Arianna Georgi

My mind is rarely blown, but sometimes it does happen.  Specifically when I see things like this:

 Wow.

Happy Labor Day!

Tags: awesome, Ferrets

 Some guys I know check CNN every three or four minutes to get the latest updates on the election, or hurricanes devastating Florida, or how a kitten in Tennessee got trapped in a well, or whatever else CNN posts in their top headlines.  I rarely check it, but when I do I am always impressed by the completely bizarre things they chose to list.  For instance, when I checked it yesterday, among the top headlines were “Town bans ‘SeXXXercise’ pole dancing” and ‘Porn mode’ allows secret Web surfing” (a headline that included video).  I am sure, in the entire country, these are probably the most newsworthy things going on, but it still sometimes seems like CNN does favor the porn/pole dancing news.  Anyway, the headline that caught my eye the other day was unrelated to strippers, kittens, or pole dancing, but did have the word “murder” in it (always good).  It read “Police Say Heart Transplant Teen Plotted Murder.”  I will paste the article link below, but basically, some teenager in Minnesota (a state that seems (to me) to produce more than their fair share of serial killers) who 4 years ago got a heart transplant is now being investigated for plotting to murder his neighbor.  There are quite a few interesting elements to this story, among them the debate about whether or not it’s all of the crazy meds the teen is on that are causing him to act nuts, the fact that the neighbors seem to have all turned their houses into Home Alone style traps to stop attempts on their life (including one neighbor that has “10-foot-long 2 by 4 barricades” in front of his door”) and the boy’s lawyer’s quote “This is a very unique case, and frankly, I don’t know the ramifications of anything yet”(which seems to me just sloppy lawyering).  Anyway, I read the story, found it interesting, felt slightly dirty for being interested in the suffering of some random people in Minnesota.  Then, I scrolled too far.  Apparently, CNN.com now has a section where readers can post comments.  With a story like this, you would think there would not really be that many comments to make.  It’s not politically charged and it sucks for everyone involved… what further is there to say about it?  Anyway, this assumption was wrong. Apparently people across the country have opinions about this story.  They have opinions and they want them heard.  RosieCee for instance, observed that:

“It would be important to know which medication the doctor thought was necessary to discontinue with this 18 year old.

The article states that he was on antidepressants. According to the Physicians Desk Reference, antidepressants can cause mania, psychosis, hostility, agitation, etc.”

 I don’t have my own copy of the Physicians Desk Reference, so I found this very informative.  I suppose I could go to WebMd and figure out similar things, but I’m too lazy, so this comment pretty much covered it for me.  Then Legal Eagle weighed in with the stirring and chilling thought:

“What happens a few years down the road when he actually pulls it off?” 

I had to stop and think about that one.  But the best comment of all came from Russ who just may have solved the case.  He posted this gem:

“Doesn’t this bring to mind the theory that organ transplant patients sometimes take on the latent traits of the donor? Who was the donor and what was their background? It’s just a theory, but transplant patients have often discussed feeling ‘different’ after an organ transplant, having different urges or cravings.

It would be interesting to find out who the donor heart came from…”

Now while I have heard the term “cellular memory” before (mainly in low budget horror movies), I am pretty sure there is no actual evidence that backs this claim up.  Russ probably just saw Jessica Alba’s The Eye and thinks he’s on to something.  “Wait a sec, he said,” reading this article, “this seems an awful lot like that movie with that hot chick from Fantastic Four I just saw.  That heart probably came from a serial killer!  I think I’ve figured out what the problem is over there in Minnesota… now the only problem is, how do I tell the authorities?”  Russ then decided to go on CNN and post his idea, hoping that maybe one of the investigators of the case would see it and look into the theory that the boy got some sort of serial killer heart.  Mainly, I like the way Russ posts his comment.  You can tell he thought long and hard and felt he was possible going out on a limb with the whole thing “It’s just a theory…” he says in case we get confused and think he is going to put real, factual solution to this problem on the page.  “It would be interesting to find out who the donor heart came from…” he concludes with ellipses that bring to mind a detective sitting there with a pipe and single eyebrow raised.  “Very interesting…” I can see him concluding while giving everyone in the room a knowing look. 

Anyway, I found the whole thing fairly ridiculous, but I guess there is a chance Russ could be right.  If so, we really should stop giving people serial killer hearts.

Story from CNN.com.

Tags: cellular memory, cnn, Jessica Alba

Better late than never, new Things I Think Are Awesome, so you can find them awesome too and totally copy me!  This week they’re all pretty nerdy, so FYI, copying me might entail becoming a bit of a geek…

(Also, coming later tonight or tomorrow a post on my apartment complex’s gym, prepare yourselves…)

 I recently signed up for the Baltimore Marathon.  This also means that I received the Baltimore Marathon “In Training” Shirt.  The “In Training” shirt is an extra you can order when you buy your entry, a technical shirt that states your intention to run the marathon so that everyone on your local running path is aware of it and can congratulate you accordingly.  I like to get myself the “In Training” shirt when I register for a marathon (I will refer to the “In Training Shirt” as “ITS” from here on out since typing “In Training Shirt” is annoying).  It’s a nice motivator for the actual race and also it makes me feel better than other people because I am planning on running a marathon and therefore am awesome.

Normally the ITS is something cheery.  For the Las Vegas Marathon, it was baby blue with the famous “Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas” splashed across the front.  For the Philly Marathon, it was a much more serious technical shirt with a small emblem on the front.  I was eager to see what the In Training Shirt for Baltimore, my hometown, would look like.   The shirt showed up in a beaten up brown envelope with my name hand written across the front.  It was the sort of envelope you would expect dirty magazine to arrive in, and that’s sort of what I thought it was until I saw that the return address was the sports company.  With great anticipation, I ripped it open, and found the most Baltimore-like tee-shirt humanly possible. 

While most training shirts are flashy colors, or filled with colorful logos, the Baltimore shirt is a cold concrete grey with black letters.  It’s like the people putting the shirt together said, “Hey, what color should we make this Baltimore shirt?  Pink?  Fuchsia?  How about just concrete grey, like the cold Baltimore winter sky?”  And they went with the later.  On top of not having any nice colors, the back features the Baltimore skyline which I will be the first to admit is not really as memorable or scenic a skyline as say, New York City’s or even San Diego’s.  Baltimore has many nice things about it. Delicious steamed crabs, the Inner Harbor, and so on, but the skyline is not one of them.  I’m okay with that, but wearing it on a shirt seems to be equivalent to saying “Yeah, so our skyline is pretty bleak and industrial.  Whatever.  It’s Baltimore, deal with it, hon!”  I have to imagine that the only way they made the final decision to use the skyline to epitomize Baltimore was that it came down to either that, John Water’s face, or a scene from The Wire and they went with the skyline. 

To top it all off, beneath the skyline are the words “Baltimore or Bust.”  No, “Baltimore, here I come, I’m running the marathon!” or “Baltimore Rocks!”  Just “Baltimore or Bust”… “or bust,” a saying that was popularized during the depression when people said “California or Bust” and literally meant that they either were going to make it to California or die trying.  The sentiment seems to add to the shirt’s overall message that “Yeah, I’m running the Ballmore marathon, wanna fight about it?”

I wore the shirt out swimming with Tanya last night and got the following reaction, “Uh, that’s an interesting shirt.  What is that on the back?”  I explained to her that that was our Baltimore skyline and she agreed with me that it was not the best thing to put on a shirt.  My Baltimore in training shirt is not particularly attractive, slightly strange, seems to have an attitude, and is oddly appealing to me in its unapologetic ugliness.  It’s the most Baltimore-like shirt humanly possible.  I love it.

(I work at a company that manufactures flashlights.  The lights are used by everyone from firemen and scuba divers, to the very general category of “outdoorsmen.”   We make the lights in house and then sell them to an astounding variety of markets all around the US.  An unexpected bonus of this is that we get a wide variety of free trade magazines at my work.  These magazines range from ones concerning Scuba Diving and hunting to those directed at out Mechanical Engineers and designers.  Since I sort of the mail, I get first dibs on all of the magazines that come in through the door, including some that I never could have imagined in my wildest dreams.   And since I am lucky enough to get to see magazines like “Microwave Product Digest” and you, (most likely), are not, I have decided to post magazine reviews on occasional Wednesdays, starting with this one).

AGeorgi’s Review of the May Issue of Plant Engineering Magazine!

Right off the bat, the cover of Plant Engineering let’s you know that it is not just a magazine about Plant Engineering, but so much more.  Check out the cover: 

This cover says to me, Plant Engineering is sexy.  It’s fun.  The title “Energy Audit Benefits” over what appear to be the beginning of a softcore porn movie should clue you into that (Seriously though, doesn’t this lady here look like she is just about ready to undo her bun, take off her glasses and suggest something inappropriate?).  Also inside, right in the beginng is a fun poll “What’s the relationship between product and production engineering?”  Now the magazines I normally read also have polls, but they are normally along the line of “Have you ever lied to a boyfriend about how many people you’ve slept with?”  This poll seems good too and the majority of people taking the poll (my guess is three) answered “A close working relationship” which is nice.  

From then on out, Plant Engineering kicks it into high geat with insightful articles such as “Advancements in modern VFDs” and “Selecting a Sigle Point Lubricator” which urges you to ask yourself such important questions as “Are blown bearing seals a concern?” and “Is price a deterring factor in lubricator selection?”

But probably the best thing about Plant Engineering is the wonderful ads, ads made by people with very small budgets and thought up by the same people responsible for desgining incredibly scienticfic techonology.  As a result, you get something like this: