Eat your freakin' heart out Oprah

Here is my list for top 5 novels I have read .

5. To Kill A Mockingbird
It flows, it goes, its funny, and its cute. That's right, I said it was cute and I don't care. The story makes it's point without running and blabbering on and wasting my time, and I appreciate that. "I reckon there are just one kinda folk...folk."












4. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
I am not the biggest James Joyce fan, I guess I just don't pity the Irish. However, for anyone who ever thought to themselves, "That's weird, I seem to not be thinking the same things as every other stupid redneck around me", this book is a must read. The flow of consciousness style makes it hard to read at times, but one can still get the bulk of what he is saying. At one point someone asks Joyce's father why Joyce isn't out fighting with other boys and harassing girls like all the other kids and his father meekly replies that his son is just not into those things. I feel the same way when people are like "what's wrong with you, don't you like dirty strippers and cheap beer and getting all wasted and going out to clubs with a bunch of phonys" and I'm like "so much, so much is wrong...but not with me my friend."


3. 1984
This is one of the first books I ever really got into. Thinking back on it now, it was the first time there was no happy ending. Throughout the book I waited for society to be saved, then when I realized that wasn't happening, I started to expect Winston to somehow become a hero and save himself or do something to justify his existence which is what the people in the book lack...meer existence. I remember I cried when I was done reading it, "he had won the victory over himself, he loved big brother." FUCK YOU GEORGE ORWELL I thought, what a slap in the face, mock me with loving big brother will you, well just fuck you. Also, those rats in the prison really bugged me out and the encounter with Julia after the prison is still the most heartbreaking concept ever thought.




2. The Fountainhead
Apparently most people like whichever Rand book they read first, be it Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. I read the latter first, but still prefer Fountainhead. This sounds crazy, but my favorite thing about both these books is how little I know or understand them. The Fountainhead is Howard Roark's fight to be true to himself and live life the way he sees fit. This book is a fictional account of Rand's philosophy of objectivism. I feel I am not even worthy to define objectivism...entire books have been written on the subject and I have yet to see a definition I like. Everyone who has read it will give you what they feel it means, and it seems everyone says something different. I guess this could be seen as bad, as vague, but anything that can make so many people have such a strong opinion is wonderful. Well the book is truly inspiring as Roark rises above every single challenge to reach success, even to the point of "going back and digging ditches". I love that line...when his architecture designs are not liked he refuses to change them, and instead quits and gets a job digging ditches...true courage. Personally I think objectivism is better in this book because it focuses on one man's struggles in comparison to Atlas Shrugged, which has a more worldly picture. But again, I am not even worthy to have such views.

1. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance
Robert Pirsig was a genius at his entire life, to the point that it drove him insane. Sure, this book starts off a little slow, but once Phædrus is introduced, the book becomes a journey to answer one question, what is quality? Pirsig had such a problem answering this that he went crazy, literally, and woke up one morning in a mental hospital. He had been in there for five years and only remembered "falling asleep on the bed where they put all the coats during a party". The book has little to do with theBuddhistt Zen and less to do with motorcycles, rather, it focuses on what makes one thing seem better than the next. I love the way he approaches problems such as cleaning his motorcycle. He takes each part off the bike and places it, in order, on the floor so that when he goes to rebuild the bike, he just goes in reverse order. Pirsig gets into gumption traps, David Hume, and the process of doing all things. This is my favorite.

A real doctor's doctor

So I have a lump in my ingunial region. For those who don't know, that is around the groin, not an area to be fooled around with. So it has started hurting a little more each day for several day and I cannot tell if it is a hernia or a swollen lymph node. Being a doctor, I know that if it is a hernia, it should hurt more when I bend over, cough, sneeze, or strain to use the bathroom. These findings are know as Dejeriene's Triad. If I were to put my thumb in my mouth and blow on it like I was blowing up a balloon and it increased the pain, I would have a positive Valsalva's Test. If either or both of these are positive, it could mean herniation or buldging disc. The pain comes from increasing the interthecal pressure, but as I said I had neither of these findings.

Lymph nodes are responsible for cleaning the blood and are a vital part of the immune system. Each area of the body is cleaned by particular lymph nodes, the ingunial lymph nodes are responsible for the lower extremity. Usually lymph nodes don't just swell up without a reason such as an infection, but I have no other signs or symptoms.
So I go to the doctor's office because the possible diagnoses are a hernia, which can lead to strangulation of the small intestine leading to sepsis leading to me freakin dying out of nowhere, and lymphadenopathy, which can be from testicle cancer, lymphoma, and many other serious things. I drop my pants, and the doctor agrees it's not a hernia, right place but the lack of positive tests and palpation of the area say not so much. I tell him a have a similar lump on the other side, but it is not swollen. He palpates that and tells me my diagnosis is "swollen lymph nodes of an unknown origin." He writes me a script for generic antibiotics and tells me if it gets worse come back. No blood test, no examining me for any CAUSE of an infection, just guess work and watch and wait.

Freakin waste of $50 is what it is.

Calculus

I may not be a smart man, but I know what calculus is (in the Forrest Gump accent).

Well, that last sentence is a lie, but I did have some calc classes back in my day. In fact, I was the the advanced math classes from the 8th grade on through high school. Math analysis, precalc, and calc in high school and Calc 1 and 2 plus statistics in college. I never really considered myself good at the subject of math, but I did fairly well, As and Bs, in each class.

I am telling you this to demonstrate the point that people can do very well in life without really knowing what is going on. I never understood calculus while I was taking it, by that I mean deep down in the brain understanding and why we were doing what we were doing. I could do the formulas, solve for x or whatever, and get the correct answers, but I guess I never even thought about why or how it could be used. And so it went like this until calculus was a distant memory. Newton turned in his grave.

One day up in Seneca Falls I was lying around on the couch in the middle of summer. Our lack of air conditioning and an upstairs apartment forced me to be half naked and miserable. I was watching a show on Animal Planet about Pandas and it hit me...the reason calculus makes sense. I was like ohhhh...OHHHHH....its all about coordinates and how a point would move in one vector in comparison to a different vector. Calculus is the math of motion. I don't know why it came to me then, but it seemed like years of math classes were made clear.

This catharsis never had any further implications to my life, I never got out an old math book and did problems or anything like that, but it is nice to know. Newton, you may rest peacefully once again.

Iced Coffee

ATTENTION: Mankind has successfully figured out how to liquefy crack and give it the perfect amount of coconut flavoring...and it shall be called the Dunkin Doughnuts Iced Coffee.

This drink tastes less like coffee and more like perfection. If made properly by the Dunkin Doughnuts staff, with the correct amount of flavoring, cream, and sugar, this had to be my favorite drink. Sometimes they put "a little extra" sugar in, past the point of the sugar absorption rate and tiny flavorful grains can be tasted the whole way through.

Warning: I think this drink is actually made with real crack/cocaine and is highly addictive. I sometimes find myself craving one about 3 seconds after I finish chomping the last sugar coated ice cube in the cup.

I am currently drinking a Wawa brand iced coffee (no dunkin on my way to work), and it tastes like someone spit into a pile of dirt and mixed it with a stick. Also, you have to drink it out of a soda cup, which subconsciously causes the brain to expect Pepsi, only to taste mud. I would not recommend this brand.