utenzi

I'm not a basketball fan and normally don't watch the games but I just happened to catch the first few minutes of the UNC versus Ohio State game Wednesday night. Wow. I was immediately hooked. These were two very motivated and skilled teams. Both teams have an unusually large contingent of young players with a lot to prove and it really showed on the court. The Buckeyes (Ohio) were dominant in the first half but the Tarheels (NC) hung tight. Sometimes trailing by as much as 10 but ending the half just down by 4. It was anybody's game at that point but the Heels came out of the gate fast in the second half and took the first 9 points unanswered for a 5 point lead. After that UNC had the momentum though the game was never a runaway. The final score was 98-89 in favor of North Carolina. Ohio was ranked 3rd in the nation and UNC 7th going into the game so in that sense it was an upset. Some might argue that with UNC playing in the Dean Dome , their home court, and the Buckeyes...

Medicare Health Insurance, in a nutshell: The phone rings and the lady of the house answers, "Hello." "Mrs. Ward, please." "Speaking" "Mrs. Ward, this is Doctor Jones at the Medical Testing Laboratory. When your doctor sent your husband's biopsy to the lab yesterday, a biopsy from another Mr. Ward arrived as well, and we are now uncertain which one is your husband's. Frankly the results are either bad or terrible." "What do you mean?" Mrs. Ward asks nervously. "Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer's and the other one tested positive for AIDS. We can't tell which your husband's is." "That's dreadful! Can't you do the test again?" questioned Mrs. Ward. "Normally we can, but Medicare will only pay for these expensive tests one time." "Well, what am I supposed to do now?" "The people at Medicare recommend that you drop your husband off somewhere in ...

I just bought Mission Impossible the other day from Barnes & Noble. They sent me a 25% off coupon and I couldn't resist. No, it's not the movie. It's the old TV series. At long last, the first season is being released on December 5th. I remember watching the Mission Impossible shows as a kid and really liking them. However I didn't see them until around the 4th season when I was 9. In 1966, when the first season aired, I was just 5 and much too young to watch the show. What's really weird to me is that Peter Graves wasn't on that first season--in my mind I identify the show strongly with him. Instead, the lead was held by Steven Hill better known now for his role in Law & Order. In keeping with the topic of Mission Impossible, here's your mission, should you choose to accept it: The picture above was taken without zooming. I went as far as I could up the steam with my kayak until it was grounded. As I gazed around me I realized I could see some mo...

I'm going to mention a few spoilers about TAR below so don't read that section if it's going to ruin your day, okay? The middle segment on 60 Minutes last night was about chemicals in the brain and how they affect memory. I thought it was very interesting but not terribly surprising though some of the implications were dicey. The segment was titled A Pill to Forget and it described research into Propranolol, a drug currently used to treat high blood pressure, and its affect on memory. It apparently acts by blocking epinephrine (adrenaline) binding sites in the brain. It's long been known that epinephrine acts to enhance memory. Who hasn't been in a scary situation which remains in the memory far longer than any normal memory? The adrenal cortex releases epinephrine when we're mad or scared (often referred to as the fight or fright reaction) and the resulting memories are often our most vivid. That fight in 3rd grade, or when we heard about 9/11, or the car acc...

Today my girlfriend and I did a little surgery. Her kitchen range had two burners that weren't working and in a moment of daring we decided to fix them ourselves. Scary thought! It actually turned out to be fairly easy though there were two episodes of minor fireworks during the troubleshooting session. The worse of the two left some scorch marks on the lip of the door from where a couple of wires fused in a moment of electrical ecstasy but all ended well. At least the house hasn't burned down. Yet. The problem turned out to be that a wire that supplied power to the left side of her range had broken off right where it connected to the power source. We just needed to disconnect the other leads (there were a total of 5 and of course the one we needed to fix was on the bottom so they all needed to come off). The only fly in the ointment was that we had a small arc when we reconnected everything for reasons that weren't clear. That arc fused two wires (and made me jump nearly 2...

My girlfriend and I went on a hike around a lake today to try to burn off a few Kcals from a large breakfast. The water was beautiful, reflecting the blues of the sky as well as the remaining fall colors on the trees. In the picture above, a lone heron was keeping watch, ensuring the peace, as winter's inexorable approach continues abated only slightly by lovely days like this.

Does anyone else watch those Iron Chef shows? I used to a few years back. They were so campy and fun but eventually I tired of them--and so when The Food Network started an "American" version this past year I watched the first few episodes. They were good but not good enough to watch every time so after the first 3 or 4 episodes I stopped watching. Fortunately the other day I noticed that Iron Chef America was having a special episode in which the format was extended to 90 minutes and two guest "chefs" were added to accompany the Iron Chefs. The pairing? Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurentiis vs. Mario Batali and Rachel Ray. I loved the show. It was funny as Hell. It started showing on Nov 13th but I didn't see it listed until Wednesday the 22nd. It's on the schedule for another month so there's plenty of time to catch it if you'd like to see it. After I saw the competition I read a review of the show on another blog and it's hilarious. Supposedly ...