Overheard conversation on the bus:

Girl with a paper shopping bag that had "Coach" Leatherware written on it: *Holds up a small handbag for the inspection of the bus driver* I love Gucci. You know, Gucci as they made it in the 60s. You can tell the difference between the real thing and the fake. You touch it and you can tell the difference.

Bloke with apparently "designer" shoes and huge eyes: Yeah, folks here won't know it. Does an eyeroll with those especially huge eyes. You know, this girl at school flat out denied, I MEAN DENIED *taps the bus seat for effect* that outlets like Coach and Nordstrom even existed. These people...

Coach Girl: I am proud to say I wasn't born in this poor ass city. I was born in Chicago, that's where I was born.

Huge Eyes: *Rolls huge eyes* I went to Colombus *pulls out a mall map and waves it around* *Bus driver turns around 180 degrees in her seat while navigating an intersection, I almost pass out in fright* Now here's a Nordstrom, here's Gucci. Now that's when you know the economy of a city is doing well. When you have stores like Nordstrom. Here, there is no hope. I mean people don't know Coach and Nordstrom exist. You see here *waves around mall map once more* there are all these stores.

• Here Coach Girl and Huge Eyes go off into a long long long prattle about the merits of designer stuff and the general ignorance of buffalo, making sure that the whole bus gets to know that they are really not from here.* *I zone out and my eyes glaze over.*

• Ping: Now approaching Bird Street* *I shake out of my vanity-drivel induced reverie.*

Coach Girl: This here is an original Coach bag, I go there all the time. You know imitation, it just isn't the same.

Huge Eyes: Yeah, I am from New York City. I know. We can tell you where you get the real nice stuff. *Coach girl gives emphatic nod, clutches the "genuine Gucci" bag closer*.

• Their stop comes around, they get off and bus driver hands her card to them and says, "Yeah give me a call. I like the good stuff".

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I honestly couldn't believe this was not some kind of a sloppy ad-placement daytime TV show. Hahaha :)

Watch that alcohol intake this holiday/party season... oh wait, better watch it ALL the time because:

From:
In contrast to studies on cardiovascular disease, this study found that moderate alcohol consumption was not protective against normal age-related differences in total brain volume. Rather, the more alcohol consumed, the smaller the total brain volume*.

Yeah, I *love* to be the messenger of any news against my favourite two HUGE preventable causes of >60% of morbidity and >100% loathsomeness around the world.

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Reference:

• Paul CA et. al. Association of Alcohol Consumption With Brain Volume in the Framingham Study Arch Neurol. 2008;65(10):1363-1367.

I was looking up good presentation software alternatives for the PC (yeah, I do not have keynote, you elite mac owners!) when I found this very cool whiteboard explanation of the credit crisis. With my fascination for the KISS (K.eep I.t S.imple and S.tupid) principle for presentations and additionally, a new-found fascination for understanding what the hell is going on with the economic situation facing the planet, I could not help but appreciate the wonderfully coherent way, in which Paddy Hirsch explains it all.

Basically, its a champagne and whiteboard enhanced version of (e:jim)'s detailed and awesome explanation ((e:tinypliny,45704)).



It strengthens my opinion that the whiteboard is the most effective presentation software out there. I am still playing with the idea of going the whiteboard way for my dissertation proposal...

There are some other alternatives for out-of-options PC users who are sick of the clunky and ugly PowerPoint or even the open-source OpenOffice Impress (yeah, opensource is very appealing, but after 5 years of non-stop use, I think Impress is still not up to snuff with what makes an appealing presentation). Google Docs is at an embryonic bare-bones state. 280slides.com might be a messiah but I need to try it out first to be sure.

The real questions are, however:
1. Am I coherent enough to take this risk and let go of the presentation software crutch altogether?

2. Though my advisor here is at the leading edge of creativity, super-awesome, very open and receptive to experimentation, my remote advisor is old-school-by-the-book, too practical and grounded-to-rules kind of a person and might be difficult to persuade. The contrast between them is so striking when I think about issues such as these. :)

Yeah! It finally happened! I was walking out the main hospital and I thought the face in front of me was really really familiar - like a friend you see in a 125px x 150px window almost everyday. It was the evil (well, not really but it sounds so cool!) Dr. Fing!!!!!!

It was wonderful to finally meet you (e:fing)! I wish you and your wife good luck with the baby!!! Hope it all goes well when the exciting time rolls around. Personally, I am just jealous of the baby already. I always wanted my own room with orange-accented walls and cool artwork! :^)

PS: I actually can't believe I am so involved in my (e:strip) screen persona that I forgot to tell you my real name and introduced myself as tinypliny! Yikes.

I feel like I should take a stance today, now that I feel conflicted about the shaky economic policies of not only the right, central and left winged but also, the wingless scum in politics.

If I had franchise (I don't, unfortunately. So this is basically building a stance-castle in pure air), I would MOST CERTAINLY NOT vote for:

1. People who are against abortion and euphemistically call themselves pro-life.

Several reasons:

-- I think the health and quality of life of women is important to the future of mankind. You cannot have unhappy, ill-treated women who are sick in mind and in body and expect their children (of either gender) to be healthy and lead fruitful and enriching lives or better this planet in the future.

-- Banning abortion not just takes away health-rights of women and decreases their quality of life, but also opens the wicker gate to the insanity of illegal non-medically approved life-threatening amateur abortion practices. Nothing can be more cruel to any living being than dying with a stick or a chemical abortifacient eroding your uterus just because some block-headed self-appointed judgemental delusional rich woman with several people to look after her own brood of kids decided that you need to carry your foetus to term as well, because she did and that some insular "God" of hers thinks its the "right" thing to do. Yeah, shame on you if you are not a "caring sacrifice-making parent" regardless of whether you can or cannot afford it, mentally, physically, emotionally and financially. Who cares about the mom, right? We just need to bring as many kids into this world as we possibly can regardless of the cost to the woman. They can take care of themselves and also their kids. If I did it, well, so can anyone.

-- Double-standard-ridden privileged freaks who are far far away from understanding what it is like to be a helpless real-world middle class single poor woman who is also pregnant do not really deserve to be honoured with the status and title of a "woman".

-- Making abortion a social stigma is just as bad, if not worse. Not only do you judge women for the simple fact that she wants control over her dizzyingly out of control life but make it mentally, psychologically and emotionally a trauma for her to get even a legal abortion. Can you be any more effective in violating the human rights of a living being? I think not.

2. People who still believe in Creationism.

-- Frankly, at this point, after centuries of scientific proof, you are shuddering-ly scary. Your ignorance points to the fact that you are happy living under a rock. What will you do when medical principles behind this "far-fetched" "fiction" of evolution lead to the conception and design of drugs/therapies that cure cancer (and yes, I see this happening in the future)? Will you go into self-denial and refuse to take these drugs. I hope you do. The world would be rid of morons like you. Ugh

Yeah, these two issues are going to be my two heavy and stable cornerstones of political decisions for now.

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@(e:metalpeter): This is not my "tough" post either. That needs to be on the back-burner some more time.