100 years to the day

This picture was taken 100 years ago today, off New York City. It's the U.S.S. Arizona, shortly after completing engine repairs and only 6 months after she was commissioned into the navy. 3 days after this picture was taken the United States entered World War I.

At the time she was the biggest, newest, and most advanced battleship in the world. And home to 2,290 young men.

This is the same ship today, after the beginning of another war. 1,177 young men are still aboard her.

Check, please

This weekend Craig is hosting a murder-mystery party for his friends, with crimes he's writing himself.

Last night we stopped for a bite on the way home from band practice. He had a notebook, and was frantically writing down ideas for the party mysteries.

At one point he said "One more to go. I JUST NEED INSPIRATION FOR ONE MORE MURDER!!!"

Saying that loudly gets you some interesting looks in a crowded diner.

Publishing

Dear Cureus,

Thank you for your recent email.

I must say, I'm delighted that you enjoyed my article "," which was published in , . I spent years working on it, as a much-anticipated follow-up study to "?" and ".", which you may have seen in / and ;, respectively.

I'm impressed that your "new and unique" article rating system felt "," was so important. I'd been concerned, as several colleagues were less flattering, comparing it to something one might see produced by a :

Please keep an eye out for my "!" which will be featured in next month's issue of " as the centerfold.

Yours truly,

Ibee Grumpy, M.D.






- Thank you, SMOD!

Osteichthyes

Mrs. Gourami: "What's your fish's name?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Ed."

Mrs. Gourami: "And he just stays over there?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Yep."

Mrs. Gourami: "That really bothers me. I mean, for him to be in there all the time. You'd think he'd want you to take him out of the water for a walk or something."

Dr. Grumpy: "Uh..."

Mrs. Gourami: "It just doesn't seem fair to me, like animal cruelty."

On the road again

Taking a week off for the kids Spring Break. See you next week!

"Don't eat or drink out of it, either."

Seen in a hospital bathroom:

Thank you, Rachel!

Parenting

Last night was the twins' indoor marching band show, combined with a school dance recital.

We took my Grumpymobile (a used 2007 Toyota Highlander, recently bought to replace the 1999 Nissan Maxima which had died). Frank also went, since he does lighting for the auditorium.

After the show there were 3 girls and 2 boys chatting with the twins. I let them talk for a few minutes, but after a while I wanted to go home, and went over to break it up.

Apparently, they’d been waiting on ME. Without bothering to check with, say, ME OR MRS. GRUMPY, Craig had previously promised these kids rides home. Since their parents had been told they didn’t need to come get them, they’d made other plans. And it was too late, dark, and cold to walk.

So we were 10 people in a car that holds 5, max.

It ended up as 3 in front (one on my wife's lap), 4 crammed in the back seat, and 3 shoved in the hatchback cargo area in back. It was snowing. The windows were fogged from 10 sets of respirations. Off we went, with my phone giving us directions to their homes.

Marie is taking driving lessons, and has memorized the entire book of state driving laws. So she points out any traffic violations she sees, loudly.

When someone made a turn in front of us without using their signal, she rolled down her window (with snow coming in) and shouted “HEY! That’s against the law!”

Craig's yelled from the cargo area: “So is driving around with 3 kids in your trunk!”

Then Frank farted, LOUDLY, and the whole car smelled like a sewer. On top of the body odor of a bunch of teenagers who have just finished marching and dancing for 2 hours under hot stage lights.

I drove the rest of the way with the windows down, and didn’t care if they froze.

At least I know these kids will never ask for a ride with the Grumpys again.

Guessing games

This referral came over the fax machine last week:

Mary's desk

Mary: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Mary."

Mrs. Osseous: "I have a skin tag on my forehead, and need to have it removed."

Mary: "I'm sorry, Dr. Grumpy doesn't do that sort of thing."

Mrs. Osseous: "But it's on my forehead? That's near my brain, isn't it? And he's a brain doctor!"

Mary: "Yes, but he doesn't do procedures like this. Why don't you ask your internist for..."

Mrs. Osseous: "I did. She told me to see a plastic surgeon, but when I called none of them take insurance, and only wanted to talk about fixing my boobs."

Mary: "Have you tried a dermatologist?"

Mrs. Osseous: "They're booked out for a month, and I'm tired of looking at this thing in the mirror after 10 years. I want it off NOW! Can you ask Dr. Grumpy to make an exception?"

Mary: "This just isn't what he does, or can help you with."

Mrs. Osseous: "Even if it's near my brain, just on the other side of my skull?"

Mary: "That's not his field."

Mrs. Osseous: "You people are worthless."

Marketing

My reader Tom writes that a friend of his recently had a vasectomy at a place called, I swear, Dr. Snip.

What really makes the whole thing noteworthy, beside a few bags of frozen peas, is the awesome parting gift they present you with after the procedure:

Now THAT's branding!

 

Thank you, Tom!

Seen in a chart

My readers write

From Dr. Max Alt...

In the late 1990's I worked for Ginormous Neurology, Inc.

GNI was a group of 30-40 neurologists carefully selected for significant personality pathology. In neurology this isn't hard to find* but the breadth and scale of it at GNI was truly awe-inspiring. I don't think I was as bad as most of them, but hey, they offered me a job and I needed one.

Anyway.

GNI spent a large amount of money to put together a computerized chart system. By the standards of the era it was reasonably good, and fairly quick. Come to think of it, it was better than most of the  crap out there today.

One Monday the system was really SLOW. Granted, these sorts of things happen, and so we all ignored it at first. But it continued the rest of the day, and the next, and the next... The IT guys found something was running in the background, but weren't sure what it was.

Checking the logs on the servers and individual machines, they eventually discovered that one of the partners, Dr. Kent, had spent several hours over the weekend logged into the system, working on most of the office desktops, one at a time.

Eventually it came out that Dr. Kent had secretly installed software on all the computers... to search for extra-terrestrial life.

"He did WHAT?"

I am not making this up. He'd quietly installed programming from SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) to allow them to use the GNI network to search through data picked up by radio telescopes in hopes of locating life out there.

Now, I have nothing against SETI. Or extra-terrestrials. Or science. But when they interfere with my ability to do my day job... that's another matter.

To Dr. Kent's indignation and horror (he thought this would get him a Nobel Prize) the IT guys spent the next weekend removing his software from the servers and roughly 150 computers scattered through the GNI network.

To this day, those of us who knew Dr. Kent think he was hoping to reconnect with his family.

Thank you, Dr. Max Alt!


*I'll vouch for him on that - Dr. Grumpy.
 

Breaking news

From around the world, Dr. Grumpy brings you the stories that impact your lives.


DATELINE: New Brunswick.

Two men were arrested for going through a McDonald's drive-thru on a moving sofa at 3:19 a.m.

The home furnishing, also called a couch, was being towed by a 3rd man riding an ATV, also called a deathtrap. The passengers went over to order some McEdibles.

Apparently going into a drive-thru on a towed couch is illegal there (I had no idea this was such a common crime that a specific law was needed) so a police officer pulled in behind them and turned on his lights. This resulted in the ATV guy and couch driving off (down a frozen river, no less) leaving his partners behind.

The two men, not surprisingly, were intoxicated.

Cpl. Lorri McEachern, of the New Brunswick police, commented that, in spite of riding drunk on a towed sofa in winter in the middle on the night, both men were wearing helmets "so obviously safety was somewhat important."



DATELINE: Arizona AND Florida

Robert Bare, tired of life in Bullhead City, Arizona, decided to take a vacation in Key West, Florida. As part of his relaxation he wanted to "party" (his word, not mine) and mailed a box of crystal meth from his home to the hotel he'd booked.

Regrettably, Mr. Bare forgot to address the box to himself, simply writing the name of the hotel on it. So the staff opened it and were surprised to find some Walter White confectionary wrapped in dirty socks. Mr. Bare had, however, been kind enough to put his name and home as the return address on the package.

Following his arrival, Mr. Bare was arrested by an undercover detective when he tried to reclaim his package "after a brief struggle in the lobby."



DATELINE: California

A fellow stole a van from a mortuary in Riverside. After a short distance, however, he discovered there was a dead body in the back.

Apparently not wanting the passenger, he drove back to the mortuary, politely parked the van and its occupant where he'd found them, THEN took another van next to it (I assume he checked the back first), nearly running over a mortuary employee in the process.

While stealing van #2 he somehow failed to notice a police officer standing there, investigating the theft of the first van. The intrepid officer apprehended him after a chase.



DATELINE: Mississippi

From the "somehow I think there's more to this story" department.

Shane Treadaway was found hanging upside down and buck naked from a tree in the forest.

Mr. Treadaway, who was rescued by the local fire department, said he'd climbed the tree to look for a dog, and fell. Apparently all of his clothes came off in the process.

His girlfriend, who happened to be at the scene, ran to a nearby house to get help.

Attention span

I do online marketing surveys for $ here and there. Most docs do.

These people obviously want to make sure you're paying attention, so have stealth questions in there to trip-up someone who's randomly clicking boxes or typing numbers. Here are some samples you guys have sent in:



Sometimes it's just a simple command:

Math questions are popular, I assume because you have to think a bit:

Another technique is what I call "left turn." They set the premise you're going to work on, then take a sudden left turn off subject to see if you're following them:

But THIS one is my favorite. A seeming innocuous question about drugs used for Parkinson's Disease:

For those of you who didn't follow the sci-fi show Firefly, Byphodine was a fictional drug that reduced metabolic function to fake death.