You first, Cisco.

If the last few days of rejoicingapathy's visit are any indication then it's a bunch of Mormons, the mountains, snow, waterfalls, the Great Salt Lake, the salt flats, and fry sauce, which contains even more salt!

My physics teacher is awesome. Today he talked about how kids in college take things too seriously and stress out more than necessary. People should enjoy their 20s as much as possible, school or no school, because once you reach your 40s you're not even going to remember what you were doing in your 20s, it's all a blur.

He also talked about how he started med school when he was 30 and one of his friends said "But Rich, you'll be 37 before you finish your residency!" His response was "I'm going to be 37 anyway, I might as well be doing something I want to do at that point." Considering I won't have my bachelor's until I'm 27 and then I want to do more school, this is exactly the kind of sentiment I needed to hear.

Saw Up tonight. It was excellent, I highly recommend seeing it in 3D if you can.

After, I went to a very impromptu third viewing of Star Trek (impromptu=the decision was made with less than 10 minutes to showtime) and somewhere in the first half hour I realized I really had to pee. I was able to hold out until ( spoiler ) and then I ran to the restroom.

I was the only one actually occupying the restroom at around midnight, until a few teenage boys (14-16ish) decided to wander in and be very loud and obnoxious and proclaim "Hey, there's a bitch in here!"

I calmly finished my business, left my stall and walked up to the nearest boy.

Me: "Hey, can I borrow your cell phone?"
Him: (a little stunned) "...what?"
"I need to make an important call and my phone died. Can I borrow yours real quick?"
"...sure..." (he reluctantly hands it over and his friends giggle a bit)

Thankfully it was a Nokia so I was somewhat familiar with its design. I went looking through the address book.

Him: "Who are you calling?"
Me: "Your mom. Is she listed under M or by her first name?"

It took him a second to realize what I had said, then he ripped his phone out of my hands and bolted. His friends were more shocked than amused and followed quickly. By the time I was done washing my hands and exiting the restroom they had vacated the area.

I made it back to the movie just in time to see ( spoiler ), which was exactly where I had hoped to re-enter.

ZeFrank linked to this article today and although I am the slowest reader alive I read the entire thing.

It's about a 70 year study of 268 men from their sophomore years at Harvard to the present. The study tried to pinpoint a formula or recipe for happiness which is a lofty goal but the study director feels he has found it: "Happiness is love. Full stop."

My other favorite quote from Dr. Vaillant is this:
"The take home lesson is always to enjoy where you are now. It’s all right that young people can do the things that they can do…the old envy is accompanied by the miserable process of getting from 25 to 35, where you’ve got all this health and all this youth and you’re scared stiff that when it’s all said and done you’re not going to amount to a hill of beans. And if you just wait, virtually all the men, by the time they were 45 or 50, amounted to something. Knowing that is such a relief; you just don’t know it at 30."

If you have the time you should read this article, otherwise you can just watch the six minute video on the first page. I highly recommend it.

Scrubs is over.

I didn't cry as much as I thought I would - I had braced for the emotional blow - but I'm sure I will when I re-watch the finale.

It hasn't fully sunk in yet, and I don't think it really will until I'm forcing my kids to watch the DVDs in 20 years.

On October 2, 2001 (thank you, wikipedia!) I was sitting in my dorm room at the University of Utah randomly chatting on IRC and trying to boost my spirits.

I won't recount the details, but my life that year was pretty crappy and little did I know it would only get crappier for the next few years.

While trying to forget my troubles I had decided to tune in to the premiere of a new sitcom I had seen ads for earlier in the week. All I knew was that it had something to do with doctors, the ads were funny and the lead actor was really cute.

If you haven't seen the first episode of Scrubs, let me assure you that it wasn't one of those pilots that you need to "get into," it's just like all of the good episodes of Scrubs: funny and engaging. I was hooked within the first 10 minutes.

I spent the next 3-4 years telling everyone I knew about this quirky little comedy but I rarely found anyone who had heard of it. Around the end of season 4 it somehow exploded into the public consciousness and suddenly people were telling me about how awesome my show was; the nerve!

I got over it and embraced the public endorsement of Scrubs like a big girl.

I can track the last 8 years of my life with memories of Scrubs episodes. Most vividly I remember the night when I witnessed a near-fatal car accident on my way home and when I finally arrived safely, the Scrubs episode I had taped (whose title escapes me) was about a young woman dying of cancer. The closing scene was the character exiting via a musical number; the thing she had always dreamed dying would be like.

There was also one night, after a particularly crappy day, when I came home expecting to watch a taped episode of Scrubs and instead I found Mormon marriage counseling, all because I had forgot to turn the cable on when setting the tape.

I remember where I was when Turk and Carla got married, when Ben died, when Laverne died, when JD's dad died, when Isabella was born, when Sam was born, when Dr. Kevin Casey sat on the epiphany toilet, when Ted's band sang my mom's favorite song (Somewhere Over the Rainbow), and when My Musical aired for the first time.

I've known Scrubs longer than I've known more than half of the people reading this. It's always been there for me when I needed cheering up, when I needed humbling, and most importantly when I needed to remember what was important in life.

Tomorrow is the series finale of Scrubs. It's going to be rough to say the least. Tonight's episode, which was only marginally sad, made me bawl like a little baby. (Apologies to those of you who will be over here tomorrow.) But it's okay. I've had 8 years with the show I consider a psuedo-sibling and that's more than most people can say about their favorite forms of entertainment.

Thank you for everything, Scrubs. I'll miss you.

I will add to this after I see the film again, but I wanted to get some things out while they're fresh...

( SUPER HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE NEW STAR TREK MOVIE. DO NOT CLICK UNLESS YOU'VE SEEN IT OR DO NOT PLAN TO SEE IT. )

The new Star Trek movie is awesome. I had some issues with it but they can be overlooked for all of the "OMGYAY!" moments. I will post a proper review after I see it a second time because I'm too tired to form coherent sentences right now.

Anyone who has been around me in person has already been inflicted with this for the last few weeks. Your turn, internet pals!

The part that should repeat over and over to be effective is "You're the best [hand clap] around, nothing's gonna ever keep you down!"

Good Omens

It's easily the best book I've ever read. It's entertaining and I think everyone would enjoy it. (Well...everyone I know, I'm sure there are some religious crazies out there that would say it's blasphemous, but I don't know them for a reason.)

vixen_shtorat, who is the friend I've known the longest, period, unless you count my family members that are friends. We've known each other...oh dear, 12 years or so? I can't remember if I was 12 or 13 when we met in an AOL horse chat room aptly titled "The Tack Room." Yes, we were awesome, thanks for noticing!

I'm glad we have LJ because I fear we would have lost touch without it and that would have been tragic.

The two best posts I've made (in my opinion) are here and here.

My biology teacher thought telling us about this parasite in class was too gross, but I actually think it's really awesome and weird.

DON'T READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU'RE EASILY DISGUSTED:

This parasite attaches itself at the base of the spotted rose snapper's (Lutjanus guttatus) tongue, entering the fish's mouth through its gills. It then proceeds to extract blood through the claws on its front three pairs of legs. As the parasite grows, less and less blood reaches the tongue, and eventually the organ atrophies from lack of blood. The parasite then replaces the fish's tongue by attaching its own body to the muscles of the tongue stub. The fish is able to use the parasite just like a normal tongue. It appears that the parasite does not cause any other damage to the host fish.

Lady Christina de Sassafras: "Doctor, I know this has nothing to do with me and, therefore, I have no interest in mentioning it, but it appears there's something coming over the ridge..."
Doctor: "But it can't be! I trapped them all in the void 3 years ago. Unsuccessfully."

Why am I not there right now?

For some reason Dexter has basically stopped eating his dry dog food. This is a very recent development; he ate fine for the first two months I owned him. Now it's like he can't be bothered.

At night I tempt him with cheese, but he only eats about half the food and picks out all of the cheese. Today I tried tempting him with wet dog food (the sauce of which I used to coat all of the dry food) and his solution was to eat the wet stuff and lick the sauce off of all the dry food and then discard it.

Normally I wouldn't care, I would just let him decide when he wanted to eat. However, he is losing weight rather rapidly. I can now clearly see his ribs when he is just laying or standing around, and I have to tighten his collar almost every day. Aside from trying other dog food (which I did last week and it didn't work) do you guys have any suggestions that don't involve him eating only wet dog food (which leads to messy bowel movements)? He's on suspension from the dog park because the last thing he needs to be doing is burning more calories when he's not taking any in.

Also, I don't think he's depressed or anything, I think he's just lost interest in eating. His personality seems perfectly fine.

Here is a picture of him looking rather smug after he licked all of the sauce off his dry food this morning.

In true Saint Carla fashion, my mom's best friend, who lost her dalmation less than two months ago, has already adopted another dog. Her name is Ginger (previous name: Freckles; you can see why they changed it) and I don't know anything else about her. Here's a picture!

I'm considering taking up jogging with Dexter.

Pros
-Exercise we both desperately need
-Bonding time

Cons
-I only have time to do it in the morning, and it will mean getting up SUPER early because I have to do an inhaler 30 minutes before any aerobic exercise, and in order to do the inhaler I have to eat something (probably something light if I'm going to be exercising vigorously shortly after)
-My mom's best friend jogged for years and years with her dogs and now, at age 55, has completely destroyed her knees and ankles. If I could jog on an elliptical I would, but I feel dumb going to a gym and doing that while leaving Dexter home in his kennel when he needs to get out as much as I do. So I'm afraid of hurting myself, essentially.

Thoughts/opinions?

Doctor Who and Torchwood fans, please observe: iantoscafeblog

It's a group project, but westwardairways took the initiative.