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Two days of quite different hellish job problems: patients that do not even show up for their appointments, like half of yesterday’s… Exacerbated by today’s winner, a man who was scheduled for a three-hour procedure, and who called two hours before his time and said, “I just got your message. Didn’t my wife call you? I’m in Florida.”

I filled up that three hours on short notice. The billable hours were not as rich, but I filled them. And God help me, I actually feel like that was a triumph.

The only answer, of course, was to do something worthwhile with my evening. Like sifting through the 10 gigs of mp3’s on my Zen Nomad and correcting the tags.

And re-reading some of my favorite literature. In case I haven’t mentioned it, Scott McCloud’s Zot! was one of comics’ finest hours.

Day off tomorrow, though my son reaallllllly wants to see the Ghost Rider movie. Good thing I edited those tags tonight!

February 24, 2007
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

See if you can guess where this conversation from early this morning veers from the real to my diseased fantasy life.

PATIENT: I am in terrible pain. Can the doctor please see me sometime today?

ME: Well, you’re in luck. We had a cancellation this morning, in about an hour and a half. Can you be here at 10:00?

PATIENT: Oh, no, I’m going to work. What do you have later tonight?

(pause)

ME: Obviously, you are not in terrible pain. Call me back when it gets worse.

(SSSh! He’s out in the waiting room right now, as the sun slowly goes down and I lose all chance for dinner with my wife. Oh, how I love my life!)

February 22, 2007
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

Hey look! The Red Cross is getting into the fearmongering act:

Not only did the terrorists win quite some time ago, but they’ve gotten us to do their dirty work. Or are they pissed that we’re not outsourcing this stuff anymore?

Incidentally, it looks like the Justice Department numbers on terror cases may be a bit off.

Lest we end on an entirely bitter, Carlinesque note, I should point out that Ray Smuckles has finally seen the light.

February 21, 2007
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 1 Comment

So what headline jumps out at me over at the Houston Chronicle’s site?

Thousands could die if a giant tornado ever hits Houston

Let me hit what I feel are the pertinent sections of this headline:

Thousands COULD die if a giant tornado EVER hits Houston

As opposed to the desired effect, which is

THOUSANDS could DIE if a GIANT TORNADO ever HITS HOUSTON

Apparently, the public is glutted with tales of possible apocalypses due to giant asteroids, terrorist bombs, arctic cold fronts and goth kids with automatic weapons. Theoretical tornadoes are the new hotness.

Dammit, news media – there was a time when you were my friend. When the hell did you go over to the enemy?

Never mind, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know the answer to that.

February 20, 2007
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

Suddenly I understand the unreasoning hatred toward Texas I alluded to earlier in the week.

It seems that Warren Chisum, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, weighs in on the side of those who feel that the Earth revolving around the Sun is a crackpot idea forwarded by a bunch of Jewish conspirators. The memo Chisum forwarded to legislators originates from a Georgia rep, but Good God!

Next we’ll be outlawing penicillin, because infections are obviously due to an imbalance of bodily humors. That whole medicine thing was started by a buncha Jews in medieval times, tryin’ ta invent socialized medicine!

I’m back to hating people again. My life is such a rollercoaster.

February 18, 2007
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 1 Comment

Two murderous days at the Hated Job. Each night, I came home, ate dinner and went immediately to bed. Well, okay, Wednesday night I got up long enough to watch Lost. Today was the day off, so my body finally decided, cool, a chance to finally collapse, so here it is, late afternoon, and I am only just now setting foot outside my bed and/or bathroom.

Bleh.

I have absolutely no desire to find out what is going on in the outside world, so I am just going to sit quietly in my office for a while and hope my headache goes away. In the meantime, I’m sure anyone who wants to has already seen this, but if you haven’t… well, welcome to a fair approximation of my high school days:

The only thing better than this trailer is the ongoing discussion at YouTube about it. Good Lord, you’d think the topic was actually important.

February 16, 2007
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

So via Boing Boing, I come across a story obviously dredged up by the recent Boston Mooninite scare; Last year,Paramount apparently attached devices to newspaper racks that played the Mission Impossible theme when the machine was opened, all to hype Mission Impossible III. If you’ve paid attention at all to the news the past month, you’ll see the similarities to the panic caused by a bunch of Lite-Brites advertising an upcoming (I think) Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie.

It’s time we fessed up. The terrorists won. And they did it with the complicit aid of our politicians and our media, neither able to comprehend the difference between a state of “alert readiness” and one of “abject fear”. Abject fear reaps more profit, in terms of money and other capital, I fear, and that is the road that has been travelled, and this is the result. Don’t know why I’m surprised or dismayed; Common Sense took a round in the head quite time ago, and got buried in someone’s back yard.

Time to drag out that on-again, off-again book I’ve been working on for ages. The new working title is A Nation of Fuckheads.

February 14, 2007
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment