She pulls up to a gas station to fill up and sees a guy smoking right next to the pump. She asks the guy “Excuse me sir. Could you please not smoke here. I would like to fill my car up, and its just not safe with the lit cigarette.” To which he replied “uhhhh….. yeah…. no…..”

his took her by surprise, and she decided top call the police. The police upon answering the call proceeded to tell her that it was not illegal to smoke at a gas station! The man was perfectly within his right to smoke at a gas station!

This is the glorious state of Texas, where it can be made illegal to smoke in restaurants and bars in order to protect innocent people from cancer, but if its a gas station, then light up partner! Its gonna be a blast!

Inbred idiots!

Source: http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/301345524.html

I simply had to share this. This is worth a thousand laughs!!

Advice from an ER doctor to drug seekers

Date: 2007-03-27, 9:56AM PDTOK, I am not going to lecture you about the dangers of narcotic pain medicines. We both know how addictive they are: you because you know how it feels when you don’t have your vicodin, me because I’ve seen many many many people just like you. However, there are a few things I can tell you that would make us both much happier. By following a few simple rules our little clinical transaction can go more smoothly and we’ll both be happier because you get out of the ER quicker.The first rule is be nice to the nurses. They are underpaid, overworked, and have a lot more influence over your stay in the ER than you think. When you are tempted to treat them like shit because they are not the ones who write the rx, remember: I might write for you to get a shot of 2mg of dilaudid, but your behavior toward the nurses determines what percent of that dilaudid is squirted onto the floor before you get your shot.The second rule is pick a simple, non-dangerous, (non-verifiable) painful condition which doesn’t require me to do a four thousand dollar work-up in order to get you out of the ER. If you tell me that you headache started suddenly and is the ‘worst headache of your life’ you will either end up with a spinal tap or signing out against medical advice without an rx for pain medicine. The parts of the story that you think make you sound pitiful and worthy of extra narcotics make me worry that you have a bleeding aneurysm. And while I am 99% sure its not, I’m not willing to lay my license and my families future on the line for your ass. I also don’t want to miss the poor bastard who really has a bleed, so everyone with that history gets a needle in the back. Just stick to a history of your ‘typical pain that is totally the same as I usually get’ and we will both be much happier.

The third rule (related to #2) is never rate your pain a 10/10. 10/10 means the worst pain you could possibly imagine. I’ve seen people in a 10/10 pain and you sitting there playing tetris on your cell phone are not in 10/10 pain. 10/10 pain is an open fracture dangling in the wind, a 50% body surface deep partial thickness burn, or the pain of a real cerebral aneurysm. Even when I passed a kidney stone, the worst pain I had was probably a 7. And that was when I was projectile vomiting and crying for my mother. So stick with a nice 7 or even an 8. That means to me you are hurting by you might not be lying. (See below.)

The fourth rule is never ever ever lie to me about who you are or your history. If you come to the ER and give us a fake name so we can’t get your old records I will assume you are a worse douchetard than you really are. More importantly though it will really really piss me the fuck off. Pissing off the guy who writes the rx you want does not work to your advantage.

The fifth rule is don’t assume I am an idiot. I went to medical school. That is certainly no guarantee that I am a rocket scientist I know (hell, I went to school with a few people who were a couple of french fries short of a happy meal.) However, I also got an ER residency spot which means I was in the top quarter or so of my class. This means it is a fair guess I am a reasonably smart guy. So if I read your triage note and 1) you list allergies to every non-narcotic pain medicine ever made, 2) you have a history of migraines, fibromyalgia, and lumbar disk disease, and 3) your doctor is on vacation, only has clinic on alternate Tuesdays, or is dead, I am smart enough to read that as: you are scamming for some vicodin. That in and of itself won’t necessarily mean you don’t get any pain medicine. Hell, the fucktards who list and allergy to tylenol but who can take vicodin (which contains tylenol) are at least good for a few laughs at the nurses station. However, if you give that history everyone in the ER from me to the guy who mops the floor will know you are a lying douchetard who is scamming for vicodin. (See rule # 4 about lying.)

The sixth and final rule is wait your fucking turn. If the nurse triages you to the waiting room but brings patients who arrived after you back to be treated first, that is because this is an EMERGENCY room and they are sicker than you are. You getting a fix of vicodin is not more important than the 6 year old with a severe asthma attack. Telling the nurse at triage that now your migraine is giving you chest pain since you have been sitting a half hour in the waiting area to try to force her into taking you back sooner is a recipe for making all of us hate you. Even if you end up coming back immediately, I will make it my mission that night to torment you. You will not get the pain medicine you want under any circumstances. And I firmly believe that if you manipulate your way to the back and make a 19 year old young woman with an ectopic pregnancy that might kill her in a few hours wait even a moment longer to be seen, I should be able to piss in a glass and make you drink it before you leave the ER.

So if you keep these few simple rules in mind, our interaction will go much more smoothly. I don’t really give a shit if I give 20 vicodins to a drug-seeker. Before I was burnt out in the ER I was a hippy and I would honestly rather give that to ten of you guys than make one person in real pain (unrelated to withdrawal) suffer. However, if you insist on waving a flourescent orange flag that says ‘I am a drug seeker’ and pissing me and the nurses off with your behavior, I am less likely to give you that rx. You don’t want that. I don’t want that. So lets keep this simple, easy, and we’ll all be much happier.

Sincerely,
Your friendly neighborhood ER doctor

It started with my uncle’s return from a US business trip. He reported back that in U.S., people take a liberal view of sex, and its common for people to have sex before marriage. My mother ok with it along with the caveat that since we in India have a different value system, the Indians who go there are not likely to indulge in sex outside/before marriage. As luck would have it, a double whammy followed very quickly!

My mother’s first cousin, and American citizen, dispelled my mother’s illusion. He told her that he has known many Indians to indulge in casual sex. That had my mother a fair bit concern. But the final nail was yet to be hammered.

One of my uncle’s pit stops en route his business trip was my apartment. Yup, that’s right, I hosted him over a weekend. From the weekend stay, he happened to get the idea that I was dating someone. Now, instead of being honest about it and talking to me first, he chose to go up to my mom and tell her. Now this was the final nail, and guess who has to suffer: me!

My mother is extremely sneaky when it comes to confronting people on issues. She never approaches the issue directly, its always along the side. She started with how beautiful my apartment was, and that she saw the photographs that my uncle took of me. Then she went on to talk about how weak I looked, and that I should take better care of myself. And very quickly she went for the kill.

She jokingly referred to my uncle’s suspicion of me dating someone. She followed that with stories of how people with bad’ character enjoy no respect, no matter how successful they are.I concurred, and I said, “yeah, I know many people who don’t think twice about lying to close a deal, or cheating someone else of their hard earned money to get themselves a few extra pennies.” She seemed confused, her tone betrayed her frustration that I hadn’t understood what she was talking about. Slowly it dawned on me that her idea of `bad’ character was all about pre-marital sex. I was a little flabbergasted by her attitude, but had little choice but indulge her.

She immediately came back to my uncle’s suspicions and confronted me. I was taken aback by her insinuation. I didn’t know where to begin! It was next to impossible to shout across the large chasm of a generation gap between us. Not for her though, she seemed generous with words on this one.

She went on to tell me that I had done everything she wanted me to do, and it would be a crying shame if I slipped on this last step. I almost choked on that. Did everything that she wanted me to do! That was a load of bullshit. So when was I supposed to do something that I wanted to do? Apparently never. Her next concern was of what people would say if whispers of `bad’ character were to float around.

So there it was, the reason for all this anxiety, it was all about what people would say. That is, in fact, the reason for everything that my mother did in her life actually. Sad, but true.

And her next argument was that she has the idea of what kind of girl she wanted me to marry (you see, though its my life, its never about me!), and that it would do her a great in justice if I had `bad’ character.
After that I tuned out, deliberately. I had bigger things to worry about then my mom’s remorseless ranting. As I was in active listening mode, I picked up on something she said. She said that its time she had to the talk with my brother too. Holy shit! I gotta warn him! So long folks, see you next time ’round.

The question resurfaced again, ‘Why was Gandhi not given the nobel peace prize?’. I did some searching, research, digging around and what I came up with surprised me! I am not sure how much of what I say is going to be news to you, but I think its something worth sharing, and so I will.

As a matter of fact Gandhi was nominated for the prize five times, in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and, finally, a few days before he was murdered in January 1948. The Nobel Foundation has recently made public some of the details surrounding Gandhi’s case for a Peace Nobel.

In 1937, Gandhi was nominated for the first time by “Friends of India” association. The committee advisor was, however, exteremly critical of Gandhi. In his evaluate he said…

“He is undoubtedly a good, noble and ascetic person – a prominent man who is deservedly honoured and loved by the masses of India…(But) sharp turns in his policies, which can hardly be satisfactorily explained by his followers. He is a freedom fighter and a dictator, an idealist and a nationalist. He is frequently a Christ, but then, suddenly, an ordinary politician,”

Gandhi was nominated for the next two years but was denied the award each time. The critics blamed Gandhi for the bouts of violence is his non-violent movement for independance (all they wanted as an excuse anyway). And there have been charges of the British government having put pressure on the Norwegian goverenment. Das, in his book ‘Why the Nobel Peace Prize never went to Gandhiji’ says “Britain was highly perturbed when it learned that the doughty naked fakir was being considered for the prize. If he did get it, it would have meant severe political repercussions in Britain’s colonies.” and goes on to say “British government officials silently castigated the European zeal to award the peace prize to Gandhiji and termed their vigorous attempts as an over reaction to Nazism.” Although there is no factual evidence to back this claim, it is still plausible.

The next time Gandhi was nominated was in 1947. With the independance of India and Gandhi’s pivotal role in it, there was no opposition or criticism to his candidature. However, due to the communal riots, the slaughter and lawlessness thanks to the partition and the movement of indian troops in Kashmir (a move condoned by Gandhi) , he committee may have deemed it inappropriate to award the nobel peace prize to anyone in the subcontinent. Interestingly, The Times reported “Mr. Gandhi told his prayer meeting to-night that, though he had always opposed all warfare, if there was no other way of securing justice from Pakistan and if Pakistan persistently refused to see its proved error and continued to minimise it, the Indian Union Government would have to go to war against it. No one wanted war, but he could never advise anyone to put up with injustice. If all Hindus were annihilated for a just cause he would not mind. If there was war, the Hindus in Pakistan could not be fifth columnists. If their loyalty lay not with Pakistan they should leave it. Similarly Muslims whose loyalty was with Pakistan should not stay in the Indian Union.”

The last time he was nominated was in 1948, but Gandhi was assassinated two days before the nominations closed. Nobody had ever been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously. But according to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation in force at that time, the Nobel Prizes could, under certain circumstances, be awarded posthumously. However, Gandhi did not belong to an organisation, he left no property behind and no will; so the question was ‘Who should receive the prize money?’ After much deliberation On November 18, 1948, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to make no award that year on the grounds that “there was no suitable living candidate”.

In my personal opinion, Gandhi was too good for the prize. He never really cared for any accolades anyway. Awarding him the nobel peace prize would devalue his contributions and his impact on humanity. The best we can do is admire him. He will always be beyond our appreciation.

I use the term ‘organized religion’ in the same tenor as ‘organized crime’. There is simply too much similarity in the way they operate for me to ignore it. Although, there’s where the comparision ends. Organized religion has a well defined purpose like organised crime. Organized crime wants to control was much area/domain as possible, and make as much money as it can, dodging authority and/or greasing its’ palm. Organized religion wants to spread its dominion in the community to the extend possible, and control as much of the people as possible through the vicious circle of ‘sin and repentance’, dodging reasoning, rationality and pursuit of true knowledge.

I have clarify at this point that I make a very clear distinction between god and religion. I guess I’ll write up a post on god sometime in the future, but for now its about religion.

If I were god (as most of the organized religions define god), then I’d make the world as a perfect place simply because its easier to manage and wonderful place to be, for your kids (i.e. humans) to live and die. Unless, of course, I want to raise the bar, I want a challenge. Since I am god, the all-powerful, nothing could be challenging, so I wouldnt really gain anything by creating an imperfect world and then getting a high out of managing it. Which means that I actually created a perfect world, but imprefection crept into it, thanks to the devil (garden of eden and the serpent). If I am god, and I created eveything, then I must have created devil as well… so devil should be perfect as well, and completely controllable by god, but obviously the devil isnt.. so there is some disconnect there. Even if it wasnt the devil, imperfection still crept in, like entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. But god should be able to set all that right.. after all he is god! At this point logic fails. So what’s really going on? I believe that this inherent inconsistency is because of the way religion conceptualizes god. I believe that the god that people know from religion is a far cry from truth, more on that in some future post :)

Lets consider the concept of sin. The 10 commandments. Were we so stupid that it took god to tell us what we need to do for a stable society? Any bloke will tell you that if you are busy murdering others, sleeping with ppl indiscriminately, stealing other people’s property etc. it will take no time for the society to disintegrate into anarchy! So to safeguard the interests of the people, some of the smarter folks came up with certain ‘rules’.

These ‘rules’ were written and passed on from generation to generation, and the keepers of the rules ensured that there was peace and stability in the society. At one point the keepers of the rules kinda realized that if everyone is following the rules, then the keepers arent really needed, and so they wont be as important as they’d like to be, after all they were the ones who historically controlled and stablized the community, they were under the threat of obselence! So they needed something else, something that was more powerful than human, an all-seeing, all-powerful entity. God was the ideal candidate, and so they chose god as the ultimate guardian. The best way to control people was to keep them under constant fear, and threat, almost Orwellian. So they went ahead and made all the most basic and natural human instincts a sin, including birth itself (the original sin)! The only way out for the people is thru the keepers themselves… that way they retain control. And that is the ultimate goal of any organized religion, control the society.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, there are people who have received enlightenment, who have genuinely figured out what it takes to lead a righteous and fulfilling life, and are sharing it with other people. When the man, in flesh and blood, perished, his idea lingered, and was the ideal platform for the keepers to comandeer his teachings and manipulate it to their end.

Every religion starts off with the best intensions and teachings, but will invariably degrade into a tool of mass control. It cannot be helped, its in the very nature of nature. Entropy of the world is always increasing….

They walk up to me and ask me if I would be interested in a ‘spritual’ survey. All my doubts were dispelled at that moment, and I said to myself ‘Boys, get ready to sit around for a long time. I have over an hour and half at my disposal I couldnt have asked for better entertainment’. They start with some harmless questions like do you believe in god, are u religious etc. But I knew it was coming, and so I waited. One of them asked me ‘Do you believe in Christ?’ I knew the gun was fired, and the kids were amatures. This was going to be a fun hour.

Kids: ‘Are u a christian?’
Me: ‘No’
Kids: ‘Have you read the bible?’
Me: ‘Yes’
Kids: ‘I really respect you for having read the bible, even though you are not christian.’
Me: ‘I have read hindu, buddist, and some Baha’i scriptures as well. Have you?’
Kids, slightly confused: ‘uhhh… no. We have read the bible’
Kids: ‘Do you think Jesus Christ was sent by god?’
Me: ‘Yes, just like Moses, Abraham, Mohammad Prophet, Buddha, Bahaulla and many others’
This was definitely not going the way they expected it to. They try a different approach.
Kids: ‘Do you think bible is the word of god?’
Me: ‘Yes’
Kids: ‘What do you think it really means when Jesus says ‘I am god’ in the bible?’
Me: ‘It simply means that what he has to say are words of god, and not his as a human in flesh and blood.’
Kids: ‘So you dont think he is god?’
Me: ‘Its metaphorical, a lot of bible is. They are not to be taken literally.’

They were stumped at this point. I dont think it had ever occured to them that a lot of what is written in a scripture could be more than that meets the eye, and that it could carry a meaning other than the obvious. I had the luxury of having read Joseph Campbell. This was an uneven match. I guess the kids were even feeling intimidated by my rebuttal, so they decided to go for the juglar and fight it out… it was bad move.

Kids: ‘Let us tell you what we believe in. We believe that bible is the word of god, and Jesus Christ is god himself. The only way to heaven is through him, and no one else, no other religion’
I raised my eye brows.
Me: ‘Are you telling me that anyone who does follow christianity will go to hell?’
Kids: ‘Yes. We believe that christ in the only true god, and all other religions are misguiding’

That was it. This was not something I was going to tolerate. I have no qualms with people preaching their religion or their ideology, but to call other religions a sham, deceit is where I draw the line. No more defensive arguments. I went on the offensive.

Me: ‘Why so? What does bible say about it?’
Kids: ‘Jesus says that there will be people after him who will claim to be prophets, but we shouldnt be misled by them.’
Me: ‘True enough, but does he say anyone and everyone who claims to bring the word of god is fake? Or did he mean that there may be many heretics that one should be wary of?’

They are stumped again. Obviously they havent really tried to understand the bible, I almost feel sorry for them. Ego is a funny thing, it doesnt let you give in even when you know you have lost. They try to keep the fight, feebly so.

Kids: ‘Other religions like Islam are in direct conflict with Christianity. One cant be both.’

They fell straight into the trap. This was too easy.

Me: ‘Have u read Quoran?’
Kids: ‘No’
Me: ‘Then how can you denounce someting that u havent read, and how can you claim that it is in direct conflict with christianity?’
The kids then went on about how Mohammad’s life was mostly militaristic whereas jesus was all abt peace and preached the path of non violence and so on. This was check and mate.
Me: ‘Going by your arguement, the very people who protect you liberty, the american soldiers who are risking their life in Iraq are not following christianity, and so will have to go to hell. Does your religion abandon its own soldiers to damnation?’

They didnt expect this sort of attack, and were in way armed to defend it.

Kids: ‘It depends on the situation…’
Me: ‘Exactly… why is it so hard to believe that the situation Mohammad lived in, warrented one?’

Kids: ‘But look at osama bin laden…’
Me: ‘Look at the spanish inquisition’

It was game over. They knew it.
Kids: ‘I guess we dissagree on this one. Let us just tell you what we think. It is no way to say that you are wrong’
Me: ‘I think you have already told me what you think. Is there anything more?’
They kids said something more abt christianity and jesus being god and stuff, thanked me for their time and left.

There was also an argument about christianity being the sole truth, and I was arguing abt equality of religions and incompleteness of each of them in isolation and stuff, but I dont remember where they fit in the excerpt above.

I cant help but feel sorry for the kids. Illusion of enlightenment in their ignorance.

Now that I have sacrilegiously butchered Chaos Theory, lets go back to what this blog post is supposed to be about.

It wouldnt be exaggeration, though inaccurate, to say that I havent been home (my apartment), for over two weeks now, it has been over two weeks of vacation. It was supposed to be a well deserved break, but I find myself saying “What have I done to deserve this?”. A break by definition is supposed to last for a short period of time… then again, short by definition is subjective. So, for me, right here, right now is the limit, the boundary of what I consider a short period of time. As the ‘break’ beings to last longer, it demands reclassification, as it ceases to be a break any more. To me that reclassification is Bohemia. A break from routine is becoming a break from reality. I realized that it is not a very smart idea to spend over a week in an island that has nothing to offer but the company of other people. That’s pretty much what South Padre Island is. There is nothing beautiful inherent on this island. People go here because everyone else goes there. If you were to take all human inhabitation of the island for a brief moment in time and freeze it, the vulgarity of the place would be stark and apparent. One would detest the place of what it has become. I guess vegas has streched the limits of how we much we can endure and how carnal and beastly man’s vulgarity can be. I have, but seen a glimpse of what it is. I but tasted the pleasure, swallowed a mouthful and spit out the rest of it.

And I sit here, longing to go back home, longing to go back to life, back to routine, back to a place from where I know I can move ahead. I sit here, at brownsville airport awaiting my elusive flight to take me back to where I came from. I sit here, half way between the gutter and the stars.

The war was finally won, after losing a few battles. The house is now looks clean beyond my dreams. I can actually walk on the floor without getting my feet dirty! But this hasnt been without my shares of pains, the electric supply to the bedroom’s shot thanks to overloading the circuit with high power vaccum cleaner, my roomie has a bad case of shingles that I am trying evade and take care of him at the same time, and my back hurts… I could use a massage…. and restful sleep…. zzzzzzzzzz

Actually, the last person to leave the apartment left the place for good. He moved to LA, leaving behind a legacy that is unlikely to be forgotten by me for quite a while. The grey carpet on the floor was semi-brown with shoe marks, the entire dining area and kitchen was a bioharzard quarantine. There were three large trash bags full of trash, there were three mattresses lying around unused (and unusable), a table with one broken leg was juxtaposed against the wall. There were empty carton boxes lying all over the floor. I slowly made my way through to the kitchen, there was a ‘look of apprehension’ on my face, fearing the worst. The sink was empty and clean, but that was the only thing that was empty and clean. The utensils were all over the kitchen platform. there were prepared dishes left and they were brandishing multicolored fungi and spores whose spectrum seemed to extend beyond the UV and IR. The refrigerator was a live illustration of Weird Al‘s parody “Living in the Fridge“. Overcome by frustration, anger, annoyance and the unbearable stench, I dashed to the bathroom to wash my face and, hopefully, cleanse myself. To my horror, the sink was decorated by infinite layers of waterstains. Somebody had overused the sink, and conveniently forgotten to clean up. The bath tub seemed to have been replaced! I bend down only to discover that the white bathtub on of mine looked the face of the dark lord of the sith! The floor of the tub was black, and the space between the tiles was an indescribable mixture of bottlegreen, darkblue and black (it was originally white). I think it is best if I refrain from describing the state of the potty seat.
I couldnt take it anymore. I took a paper bag and was slowly breathing into it. No, I was not hyperventilating, it was just that I couldnt take the stench anymore, it seemed to have permeated in to every square inch of the apartment. I was too scared to look into the rooms, with a few soft, frightened steps I made it to the main door.
The news papers next day reported an inexplicable blood chilling scream of a stranger running to the night.