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Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: This little boy came back for a dressing change, and it was determined that he had to come back for a cleaning and some repair under anesthesia. He had not eaten or had anything to drink, so he was ready to go. Unfortunately, a break in cases did not come for him for about five more hours. During this time, his father sat in the entryway with his son on his lap. His son fell asleep, and the man did not move, not taking a break or getting water.
A while later, after a few hours had passed and the little boy had wakened, the boy was sitting on the floor coloring and the father still waited. I offered to sit with the boy if the father would take a break and go for a walk to get a drink and a rest. He reluctantly agreed, saying the boy did not like to be with anyone else. I insisted, sat down with the crayons and the boy, and the father finally ambled off.
After about five minutes, the jig was up and the boy began to look around and started to cry. I tried and tried to distract him, make faces, and get him to smile, but only made things worse. Luckily, at about this time, Oumar walked in and saved the day. He scooped the boy up, swung him around, and made little noises that comforted the boy. As I caught this photo, Oumar looked askance at me as if to say, "How am I doing?" Great, Oumar, perfect.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: We have all noticed how stoic and brave these children are. They do not seem any less afraid than other children, and some do throw a total fit when we take them back (all done without sedation), but many others swallow their fear and hold it in, possibly betrayed only by a small tear, a trembling lip, or a shake. Imagine how it must feel to be taken away from one's family by people you have never met, can't understand, and all you may know is that something is going to be done that will probably hurt.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: Looking closely at this child as he had his dressing changed, I noticed the buttonholes were tied with string. Can you imagine being too poor to afford buttons? We had one earlier during the first week with string on the belt loops of his pants; he had no belt
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: This little baby had amniotic bands, which constrict a limb from birth and prevent normal growth. Only a few months old, hopefully she can catch up on some of her growth and lose the swelling in the left foot. She was crying and fussing, so our coordinator Manon wrapped her up on her back like the locals do and the baby quieted right down. Nice and close!
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: A little girl was to have her hand fixed, and she was so cute. Many of the hand problems that we repair change a hand from non-functional to useful. Not all end up looking like a normal hand, but thumb function in opposition to the fingers and the grasping function of the fingers might be provided. Suddenly they have the potential to function with two hands, which may mean they can work, provide basic functions at home for themselves, and embrace their world.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: One day the phone rang and the lady at the desk said there was a man here to see me. I went downstairs to the lobby, and it was a patient from two years ago. He had a photo of him after his operation, and asked me about each care-giver in the photo. He had had his lip repaired by Roberto and was quite happy with the result. I think he had a tumor on his lip, was a professor of history, and a very sweet middle-aged man. Anyway, he got to see myself, Scott and Jacques, and I told him the rest of the team was not here this year. But we will let them know! It's always nice to be able to receive a patient's gratitude.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: Congratulations to Dr. Oumar Coulibaly, Interplast's partner in training and his bride Massaran! They got married during the weekend between the two weeks we were performing surgery in Mali. He was kind enough to invite us to his wedding. Everyone at Interplast is very fond of Oumar and we wish him all the best in his marriage.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: These kids are amazing. They spend most of their early life wrapped close on their mothers' backs, and have such a close sense of personal space. When we hold them in our lap to breathe them to sleep, rather than kick, push away, or have a tantrum, they give in and lean into us much sooner and closer than I am used to back home. They wander all over the neighborhoods as soon as they can walk, and have large extended families that include neighbors and friends. Very different sense of trust and community. There really have been very few children who have fought us, and it humbles me to watch them be so stoic through this experience.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: Verathon was kind enough to let us use a Glidescope Ranger. This is a very portable video scope that allows us to place tubes in people that otherwise might be too difficult to do. We have used it many times, but three times it proved to be critical. I think we all have used it now and are very thankful to have it.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist:
Our day was long, but many medical visitors came and went. We had several of the surgical trainees working with us. To see them learn and work side by side with like professionals who do not always speak the same language is gratifying. Everyone gets along, finds a way to communicate, and works together on the common goal of patient care.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: On our second day, a little boy wandered into the operating area and was giving out handshakes and hugs. He was not due to have surgery, just curious and friendly. His visit set us up for a great day.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: The last patient of the day was met by his mother, who appeared to have a sibling on her back. However, the baby on her back actually belonged to the mother of another patient. This woman was comforting the baby simply to help the other mother. It was such a loving thing to do, even though the two women had never met. Both had children who were post-operative, but this sweet lady took on the baby to give the other mother a break. It's nice to end a long and hard day of work with a scene like this.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: The recovery room nurses have adopted several nursing students to come and work and learn with them. These lucky students have two very capable and dedicated nurses to teach them. Here is Vickie at work, doing well with lecturing in French.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: What probably made today a relatively stressful day was the fact that clinics, (where we see patients to screen and schedule for surgery), were advertised as happening today as well as yesterday. So not only did we have to go through our list of mock emergencies and situations, gear up for our first cases, and work through the glitches, but we also had to run back and forth to another building to get these other expectant patients seen. One little boy could not be calmed but he let me put my hat on him. He still wasn't happy, but re-focused his energy from crying to problem-solving: "Who ARE these people?"
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: As the days go on, more of the local medical workers start to show up wanting to participate in the day's procedures. Today, we anesthesiologists got to meet two of our local colleagues and share some ideas about how we do things. Always very interesting for all parties involved.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: Today was a long day for everyone. We started with an early breakfast and then made rounds to see a few more patients who might need procedures. Visiting the wards is always very colorful. The families practically move in⎯mats on the floor with cooking pots, covers and various items to care for thier sick family member. Sometimes we see them praying and paying respects. No need for nurse call buttons; plenty of advocates all around the bed.
Next we all made our way to the OR and met with the medical director of the hospital. He helps host us each year and expresses many thanks. As our team leader Dr. Steve Parker said, "Dr. Keita always welcomes us with his big arms."
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: To share all of this with such a capable team of dedicated, like-minded, interesting and delightful professionals is itself a gift. Where do they get these people?!! I always come home from these trips a bit changed, with more knowledge and experience learned from my colleagues. I also feel restored and appreciative of the work that we get to do.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: I would be remiss if I did not mention the adorable children and older patients. They come with such hope and high expectations and it is a privilege to be able to offer them some help. It is the least we can do in exchange for the humbling experience of knowing them and understanding their lives and struggles. They are incredibly brave to hand themselves over to total strangers from an alien culture. This simple element of trust is something that bridges many boundaries.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: To help bridge the linguistic divide, we have translators who translate between English to French, French to Bambara and back again. I did some translating and other than telling one patient to open his leg and another to give me his teeth, was able to make some headway.
I noticed that when Zacharia (one of the translators) went from French to Bambara, he retained the word "minuit" (midnight). I asked him if there was not a word in Bambara for midnight, and he said that before "outsiders" came, the locals only referred to early night (just after sunset), middle night (while sleeping), and end of night, (just before dawn). So they simply adopted the new word for the new concept of specific time. This gentleman is a local doctor and he also explained to me that after the third year of medical training, all training is conducted in French. There were no Bambara words to cover subjects at the end of training. He proudly said that he has been the first person in Mali to complete his medical training in Bambara, that he helped pioneer the necessary words and teachings to keep the local language alive in the medical profession.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: Some of us went to tackle the task of building an OR suite from the ground up (except for the walls, which were already there) - recovery area, clinical office, supply room, sterile processing, cleaning and sink area, OR with tables, vaporizor manifolds, airway/IV/surgical supplies, suction, waste gas scavenge and record keeping. Interplast does a great job of imploding all these items into the boxes we bring and we must rehydrate them all to life.
Patients come from all over to be seen and hopefully selected for surgery. Some do not have a problem that is surgical (one girl had not spoken in her life), others cannot be safely done with the equipment we have and the time to do it in (extensive burn grafting) and yet others are not things we can deal with at all (club feet).
Patients are first seen by the surgeons: the senior staff, second attending and the Interplast Webster Fellow. Consideration is given first as to whether the case ought to be done at all (technically) and if so, a plan is devised. We also have along a nursing professor who is teaching local nurses and is in charge of dressing changes and wound care and a hand therapist extraordinaire who treats some post-operative patients and takes others for hand therapy only. One of our translators is a very organized engineer and keeps all our needs and details running smoothly. Everyone has his/her own niche and essential roles.
Those who are chosen to be scheduled are then funneled to the next room where they are seen by two nurses for hemoglobin, weight, height, vital signs, and photographs for identification on the day of surgery and then to the pediatrician and anesthesiologist for the final screen and clearance.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: First full day in Mali and as always we hold a clinic day.
We got up early for a group meeting before seeing patients and had breakfast in the dining room. I needed to ask for another blanket and some other things for our room. The night shift guy was asleep, or as they say, "on Mali time."
We all marched to the hospital, about two blocks away. We were met with a very loud and chaotic crowd, packed into two long hallways. Of course, if one child comes in to be seen, he or she arrives with his or her mother, siblings, uncle, grandfather, blankets and food for the day.
Bamako, Mali - Bonnie MacEvoy, anesthesiologist: I am at SFO now, waiting for my Air France flight to Paris. Everyone starts to show up about three hours early to load the 30 or so boxes of equipment and supplies, plus our own personal stuff. How will the plane get off the ground?!!
**UPDATE: Here's the photo of the man with his sister.** As our volunteer medical team headed home after two weeks in Dehradun, India, we in Mountain View, California (where Interplast is headquartered) received the following email from a patient's brother. Reading his note made us all a little extra proud to be working at Interplast.
I've already met your team members here in Dehradun. In fact it was a chance meeting at the Dehradun Airport where I had gone to see some of my family members off to Kolkata. Because of the inclement weather, their flight was not being confirmed. And I was quite worked up since cancellation of the flight meant missing the connecting flight from Delhi to Kolkata. Many such weird thoughts were crossing my mind when I received a phone call from my sister who had also come to the airport and was sitting at the other end of the lounge, she wanted me to come over to her. On reaching there I found her talking to a gentleman. She introduced the gentleman to me as one Dr. Kush. In turn I also introduced myself. Dr Kush informed me that a team of specialists were reaching Dehradun just then and he was at the Airport to receive them. He told me that a camp was being organized by an NGO called Interplast. Seeing my sister with burn contractures on her neck and lower lip, Dr. Kush wanted me to bring her to the camp the following morning for a possible corrective surgery.
And thus began my introduction with Interplast. Today, I'm immensely pleased to tell you that my sister was operated upon last Thursday and has since been discharged from the hospital and is recuperating fast. I am really touched by the love and care with which they treated one and all alike without distinction.
I wish to place on record my profound sense of gratitude to the each and every member of the Interplast team for the love and care showered on one and all.
Thank You, Interplast!!
Dehradun, India - Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer.
Big improvements for the patients and the team this year! Dr. Kush Aeron, Interplast's international partner in Dehradun, has arranged for the team to perform surgeries in the state hospital where he works. The chief minister of the state of Uttarakhand authorized the use after a recent meeting with Dr. Kush, Dr. Scott Corlew, Interplast chief medical officer and Susan Hayes, Interplast president and CEO.
Previously, surgeries have taken place at New Disha Hospital, a small two-bed clinic run by Dr. Kush and Dr. Yogi Aeron, Interplast surgical outreach director. We feel fortunate to stretch out in the safe and large space of this impressive hospital.
Dr. Kush and Dr. Yogi have done an amazing job of preparing for the team, as always.
Dehradun, India - Wai-Ling Eng, Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) board member.
It was very gratifying to return to Dehradun, India and see the progress that has occurred since my visit last year. The two-bedroom house that used to be the surgical site is now the clinic where dressing changes and minor procedures are performed (a much better use for the space). The area provided by the state hospital is so much better—I can already see the possibilities of expanding this location for more work. The future of this program looks bright.
The people in this region have been relying on these services for years. Many of them have been returning yearly to have much needed work done; what would they do if we were not here? That's why I am proud that RMHC (Ronald McDonald House Charities) has been a consistent, multi-year supporter of this program that has impacted so many lives and in such significant ways.
It will be interesting to proceed to Nepal and see the possibilities there.
Dehradun, India-Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer.
First-up for surgery this morning is Riya, an adorable little girl who fell into a pot of boiling water at the age of two. After the accident, Riya's elbow began contracting, as most unattended burn wounds tend to do so. With the surgery provided by the Interplast team, Riya will have full use of her arm and hand. Both Riya and her mother were in happy moods this morning, seemingly not nervous at all about the surgery to come.
All scrubbed-up and ready to get to work, our medical volunteer team has begun its first day of operations in Dehradun.
Regional collaboration and partnerships are important aspects of how we work. Both Dr. Hien Thi Nguyen, anesthesiologist and Interplast's surgical outreach director in Vietnam, and Dr. Shankar Man Rai, surgeon and surgical outreach director in Nepal, have joined the team to India. Additionally, Lekharaj Niroula, a hand therapist at the outreach center in Nepal, is participating on an Interplast volunteer team for the first time.
Some paced the hallways of San Francisco International Airport, just hours before their flight's departure. Others intently discussed survival strategies for their upcoming 18-hour flight. Regardless of how they chose to pass the time between boarding and the plane's departure, Interplast's medical volunteers all shared the same excitement.
The team is headed to Dehradun, India, where they will work alongside their local medical colleagues to provide free reconstructive surgery to those in need. Accompanying the medical team are Emil Wang, Interplast board member, and Wai-Ling Eng, a board member of Ronald McDonald House Charities, a key partner and sponsor of Interplast's work.
Through this blog, we will bring you updates on the team and stories of the patients they meet during their time there.
To our volunteers, thank you and have a safe flight!
Read stories from our 2009 Dehradun team trip here.
Visiting from Los Angeles, California, actress Micky Hoogen (Raising Helen) and former MTV VJ/serial entrepreneur Adam Curry, arrived at the Interplast office last week. After meeting the staff, Micky and Adam were given a behind-the-scenes tour of how Interplast is run.
As this year's masters of ceremony for Interplast's popular Transformations Gala, Micky and Adam came to discuss their role at the event and gain an in-depth understanding of Interplast's work.
After a fruitful day of meetings and discussions, it was the staff's turn to ask questions. Susan Hayes, Interplast president and CEO, asked, "Of all the worthy causes, Interplast's included, you've chosen to support ours, why Interplast?" Watch their response.
When she's not busy working one of her two jobs---completing her medical school application and volunteering at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital---Holly Cooper, Los Altos, California, spends her time (about 12 hours a week) interning with Interplast!
Holly recently received her master's degree in biology from Stanford University. She told us that she has wanted to be a doctor for as long as she can remember, and hopes to begin medical school in August 2011.
After nearly fainting on her first day working at an out-patient surgical facility, Holly started to doubt if it was really the right profession for her. At that time, she took a brief detour into animal care, retail and research, but she returned to her original choice of medicine. "Soon I realized that the aspects of those jobs that I liked, the sense of accomplishment of working with my own hands, the joy of meeting and helping new people every day, and the constant quest for discovery and answers, all intersect in medicine," Holly recalls.
Her compassionate nature and commitment to improving the world around her are the driving forces behind the time she spends volunteering. In the past, Holly has volunteered at the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo and completed internships in dolphin acoustics at Southwest Fisheries Science Center and in animal care at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Oakland Zoo, and US Navy Marine Mammal Program.
As Holly reflects on her decision to apply to medical school she shares, "I would like to feel as though I am bettering humanity and making an impact during my lifetime."
Today, we feel privileged to have her as part of our summer internship program. In the time Holly has spent with us, she has contributed greatly to the staff, our programs and most importantly to Interplast's mission. We'd like to give a big thank you to Holly and to all our summer interns for helping, energizing and inspiring us.Disabled people are the world's largest minority. Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. That law has improved the lives of the disabled in the United States and brought greater awareness to the issues they face. But more needs to be done here and in developing countries, where 80 percent of the world's disabled live.
At Interplast, we treat a hidden minority within the disabled community: those who have become needlessly disabled because of burn injuries. Few realize the scope and impact of disabling burn injuries in the developing world, but every 5 seconds someone is severely burned in a developing country---more than 6 million people annually. That is 1.5 times more than the number of women worldwide who are diagnosed with HIV/AIDS each year.In 2009, the U.S. took a step toward advancing the rights of the disabled worldwide by signing of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. However, the task of actually improving these conditions is daunting. Moreover, before such measures will help the millions with debilitating burn injuries, burns first must be acknowledged as a neglected global health problem and a significant cause of disability in developing countries. Please help us spread the word. http://bit.ly/cxnEtA
Photo by John Urban."We are passionate about Interplast because of my step-mother's commitment to the organization and because of how it helps so many children around the world," continued Stephanie. "Asking guests to honor my parents and our celebration by donating to Interplast was a great way to give back---and it meant a lot to us to do it."
Interplast is deeply grateful to the Bush-Pecci family for their support and generosity. We send them our best wishes for a wonderful life together. They were married on May 29, 2010 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Photo: (from left to right) Juan Pablo Pecci, Stephanie Bush, Steven Bush and Lori Bush, Interplast board member; by Jason + Anna Photography.Interplast repaired Shu Zhi's cleft lip and by doing so started a new chapter in her life, one that she never dreamed was possible.
Recently, Shu Zhi asked her children, who, like so many others in rural China, have left their family's small farm to work in the city, to send us a picture of her now. Sporting a beautiful new red shirt, she wanted to once again thank Interplast and to share her and her family's happiness.We here at Interplast hope that you can share in their happiness, too. Thank you for helping us give patients like Shu Zhi a second chance at life.
Read the original story of when our team first met Shu Zhi here. You can also watch a short slideshow of Shu Zhi's transformation here.
At the Miraflores Central Military Hospital in La Paz, Bolivia, our host surgeon Dr. Jorge Terrazas enthusiastically pointed to one of the many brightly colored posters he posted over the past month, advertising the free reconstructive hand surgery that our Interplast team will provide to both pediatric and adult patients. In preparation for this trip, Dr. Terrazas, who is an orthopedic trained hand surgeon, tirelessly screened over 700 patients prior to our arrival and selected more than 100 patients to be seen by our team. Interplast has successfully partnered with Dr. Terrazas for the past eight years in La Paz; together we have operated and taken care of hundreds of patients.
Today we set up shop at el Hospital Militar Central. Our host, Dr. Jorge Terrazas, is great. He not only prescreened 700 patients prior to our arrival, but he also facilitated setting up our operating site and getting local nurses, residents, and other hospital workers to help out. The clinic itself was captivating; there were so many people in need of correction of hand problems including congenital defects, burns, work-related injuries and accidents. Dr. Kyle Bickel, Dr. David Kim, and Dr. Joyce Chen along with Dr. Jorge Terrazas helped evaluate all patients to determine if an operation could improve function and form of their hands. Witnessing their collaboration with decision making was phenomenal. Everyone on the team was working hard. The pediatricians and anesthesiologists were thoroughly evaluating patients and the team nurses were setting up the quirófanos (ORs) and seeing patients as well. Given that we were starting up quirófanos from scratch, the anesthesiologists worked closely with the local physicians and nurses to ensure that we had everything we needed. Amazing day really, many patients in true need of help and great people working together to make it happen.
We arrived a day before beginning clinic day in La Paz, Bolivia. This place is breathtaking (literally at times); it has blue skies over a huge valley with amazing Mt. Illimani in the background. Everyone on the team feels well today. Besides the slight time change, most team members are worried about "soroche" or altitude sickness, considering last year's team was significantly affected by it. Most of us are on Diamox (altitude medication) and some have tried "mate de coca" or coca tea, a local alternative. We walked around today to acclimate and went to see our operating site to evaluate and deliver our crates of equipment. Tomorrow is clinic day, where we evaluate potential patients and determine if we can help them during our trip and/or offer physical therapy.
Last week, 15 employees of Acclarent volunteered
at Interplast headquarters. Acclarent is a business unit of Ethicon—and Ethicon
is one of our major in-kind donors.
The employees prepared approximately 700 oral
health speech therapy kits for our Nepal speech therapy program. (Speech therapy is often needed after
surgery for repairing a cleft palate.) These kits include small items like
tongue depressors and dental mirrors for the therapist to evaluate and work
with patients to improve their speech, as well as toothbrushes and toothpaste
for dental hygiene.
"Having the Acclarent volunteers in the
office was fantastic," said Teresa Olson, Interplast development
coordinator. "Seeing Ethicon again
lend it's strong support to our program—and the employees of Acclarent give up
their time to help supply our Nepal speech therapy camps—was such an
inspiration. I can't imagine how we could have made all of those kits
without them…plus, they were a total blast!"
Interplast is grateful to the Acclarent
volunteers and for Ethicon's long-term and continuing support.


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Here's a breakdown of gold and silver performance by political party since the gold and silver bull since 2001.
What is very clear from the above is that Democrat Clinton, who was very close to the banksters, and in particular, Citigroup banksters, was awful for gold and silver, while Republican Bush, who was very close to oil interests and loved war, was great for the performance of gold and silver. Gold and silver's performance during Democrat Obama's tenure thus far has been closer to their performance during Republican Bush's tenure than Democrat Clinton's tenure. However, I believe that part of gold and silver's resiliency during Democrat Obama's tenure has a lot to do with the fact that when Clinton was in office, the bankers actually had to lease tonnes of physical gold and silver into the open market to suppress the price of gold and silver because they could not yet use the immoral and unethical HFT algos they utilize today to suppress the price of gold and silver in paper markets because they had not yet developed and perfected these algos to manipulate gold and silver prices as well as stock markets in general. Therefore, during Clinton's tenure, the bankers relied primarily on selling physical gold and silver, and not paper gold and silver, to suppress gold and silver prices. For all intents and purposes, one can substitute the world "sell" for the word "lease" above, because though Central Banks still carry this physical gold on the asset side of their balance sheets as "leased" gold, this gold is now likely forever gone from their vaults and will never return. No sane persons or institutions will now part with their physical gold and physical silver and accept fiat paper currency in return. Thus, though Democrat Obama has been a very banker-friendly President like his predecessor Clinton, gold and silver prices during his tenure have risen, in our opinion, in spite of Democrat Obama, and with a less banker-friendly President in office, the prices of gold and silver would likely be even higher than their present prices.
Today, bankers have to create an illusion of massive gold and silver supply by falsely creating billions of paper ounces of gold and silver in the futures markets that simply do not exist in the physical world, aka the REAL world, because they have no more physical gold and silver to sell into the market to suppress the price of gold (or no more physical gold and silver with which they are willing to part). Thus, they are struggling right now to crush the price of gold and silver at a time when all major global fiat paper currencies are right now at their most fragile point in history on their way to worthlessness. Again, we endorse neither the Republican or Democrat candidate in today's US elections as we believe both candidates are awful choices, so we have presented the two charts above merely for your digestion, and interpret the charts as you may.
About the author: JS Kim is the founder and Managing Director of maalamalama, a fiercely independent investment research & wealth consulting company. His flagship investment newsletter, the Crisis Investment Opportunities newsletter, with a focus on Precious Metals, has yielded +24.87% as of November 1, 2012 versus the +12.86% return of the S&P 500 and the +4.01% return of the Philadelphia Gold & Silver Sector index over the same time period.

subset: commoncrawl


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Cotton-tail Cupcakes
These bunny butt cupcakes are cute and easy to make and will look totally cute on your Easter dessert table!
Easter is almost here!
Eggs are being colored, baskets filled with
jelly beans, speckled eggs, marshmallow peeps and oh so much more.
This little "funny bunny" wanted to get in on the action!
These cupcakes are fun and easy to make. I melted white chocolate and put it into a plastic bottle. Then piped on an oval shape onto wax paper, chilled them. When they were firm, I added some pink candy melts with a toothpick and tiny spatula. Chilled the feet again for a few minutes until they were hard. I frosted these chocolate cupcakes with fluffy white frosting, topped the cupcakes with the feet and moistened a mini marshmallow then rolled it into nonpareils.
Hippity-Hoppity Easter is on its way!!!!
I made Rice Krispie treats and posted them earlier this week, but forgot that I had some in the fridge. I put the mixture into plastic eggs, added a lollipop stick and dipped them in dark chocolate. Then drizzled them with some pink candy that I used on the feet for the bunny. Oh..chocolate covered treats are YUMMY!
What a fun 3D Easter Egg!
Just as easy as it was to pipe the white chocolate out for bunny feet, you could do ears and a round dot for the tail with nonpareil sprinkles.


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There is something almost magical about bells. I spotted Michele Quan's ceramic bells on one of my favorite tumblr's to visit, Love Adorned (which is also a brick and mortar store in NYC). Quan's work seems thoughtful and really moving in a way, like they've had past lives. Her bell garlands are my favorite along with her bells on twisted rope with porcelain.
Images from Michele Quan's site of her opening, Suzu at Love Adorned.


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KINGSTON, R.I. -- June 27, 2000 -- "The leading cause of death for endangered northern right whales is ships running into them," said James Miller, associate professor of ocean engineering at the University of Rhode Island. "Since there's just 300 of these whales left in the world, when you lose one it's a big loss to the population."
To reduce the number of whale collisions and protect the northern right whale from extinction, Miller has developed a sonar imaging device that will serve as an aid to navigation for ship's captains to help them find and steer clear of whales.
Northern right whales live exclusively in the North Atlantic, where shipping traffic is heavy. By comparison, the closely-related southern right whale plies the waters of the South Atlantic where shipping traffic is considerably less, and its population isn't in danger.
"One difference between the two whale sub-species is the amount of shipping in their territories," said Miller. "There's no doubt that shipping is having a major impact on the northern right whale population."
Designed to be mounted on the hull of a ship, Miller's device sends out high-frequency sonar signals that deliver real-time images of what is in front of the ship.
"Most sonar devices typically look straight down below the ship and therefore aren't helpful in navigation," explains Miller. "The major difference with ours is that it looks forward and has a very high resolution, so it can play a significant role in minimizing ship/whale collisions. It can also be used to find reefs and submerged rocks that might damage ships."
Miller believes that whale-watching ships and cruise ships are likely to voluntarily install the device both as an aid to navigation and for the public relations value-but container ships and other commercial vessels will probably need an economic incentive to do so.
"If the commercial shipping industry were to use our sonar, it would allow their ships to more safely share the ocean with whales," said Miller. "The sonar might also keep the federal government from imposing burdensome regulations on shipping like those that the fishing industry has had to deal with recently."
Biologists are also interested in the device as a whale tracking tool, particularly to track whales during their deep dives to learn more about their behavior.
Using the technology he developed at URI, Miller started Pyrcon LLC, a company named for the mythological voice of the sea, to further refine and produce his sonar imaging device. The near-term cost to produce one device is approximately $20,000, but as demand grows he expects the price to come down to about $5,000.
According to Miller, the sonar is ultrasonic for the whales, which means that the frequency of the sonar is beyond their hearing. "We have seen no indication at all that the whales can even detect the presence of the sonar signal."
Miller's research about sonar and bioacoustics also includes studies on the impact of ship noises on whales.
"There are tens of thousands of container ships out there, so all the great whale communication channels are filled up with ship noises," said Miller. "And the bigger the ship, the worse the effect."
Next up for Miller is a study of the effect these noises have on whale behavior.
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Halloween is just around the corner and goodies are appearing along in all the shops, complete with scary costumes and decorations. We're predicting Harry Potter fans will absolutely love this new range of treats which are in store at John Lewis right now.
Choose from Chocolate Frogs, Jelly slugs and Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans. Costing from £3.50 to £4.50, this isn't something to have in for the trick or treaters, but perfect for a Harry Potter themed Halloween party or as an extra treat for your own little kiddies.
The Chocolate Frogs contain crisped rice and we're expecting them to prove incredibly popular with young Harry Potter fans as each one comes with a collectible wizard card. At £4.50 for just one though, it's going to cost a lot to collect them all.
Cards available are Albus Dumbledore, Madam Rolanda Hooch, Minerva McGonagall, Pomona Sprout, Severus Snape, Rubeus Haggrid, Madame Pince, Mr. Ollivander, Gilderoy Lockhart, Voldemort, Filius Flitwick, Quirinus Quirrell, The Potter Family, Donaghan Tremlett, Orsino Thruston, Heathcote Barbary and a guest appearance by Myron Wagtail. If you're wondering who Myron Wagtail is, we didn't know either. Apparently he's the lead singer in the wizarding world's most popular band, The Weird Sisters. Why not test your Harry Potter fans now. We can't help thinking that they should have included our favourite young wizards and witches in the cards too.
The Every Flavour Jelly Beans come in tasty varieties such as banana, candy floss and blueberry, but also include some less delightful flavours like vomit, booger and earthworm.
The Jelly Slugs sound a little tastier, and include pear, sour cherry, watermelon and banana flavours. Find the perfect Christmas present for Harry Potter fans here. Find out where you can get a Harry Potter-themed afternoon tea here.
Publish date: 13/09/2017 01:00 PM Rachael Sneddon
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Price: $26.99 - $15.75
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Revised edition includes 100 new exercises!
The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises is the essential workout guide for anyone who wants a better body. As the most comprehensive collection of exercises ever created, this book is a body-shaping power tool for both beginners and long-time lifters alike. This book contains hundreds of useful tips, the latest findings in exercise science, and cutting-edge workouts from the world's top trainers.
Backed by the authority of Men's Health magazine, this updated and revised edition features 100 new fat-loss exercises in 20 workouts designed by BJ Gaddour, Fitness Director of Men's Health, and 1,350 photographs, showing movements for every muscle and a training plan to match every fitness goal.Rodale Books


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Skiller of Codemasters Project, the same group edisoncarter is in, and CMX of Code Breaker have found the last 13 unknown cheat code combinations. Unlike edisoncarter, who was known for brute forcing the cheat codes by connecting a PS2 controller to a PC and trying various combinations, these guys decided to take it one step further. The difficulty in finding the San Andreas cheat codes so far was because the game has the cheat codes written backwards in hash format (0x867974FB, 0x80750205 etc). In this format, it is impossible to read through the hash values and find the necessary button presses. Therefore we have known the hash values for the cheats for a long time, and have been able to trigger the cheats with a cheat device, but we did not know which buttons to press to activate the cheats.
Skiller came up with an ingenious idea. Teaming up with CMX they managed to put together a program (for which the source code has been released) which emulates different button presses and compares the resulting hash values with the known hash values for cheats. As we already know the hash values for all the cheats in the game, by comparing hash values of cheat combinations with hash values of actual cheats, they were able to find the remaining unknown combinations. In addition to this, Rockstar has used a 32-bit hash algorithm when putting together the cheat codes. This means that there is not only one combination that results in a certain hash value. There are many many many combinations which equal to a specific hash value. Since it is the hash value which triggers the cheat, there are also many combinations for any specific cheat. So far Skiller has managed to find more different combinations than anyone can imagine. He hopes to have all the combinations which result in cheats together in a few days. Look for that soon!
All codes have now been found. I think we owe a huge thanks to CMX, edisoncarter and Skiller. Be sure to check out our updated San Andreas cheats page. Now with all the San Andreas cheat codes found, we are ready for Rockstar to bring on the PC and XBox versions for our enjoyment!
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The privately owned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has experienced several technical issues this year and two attempts to launch on Thanksgiving were aborted. SpaceX says it will try again in a few days to launch the 7,000-pound satellite into geostationary orbit.
The launch was originally scheduled for early this year but was scrubbed. More glitches kept it on the ground Monday. SpaceX was not granted permission by the FAA to launch Tuesday or Wednesday due to heavy Thanksgiving air traffic.
The SES-8 satellite will be used in conjunction with other communications systems to increase bandwidth capacity in Asia and provide expansion of services such as maritime communications and distance learning programs.
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Oolong, as a semi-oxidized tea, is often said to be in a state between Green Tea and Red (black) Tea. It's often interesting to me comparing products of the same tea cultivar made with different processing techniques. This happens a lot in oolong. I also believe for green tea lovers and black tea lovers, oolong is a great tea type to expand their tea territory. One can always find oolong products closer to green tea taste or black tea taste. Then it's possible to move to the other side little by little. Therefore I plan to go over several pairs of oolongs. Each pair of tea are made with leaves of the same cultivar, but one is lightly oxidized, and the other is more oxidized.
Here are two Cui Yu teas made with lighter and heavier oxidation. Cui Yu (Green Jade) is one of the four major oolong cultivars in Taiwan. The story about origin of Cui Yu and another Taiwan Oolong cultivar, Jin Xuan, is here.
The first Cui Yu Oolong is typical Taiwan light oxidation style. It's indeed very close to green tea, both in color and taste.
The light oxidation technique retain the refreshing taste of high mountain oolong to the largest degree. The tea has an uprising fragrance of spring grasses, with some floral notes. The tea doesn't last for many infusions, usually 3-5. I would recommend this tea to every green tea lover. I've found the taste of this tea is somewhat between Japanese green, Chinese green and most other greener oolongs.
The second Cui Yu Oolong is made with Dong Ding style technique (featured with medium oxidation and medium to high roasting). It's a Grade IV (Award of Excellence) from 2009 winter Tea Competition of Nantou County Tea Commerce Association. (See more descriptions of Competition Grades of Taiwan Oolong here.) All the teas in this competition are either in or influenced by Dong Ding style. Cui Yu is a new cultivar in Taiwan oolong history, and most Cui Yu products we see in market are greener style.
(This is a little off-topic: Sometimes leaves of Cui Yu are mixed among others to make Dong Ding Oolong, but we wouldn't know if the product is not labeled with tea cultivar names. And often they are not labeled. Traditionally Dong Ding Oolong should be made with Green-heart oolong cultivar only, but nowadays there are more leaves from other cultivars used, sometimes all leaves are mixed to make a Dong Ding product. Such mixing sometimes promotes tea taste by combining various flavors. But it's also very confusing, because very often cultivars influence tea tastes much more than geographic locations of tea production.)
Now back to the topic - This Dong Ding Cui Yu, I think, is very unique. It serves as an excellent contrast with the popular greener Cui Yu. This is the first Dong Ding style Cui Yu I had. If I hadn't seen the product label and had done a blind taste, I guess I would have been totally confused. I would have thought it was like a Dong Ding Oolong, but I would have been deeply puzzled because the taste was quite unique and unlike other Dong Ding products I have seen. I put this tea in a tea guessing game on TeaChat, because I think it's a very tricky one :-D
Dry leaves are by far not as green as the other one. These look typical Dong Ding to me.
Tea liquor color is closer to a traditional greener style Dong Ding I have, and is nothing similar to the other Cui Yu.
Then I brewed these two teas side by side in small tea bowls (and by the way I found both of them are good for mug/tea bowl brewing).
I first put some 20 dry tea leaf grains in each tea bowl (fewer grains of the greener Cui Yu because its tea grains are larger). This was when I thought of using number of tea grains as a measurement in the Quick Notes 1d of tea brewing. I would rather counting tea leaves than using a scale. Although I use scales to weigh tea products all the time, I am anal about NOT using a scale in my personal tea drinking - it's just my idiosyncrasy :-p
All pictures have greener Cui Yu on the left and Dong Ding Cui Yu on the right. Greener Cui Yu's leaves are generally thicker and more intact, compared with Dong Ding Cui Yu. This is partially because Dong Ding Cui Yu was more heavily processed, and partially because this greener Cui Yu is from a higher elevation than leaves of the specific Dong Ding Cui Yu. Since leaves of the two products are not from the same production location, the comparison is not perfectly scientific. It's more of a fun game :-D The photos do not perfectly reflect their differences either. But fortunately the differences are big enough to stand out.
Finally their spent leaves. Greener Cui Yu on top and Dong Ding Cui Yu at the bottom.
These two teas have been kindly reviewed by tea drinkers at Steepster and Teaviews.
1 year ago


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American Retirement Funds at Serious Risk of Being Seized
Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement Dec 07, 2010 - 09:44 AM GMTThe news of Hungary effectively seizing private pension fund assets to pay for the debt obligations of the state last week should come as yet another reminder of the urgent need to get tax-sheltered retirement savings away from the clutches of the state before it's too late. Hungary is just the latest country to decide that it's citizens retirement savings are the property of the state.
The last major country to use similar tactics was Argentina who confiscated about $3.2 billion of pension savings in 2001 before the country stopped servicing its debt and then nationalized the $24 billion industry two years ago to compensate for falling tax revenue after a 2005 debt restructuring.
On November 24th the Hungarian government gave its citizens an ultimatum: move your private-pension fund assets to the state or lose your state pension. Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy announced the policy, escalating a government drive to bring 3 trillion forint ($14.6 billion) of privately managed pension assets under state control to reduce the budget deficit and public debt. Workers who opt against returning to the state system stand to lose 70 percent of their pension claim.
Americans who think "this can't happen here" may want to think again.
In September of this year the US Treasury investigated the possibility of requiring retirement funds to hold a percentage of government securities in their investment portfolio. That, in effect, would be a nationalization of 401ks and IRAs.
And don't think for a second that the US is in better financial shape than Hungary.
The moves in Hungary were prompted by large annual budget deficits and a large debt to GDP ratio. So, let's compare Hungary's deficit and debt to that of the US.
First, a warning: Accept the US governments own financial statistics at your own risk. Federal debt, unemployment and CPI, just to name a few, bear no resemblance to reality.
The federal debt, as proclaimed by the US government is stated to be $13.8 trillion but just subjecting federal government numbers to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) shows a true debt, if accounted for properly, of $71 trillion as of 2009.
In 2009 the US GDP was $14.26 trillion. Therefore, the debt to GDP ratio of the US is 497.89%.
Hungary's 2009 GDP was $128.96 billion and their national debt was $93.36 billion for a debt to GDP ratio of 72.4%.
That doesn't look so good for the US. How about the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP?
Hungary posted a budget deficit of 4% in 2009. Meanwhile, when accounted by GAAP standards, as calculated by Shadowstats.com, the total deficit in 2009 was $4.3 trillion. Compared to a GDP of $14.26 trillion the 2009 budget deficit as a percentage of GDP was 30.15%.
Considering that Hungary was downgraded today by Moody's to Baa1, close to a "junk" rating, and the US' debt to GDP ratio is five times worse than Hungary's and the US budget deficit as a percentage of GDP is more than 7 times worse, those with retirement savings in the US should quite easily see the writing on the wall.
Gold made an all-time high of $1423.40 today, also clearly showing the writing is on the wall for the entire US dollar based financial system.
Keeping retirement funds inside of tax-sheltered accounts, which the US government will soon look to as the next source of funds to try to pay off its mountain of debt and keeping retirement funds in US dollar based "assets" is putting your retirement and future at great risk.
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This adorable arrangement will brighten any room with its beautiful blue blooms and add a cuddly soft bear to match.The perfect gift for a new baby boy!
blue vase included with beautiful blue and white flowers to match.
Flowers are subject to seasonal and regional availability.
In the event that any of the flowers are unavailable, the florist will substitute with a similar flower in the same shape, style and colour. Stem count, packaging, container and teddy bear may differ from picture.
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Ornate sterling silver crucifixes and centerpieces, combined with exquisite beads make these rosaries a genuine value in the marketplace. Whether crafted in faceted crystal or genuine pearl beads, our Sterling Silver Rosaries are a truly unique and elegant spiritual gift. . -- 6 mm Faceted Crystal, Sterling Silver Centerpiece and Crucifix/Oxidized Silver -- 18 1⁄2" L
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Just a few words about the +3ROM:
Note: the +3 ROM, either version, are copyright Amstrad Plc . Amstrad has kindly given it's permission for it's copyrighted material to be redistributed, but Amstrad retains it's copyright.
You should know by now that the original, first released +3, had many problems with the +3BASIC.
Ian Collier has an exhaustive document on this, The Canonical List of +3 Oddities . The document applies to the first +3 release, equipped with ROM v4.0.
Then, there was a the second +3 release, equipped with ROM v4.1. With reference to Ian Collier's document, I have not checked each flawed address of the ROM v4.1. This is a difficult task, as the new ROM has been reassembled (by Amstrad) and almost all address reference from ROM0 and ROM1 is shifted. However, I checked randomly a few of them and found that some of the "original" bugs are still present. For example (with reference to Ian Collier's document), the one from address #01D7 and #022F in ROM0. Or address #0769 in ROM1. Or the example 6.
However, there are, for sure, some bug fixes. I am aware of these ones:
But, they introduced a new bug:
If anyone is interested in this ROM version:
The archive contains three ROM size groups – 1×64KiB, 2×32KiB and 4×16KiB – that are suitable either for emulator usage or for physical EPROM writing, where applicable.
I also have the original +3B ROM v4.1 Spanish version. It retains all the bugs and fixes of the v4.1 English version.
Likewise, this one also contains three ROM size groups as mentioned before.
Today I am using a slightly modified version of ROM v4.1.
This ROM is available in two versions, of which one has 4ms head stepper motor timing. If you have replaced your original Amstrad 3" drive with a 720K 3.5" one, or are using two 720K 3.5" disk drives, then using this version will greatly improve the disk access speed under +3DOS environment.
Notable changes:
A new look... Because of the 50Hz TV screen flicker, the original white background irritate my eyes when working for long time at the +3 in BASIC mode (whereas the blue background less, or not at all) |
I have not given any new name to this +3ROM version. The blue background is enough for me to differentiate between two different ROM equipped machines.
This archive also contains the three ROM size groups (i.e 1×64KiB, 2×32KiB and 4×16KiB), but these are further expanded based on stepper motor timing value:
Note: there is only one variable for head stepper motor timing for both drives; it is not possible to have one drive with one timing and the other drive with a different timing.
Important: DO NOT use the ROM with 4 milliseconds stepper motor timing on a +3 that may still use the original Amstrad 3" disk drive !
This timing may also be changed via software (running a program which makes use of the +3DOS DD SETUP jump block in ROM 2), however, such a software must be then reloaded after each computer reset (and, likewise, such a software should NOT BE run if the Amstrad 3" disk drive may be in use).
Please note that if the Amstrad 3" disk drive is connected but not in use, the use of 4ms head stepper motor timing has no undesired effect on the 3" drive.
The latest development regarding the +3 ROM can be found on Garry Lancaster's section at WOS site, The ZX Spectrum +3e . This is an ambitious project, for adding hard disk support to the +3 (or +2A) computers.
As far as I know, the +3e ROM is based on the original ROM v4.0 as supplied with the first +3.


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Here's the final cover art for A Princess of Mars. The one seen in the SelfMadeHero catalogs was a texture/color rough and not quite finished. And, like the cover for At the Mountains of Madness, it is a full wrap around cover but I won't be revealing that for a bit yet. But you will be seeing sneak peeks over the coming months of the interior art.
Now, what goings on have been going on since last I posted? Well, I attended the Bristol Comics Expo a couple of weeks back where I was part of a panel discussion with David Hine, Ian Edginton, Rob Davis and Dan Lockwood - talking about the Lovecraft Anthology. I also met up with many many lovely people including Alison Sampson who's blog Space In Text is an absolute must visit (I drew Juno for her), and Stacey Whittle of Small Press Big Mouth (I drew Johnny Alpha for her). Also met, very and all too briefly, Ernesto Priego from the Comics Grid, with whom I really wish I'd had longer to chat, and Mark Clapham from Shiny Shelf who I also wish I'd spoken to for longer. I managed to miss a lot of people but hopefully will see them all soon.


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Monday, February 27, 2012
Lake Vernon still in limbo
From the Queens Chronicle:
Nestled between a Department of Education office and a Con Edison building on Vernon Boulevard, hidden behind graffitied plywood fencing, is an enormous abandoned lot with a water-filled hole which Community Board 2 says people have dubbed "Lake Vernon."
The lake has a million-dollar view — or in this case, multi-million-dollar view — that was originally intended for the residents of a massive development project called "River East." The project, at 44-02 Vernon Blvd., was to have included two 29-story towers and smaller properties accommodating nearly a thousand apartments, according to published reports.
But the project has long since stalled and its developers are mired in foreclosure litigation, according to a spokesman for Durst Fetner Residential, which owns a $32 million note on the project. CB 2 would like the city to take over.
In its Fiscal Year 2013 request to the Borough President's Office, the board wrote that the site is "a serious threat to the safety and quality of life to all those who live and work in close proximity."
CB 2 would like the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to seize control of the site, with the ultimate goal of transforming it into affordable housing.
Yes, we need more affordable housing paid for with taxpayer-funded corporate welfare.
5 comments:
How about a park?
- Monday, February 27, 2012
Another project with a water view - plenty of those built in the past - it's an idea that works! The natives become peaceful at the sight of serene water scapes!
- Monday, February 27, 2012
summer at "Mosquito Lake"! - Monday, February 27, 2012
How has this not undermined the foundation of the DOE building? How much money will taxpayers have to spend when this happens if it isn't happening already?
- Monday, February 27, 2012
CB 2 would like the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to seize control of the site, with the ultimate goal of transforming it into affordable housing.
bullshit! - Monday, February 27, 2012


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POCOMOKE- A Salisbury man was arrested on Wednesday in connection with the murder of a 77-year-old Pocomoke man in his residence last week.
On Wednesday, the Worcester County Bureau of Investigation arrested Charles Robert Phillips, 29, of Salisbury for the murder of William Nibblett, 77, of Pocomoke. Phillips has been charged with first-degree murder, robbery, burglary and assault.
Around 5 p.m. on March 6, the Worcester County Sheriff's Office responded to Nibblett's home in Pocomoke in reference to a death investigation. Nibblett's daughters had gone to his home to check on him after not hearing from him that day and found him stabbed to death on the floor in the living room. He was last seen the day before around 4 p.m.
Early on, detectives focused on two vehicles that may have been seen in the area around the time the crime was committed. One is a mid-1990s Chevrolet Cavalier white in color with a white convertible top and a blue sports striped down the side. The other is a mid-1980s Lincoln Town Car white in color.
By Wednesday, the investigation pointed to Phillips as a suspect and he was arrested and charged with the murder.


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In this Centennial year of the historic maritime disaster James Cameron and Paramount have turned back to their 1997 mega-hit version of Titanic, one of the most successful movies ever made. An exacting perfectionist who plans his movie projects in anticipation of technical advances (as with the phenomenal technical achievement of 2009's Avatar), Cameron's only difficulty is finding enough time to re-issue his earlier films to his high standards of quality. But earlier this year he arranged to convert Titanic to 3D for theatrical presentation. The practice of 'depth-icizing' flat movies has so far been a drag on 3D exhibition, but we'd expect that if anybody does it right, Cameron will. Although investors in home 3D equipment have yet to see a big volume of product to play, Titanic is here right on schedule with no icebergs getting in the way. It's difficult to believe that fifteen years have passed since this show was the rage. It can only be agreed that Titanic fulfilled the specific fantasy the public wanted to see that particular year. Time has softened some of my original objections toward the picture but others still gripe me. Titanic is an undeniably impressive technical achievement. Dramatically, it's almost inert, a safe-bet picture peopled by anachronistic cardboard characters. That mattered not a nit to untold millions of viewers back in 1997, when I remember people telling me their wives had returned to see it four, five, six times... The story picks up the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic just as the giant new passenger liner departs from its last UK stop. Socialite Rose Bukater (Kate Winslet) hates being the trophy fiancée of arrogant millionaire Cal Hockley (Billy Zane) and takes up with penniless steerage passenger Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio). When the ship keeps its historic appointment with an iceberg, Rose and Jack defy the insanely jealous Cal, not to mention Rose's demanding mother Ruth (France Fisher). As the ship founders and chaos grips the terrified passengers, Cal's bodyguard Spicer (David Warner) makes sure that Jack is handcuffed to a large pipe, deep down in the bowels of the ship. An incredible gamble in 1997, Titanic paid off handsomely for the investors that allowed James Cameron to "sink" 200 million dollars into a single feature film. The show is a keenly designed commercial vessel, carefully tweaked to remove anything that might irritate or disturb the lowest common denominator in the audience. The stock characters are performed as if there were no difference between 1912 and the present. Class barriers are easily circumvented; all rich people are frauds and scoundrels desperately lacking a 'common touch.' By contrast, the steerage passengers are without exception noble, good natured and fair-minded optimists. The film's most depressing insult occurs when naughty fornicating runaway princess Rose flips the bird to David Warner's nasty bodyguard. I'm sure that the gesture did indeed exist in 1912 (the English do it with two fingers, I believe) but the point is why does the demure Rose perform the gesture like an aggressive Valley Girl? We're given to understand that Rose's brief life has been as sheltered as the little girl at the next table over, learning to fold a napkin. The movie caters to the romantic fantasies of its audience. Dreamboat actor DiCaprio is given a sterling set of qualities. His Jack is a roving free spirit just back from the continent, where he's been doing terrible sketches of Parisian prostitutes. He has an absolute trust in his own instincts, not to mention naturally suave manners that erase all social lines and restrictions. The dashing Jack also dances a great jig. Everything he says drips with wisdom and noble common sense. Beautiful Winslet looks properly stifled by her 1912 wardrobe but she's a fantasy character as well. Having just realized she's a caged bird living an artificial life of luxury, Rose simultaneously discovers true love and rebellion against convention, and in a matter of hours transforms into an emancipated, liberated '70s woman. Rose ditches her impossibly arrogant jerk of a fiancée to enrapture and seduce her new Prince Charming. No hot romantic supermarket novel can hope to compete with this setup. Since this is a late-'90s picture the sexual part of the fantasy is female-dominated. Jack is a gentleman charmer but Rose calls the shots, deciding when to get naked and where to do the deed. Rose's dastardly boyfriend Cal, by contrast, already considers her his property and becomes violent that Rose might have a thought in her head that he has not pre-approved. He browbeats her and then pouts that she hasn't come to his bed after lights-out. Of course, the answer is that everybody else is a constipated square and our lovers need to break free of the restraints of oppressive affluence. No matter that Rose has never as much as cooked for herself, the vagabond life is for her. We learn that Rose later becomes a movie star and a pioneering female pilot. She's quite a gal ... even at age 100 she's the sharpest cookie in the room. This lazy fantasy might have been acceptable if Titanic had a good script. Cameron's main characters are either goody-good or hiss-able villains, with nothing in between. Dialogue that squeaks by in outer space and underwater techno-fantasies is inadequate to float a period romantic drama. Practically every line in the film comes from the prefigured exposition playbook, is baldly unbelievable, or is trite with a capital T. Accomplished actors DiCaprio and Winslet come off as shallow teenagers acting like adults. They look good but that's it. As far as the main characters are concerned, absolutely zero attention is given to anything even resembling authentic period attitudes. The supporting cast ranges from good to truly terrible. Kathy Bates and Frances Fisher are reasonable within the narrow confines allowed them; Billy Zane's villain is badly written and abominably directed. Victor Garber plays the ship's designer in almost a shot-for-shot and line-for-line copy of the role as conceived for the 1958 Roy Ward Baker version of the sinking, the fascinating A Night to Remember. Supporting characters exist only to feed us needed information; excellent actress Bates is put into service holding the football for Jack and Rose. Enough! Enough. One could go on sniping for hours. Titanic is too fat a target for even Savant's easily satisfied dramatic demands. Besides that, although the ship wasn't too big to sink, Cameron's movie seems to have been Too Big To Fail. When one disengages from the lame story the film is thoroughly engrossing as an epic spectacle. I've found favor with many a stilted epic as long as there was sufficient star-power to stave off boredom while waiting for a battle or a giant set piece with a thousand extras. Taken as an action movie, Titanic's grandiose scale and technical wizardry compensates for the mediocre dramaturgy. In other words, if we take the director's main goal as creating a gripping you-are-there account of a famous disaster, this is a success. The only way Titanic could be improved in that respect, would be if audiences were required to watch the conclusion with their feet in buckets of ice water. All the factual particulars of the sinking are handled far better in A Night to Remember, but James Cameron does not have the same semi-documentary goal. Politically Titanic falls somewhere between Night and an eye-opening 1943 Nazi version created as bitter anti-British propaganda. Cameron's script is somewhat contemptuous of the ship's captain and crew. Second Officer Lightoller is the compassionate hero of the 1958 film but here is characterized as a hysteric who threatens to shoot passengers. Cameron also purloins a key plot twist from the Nazi version - which sees one likeable character locked up in the brig far below decks just as the ship begins to founder. I guess Paramount's legal department figured Joseph Goebbels' agent was in no position to object. (That's no joke; ship model shots from the Nazi Titanic found their way into earlier B&W versions.) The runaway production Titanic was extremely expensive even though the giant boat sets were accomplished in Mexico. Director Cameron may have missed his calling -- his complex production so rivals D-Day in planning, logistics & execution that he could easily have been a great military General. Cameron must also have the stamina of an ox. While organizing everything he also had to work behind the camera for twelve hours a day filming the darn thing. We see every filming trick in the book used in conjunction with what were at the time a lot of experimental digital techniques. Interestingly, in this 2012 release, the action of the tiny animated figures on the ship's deck no longer seems as mechanical and fake as it once did. Did Cameron revise those shots when he did the 3D conversion? Establishing shots of the ship suffer from the tendency of early CGI to favor impossible digital helicopter swoops down its entire length -- even Cameron found a more 'what could a real camera do and see' style for his later Avatar. On the other hand, almost every shot of the nighttime sinking is a dazzling wonder. The views of water filling corridors (some of which were surprisingly tiny miniatures) and whooshing through breaking windows are terrifying. Even with more unnecessary bad history (a running gun battle in the main salon? Ship's officer's shooting rioting passengers?) we feel the horrible entrapment as the ship begins to descend into the ice water like a runaway escalator. We're also assured that this is the first Titanic film to get the sinking correct. The ship splits in two as its stern cantilevers hundreds of feet into the air. Conflicting stories from witnesses helped to blur this fact in the history books, until confirmation came with the actual sight of the wreckage on the ocean floor. Reflecting the director's enthusiasm and commitment to underwater exploration, the film offers a wraparound bookend structure in the present day. Bill Paxton plays a hi-tech salvage expert and Gloria Stuart (The Invisible Man) is Rose. The spry 100 year-old has a sentimental secret concerning a particular jewel, which gives the film an anchor in the present day. Paramount's spectacular Limited 3D Edition Blu-ray of Titanic is a four-disc set. The first two discs contain the 3D copy split in two for maximum quality. The third disc carries the 2D Blu-ray copy and the fourth BD has the special features. Many of the extras from the 2009 special edition DVD are repeated, including the 30 deleted scenes and the 60 (!) BTS featurettes. Classy menus also take us quickly to two new docus. Reflections on Titanic begins by showing how a projected Hollywood disaster became an enormous success. James Cameron begins by explaining that he was directly inspired to do the film based on a viewing of A Night to Remember. The show hits a note of questionable taste when the narration asserts that the 'theme' of big plans going wrong was reflected in the 9/11 attack and disaster. The lesson of the Titanic definitely has something to do with the hubris of men, but the connection with a perceived downfall of America is offensive. The second new docu Titanic The Final Word is 87 minutes long and hosted by James Cameron, who goes through the entire story of the actual sinking, all the way to the exploration of the wreck on the ocean floor. All of the BTS material from early releases appears to be here as well, including "Videomatics", construction time-lapse videos, the music video with Celine Dion, Trailers, TV spots, image galleries, parodies, etc. Investors in this new 3D Blu-ray won't have to accept a feature-only presentation. So, how's the 3D version? The 3D scenes now look hyper-real: almost jarring in their composition, color saturation, and depth of field. The depth effect is excellent, yet now we realize how many scenes on the ship were digital composites. The engine room almost looks unreal -- to make the 3D work, every giant piston is in focus and well lit at the same time.) The 3D is pretty clean. One overhead "helicopter" shot of DiCaprio standing on the ship's bow is somewhat strange. An odd blue compositing artifact around the live-action bit of DiCaprio apparently became more pronounced in the conversion to depth. The robotic undersea exploration shots in the modern scenes are particularly impressive. With the camera moves so slowly, the floating particles in the water provide a 'depth medium' that draws us into the setting. If there's a complaint to be made here, it's the use of 3D in the CRT monitors the actors hover over on the boat and inside the submersibles. Are these underwater cameras meant to be 3D, without glasses? The 3D breaks the 4th wall like this only when the frame of the screen is 100% taken up by the CRT image, but getting a stereoscopic perspective from a blurry color-corrected CRT image seems completely wrong. By the way, unlike the 2D version, the 3D encoding is full-frame 1:78. As has been his mode since the 1980s, Cameron shoots in Super-35 and crops to fit various formats. This means that the special effects were actually composited with more north/south information than was seen on theater screens. Obviously, filling home theater widescreens is a major aid to 3D. The improvement of Blu-ray on the 2D version is substantial, allowing us to soak up the full extent of the detail of the massive boat sets, and to better appreciate the impressive early CGI work. Purchasers of this pricey box will get the desired massive dose of quality 3D they crave; as expected, Cameron has done far more than a fast 3D cut & paste job.
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Titanic Blu-ray rates:
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The Hitch pitch probably went something like this: Alfie meets Cyrano de Bergerac. Hitch is an urban fantasy, with florid observations about life and love ("Life is not the amount of breaths you take—it's the moments that take your breath away") leavened by the good humor of semi-disasterous dates.
Will Smith plays the title character, Alex Hitchens, who opens the film by directly addressing the audience. He's New York City's "Date Doctor," and if you've got "no guile and no game," he's your man. Hitch coaches fumbling men to score with women. Kevin James of TV's The King of Queens plays Albert, an accountant who's a no-count in love until Hitch baby-steps him into a relationship with a stunning socialite (Amber Valletta). Lessons in getting a woman's attention, dancing, and planting the first kiss provide Smith and James plenty of comic opportunity.
Meanwhile, Hitch meets his match in reporter Sara Melas, played by Eva Mendes (Out of Time); their professional obligations intrude on their pursuit of a relationship. Hitch fails their first date ("but...with flair"), arranges a sweet-and-sour trip to Ellis Island, and eventually loses all control when Sara erupts in a food-fight frenzy. Naturally, Albert hits the rocks as well, and both men set out to get their respective grooves back, the honest way.
Hitch turns out to be winning for a number of reasons. First, writer Kevin Bisch and director Andy Tennant (Sweet Home Alabama) acknowledge that Hitch is full of it: he can help others, but when he's in love himself, he gets in over his head; this revelation is hardly surprising, but it's key to grounding the unsettling notion that frumpy white guys need "cool" lessons from lithe black men.
Secondly, Tennant ruthlessly keeps the plot bouncing along (though poor Michael Rapaport, as Hitch's best friend, gets jettisoned quickly). Most importantly, Hitch is well-cast, with a sprightly Smith in his finest fettle in years. The star player seems in his element, loosely ranging from smooth-move deadpan to "how did I get in this mess?" mania. Sometimes, competent direction and a brace of star power are enough for Hollywood's best-laid plans to go off without a hitch...or with one, as the case may be.


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This month the Society for the History of Psychology (Division 26 of the American Psychological Association) offers a special virtual issue of the journal History of Psychology. Entitled "Teaching Diversity: What can History Offer?" this free volume includes three pieces selected and introduced by Division President Alexandra Rutherford which "address gender, race/ethnicity, and the intersection of sexuality and disability in historical perspective" in order to highlight "that historical scholarship offers a rich and often untapped resource for instructors who wish to engage students in critical conversations about diversity issues across the psychology curriculum." Rutherford's introduction "outline[s] how these articles can be incorporated into courses across the curriculum to deepen students' understanding of how psychology and psychologists have grappled with these issues and how historical analyses can inform contemporary topics and debates."
The conclusion to Rutherford's introductory article provides a concise synopsis of how this special issue can be a resource for the promotion of socially responsible pedagogical values in psychology, and their application in the classroom:
"The articles featured here to encourage the use of historical scholarship across the psychology curriculum demonstrate how history can facilitate forms of critical thinking that have the potential to make students better scholars and better psychologists. By encountering historical analyses that provoke critical questions about the relationship between science and culture, science and politics, and science and society, students develop the capacity to examine the preexisting assumptions that may creep uncritically into contemporary research. They develop the capacity to examine the role that psychology, as a powerful scientific and social institution, plays in our everyday lives. There is no reason that the development of these skills should be undertaken only in the history of psychology course. I hope this introduction has provided some ideas about how to use history to achieve critical learning objectives across the curriculum."
Authors, titles, and abstracts are as follows:
Stephanie A. Shields, at Pennsylvania State University, writes on "Passionate men, emotional women: Psychology constructs gender difference in the late 19th century." Here is the abstract: Continue reading Extra, Extra! Bonus Content from HoP on Teaching Diversity


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Far beyond even the nosebleed seats, far above the highest Olympic mountain, here is what the Sochi Winter Games look like from space.
This NASA image is from Saturday, the day after the opening ceremony in Sochi. The bright circular structure is Fisht Stadium, where the ceremony was held.
Associated Press reporters are filing dispatches about happenings in and around Sochi during the 2014 Winter Games. Follow AP journalists covering the Olympics on Twitter: http://apne.ws/1c3WMiu


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We get to the restaurant, sit down, and the waiter places a huge basket of tortilla chips and salsa in front of us. Guess who was the first one to stick his boogery hand into the basket of chips? Yuck. How do you get a grown man to stop picking his nose?
It is as though someone has drilled peep holes into the walls of emergency rooms, operating rooms and doctors' offices. I can't look away.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
We get to the restaurant, sit down, and the waiter places a huge basket of tortilla chips and salsa in front of us. Guess who was the first one to stick his boogery hand into the basket of chips? Yuck. How do you get a grown man to stop picking his nose?
17 comments:
- Dustin said...
Awww... You got polite, accented spam. That's nice.
So far as the booger picker, his supervisor should be the one to talk to him, as this is clearly a hygiene issue, and one that seems to be disrupting his co-workers and subordinates. - March 19, 2008 6:18 AM
- Medblog Addict said...
Spam so nice, I almost hated to delete it. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
- March 19, 2008 7:13 AM
Hot sauce on his fingertips? Or MRSA?
- March 19, 2008 11:43 PM
Ewee! Boogers doesn't eat what he picks, does he? If not, what does he do with alleged picked boogers?
Offer him a tissue? Repetadly.
Buddy needs some help. most adult rhinotillexomania is treatable. - March 20, 2008 1:23 PM
- Doc's Girl said...
I'm with anonymous except I would give him his own packet/mini-box of Kleenex. :-P
That's just downright disgusting... - March 20, 2008 2:47 PM
- tk said...
Ew. Just ew.
- March 20, 2008 10:15 PM
- SeaSpray said...
My stomach is turning...GROSS!
How about the direct approach?
Followed by a request for him to wash his hands or better yet pull out bottle of antibacterial cleanser as you ask him to please stop picking his nose.
Something is not right though. - March 20, 2008 11:22 PM
- SeaSpray said...
This is why people have to wash fruit.
- March 20, 2008 11:22 PM
Uh... Kleenex is an evil corporation. I'd prefer he wipe his nose my my shirt before even thinking about buying him a pack of their tissue.
How about picking your nose in front of him wiping it on a piece of paper and then giving that piece of paper to him - March 21, 2008 12:34 AM
No thoughts on boogers, but who is Dr. March?
- March 21, 2008 10:02 PM
- broca's area said...
send him to ent department and get his nose checked!
- March 22, 2008 11:10 AM
How about a clown nose permanent implant? Drastic, but effective. Besides, it's not like he's getting that much respect the other way...
- March 22, 2008 1:41 PM
nothing to add to the conversation, just wanted to stop by and wish you a happy Easter...
John - March 23, 2008 12:05 AM
- Mauigirl said...
Not much to add, but Ewwww. I think other commenters have offered some solutions!
- March 24, 2008 1:02 PM
turn-about is fair game. pick your nose in front of him and flick it at him.
- March 24, 2008 6:01 PM
How about this:
"Stop picking your nose! You're 35 years old, for God's sake. You should know better."
I have some variation of this conversation with a certain kindergartner, often. - March 26, 2008 2:18 PM
- Lynn Price said...
Give him a business card for his local Rotor Rooter and tell him they're much more efficient.
- March 27, 2008 3:25 PM


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The custom excerpt field (under Add New Post) only accepts html. Thus, you can't just cut and paste a segment from the Visual Editor. If you want links to appear in custom excerpt, you have to know how to create them.
This doesn't work so well for users who are unfamiliar with html. Is there any way to give the same Visual Editor capabilities to the custom excerpt field?
Thank you.


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This post originally appeared at TheNation.com.
The Environmental Protection Agency made good on its promise today to assert greater scrutiny and "use the best science and follow the letter of the law" with regard to controversial mountaintop removal mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields. In a highly anticipated announcement, the agency declared that all seventy-nine pending permits in four states would "likely cause water quality impacts" and sent them on for additional review under the Clean Water Act.
Does today's big announcement end the practice of mountaintop removal — which has clear-cut more than 1.2 million acres of deciduous forests, employed billions of pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives to blow up 500 mountains, packed and sullied an estimated 2,000 miles of streams with mining waste, and left coalfield communities in economic ruin?
The short answer from the EPA: no.
But while the agency has gone out of its way to make clear that this announcement does not "constitute a change" in policy or usurp the Army Corps of Engineers's authority over such permits, today's news comes as a telling harbinger that the rule of science, law, and interagency cooperation just might be returning to the Appalachian coalfields.
"The administration pledged earlier this year to improve review of mining projects that risked harming water quality," EPA administrator Lisa Jackson announced in a statement. "Release of this preliminary list is the first step in a process to assure that the environmental concerns raised by the seventy-nine permit applications are addressed and that permits issued are protective of water quality and affected ecosystems."
According to the EPA, this preliminary list of projects will be evaluated over the next 15 days, at which time "issues of concern regarding particular permit applications will be addressed during a 60-day review process triggered when the Corps informs EPA that a particular permit is ready for discussion."
For many in Appalachia, the announcement is a watershed of sorts, a strong signal that the Obama administration intends to consider scientific data in its decision-making rather than simply to succumb to century-old pressure by the Big Coal lobby and entrenched coalfield politicians. It is also, as Stephanie Pistello, national field director of Appalachian Voices and legislative associate at the Alliance for Appalachia, points out, "a testament to the spadework of coalfield residents" who have struggled to document and protest the Clean Water Act violations that have done such harm to their communities. "By coming to Washington, D.C., to meet with EPA officials, among others, affected coalfield residents have played an important role in bringing the truth out of the darkness of Big Coal public relations," she said.
Pistello added, "We applaud the new leadership at the Army Corps of Engineers, assistant secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy and principal deputy assistant secretary Terrence 'Rock' Salt, for working with EPA and bringing a community and environmental focus to their work."
The news came as a bit of a surprise to some coalfield activists. "Since January we've been skeptical about how serious the new administration would be about addressing mountaintop removal," said Teri Blanton of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a citizens' organization in the state where more than half of the designated permits are located. "It looks like EPA is prepared to do everything it can, within the existing regulatory framework, to protect the mountains and people of Appalachia. This is great news, but it will take more than regulations to end the destruction. Mountaintop removal and valley fills should be banned."
Many activists welcomed the announcement but, like Blanton, pledged to keep pushing legislators until the practice is abolished. Judy Bonds, co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch, said, "We will continue our fight for a total, complete reprieve for our children and for our beloved mountains and streams."
Thankfully, long-stalled efforts to consider the issue in Congress are moving forward. On June 22, at the first US Senate hearing on mountaintop removal in a generation, University of Maryland scientist Dr. Margaret Palmer concluded, "The impacts of mountaintop removal with valley fills are immense and irreversible, and there are no scientifically credible plans for mitigating these impacts."
A blockbuster internal memo that same month by West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection biologist Doug Wood concurred: "We now have clear evidence that in some streams that drain mountaintop coal quarry valley fills, the entire order Ephemeroptera (mayflies) has been extirpated, not just certain genera of this order." Wood added, "The loss of an order of insects from a stream is taxonomically equivalent to the loss of all primates (including humans) from a given area. The loss of two insect orders is taxonomically equivalent to killing all primates and all rodents through toxic chemicals."
More than 150 members of the House of Representatives have signed on as co-sponsors of the Clean Water Protection Act, a proposed bill that would end the creation of valley fills and polluted waterways from mine waste, and effectively end mountaintop removal. "I fully support EPA's decision to halt these permits and applaud the agency for recognizing the importance of protecting clean water. Clean and healthy water is a requirement for healthy people, especially growing children. Congress should follow through on this momentum and pass the Clean Water Protection Act to completely shut down the devastating practice of mountaintop removal and to preserve clean water," said New Jersey Democrat Frank Pallone Jr., who introduced the bill.
Eight years ago this week, US District Judge Charles Haden II issued a stunning ruling on the Office of Surface Mining's oversight on mining reclamation projects in West Virginia. Beyond the standing violations of "unreclaimed strip-mined land, untreated polluted water, and millions (potentially billions) of dollars of state liabilities," Haden wrote about his concern of a "a climate of lawlessness, which creates a pervasive impression that continued disregard for federal law and statutory requirements goes unpunished, or possibly unnoticed."
For coalfield residents, today will be held up as a critical step by the Obama administration to end that climate of lawlessness.


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by Samia A. Halaby
Art book are works of art which mimic the book. I have used them as a way to challenge the Rennaissance idea of a window as the frame through which we see a picture. Abstraction is imagery seen but not through a window. It is seen over a period of time as one moves and thinks and plans. The motion and language of our bodies enters into this art and add form which is not seen but rather form which results from how we use our hands.
Click on any one of these pictures to see more of the book.


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Hedge your bets
What's the meaning of the phrase 'Hedge your bets'?
To avoid committing oneself; to leave a means of retreat open.
What's the origin of the phrase 'Hedge your bets'?
Hedge has been used as a verb in English since at least the 16th century, with the meaning of 'equivocate; avoid commitment'. An example of this comes in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, 1600:
I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge and to lurch.
It began to be used in relation to financial transactions, in which a loan was secured by including it in a larger loan, in the early 17th century. Initially, the phrase associated with this form of hedging was 'hedging one's debts', for example, John Donne's Letters to Sir Henry Goodyere, circa 1620:
"You think that you have Hedged in that Debt by a greater, by your Letter in Verse."
'Hedging one's bets' was coined later in that century. It referred to the laying off of a bet by taking out smaller bets with other lenders. The purpose of this was to avoid being unable to pay out on the original larger bet. The phrase was first used by George Villiers, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, in his satirical play The Rehearsal, 1672:
"Now, Criticks, do your worst, that here are met; For, like a Rook, I have hedg'd in my Bet."
The verb 'to hedge' derives from the noun hedge, that is, a fence made from a row of bushes or trees. These hedges were normally made from the spiny Hawthorn, which makes an impenetrable hedge when laid. To hedge a piece of land was to limit it in terms of size and that this gave rise to the 'secure, limited risk' meaning. Hedge funds, much in the news nowadays, take their name from their method of limiting, that is, hedging, their risk.
Curiously, the original examples of another financial device currently newsworthy that is, stocks, were literally made from material that was taken from hedges. In the 17th century, the tally that recorded a payment to the English Exchequer was a rough stick of about an inch in diameter, split along its length. One half, the stock, was given as a receipt to the person making the payment; the other half, the counterfoil, was kept by the Exchequer. Ownership of payments that were made jointly by a group were shared among the members of so-called joint stock companies, hence stocks and shares.


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January 15, 2016
Participants for AMFA: Louie Key - National Director Earl Clark – Chairman and Region I Director Jason Munson – Airline Representative, Local 14 Mark Dahl – Airline Representative, Local 32
The AMFA - Alaska Airlines Negotiating Committee is providing this notice of change of venue for our next negotiations session.
Due to the inability to reserve all three upcoming dates at the CenterPoint Corporate Park conference center in Kent, Washington, The location has been changed to the Doubletree Hotel Suites Seattle Airport - Southcenter, Tukwila, WA. The official address is 16500 Southcenter Parkway, Seattle, WA, 98188–3388. Negotiations will begin at 9:00 AM each day January 19th through 21st.
Please contact your respective airline representative if you are interested in being an observer for this session.
Sincerely, Your Negotiating Committee


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At some point in the last year, I saw a preview for a movie at the theater. What I remember is a person dressed in a hoodie walking into a private bathroom at a gas station or something. The impression is that this person is on the lam, hiding. After our hero gets in the bathroom, the hood goes back and it's clearly not human, but behaving like one. We hear heavy breathing and the android is looking at its arms and body, clearly suffering from severe dysmorphia (human woken up in a robot body.)
I cannot for the life of me remember the movie title nor find it in any upcoming movies list.