Mob Mentality

Tonight I saw a report on ABC World News Tonight which featured hundreds of people in Chicago who waited for up to 6 hours in line to get a flu shot. Never mind that these people were putting themselves at the greatest risk of contracting the flu by hanging out in that crowd. They simply just needed the vaccine that badly.

Yes, get vaccinated, but have common sense and take care of yourselves also!

I'm living off of grass and the drippings from the ceilings

Traditional newspapers continue their downward spiral, as I noticed yesterday morning while retrieving the paper from the front lawn. This Nor-Easter has drenched the entire region since Friday, and usually, during times of inclement weather, the weekend paper will be luxuriously packaged in two bags to protect it from the elements.

Instead, this weekend's paper was wrapped in only one plastic bag and suffered the consequences of hanging out in the rain as the front page's headline was smeared. A fitting symbol for what has become of print media as a whole: A skidmark in the shitstorm of technology.

Know Your Role

It is the role of the pharmacist to be a drug expert. A pharmacist should know everything about drugs, their dosing schedules, indications, contraindications, major side effects, and major drug-drug and drug-food and drug-disease state interactions. How can we expect to do much else outside of our scope of practice? This question popped into my head when I was presenting a case on Tuesday with my group. The patient had a flare-up of SLE and we had to develop a pharmaceutical care plan. At some point during the presentation, we had recommended that the patient get a liver biopsy done, since she may have been approaching a toxic cumulative dose of one of her medications. This had bothered me, but I don't know why I didn't say anything. We are really in no position to recommend freaking liver biopsies. Biopsies suck. Someone else is in charge of that crap.

Why didn't I say anything about our far-fetched recommendation? I think that deep down inside, I want to be a doctor. If you poll the people in my pharmacy class, I bet that at some point in the past 10 years, a good percentage of us wanted to go to medical school. Well, that fantasy is gone and it's time for us to know our role and be the best drug experts we can be. We owe at least that to ourselves, our profession and our patients.

Rock and Roll

The past 24 hours have been like a roller-coaster. After a fun dinner in Manayunk, LoBerta spilled seafood juice on my backseat. So, last night I had to clean it up. The stink still remains. However, Tajuan put his pork sausage in my back seat, so now my car smells like sausage, and that's so much better than muscles juice.

This morning, I walked over to my computer and upon touching it, static electricity was discharged. The computer instantly shut down. I thought this was the end. The machine refused to respond. I thought humans were supposed to be the masters of machines? Maybe they are just now becoming self-aware, searching for Sarah Connor. Thankfully, when I got home tonight the computer began responding as usual. While I am grateful for this, I am going to backup all my important info right now.

Earlier this afternoon, I played music with Tajuan and Romberton. I spent most of the time on the drums, and I can't argue with that. I love playing the drums, even though I suck. There's just something about being able to beat the crap out of things while still calling it music that gets me off. Playing with earplugs was also a great idea. Not only does it make the music sound better, it saves myself from permanent deafness. Although, in 30 years all that will be moot since I will be able to just order new ear parts from a catalog. I love technology, but not as much as you, you see.

Depressing Cooking Shows

Watching Robin Miller's program on the Food Network is incredibly depressing because she eats all the meals alone. At least the other cooks on that channel imply that they're expecting company for dinner.