An Amazing Product and Person

It's amazing how much changes in the technology world in just a few years. My last cell phone was a Samsung Black Jack II running Windows Mobile 6. I bought this phone in 2007, the same year the first iPhone was released. The reason why I bought the Samsung is because I was interested in running medical reference software on my phone and at that time shortly after iPhone 1 was released there really was very little software available for the Apple phone. Fast forward just a few short years and the iPhone is everywhere and has just about any kind of software you can think available to it.

My old Samsung was starting to act goofy so I decided it was time for an upgrade and I decided to get the new iPhone 4s. I'm not going to spend any time talking about the iPhone itself because by now everyone has seen one and pretty much knows that they are great products. I do want to spend a brief moment mentioning Siri, the digital assistant on the iPhone 4s. Siri is an assistant that can look up info for you and schedule meetings and reminders. She is activated by voice commands. There are two things that I find truly amazing about Siri. First off, you can talk to her like she's a human. You don't have to use a pre-determined vocabulary or read commands off a list. You can just ask her a question like you would your neighbor and most times she understands what you are saying and can answer the question or perform the command without trouble. The second thing that amazes me about her is that she has a personality. When I asked her if she had a sister she told me to "Get back to work." It's really one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, and I'm hard to impress. After seeing this I really think that talking robot maids, as seen in the Jetsons, will be in my lifetime. For those of you who haven't seen Siri yet, below is an official Apple commercial for the iPhone 4s. How it is being used in the commercial is exactly how it works in reality. There is no exaggeration here.





After the sad passing of Apple CEO Steve Jobs a few weeks ago from complications of pancreatic cancer, there was a ton of press about him referring to him as an icon and a genius. At first I thought all of this was a bit exaggerated, but after doing some reading and research about him I discovered he truly was an amazing man. Technology moves so fast and has become so affordable that sometimes it is easy to forget how amazing our gadgets really are. People take iPhones for granted but just four and a half years ago nothing like the iPhone existed for consumers. During Jobs' press conference for the first iPhone, he said that his company was going to change how people talked on and used phones, and that is exactly what he did. For the first time in history a communication device that could take pictures and share data in such an easy to use and intuitive way was available. Jobs didn't invent the smart phone, he perfected it. After owning one for just a few weeks, I can honestly say it is one of the most amazing things I've ever used. It is nearly perfect.

Perfection was definitely Jobs' best attribute. He didn't so much invent his successes as perfect them. From the first personal computer with a graphical user interface and use of the mouse, to Pixar animation studio, to the iPod (and the digital music download revolution), and finally the iPhone. Jobs was a genius at human-computer interaction. Obviously life will go on without him but I think he will be missed. Only very rarely does someone come along who has an impact on such a large array of people. For people in my generation, Steve Jobs very well could have been that person.

Go Crazy Folks!

I think only one word can describe the Cardinals winning the World Series this year: unbelievable. From being completely out of the playoff picture to clinching the Wild Card on the final game of the season, to Chris Carpenter's amazing pitching performance against the Phillies and throughout the playoffs, to Tony LaRussa's manager performance where every move seemed to work just right, to the rally squirrel, to the weather pushing game 6 back a day allowing Carpenter to pitch in game 7, and to the amazing finish of game 6 where the Rangers had St. Louis down to their final out on two separate occasions, everything seemed to go the right way for the Cardinals. As Eric Karros put it, I think we just witnessed destiny. Absolutely unbelievable.

Moxibustion Update

My first Moxa treatment did make the overall footprint of the wart get a wee bit smaller. Unfortunately, it is still very much there. I went in for a second treatment yesterday. It didn't hurt as much this time. Hopefully in two weeks it will be significantly smaller or even gone!

Must See TV

Other than sports I've never been one to watch a lot of TV. That has changed a bit lately. I think there are two reasons for this. First of all having a DVR makes watching your favorite shows much easier than in the past. If I had to sit down and watch the shows as they were airing I probably wouldn't be able to watch nearly as many shows as I do now. Watching TV when you have time and at your convenience really makes following shows much easier. The other big thing that helps is not having constant pressure to study for the next test. I've had a DVR for several years now, but for the past 8 to 10 years I've always had tests coming up around the corner so I felt like I had to be studying every free minute that I had. Don't get me wrong, I still do a lot of reading and studying, but because I don't have tests all of the time anymore most of my studying happens during the day while I'm at work.

In some small way I feel like I've made it because I now have premium cable. We used to have Netflix but it got to the point where we weren't really using it much so we decided to get rid of Netflix and get HBO. I have little to no interest in most of the movies on the show but their documentaries and original shows are almost always excellent. One of their old shows I've been watching a lot of recently is Curb Your Enthusiasm. Curb was created by Larry David, the co-creator and writer on Seinfeld. If you liked Seinfeld you will like Curb as the shows are very similar. Basically, the show is about Larry David as he runs into everyday things and he isn't afraid to say what is on his mind, which creates awkward and funny situations. He frequently says things that I think most people would like to say in real life but their internal filters won't allow.




Another show that I've been watching on HBO is Boardwalk Empire. It stars Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson, a politician in Atlantic City during prohibition involved in alcohol smuggling. The show is based on real events that happened during the time and features well known gangsters such as Al Capone and Arnold Rothstein, famous for his involvement in the 1919 World Series scandal. I'm a huge gangster genre fan and this show is done very, very well. Of course, Martin Scorsese is involved so I shouldn't be surprised.




I felt obligated to start watching The Biggest Loser this year since Anna K was on. I've never had any interest in the show in the past but I must say it is pretty interesting. In the beginning some of the contestants were losing 30 pounds per week, which is absolutely amazing. This year they divided teams by age and Anna's team is the old team, which is absolutely not fair to her at all. The older people don't get anywhere near the intensity the younger people reach. The show itself is fairly interesting, but as an Anna fan it is interesting to see her in this kind of environment because you get to see emotions from her that I've rarely seen from her on the tennis court in the past. She's a typical Russian, meaning she's very reserved and keeps to herself in general, but on this show she shows some emotion which is nice. I hope they keep her around for the next season.




During the NLCS TBS bombarded us with promos for The Big Bang Theory. I've been somewhat intrigued with the idea of the show but have never checked it out. Finally after seeing about 100 ads for it I started to record it. Plus it's a bit easier to watch now that it's on TBS all of the time. I've only seen 4 or 5 episodes but so far I really like the show. I'm a bit of a science nerd myself so I appreciate jokes about physics. And once I heard a joke about Ubuntu I was hooked. Jim Parsons' character Sheldon is hilarious on the show, and I really like girl-next-door pretty Kaley Cuoco, who plays Penny on the show.




These are all of my weekly shows, and it doesn't even include regulars PTI and Attack of the Show, along with sports and a few others. I might have to cut back on one of my jobs so that I have more time for all of this TV!

The Covered Bridge "Festival" Sucks

Sarah and I went to the Covered Bridge Festival in Parke County over the weekend and let me tell you, it was awful. Don't get me wrong - The weather was nice and it was nice driving around on the country roads and seeing the bridges. The scenery was nice for sure. It kind of reminded me of being back home in Martin County. And even I'll admit the bridges are pretty cool. Seeing them kind of takes you back in time a bit. But the "festival" itself was terrible. Let me explain.

So the bridges are located throughout Parke County and there are different routes you drive on to see them. Along the routes are towns which are holding the "festival". Driving around the countryside and seeing the bridges wasn't bad at all and was even a bit enjoyable. However, once the routes got into the towns it was a different story. Each town was a complete cluster. We spent literally hours in traffic jams. I spent more time in the car sitting than doing anything else. The jams even started before the towns on the major highways as every single house on the way had garage sales where people were aimlessly wandering across the highway and cars parked just inches off the road. As we slowed to a crawl I noticed that every sale had the same thing - junk. I've never understood the fascination with garage sales. Why would I want to buy someone else's junk they didn't want? Anyway, once we got past the jams and into the towns where the "festivals" were held, there was nothing there except block after block of fair food stands and more people selling junk. That's it. And, so many people that it was difficult to walk or move. And most of them were smoking copious amounts of cigarettes and looked like they just got out of jail. I found the whole event to be just awful.

Unless you like sitting in the worse imaginable traffic jams and buying junk, I'd skip this "festival". If you like the bridges do yourself a favor and go on a random weekend when the "festival" isn't taking place. You'll thank me later.







Also, on a side note, Go Cards! They've made an amazing run to get into the playoffs and so far so good. I've got a good feeling about how this post-season is going to end.

Things To Come

This should be an interesting week as starting on Tuesday I will begin working evenings at Brownsburg. I will be working a few hours there on Tuesdays and Thursdays and this will be the first time I am working on my own as a physician, unsupervised. I'm a bit nervous but I think things will go OK and should be a great learning experience for me. I'll have more on this in the future once I get rolling out there.

Sarah and I both got new phones over the weekend. She updated her Blackberry with a newer Blackberry (seen here) and I updated my old Windows phone to the new iPhone 4s. I'm hoping to get it within the next couple of weeks. I'll have a full review once I have received the phone and have had time to play around with it a bit. I'm pretty excited about it to be honest. However, at this point I am in the process of starting to figure out how to best run iTunes through Ubuntu without having to log out of Ubuntu and back into Windows. Hopefully it goes smoothly, but this honestly is one of the unfortunate costs of running Linux over Windows.

As for an update on my thumb, I think the moxibustion killed about 90% of the wart. Unfortunately, the 10% that is left is enough for it to start growing again, despite Compound W treatments so I think I'm going to have to go back in this week and have a second round of moxa performed.

Also of interest, I got my car back from the body shop on Friday. This car seems to be a magnet for dings and scratches, unfortunately. I took it into the shop because something nicked the paint on the front bumper and made a little defect that started out the size of a quarter and was growing. By the time I took it into the shop it was about the size of a baseball. I was afraid my whole front bumper was going to chip away if I didn't fix it so I bit the bullet and took it in. I was pretty nervous about it because they had to take the whole front bumper off the car to fix it properly. I was satisfied once I saw the car because the bumper looks great and they completely detailed the car so it looks like a brand new car! Before and after pictures below.

Quarterback Can't Hold the Ball That Long!

Madden NFL 11
Year Released: 2010
System: PS3, others
IGN Rating: 8


Madden NFL football is one of my favorite gaming series ever. I began playing in the mid '90s on the Sega Genesis and have played many versions throughout the years. I just pulled up some video footage of Madden '94 on YouTube and it is amazing to see how the game has changed over the years. Sometime in the early 2000s (I believe) they added franchise mode, which not only let you play a full season with your favorite team but allowed you to play multiple seasons with the same team. In between seasons players would retire, you would have to resign your players, participate in free agency and the NFL draft to fill gaps in your roster, set prices for tickets and other events at your stadium, and manage finances. It was an amazing new feature to see how players would progress throughout their careers and there was quite a lot of strategy that went into building a winning team. You had to spend money to get good players, but you were restricted by the salary cap, and you had to capitalize on your spending by winning or else no one would come to your games and you wouldn't make any money. I spent countless hours on franchises on Madden 2002 for the PS2.

Madden 2002 was the last Madden game I seriously played. After that I was too busy with school to play games and the Madden games were getting to be too difficult. You almost had to have NFL coaching experience to be any good. However, I've been in the mood to play some Madden so I picked up Madden 11 for $15 on Amazon. Madden 12 is out as well but it cost $60 and is basically the same game as 11. I have no idea why they come out with a new version of this game every year when the versions are basically the same. I think they could pretty easily come out with a new game every few years and just supplement with downloads in the meantime. My guess is that they haven't figured out how to make money doing that yet so they just try to sell people a brand new game every year. The way I see it, unless there are major changes I think it is well worth saving the $45 and just getting the game that is a year old.

This is a typical Madden game so if you've liked the games in the past you'll likely enjoy this game as well. Sadly they've dumbed down the franchise mode a bit. You still have to do roster management and the draft and everything, but unfortunately they've basically taken away price setting and advertisement budgets. You basically don't have to worry about finances or attendance at all in this version. On the plus side there is a new feature that allows coordinators to call the plays for you. Football purists won't like this but you can turn the feature off if you like. I like the feature because as I said, the play calling has got so intense it seems like you have to have coaching experience to have success. Plus they pick reasonable plays most of the time.

All in all it is a solid game and if you like football and are a fan of the Madden series of games, it's a steal at $15. It has great game play and presentation, and the franchise mode, while dumbed down, is still involved and fun. I signed Manning to a 3 year extension (instead of the 5 he got in real life) and after seeing how the team is performing in real life this year, you better believe I got a plan in place for the post-Manning era. His name is Zack Legaux, rookie QB out of Florida. He's a third round draft pick. He is currently rated at 83 overall (Manning is 99), which is higher than Willy Wonka's (thanks for that, Craig) rating of 66.