Rock Out With Rock Band

Rock Band
System: PS3
Release Year: 2007
IGN Score: 9.4

Rock Band: Beatles
System: PS3
Release Year: 2009
IGN Score: 9


I first played Rock Band and Guitar Hero back in 2008 and instantly loved the concept. I was probably a year or so behind the trend when these games came out but truthfully I was just getting back into gaming at the time and I really had no idea these games existed until a couple of our friends in Erie were talking about it. We used to get together every once in a while to have a few drinks and rock out with our plastic guitars. I really feel like these games really helped to develop a pretty good friendship with several people while living in PA. Because of this I really think these games are some of the best games ever made. It allows several people to get together at once and play simultaneously, and the ones who aren't playing still enjoy it because music is being played in the background. Truthfully, one of the best gaming concepts I've seen. It is one of those things you look at and think "Why didn't I think of that?"

With that being said, I am not going to spend much time discussing the actual game. I assume we have all been exposed to these games at least a bit. Even my dad has played them. With that being said, once we moved out of Erie and back to Indiana I really haven't played the music games too much. However, since the anniversary of John Lennon's passing I have been on a big Beatles kick. Plus we went to a party a few weeks ago and someone brought their drums for guitar hero. Playing the drums that night inspired me so I purchased the Beatles edition of Rock Band for $100. It is really one of the only ways to get the drum set without spending a bundle. I also purchased the original Rock Band for $8 on Amazon.

Both of these games are pretty fantastic. The Beatles edition has most of their biggest hits and Rock Band has a ton of well known songs and artists. Plus the store allows you to purchase and download all kinds of additional tracks. Truthfully, though, I don't think either one of these games is as good as Guitar Hero III. A lot of the Beatles songs are too heavy on pop and not heavy enough on guitar to make them great songs for a guitar-based game (though they are still quite fun to play). And while Rock Band has tons of recognizable songs, I've always felt like the more obscure songs were usually the better songs to play on Guitar. Take Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover" from Guitar Hero III. It is a fantastic song, both fun and challenging to play, and I had never heard of it until I first played GH III on the PS2.

At any rate, we will be rocking out to some Rock Band this weekend during a New Year's party. I hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend. Below is a YouTube video of someone getting 100% on expert on "Cliffs of Dover." Pretty amazing.

Crazy Christmas

Anytime I would tell someone I was working over the Christmas weekend they would always apologize. I don't know if they just didn't know what else to say or what. Truthfully it wasn't that big of a deal to me. As an adult Christmas just isn't as exciting as it used to be. It was fun as a kid but anymore it is just another day to me. It doesn't rank anywhere near the top of my favorite holidays. I much prefer Memorial day and Thanksgiving. At any rate, my attending was nice enough to let me have Christmas Eve off so Sarah and I were able to make it home Thursday night and spend some time with each of our families so it worked out pretty well.

The census at the hospital this weekend was pretty low truthfully but I stayed consistently busy and we had some weird stuff happen. Some of the highlights are below.

• Twenty-nine year old male with a history of Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) came in short of breath. He had no fever but did have an elevated white count at 18,000 and was breathing 40 to 50 times per minute. His percentage of oxygen in his blood was only 55 (normal is 80-100) on 100% oxygen. As a reference, normal atmospheric air that most people breathe is only 21% oxygen. His chest CT showed bilateral pneumonia and his left lung was approximately 80% filled with infiltrates. We ended up transferring him to Methodist so he would have better access to pulmonary specialists.
• A 72 year old female came in complaining of abdominal pain. CT showed evidence of free peritoneal air consistent with viscus perforation. She went to surgery overnight last night and was found to have a jejunal (part of the small bowel) perforation. I'd love to know how something like that happens. It's pretty much unheard of. Our surgeon, who has been practicing medicine longer than I've been alive, said this is only the second case he has ever seen.
• A 52 year old female who continues to have fevers and worsening chest x-rays with progressive dyspnea. There was a question of pulmonary embolism but her chest x-ray looks a lot like BOOP. I honestly don't know how common BOOP is but I've never seen a case before this weekend. On a side note, I have learned to take the obese middle age female cautiously. Their condition can seem to turn for the worse quickly. The last patient I saw like this had cellulitis from her foot to her naval and there was about a 6 hour period where I thought for sure she was going to get septic. The patient before that went from completely normal to dead in about 72 hours. She succumbed to strep-associated Toxic Shock Syndrome (which is actually pretty unusual). And no, it wasn't from a retained tampon.
• Saw a guy who I actually first met several months ago getting IV antibiotics to treat a variant of Pott's disease. The mycobacterium infecting his spine actually is not tuberculosis but some other species. He said he was only one of five ever documented to have this specific mycobacterium in the spine.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday!

Taking One For The Team

I must have been the only resident in the program who didn't ask for time off during the holidays. Subsequently I am scheduled to work on Christmas day. I have no idea what I was thinking. Unfortunately working holidays and weekends is part of the job.

At any rate, I hope all readers have a nice Christmas with their friends and families.

Perspective on Snow

After living in Erie, PA for a couple of winters you really gain some perspective on winter weather. I was at the dentist a few weeks ago and they had the Today Show on and a weather reporter was standing at the intersection of Peach and I-90 in Erie reporting on the snowfall. There had been 36 inches of snowfall the previous week there. That is more snow than Indy gets all winter. That's why when we get 3-4 inches of snow here I really don't think much of it. Erie could easily get that much snow in an hour. The other thing is that here the snow mostly is gone off the roads by the next day whereas in Erie it wouldn't be gone until April. The biggest difference in winter weather here is ice. We get lots more ice here which I think is actually quite a bit more dangerous for traveling than snow.

Below is a picture of my Grand Prix covered in snow in Erie. Sarah and I had spent the night at a friends house and the next day when we went to retrieve my car this is what I saw. The funny thing is that as we approached the car Sarah said "Look at that loser's car!" and it turned out to be my car! One of my favorite pictures from that year.



Sarah and I watched Christmas Vacation this weekend to put us in the Christmas mood. What a great movie. I like the old vacation movies quite a bit and Christmas Vacation is no exception. So many classic lines. One of the better Christmas movies in my opinion. I think I am going to make it an annual tradition to watch it every Christmas.

My mom had a birthday over the weekend so I would like to wish her a happy birthday as well!

Attack of the Show-O, Attack!

Attack of the Show is a news & variety show featured on the G4TV channel. It focuses mainly on technology and has various segments including electronic product reviews, gaming reviews, and news regarding announcements of new products. In addition to technology each show features highlights of trending videos on YouTube. The shows every weeknight at 7 pm. I wanted to mention the show for two reasons.

I had thought of starting a blog a few times before I actually created this one. I always questioned what I would feature on the blog and who the audience would be (I guess this part is still in question). At first I thought it would be a specific blog about what happens on rotations. I decided that discussing interesting things from work would be OK, but I wanted to broaden the subject a bit. I decided instead of focusing on one topic, I would have posts on various recurring topics. Thus "Life In The Cave" as we know it was born. I got the idea of featuring numerous topics from music to sports to work from the blueprint of Attack of the Show.

The second reason why I wanted to mention Attack of the Show is because it was announced last week that co-host Olivia Munn would no longer be on the show. I am a pretty big fan of Olivia and thought she was perfect for the type of humor and content featured on the show. She also worked really well with co-host Kevin Pereira. It is sad to see her go but came as no surprise. She really hadn't been on the show much at all for the last several months and her fame has risen quite a bit in the past year so I am sure she is off to bigger and better things. With the announcement of her departure came the announcement of the show's new co-host. I was really hoping the always cute Sara Underwood would be named the new co-host. She has been hosting a lot recently in Olivia's absence. Unfortunately someone else was named the new co-host. I hope at the very least they find some other job at G4 for Sara, whether it be hosting the Feed or going out on assignment. With that being said I decided just now that I was going to name Sara the official co-host of this blog. I have the authority to do such a thing since I am the author. If you like the topics you see on this blog you would probably enjoy Attack of the Show.


Olivia Munn



Sara Underwood

Houston, We Have A Problem

Amazon.com had some great deals on movies over the black Friday weekend. I am not a huge movie fan, but with that being said there are some movies that I really enjoy so I decided to take advantage of their $8 blu-ray sale and picked up some movies for my film collection. One of the movies I purchased was the 15th Anniversary Edition of Apollo 13. I was able to watch the film again over the weekend and was reminded of what a great movie Apollo 13 is. We all know how the movie ends and yet it remains interesting because it does a great job of developing the characters and making us want them to survive. Plus it visually tells the story very well.

One of the interesting parts of the disc is all of the behind-the-scenes footage. There is an hour long clip describing how they made various parts of the film, including all of the shots in space where the actors were floating. They also interview Jim Lovell and several other people associated with NASA and the Apollo 13 mission and have a lot of stock footage from the real event. After seeing some of the stock footage and listening to people who were associated with the real event talk it becomes apparent that the movie is pretty darn accurate in telling the events that occurred during the space mission.

Apollo 13 was a space mission scheduled to land on the moon. While in transit an explosion in one of the oxygen tanks jeopardized the mission and what resulted was a string of issues that had never been planned for and had to be solved using only instruments and tools already on the spacecraft. There is so much engineering and math and thinking that goes into this stuff that it just boggles the mind. For instance, who would have thought that the spacecraft being 200 lbs lighter because they didn't gather moon rock would have made so much of a difference in their re-entry trajectory? Making things further amazing is when you look at the computer systems NASA was working with in the early 1970s which quite frankly are a joke in computing power compared to the PC I am using to type this blog in 2010.

I have been to the Kennedy Space Center in FL when I was younger and would love to go back again now that I am a bit older and understand things a bit more. I have seen a shuttle launch from a close distance (a few miles) and it is amazing. Apparently the current space shuttle is being retired in 2011. A space launch today still makes the news but is far from front page information. It is almost considered routine today. One of my favorite lines in the movie is when Jim Lovell is asked about what he thinks of the public opinion that the Apollo 13 mission is routine. He responds by saying "There is nothing routine about flying to the moon." I really couldn't agree more. I find flight in general fascinating and space flight to be just absurdly spectacular. The Apollo 13 film does a great job of telling this amazing, almost too good to be true story of NASA's "successful failure."

Gran Turismo 5: Final Impressions

Gran Turismo 5
System: PS3
Release Year: 2010
IGN Score: 8.5


Gran Turismo is one of my favorite gaming series of all time. I don't have the time logged, but it has to be in the top three or four all time for me in terms of most hours spent total playing a gaming series, with most of those hours spent on Gran Turismo 4. It's been 6 years since Gran Turismo 4 was released on the PS2. During the past 6 years we have heard a lot about Gran Turismo 5 and have been frustrated with numerous delays. I would have to say that GT5 was the most anticipated game of all time for me. I have had time to sit down and play it for more than 20 hours and have several thoughts, most of which are good but some are kind of bad.

GT5 immediately has a familiar feel. You have licensing exams, A-Spec and B-Spec, a garage, the Sunday Cup, confusing menus, they all return to GT5. It immediately feels nostalgic and for long time fans of the series I think this is a good thing. They have added some great new features as well. I love the addition of NASCAR in the game and finally the Special Challenges section is fun and makes sense. The AMG challenges around the Nurburgring are my favorite. Karting is surprisingly fun as well.

Speaking of familiar, a lot of the old tracks from previous games return in GT5. Thankfully they got rid of some of the more dreadful tracks and kept mostly the better original tracks in my opinion. Between the real tracks and original fictional tracks, the real-life tracks are better and there is a great collection of real-life tracks as well, including several famous F1 tracks like Monza and I was glad to see return of Nurburgring, Laguna Seca, and Circuit de la Sarthe, as well as the debut of Indianapolis and Daytona. Overall the track selection is quite solid and a number of terrific circuits are recognized.

I really enjoy the music while on the menu screens. The music during the races, however, is pretty bad in my opinion. I actually turned it off while I race because it was annoying me so much. Truthfully, one of the worst soundtracks of the series.

I am going to echo what numerous other reviewers have said about the graphics. The tracks and scenery look fantastic. Ninety percent of the time the cars look fantastic too, but sometimes, and usually it's with the "standard" cars, the cars look pretty average. GT5 is a pretty game for sure but I think it has solid PS3 graphics. Nothing really blew me out of the water.

The addition of on-line play was an obvious must and luckily is a ton of fun. I have met up with friends on-line three or four times and thus far have had no problems with connections or frame rates when playing over the net. Playing on-line is probably the best feature of this game in my opinion.

Finally I wanna talk about the game play, which is a huge disappointment for me. There is so much wrong with the game play in my opinion I am going to switch to bullets to make my points.

• I wrote an article back in March expressing 4 or 5 things that I wanted to see in GT5. I feel like they only kind of answered one of those things and that is the number of cars. GT games have always had 6 cars on track at once and finally that number was increased in GT5. I was hoping to see between 20 to 24. Instead I got 8-16, which isn't bad. I was glad to see they increased this number.
• The AI drivers are as dumb as ever. They are like zombies. They have no emotion, they don't react when you hit them, they never change their racing line, they basically drive like robots. I see no difference between the AI drivers in GT5 and the AI drivers in GT4.
• There still seems to be little to no consequence for hitting other cars, cutting corners, or wrecking yourself. I flipped my AMG Mercedes (which was awesome), landed on my wheels, and continued to drive to victory like nothing happened. They say there is damage but I see very little of it on screen and more than 20 hours into the game it hasn't affected any of my races at all.
• Racing ability seems to have little effect on the outcomes of races because you can still buy most of your wins. Who cares if you wreck 100 times when your car has 400 more bhp than the other drivers? It wasn't until level 16 where I came across a series where I couldn't buy/modify a car quick enough to win while driving recklessly.
• Speaking of cars, the entire system they have on this game for cars is just weird. First off, they say there is more than 1,000 cars, but you can actually only buy what seems to be a couple of hundred. Then they limit which ones you can buy based on your level. There are tons of cool cars in the used car section but they come and go without warning and often cost $10,000,000 or more. I'd love to have an old Ford GT40 but don't have $19,000,000 laying around or a level 23 ranking. Plus the cars they give you for wins are almost entirely useless and sell for next to nothing. Gone are the days where you could win a cool car that could actually be used in a series then sell it for big cash. Now we get crappy cars and the ability to look at a lot of cool cars but not buy any of them.
  
• The rain effects and racing at night with your headlights are really cool additions to this game. Why aren't they used more often? I am on level 19 and have only seen this aspect of the game sparingly.

I really feel like this game focuses way too much on the cars and the game play suffers as a result. I love buying cool cars (the ones that are available) and taking them to the shop and adding horsepower and handling and all of that stuff to see how fast I can go. One of my favorite things to do on the game (beside on-line play) is buy a new car and fix it up and take it to the track to do individual hot laps to see which car in my garage is the quickest. I really think the game shines in this aspect. Each car handles different, sounds different, drives different, and you can really feel that as you turn lap after lap searching for perfection. When you are in races you loose all of this as you blow by Honda Civics in your Bugatti Veyron. I think the game would have been much better if they would have dropped about 400 of the pointless cars (does anyone honestly enjoy the Lupo Challenge??) and focused a bit more on actual racing.

With all of this being said, I do think the game is fun and overall is good. I love racing and racing games and Gran Turismo is one of my favorite gaming series of all time. With that being said, I was expecting the best racing game ever. I don't think GT5 is even the best racing game on the PS3. The on-track action in F1: 2010 is much better. If anything, I think GT5 could have easily been called Gran Turismo 4: HD as it is basically a fancier, shinier version of the previous game from 2004.

Let It Be

Wanted to take the time to mention John Lennon as today is the anniversary of his death. I don't even know where to begin with discussions on Lennon and the Beatles. They were a music tour de force, an amazing band and unfortunately people of my generation will never get to experience any band quite like them while in their prime. Lennon and the Beatles are rare pop-culture icons who continue to be popular decades after their rise to fame. Song after song they display a perfect mix of lyrics and music unmatched by any band I've ever listened to. Among the best song writers of all time. I loaded up some Beatles today in my music player to pay tribute.






Last night as I was flipping through the channels I came across A Charlie Brown Christmas on ABC. I don't really ever get into Christmas music or the whole Christmas spirit all that much to be honest, but there are a few of the Christmas shows that I do like and A Charlie Brown Christmas is my favorite of them all. It's funny because I enjoyed the show as a kid but I don't think I ever caught on as to how depressed Charlie Brown is during the episode. It is almost sad to watch. I really enjoy the music in the show and my favorite part of all, probably the one reason I try to tune in every Christmas, is when the Peanuts gang is dancing on stage. It never fails to bring a smile to my face.

No Longer Monopoly Money

I used to always joke each year as I was filling out my FAFSA and student loan information how the amount of money being borrowed was so absurd it seemed like Monopoly money (i.e. not real). I'm not laughing so much now. I've been trying since June to get all of my loans consolidated with the department of education and the process is still on going. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The US Government isn't exactly known for its efficiency. In the meantime, the grace period on all of my loans has ended. I was able to place the loans on forbearance with one of my lenders without any problems at all. The other lender, however, is a different story. I've already applied for forbearance with this second lender once. Instead of placing all of the loans into forbearance like anyone with any sense at all would have done, they only placed one of the loans into forbearance, leaving two in the normal repayment schedule. I sent in a second forbearance application last week. Unfortunately it hasn't arrived in time and thus I got a bill today from this lender that was slightly over $1,000. I was able to call them and get the payment reduced to a little over $500, but this is still a lot of money to spend on loans every month. And that isn't even covering half of my total loans. I am going to be checking thoroughly over the next week to make sure the second forbearance application went through. I hate to continue to push off payments as more interest gets added to the principal, but at this stage of the game we can't even afford to make interest payments on these loans. It's ridiculous.

I went to the dentist the other day. Either advancements in dentistry have occurred since I was a kid, or my pain threshold has raised since I was a kid because going to the dentist isn't nearly as uncomfortable as I remember it being when I was younger. I actually didn't feel anything - not even the numbing injection. I like my dentist quite a lot. She is a little fancier than I am used to but her and her office staff are really nice.

Public Speaking

This weekend was the Indiana Osteopathic Association (IOA) Winter Update conference. It was located in downtown Indianapolis. It is attended by physicians mostly from Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. Most of the physicians in attendance are primary care docs. Anyway, I volunteered to speak at this conference a few months ago. Speaking in public is somewhat nerve racking to begin with, but speaking to an audience made up of physicians who have more experience than you adds an additional amount of anxiety. I could choose any topic so I decided to do my talk on concussions. Obviously concussions are in the news a lot these days regarding long term increases in morbidity and mortality due to repeated hits to the head seen in football players. I focused most of my talk on acute management, return to play protocols, and current research. I just gave this talk a few hours ago and overall I think it went pretty well. Funny thing - the fire alarm went off and the whole room had to be evacuated just minutes before my talk. You cannot plan for stuff like that, obviously, which made for an interesting beginning to my talk.

Last week I switched from pediatrics to internal medicine. My pediatric rotation was at a different hospital from where I usually work. Overall I enjoyed my pediatrics rotation. Our hospital is very medicine heavy so I was able to see a lot of stuff that I've never seen before, including a text book case of Kawasaki Syndrome. Besides seeing kids on the pediatric floor, I also spent a lot of time in labor & delivery seeing newborn babies and in the neonatal intensive care unit seeing premature infants. I even got to do some procedures there like lumbar punctures and UV lines. Overall it was a good experience and in general I enjoy working with kids so it's something I'd like to do more of in the future. My only complaint is that I don't think the hospital is used to having residents around and subsequently sometimes didn't really know how to use me well. I voiced my opinion on this to a few people so hopefully things will be better in the future.

Like I said, I am back on internal medicine. I feel like I've done IM 1,000 times at this hospital. It is something I am pretty used to so it is starting to become a bit routine. So far nothing interesting to report in the first week.

I See London, I See France

Tonight is the self-proclaimed "Sexiest Night on Television," the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on CBS. I have no idea as to the purpose of this show. They don't even sell most of the stuff you see on the show in the stores. Regardless, you better believe I have my DVR set to record this on CBS-HD tonight at 10 pm. If nothing else it is an excuse to see some of my favorite models on TV.

Adriana Lima
Glad to see Adriana back after just having her first kid a few months ago. She has been one of my long time VS favorites. Hard not to think that her prime is probably past her (she is old for a model - older than I am) and she only has a few more of these shows left. Glad to see her back this year and wearing the multi-million dollar bra.






Candice Swanepoel
Candice has been everywhere this year. She has become quite popular and has taken over as the number one model, the spot Adriana had just a few years ago. I think she is a good choice as an Adriana replacement.




Too bad there was no Marisa Miller this year. She is one of my all time favorites as well. She blew up in 2008 but I haven't heard much from her since.




Finally, Katy Perry was the entertainment at the show this year. Her music really isn't my type. With that being said however, her music is catchy and I'll still rock out to her on a Friday night if she is on Palladia and the mood is right.



Enjoy the eye candy. Again, the show is on CBS at 10 pm for those interested. In the meantime, I just switched rotations so I will be posting on how everything is going job-wise sometime in the near future.

Gran Turismo 5: Initial Impressions

I didn't have to work this weekend and therefore I was able to get a lot of time in with Gran Turismo 5 (probably around 15 hours). Below are my initial impressions of the long awaited game. I will return in the near future with a full review once I have more time with the game in order to unlock some more of the features.

• Disc insertion to play time the very first time you try to play clocks in at almost an hour. Come on Sony, you can do better than this. We've already waited several years, why make us wait another hour?
• The graphics are amazing. You almost want to just watch and look at the cars instead of drive them. There are only a few very minor hiccups here and there. Otherwise flawless.
• The entire game has a very familiar feel to it which fans of the PS2 versions will like. However this is where part of the game disappoints thus far. I will expand more on this in the full review.
• Online play is a lot of fun.

So far the game is a lot of fun and hasn't disappointed in that respect. I only have one major complaint so far. Expect a full review in the coming weeks.

Changing gears a bit, this is the 100th post of this blog. Thanks to the few readers out there. I actually enjoy putting this site together quite a bit. I think 100 posts is quite an accomplishment. Thanks!

FINALLY!

After years of waiting, and after numerous delays, Gran Turismo 5 has finally been released! This is probably the most anticipated game release ever for me. I cannot wait to get this disc into my PS3 and turn some virtual laps. Expect a few posts in the future - Probably a quick first impressions post and a more thorough review following that once I've had some time to form an opinion. I'll be going home for Thanksgiving but hopefully I will get to turn a few laps for the first time tomorrow night. Everyone have a nice and safe holiday.

To spice things up a bit, I'd like to feature Scarlett Johansson on this post. Not only is she a very pretty girl, she is also a great actress. Unfortunately she plays to the more artsy crowd and thus I don't really see too many of her movies because they aren't really my type (She wasn't in Donkey Kong). I did enjoy Lost in Translation quite a bit. She recently had a birthday (It's hard to believe she is younger than me. She seems older for whatever reason) and hosted SNL, which reminded me of one of my favorite SNL clips below. Enjoy all!

King of Kong

I worked all weekend and thus unlike last weekend didn't have a lot of free time to do much. There was nothing on TV last night so I decided to fire up the Netflix on the PS3 and see what was available there. I decided to watch the movie The King of Kong, a documentary about a guy who is trying to break the long standing record for most points ever in a Donkey Kong game.

The movie stars Steve Wiebe, a likable but down on his luck family man from Washington state. After being fired from his job Steve had a lot of free time on his hands and didn't know what to do with himself. For whatever reason he decided that he was going to dedicate his free time to try to beat the long standing record for most points in a Donkey Kong game held by Billy Mitchell. Mitchell is considered to be one of the best video game players of all time. He held the Donkey Kong record for most points for over 25 years. He has played a perfect game (all dots acquired, no deaths) in Pac Man. He is considered to be the Michael Jordan of games.

Twin Galaxies is the official score keeper of video games, an organization who reviews all attempts to breaks records and verifies if they are legit or not. They are kind of like the Guinness record people for video games. They were founded in the early 1980s by a bunch of computer nerds who are every bit as geeky as you could imagine. Their founding came around the same time Billy Mitchell was becoming famous for his accomplishments. Subsequently, most of the people who are a part of Twin Galaxies worship Mitchell and Mitchell has major influence over them.

The film portrayed Mitchell as a master manipulator and a sore loser. Once Galaxies got word that Wiebe was the real deal, they did everything they could to not acknowledge his accomplishments. Often Mitchell would be the one pulling the strings in the background. When Weibe sent in a tape of him playing a game which beat Mitchell's score, Galaxies said that he must perform in front on an audience to verify it. Wiebe did just that and shortly after Billy Mitchell sent in a tape of a higher score and Galaxies credited him with the highest score over Wiebe's without any question. In the end Wiebe beat Mitchell's score and both Galaxies and Guinness World Records now acknowledge Wiebe as the all time Donkey Kong champion with a score of over 1,000,000. Overall it was quite interesting to see how this rivalry between the great champion Mitchell and the underdog family man Wiebe developed. To this day Mitchell and Wiebe are trading high scores back and fourth.

After I watched the movie I was in the mood to play some Donkey Kong myself and was curious to see if the game really was as hard as they were portraying in the movie. I wanted to see if I could get anywhere near the scores posted in the movie. Below is a screen shot from a Donkey Kong game I downloaded on Virtual Console on the Wii. Notice the top score in the middle of the screen. I am currently nowhere near the record!



I couldn't mention Donkey Kong without thinking of this scene from Billy Madison:



While we are on the subject of video games, Gran Turismo 5 is supposed to come out later this week. I'd say GT5 is my most anticipated game of all time. I really hope I didn't jinx it by posting that ticker as it has had numerous delays, including one earlier this month. I will have a full post (or posts) later on once I actually get my hands on it.

Down the Stretch They Come!

Sarah and I went to Churchill Downs on Saturday with some of her aunts and cousins. Neither one of us had been to the famed track before and be both had a fantastic time. We got there early before the gates opened so we decided to head to the museum to kill some time. The museum was very nice and I found several exhibits which I found to be quite interesting and informative. I know so very little about horse racing that even defining "yearling" and "colt" was interesting to me. They have everything on display at the museum from famous hats worn by ladies in the crowd to jockey uniforms to memorabilia from past Derbies. Probably one of the most interesting things for me was the pedigree chart they had showcasing all of the offspring from Northern Dancer, one of the most famous sires in thoroughbred racing history. He has several offspring that have won major races, including the Kentucky Derby. At one point during his stud career his fees were up to $1,000,000 per session which I find to be incredible.

After the museum we went up to our seats. Sarah's aunt Pamela was able to get us seats in Millionaire's Row (the same place the Queen sat when she attended the Derby) through her association with the Kentucky Colonels. We sat in this big banquet hall complete with a band, bar, buffet, and everything. It was kind of amusing because even though we were at a sporting event it felt more like a wedding reception. Of course we all had to try a mint julep, the signature drink of the Derby. It was loaded with bourbon and honestly I wasn't a huge fan of the drink. It was a bit too stout for my taste. I enjoyed the Hoak Lilly better, which apparently is the signature drink for the day before the Derby. Every thirty minutes or so we would hear the horn signifying that the horses were going to the gates then we would all mingle outside to watch the race. Once the race was over (they only last a few minutes) we would go back inside to chow down some more food (and drinks).



Besides eat we would also place our bets between races. I hate gambling but even I got into the spirit. The race guide was information overload for placing bets. It listed the horse's size and record, jockey's size and record, when the horse last worked out, even the medications the horse was on. It was amazing. Sarah and I won about 50% of the time. I was just betting $2 and $5 dollar bets so it was all minuscule stuff, but it made the racing much more fun because it gave you someone to pull for during the race. Despite all of the information in the guide, we made our bets based on the horse's names. The off-the-wall names are one of my favorite parts of horse racing.

Despite knowing nothing about horse racing, everyone had a really good time. It is a place filled with tradition, a unique sporting event (what other sports event do you wear a tie to?), and a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I was really surprised how much I enjoyed this place and hope to go back sometime in the future.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

System: Wii
Release Year: 2010
IGN Score: 10

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (SMG2) gets rid of everything that was bad about SMG1 (which was very little, honestly) and keeps everything that was great (with one annoying exception). The fantastic creative levels return along with gameplay that really isn't much different than the original Mario game from 25 years ago. Luigi and Yoshi both make early appearances in this game, though to be honest I am not a big fan of either. I guess this is exciting for some people. If you've never played this game I would highly recommend it if you get the chance. It is a unique game that really does so much right that it's a shame more games for the Wii aren't like this.

For the most part the gameplay in SMG2 is exactly the same as the play in SMG1. One of the best additions to this version is an improved camera system which is excellent. I never once had an issue where I would die repeatedly because of poor camera angles like I did in the first game. That was quite frustrating and I was really happy to see that they improved that part of the game. Though there were still points in the game where I would die 8-12 times in a row just trying to get past this one part of a stage. There is more to this story later, but the bottom line is that I don't have time to deal with that kind of stuff anymore like I did when I was a kid. Maybe I'm just old.

Gone from SMG2 is the incredibly weird and almost creepy storyline that was in SMG1. The story added nothing to the game and was down right weird. I was glad to see that they scrapped it. Also gone is the confusing space station where you had to travel to different portions to get to certain stages. This open-world roaming technique worked well in Mario 64's castle but was just confusing and annoying in SMG1. Instead, SMG2 uses a grid-map system seen in Super Mario World for the SNES and Super Mario 3 for the NES. I like this system much better as you spend less time wandering around a stupid space ship and more time playing the amazing stages.

All isn't perfect though. Nintendo was off to a great start by fixing the camera system and getting rid of the annoying portions of the first game. However the grid system kind of locks you into playing stages in a specific sequence. This would be fine except for the fact that at several points during the game, I could not advance to a new stage because I was 2 or 3 stars short. This meant I would have to go back and try to get some of the more obscure stars from previous stages. This wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that some of the stars are annoying at best to get. Like I was saying before, there would be some stars where I would die 10-15 times before I could get the star. And I can only play dumb mini games with a monkey so many times before it starts to get old. Seriously, I played this one mini game probably 30 times before finally winning. These tasks really distract from the game in my opinion. I just don't have the time or interest to try stuff over and over and over and over again. Because of this, I haven't actually finished the game yet. I've been playing it for several months and I'm probably 95% finished but right now I just can't bring myself to sit through the rest of the game to play it. I need to take a break. I am sure I will finish it sometime in the future.

The bottom line is this: SMG2 is a fantastic game that every Wii owner should have. I think it's a toss up as to which one is better between SMG2 and SMG1. They both feature some of the most fantastic and original levels I have ever seen in a game. And you know you can't go wrong with the gameplay in a Mario game. SMG2 is probably overall a better game, but the aforementioned problems really annoy me and I didn't run into this at all with SMG1. However, I actually think the level design is a bit better in SMG1. Again, both games are great. I think IGN gets a little too excited about the scores. I think these games should score more like a 9 instead of a 10.

First World Problems

I had to log out of Ubuntu and into Windows 7 for the first time in over a month. Why? I have a powerpoint presentation I am giving to a large crowd that I need to work on. Technically OpenOffice can edit powerpoint files (or I could probably install Office using Wine) but I've already created this powerpoint in Windows and since it is going to be used at a conference I don't want to risk any formatting issues.

Anyway, the point of this post is to give exhibit 1 of about 100 as to why I abandoned Windows. When I logged in, I spent 25 minutes downloading updates to 10 different things (Windows, Firefox, Java, Adobe, antivirus software, the list goes on and on.). Then I had to reboot, which required installing the Windows updates, rebooting, then configuring the Windows updates. After messing around with everything for about a half an hour, I finally gave up and decided that I would work on the presentation at another time. It's really quite ridiculous.

Of course, all of this can be filed under the "First World Problems" category. Things could be worse. I could be starving (just ate a blizzard) or living without central heat. It's like "Hey, you know the bluetooth in my Audi doesn't work very well at all." First world problems...

Chris Hardwick gets credit for this post title.

Working For The Weekend

Unfortunately I spent my weekend working, which obviously isn't the ideal way to spend a weekend. Both days at the hospital were pretty dull honestly. Nothing exciting happened, although sometimes that is a good thing. Not all was lost, however. I did get to turn some laps in my Renault F1 car on Saturday night and I even rocked out a bit to Phil Collins. You know a good time is being had when "Sussudio" makes an appearance. I really love the song Sussudio, but honestly every time I hear that song it makes me think of kids with Cystic Fibrosis:

"There's a bug growing in my lungs
It makes it hard to breathe
Pseu-Pseudomonas."

Classy

I examined a baby today that was (allegedly) conceived by a homemade artificial insemination device that was created by the husband of the adoptive mom. The surrogate mother was a family friend to the adoptive couple and her egg and uterus was used to conceive the baby. Folks, you cannot make stuff like this up.

I saw this little story in my inbox when I checked my email tonight. Seriously, this makes me want to smack this guy up side the head.

On my way home I saw quite possibly the prettiest rainbow I have ever seen. When I looked to my left not only did I see the other side of the rainbow, but I saw another rainbow too! A double rainbow! What does it mean?!?

Back to the Future

I'm not a big movie fan at all. I find most movies to be poorly written and/or executed and frankly to be dumb. Because of this I can probably count on one hand the number of new movies I see each year. With that being said there are a small handful of movies that I think are fantastic and thoroughly enjoy. One of my favorite movie series of all time is the Back to the Future films. They have been in the news a bit lately as this year marks the 25th anniversary of the first film. Seeing all of the old clips and reading about the films on the web put me in the mood to watch the movies, so last night I popped in the DVDs and watched the behind the scenes features for the first time. It is quite interesting to see and hear how the movies came together. A lot of the stuff about the movies that made them so iconic (such as the DeLorean time machine) came about either by pure luck or coincidence.

The Back to the Future movies (specifically I and II) are really quite unique. Part comedy/science fiction/drama, they pull from multiple genres and some how manage to tell a great story that is actually pretty complex while providing memorable characters. Again, one of my favorite movie series ever and it was a lot of fun to see some of the older behind-the-scenes footage for the first time.

Ch-Ch-Changes

When I first came up with the concept of creating this web site and how I was going to design the posts in terms of the content I was going to include, I imagined a situation where I would have a lot of short, almost twitter-like posts. I have done a few posts like that but for the most part the posts on this page have been quite lengthy (and subsequently quite time consuming). A lot of my posts take around an hour to put together. Before I started residency I was posting 3-4 times per week. However since I've started residency I have been averaging only one post per week. When you start working a lot of hours not only do you not have time to post, you don't have time to do anything to post about. Because of this, I've decided to begin reemphasizing the short post format. I still plan on having longer posts about bigger, more important topics. But littered in between these longer posts will now be a series of shorter posts. I think this will help keep the site a bit more fresh. Below is an example of what I am talking about.

As I was driving home from work this evening, I noticed that I am burning through a lot of good petrol on this commute to the Laf. I just fueled up Monday and I will probably need to get more gas before the end of the week.

Communication Breakdown

This past Thursday night was my last night working nights. I was ready for it to be over. Overall it was a good experience I think. But there were a lot of negatives. Working nights completely messes up your schedule. I would come home and more or less sleep all day, regardless of how much I slept the night before at work (which usually wasn't much). You don't do that when you work days - you usually have some time between work and sleep where you can get some other stuff done. I don't know if it's purely psychological or what, but you just seem to need more sleep when you work nights. Besides the change in schedule, the other thing that bothered be quite a bit was the lack of communication I received from anyone about what was going on. This is the first place I've ever worked where there was no hand off between day shift and night shift. I would just show up at 7 and have no idea if anything significant had happened to any of the patients during the day. I would spend the first half an hour or so every night just looking at the roster and seeing who was on the floor and what their diagnosis was. Sometimes there wouldn't even be a diagnosis on the computer or any notes in the chart. I found this to be quite frustrating as it was sometimes difficult to answer questions about patients when you didn't know what was going on.

Overall, like I said, it was an alright experience. I think it was necessary stepping stone in my medical education as it was the first time I have ever been on my own and was making decisions on my own without someone standing right over my shoulder watching. I think for the most part I did pretty well. There were one or two things I probably mishandled but hindsight is always 20/20. I tried to do my best and what was best for the patient and I think it went OK overall.

Changing gears a bit, I picked up the new Kings of Leon album last week and finally have had the chance to listen to it. Kings are one of my favorite newer bands out there. There are few albums that I really like on the first listen, but I think this new album is quite good and I liked it right away. It's a bit calmer than their older albums and I think it was more of a safer album than a risk-taking album. With that being said, it is easy listening and while only one or two songs really stick out to me, the whole album is solid and breezes by quickly. I'd highly suggest it for Kings fans or rock fans in general.




I am a bit sporadic today. The final thing I wanted to mention was this Miller Lite home keg I bought. I've been seeing these things on billboards around Indy for the past several months but they have always been out of stock at the store. Apparently there was an issue with the CO2 system on them and they all had to be recalled. Anyway, I finally got the chance to pick one up yesterday. They are pretty neat. The beer tastes decent, though mine has been a little gassy. It also takes up a lot of space in your refrigerator. It is kind of a neat idea but I think its a little gimmicky and I probably will just stick to cans or bottles in the future. Maybe if we have a get together I'll pick another one up.



I'm off to watch Purdue play Illinois. I am not really sure why I bother any more. But at least I know there is no way they will get spanked as bad this weekend as they did last weekend. That was really bad.

Ubuntu Was My Idea

I first started playing around with Linux-based operating systems around 2003 when I was doing software development at DePauw. Linux provides a great software development environment as it treats basic text files as executable files, meaning you can open up a notepad file and program directly into it. This is not the case for Windows-based machines. Ever since then I have always kind of wanted to install Linux on my own computer to have to tinker with. However, I never wanted to go through the hassle of reformatting and partitioning my hard drive, reinstalling Windows, etc. When XP crashed on my system a few weeks ago the perfect opportunity presented itself to dual-boot with Linux and Windows. I never thought I would be able to use Linux exclusively and abandon Windows completely...until now.

Here is a quick history lesson. The GNU project started in the early 1980s with the goal of providing a wide range of free software so that no one would ever have to pay for programs again. This ambitious project includes the creation of whole operating systems. All of the software in the GNU project is open-source, meaning anyone can view and edit the code of the programs and submit changes for improvements. In the early 1990s the GNU project launched its first operating system called GNU (Gnu Not Unix) which used a kernel (the part of the operating system that allows the software to communicate with the computer's hardware) developed by a third-party programmer called Linux. Thus, Linux was born. Today there are several Linux-based operating systems available, most of which are free. The Linux kernel has grown from running not only servers and software development centers to becoming more main stream, running on desktop PCs. How mainstream has Linux become? You can actually get some distributions like Ubuntu and Red Hat pre-installed on Dell machines. Ubuntu is one of the more popular, "user-friendly" versions of Linux and is the version I chose to run on my computer. It is a full-featured operating system that is so complete I use it 99% of the time and thus have mostly completely abandoned Windows. Below are the good (and bad) things about using Ubuntu.

• Ubuntu as an operating system: I am running Ubuntu 10.04, code named Lucid Lynx. The first thing you will notice is that it is fast. Boot time to Internet is markedly quicker than using a Windows machine. Launching applications, searching through directories, everything is quicker than what you are used to using Windows. The OS is quite stable as well. I have been using it daily for about a month with no system crashes. Visually, it is more similar to a Mac OS than Windows (shouldn't be surprising as underneath that fancy, and expensive Apple is a linux-based operating system). The visuals aren't as fancy as what you will see in Windows or a Mac, but everything works and I think sacrificing some of the fanciness is what makes the system faster. My only complaint with the OS thus far is that sometimes when you log-in there will be a tiny bit of the task bar with a gap in it. This doesn't affect function, it just looks annoying.

• Internet: Ubuntu comes with a host of great software. Mozilla Firefox is the default browser. I began using Firefox in the early 2000s when I first discovered it using Red Hat. It is a fantastic, open-source Internet browser that is far superior to Internet Explorer in my opinion. Since it is open-source it has numerous free applications to download, similar to the iPhone. My only complaint is that the flash player seems to be a bit sluggish and crashes frequently, requiring you reload the page. This was never an issue with Firefox in Windows. Otherwise, it's a great browser.
• Email: Ubuntu comes with a pretty solid email/calendar client (similar to Outlook) called Evolution. However, I've been using Mozilla Thunderbird for 4 or 5 years and decided to go with it. Since Thunderbird is developed by Mozilla, I had no problems finding and installing a Linux version.
• Multimedia: Ubuntu's default music (Rhythymbox) and video (Movie Player) software are solid. Rhythymbox features internet radio and a store and thus far has handled my music collection well, though to be honest I have only been adding music to it when I want to listen to something specific. Movie Player handles standard formats, including flash-based video and Quicktime files well. Both programs are on par with Windows Media Player (a program I've never been a fan of) and I am sure you could install iTunes or Winamp if you required something more heavy-duty (more on that in a bit).
• Word processing: Ubuntu comes with the fantastic Open Office. Open Office is solid on its own, but what makes it great and usable is the fact that it can open, edit, and save files in the various Microsoft Office formats. I haven't tested it a lot, but I have done this a few times with Office 2003 Word and Excel files without any problems. If I were a heavy Microsoft Office user the compatibility might worry me a bit, but since I am out of college and not writing a lot of papers and stuff on various computers, Open Office is great (and a great free alternative to the expensive Microsoft Office for Windows). Plus you could always install Microsoft Office in Wine (more on that in a bit).
• Antivirus/AntiSpyware: I am not currently running any of this type of software in Ubuntu. In fact, I'm not sure if it even exists. There really is no reason to have antivirus software in Linux, one of the perks.
• Available Software: Beyond the aforementioned software, there are tons of other great (and free) software titles available. Ubuntu 10 comes with the Ubuntu Software Center which allows you to search, download, and install a lot of great software easily. However, if you venture too far off this path you will likely run into problems. Downloading software from the internet and installing it like you do in Windows can be tricky. Surprisingly a lot of popular titles have Linux install programs but I didn't have much luck with them. Picasa is a perfect example. I followed their Linux version installation instructions word for word and could never get it to work. Also, if you install a lot of software or start getting too fancy, you will have to do stuff from the command line, MS-DOS style. There really is no way to avoid it and this might make some people uncomfortable.
• Available Software part 2: Just when you start to get frustrated by the fact that installing software from the internet is finicky at best, here comes Wine to save the day. Wine is a program you can install which allows various Windows programs to install and run in Ubuntu. I have no idea how it works, but in my experience it works pretty well. I got Windows versions of both Picasa and Faststone Image Viewer to work without any problem. Wine has a database of thousands of programs that have been tested and are compatible. Downloading Wine is a must for any Ubuntu user, and is really what sealed the deal for me in deciding to abandon Windows. Ubuntu all ready offers the same or similar programs for most of my computing needs, and the few software titles that it doesn't offer are supplied by Wine.

Just as a disclaimer, not all is perfect. Again, installing software titles can be tricky (thank Heavens for Wine). Setting up my home network to allow file sharing between my now Linux-based system and Sarah's laptop running Windows Vista required me to actually open and modify code in a C++ program. Installing the drivers for my printer required command line prompts. Oddly, some things like my Linksys wireless adapter and my memory card reader adapter Ubuntu found with no problem, while Windows 7 required driver installs. Again, some people probably wouldn't be very comfortable with a lot of this stuff. The Ubuntu Forums are a great place to get advice and help and for the most part I have been able to find any answers I need there.

I read an article once that said Linux was perfect for software developers and Grandmas. I think the article makes a lot of sense. On the one hand, Ubuntu can do basically anything a Windows machine can do. However accomplishing specific tasks like installing a printer or setting up a network can take some investigation and tinkering. Nothing is as straight forward in a Linux system as it is in Windows. This might scare away a lot of average, everyday computer users. As a former software developer, I actually enjoy the challenge and get a sense of accomplishment with most of this stuff (as long as I can get it to work eventually). The flip side is that Ubuntu is free, is faster than Windows, and isn't susceptible to viruses like Windows. If you are a very basic computer user (internet and email only, like a grandma) Ubuntu would be perfect too. With each update making Ubuntu more and more user friendly, I really think you will start to see more and more people switching to Linux-based operating systems. The price is right and they are safe. In fact, you can install Ubuntu over your Windows system without affecting your files or programs using this application. This allows you to give Ubuntu a trial run if you aren't ready to abandon Windows fully (like I am). It is a great, safe environment to surf the web and do stuff on-line and thus far I am quite happy that I made the switch.

F1 2010

F1 2010
System: PS3
IGN Score: 8.5
Release year: 2010

For those of you who know me well, you know that I am a pretty big fan of Formula 1 racing. It is the second most watched sport in the world behind soccer. It gets a lot of criticism here in the States for being too much of a fancy car parade, but if you pay attention to the season as a whole each year the racing is usually quite competitive. What I really like about the sport is the cars. Formula one cars are the most technologically advanced cars in the world. Every team has its own wind tunnel and engineers spend millions (yes, millions) of dollars figuring out ways to shave tenths of seconds off lap times around the most complex racing circuits in the world. The FIA is pretty secretive about car stats, but here are a few quick stats I know from watching F1 every week:

• cars weigh around 1300 lbs with driver weight included
• they produce somewhere in the 8 to 900 bhp range
• the cars cost 6-7X what a NASCAR costs - they are $1,000,000+ race cars
• They produce greater than 2G of downforce by just lifting off the throttle
• Their engines are rev limited at 18,500 rpm
  
• They had an older Renault F1 car on Top Gear the other day and it went 0-150 mph in 2.9 seconds

I waited all summer long in 2009 for F1 2009 to be released on the Wii. When it finally came out in November of 2009 and sucked, I was quite disappointed (although not surprised as 98% of games on the Wii are terrible). When I first heard about F1 2010 on the PS3 last spring, I was quite excited and have been looking forward to the game ever since then. Its the first time in 3-4 years an officially licensed F1 game has been here in the US. I bought the game a few weeks ago shortly after it was released and it did not disappoint. This is the best F1 game I have ever played. There are a few things it doesn't do well, but luckily those things are only mild setbacks to what is overall a great game that I would recommend to any F1 fan or racing fan in general. First the good stuff.

This game does an excellent job of simulating the speed at which these cars go around the tracks. As I am driving I really feel as if I am pushing the limit of going fast and being out of control. I hit curbs as I am entering and exiting corners. I can't even look at my telemetry (a complaint I will talk about in a bit) because I can't take my eyes off the road long enough without wrecking. Passing is difficult because it requires you to get off the best line around the track and as soon as you do that you can't get around the track quick enough to catch the guy ahead of you. Again, I watch F1 every weekend and the racing action and the way the sport is represented on the game is the best I have ever seen.

Other positives briefly include the graphics. The game looks spectacular, and this is especially highlighted when racing in the rain. The water sprays on the camera like it would on your visor making it difficult to see when you are driving directly behind other cars. It is quite amazing. All of the real teams and drivers are on the game, as well as the real-life rules like having to pit to switch from prime to option tires. Also the game is quite challenging. You are forced to pick from a weaker team at the beginning of the year, and it is quite difficult to match the speeds of the Red Bull and Ferrari teams. I play on easy with all the driving aids on, and although I've won a few races, I've also finished last in a few races. All of this makes everything you do on the game during a race weekend feel like a real-life F1 event.

Now for some of the bad stuff. The telemetry is a bit lacking. Actually, information in general is lacking. To start off, the timing is on the far upper corners of the screen. Luckily it is color coded (red for slower, green for faster) and the colors catch my eyes, but usually I am so focused on the road I can't look up to see how quick (or slow) my lap times are. And it can be difficult to figure out how far behind I am from the next car in front of me. It would be nice if your crew chief came over the radio and read you this information. His input gets repetitive anyway, so give him something more to say.

The career mode is focused on life as a driver, and has you doing interviews and looking at contracts and team offers, similar to a franchise on Madden. This is a great idea, but is a bit weak and shallow in the game. The interview section frequently asks the same questions and I don't really see the point in it. Again, good idea, but needs to be improved or dropped in future games. Also, the whole menu system in general is a bit odd. However if you are familiar with Codemasters' other games, like Grid or Dirt, it will seem familiar.

What I would like to see next year is an improved telemetry system with more information that can be accessed without crashing your car. Also, the career mode needs to be strengthened a bit. In general, though, this is the best F1 game I have ever played and highly recommend it to any race fan.

The House of God

The House of God is a fictional book written in the 1970s by Samuel Shem about medical school graduates who are starting their intern year. I do a lot of reading for my job so whenever I have free time I usually don't spend it reading books. However this book is well-known in the medical community and since it obviously directly relates to what I am doing right now I decided to pick it up from Amazon and read it.

The book centers around main protagonist Dr Roy Basch and the psychological harm done to him during his intern year while working at The House of God. The House is an analogy for the hospital where Basch works, which is supposed to be the best hospital in the country. Roy isn't prepared for the long hours and psychological consequences of his job - namely constantly being around death. One of his senior residents, named the Fat Man, teaches Roy that in order to deal with the stress and provide good health care he must do almost the opposite of everything he has ever been taught. This mostly involves doing as little as possible. After Roy adopts this policy, his team quickly becomes the best intern team in the hospital.

The book goes into great detail talking about the psychological changes that come directly from Roy's job. Namely the poor working conditions, long hours, consequences of medical decisions, lack of time spent with friends and family, and emotional demands of the job. As a consequence, Roy's personality and outlook on life suffer greatly. His relationship with his girlfriend suffers too. He begins having relations with one of the girls in the social services office (which he nicknames the sociable cervix) and with one of the nurses. At one point in the book Roy secretly euthanizes a patient suffering from great cancer pain as he becomes more and more callous. One of Roy's co-interns makes a mistake early on when treating a hepatitis patient who later become comatose. The attending docs bother this intern about the mistake to the point that he later jumps out of a window, committing suicide.

By the end of the book, one of the psychiatry residents convinces almost all of the interns to go into psychology and that they should seek psychological help themselves. In the end Roy and his girlfriend are vacationing in France before Roy starts his residency in psychology and he asks her to marry him.

A lot has changed in medicine in the 40 years since this book was written. Residents still work a lot of hours but their schedules are now controlled and limited by federal laws. Medicine is much more of a multi-team, multi-disciplinary approach now with multiple quality control measures in place so it is difficult to pin mistakes on one person as every decision goes through several people to ensure safety. The book features a lot of sex between the various interns and nurses. In my experience that really doesn't happen all that much (not saying never). Of course at my hospital most of the nurses are twice as old as the interns so that might be part of the barrier. And while doctors do have one of the highest divorce and suicide rates among any profession, an intern jumping out of a window to commit suicide seems a little over the top. The whole book, frankly, was a bit over the top honestly. But it was an interesting read, and there were parts of it I could relate to. Mostly the Laws of the House of God, which I have listed below.


I. Gomers don't die

• Gomer is an acronym for Get Out of My ER. This rule is stating that when taking care of people on the floor, you don't have to worry about the elderly sick people. It is the young and middle aged people who you have to worry about something happening to and dying.

II. Gomers go to ground

• Be careful - the elderly fall easily.

III. At a cardiac arrest, the first procedure is to take your own pulse

• I agree with this statement 100%. I've already mentioned it in an earlier post.

IV. The patient is the one with the disease

• One day I was interviewing a patient and when I was finished I walked back to the attending with a frustrating look on my face. When he asked me what was wrong I explained that nothing the patient said made any sense and that I was frustrated with the fact that I couldn't figure out what they were talking about. He just looked at me and said "It's them, not you."

V. Placement comes first
VI. There is no body cavity that cannot be reached with a #14 gauge needle and a strong arm
VII. Age+BUN=Lasix dose

• Interesting enough this is usually pretty accurate, although we don't follow this guideline for dosing Lasix. BUN - blood urea nitrogen, a metabolic waste product. Lasix is a diuretic ("water pill").

VIII. They can always hurt you more
IX. The only good admission is a dead admission

• This rule plays on the theme in the book that most medical procedures actually harm patients more than help.

X. If you don't take a temperature you can't find a fever

• see explanation for rule IX.

XI. Show me a BMS (best medical student) who only triples my work and I will kiss your feet.
XII. If the radiology resident and BMS both see a lesion on a chest x-ray, there can be no lesion there
XIII. The delivery of good medical care is to do as much to nothing as possible.

• Again, see explanation for rule IX. For the most part I adopt this strategy when taking care of patients on nights. I don't go out of my way to find something to do. I respond when there is a request or problem only.