Woohoo! I finally got the pins removed from my hand! They basically yank those suckers out with a pair of pliers. It's a really weird sensation.

Update: Aren't you glad I didn't have hemorrhoid surgery?

Ladies and gentlemen, I have found evidence that there may in fact be a God, and he shines his mercy and love down from the Internet.

You can now buy individual packets of Taylor Pork Roll off Amazon, thanks to a grocery store in New York. They send it packed in dry ice.

If you are from the New Jersey, Philadelphia, or New York area, you may understand the significance of this miracle. Otherwise, you are among those who will be burn in fire, brimstone, and butter when my meat rages across that nation. With cheese of course. Egg sometimes as well...

Seriously, Pork Roll! Fucking Pork Roll! Hell yeah!@$%^

Amazon.com: Taylor Pork Roll, 8 Slices Pre Box, 6 oz: Gourmet Food

Bechara and colleagues culled their brain-damage registry for 69 patients who had smoked regularly before their injuries. Nineteen, including Nathan, had damage to the insula. Thirteen of the insula-damaged patients had quit smoking, 12 of them super-easily: They quit within a day of the brain injury, and reported neither smoking nor even feeling the urge since then.

Soon we will see advocacy groups whacking smokers in the head insisting it's for their own good.

Spot in brain may control smoking urge - Yahoo! News

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.

That does sound too good to be true.

Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers - health - 17 January 2007 - New Scientist

Cats are blamed for triggering asthma attacks in humans but veterinarians in Scotland said on Wednesday it may also work the other way around.

I'm someone who has asthma attacks triggered by cats. Yet, I still like cats. Now I know what kind of cat I need to own.

Pedigree oriental breeds such as Siamese cats are more prone to the respiratory problem than other cats, according to the researchers.

That's perfect. I need a pedigree asthmatic Siamese cat. Then I can finally have a cat that understands my angst.

Are asthmatic cats allergic to humans? - Yahoo! News

Sad news, Overcode passed away on Saturday, September 17th.

More information and a guestbook is on his home page http://overcode.yak.net

Valhalla welcomes its latest hacker. John, may you Rest in Peace.

John's War with Melanoma is over

Last year, Mr. King was referred to Dr. Victor Aziz, a psychiatrist at St. Cadoc's Hospital in Wales. Dr. Aziz explained to him that there was a name for his experience: musical hallucinations.

This is interesting. I've had an ongoing interest in some of the finer points of the way we perceive music and relate it to memory..

I'm pretty sure I meme'd an article awhile back, which I can't seem to find, that went into some detail about how our brains and by extension our bodies react to musical patterns. The short of it was that some people are more likely then others to have their psychology follow music patterns they are exposed to. For instance, if you are listening to music that has a beat that's somewhat close to your heart-beat, your heart-beat will adjust to match the beat of the music. You are also more likely to preform physical actions like arm movements or walking in beat. This is the case with everyone, but its more prevalent with some people. Apparently some people are so susceptible to it that its hard or downright impossible to do things out of beat when exposed to one.

One of my favorite oddities, which you can catch yourself do: When you pause or stop music, you are more likely to do it directly in the middle off the song then at any other point. The reason for this is that it "feels right", and you do it unconsciously. Most musical compositions that "feel complete" have the tendency to rise and fall, and display elements of symmetry across their composition. Classical music and pop songs in particular..

Coming Soon: Electronica Mind Control

Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod

The cow that was found last week to have mad cow disease spent its whole life in Texas, making it the first domestic case of the disease, the United States Department of Agriculture said yesterday.

"I, for one, will continue to eat red meat, and intend to do so later tonight with complete confidence," [Gov] Perry said. He later issued a revised statement that dropped the reference to his dinner plans but added that Texas beef was "as safe today as it was yesterday."

Hear that everybody, its just as safe today as it was yesterday. No cause for concern. Move along.

Case of Mad Cow in Texas Is First to Originate in U.S. - New York Times

] Congratulations, you have cancer! Your life is about to
] turn upside down. It causes a lot of stress, and many
] patients crash and burn horribly. Chemotherapy can save
] your life, but in the process it'll make you feel like
] you've been run over by a Hummer. Alternately, your
] doctors may choose to irradiate you in one of several
] ways, which is not altogether unlike being shoved into a
] microwave oven on "high" for a few minutes. Your
] medications probably won't make you feel better, so do
] yourself a favor and buy some weed. Get used to needles;
] you're going to be poked with a lot of them. Be strong,
] and you might live. Good luck!

I just got news yesterday that a good friend of mine has been diagnosed with lung cancer. He is going to be undergoing surgery to remove a tumor soon. The blues is in full effect.

It was good to read this and see that John is winning his war.. I hope my friend Rick wins his.

John's War with Melanoma

It was roughly this time last year I quit smoking. I've managed to stick with it.

I'm just as shocked as you are.

One year free of the death sticks