How unfortunate. A man discovers electricity, helps found the United States of America, gets his face on the $100 bill and signs the Declaration of Independence but then is almost but forgotten for some 200 years when he is recognized for the Exceptional Long Term Achievement Award at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. This is not how we should treat our national heroes! Next time you are getting a burger at McDonalds, be sure to tell George Washington that you appreciate everything he has done for us. He deserves at least that.

Hey readers. I want y'all to go check out one of the links that you can find on the right side of this page. Specifically check out the one titled "A Gentle Walk". Well I really want you to look at all of the links, but I'm talking about this one for a reason. It's the blog of a good friend of mine from all the way back in kindergarten. He's currently editing down 36+ hours of footage that he filmed in India and Nepal that will be a documentary about a man he met while filming a wedding who makes the yearly ascent of a particular mountain in Nepal. I'm pretty sure that's what it's about. He told me about it back in February, which was before his trip and now he has gone and come back. So for all I know things could've happened while he was there that changed the theme of the documentary. Anyway, he filmed it on this awesome camera so I'm sure once it's done (he says sometime in the beginning of next year) it will look amazing.

Man. The Warriors is seriously an awesome movie. I'm watching it right now for the second time but it feels likes I'm LIVING it. It has pretty much everything you would want out of an R-rated campy movie from the 70s: Cheesy costumes, cheesy music, REALLLLY bad lines ("Hey, little man, you wanna dance?") Seriously, to get that line for you guys, I didn't even have to rack my memory of what's been said so far, I just waited for the next character to speak and that's what came out.

Finals started today. Wasn't so bad. It was just my Fundamentals of Medicine class which according to the professor should just be a pass/no pass class based on attendance, but I guess administration thinks otherwise. I'm sure I did fine on it but it was a little bit annoying because there were 10 lectures to study from, 2 of which were on diabetes. And then on the test there was literally one question about diabetes and it was a really easy one at that. Whoa, this dude is rollerblading down some stairs in the movie. That's badass. Anyway this weekend it's supposed to hit 81 on Sunday but I have another test to study for that is on Monday. 6 tests left to go for the rest of the year and then my friend Dave and I are hitting the road back to California. I talked to a doctor in Mill Valley this week who says I can come in and shadow at his office a couple days every week while I'm at home for the summer. He also said it'd be a good opportunity to network with other doctors in the area which I'm sure couldn't hurt.

Anyway enough rambling. If you haven't seen The Warriors I suggest you do so immediately. The video game is pretty fun, too. I read that Tony Scott, director of Top Gun, is making a remake that will be out in 2008. Color me unexcited and extremely doubtful.

Well folks, not much to report today. Finals have just started and they will go until the end of the school year, which is May 18. So basically it's a month's worth of finals. The schedule for the rest of the year is kind of cool actually. Each week we have class on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, a dead day on Thursday and a final on Friday. So basically we have plenty of time to study for each test. I wish it had worked that way in undergrad but that would be a little screwy because since Davis was on the quarter system, we'd have to take our midterms the 2nd week of the quarter and finals would start probably the 5th week. Pretty wacky, if you think about it.

Anyway, 4 more weeks and then I'll be done with the first year of med school which is known notoriously as the worst of the 4 years. Even though it's actually after graduation, I'd say residency is probably going to be the worst part of the educational journey I've for some strange reason volunteered for since as a resident you are one step above slavery in ancient Egypt and one step below janitorial work at a sports arena. But anyway that's nothing for 2007 Sam Meyers to worry about, but for 2010 Sam Meyers. Sucks for that guy.

Listening To: Green Day - Armatage Shanks
I'm getting pissed
I'm a worthless pessimist
I'm a loner in a clostrophobic mind.

Yes. The rumors are true. I DO run out of the room/theater when I see a Spider-Man 3 trailer coming on. It's not a secret that trailers tend to spoil some of the best parts of movies, since that's probably the best way to get someone to go see it, so why is it SUCH a big deal that I happen to enjoy a surprise or two? I'm a big fan of Spidey so I'd rather get everything for the first time when I'm at the theater seeing the actual movie than watching a 30 second snippet on TV. Why is it that whenever a trailer comes on TV and I run into my room, close the door, the blinds and my eyes and hold the pillow over my ears everyone tends to laugh? I just don't get it. I hadn't seen a single trailer for Children of Men before I saw it and so everything was a total surprise for me. Anyway sometimes even I have to take a peek, and I saw a link online to this picture of Venom which just looked bad ass. And here it is:

It looks to me like the Sig Ep chapter at Carnegie Mellon have seriously amended their No Dorks Allowed law. And by amended it I mean changed the word "No" to "Only". I wonder how much money they had to bribe those girls with to be in that picture.

Listening To: Tokyo Police Club - Shoulders & Arms
Shoulders back and arms at our side
We sincerely hope you know just what you're doing.

Also, I don't know if you guys have heard about this justin.tv thing it's the new Internet thing to get mildly excited but then kinda bored about. Apparently this guy has a video camera strapped to his head (and plans on doing that for the rest of his life) that is broadcast live online. He lives in San Francisco with a few other guys. When you think about it, the guy is forfeiting not only his privacy but also a few other things (going to movies and concerts, swimming, doing an form of international espionage) just so that he can hold the title of Biggest Nerd on the Internet. Well this brings up an important question:

Sam: I wonder what happens when he hooks up with honeys.
Rob: If you have a camera on your head you don't hook up with honeys. You hook up with home appliances.

Well, funny as this is, this brings up even another question. How does Rob know this?

Listening To: Arcade Fire - Wake Up
With the lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am goin'
Better look out below!

I'm not sure if I can apologize enough for alienating, bewildering and downright confusing my readers. I'm sorry. It appears I stepped over a very thick boundary of what can be written and what should just be kept inside my head. For the past 6 months I have been bringing you information that I felt you would enjoy but never realized that I was unconsciously keeping it on a level that kept everyone on the same page. Well, apparently I went off the tracks the other day, so here's an entry that I think will bring everyone back together again.

My lab practical exam for Lower Anatomy is this Thursday, but we just took a practice exam and I got an 80%, which I'm sure I can push up quite a bit in the next few days, so I'm studying Neuro right now. More specifically, I'm studying the visual system and came across something that I thought people might find interesting.

When light from objects enter our eye through our biconvex lens, meaning its oval-like in shape, it is projected onto the retina in an upside down fashion. Through a short series of bipolar and ganglion cells, the rods and cones that are stimulated by the light send electrical signals through the optic nerve that exits through the back of the eye. Information from the nasal halves of the eyes is swapped and the optic nerve synapses onto the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus. From the thalamus, the information is sent to the occipital lobe of the brain, which is in the back. From there, information is sent to various centers of the brain that process the information so not only can we see what is projected onto our retina, but we can also understand what we are looking at.

What I found interesting was a particular condition called "prosopagnosia", which is caused by severing projections from the primary visual cortex in the occipital lobe to memory centers in the temporal lobe, which is above and behind the ear. If these projections are lost, one would experience the inability to recognize familiar faces by sight alone. That means if your mother was standing right in front of you, but not saying anything and beared no familiar smell, you would not have any idea who she was. Then once she spoke, you would know instantly that it was your mother because your auditory system also has connections to the memory centers. How crazy is that???

Listening To: Tool - Right In Two
Angels on the sideline again
Wondering when this tug of war will end.

The one thing that's wrong with Guitar Hero II, if it's fair to say that there's even anything wrong with it, is that when you're listening to music when you're not playing it, you're constantly thinking how cool that song would be to play in Guitar Hero. That's the only problem. It makes you want more. Actually I guess hearing the songs you play over and over in that game again out in the real world is a pretty annoying experience. Therefore, I don't think I'm ever going to play Rancid's "Salvation" ever again. Maybe I will though... Stay tuned.

P.S. I apologize for having two posts in a row with pictures of rock stars slamming on their guitars but I had to. Plus, I think Keith and I share some qualities.

P.P.S. Don't worry, Dad.

Listening To: Bloc Party - This Modern
You told me you wanted to eat up my sadness
Well jump on, enjoy, you can gorge away.

Oh wow. Keith Richards surely is beyond insane. When he fell out of a palm tree in Fiji and suffered a concussion, I have to say I thought it was pretty unfortunate but at the same time, pretty funny. I mean come on, who actually climbs palm trees. Also....how? There's nothing to get your footing unless you climb up trees like monkeys do.

According to the British music magazine NME, Richards actually snorted his father's remains mixed in with cocaine. Willingly! You know you have something of a drug addiction when you are at the end of your cocaine stash (personally I'd be surprised if his actually had an end) and so you throw in a little dash of dad to get a full hit. See more about this horror story at www.nme.com.

As I was walking back to my apartment from school today I saw the UPS truck pulling away, meaning I wasn't there to accept my package (Guitar Hero II) and so I don't get it today. They probably dropped it off at the mail room in the main building, but that was about 15 minutes before the mail room closed so I'm SOL on that front. Anyway I'll just pick it up tomorrow. If it's there. It might not even be mine, sine the UPS website says it's not supposed to arrive until Thursday. But I neeeeeeeeed it.

Listening To: Brand New - Jude Law and the Semester Abroad
Even if her plane crashes tonight
I know she'll find some way to disappoint me
By not burning in the wreckage
Or drowning at the bottom of the sea

My favorite author is Dave Eggers. He wrote a couple of my favorite books: "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" (which probably has the best title known to man) and "You Shall Know Our Velocity". He created the publishing house McSweeney's, which has its own website at www.mcsweeneys.net. The website is updated daily with extremely short humorous little things from different authors. It's hard to describe so you should probably just go there and check it out yourself. Anyway I hadn't been in a while so I went to check out what they've been putting up there and I found one that I thought I'd share something from. It's titled "Thrilling Chapter Endings You May Use In Your Next Novel". Here are my favorites:

- "Hold everything!" Dr. Hiller shouted as he burst into the room. "[PROTAGONISTS NAME], my studies conclusively prove that you've been dead this entire time!"

- [PROTAGONIST] grimly shook his head, knowing that his plan was not working, and also that the person reading this book has no idea that right now there is a Mad About You marathon on TV right now.
NOTE: This is a long shot, but if it works, the reader will be totally freaked out.

- [PROTAGONIST] walked down the shore. The wind was howling and the first drops of rain had begun to splatter into the sand.
NOTE: On the opposite page is a notice from the government stating that the act of purchasing your novel has bound the reader to a two-year term of service in the U.S. Army. The reader is ordered to appear at the nearest recruiting office within 24 hours.

Anyway there were a few more that you should check out. Also, you should become and avid-checker-outer of that website because it's just all kinds of awesome.

Wanna give big ups to my brother Aaron on his birthday. I hope you're enjoying all the quality time with the Meyers family in LA for Passover. I TOTALLY wish I could be there to listen to a certain family member's hogwash about aliens and UFOs. Psyyyyyyyyche. Anyway, happy birthday.

And of course, a selection of the weird things I'm thinking about for March of 2007:
...side note: since a certain someone has started to develop a similar list of songs he/she has stuck in his/her head when he/she wakes up, it's started to happen to me as well. THANKS. Songs aren't nearly as weird or fun as these...

March 1, 2007 - "Her? No, she's not pregnant."
March 4, 2007 - "Who would want spaghetti and matzah balls?"
March 5, 2007 - "Whoa. You guys are going to have Rock and Roll sex."
March 7, 2007 - "The abs will last, the kids won't."
March 11, 2007 - "No, I KNOW so."
March 18, 2007 - "But you NEED flippers."
March 19, 2007 - "You ever have a last minute call?"
March 20, 2007 - "Yes, you do. It's funny."
March 23, 2007 - "Meet on the other corner in 2007."
March 25, 2007 - "That's the bad noise."
March 26, 2007 - "Like really really really good deals."
March 27, 2007 - "I don't think the eyes are ready to see him yet."
March 29, 2007 - "I like the palace."
March 31, 2007 - "One hundred seventy-five thousand."

Alright, enough of that. 6 weeks left of school and about 14 tests/quizzes. Do the math.

Listening To: The Dandy Warhols - Horse Pills
Sometimes you feel like Moses
That's when you're toasted.

(Yeah, a little Passover reference right there. Whatcha gonna do about it?)