Last night the Hunter College Pre-Health Post-Bacc group hosted the 2nd annual Suture Night (see pics). We had about 20 students, led by two 4th year Cornell medical students. Everyone had a great time, learning knotting techniques and practicing on pig’s feet. Mmm, pigs!
It was surprising to me that (a) I remembered how to knot properly, and (b) my suturing technique stinks this year. I remembered doing much better last year. Ah well, nothing a little practice won’t fix!
Man, I don’t know who Harry Enfield is or why I haven’t seen his work before, but this old-timey movie from the 1950s (heh) about what Life in 1990 is like is certainly a spiffing spot of good and enjoyable humours. Laugh out loud and other types of abbreviated telecommunications interjections! I do feel quite thankful for my domicile in Chitingford-on-Sea.
Just got my packet for the 5 Borough Bike Tour — looks like we’re using blue bibs this year. Last year was my first 5BBT, and while the ride was great — perfect weather, great friends, a day on two wheels on roads shut down for me and 32,000 other pedal people — the end was nuts. We waited for hours for a ferry from Staten Island back to Manhattan. This year, I plan on riding the ride and stopping at the Verrazzano, before we leave Brooklyn, so as to avoid the massive jam.
Are you coming? Let me know and we’ll meet up! Hopefully no one will call me “Hammer-Flat” again this year. Sigh.
Here’s pics from last year.
I’m sure you heard about the (ex-) Governor Spitzer scandal (video, SFW). Well, here comes round two! (SFW) Turns out our new Guv’nor had some infidelities in his past (and his wife turned a blind eye? Man, that’s horrible even for me).
I’m trying to come up with some new New York slogans:
New York, Our Governors Have More Sex Than Yours!
New York: Everyone Here Gets L@id (Do You Care With Whom?)
I Love New York (Governors)
New York: Where Love is Blind
And I think Paterson has a great excuse — “I thought they were all my wife at the time.” Okay, I’ll stop.
Some of you may recall the strange affair of … The Phone Switch Project. It’s a little video I made for a company sales event 2 years ago. Well, someone got their hands on it and posted it on YouTube. Totally SFW, please click on the link and have a watch. I had a ton of fun making that video … it’s all about selling VoIP. 
Funny thing is, I have no clue who the poster is or how they got their hands on it …
You may have hated him for some of his horrid samples of prose, you may have loved him for lighting a fire in your consciousness, but if you knew his name then you know what a tremendous impact Gary Gygax had on the collective minds of millions. Gary passed away on Tuesday. Others have memorialized him better than I have, and I’ll call particular attention to Tycho from Penny Arcade:
Gygax always struck me as a tremendously sinister name: no mortal name, this. This was the sort of name one earned in the service of horned devils and more primordial shapes of evil, a boon for the loyal servant, placed like a black crown on the bowed head.
The first time I ever played Dungeons & Dragons, I was six years old – books with great red demons on the cover that dared us to claim their riches, subtitled by this alien name Gygax. My mother was furious when she found my uncles had exposed me to those subterranean burrows, spilling over with rubies, and tourmalines, and the wealth of old kings even songs no longer remember. As a young man, I began hiding the books I bought inside my bed, which had a vast hollow space I had hidden in as a child. These books were soon discovered, and blamed for everything from recent colds to the dissolution of my parents’ marriage. I took the wrong lesson, I’m afraid: I didn’t learn to fear them. What I learned was that books, some books, were swollen with power – and this power projected into the physical realm. Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes.
I owe a tremendous debt to his legacy. I couldn’t even calculate how deep.
They made an absolutely gorgeous tribute to him as well … click to go see it, SFW of course.
I try to never miss the chance to geek out. So in that vein … I came across this collection of videos (SFW) on Wired. It’s their “Top 10 Amazing Chemistry Videos”. Watch, learn and realize how absolutely cool science is.
