A time to celebrate……and to give back

I love fresh powder (aka artificial ice without a 4 hour drive) and my wife loves nothing more than buying purses that could feed a country! So we find ourselves in Union Square a lot, specially during the holidays.

I’m no philanthropist but when I start my day with a chanied-letter-powerpoint showing how kids around the world are suffering and need food more than gifts, it breaks my heart that we end our day with a car filled with shopping bags.

When you are blessed enough to buy the latest gear at Chanel, loosen up your wallet to feed the homeless….doesn’t take the guilt away, but makes you feel good about giving back.

Equal Opportunity Porn?

Damn those brown girls are at it again!  Check out brown girls to read more about these Devis who continue to make people cringe with their controversial comics.

I’m keeping this post short and sweet…back to Nailin Pailin now.

Virtual reality kills

Virtual reality is starting to cross barriers into the real world. Recently in Tokyo, a Japanese teacher’s divorce from her ONLINE husband (yeah, I said online husband….like not real and shit….marriage in that 3D world…) in a virtual game made her furious. She hacked his information, logged in to the game “Maple Story” and committed a digital murder by killing her husband’s character/avatar. She was charged and fined for this tech crime.

“I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry,” was the official quote she gave to her neighbors and officials.  Luckily for this “online husband”, the woman didn’t hire a real world hit-man.

Maple Story is the equivalent of Second Life in the US.  In these virtual social networks, people create avatars, buy islands with REAL MONEY, and interact with other avatars.  Most of these people are living vicariously using their online persona.  While I can see myself gambling away real money at a real poker table in Vegas, I just can’t see it being spent on a virtual stripper or a private island that is only accessible online.

I understand the entertainment value of these virtual networks but just don’t get how people can get passionate enough to start living and breathing this stuff. I already have  my parents and a wife in my real life…do I really need their virtual clones so the nagging can continue on and offline?

Vote yes on “We don’t need doctors!”

If this proposition doesn’t exist, I’m petitioning for one!

I’ve visited a couple of doctors this week to prep for international travel. I went to see a Physician yesterday. This was my first doctor visit in a long time so I picked a random physician from the HMO directory.  I was a bit nervous when I saw he was located in a strip mall and the big channel letter sign above the building said, what else…PHYSICIAN.  The fact that he was between an Indian grocery store and a Taqueria added to my apprehension but a physical was way overdue so I took the leap and went in.

TWO HOURS! - two hours of my life I could’ve spent taking pictures with the new lens I just got, constantly updating my twitter status, looking at random blogs and videos, were spent waiting in the lobby, being passed around from one room to another….feeling violated before the damn physician said there’s nothing wrong with me ;->

First it was the new patient registration form that sucked the life out of my semi-carpal-tunneled hands.  For the 50th time:

- I don’t have Aids

- I don’t have Hep B, C or Z (Z coming soon to a neighborhood near you unless we stop f***g up our animals and crops with weird ass pesticides and genetically treated hormones)

- I drink occassionally (okay this one I have to lie a little) and I don’t smoke.

- Oh and no surgeries, allergies or family histories.

Second came vitals and this obnoxious “oh no you dii..n’t step on the scale the wrong way” nurse. Third I saw the mother of multi-taskers, my “preferred physician” who, with a staff of 5, was trying to see 30 patients an hour.

I know our healthcare system is bad (yeah yeah…we know you darn joe the Canadian plumbers) but yesterday made me realize it’s not just bad, it’s terrible. I pay enough for health insurance, and if I show up on time to an appointment, I better not have to wait for more than 15 unless a man shows up with a head stuck in a blender.  Although chances are I’ll ask him “I’d let you go homey but gotta go back and update facebook and stuff…can you wait it out? I came here on time and was way ahead of you.”

This is not the first time that I’ve waited for an appointment for over an hour, and am sure it will continue to happen again.  I know I can live my life playing doctor on the biggest health care database.  Can you?