BLDGBLOG linked to a handy guide for naming suburban Denver subdivisions.
Not to be outdone, Denver resident and VM buddy Craig offers up a link to the Nietzsche Family Circus. Hit reload. Laugh.
Don’t tell the Beer Baron
Unrequired Reading
I promised some Unrequired Reading for a Friday morning, so here it is:
Jane Galt has a sad post about the economic destruction of Zimbabwae. There are some “interesting” comments after the post.
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Via Bookslut, a collection of covers from old Penguin and Pelican books.
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Ten YEARS of South Park?! Man, I’m getting old.
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It’s Ramadan. Don’t be a jerk.
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Ron Rosenbaum on William Kennedy, Hunter Thompson and the America’s Cup.
Bonus: Ron on the Dunkin Donuts Coffee Roll.
Queasyne
VM reader Elayne lets me know that, as damaging as Nutella-filled crepes may be to my waistline, the Parisians have nothing on good ol’ American junk food . . .
The Grateful Persian
My other point of pride is how quickly and how well some of my dear readers (and great friends) offered up resources to help out The Brooding Persian. I forwarded everyone’s messages to him, and he was enormously grateful. He’s going to try to follow through with our advice and see where it gets him.
Thanks to everybody who pitched in on this. I’m proud to have such good and caring friends.
Made it!
Maybe (?) it’s dweebish to take pride in being able to help put on a good pharmaceutical outsourcing conference, but it’s an awfully good feeling when an event works out as well this one has.
The first day of the event is the more stressful one: We had 130 companies at the one-day tabletop exhibition and more than 300 attendees in the house for the conference sessions (between sessions, we had events in the exhibit hall, so the attendees could learn about the exhibitors and do business). It’s basically a four-person operation, with some day-of-show help from some of our office staff.
The buildup is pretty harrowing for us, knowing that more than 500 people are on site because of the strength of the brand 0f our magazine. But the big day was a rousing success. The exhibitors were ecstatic with the quality of the leads they were getting from the attendees, while the attendees loved the presentations we put together (I take a little more pride in that part, since this was the first year I was largely responsible for organizing the presenters and topics).
Anyway, I know this is coming off as a rah-rah horn-self-tooting, but I feel awfully good about how well it all turned out. Exhibitors were seeking us out at the cocktail reception after the show, to tell us they wanted to sign up for next year’s event now. It takes months of preparation that still leaves plenty of last-minute stress, and it’s a great feeling when everyone else is happy with the results.
Now, on to Paris, for a conference about 9 bazillion times bigger than this one.
(I’ll try to post some Unrequired Reading this afternoon, when I’m home.)
Friend in Need
I’ve got a request for you, dear readers. A friend of mine (the Brooding Persian, whom I met in grad school) is suffering through a psychotic breakdown and an undetermined autoimmune disease (the latter seems to be causing the former, as an organic brain disorder). He’s living in the Seattle area, doesn’t have money, and is describing himself as a “ward of the courts,” on probation after a recent “harassment” arrest that he chalks up to this psychosis.
Here’s the request: do any of you know of any psychiatrists in the Seattle area who might be willing to talk to/evaluate my friend? He mentioned to me that he’s seeing a doctor in a “clinic for the poor.” I don’t want to cast aspersions on the quality of the help that he’s receiving; I just want to get him the best aid possible.
Drop me a line if you have any leads.
Love is . . .
. . . pretending not to know what size Breathe Right strip your husband wears.
(If you must know: Magnum)
ZOTZ!
Because I’m an absolute freak, weird phrases stick in my memory for years. For example, there’s a paragraph that’s stuck in my mind from a New Yorker article about Mars exploration SIX YEARS AGO:
“It’s a difficult road to Mars,” Charles said. “There are many years of hard work ahead of us.” Already, though, there’s active discussion within nasa about what kind of astronaut would be best prepared for deep space. “If young,” he continued, “they may be the most fit. But then you run into the problem of radiation, which could zap their gonads, so they would not be able to have kids.” A case could also be made for choosing older astronauts, seasoned by previous missions, for the first Mars voyage.
Why did it stick out? Because of that line about cosmic rays zapping someone’s gonads. Just thought it was funny.
Until yesterday. That’s when I received an e-mail from a friend of mine in his mid-60s, in which he wrote
Sorry I’ve taken so long to get back to you. But yesterday morning at ten, I got my prostate nuked. (They fill you full of painkillers and antispasmodics, then do it — by sticking a microwave coil up your pecker — right in the doctor’s office. Takes an hour — and it’s a bitch!) Supposedly the sucker is now two-thirds the size it was before, and in two or three days I should be able to pee like a normal fellow.
I have nothing to add to that.
Got crabs?
A slideshow of the Worst Jobs with the Best Pay. I think it’s funny that “IT Worker” ends up on this list, but hey.