No good deed...

...goes unpunished. So I was sitting in Stats class Wednesday [that's 'Experimental Design : Stats 2'] listening to a lecture on Nested Models in experiments when I noticed a girl to my left struggling to pick up a pen that had fallen off her desk. I waited for a bit as I watched her lean over to reach it. It seemed to be about 3 inches too far for her to get. Her desk was leaning...leaning...leaning...and I was sure she'd tip over if this continued. Let it be known, by the by, that nobody around her was offering any assistance, including the guy seated directly beside the pen. And let it be known as well that I, I was raised better than this. One helps in this type of situation, right? Like opening the door for someone on crutches, or giving up your seat to a pregnant woman, one must act. I had to act.

So I got up and walked the 1o feet over to help her before her desk tipped over. Magically as I arrived she was able to put her fingers on the pen. This left me like Paul Baumer in the middle of a classroom no man's land as I stood near her desk for no obvious reason. Seeing as she had the pen, I turned to return to my seat. Right at that moment, I heard a loud crash behind me. Everyone in the room turned with me to look at the source of the noise. Much to my chagrin I discovered that the noise was my binder crashing to the floor, vomiting its 200 pages of notes in a pile around my desk. And there I was, standing randomly in the middle of the class during a lecture.

So I walked back to my desk with everyone in the room staring at me to pick up a semester's worth of Stats Powerpoints. The girl whom I had tried to help apologized a bit [and laughed], and I sat down and tried to reorganize the unorganizable sheets of paper. Thankfully at least some of the people around me knew what I had tried to do, which made it a little bit better.

This lesson taught me that sometimes good deeds do not go unpunished. Did I make the right call? I think so. I'm sure that the K-Man would have done the same thing, too. He's classy like that.

French teenagers riot....again

Ironically the teenagers stole the show from the adults over in France last week. While the adults were busy in a massive strike to protest common sense reforms to the socialist state [e.g. not allowing certain workers to retire in their 50's with full benefits, maybe reexamining that 35 hour work week, maybe even looking at the practice of two hour lunches and five weeks guaranteed vacation], the teenagers took over with a little riot of their own. By the way, it was by all accounts an impressive strike. The transportation services were virtually shut down, much like they did in 2005 and 1995.

Seems while les adultes were out on the streets railing [get the pun?] against this massive bout of common sense, two teenagers north of Paris were killed when their motorbike rammed into a police car. The end result of that tragedy, bien sur, was to declare war against the police. Thus began a few days of attacks on cops, in which the rioters used hunting rifles to snipe at the cops, hurled Molotov cocktails at police, and burned and looted countless stores and even an elementary school. It appears that the worst is over now, but this riot did steal the thunder from the greves of the past two weeks.

More on the strikes later, including some stories from my experiences during the unbelievable strikes of 1995 that I got to see first-hand when I was living in Paris. I know Mitch is looking forward to that.


By the way, here's what the metro in Paris looked like during the strike.; actually this looks pretty normal for a Metro stop. Black is a pretty popular color over there in Pay-ree.

*Extra points if you can find Santa Claus in civilian clothes.

Ricidulous

Last week a 26 year old UVA graduate, Jayne McGowan, was murdered in her home here in Cville. Two men — 22-year-old William Douglas Gentry, Jr. and 18-year-old Michael Stuart Pritchett, both of Caroline Street — have been charged with capital murder and are being held at the jail.

What is ridiculous is how many people are using this senseless tragedy to further their own political goals. Head over to cvillenews and read the comments page. It's filled with discussions of pro- and anti-death penalty advocates trying to make a point. Few are discussing Jayne as a person. It's ridiculous.

It's too soon to hijack this woman's murder for your own beliefs or political stance [if there is ever a time when that's appropriate]; her funeral was today. Those who have done so, regardless of stance, should be ashamed of themselves.

"It's pretty barbaric, isn't it?"

Got the nose reset yesterday. And by reset I mean re broken. This was infinitely worse than breaking it the first time, if for no other reason than I knew it was coming.

According to my experience, the manipulation procedure follows these basic steps:

1. Stick some kinda hose up nostrils, inject anesthetic, wait
2. Stick cotton gauze with anesthetic up nostrils, wait
3. Inject anesthetic with big needle on bridge of nose uncomfortably close to eyes five times, wait
4. Stick large metal letter opener-looking device in nostril, stir frontal lob twice
5. With hands braced on patient's [victim's?] head, use fingers to break nose.
6. Repeat breaking. Try to get sound of breaking bones louder and louder.
7. Change hand positions, repeat breaking
8. Smooth out nose with finger, try to make breaks "line up"
9. Report progress and show patient his nose with a ladies' hand held compact
10. Say to patient : 'It's pretty barbaric, isn't it?' Ignore glaring from patient.
11. Decide to fine tune, position hands on head and 'manipulate' some more
12. Lose the little respect you had for the patient as he desperately tries to squirm away to make an escape, hold head harder, break a little quicker this time
13. Lie and say it's almost over; repeat steps 4-9
14. Lie again, repeat steps 4-9 "just to make sure it's right"
15. Tell patient he 'really did a number' his nose because there's lots of breaks. [I resisted the urge to explain there were fewer breaks before we started]
16. Cover patient's nose with tape and a plastic splint
17. Try to leave without giving any recommendations for pain relief. When cornered, write prescription for narcotic and take off. Go next door to manipulate the nose of a recently caught Al-Queda member as part of a Q&A session.
18. Charge patient $40 for session.

So this wasn't necessarily a pleasant experience. Interestingly enough, it's one of the few times that a doctor has healed me solely by his bare hands. This guy would make an excellent masseuse.

I'm kicking it with the face split for a day or so, and then I get to go back next week for an evaluation. Lot of fun.

Usual Sunday: played soccer, broke bone

In an ignominious ending to an expensive season, yesterday I played my last soccer game for the fall. Having started the season with a broken tibia ["slightly broken"], I decided to go out in style. My hope for another trip to the ER was realized with a nice head butt to the nose from one of my own players.

Seems that we were both involved in the play when he, frustrated about life and $3 gas, turned and grabbed my shoulders for a full force WWE smackdown head butt to my nose. Actually that didn't happen and it wasn't that clear what did, other than I was running and he turned suddenly and knocked me cleanly to the ground. Great hit-wish he had gotten someone else.

The nose can bleed a lot; it looked like a red fountain. After some nice moments of concern and help from my teammates, including a lot of gauze from people's 1st aid packs, I decided to head to the ER.

Diagnosis: Broken nose. I've got an appointment coming up to 'manipulate' it back into place [nice verb they use in that field]. Until then I'll ramble on and hope that nothing else will happen.

This has been the most expensive season I've ever played of soccer, with one major and one minor injury. I've had 2 trips to the ER in the past 7 years of playing soccer here in Cville; unfortunately they've both come in the last 2 months. There's already a movement afoot to end my playing career by certain women in my life [Mrs., mom, mom-in-law], but I can't do it. I can't be chased away from adult rec league soccer.

I'm sure that there will be more posted on this later...

The Police

Quick recap of last night's performance by The Police here in Cville:
It wouldn't be too cliche to say that most of us had waited our entire lives for this performance. The band broke up back when most of us were still trying to color inside the lines in elementary school, and for two decades the thought of seeing them perform live was one of those wishful thinking moments I'd have as I listened to one of their songs. But then they surprised a lot of us by getting back together, and then they flat out shocked almost all of us by bring their world tour here to Cville. Really? Charlottesville, in Virginia. The Police. Here. Like they were in London, NYC, etcetera.
With that amount of hype I'm sure it's tough to live up to it. Overall I found it to be a good show. Not a great show, but a good one.
I'd say it was more like hearing a band playing their songs in person as opposed to, say, a rock concert. [And by 'rock concert' I mean an entire experience. To get a feel for this, see U2 in concert. Anytime. Mesmerizing] They've definitely mellowed with age; many of the songs were slower or more 'chill' last night. Gone was a lot of the high energy feel that they had that defined them and a generation of music from the UK in the 1980's.

Overall I'm giving it a solid B+. They received a B for a somewhat subdued performance and mellower versions of their songs. They get the + because it's still The Police, reunited, and in Cville. I mean, we had dinner at the Guad and then went to see Sting in Cville. Not bad for the old 22901.

Dida..what was he thinking?

So the Brazilian goalkeeper Dida did something pretty funny last week. It's funny for us for two reasons: it looks so silly once you realize what is going on, and he got fined really heavily for this.

The gist is this: a fan ran on the field and lightly touched Dida as he ran by. Dida decided to give chase, and then flopped on the field as if mortally wounded. He even forced the training staff to carry him off the field on a stretcher [double wha?]. Here's a video below and an article on the aftermath can be found here.