Author: andy

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Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

We hadn’t seen a movie in awhile and this one caught my eye a few weeks ago when I first saw the advertisements. It’s actually based on a book by Jon Ronson about how the U.S. military so wisely spent our tax dollars investigating “alternative methods” of fighting other nations, including mind control, trying to pass through walls, and making another living being’s heart stop by staring at them (e.g. a goat). Ronson was on The Daily Show awhile back talking about his 2004 book, so I’d already been exposed to this crazy idea: then they made it into a movie. Keep in mind that the movie is based on concepts from the book, so parts of the movie are factually-based, but then there are large parts that aren’t.

The Men Who Stare at Goats stars quite a few heavy hitters, including George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, so on paper, the movie is already off to a good start. It centers around a news reporter (McGregor) that is trying to “make it” in the business by going to Iraq during the most recent Iraq War. Part-way through his journey, he comes across Clooney’s character, Lyn Cassady, who promptly tells him of a secret government program beginning in Vietnam that tried to make super soldiers, not through any genetic engineering, but through trying to get them to learn mind control techniques, amongst other things. Obviously, McGregor finds this difficult to believe in the beginning, but as the 1.5 hour long movie progresses, he begins to question the reality he knows.

I highlight “1.5 hours long” because that was a pretty good length, and I’m glad it wasn’t any longer. By the time they hit the last 30 minutes of the movie, it was getting harder to follow, and just generally more convoluted. Actually, a good 20-30 minutes of the movie really dealt with how McGregor and Clooney get into Iraq in the first place, and while it does introduce McGregor’s character to the concepts of this shadowy military troop, it doesn’t really end up being that pertinent to the story. So yes, I think “convoluted” is a pretty good word to describe this movie.

The movie is pretty funny, for the most part, but really mostly in a “chuckle” sort of way, rather than a “laugh out loud” manner. I guess I would say it’s more “amusing” than “funny,” in all honesty, and I was hoping for the film to err more on the side of the latter. In either case, it was still pretty entertaining. Certainly, the acting was as good as you’d expect from these actors, but I would have liked to see more out of Kevin Spacey. He did well for what he was given, but paying a high-profile actor like him to play this relatively minor role (compared to the other three) may have been a touch excessive.

I will say, however, that the movie did score hella points with me by playing up the fact that the military, apparently, experimented with using the “I Love You, You Love Me” song from Barney & Friends as a torture device against terrorists. I’ve always said that’d be a good idea.

In short, I liked the movie and thought it was an entertaining and amusing way to spend an evening, but I could have waited to rent it. At the very least, it makes you wonder where your tax dollars are going…

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Happy 40th Birthday, Sesame Street!

It’s hard to believe Sesame Street is as old as it is, and still kicking.  Today marks the beginning of its 40th season, with Michelle Obama as the guest, talking about healthy eating, amongst other things. It’s crazy knowing there are literally over 4000 episodes of Sesame Street, providing quality television for young children now for generations of people.  I learned to count to 10 in Spanish from Sesame Street, amongst all the other things.  This is a show that taught kids it was alright to be different, that reading is fun, and that playing outside is good for you…oh, and cookies are yummy.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Cookie Monster
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

By the way, I still enjoy seeing celebrities go on Sesame Street.  You can always tell that they have fun with it, even though they’re standing next to muppets.

Brooke and I were hoping to ask for Sesame Street DVDs for Christmas this year, but at least on Amazon, it looks like you can only get DVD sets for the really early years, and some Elmo-specific compilations.  So if you run across any collections from the 80s, let us know.  That, or they’d make excellent baby shower gifts. 🙂

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Travels: Part I

Brooke and I were in different parts of the Midwest last week (or even two weeks ago, almost).  Here’s the first post relating to all that – Brooke’s will follow once she pulls pictures off the camera.

So, I went to Chicago this year for our annual Society for Neuroscience meeting (I only took a few pictures, but here they are if you care…).  We decided to take the train this time around, as something of a change from the typical “hop on a plane” experience.  To be honest, the trip up there via Amtrak was actually pretty nice compared to flying Coach on an airplane: you get much more leg room, slightly more comfortable seats, AC plugins for your laptop (if you want to watch a movie, for example…no WiFi available, sadly…), roomy bathrooms, and a full-service snack car.  The trip was a bit over 5 hours, so it was basically as long as a car ride, but quite a bit more comfortable.

Anyway, we made it to Chicago and got off at Union Station.  Once there, we found a taxi and started heading toward it.  A “gentleman” grabbed our bags and put them in the trunk of the car.  At this point, Dr. Macarthur got in the back seat, and we both noticed that the driver of said car was still in the car, making me wonder who this guy was.  He then demanded a tip.  I was, of course, rather confused by this whole situation, not being used to taxi service in major metropolitan areas, but Dr. Macarthur was kind enough to get rid of him for me.  Once we started driving, Dr. Macarthur told him “Palmer House Hilton” as the destination.  The driver was talking on his cell phone (which he wasn’t supposed to do…), and a few minutes later, we made it to the Hilton Chicago.  Not where we wanted to go.  Then Dr. Macarthur tried explaining this to him, and he actually argued with her about it.  She was not pleased about this, of course.  Long story short, he ended up turning off the meter so we weren’t double-charged, so that was a bit better…  My first exposure to “Chicago,” proper.

The conference itself was pretty good.  Over 30,000 attended, making it pretty crowded.  I wasn’t a huge fan of McCormick Place (the convention center), as it seems pretty poorly laid out (multiple levels, funky entrances, etc.) and not in an area populated by any restaurants, making lunch a bit difficult.  We saw some interesting posters and heard a talk from Dr. Francis Collins, the current head of the National Institutes of Health.  My presentation wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon, the final day of the conference, making me wonder if anyone would still even be around to see my stuff.  Thankfully, I garnered some interest and got to present it multiple times…not as many as last year, but still, much more than I’d expected.

So, we left Wednesday afternoon, again via taxi.  This time, the driver didn’t come to a complete stop at a stop sign, so we got chased by a cop on a 4-wheeler (yes, they have those in Chicago…with sirens…).  The cop was on a power trip, taking advantage of this poor Asian guy that spoke little English.  When the cop went back to his 4-wheeler to input the license and registration information, the driver made the unfortunate choice of getting out of the car to go talk to the cop, who then proceded to yell at the driver: “GET BACK IN THE VEHICLE!  DO NOT EXIT YOUR VEHICLE!”  He knows better now, I guess…  Considering how many people don’t come to complete stops at stop signs, I kinda felt sorry for this particular driver, as he was actually a much better driver than the vast majority of taxi drivers out there, weaving in and out of lanes.  How about you cops on 4-wheelers try picking up some of them, eh?

Finally, we hop on the train for the ride home.  About 5 minutes north of Joliet, IL (which is around 30 minutes outside of Chicago…), we stopped to allow freight traffic to pass by.  Well, they couldn’t re-start our train.  Apparently, one of the computers wasn’t rebooting properly (probably running Windows Vista…).  We spent 2 hours sitting there waiting for the train to get going, and during that time, we were low on power as they’d shut the engines down.  Without power, you a). don’t have lights (making reading difficult) and b). don’t have snack car service, as you can’t use the cash register and can’t use the microwave.   They never actually re-started the train, but instead waited for the next train from Chicago to come down and attach itself to us, so we ended up having two trains heading down to St. Louis, making two stops at each town on the way because there were two trains-worth of people trying to get to their destinations.  Thankfully, Brooke was kind enough to pick us up 2 hours later than planned (12:45 am…).

So, that was my trip.  There were more good things than this (restaurants, some sights, etc.), but these are the more interesting aspects to report.

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Let’s Do The Locomotion

So, tomorrow I’ll be embarking on my first train ride.  Not to say that I haven’t used light-rail metro systems, but this will be the first Amtrak system that I hit up.  I’ll be leaving (eeeaaaaarrrly…) for Chicago to attend this year’s annual Society for Neuroscience meeting.  2008’s was in Washington, D.C. and 2007’s was in San Diego, so Chicago is considerably less interesting to me, but perhaps a train ride will make things a bit more interesting.

We basically decided that, rather than waiting at the airport and flying, we may as well take the 5.5 hr train ride instead.  As I understand it, these trains have quite a bit of leg room (compared to the Coach area of a plane) and a snack car, so it should be more comfortable.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the trip.  We’ll probably get a chance to head by a few “sights” while in Chicago, as it seems that there is relatively little to see at the meeting on Monday and Tuesday (I present late on Wednesday).  It looks like they put the majority of Parkinson’s-related research on Saturday (when I’m not there) and Wednesday (while I’m also presenting it), so we’ll probably dabble a bit in some posters and then go to Shedd Aquarium or something.

This will also be my last formal presentation of data at a meeting like this, certainly while a grad student at SLU.  I at least think I’m going out with some good work, and the poster looks pretty.  I’ve got some fluorescent images on there to add a bit more color to otherwise boring graphs (I had Brooke help me with some of the color choices, of course, as my Mom saw fit to give me color-blindness…).

Also, as this is my last trip as a grad student, I’ll also be hitting up the NeuroJobs portion of the conference, seeing if I can land a job somewhere.  I’ve sent the resume to a few places, but haven’t really concentrated on it much yet because of various school-related things, and, well, doing experiments and such.  After this week, I’ll be hitting that up in earnest.

Regardless, it doesn’t look like the busy-ness of the last few months is going away anytime soon.  Guess I should get used to it.

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Review: Zombieland

First of all, $9.25 is far too much to charge for a matinee showing, regardless of “Digital Projection” or what have you.

Secondly, “Zombieland” is one of those movies that I probably would have paid little attention to normally, but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen one in theaters and Brooke was (surprisingly) willing to go along and see it (likely in return for Wild Cherry Pepsi and Sno-caps).

Anyway, “Zombieland” is about a group of strangers that meet up randomly whilst traveling across the southwestern United States after a zombie outbreak has brought civilization to a screeching halt.  Unlike your typical George A. Romero zombie movie, this one takes a more humorous look (a la “Shaun of the Dead“).  The movie is surprisingly funny, with plenty of creative ways to kill zombies throughout.  And the humor is genuinely funny, rarely forced – even Brooke was laughing throughout (though, admittedly, not as much as me).  You actually kinda care for the characters throughout, which is more than I can say for most other zombie movies.  This is probably the best movie Woody Harrelson has been in that I can remember, and certainly the most amusing.

I mean, the climactic end takes place in an amusement park.  Just think about all the fun you could have with zombies at the carnival.  🙂

There’s not much more to say about it, really, without giving away the more surprising bits of the film.  It’s not a movie that I plan on buying, but I’m quite glad I saw it.  It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon: a fun, and entertaining ride.

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Closest thing to a baby we could find…

edie_snugglie

Brooke had a 20% off coupon for Big Lots burning a hole in her pocket, so we went by to look up car seats and any other baby toys we could find.  We found one car seat that looks promising, but they certainly didn’t have much selection (not unexpected).

However, Brooke did find a Snugli, which she thinks I’ll be wearing eventually.  Brooke’s planning on using a Peanut Shell-style sling, but as I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one, this Snugli thing will have to work.

Anyway, we aren’t having a baby until February, so how does one test out the new toy?  Well, we find the next best thing:  an unsuspecting beagle.

Needless to say, she didn’t last  long in the Snugli.  Maybe I’ll try it again using the pug down the street.

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Conehead

edie_cone

So, we’d noticed for the last few weeks that Edie has been scratching her hind legs quite a bit, to the point where last week, we started locking her out of the bedroom so we could sleep through the night.  Two years ago, around this time of the year, she had a similar problem that the vet said was due to “hot spots.”  Last year, it wasn’t nearly as bad, but she did scratch a little bit.  Two years ago, the vet gave us some prednisone and antibiotics and they took care of the problem kinda rapidly…but cost us $150…  Since she “got over it” last year, we decided to let it go and see what happened.

Well, we got back from Branson, after leaving Edie at Kennelwood for the weekend, and she had scratched herself down to the skin…  Brooke took her in to the vet and, again, they gave us prednisone and an antibiotic…but this time, Edie got a cone…  🙂  She’ll have to wear it for 3 days non-stop, and then will have to wear it when we aren’t at home for a few more days.

Anyway, hopefully she’ll get better quickly, ’cause she’s having issues climbing stairs (again) and I’m all about having her back to normal.  Either way, the puppy dog sure is cute with a cone around her head.

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Hop in the City

Brooke and I went to Cabin Fever at the Schlafly Bottleworks back in January and had an excellent time. The festival features 20+ beers to taste for $20. The beers were pretty malty, and pretty high in alcohol content, but they all tasted great. The weather was shockingly good and they had some fire pits set up, so we had a great time.

Every fall, however, an even larger festival is held at the Schlafly Tap Room called Hop in the City. This one features 40+ beers for the tasting for $30. While Cabin Fever could only hold, maybe a few hundred people…but Hop in the City had a thousand. I met up with some folks this time, as Brooke is not drinking much these days. I took note of all the beers I tried while I was there.  The list is 22 types long, so I won’t list them all here (but each “taste” was around 3 oz…add that up and I “only” had 4-5 pints during the 4 hour period I was there)…however this is a list of some of my favorites.

  • American IPA – This was their Festival Beer for 2009, described as “exploding with hop flavor and aroma” with “enough of a malt backbone to stand up to the intense bitterness.”
  • Spiced Porter – A “robust Porter with orange peel and coriander for a fruity, roasty flavor.”
  • English Brown – “A moderately sweet, malty brown ale with low hop bitterness and a gentle nutty character, like its creators.”
  • Export IPA – “Light amber in color, this medium-bodied India Pale Ale is highly hopped with English hops in both aroma and bitterness, with the maltiness still quite apparent.”
  • Irish Extra Stout – A “full-bodied stout” that “has the bitterness of roasted barley with flaked barley added for a smooth finish.”

Believe you me, if we would still be here next Fall, I’d go again. Sadly, however, it’ll probably be my last Hop in the City for awhile.

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All Or Nothing

In recent weeks (months? years?), I’ve been thinking about how voting, and politics in general, tends to be handled nowadays in the good ol’ U.S. of A… It doesn’t matter if you agree with the vast majority of what a particular candidate, or congressional bill, you stand for: if there is one hot-button issue you disagree with, that means you simply can’t vote for it. Around election time, we call these people “single-issue voters,” those that typically decide that they like everything a candidate says, but since they’re Pro-Life (or Pro-Choice, occasionally…) and the candidate disagrees with that one issue, that means you can’t vote for them (the death penalty is another one that fits that bill, amongst many others, I’m sure).

I think of this more recently in the context of the on-going health care debate. As Obama said in his Address to Congress on September 9th, 80% of what is in “the bill” (or, more accurately, the various iterations of bills floating around the halls of the Capitol) is agreed upon by both Democrats and Republicans. They all want to get rid of denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, they all want to keep costs down, they all want to increase competition, etc….but as long as that “public option” is on the table, some won’t support it. Since when is 80% not “good enough?” In school, that constitutes a “B,” which while not being an excellent grade, necessarily, is certainly good enough for graduation and a half-way decent GPA. That’ll get you into college. That’ll get the job done.

I think, largely, many people agree on the vast majority of issues: murder is bad, babies are cute, hair should be washed, and so on. And years ago, the U.S. government got along fine with the agreement on most issues related to their debates, when finally they would compromise and get something passed (yes, it’s true…although, living in today’s society makes us forget that government can work for the benefit of its citizens, and can do so efficiently). Today, however, we find ourselves in an era of conflict. Who wants to watch a reality show about a happy family? Or a cop drama when no crimes happen? People nowadays won’t pay attention to anything unless there is some conflict, something to fight over. Maybe people have always wanted conflict to entertain them, and perhaps politicians finally realized that and figured out that, to make more money from donors, they need to be in conflict all the time in order to get extra exposure, and thus, extra cash.

What angers me most is that compromise doesn’t happen anymore, perhaps of that “conflict craving” (heck, I’d argue that the divorce rate is so high mostly because of a lack of compromise). There was a time when it behooved both sides (in marriage or congress) to agree most aspects of a plan and then focus on a more central issue: both sides would lose something, but both would also make gains because the goal was met. That’s how compromises work. It has worked well for centuries and should still work today.

It angers me because the compromise, in the particular issue of health care, is the so-called “Public Option,” as that is the logical middle ground between a single-payer system and a fully deregulated health insurance industry. The compromise is on the table already and it isn’t “good enough” for some people. Both sides agree on the majority of issues related to the debate, but the single issue holding it back is one where the compromise has already been made, providing both sides with necessary gains for their political careers, as well as American society as a whole.

Maybe “good enough for government work” is 80%? Or at least should be?

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I Now Have Fewer Platelets

I had a call waiting for me on the answering machine yesterday from the Red Cross requesting my platelets: the nucleus-less cells in your blood responsible for clotting. Apparently, because my blood is A+, which is very common, my platelets are also useful in “times of need” like now. Anyway, they called back a second time later last night, so I knew they must be serious: I went ahead and made an appointment for today.

For those that have given blood before, you know that they take a pint of blood through a relatively large needle. Well, to take your platelets, they usually need to take more volume of blood than you can actually give in a single sitting. That means that they need to attach you to a contraption that carries out apheresis, which ends up removing some of your blood, spinning it down to get the platelets, sending the platelets up to a large bag (much like your usual blood bag, but bigger), and then putting your blood cells and plasma back in your body. To do this, the machine uses a smaller needle than you usually use to give blood, and it requires that you maintain a reasonable pressure of blood coming out of your body, related more to how fast you’re closing your hand and less to your typical blood pressure.

So yeah, it was supposed to take about 1.5 hrs, and ended up being more like 2 hrs. The poor girl removing the platelets had to re-set the needle multiple times (not fully remove it from my arm…just move it further in or a little bit out) in order to avoid a valve in my vein, which was causing abnormal changes in the pressure going to the machine. Every time that would happen, an alarm would go off and the machine would stop going, prolonging my stay in that chair. Eventually, I started pumping normally and I got done, but I ended up doing half of what was intended. It was kinda neat seeing a bag of platelets, though, as they look quite a bit different than a regular bag of blood – whiter, cloudier…just kinda funky, in general.

Regardless, I’ll probably do it again, eventually. My arm is just fine and I came out of it unscathed, but the 2 hr time commitment is a bit more difficult to deal with on a regular basis. Apparently, you can give platelets every 7 days, as you replenish them within a day or two of giving.

It’s a good way to help some folks out, if you’ve never done it! Just take a magazine with you… 🙂