(It's For The Kids)

I read this article today about how there's a new ringtone out there that can be heard by kids only, and not adults:

Students find ringtone adults can't hear

I didn't know that was even possible, but apparently it is, if you set the frequency at the right range. Kinda like those "dog whistles" I guess.

The news is alarming to me, though, because I didn't think there was that much difference between an adult's hearing and a child's hearing. It's not like with dogs and humans, this is human to human we're talking about, just different ages.

I know my hearing will go eventually, but I always thought your hearing didn't start degrading until you were elderly (like 60's or so), and by then, you probably have other things to worry about. But it doesn't "sound" (har har) like they are talking about grandmas and grandpas who need hearing aids. The article distinguishes between "5th graders" or "teenagers" and "adults", and if anything, I'm thinking that I fall into the "adults" category.

That's not cool. I guess my body is breaking down even faster than I thought it would. Next thing you know I'll be wearing sweaters in the middle of August and smelling like mothballs. Umm, let's hope not.

By the way, my favorite sentence from the article:

"As people age, many develop what's known as aging ear..."

Hmmmm... FASCINATING

DREams in Digital

If there are any girls reading this, you might want to skip this one. Seriously.

There's been a lot of commercials lately for these new drugs that are supposed to treat men's prostate problems. The two brands I see the most are Avodart and Flomax, and seriously, watching these commercials almost has me convinced that I need to see my doctor for BPH (which is somehow short for an enlarged prostate disorder, I have no idea how).

From watching the commercials, I gather that the main symptom is having to pee excessively often. Well that sure sounds familiar. Some of you may have already noticed that I'm always going to the bathroom. It's not to check my makeup or gossip about boys either.

It has been suggested to me in the past that I have a small bladder, which as you might imagine, isn't my explanation of choice. (I prefer to think of it as being because I have especially good circulation or a super efficient digestive system. That or I drink more water than everyone else.)

I'd much rather have a small bladder, though, than an enlarged prostate. I was intrigued enough on the subject of prostate disorders that I decided to do some digging on Google about it. I didn't get very far, because it isn't particularly enjoyable to read about some of the gory details on the subject.

But one thing I did learn, though, is that the common procedure for doctors to check for prostate problems is called a "Digital Rectal Exam". Most of us have probably heard of rectal exams, and they don't sound too fun do they. I am definitely not looking forward to getting those when I get older, to say the least.

But anyways, when I first saw mention of a test called the "Digital Rectal Exam", it gave me some hope. When I hear the word "digital", certain things come to mind. I think about digital music, digital cable TV, digital watches, digital tuning on your radio. Basically, I associate any "digital" stuff with modern technology, advanced electronics, etc.

So the first thought that came to mind was, hey, maybe someone came up with a nice, non-intrusive way to examine my prostate. Like some sort of mini X-ray or MRI or something that "digitally" scans that region of your body for abnormalities that does not involve poking at the rectum, I'm all for it.

I gotta be honest, I am all for any procedure that provides an alternative to rectum-pokage. It's like when you're a kid and you find out that you can take a vaccine in pill form, instead of getting a painful shot. Except multiplied by a factor of about 100, because shots only last a fraction of a second, and aren't nearly as emasculating.

Unfortunately, my excitement didn't last very long, as I did some more investigating into this so-called "Digital Rectal Exam". Turns out that in this case, the word "digital" was not used to describe an advanced electronic test at all. Nope, they meant "digital" as in the lesser used, definition #2 (reference Dictionary.com):

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=digital

Dig-i-tal
2. Operated or done with the fingers

So basically, the "Digital Rectal Exam" is just a fancier name for that same rectal exam we all hear nightmare stories about. Guess there's no escaping your friendly doctor's finger. All I could say is, wow. Who would have thought that in this "Digital Age" that we live in, they could call something "digital" and have it not be even remotely related to electronics? Maybe a better question is, who even calls fingers "digits" anymore? What are we, in 18th century England? And while we're at it, is there such thing as an "Analog Rectal Exam"? I shudder to think of what that might entail. (Okay I know, now I've gone too far. Sorry.)

Anyways, as I came to this cruel realization, I pondered whether the decision to call rectal exams "digital" was some elaborate joke played on the male population. In all likelihood, by the same man-hating lesbian who invented catheters. All I know is, the next time I see my old college roommate Ray, I will surely urge him to press his employers at GE Medical Systems to make "electronic rectal examinations" their highest research priority.

In the meantime, I guess it's digital rectal exams for all of us guys. That, and we'll have to maybe put up with taking some of these fancy drugs they're advertising. The good news is that apparently the only side effects they have are minor - such as "decrease in semen" (who needs semen anyways), or "fainting from standing up" (hey that sounds kinda fun actually). I think I saw "impotence" thrown in there too, for good measure.

Hmmm... in hindsight, I probably should have advised guys to skip this blog too. Oh well, too late now. If you would like to read more about Digital Rectal Exams (also known as the DRE, I'm guessing it's named after the doctor who invented it, the same guy produced Snoop Dogg and Eminem's rap careers, if I'm not mistaken), here are some more links:

http://www.webmd.com/hw/colorectal_cancer/hw4404.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rectal_exam

http://www.flomax-bph.com/jsp/toolsResources/ToolsResourcesController.jpf

The Skilling Connection

I was reading an article on the Enron the other day, when I came across an interesting tidbit. Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who was just convicted of fraud and a bunch of other good stuff related to the Enron scandal, is the younger brother of none other than...


WGN's weatherman, Tom Skilling

I'm pretty sure that I've railed on weathermen before in this blog, and probably have singled out Tom Skilling at one point or another, for being a waste of space. Little did I know that he was the brother of one of the central figures in perhaps the worst "white-collar crime" in recent history.

See, I knew there was a reason I didn't trust Tom Skilling. This merely confirms what I always suspected all along. That beneath that jolly smile and grandfather-like demeanor, lies a man with a twisted psyche. You can't escape genetics. Beware, if your last name is Skilling, you're bound to one of two possible fates:

1) Ruining the lives of thousands of hard working Americans by unethical management of a corporation, or

2) Ruining my life with your faulty weather predictions.

There are no exceptions. The world needs to rid itself of this scourge that calls itself the Skilling family, I say.

Spring Cleaning

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend. Mine was about as busy as it gets. Saw Da Vinci Code (weak) and X-Men 3 (loved it). Went to an outdoor wedding, which was nice except it was ridiculously hot. Played some softball and basketball, where it was also ridiculously hot (in addition to lots of fuzzy plant crap flying around the air).

But I think the most significant part of the weekend, for me at least, was the day I spent cleaning and taking care of business around the house. After a long winter and busy past couple months, I finally had a chance to hand wash my car, sweep away all the leaves, dirt, and spiderwebs built up in my garage, and trim the overgrown hedge that was interfering with part of my driveway ever since I moved in.

Trimming hedges is harder than I expected. Here is a picture of my finished work:



Beautiful, isn't it. Consider the above photo as reason #1 of why you should never, ever let me cut your hair.

Update

Well it's been a while since I wrote anything, some of you may be wondering what I've been up to. First of all, work has been especially busy lately. You can all usually assume that is the case, whenever the updates get rare.

There have been some highlights from the last few weeks though. One was getting to see Shubes and Sandy get married. This marks the first of the original ~509~ clan to get hitched by the way. Some pictures from the wedding:





Yes, our hands say "5-0-9" in the first picture. Yes, I know that makes us all very lame. There were plenty of interesting incidents from that evening, none of which will be discussed in detail here. Let's just say there was some tackling, and also a gay waiter hitting on Ryan.

Another landmark day was Olivia's med school graduation, last week. It was really nice to see her walk across that stage, after watching the girl work so hard for the last 4 years and make so many sacrifices to get there. I know for a fact that I would not have made it myself.

As part of her graduation week activities, we went to a graduation ball and also a Sox game. You can take a wild guess on which one I enjoyed more. Here's a pic from the game:



Next memorable event was the engagement of Brian and Grace. Another couple takes the plunge. Not that it matters what I think, but I thought it was really great thing to see. Congratulations guys!

Finally, I have to talk about getting to go to watch Conan O'Brien taping at the Chicago Theater. Thanks to Chras's email savvy and generous offer to bring me along, we got to cross one thing off of the "Miscellaneous To-Do List" of life. Conan is definitely one of the funniest people in the world, if you ask me, and I loved watching his show ever since high school days.

Even better was that his guest for that show was Dave Chappelle. So you had maybe the 2 funniest people in the world on the same stage, and me and Chras were there to see them. Very cool, I will remember the experience for years to come.

I took a few pictures there, see below (note: the ones inside are bad quality because my phone camera sucks in the dark, and also because the ushers were yelling at people with cameras, so I had to do it surreptitiously. This led to the blurriness to go along with grainy. In the last one you can kind of make out Conan shaking hands with Chappelle on stage, so it's all good.):









There were some other highlights, but I don't have time to write about them right now. Gotta get to bed. Later folks.