The Alarmist Quote of the day

This is too funny to wait until after Monday. I hope no Aboriginal people is offended, in her defence, she was looking at the picture via thumbnail view.

a stream of sleepy conciousness which sometimes don't actually flow very well

I'm sleepy, I'm tired, I'm bored, I tried to blog but ended up just typing whatever comes to my head. Some of this might make sense, some might not, some might even be completely random. Strictly for when you're not sleepy but are bored and would read whatever I churn out.

More reasons why I haven't been blogging regularly:

• The place where I work at is short on staff at the moment.
• I'm a slave to the wage. Plus I get to look all knowledgeable and shit when telling people what are actually in Panadeine which they could have read out themselves had they had a proper look at the packaging.

New year's resolution that has successfully been unresolved: Stop drinking coffee. I tried to create a loophole for myself when I phrased that resolution. The resolution straight out of my diary is:

5/ Stop drinking coffee regularly.

First I started to drink coffee again, irregularly. Then I crossed that resolution out completely. Note to self: caffeine is the only thing that can get you through a day with at least 4 lectures.

An untimely update on the Alarmist: she moved semi-out since last week. She's crashing at her friend's flat for the weekdays and comes home for the weekends. So now I see even less of her since I work almost every single day on weekends.

On a related note to the Alarmist moving semi-out. My parents didn't cry over it, my little sister didn't cry over it, I didn't cry over it but boy did my grandmother cry. She cried about it for 2 days straight.

Freddo moments (a.k.a: Misheard/misremembered by the Alarmist):
I expect this to be a very short-lived or short addition to this already ailing blog since the Alarmist moved semi-out. The Alarmist tends to remember things incorrectly and sometime hilariously. Those moments were coined "Freddo" moments by my other sister who I have yet to find an annoying enough trait to label her with. She uses the floor as a wardrobe more often than I like but calling her the Floorober is .... fucking cool! I think I've just found a name for the "Other Nguyen girl" (sorry about that lame play on "The other boleyn girl", I'm sleepy, this is supposed to be a chaotic post which might or might not capture what goes on in my sleepy head).
Back to Freddo moments, the Floorober coined the Alarmist's funny misremembered moments that because she once called Frodo Freddo. On with the Freddo moments / Alarmist quotes then:

I want that song "Maybe maybe maybe", do you have it, can you put it on my ipod?
She was referring to a song called "Perhaps perhaps perhaps" by CAKE

I also want that album by that band "The shaved head of Natalie Portman"
Of course she was talking about a band whose name is "Natalie Portman's shaved head" (off topic: freaking cool synthpop band one of my favourite last month)

And let's not forget what "What's eating Gilbert Grapes" is remembered as in her brain (possibly in the frontal cortex, mesolimbic system, A10 dopaminergic neurones with their cell bodies in the ventral tegmental area - see how seamlessly pharmacology can be applied in real life? I wonder how people can live without pharmacology knowledge!) as "What's eating Gilbert's Grapes".

A few parting words on Facebook. That's a piss-poor place to stalk people who, like me, don't use it. I have a Facebook account, find it if you really want to, it's just a wee-little-bit abandoned since I created it. My main gripe with Facebook is that I lose touch with people for a reason and Facebook manages to provide the people that I don't want to keep in touch with an effortless route to "poke" me had they know that I have a Facebook account.

Quotes

Last night I had a nightmare, I had a huge hole in my tooth and had to get a root canal.
- The Alarmist

I think I look good in the mirror without glasses.
- The other sister (upon taking off her glasses and inspecting her reflection without glasses or contact lenses, she has quite a severe case of astigmatism)

I'm sick of making my opinion known.
- Me, answering the question of when I will be posting more atheistic rants.

If it's real then it's photoshopped, if it's a fake then it's real.
- The Alarmist on the subject of how Anne Geddes took pictures of babies on flowers.

Oh my god, bad teeth!
- The Alarmist's comment after seeing Radiohead's video for No Surprises below.

it's not the movies that scare me, it's the damn background music or why the Liberals lost the election

Finally, we won't see Howard as the Prime Minister anymore and we won't ever see Peter Costello as the PM or even the leader of the opposition either. I don't know why but I'm not in a celebratory mood even though I voted for the ALP. I had fun watching the vote counting commentaries though. That was even better than watching .... Damn, I can't even think of anything I've watched recently on TV. Anyway, I had a great time possibly because I wasn't paying attention to the dire situation the Lib were in or the frequent cheering that was going on in the background (possibly from the Lab). I was paying attention on these:

• Election smiley posters from candidates that were splashed on the screen every now and then whenever their electorates came up. I cracked out laughing at those because seriously all those pictures looked so phoney and they would have done much better not smiling in those pictures.
• Trying to eat dinner while containing my laughter. This activity demands a lot of concentration.
• Listening to the Alarmist's commentaries on which commentators have had their teeth whitened (all of them), had a denture (some of them), or had some work done in regards to teeth. She only stayed for a bit though so her commentaries were short and hilarious, albeit irrelevant to the topic being discussed by the commentators and what I was trying to pay attention to - getting food to go down the right pipe.

So the Lib lost, obviously their scare campaign didn't work. What were these guys thinking? Dragging records of interest rates from the 80s out and naming all those "union bosses" in the ALP ranks. The 80s are ancient history to someone who starts voting this year and I don't think many people want to remember the 80s, nobody looked good in whatever they were dressing up in in the 80s. The scare campaign just did not work.

Here's the reason why I think the Lib have lost touch with the voters, they don't know what people are scared of anymore. People aren't scared of union bosses and possible interest rate rises. I'll tell you some of what people (i.e. me, myself & I) are scared of

• Lost of access to the internet (trust me on this one without the internet, civilisation as we know it will crumble because people lost their daily fix of Facebook, Myspace, Youtube or Yourface or Facespace or whatever new ways clever people dream up to keep in touch with nowadays)
• Facebook account got suspended (some person got a nervous breakdown after their account was suspended for no reason. Personally, I don't see what's the big deal with Facebook. Does anyone know this because I would love to know)
• Bittorrent networks go offline.
• M'n'Ms only come in blue.
• Vampires, vengeful spirits that walk out of a TV to kill and basically anything horror movie writers cook up these days.

I know it's hard to threaten people that by voting for Labour you will run the risk of getting internet, MyFace or whatever social network, and all the colours of M'n'Ms except blue banned and look credible at the same time so here's my suggestion on how to improve on the Lib's scare campaign: add scary background music.

I know I have been ,sort of, joking around in this post so far but I'm completely serious in this paragraph. Have you ever watched a scary movie without sounds? I have the horror movie turned out to be so funny. Just watch those actors trying to be scared and all those scary characters trying to be menacing without the ominous background music and the sudden loud drums, it's hilarious. I watched the Ring 2 last week without sounds and it was an eye-opening experience on how movies scare people.

So my suggestion to the Liberals is that they take note of the tried-and-true convention of horror movies next time they decide to run a scare campaign.

To a not completely unrelated note, I saw "30 days of night" last week and I was scared and bored by the movie. The scare only lasted for a few seconds and, you guess it, it's not the visuals of people chopping vampires or soon-to-be vampires' heads off, it's the goddamn fracking background music. I was bored the rest of the time I wasn't scared so it's not a good movie. The Alarmist, on the other hand, was scared and horrified. She was scared because of the movie, obviously. She was horrified because the "vampires" had open bites and that will not allow them to rip people's throat out effectively. Not to Vampires movie maker, consult a dentist before you make fake teeth for your vampires or movie goers who are dentists will not take your movie seriously.


Get your own playlist at snapdrive.net!

Crazy exam question

In my opinion, any exam question is crazy. I think the whole concept of exam is crazy. It makes people go crazy with stress and do crazy things like getting up at 3.15 am to study until 5 am and then go back to sleep just to get up at 6 am to have breakfast and back to study again.

Or at least that was what I thought was crazy until I was shown this exam question by the Alarmist. Note that this is a first year dental science exam question.

Imagine you are an animal who live on land and eats a diet composed of dry grass & roots. How does your dentition, jaw & tooth structure help you live?

What was the examiner smoking when he/she dreamt up this question was what I thought after I finished laughing at the question. This question inspired me to rewrite one question I got last year for Physiology.
"Imagine you are a sperm that is being made. Describes the various conditions of the various environments you are/will be in until you reach the egg. Include in your answer the various mechanisms and muscles that help propel you out of the male reproductive tract."

I guess hilarious questions call for equally hilarious answers. After all, the examiner did ask the students to imagine themselves to be some animals. Here's an excerpt of the Alarmist's answer. The hilarity wears off after a few paragraphs.

I live on land and eat a diet composed of grass and roots, therefore this is clearly reflected in my dentition jaws and tooth structure.
Because grass is relatively low in nutrients, I need to eat a lot. I need a large manible to hold all my large teeth.
Eating grass involves a great deal of grinding and lateral movements, therefore I need large massetlers and large rami where these muscles insert

Brand new Alarmist's quote

I've just finished an exam. That's 2 down 3 more freaking aliens to shoot down. If only I have a plasma grenade I'll just kill them with one grenade. Yeah, I've been playing Halo again. It's the best way to kill anxiety. Do you know what happen when you get too much anxiety? You get diarrhoea. I can assure you that is true from personal experience and also from a lecture note from a subject that I've sat an exam on this week. Time to throw those notes into a bin and chuck the bin under my bed.

Anyhow, since I'm busy getting myself anxious over the next 3 exams, here's a brand new Alarmist's quote from today. We were talking about Blogger templates since the Alarmist has just set up a few blogs and she's infatuated with a template she's got off some website.

THE ALARMIST:
Only stupid people use the ugly templates Blogger offers and don't change anything on the template.
ME, THE ANXIOUS:
Yeah, and the less stupid ones use templates some other people offer and not change anything.

Somehow that was a lot funnier when it happened, and I was being sarcastic in the conversation, as usual.

I'm supposed to be on hiatus but I need a mental health break from Candida Albicans and their wonderful eukaryotic relatives to bring you these

Why is the Alarmist nicknamed that way
This happened last week I think. The Alarmist came home and said to me: "Oh my god, I'm so relieved, I thought I had mouth cancer but it turned out OK". Since I've already named her "the Alarmist" on my blog I was well aware of her tendency to be alarmed not alert and my reaction to her comment was rolling my eyes crazily in their sockets and ask perfectly calmly "Why did you figure that?". And her answer was "I had this white patch on the side of my tongue and it wouldn't come off. And a white patch that doesn't come off is usually the first sign of mouth cancer. I was freaking out I wasn't sure what to do. Should I go get a biopsy, should I go to an oncologist, should I go straight to the dental hospital or should I go to my dentist to get a referral to the dental hospital. And then the next day the patch disappeared."

And that is why she is called the Alarmist.
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OiNK is slaughtered
If you don't know what OiNK is, it's only this tiny community of like-minded individual hell-bent on sharing high quality, often lossless, music files against minor details such as legality and copyright laws. OiNK was actually where leaked albums usually turn up first if they were in high enough bitrate. Anyhow, OiNK got shut down, big surprise there and the people who were on OiNK have been grieving ever since. Me? If I was a member I would have been sad too but sadly, I wasn't. Didn't know anyone who could invite me and besides what's the fuss with high quality MP3 files? If you're downloading illegal music to have a try before buying the actual album why bother with high bitrate?
Another OiNK will turn up somewhere eventually. Piracy will never die! In the mean time, let's all flock to Demonoid for our illegal download fix.

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GOD is for real.
Seriously, want proof? You know the bush fires in Southern California? That is God's work according to some wack-job fundamentalist (via Pandagon). Apparently, that's his wrath going around in California because they approved of a bill that allows same sex marriage. I wonder what was Katrina. Was that also God's wrath? If God was real and was really angry with the gay people he would have burnt down West Hollywood, you know where all the "scary" gay people live.
In the latest news, it looks like the Californian police shot dead a "god" and arrested a few more "gods" for setting off those fires (link). See, even "god" can't escape the police for unleashing his wrath on California. Apparently, the police refer to these "gods" as arsonists. See why loony fundamentalists are lunatics? Confusing arsonists' work for god's wrath.
Anyway, if fundamentalists' proclamations are to be skeptically considered, I think the fires are gonna burn themselves out soon coz God needs his wrath back to direct it at Tuscany. Apparently they're gonna run this ad campaign which suggests that Homosexuality is not a choice.
And of course the Catholic church has something to say about this. Well, several somethings actually: exploitation of babies (gee, what about those child soldiers in Africa?); "bad taste" (dead man on a cross, good taste much?); "erroneous" (hey at least they have some questionable scientific proofs, what do you have?).
And the funniest shit I've read today from The Catholic News Agency

The Catholic Church teaches that a homosexual orientation is not sinful, but instead disordered. It is homosexual sex acts that are considered sinful.

So if you happen to be gay it's OK as long as you don't have sex. Awesome! I'll go tell all the gay people that they can go to heaven if they don't have sex.

Somehow the quote makes sense too. Wanting to kill somebody is not sinful, it's "disordered". The act of killing somebody is considered sinful. So just plot away, as long as you're not killing anyone it's ok.

So did anyone watch the "great" debate tonight?

I did. For those who didn't watch it here is how it went:

Howard: tax cuts, interest rates will go up under Labor, Labor is controlled by trade unionists, more tax cuts if we are elected, Labor = bad, more tax cuts, Labor = worse, workplace agreement = the way to go, Labor = worst....

Rudd: tax cuts, invest in education, Howard = bad economic management, Liberal = bad, Liberal = liars, global warming, tax cuts, unionists = might be good, Liberal = worse, workplace agreement = the way to hell, Liberal = evil liars....

And that was pretty much what went on while I did pay attention to what being said before I lost interest and paid more attention to the graph thingy and then eventually to how funny Kevin Rudd's chin looked when he talked. Seriously, his chin was very funny in the debate. Howard attracted my attention too even though his chin was absolutely normal, his mouth was weird when he talked. I'm convinced that it was because of the dentures he wears. Do you know why I was convinced of this? The Alarmist didn't stop talking about dentures a while back and all I can remember about all those dentures talks was that Howard has dentures.

While we're on the topic of dentures, here's a pair of them, hand made by the Alarmist, photographed by the Alarmist. And yes, she did buy a camera phone to take pictures of wonderful things that she sees everyday while walking around or working in the dental hospital. One fine example of the wonderful things she sees everyday is below.


Back on the topic of the great debate. I think the audience was very biased, every time Rudd started talking the graph would shoot up even before he stated any point. Both of them raised some good questions when I did pay attention. I thought I've made up my mind about voting already, now I'm sure I need to do more research on this. I thought that Howard raised a good point when he said that if Labor wins it would be Labor all the way from Fedral to State government. It might not necessarily be bad though, at least they won't be constantly at one another's throats with politicking.

One thing I got out of the brief (1 hour) time that I watched this debate business, I have a new appreciation for politicians. I admire, yes, ADMIRE their composure. If it was me in Howard or Rudd's shoes I would be strangling the other debater and yelling out obscenities instead of politely objecting.

To way more interesting and way shorter "debate" watch Rudd vs. Howard hip-hop battle below. Check out Peter Costello ello ello eh eh eh at the end too. Brilliant!


That's it for this post, I need to go to sleep and do some more studying tomorrow.

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Extra features (well aren't you lucky my readers)

If I were a drug I would be....

An ACE Inhibitor. These drugs are amazing! They reduce both preload and afterload, they are used in all sort of diseases under the sun. OK seriously only in Hypertension, Heart Failure, Severe Heart Failure, Acute heart failure, and after myocardial infarction but that's a shitload of serious conditions already. And as a side effect you don't have to take potassium supplement. Yay, no bananas for me (I hate them!).