anything they congregate. My point in all this is simply to state that we need better expressions for things that scatter. The end.

Update: video of baby wolf spiders.

Jack Bauer saves the life of celebrity toddler

2008-11-10T23:22:00.000-08:00

How awesome is it that my hero, Jack Bauer (aka Kiefer Sutherland), was at the beach with Gwen Stefani and her son and he ended up saving the baby from a Rattlesnake?! You can read about it here, but that link won't tell you about the real story. It won't explain that the snake was sent by a dangerous foreign terrorist cell who was attempting to strike America where it would hurt most - the children of our celebrities. And it certainly won't explain how Jack fearlessly and ruthlessly grabbed the snake and screamed, "Who sent you? WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?!" before smacking it against the rocks to get his answeres, which I'm confident he did. The news won't tell you about it because you and I are the American public, and we never know the details of what Jack Bauer really does to save us. Just like they never told us what Jack was really up to when he was supposedly serving a DUI jail sentence.

Incidentally, I'm really looking forward to the two-hour prequel to season 7, called "24 Redemption" and airing on November 23rd.

Ninjas

2008-11-06T21:48:00.000-08:00

Something's been on my mind the last couple of days. Amidst all the political change we've just experienced and in a week when I've had 4 mock board exams (and one more tomorrow) as well as a couple big school events in the evenings, you'd wouldn't expect me to be thinking about this - but I think Hemingway* said it best when he penned the words, "Eventually, everyone needs to write about ninjas." For me, this time is now.

You see, anyone who knows me well is probably aware of the fact that I'm obsessed with ninjas. The seeds were planted in my childhood when, like every other boy at the time, I was a huge TMNT fan. Years and years later as I was enjoying my last real summer (the one right before dental school) my roommates and I invested in some ninja suits and spent several evenings at the secret ninja training grounds perfecting our art.

Today I read about a promising children's book that is supposed to promote equality and diversity. As I recently discussed, there are good ways and there are bad ways to go about teaching diversity. This book, called "Ninja, Cowboy, Bear" seems like a good way. In addition to celebrating the differences between the three creatures, it teaches a new game - basically paper-rock-scissors but more intense. (If you've ever wanted to play paper-rock-scissors online, click here - hours of fun).

However, there is one key flaw in the game, and subsequently the book. See if you pick up on it:

Did you catch the mistake? Go check again if you missed it. Here it is - somebody accidentally wrote "Bear beats Ninja" - can you believe it? Don't they have editors there?

I mean lets think about it for a second. Ninjas can beat cowboys - Ok, I don't think anyone can argue this one. The only possible exception might be John Wayne vs. a half of a ninja and only in the daytime.

Cowboy vs. Bear? I think this one could go either way. It probably depends on the conditions, weapons, age of cowboy, etc. Incidentally, if you ever find yourself in the position of the cowboy facing a real bear and you happen to have access to the internet and need advice, click here.

Ninja vs. Bear. We shouldn't even be talking about this. First of all, how is a bear ever going to find the ninja? Can you find the ninjas?

Keep trying. So far I've only found 2 ninjas and what might be a ninja's foot. How is a bear supposed to find them? The only way a ninja and bear would ever square off is if the ninja wanted it to happen, and in that case he would stealthily make his kill and hide the carcass so nobody would ever know about it.

Lastly, I want to share a news story my brother shared with me last year. It's from the Onion News Network, which is a lot like CNN or MSNBC but they do a lot more fact-checking so their stories are more reliable.** This story takes place in Modesto, CA, which (in case you forgot) is also home to the Nuts.

Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again

*Not Earnest Hemingway, but my imaginary friend, Dussa Hemingway.
**That's not true.

Is it really worth it?

2008-11-03T18:53:00.000-08:00

I recently heard some numbers that I found interesting. The October issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association featured an article that showed there is a higher risk of injury and death from traffic accidents on presidential election days. Why? More people are driving, possibly going to unfamiliar locations, and many of them look like this

or this

or this

.....you know, people who don't really drive on a daily basis but on election day are motivated to get out and "jam the vote!"

On the average, this results in a national increase of 24 automobile-accident related fatalities as well as an additional 800 serious injuries. This is a bigger risk than driving on the day of the Super Bowl or New Year's Eve. Given these numbers, it is more likely that you will be killed or injured than it is that your one single vote will actually make a difference, so in a way you're better off just staying home. Now, I'm not trying to convince any of you not to vote, just work on those defensive driving skills tomorrow!

Coolest Halloween Drawing Ever

2008-11-02T21:07:00.000-08:00

While I'm on the topic of crazy public school teachers, and seeing as how last week was Halloween, I thought it appropriate to share this story about Jordan Hood, a 5th grader who recently participated in an art class assignment to draw a scary mask or picture.

Here is his drawing:

Pretty freaky, right? It reminded me of the Simpson's episode where Nelson Muntz draws "a robot with guns for arms shooting a plane made out of guns that fires guns."

It also reminded me of my own childhood. I didn't have a very disturbed childhood, but when I was bored I would try to sketch the scariest pictures I could. I wish I would have saved a couple so I could show you, but my sketches probably couldn't hold a candle to "I kill for blood".

The crazy part is also the reason the kid should feel like he aced the assignment - his picture was so scary that the teacher wouldn't let him return to school until he completed psychological testing! Ha ha!

Age appropriate?

2008-11-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

Many of the proposition 8 TV ads have been focusing on the issue of whether or not school children will be taught about gay marriage. This isn't my main concern about the issue (my concern can be found here). Personally, I think it's a good thing for public schools to teach tolerance and respect for all varieties of lifestyles, as long as they observe the recommendation found in the California education code to keep this teaching "age appropriate".

On that note, I want to share with you this article about a Hayward California kindergarten class who were given pledge cards to sign, thus promising that they will not use anti-LGBT slurs and will promote a safe school atmosphere. I'm all for kids using respectful language, but do we really need to address it at age 5? Obviously some people out there think we do, and I'm sure they have their reasons, but I'm trying to imagine what explanation my mom would have given me if I had asked the definition of "transgendered" when I was a kindergartner.

Here's a picture from the article that pretty much illustrates what I'm saying, kindergarten is probably too early:

I think to really understand what I was signing, 5-year-old Benji would have to ask mom what the following words mean: harassment, regardless, sexual, orientation, gender, ally, LGBT, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, slur, intervene.

Before you panic thinking this is going to be the new norm, you should know that these materials (pledge cards) were intended for middle and high school students.

Also from the article, here's a sign that was in the school as part of the festivities:

How would 5-year-old Benji react? Something along the lines of "Sweet! Free stickers!"
I wonder if the meeting was really in room 1 and some smart alec changed it to 19.

Need a good laugh?

2008-10-28T22:50:00.001-07:00

I know I've just been posting videos lately, but this one is just too funny and it only takes a minute.

Loma Linda School of Dentistry Skits and Videos

2008-10-26T22:34:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the annual pine springs ranch retreat. The highlight of the weekend is always the skit competition, which we take pretty seriously. Last year, my class totally blew away the competition with this parody of the hit TV show "The Office".

This year my classmates produced the sequel, but the other classes upped their game and we ended up taking third place. Here's our entry: (I'm in the bottom right corner of the screen from 6:35-6:38)

Here's the second place entry from the D2 class. If you've never seen the Blue Oyster Cult SNL skit ("I gotta have move cowbell!"), watch it here first. Then you'll better appreciate this:

In first place was the D3 class with their version of Top Gun. Pretty freakin' hilarious:

Benji Village

2008-10-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

Check it out here. "Benji (बेंजी) is a village near the small town Silli (Agastyamuni) of Rudraprayag District, Uttarakhand State in India."

I couldn't find the exact location on any map, but this photo is from the small town my village is supposedly near. Seems nice.

Update: I found a map here. It's not a very good one and nothing is labeled but I think it will help me when I'm old and decide to pay my people a visit. I may even see Mr. R.K. Benjwal.

Headswap!

2008-10-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

I saw other examples of this on the internet and wanted to give it a try. I'll be honest, I laughed for two minutes straight when I was done.

Baby of ours - the beta version

2008-10-17T22:38:00.000-07:00

My wife feels she's been hiding her pregnancy long enough, so, it's time to announce the news! Child Beta should be available for download in late May - about the same time I'm supposed to graduate from school. I'll go ahead and make it a competition to see which happens first.

Here's some pictures I used in a presentation to announce when we were expecting Jordan a couple years ago. We were really curious about what our kid would look like because Melissa and I really don't look alike at all. Perhaps you've seen an "If they Mated" segment on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. It's the same idea, but using my crude Microsoft Paint skills.

Here's me in one of my finer moments:

Here's Melissa:

Baby Gorgeous, viola:

Notice any striking resemblances?

Thankfully, he turned out like this instead:

Halloween candy buy-back

2008-10-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

I just read this article about a dentist in Georgia who will be "buying back" Halloween candy for $1 per pound, and then giving that candy to a charitable organization who sends it in care packages to our troops overseas. To me, this is win-win-win. Kids get less cavities/tummyaches/childhood diabetes, dentist gets publicity, troops get hard-to-find American candy. The program is expanding and more and more dentists are getting involved. I'm going to look into it next Halloween.

Happy Global Hand-Washing Day!

2008-10-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

That's right, October 15th is global hand washing day, according to this morning's 60-second-science. It talks about a hand-washing study done in Britain which determined a good rule of thumb to be that the further north you go, the dirtier the hands. Also interesting was that in 3 of the 5 cities women had dirtier hands then men, and in London a woman was 3 times as likely to be harboring germs - so don't let those manicures fool you!

In one of my classes a couple years ago they showed us a video about medicine in the 1800's. It was interesting that many of the older doctors were resistant to the theory of bacteria. Many were stubborn and refused to wash their hands simply because they didn't believe it would do any good. Needless to say, many people suffered because of their resistance.

Happy hand washing day! Now go wash your hands - your keyboard and mouse are probably filthy.

Fun with juxtaposition

2008-10-13T23:05:00.000-07:00

First, watch this commercial. A direct quote - "it will not affect teaching in schools". Now read this story. That's right, it's a public school, and this was a school-sponsored field trip.

It seems like the ad was a rebuttal to this "yes on 8" ad. I don't think the "no on 8" campaign could have timed this ad worse.

I feel like the yes campaign has been very straightforward in their ads - every one I've seen has clear references on the screen to actual court cases. I don't see how that qualifies as lies or scare tactics. Also, thanks to Pepperdine University who has been putting their name on the tasteful ads.

Proposition 8 - why I'm voting yes

2008-10-12T01:28:00.000-07:00

I've made several attempts at writing about this issue but they all ended in me realizing that I'm just not a gifted writer and I don't have the kind of time I need to articulate how I really feel. Luckily, I found an article that makes my point far better than I could. My point is that proposition 8 is not just about gay rights - it affects everyone. I feel that if this proposition were defeated, various church and para-church organizations would be significantly affected. This article illustrates how.

Without further ado, I refer you to the NPR website where you can read this article. The part I found interesting, and worth passing along, is copied and pasted in it's entirety here:

When Gay Rights and Religious Liberties Clash

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

NPR.org, June 13, 2008 · In recent years, some states have passed laws giving residents the right to same-sex unions in various forms. Gay couples may marry in Massachusetts and California. There are civil unions and domestic partnerships in Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Oregon. Other states give more limited rights.

Armed with those legal protections, same-sex couples are beginning to challenge policies of religious organizations that exclude them, claiming that a religious group's view that homosexual marriage is a sin cannot be used to violate their right to equal treatment. Now parochial schools, "parachurch" organizations such as Catholic Charities and businesses that refuse to serve gay couples are being sued — and so far, the religious groups are losing. Here are a few cases:

Adoption services: Catholic Charities in Massachusetts refused to place children with same-sex couples as required by Massachusetts law. After a legislative struggle — during which the Senate president said he could not support a bill "condoning discrimination" — Catholic Charities pulled out of the adoption business in 2006.

Housing: In New York City, Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a school under Orthodox Jewish auspices, banned same-sex couples from its married dormitory. New York does not recognize same-sex marriage, but in 2001, the state's highest court ruled Yeshiva violated New York City's ban on sexual orientation discrimination. Yeshiva now allows all couples in the dorm.

Parochial schools: California Lutheran High School, a Protestant school in Wildomar, holds that homosexuality is a sin. After the school suspended two girls who were allegedly in a lesbian relationship, the girls' parents sued, saying the school was violating the state's civil rights act protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination. The case is before a state judge.

Medical services: A Christian gynecologist at North Coast Women's Care Medical Group in Vista, Calif., refused to give his patient in vitro fertilization treatment because she is in a lesbian relationship, and he claimed that doing so would violate his religious beliefs. (The doctor referred the patient to his partner, who agreed to do the treatment.) The woman sued under the state's civil rights act. The California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in May 2008, and legal experts believe that the woman's right to medical treatment will trump the doctor's religious beliefs. One justice suggested that the doctors take up a different line of business.

Psychological services: A mental health counselor at North Mississippi Health Services refused therapy for a woman who wanted help in improving her lesbian relationship. The counselor said doing so would violate her religious beliefs. The counselor was fired. In March 2001, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with the employer, ruling that the employee's religious beliefs could not be accommodated without causing undue hardship to the company.

Civil servants: A clerk in Vermont refused to perform a civil union ceremony after the state legalized them. In 2001, in a decision that side-stepped the religious liberties issue, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that he did not need to perform the ceremony because there were other civil servants who would. However, the court did indicate that religious beliefs do not allow employees to discriminate against same-sex couples.

Adoption services: A same-sex couple in California applied to Adoption Profiles, an Internet service in Arizona that matches adoptive parents with newborns. The couple's application was denied based on the religious beliefs of the company's owners. The couple sued in federal district court in San Francisco. The two sides settled after the adoption company said it will no longer do business in California.

Wedding services: A same sex couple in Albuquerque asked a photographer, Elaine Huguenin, to shoot their commitment ceremony. The photographer declined, saying her Christian beliefs prevented her from sanctioning same-sex unions. The couple sued, and the New Mexico Human Rights Commission found the photographer guilty of discrimination. It ordered her to pay the lesbian couple's legal fees ($6,600). The photographer is appealing.

Wedding facilities: Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of New Jersey, a Methodist organization, refused to rent its boardwalk pavilion to a lesbian couple for their civil union ceremony. The couple filed a complaint with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights. The division ruled that the boardwalk property was open for public use, therefore the Methodist group could not discriminate against gay couples using it. In the interim, the state's Department of Environmental Protection revoked a portion of the association's tax benefits. The case is ongoing.

Youth groups: The city of Berkeley, Calif., requested that the Sea Scouts (affiliated with the Boy Scouts) formally agree to not discriminate against gay men in exchange for free use of berths in the city's marina. The Sea Scouts sued, claiming this violated their beliefs and First Amendment right to the freedom to associate with other like-minded people. In 2006, the California Supreme Court ruled against the youth group. In San Diego, the Boy Scouts lost access to the city-owned aquatic center for the same reason. While these cases do not directly involve same-sex unions, they presage future conflicts about whether religiously oriented or parachurch organizations may prohibit, for example, gay couples from teaching at summer camp. In June 2008, the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asked the California Supreme Court to review the Boy Scouts' leases. Meanwhile, the mayor's office in Philadelphia revoked the Boy Scouts' $1-a-year lease for a city building.

New hope for dental anxiety

2008-10-08T20:37:00.001-07:00

I just read this article about a device developed by a dentist in Cedar Falls. Basically, the patient puts in some headphones and listens to soothing sounds (beach, forest, etc.). The device they ever-so-cleverly dubbed the "b-Calm" is supposed to "blend the frequency of the dental drill with recordings of nature sounds." I dunno, do you think it's worth a try? Does the sound of the dental drill really bother any of you?

Another article I read a couple weeks ago claimed that the scent of lavender in the waiting room had a calming effect on patients waiting to receive dental care. Personally, I think if I spent my whole career smelling lavender and listening to soothing ocean noises I'd end up a bit fruity, but any current or future patients of mine are more than welcome to inhale their own lavender and listen to soothing sounds on their Ipods when I'm working.

Here's a picture of a guy who definitely had dental anxiety. It looks like he's in a ton of pain, right? Well I can assure you, he looked like that the second he knew he was going to get a shot, not when he felt the needle. I kept stopping and asking (in my very limited Spanish) if it hurt. He'd look at me and say no, it was fine, but then go back to gripping the seat and closing his eyes really tightly as though I was torturing him. Poor guy.

Staycation re-cap

2008-10-05T16:08:00.001-07:00

I've been back in school for a week already, but I never followed up on our objectives. Here's the summary:

Hike to a waterfall - check. We went to Forest Falls and had a great time. It was a nice easy hike which was great because I was carrying Jordan. Melissa put pictures here.

Go to the beach - failed. We didn't get around to the beach. Instead we went to Jimmy Kimmel Live, but we'll go to the beach one of these days.

Get a bike - check. Found this beauty on craigslist. I also managed to sell a couple items.

Video games - check. I beat "Pandora Tomorrow" and am expecting the next installment of the Splinter Cell series in the mail.

Try a new hairstyle - check. It only lasted a couple days but I consider it a success.

Disneyland - double check. We went twice.

Not study - check.

A bunch of movie reviews

2008-10-02T22:14:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've reviewed movies, but here's what I've seen lately. Just to save you some reading, here's the summary. Do see: Baby Mama, Leatherheads, and Run Fatboy Run. Don't see: Never Back Down, Prom Night, and Jeepers Creepers. Maybe see: Hancock, The Mummy 3, Hunt for Red October, The Eye, The Abyss, and 10,000 BC. Here's the details:

Never Back Down

Meh. I didn't really like this because the whole time I was watching it I kept thinking "I hope this isn't what teenagers are really like now." I guess that means I'm old. The problem was that this movie glorifies the somewhat new practice of fighting and then posting the footage online. I'm not really sure who this movie was meant for - kids shouldn't be watching it but adults probably wouldn't enjoy it. If you want a real fighting movie see Fight Club (edited version, of course) or just watch UFC - it's real and it's more entertaining.

Recommendation: Obviously I had issues with the movie as a whole, but it was entertaining enough that I wasn't bored or anything. I'd keep this in mind as a plan B or C (or D).

Hancock

I liked this show but have to point out that there were lots of swears in it. Probably the most you can put into a PG-13 movie, so that wasn't cool. It was interesting and less predictable than your typical Super-Hero movie. I would put this in the same boat as "Friday Night Lights" and "The Kingdom" as far as the overall feel of the movie, probably because they were all directed by Peter Berg.

Recommendation: I liked it but again, there's a lot of swears so don't let the kids see it, unless of course you want your kids swearing - in which case, go for it.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

When I was a freshman in college, my astronomy teacher (who frequently strayed from the topic of astronomy) introduced me to the concept of a "popcorn movie". A popcorn movie is one you don't take seriously, but you just enjoy with popcorn. The first mummy movie was what he used as an example. I found the Mummy III to be every bit as much a popcorn movie. There were some super cheesy lines but that's what you should expect from this type of movie - it wouldn't be the same without them.

Recommendation: Used the first two Mummy movies to gauge how you'll like it, otherwise, see it with low expectations.

Hunt for Red October

Blast from the past! I remember this movie being on at my house when I was a kid but all I got from it was the desire to never ever be on a submarine. Interesting thing - I had just finished playing the video game Splinter Cell, which was also written by Tom Clancy, and I could totally see the writer's style coming through in similarities I noticed.

Recommendation: I really enjoyed it. If you haven't seen it in the past decade, maybe it's worth a re-visit.

Jeepers Creepers

The kid who always says "Hi I'm a Mac" is driving home from college with his sister and they cross paths with a monster who chases them. He freaks out a lot and people don't believe him and in the end lots of people die but I think he's ok. I just saved you a couple of hours. This movie was lame and the only reason I watched it is that I was bored on a Saturday afternoon (this was before football season) and it was on TV. Eventually I found something better to do - that's why I said I think he was ok in the end. I didn't actually finish the movie.

Recommendation: Not only will you not enjoy this movie, the annoying "Jeepers Creepers" song will be stuck in your head for 2 days, and you'll be reminded of the time you wasted.

The Eye

I have a personal interest in a concept this movie explains: cellular memory. It's the idea that cells in the body (other than the brain) can store information such as memories, habits, tastes, interests, etc. There isn't any credible science to support the theory but I'm sure you've all heard the urban legend of someone receiving an anonymous organ and suddenly having a desire to smoke or something like that.

As many of you know, I had a bone graft in my left knee a few years ago from an anonymous organ donor. If there is such a thing as cellular memory, then whoever's knee I got was pretty awesome because when I woke up from surgery I couldn't stop thinking about how awesome I was. In fact I still can't. AWESOME!

Back to the movie- it was a psychological thriller from the same mold as The Ring and The Grudge. It was well done, kept me on edge, and made me jump once (but no screaming).

Recommendation: If you're into scary movies, this is a good clean one you shouldn't miss.

Prom Night

Kind of disturbing. It wasn't really scary and won't really make you jump, but people get killed. I didn't really like it.

Recommendation: I can't imagine who would enjoy this movie.

The Abyss

Another old submarine movie! This one was interesting but it seemed really really long. I've got to be honest, I'm still not done with it because I had to go to bed and haven't gotten back to it, but I feel like I'm almost done. If the ending drastically changes my opinion I'll let you know.

Recommendation: If you're going to see one old submarine movie this year, make it The Hunt for Red October. If you already saw that one and want more old submarine movies, this would be a good #2.

10,000 BC

I haven't heard anyone say anything good about this movie but thought to myself, "aw, what the heck, there's nothing else in the Redbox this week." Here's something good - it inspired my staycation hairstyle. I copied the look of the character known as One-Eye played by Marco Kahn. Otherwise, I think I went into this movie with such low expectations that I liked it. I should admit that I fell asleep watching it twice so it took three days to finish.

Recommendation: It's bad, but it's not that bad.

Baby Mama

I've never seen anything with Tina Fey or Amy Poehler that didn't really make me laugh. This movie rocked.

Recommendation: Everybody see it.

Leatherheads

This movie was awesome! John Krasinski did awesome, George Cloony was great, and Renee Zelleger didn't totally annoy me - what more could I ask for? I think the reason this was such a good movie is because of all the different elements that went into it. It integrated romance, sports, comedy, and history. It's like Oh Brother Where art Thou meets Rudy meets Cinderrella Man.

Recommendation: I think most people would really enjoy this. I did.

Run Fatboy Run

Another great show. The thing I thought was most interesting was the role of Hank Azeria - you probably know him best as the voice of various Simpsons characters (16 to be exact). I've seen interviews with him and he's a pretty funny guy, but he plays a serious role in this movie and he does it well. When I read the premise of this movie - a guy trying to run a marathon to impress his ex - I was expecting it to be really cheesy but the writing/acting was so good that they made it work. 5 stars for this one.

Recommendation: Definitely see this one too.

Jordan's sense of humor

2008-10-01T18:43:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: 99.9% of you won't think this joke is funny at all, but if you happen to have the mind of a toddler who is obsessed with trains and you are currently learning animal noises, this might crack you up. Here's the joke:

"What does the train say?"

That's it - there is no punchline. Told you it wasn't funny. Last night while we were riding the Disneyland train I asked Jordan this question and he paused like he was thinking for a second, then he looked at me and busted up laughing.

Why so funny? In Norman Cousins' book Head First he explains that humor happens when an established train of thought takes an unexpected turn - that turn is usually the punchline. Lately with Jordan we've been working on the animal noises. He can tell you what a monkey, dog, cow, bird, and duck all say. I think he's associated the phrase "What does a ____ say?" with animals, and has established a train of thought that goes with the activity. When I, seemingly out of nowhere, asked what a train says, I disrupted the normal thought process and allowed his mind to make an unexpected connection - thus he laughed.

This is the first time I've made him laugh on an intellectual level. I'm excited to see what jokes he comes up with as his language skills improve.

One way to keep patients in line

2008-09-27T17:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a story of a German dentist who decided to take matters into his own hands when his patient decided not to pay for her work. (This guy is what the locals would call "verrückt").
Basically, the lady's insurance wouldn't pay for two bridges and she decided it wasn't her obligation to pay for them. The Zahnartzt from Neu Ulm (I think I rode a train through there once) then breaks into her home, ties her to a chair, and reclaims the bridges.
From the article:

"The dentist is being investigated for assault for the way he forced open her mouth, and theft for taking the bridges," said Christian Owsinski a police spokesman.

Personally, I think the theft charges should be dropped. Think about it - he payed a lab fee to have the bridges made so if they belong to anybody then they are his, so this might be more of an OJ Simpson-forcefully-reclaiming-my-stuff type situation.

I do feel that he should lose his license. You simply can't perform a dental procedure (such as removing a bridge) against the patient's will. That's one of the least ethical things a dentist can do.

The creepiest part? According to the victim, he did all of this without even saying a word.

My 4 seconds of fame

2008-09-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

Last night Melissa and I were in the studio audience for the Jimmy Kimmel Live show. It was a lot of fun. They ended up putting us on the front row right next to the band, so we were only about 15 feet away from Jimmy and the guests. Here's a link to the show if you are interested (click the big red "launch" button, then in the new window click on 9/24). You can see us at the 11:05 mark (I'm the guy in the corner with the shiny bald head). You can also catch a glimpse of us at 2:22 and 21:47.

Update: I figured out how to save screen-shots. Here's the three times I referenced:

I know, I know - we're practically celebrities now. You can see in the second picture that we were sitting so far up that when Jimmy did the monologue we were directly to his left side. I found myself reading the cue cards and I got a little ahead of him and had to stop myself from laughing too early.

The Clinic

2008-09-23T02:17:00.000-07:00

The season premiere of The Office is this Thursday night. I'm pretty dang looking forward to it.

If you are also a fan, might I suggest checking out this sweet video, done entirely by classmates of mine (written by this guy). It was our entry for a skit competition at the annual dental student retreat. Needless to say it was a big hit.
Without further ado, the video:

Click here for the high quality version, or watch below for the quick and dirty version (with audio delay).

The 2008 Family Staycation

2008-09-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

Just in case you haven't heard, staycations are all the rage this year. Thanks to elevated fuel prices, more and more families have chosen to spend their vacation time at home. I haven't heard anyone say this yet, so I'd like to be the first to use the term "staycay" in my attempts to stay trendy and hip.

I've got 10 days off from school and here are some things we plan on doing:

Hike to a waterfall. Jordan loves them and I think he'd really enjoy seeing one in real life. Here's proof.
Go to the beach. Again, here's proof that our little one will enjoy it.
Get a bike. Ever since this happened, I've been tired of walking to school and to the drayson center, so I'll be monitoring craigslist for a good deal.
Video games. I'm working on Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, and Melissa just picked up Babysitting Mania (I'm not making that up).
Try a new hairstyle. Stay tuned, it should be awesome.
Disneyland. Of course! We'll probably go several times because we have season passes and go whenever we get a chance.
Not study. I'll study later.

Check back after the break for the Stay-cation recap.

I'm a genius (at least in my sleep)

2008-09-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

Ever have a great idea in your dream? Last night I came up with a winner. This dream was influenced by the fact that I have been swimming a TON lately, as well as the fact that I'm nearing the end of my 21 years of formal education and getting ready to settle down somewhere and eventually build a home.

So there I was, in dreamland, in my future bedroom. It was like my current bedroom in that Melissa and I had separate closets. Unlike my current room, it was very large and the closets went back about 30 feet (lucky Melissa, right?). In between the closet doors was a really big drawer. I pulled on the handle and found a swimming pool. That's right, a pool. The drawer just kept coming further and further out the more I pulled and eventually made it to the opposite wall. When fully extended, it made for a nice lap pool. I could hop in and swim right through the wall and into the far end of the closet. My future dream house (pun) had a secret pool in the bedroom! This may be the best idea I've ever had!

When I woke up I immediately started thinking about it and came up with two obstacles (I'm sure there are many more).
1- the sheer weight of the pool would prevent my simply pulling the drawer open. Solution- some sort of machine to do it for me, like a garage door opener but somehow cleverly blended into the room design.
2- in theory, when the drawer is closed, the water would be twice as deep. As soon as I open the drawer water would spill out all over (I'm sure you've seen the science fair project where someone puts tubes in various water glasses to demonstrate water pressure - that same principle is working against me). Solution- one idea is to have some sort of cover like a tarp that seals into the edges of the drawer as it opens. It could be hidden in the wall above the drawer. Once the pool is fully extended I could remove it and begin my swim. Another idea would be just to have the volume of the extended drawer be 2x the amount of water I use. I'd probably want high walls to prevent me splashing water everywhere anyway, right?

I've probably spent too much time on this idea as it is, but when I woke up this morning I was convinced I was a genius.

So there you have it. Let me know if any of you have ever had a great dream idea and if it panned out.

Related pictures:

Facing my Fear

2008-09-13T09:17:00.001-07:00

Ironic, isn't it? I'm a dental student who pokes needles in people's mouths on a daily basis, but one of my phobia's is giving blood. It's not the needle part - I can handle that. When I was a teenager I was having some blood drawn and watched as they did it (bad idea) and I came really really close to passing out. Things went dim and I got sweaty and they made me lay down for 20 minutes before I could drive home. I can handle other people's blood and don't mind seeing my own blood if there's a good reason for me to be bleeding, like a skateboarding wreck or something legit - but intentionally removing my blood and putting it in a bag just doesn't sit well with me. Time to face my fear.

Why am I doing this today? Yesterday was one of those news days where I found myself glued to the TV all evening. Most of you probably heard about this happening - a commuter train and a freight train collided head on in Chatsworth, which is about 15 miles northeast of Los Angeles. When I first started watching the news coverage, they said that at least 20 people were injured, and 11 of them critically. Now (the next day) the count has risen to 17 dead and 135 injured. During the live coverage there were interviews with witnesses and one of them got a little graphic - I think the network probably wishes it weren't a live feed because she really got into some gory detail. Anyway, one of the networks mentioned the need for blood donations in the L.A. area and I decided that since I didn't really have any other plans for today, we might as well make a day out of it. In fact, just the other day Melissa had mentioned that we should take a trip out to Hollywood, so I planned it all out last night and here we are, about to embark on our own little service-oriented vacation.

(more photos here)

Update: (it's evening and we're home now) The current, and likely final count is 25 dead and 135 injured (45 critical). Metrolink has already claimed responsibility saying it was the fault of their engineer and that more details will come forward in the coming days.

While we were driving to L.A. they mentioned on the radio that they were just barely accessing the lower compartment of the first passenger car. Unbelievable! This was 18 hours later. That should give you some idea of the extent of the damage.

There wasn't any media coverage there, but I'm pleased to report that the UCLA blood and platelet center was PACKED! I strolled in around 12:30 but wasn't hooked up to a blood bag until 2:10. While waiting I got to talking with a reserve firefighter who was called in to the scene last night. He told me the news didn't even come close to describing how truly horrific the scene was. He was showing me some pictures on his camera but before we got to the messy ones, my name was called to go give blood.

Anyway, I'm glad we went. We had a really fun day and spent some time walking around Hollywood. Check my wife's blog for the fun report and some family photos.

My Hollywood Connection

2008-09-10T00:58:00.000-07:00

Lakeview Terrace Trailer
Uploaded by Zelluf

Pause this video at 1:25. You see that guy with the shotgun? I gave his niece a filling yesterday. His mom (the patient's grandma) was also at the dental appointment and was all excited because she's flying to New York for the red-carpet premiere of this movie. She had fingernails about 4 inches long and it made her look like a velociraptor.

I also saw this little patient and it made my day.

Another sign of a struggling economy - falling tooth prices

2008-09-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

At least in the UK, that is. Their current economic crisis dubbed the "credit crunch" has forced the tooth fairy to become slightly more stingy then she was six months ago. This article states that the average price of a tooth has gone from £1.22 to 87p, with 38% of Brittish children receiving absolutely nothing! 1000 parents were surveyed to find out what the tooth fairly had left their children.

Why is this? My theory is that the Tooth Fairy foolishly got locked into an adjustable rate mortgage. Think about it - the tooth fairy is always all dolled up in her fairy clothes and waving around that fancy fairy wand. Her hair and makeup is always perfect. She's obviously concerned with what others think of her and to keep up appearances she splurged on a mini-mansion she really couldn't afford. What other explanation is there? Gas prices shouldn't matter - being a fairy, she has the ability to fly. The worldwide increase in food prices? She's six inches tall, how much can she eat? Silly pretentious fairy. Now British children have less money for their Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and Fizzing Whizbees.

The silver lining? This should encourage more Brits to keep their teeth! Zing!

Fun Facts about "Laughing Gas"

2008-09-05T11:46:00.001-07:00

Here's some stuff you probably didn't know about the "laughing gas" you get from the dentist. I just finished taking my Nitrous Oxide competency exam and decided to pass along the more interesting trivia to you folks.

It was discovered in the late 1770's by Joseph Priestly. In 1779 Sir Humphrey Davey was the first human to inhale it and described it as "very pleasurable" and "euphoric." He was the one who coined the term laughing gas.
It wasn't originally used in a medical setting. From 1800-1844 it was mainly used at social gatherings and sideshows for entertainment.
In 1844 a dentist named Horace Wells was attending a demonstration. A peculiar incident happened involving a volunteer who inhaled the gas and began freaking out. (Not everybody reacts the same, and some people really don't like it.) Anyway, this guy started running around the room and gashed his leg open. Horace the dentist astutely observed that the man didn't even react to his wound - as though he didn't feel any pain. The next day Horace had his dentist buddy extracted his abscessed tooth using the gas. Horace felt no pain and proclaimed this to be "the greatest discovery ever made."
Originally the dentists had difficulty in delivering high concentrations of the gas due to the crude delivery systems available to them. What were these delivery systems? Ox bladders. (Don't click unless you really want to see an ox bladder.)
Wells, who is credited with the discovery of anesthesia, became addicted to the laughing gas and committed suicide at age 33.
The exact mechanism of nitrous oxide is still unknown.

So there you have it. Personally, I first had laughing gas when I was 17 and absolutely loved it. I told my dentist that if I had known how great it felt, I would have stopped brushing long ago! I also distinctly remember the feeling of having the dental room rotate around me while I was getting my wisdom teeth extracted. The song on the radio was "When I fall in love" and I remember the experience every time I hear that song.

Let me know your thoughts or any funny stories involving laughing gas. Maybe next year I'll give away a free nitrous oxide treatment to the person with the best story. Maybe.

Whoa

2008-09-01T18:38:00.001-07:00

The discovery channel's presentation of what a 500 km asteroid would do to the earth, set to some Pink Floyd.

ASDA Annual Session

2008-09-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

First off, ASDA stands for American Student Dental Association. My position within the organization is the Legislative Liaison for LLU School of Dentistry.

As mentioned in my last post, we spent most of last week in a hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona. This was the second time I have participated as a delegate from my school. The way the ASDA house is run is really neat because it's a lot like the US Senate. Every dental school in the nation has two voting representatives, we use parliamentary procedure, and we basically debate about and vote on various resolutions.

This year went really smoothly with most of the voting being nearly unanimous. I made a difference by standing up and proposing an amendment to insert the word "only" into a resolution. My proposed amendment passed (wahoo!) and then the resolution barely squeaked by.

That happened to be on a somewhat insignificant resolution. The main issues we tried to address as a governing body were the perennial issues of "access to care" and "licensure reform", as well as the relatively new concern involving "mid-level providers" of dental care.

During one of the "breakout sessions" (such a misleading name) one of the students asked a lobbyist for the ADA, "What do we tell our classmates when they ask us why organized dentistry is important?"
He paused for a moment and then looked at us and said, "It's important so that dentistry doesn't end up like medicine. If they can look at the medical community and they see no problem, tell them it doesn't matter - but tell them to ask a pediatrician how much money they make. And it's not all about money, but you can't expect someone to go to school for 8 years and then make $70,000 per year." He went on to explain that the medical community's big mistake was dividing up their associations among the various specialties, thereby weakening their voice in DC. The dental community, on the other hand, has a pretty strong voice in DC which is definitely going to be needed in the next few years as the "mid-level provider" issue plays out.

Anyway, that sums up the business end of the trip. For the less boring, crazy family stories (or if you happen to just be an anti-dentite) check my wife's blog to see how we spent some of the other break-out sessions.

Home away from home

2008-08-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Arizona! We're at the ASDA annual meeting in Scottsdale, Az, and will be staying here until Sunday. So far we've managed to keep it under the radar that Jordan and Melissa are here with me and we're having a pretty good time, but maybe check with Melissa's blog in a few days for her side of the story.

Magnetic cows!

2008-08-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you guys ever click on the Benjiblog section titled "Always Interesting" down and to the right of here, but this morning's edition of 60-second science was pretty awesome. German researchers found out that cattle and deer have built-in compasses and have a tendency to face magnetic north or south when grazing or resting. The current hypothesis is that this keeps them oriented so they have their bearings in case predators attack and they have to make a sudden "moooooooooove". (That joke was shamelessly stolen directly from the podcast).
Crazy German researchers..... what will they discover next?

How many houses do we own?

2008-08-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

In light of John McCain's recent failure to answer how many houses he owns, I conducted a little poll among my family members to see if they knew how many we own. Melissa (my wife) got the answer right by answering "zero". Jordan, however, totally made a fool of himself by answering "choo-choo". Not even close buddy.

Tales from the clinic floor

2008-08-21T23:24:00.000-07:00

Today was rough. Next time you have a dental appointment and maybe you're not really looking forward to it, just think to yourself, "at least it's not an 8-hour appointment."

That's right, today's patient drives from far away so to keep his trips back and forth to a minimum (insert token gas-prices complaint here) we decided it would be a good idea to book him for my morning and afternoon sessions. I prepped three teeth for crowns and tried (and failed) to have that be my bridge competency required for graduation. When attempting a competency, I do all the steps without help and then have two faculty members grade my work. Things kept going wrong and I seriously think I made about 20 temporary crowns before I had three that worked and I was happy with. Ugh.

Anyway, since I'm on the topic of dentistry, here's three amusing stories that happened to me lately:

Sidewalk
A couple weeks back I was getting ready to place a space-maintainer in the mouth of a really curious seven-year-old. He had been asking questions all along and I was happy to answer them, but he really threw me for a loop when he asked why I was going to put sidewalk in his mouth. Sidewalk? I was so confused - then I remembered that I had told him the next step was to "cement" the space maintainer onto his molar. It's funny how kids think sometimes.

Ipod
A couple weeks back we had mock-board exams and were required to find a patient had a specific type of cavity - a class II lesion if you were wondering. The week before the exam I was doing a pediatric rotation and came across a 13-year old with the perfect class II lesion. I convinced her and her mom to help me out but was a little concerned about whether the patient's attention span could last the whole 4-hour exam, so I told her I'd bring my video Ipod and she could watch stuff while I worked.
When exam time came I had her take a seat while I finished setting up and she started watching the Andy Milonakis Show and some stand-up comedy. The resulting scene was pretty funny - to appreciate it you have to picture the tense exam atmosphere with 100 dental chairs and hardly anybody talking. Except for a few dental drills whistling in the distance, everything is silent. Then you have this loud teenage girly giggling happening like clockwork every 20 seconds coming from cubicle 74. Soon people started turning their heads trying to figure out what was going on. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and say, "Hey, I'm that good."

What's that smell?
Working on a crown competency last week, I determined that I needed to do a minor electro-surgery on the patient's gums. To do this, there's a machine you plug in and have the patient hold a metal plate, and when the end of the handpiece makes contact with the tissue it completes the circuit and basically fries the tissue. (Keep in mind the patient is numb so it's really not that bad). After doing this for a minute I explained to the patient (who grew up in El Salvador) that I was using the high volume suction so that it didn't stink. Having already caught a whiff of his own crispy gums, he smiled and told me he thought it smelled like carne asada. I told him it sort of was.

Sorry this post was all words and no pictures! I never read posts like that. Here's a totally awesome picture to try to get you to read:

(click for the bigger, more awesome version)

Puffer fish underwent an emergency dental procedure after a fight with a stingray

2008-08-16T08:14:00.001-07:00

Crazy as it sounds, I'm not making this up. It happened in England. Here is the full story. It sounds like the fight busted off part of a tooth, which in and of itself would have been ok, except that puffer fish are like rats in that they need to constantly be gnawing to keep their teeth worn down. After the fight the lazy puffer fish did all his gnawing on the side with the broken tooth, allowing his other tooth to grow to the point that it started damaging his lip.

Crazy.

After the procedure the fish was relocated to Germany - I'd like to think that it was part of some sort of fish witness protection program to keep him safe from the sting rays.

What do you call a nun who sleepwalks?

2008-08-14T21:32:00.000-07:00

A roamin' catholic.

Today was the first time in a long time that I actually laughed at a laffy-taffy joke. Then I got to thinking - it's been a while since I've heard any new jokes. Please, help update my arsenal of jokes by leaving a comment with a good joke.

Jordan's Epiglottis

2008-08-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder how babies can drink and breath at the same time? Think about it - you can't drink and breath at the same time (try it if you don't believe me), and nursing babies don't come up for air once they "latch on".

I was studying this very concept for my board exams just over a year ago, at the same time baby Jordan was just a wee infant. The answer lies in the epiglottis. Here is an illustration of the epiglottis of an infant:
The key difference is that the shape of the baby's throat allows the epiglottis (the green shaded area) to come into contact with the soft palate (yellow), thus allowing air (shown in light blue) to enter the trachea, while milk (shown in pink) can flow around on either side.

I was recently reminded of this concept during our summer break at my parent's house when Jordan was drinking from a sippy cup and started coughing. I looked at him and asked if he got some down the wrong pipe and then realized that this had never happened to him before. I realized my little boy is growing up - his epiglottis is no longer touching his soft palate when he drinks! He'll just have to alternate between drinking and breathing just like the rest of us now. I think this is a milestone in toddlers lives that most parents are unaware of.

Garfield minus Garfield

2008-08-10T19:47:00.001-07:00

If you haven't heard of this yet, I highly recommend checking out this site. It's a simple premise - any talking animals are removed from the comic strip, resulting in Jon Arbuckle appearing extremely lonely and crazy.

The website's self description:

Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.

It took a minute for me to start thinking it was funny. In fact, some of them are just outright sad, but the more I read it the more I laughed and by about 10 minutes in I was laughing so hard I was crying! Then it kind of wore off a little. I think it adds to the effect to read it all at once.

Recently, Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, gave his permission for the creator of the site to publish a Garfield minus Garfield book.

Speaking of disasters

2008-08-07T23:41:00.000-07:00

Some slow-mo lightening action for you. The first 5 seconds is the coolest part.

Which Natural Disaster is the Worst?

2008-08-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

Living in southern California, we have the opportunity to experience earthquakes on a somewhat regular basis. We usually notice one every couple of months. Last week, however, we felt the biggest one yet since we've moved here. It was a 5.4 in Chino Hills which is about 30 miles away. The rumbling lasted about 5 seconds, after which I checked on Jordan who was sound asleep in his crib. I had my hands on his doorway and noticed that I could still feel my whole house gently rocking back and forth like a boat. This lasted for about a minute. Since we rent our home and don't really have any expensive possessions, I can honestly say it was a pretty cool experience.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with a faculty member at school a few weeks ago. She had mentioned not wanting to live on the east coast because of tornadoes. This struck me as odd for two reasons. First, I didn't think the east coast had tornadoes, and second, earthquakes seem much more intimidating to me, and we're right in the heart of earthquake country. This made me realize that we don't all view natural disasters the same. Since childhood, my wife has had nightmares of tornadoes and would rather take on an earthquake than a tornado any day.

So, I set out to do some research on which disasters are the deadliest and therefore warrant the most fear. This table compares the single deadliest event of each of the natural disasters. For those of you too lazy to click the link, here's the list of deadliest to least deadly:

Pandemic
Drought
Flood
Earthquake
Tropical cyclone
Tsunami
Volcano
Heat wave
Landslide
Blizzard
Wildfire
Limnic Eruption
Tornado
Hailstorm
Avalanche

However, I don't think there necessarily needs to be a correlation between "deadliest" and "scariest". Even though the worst avalanche has killed a mere 96 people, that doesn't detract from the terror an approaching avalanche would instill.

So, I urge you to cast your vote in my little poll to the right - which of the disasters listed do you fear most? You have 1 week to vote.

Update: Polls showed Drought running away with the title of scariest, getting twice as many votes as the 2nd place disaster. There was a 5-way tie for the #2 spot involving Earthquake, Flood, Limnic Eruption, Tornado, and Tsunami.

Here's an idea

2008-08-06T18:32:00.000-07:00

A reality TV show where anti-death penalty protesters and inmates currently on death row are sent to live together on a deserted island. Bonus: in order to keep their behavior true to form we don't send any video cameras but instead we just send someone by after a few years to see what happened.

This idea came to while driving home from my rotation at the HIV clinic this afternoon. I was listening to these guys talk about this guy and describing the gruesome, brutal murders he committed.

Waterslideshow

2008-08-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

Last Friday the dental school had a barbecue with a huge inflatable slide. You can probably tell from the pictures, but I had an awesome time! Jordan also thought it was kind of cool, but the last time I took a plunge he freaked out and screamed for a couple minutes. Good to know he loves me.

Melissa is a very talented photographer. One of the cool features on our spiffy new camera is the sports setting. It allows you to simply hold the shutter button down and it rapidly takes pictures, so you end up with some cool action shots.

Thanks Craig, for letting me use your list

2008-08-02T15:20:00.000-07:00

That's right, I'm an official craigslister. Money's tight around here these days and there's a couple items I don't need. I'm trying to sell a nice toothbrush and a skateboard.

Google found me!

2008-07-31T21:28:00.000-07:00

This is a milestone in the history of the benjiblog. You see, when I first began this blog I felt like I was really out there on the internet for people to find, but was disappointed when my google searches came up empty. I would copy whole paragraphs from this blog, and paste them into the google search box expecting to be the number one result. When this didn't happen I set out to figure out how google worked. Here's a summary of how google works from this source.
They use a top-secret algorithm called page-rank, which incorporates 3 key factors:

Frequency and location of the key words for which one is searching
How long the web page has existed
Number of other web pages that link to the web page in question.

There you have it. I was naively expecting to be found when I had only fulfilled the first requirement. Apparently four months is enough time for google to consider me legit, and there might possibly be a few links to this page floating around out there.

Bonus - when I google "Benji Somebody Else", the first three hits are really referring to me, then there's some unrelated hits, then it cites this blog's first post where I explained the meaning behind the address and happened to write Benji and Somebody Else in the same paragraph.
Note- In a couple weeks I'm expecting this post to be up there on the list because I keep typing Benji Somebody Else (frequency and location people, frequency and location).
Benji Somebody Else.

On a completely unrelated but nonetheless interesting note, I had ants crawling on my ears today. I have no idea how this happened. Around 9:00 this moring I'm sitting there doing dentistry and feel one crawling on my ear. I took off my glove and brushed it away, only to have the same thing happen 10 minutes later. Then around 3:00 this afternoon it happened again! I was in the middle of polishing up a filling I had just placed and really didn't want to take time out of the procedure to take off my gloves, brush the ant away, and re-glove; and I definitely didn't want to touch my own ear with slobbery gloves, (gross!) so I just kept working while the little bugger crawled around for two minutes and bit me three times. I don't think I've ever been so angry at a single ant in my entire life. Maybe someday when I'm working in my own office and have an assistant, I can simply call out "Ant" and she can brush it off of my ear. Someday.

Benji Somebody Else.

New Kid on the Blog

2008-07-28T18:44:00.001-07:00

Clever, I know. The newest new kid on the blog is none other than my beautiful wife! Since blogs are basically journals for friends and strangers to read, we decided to both just keep blogging away and try not to be too redundant. Our newest threat to each other is, "oh yeah? I'm going to blog about what you just did!" So, if any embarrassing stories about me show up on her blog, it means I'm in trouble.

Without further ado, her awesome blog!

"It's better to lose a tooth than to lose your life."

2008-07-26T11:22:00.001-07:00

That's the quote from the brave 11-year-old Brazilian boy who recently fended off a pit bull attack by sinking his teeth into the dog's neck! How's this for irony - he broke his canine when he sank his teeth into the neck of a canine! Ha! He needed 4 stitches in his arm, and the article says he was freed when bystanders pulled the dog off of him, but I think it was actually the dog who was freed from the vicious boy. Talk about fighting fire with fire!

Movie reviews, just in time for the weekend!

2008-07-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

Here's what I've seen lately, and what I thought:

Fools Gold

I reluctantly rented this one because there's not a huge selection in the redbox these days, but it was better than I thought it would be. I worried that with Kate Hudson and Matthew McHandsome back together it would just be an extension of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Truth be told, there was a lot more adventure involved. It was more than a cheesy chick flick. I can't really give an accurate re-cap because it was late and I fell asleep somewhere in the middle and missed 10 or 20 minutes, but what I did see I liked.

Recommendation: Not bad, I would recommend it if there's nothing else you'd rather see.

The Great Debaters

The story of a debate team from an all-black college in Texas in the 1920's. I'm torn on this movie. It had an interesting storyline, great acting, and of course those moving dramatic moments that come with movies like this, so I normally would give this one a good recommendation. However, I have two issues with this movie. First, a problem with the plot - as a debate team, they were never asked to debate anything that goes against what they believed. It was always them arguing something they were very passionate about (desegregation, civil disobedience), and that's not what true debating is, although it made for a better story.
Second, and this is the kicker, this movie is available exclusively at blockbuster. Not cool.

Recommendation: If everyone rented this movie, what would we be telling the film industry? That it's ok to make movies available exclusively at certain stores. Picture for a second a world where you have to go to Blockbuster to get a certain movie, and Hollywood Video to get another. For this reason I recommend not renting this movie. But, if you know someone who has it, it's worth watching.

Last of the Mohicans (edited)

Yeah, I know, this is an old one but I'd never seen it. Normally I don't like historical epic movies like this because the people talk differently and sometimes it's hard to follow all the details of the story. I liked this movie though. The thing that tips the scales for a positive recommendation is the music.

Recommendation: I do recommend this movie. Edited. I highly recommend this soundtrack.

The 5th Element

This was available free at hulu.com so I thought I'd check it out. Guess what? It's not worth free. If I got paid for my time watching the movie, it'd maybe be ok. Some Sci-Fi movies are ok but this one was just too weird for me. The opera scene actually made me laugh out loud at how stupid it was.

Recommendation: Are you kidding me? It's a no.

You, Me, and Dupree

You know how some movies have one or two really crass parts, but the rest of the movie is so hilarious that you don't really mind? This wasn't that movie. I really like Owen Wilson, but this was probably the least funny Owen Wilson movie I've ever seen, and that's counting Behind Enemy Lines. (On a related note, for you single guys out there - a wise friend once told me that if you're ever in a situation where you don't know what to say or how to act around a pretty girl, just think to yourself, "What would Owen Wilson do?" and go with it. The characters he plays are always so smooth.)

Recommendation: Definitely no.

The Sentinel

Jack Bauer teams up with a Desperate Housewife to figure out who's trying to kill the President - what's not to like? This movie reminded me of Breach. If you like one, you'll like the other.

Recommendation: I liked it. I would especially recommend it to those of you who are going through withdrawals of the show 24.

and finally,
The Dark Knight

It sort of seems like this movie deserves it's own post, but I have a tribute to Batman in the works for this blog so I'll just go ahead and do my little review here.
I loved it. I've seen it twice now and would have to say I loved it more the second time. The first time through it was difficult to see where the story was going and therefore a little tougher pick up on all the little interweaving themes of the movie. Heath Ledger deserves all the praise he gets - he was amazing at convincing you he was both a genius and a psychopath at the same time. The only negative thing I've heard about this movie is that Batman's voice is annoying, but, (and I've said this over and over again) - Batman is a ninja who was trained by ninjas, and the art of ninjutsu is that of invisibility. If you were a famous billionaire, people would know your voice, so you have to do something to disguise it. I think the director had him do this in the most "Batman-way" possible.
Lastly, this is a disturbing movie. There are a lot of gruesome parts, but they are tastefully left to your imagination. If you don't like scary movies, this isn't for you.

Recommendation: I feel obligated to warn that it will scare you, and there are a number of scenes that could be better described as "twisted" than "enjoyable". That being said, this is one of the best made movies I've ever seen. I'll let you decide on the recommendation.

Making your lawn look like a professional baseball field

2008-07-22T00:11:00.000-07:00

I just got back from an unofficial church outing with some buddies. We saw the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim lose to the Cleveland Indians 5-2. Booo.

Anyway, we get to talking and somebody wondered aloud how the elaborate pattern on the field is achieved. Go ahead, think about it. I'll even give you a quiz to see how smart you are.

Is the pattern achieved by

A) Mowing the lawn in alternating directions
B) Using some fancy equipment to make the blades point different directions
C) Cutting the grass to two different levels

Scroll down for the answer, but not until you've thought about it.

After the game I spoke to the man standing on the dugout located on the right side of the above picture, and he claimed that it was all three. Congratulations, you all got it right.

However, if you guessed B, you get it more right that the other two because how stuff works gives most of the credit to what's called a lawn roller - basically a big steam roller for your lawn. If you had a lawn roller, perhaps you could make your lawn look like this:

or this:

or maybe even this:

Lowes.com has lawn rollers for around $150.

Busting a myth that's been bugging me.

2008-07-18T22:23:00.000-07:00

Maybe you've heard this before, maybe not, but the myth I'm addressing is this: Dentists have the highest rate of suicide.

This has been brought to my attention a few times since becoming a dental student. It's usually somebody trying to make smalltalk, but many who've brought it up have done so in a way that led me to believe that they really think it's true.

So, I set out to do some investigating today. I had intentions of writing this post with well-referenced credible links but didn't actually find any official list. Upon typing dentists and suicide in the good old google, I found no references to support this claim, although I did learn quite a bit. Here's the summary of today's web surfing:

The topic is somewhat unclear because suicides usually aren't classified by profession. There is a plethora of data regarding race, age, and gender because those things show up on death certificates and can easily be compiled. Occupation, not so much.
Also, cause of death for a suicide usually isn't categorized as "suicide" but rather a gunshot wound or a drug overdose (even if they are intentionally self-inflicted).
Consensus is that the rate for health care professionals as a whole is elevated. A possible explanation of this is that health care professionals generally live healthier lifestyles and are less likely to die from other causes. Think about it, if you are a health professional, you are most likely "healthy" and less likely to die of a heart attack or motorcycle accident, thus elevating the relative rate of suicide in your group. Another explanation could be the stress that comes with being a "professional".
Medical Doctors (MD's) have a higher rate of suicide than their Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) counterparts. Most sources credit white male physicians as having the highest suicide rate, although the females in the profession aren't far behind - which is unusual. In most occupations females do themselves in at a much lower rate than the males.
Psychiatrists also have a higher rate of suicide than dentists, although they have their own urban legend to deal with regarding their "highest suicide rate".
One study had sheepherders and wool workers topping the list.
Other sources believe that the highest rate is by far among military personal and law enforcement.

So there you have it. Don't believe this when you hear it unless they have a source more credible than Benji's Blog©. If they do, please send it my way.

Incidentally, performing dentistry has actually been much more enjoyable than I had anticipated. Before beginning school I had the same thoughts that most people have when they picture themselves putting their fingers in a stranger's mouth - something along the lines of "what about people who have really nasty teeth and bad breath - would I really want to spend all day looking in those mouths? Is that really what I want to do all day every day for the rest of my working life?"

Like I said, it's really not that bad and most days is somewhat enjoyable. (note- I'm referring to the "dentistry" part of dental school and not necessarily the "school" part). Earlier this week I was working and it occurred to me that what I was doing was very similar to pottery, except that people will pay me for it. And sometimes it hurts.

Rather than constantly thinking "Ew gross, I'm working in this old guy's mouth", once I start working my focus is (literally) on a single tooth and I can forget about the rest of the person. Individual teeth rarely have the capacity to gross someone out.

I guess this concludes my suicide note. Ha!

Sand Bass: Fact or Fiction

2008-07-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

This Spring we had a visit from the Hinck family which prompted me to find out the truth about sand bass. Here's how it started (for those involved, correct me if I'm wrong). They were driving by a dry lake or pond and my nephew asked if anyone thought there might be fish in there. His wise dad and grandpa told him that there were lots of "Sand Bass" in there. Of course they were just pulling his leg but spent the next few days convincing him that sand bass were real.

A quick google/wiki search reveals that the joke was on them because Sand Bass are not only real, they're the official state fish of Oklahoma! How 'bout that! These fish are also known as white bass.

Sand Bass

BIg Night for the Nuts!

2008-07-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

Last night I fulfilled one of my dreams and showed my family the Nuts. We had a ball! It was a pretty exciting first three innings as the Nuts came out swinging and rose to a 14-2 lead, then they just hung around the rest of the night not doing anything - in fact neither team did anything as 14 - 2 was the final score. Talk about lop-sided! Things are looking pretty hairy this season for the home team, the Inland Empire 66ers. Jordan supported the Nuts for about an inning and a half, then he lost interest and would go exploring. At the top of the seventh inning we were ready to leave because he was getting a little testy, then I heroically ran down a foul ball for him and, with his ball in his hands, he got his second wind.

Here are some Nut pictures:

Jordan enjoying the first inning stretch.

I was proud of these two pictures I took. On this one the ball is visible about 6 feet ahead of the batter. It ended up being a strike.

And in this one the ball is just below the Nut's knees. (Click to enlarge)

Wearing my Nuts hat.

My favorite pair.

The kid still gets his balls mixed up - he kept acting like it was a basketball.

Summer Vacation Slideshow!

2008-07-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

We sure took a lot of pictures in Utah. Here are some of the good ones. Mostly they're of Jordan, but people usually like looking at him more than us boring grown ups anyway. Sorry it goes a little fast to read some of my detailed explanations but you can pause it and you can turn off the captions by clicking on the green caption bubble (lower left).

Enjoy!

2008-07-07T00:11:00.000-07:00

My online Fiddle Duel

2008-07-05T23:57:00.001-07:00

As I was 6 hours into the 8 hour drive home today, I was singing along with whatever came on the radio to keep myself alert. Melissa and Jordan were sleeping and they didn't seem to mind my singing. So there I was cruising and singing when this song came on:

Pretty good song to sing along to, right? Did you know that a fiddle and violin are the same instrument - just played differently? I think I picked up that fact a few years back. Anyway, I'm cruising along singing whatever and change the station and then I get to hear this:

So naturally I get to thinking about fiddles. I noticed a phrase that appeared in both songs. In the first we hear: "Johnny rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard" and the second goes like this: "So rosin up that bow for "Faded Love" and let's all dance".

This led me to wonder what rosin is. So, to truly learn, I looked it up and am here passing along the info. Rosin is "the yellowish to amber, translucent, hard, brittle, fragmented resin left after distilling the oil of turpentine from the crude oleoresin of the pine: used chiefly in making varnishes, varnish and paint driers, printing inks, and for rubbing on the bows of such string instruments as the violin."

To "rosin up the bow" is to put the rosin on the bow in order to play.

Finally, since fiddles are associated with fiddle dueling, I've created a poll as to which of the two fiddle songs I heard today is the best fiddle song. Let me know what you think, you have a week!