Kanye West is a visionary and other critical musings

Take a good deep look at that chiseled face. I'll wait.

That, my friends, is what visionary looks like. Now I'll admit, I am not a huge rap/hip hop person. Sure I do love me some old school Snoop 'doggy doggy' Dogg Lion but I am not what one would call a fanatic. Occasionally I listen to some Jay-Z as well.  

But Kanye? Man he blows me away. His songs are symphonic. Perfect blend of melodies, rhythm, lyrics creates a pretty powerful experience. I understand he probably has a whole army of sound engineers, sound technicians, sound advisers, sound managers, sound quarterbacks whatever tweaking every little note but the finished product still carries his stamp of authority and approval.

Here's 'Homecoming', a great example of what I mean by symphonic:



The dude from 'Coldplay' is on the piano and the song begins with a beautiful piano riff that forms the backbone of the whole piece. It was everything, the clever puns, a catchy refrain, good meaningful lyrics. Pretty powerful song, really, that stays with you long enough and succeeds at evoking strong nostalgia and a tinge of wistfulness.

John Coltrane, the legendary Jazz innovator and renowned saxophonist, pioneered a technique called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheets_of_sound"> 'sheets of sound'

with his improvisation and creative arrangements. I think Kanye does something similar with his songs. He puts in a lot of thought, a lot of effort into creating the right blend of sound. Pick up his new album 'Yeezus' and listen to any of the songs on there ('Black skinhead' is my favorite) and you'll see what I mean.
Kanye may be a jackass, as President Obama so memorably called him in an off-the-record remark during a routine interview, but damn he is a visionary.

And since I promised other critical musings in my title to the post, you will be rewarded aptly:

Start the car and thank you for holding

 David 'Bumble' Lloyd is one of my favorite cricket commentators. Btw please don't be Jennifer Lopez and confuse cricket with croquet (as she does here). If you, as a loyal reader of this blog, are also confused, do the following:
a) Take a full minute to feel unbearable shame and
b) Read some of yours truly's excellent posts highlighting this very excellent game here and here.

He's an Englishman through and through and a bit of an extravagant joker. He played a few matches for England here and there, and coached for a few years before taking his talents to the much more lucrative (I presume) career as a commentator and a sports pundit. Bumble likes to the use the phrase 'Start the car' a lot and liberally peppers his sentences with that phrase, especially when he is on air. Bumble tweets here . 

Right then, onward.

I recently had the distinct pleasure of moving apartments. Mercifully my new abode is a mere floor above my old digs so it wasn't as bad as it can get. The new place is exquisite. Since I am not a man prone to exaggeration, you better believe every word I say. Seriously, this place is huge. Massive. Gargantuan.

It is lofty! (no literally  -  because it is a loft)
It has a balcony!
It has a wine rack! (not that I would every be caught dead putting anything in it)

The biggest surprise about moving is the sinking realization how much random shit you've recklessly accumulated over the years. I bet if everyone in America were made to move every two months, consumerism would die a gory death overnight.

The other dark side about moving is making calls to utility companies. I recently purchased new internet and made changes to my cable. All of that took me nearly five hours over three days. Seriously, we can put a man on the friggin moon but we can't come up with a better way to figure this shit out?! The metallic monotonous voice that greets you so blithely every time you call one of these entities gets so grating. Who in the right mind programs these things? And even the operators. Their obsequiousness is, quite frankly, unnerving. 

But that's all done with and here I am, sprawled across my majestic sofa, pecking away at my laptop like a boss.

Before I go, here's a link to what has surprisingly turned out to be by far the most popular post on this damn blog: post. It is a silly little post about a little experiment I did where I pseudohallucinated using ping pong balls and static noise. As of this writing it is responsible for close to 20% of this blog's traffic. We've been getting comments from all sorts of random people in far-flung places. 

Do tune in from time to time for more jazz and pizazz!

College basketball is boring and other random stuff

• I am coughing a lung out over here in sunny Southern California, but I must soldier to feed the insatiable urge of my dear readers. The show must go on, as they say (btw who the hell comprises this murky "they"? Why don't they ever reveal "them"selves?)

• For the first time ever, I deigned to fill out a bracket for march madness. Why, I don't know. Just wanted to get a taste of, I guess. Quite frankly, I am completely baffled by all the attention and hype. Let's be real here people: college basketball sucks. The level of play is obnoxiously abysmal, and the games are so boring and slow, even espresso shots can't keep me up. These teams get a 35 freaking second shot-clock and two 20 minute halves and yet games end with shitty scorelines like 64-60. What the hell are these people doing? It's an insult to the viewer. I would rather watch a far more superior product, the NBA. Meanwhile, feel free to clog up my facebook newsfeed with your inane complaints about bad coaches, bad referees and your desperate analysis of a sub-par sport.

• Just finished a block of exams. One more block to go. Infectious diseases was the biggest class of this block, and definitely had the most amount of stuff to learn/memorize. Which makes sense I guess, considering the myriad bacteria and viruses and badass worms have it in for you. And oh man, the cats. So many diseases transmitted through cats. Moral of the class: stay the hell away from cats. They are cute little furry monsters of death. Speaking of which, here's a picture of a cute kitten:

Patiently plotting world domination

                                      

That's it for now. Have a Happy Easter. 

This week in ranting: why is the pancreas so presumptuous?

Welcome to the second installment of "This week in ranting". Here is first installment: The lung is a noob .

A little background before we get started: today we had a small group session devoted to breaking bad news. Usually these small groups are a colossal waste of time. People sit around holding hands singing the kumbaya and nothing of any significance gets done. This small group session was an exception. Delivering bad news to patients is a critical skill and although teaching it this early might not have terribly important retentive value, at least they are exposing us to these things. Long story short, we were supposed to deliver a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer to actors pretending to be patients.

In the midst of this session, it suddenly struck me that the pancreas is a freaking presumptuous organ. I mean look at it. What other non-paired, singular organ in the body presumes to seem and sound plural?

Ever hear the heart calling itself the "hearts"? No! Because that would be stupid. And arrogant. How would you feel if the brain woke up tomorrow asking people to call it "brains"? The brain is a pretty important organ, right? Yet you don't see it letting all this important get to it. You don't see its ego swelling to the size of a dirigible.  Look at the liver - the humble little organ that could (well actually the liver is one of the largest organs in the body, but let's roll with it). It sits there patiently and meticulously filtering out all the toxins you and I brazenly dump in our bodies. But you will never hear it saying it prefers to be called the "livers."

Why the pancreas then? This gnarly (no, literally. The pancreas is pretty tortuous) piece of tissue with the texture and feel of a giant chicken tender is a fairly crucial organ. It spews out digestive enzymes and also releases important things like insulin and glucagon so your body doesn't all of a sudden go into a coma due to swings in glucose levels. But unlike the vital organs like the heart, liver or the brain, this punk slab of cells swaggers around wanting its name to seem plural. An obvious case of plurality envy, if you ask me. It is clearly jealous of the lungs, the kidneys, the testes, the ovaries, the eyes, the limbs and so on.

So I looked into this a little bit more. Turns out some ancient Greek idiot named it the pancreas (meaning "whole flesh"). The plural of pancreas is pancreases or pancreata (yuck). Here's probably what actually happened: some Greek anatomist was looking at this yet-unnamed organ and was preparing to call it something sensible and singular. But this punk probably threw a tantrum and threatened to dissolve all organs around it with its enzymes. Faced with such daring thuggery, the Greeks promptly called it the pancreas.

So here I am, seething with rage and incredulity, while the pancreas prances around holding us hostage.

This week in ranting: the lung is a noob

Exams on Monday - heart, lungs and kidneys.

The more I learn about disease processes in the lungs, the more incredulous I get. Simply put, the lung is such a noob at fighting infections. I mean look at it. Almost every insult to the lung ultimately results in irreversible fibrosis and some weakass exudative stuff going on in the alveoli which ends up doing more harm than good anyway. All the reactive immune responses in the lung end up causing harmful granulomas. Every kind of terrible lesion seems to happen in the lungs. Pus? We got it. Abscess? Ooh we have multiple kinds of abscesses. Which one would you like? Necrosis? Again, such a wide variety to choose from! Unresolved, persistent infections? Check. 

You would think the body would do a better job at protecting such a vital organ that literally keeps you alive by dumping out CO2 for O2 and by sweeping out all manner of gunk that gets in. 

That's my rant for the week. 

Why do I need to dress up for classical music?

I am a big big fan of classical music in all its glory and magnificence. Be it the quiet yet forceful presence of a Chopin etude or the grand opulence of a Shostakovich symphony, each piece is a profound experience in and of itself.

I've been to many concerts, both back in LA and here in St. Louis, taking advantage of generous student discounts. And every time I get into a discussion about my sartorial choices. You see, I refuse to dress "up" for classical music. Instead of busting out my neatly pressed dress-shirt and red striped tie, I show up in my day-to-day outfit: jeans, sweater or a jacket, and a shirt.

I've asked many times why it is necessary to dress up for an event like this and have never received a convincing response. Here is a sample of responses I normally get:

The multiple mini-interview: miracle drug or meh?

Multiple mini-interviews are all the rage these days among U.S. medical schools. Most Canadian schools already follow it, and last year UCLA, Stanford, UC Davis and a couple other places followed suit.

The concept is simple: there are 8-10 interview stations, each with a different question designated to it. Applicants are typically given 2 minutes to read the question at the station and then give a well though out answer for about 8 minutes to the interviewer at that station. After time's up, they rotate to the next station. The entire thing lasts about two hours. Questions mostly deal with ethical and moral quandaries one is expected to face as a physician.

The traditional interview format consists of one-on-one sit down interviews with faculty and/or current medical students (most schools do a combination of both).

Proponents think MMI is better because of two reasons:

1. It eliminates the subjectivity of the personal interview. At the end of each MMI session, each interviewer gives a score to each applicant. Since there are 8-10 stations, you now have that many scores for each applicant. These scores can now be compiled to create a list of the best applicants. Since multiple people are evaluating the applicant (as opposed to just one interviewer in the traditional format), subjectivity can be reduced.

2. The spontaneity cultivated by MMI will help "reveal" the true applicant and thus will help schools weed out poor applicants or posers. Each applicant at these interviews is made to sign a confidentiality form agreeing not to reveal any question to other applicants. In theory, this can prevent people from rehearsing questions beforehand. But just to be on the safe side, most schools also have two (or more) sets of slightly different questions they use each time.


The New York Times, in its curious, undying quest to define and implement the concept of the perfect doctor, latched onto this concept and did a lengthy article espousing its benefits. You can read the whole article here (provided you haven't run out of your 20 free articles a month quota or your subscription hasn't expired), but I will be quoting extensively in this post regardless.

First, let's let the good Times define what's at stake:

"Doctors save lives, but they can sometimes be insufferable know-it-alls who bully nurses and do not listen to patients."

Fair enough, but somehow the Times got this from the above:

"Even more dangerous is when poor communication becomes so endemic that the wrong operations are performed. A 2002 study published in The Annals of Internal Medicine of one such incident found that the patient, doctors and nurses went along with the mistaken treatment because they were used to being kept in the dark about medical procedures. A survey by the Joint Commission, a hospital accreditation group, found communication woes to be among the leading causes of medical errors, which cause as many as 98,000 deaths each year."

Whoa whoa whoa. I read the actual survey, and it cites "Communication" as a problem. Now that's a pretty broad term and it could include a lot of things, and I don't think the MMI alone is going to solve this problem.

But leave it up to the Times to tout this as the wunderdrug:

"The new process has enormous consequences not only for the lives of the applicants but, its backers hope, also for the entire health care system."

Look, let's not get ahead of ourselves, okay? I did two of these interviews last year, and I really really liked the format. It is very refreshing and unique. It definitely has its advantages over the traditional system. The pressure of coming up with a coherent response in a span of two minutes was very invigorating and it certainly helped polish my conversational skills. But to brand this format as the cure for all ills is a massive exaggeration at the very least, and a criminal lie at the worst.

For one, this system is not as fool-proof as the proponents make it out to be. It's kinda easy to fake being personable and all mushy-wushy when you have to do that for only 8 minutes. Furthermore, who is to say that personable people right now won't devolve into jackasses seven years from now, when they are attendings?

At a more fundamental level, I don't think bedside manner is as big of a handicap that can't be overcome . The Times has a new trend where it likes to create a straw man - arrogant doctor with no social skills and all the technical skills - and bash this to the ground. In reality, this is never the case (unless you are on TV and your name is Gregory House). Not everyone is outgoing and has the same level of rapport with everyone. But it is relatively easy to develop patient interaction skills through medical school. Of course, sociopaths must be weeded out but to predict someone's bedside mien seven years down the line based on a two-hour interview session as a pre-medical student is a gross mistake.

Just so you guys don't think I am all against this format, let me say that the spontaneity inherent in MMI is definitely worth it. The questions are thought-provoking and address real issues that physicians face once in practice.

Bottom line: It's a cute new format (at least for the U.S.), and I wouldn't mind if all schools adopted it. Use it to select students, but don't let it be known as the solution to communication and management woes down the line. Those issues are grave and likely have their own complex causes that are unlikely to be solved by a two-hour ethics-spouting session.

Is it the new penicillin? A big fat no from me. It's just a good interview format that probably has two or three advantages over traditional interviews.

Emoticons are stupid, and here's why

I hate emoticons. I think they are dumb, they are lazy, and they are completely misused. It is very irritating when people on the internet pepper almost all of their sentences with little smiley faces and winks and the one with the dude's tongue sticking out. My limited comprehension skills allow me to decipher only the most basic iterations of these devilish tools, and I become willfully blind to anything with tildes and big O's and little o's.

Pearls before swine, one of my favorite comic strips, captured my emotions about emoticons quite effectively:

Google+ and much ado about nothing

Google recently unveiled its own version of facebook, called Google plus. News organizations, always on the lookout for something sensational, touted this as the new facebook with better privacy options. As with all of its previous products, Google made this one invite-only. In any case, I have no interest whatsoever in ever using this newfangled contraption. Maintaining one social network is hard enough for me; I have no appetite or patience for another. In fact, I am seriously considering completely deleting everything on my facebook and leaving it for good. Even though I don't even use it that much, it is a huge distraction and a time sink. Maybe returning to email and phone will be good.

Google's new product raises a few questions, however. Why this irrepressible urge to one-up the other guy? Why are these tech companies in perpetual race against one other? I understand that innovation is key to growth (and ultimately profits), but sometimes you have to recognize a lost cause and concede. Apple has got the personal music player market pretty well covered, and Microsoft had to learn it the hard way. Google has so perfected the art of online search that it is foolish to spend money in R&D to come up with newer engines (I'm looking at you Bing). Similarly, facebook has a virtual monopoly on social networking in the cloud (600 million users and counting). Any new product designed to rival it has a very high chance of failing spectacularly.

But but isn't facebook the new myspace? Didn't myspace suffer a similar sad demise? Well, yes and no. Myspace arrived at a time when net users were still confused about their needs. It failed to offer complete protection against fake profiles and predatory behavior. It is not like facebook is much better in that regard, but facebook arrived with a sense of purpose. Its exclusivity (remember when you needed to have a college email address AND have someone from inside the network approve you to join? If you can't, you are too young) was a big part of its appeal. People trust it enough to post pictures of their lives and spend time searching for high school classmates, birth mothers and old flames. Just like youtube will never be dislodged from its perch, facebook is here to stay. Whether we like it or not.

Google plus, like its confused predecessor Google Wave, will be a minor player in netdom. Like the old bard said, much ado about nothing. More like google minus.

Wednesday morning rant: Trader Joe's

Last night I stepped inside a Trader Joe's for the first time in my whole entire total life. A friend of mine wanted to do some shopping so I tagged along.

Now I've heard quite a few good things about the establishment over the years from a number of folks.

Including, but not limited to, the following:

"Trader Joe's has naan!" or

"Their chocolates are soooo good!!! :) =) " and

"Trader Joe cookies. Oh yeah!"

Obviously, I went in with obscenely high expectations. I was already imagining myself as little Charlie in the gargantuan chocolate factory, swimming in delicious pools of molasses and caramel, watching oompa loompas party it up and all that. Instead, my oversized expectations were roundly booed off the stage like Charlie Sheen's lame act. They wilted like day-old marigolds and melted like a shitty wax candle.

They sell legitimate items like milk and eggs as a shameless ploy to hide their true motives: peddling overpriced junk to boisterously enthusiastic college kids.

Palm-sized packets of Trex mix for an astronomical $4?
An embarrassingly normal-sized swiss chocolate bar for $3? GFTO! I can easily buy ten cartons of delicious KitKat for that at Walmart!

The only thing TJ's has going for them is the free stuff. There is a cozy corner at the far end of the store where a bubbly fellow in a Bruin apron serves up bite-size delicacies for free every day, ala CostCo. Resting merrily right next to him is a comfortable pot of freshly brewed coffee.

Some day I will camp out in that corner and drink free coffee and munch on free food all day long.

While Rome burned

While Rome burned, good ol' Nero played the fiddle.

Something similar is going on right now.

Libya is falling apart at the seams. Japan is reeling from a terrible cocktail of earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear meltdown. The American government almost shut down over budget tussles. Protestors across the middle east are getting hammered by security forces. Ivory coast just completed its own mini civil war and managed to depose their tyrannical leader.

And what do our esteemed news channel talk about?

THE FREAKIN' ROYAL WEDDING. The guest list was leaked? Who cares?! Kate is getting five hairdressers? Big deal!

Look don't get me wrong. I am happy for the royal couple-to-be. This is going to be a big occasion for them.

And obviously I am not saying the news should be all about gloom and doom. We should allow a little bit of levity in our lives too. But can somebody please tell me why news channels are covering this ad nauseam? It's not even our frickin' country.

And don't get me started on the bullshit telemarketing companies loudly hawking replica rings by employing some schmuck with a phony British accent.