Sunday, November 20, 2011

Somewhat Random Links Worth Reading (IMHO)

Well, I figure if I don't have anything in particular to say, I can at least share with you what I've been reading and found interesting and/or humorous. Of course, there's no guarantee you will find these things interesting, but it's worth a shot, right? :)


The Washington Post had an article this week on hospitals' embracing of complementary/alternative medicine, even if primarily as an additional revenue stream and way to attract patients away from other facilities.

An article on stalking tips seemed right on target when it quoted the woman leading a seminar on dissecting online dating profiles saying about one, "I hope no one here knows him" because I was recently browsing a crafting blog I sometimes follow and was surprised to find a local friend of mine in a photo at the top of a post offering a crafting challenge to do something with a unitard. It was a photo he'd posted on Flickr of himself in a halloween costume that she had (quite legally and with proper attribution) that she used to poke fun of unitards with. What are the odds?

A hilarious video poking fun of new iPhone's Siri at College Humor. Warning: Contains offensive language not appropriate for (most) offices or young children. I think I've watched four times, and it makes me laugh out loud each time. :)

An advice columnist essentially tells a non parent to stop judging today's parents by comparing them unfavorably with his rosy memories of his childhood. I'd personally expand the target to include parents of children an entire generation (i.e. 10 or more years) older than the children of the parent being criticized. Things change rapidly these days. My kid's not even seven yet, and I've lost touch with what parents of babies and toddlers have to deal with. (No one had an iPhone to entertain their kid with when my kid was a toddler.)

A better pain chart, which has been floating around the internet for ages but is always worth a look, especially if you've had to put a number on your pain anytime lately. I hate those damn charts. I need to remember to print this one and take it with me, especially if I ever end up at the ER again with anything approaching the pain I had with that gallbladder attack last year that the EMT thought was a panic attack.

Slate had a fascinating article about the hazards of doing medical research on lab rats that everyone should read. Turns out, those rodents in control groups are unhealthier in many ways than the ones getting experimented on. And can I just say that the guy who's publicizing the issue with medical research really looks like maybe he could use more than his single meal a day.

Do you have an Apple product with auto-correct? I do, and it can be embarrassing if I don't catch what the auto-correct decides I might mean to say on Facebook or Twitter. Apparently, I'm not the only with this issue, nor am I the only one who finds it funny when it happens to my friends. Check out this site, Damn You, Auto Correct!, but again, don't read it at work. And don't read it if you're likely to get offended by bad language.

So thanks to the small world of Facebook, when I reconnected with a former work colleague (who I haven't seen in, well, about a decade), I discovered she'd had a baby girl even though somehow, I'd always assumed she didn't want kids. Turned out, I didn't know her particularly well at all and I was probably just projecting because in those days, I didn't want kids. But I was curious about the husband I'd never met but occasionally heard about, and somehow found a link to his blog somewhere, which I started reading and found I loved his sense of humor and read all his archives. :) Luckily, at the time, their kid was only around a year old, give or take. Anyway, he apparently has a deal to write periodically for the TODAYMoms blog (i.e. a mom oriented blog affiliated with the Today Show, and he recently had a post there in defense of potty humor. Since I'm incredibly immature and giggle way too much at potty humor, I liked it. You might too. And yes, I have the books Everyone Poops
and The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts. I consider the former especially to be one of the greatest perks of parenthood since I'd never heard of the book before becoming a parent. :) And yes, I fear that my child appears to have inherited my mirth over everything potty related. But maybe she'll outgrow it, right?

2 comments:

Melody Marie Murray said...

Our mutual friend (shades of Dickens!!!) had that exact pain chart in her chiro office. The only real problem with it is that kids are so enchanted with the really scary pain faces they always pointed to #10, no matter what.

Aviva said...

MMM: Love that! Too funny! :)