Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog’s second act debuted about an hour ago. I’ve absolutely loved it so far and I am excited to see the conclusion on Saturday! There are ton’s of reviews out and about on the net and I don’t care to congest the tubes with my own, but if you haven’t been watching you are going to want to hurry it all disappears on the 20th.
I’ve been thinking alot about writing and trying to be a little more creative. I used to write all the time, I ended up looking through tons of my old papers last night trying to find a story to share with a friend of mine. It is kind of weird rereading all of it. There we’re short stories and novels that I had started writing and tons of verse that I spat onto paper in fits of emotion. I need to put this stuff someplace safe to I can look back on it.
I have been writing down some ideas about a project I’ve been calling The City. I really don’t know what kind of story it is or really anything about the plot. I just have a very clear image of the setting. It takes place in this dystopian city. I can’t really describe it in too much depth every time I try to it comes out childish and contrived. I close my eyes and I can see it so clearly, the dark sky, cobblestone streets, the factories, I can feel it too, what it would be like to live there, the madness of it; But the why of it has escaped me so far. Why does this city exist; what is its importance? I think if I continue with the story I would like to present it at as graphic novel. There is just too much visually going on for me to describe in words. With all of this online media I think it might be a fantastic medium, of course I wouldn’t mind publishing it with Evil Ink along side The Amory Wars.
I have also been tossing around the idea of finding an illustrator to draw up some concept art. I have such vivid images and I’d like to have them realized regardless of how far I actually take this project. Amanda’s brother has been painting and i’ve been told it is rather fantastic I might ask him to draw for me. If any of my readers are interested or know anyone who is I would love to sit down and talk to you about some ideas.
My love for the Web 2.0 World has been strengthened today with my exploration of ChaCha! ChaCha is a service that you use from your Mobile Phone, or from the desktop of your personal computer. You call or text ChaCha, ask it any question you want and a ChaCha Guide searches the web and texts you back the answer. I was playing with this all day!
Me: Who holds the world record for running the fastest mile?
ChaCha: Alan Webb with a time of 3mins 16sec. I can’t run a mile in twice that! Have a good night! Thanks for chachaing!
Me: How many calories are in the smokehouse burgera Ruby Tuesdays?
ChaCha: A lot. The burger has 1144 calories, and a whopping 73 grams of fat. Not exactly healthy, but probably tasty.
I decided to only eat half.
I signed up to be a ChaCha Guide and work for them because I think it will be alot of fun. Ill let you know how it goes.
Last night was my 7th or 8th night riding the ambulance. Most of my crews were uneventful with the most challenging aspect being how to deal with George’s snoring. Basic calls like the one I had last week where our patient fell off of his motorcycle at 5 mph became very exciting becuase it broke up the monotony of sleeping on the couch. Last night I got my first code (cardiac arrest).
The night started out pretty quickly, we got a first call minutes after our shift started and of course invariably as ever, right as we’re going to get food. The call was a dizzy female who passed out momentarily in her friends car. She was awake and talking to the police when we got there and refused treatment claiming that she has passed out before. Her bp was low 94/63 but she said it was normal for her and signed the RMA. Two of the chiefs has responded and we we’re all talking for a while in the lot when we got another call; “Cardiac Unresponsive, code red, proceed forthwith.” We all jumped in the ambulance and sped off. It was all organized chaos from then on.
The address they gave us was familiar, it was only two houses down from a friend of mine and levittown houses all look the same, I was almost sure it was Kristen’s house as I was running up the driveway and was relieved when I got inside, it wasn’t hers. I carried the backboard and the O2 in and then proceeded to gather the personal information we needed on our pcr form, 40 year old male with muscular distrophy no other medical history, no meds. I got the name address and social as the rest of the crew was shouting orders in the back room and getting ready to load the patient onto the ambulance, some of the family was there just staring, one of them, the patients sister I think, was hysterical.
One of the things I hate most of all is not being able to do something, especially in an emergency situation like this if I’m not helping then i’m just in the way and that gets me pretty upset. When we loaded onto the bus I was by the head of the patient and I started bagging. I was nervous but all of that was pushed to the back of my head and I had one job and just needed to focus on that. Breath..2…3…4…5…breath…2…3…4…5 We we’re only on the road for about 5 minutes but if someone told me it was 45 minutes I wouldn’t have been surprised.
Everyone around me was working fast, one member tried getting a line in the patients neck, the other tried getting it in his foot, they were pushing epinephrine and atropine, I was still bagging pink frothy fluid was leaking out of his mouth and nose as I was trying to hold them shut. One of the chiefs Eric was doing compressions. Eric stopped so our Lifepack could analyze for a heart rythym, there was one, we took a pulse it was faint and then gone. CPR continued as we rushed out of the ambulance into the ED, finally a doctor took over bagging for me and I got some time to breath myself. I collected the last bit of information that I needed and washed my hands.
I stood around for a bit in a trance slowly processing everything that had happened. Everyone was outside talking and joking around about past calls, discussing this one. They all seemed so nonchalant, not affected. I wasn’t affected as much as I thought I might be. I had wondered how I would handle myself, I thought I did pretty well. I was told I did great, later on I found out that no one bags on their first code, most people just watch. I felt okay.
The patient didn’t make it. The doctors said they had a hearbeat for 5 minutes, but it didn’t last; they said we did good. I’m still ok. I am scared of messing up, of doing something wrong that would cause the patient to deteroriate further, but I don’thave that feeling on this call. I think it was just his time.
So I decided I wanted to test out Windows Live Writer so I downloaded it and started writing and went to publish it. Now it is only a Beta so errors are to be expected, the poor thing wouldn’t publish. No problem let me just take a look at the error report and find out whats going on with it so I can fix it. Well.
I had the best day at Wantagh-Levittown Volunteer Ambulance Corp so far last night. We got toned out for a woman with stomach pains, and our Probationary Trainer loaded us in the fly car so we could get some in-field training. On the way there he’s telling us how great a stomach pain call is because it could one of 9000 different things, and how we will get into it when we get back. We jump out of the bus and start heading towards the house only to be stopped by the police who were already on scene. They we’re putting the house in quarantine.
The patient had become infested with bird mites, and anyone who went inside would get them as well. Bird Mites are tiny parasites that live off birds which act as their host. The house has been infested with the sick birds a few weeks before and the woman who lived there attempted to clean them out, and disturbed the mite nest while doing so, she was now their host.
The situation grew a little worse as she started to complain about chest pain, began bleeding, and could see the mites crawling in and out of her body. Unfortunately there was nothing we could except call for a Hazmat team to come and take the woman to the hospital. Since it was only a training night for us and there we’re too many people at scene already (two chiefs, the fire marshal, two police cars, and the crew) we we’re driven back to head quarters.
Back at the house we talked about the situation and the probable resolution with some of the more seasoned techs and started going over some of the other training material. It seemed that the Health Department would be called in with a hazardous material team and transport the woman pretty much in a body bag in one of the county’s ambulances to a tent behind the hospital. I would have loved to see how everything actually went down but I was already feeling my skin crawl and would have just been in the way. Shortly after we got back we we’re toned out again to a “Male Overdose, Unresponsive”.
The overdose patient (30yrs) was awake and standing when we got there. He was slurring his speech and seemed to be very groggy. His mother came up to us and started explaining that he had been shooting Ketamine, an animal tranquilizer, and she has been trying to get him into a detox program. They both refused treatment, signed the RMA and we back home.
On our way back to headquarters we were diverted back to the first scene to help remove all the equipment from the first bus, because it was decided that they we’re going to transport the mite patient in our ambulance. We loaded all the gear but not without first noting which ambulance we didn’t want to ride in anymore.
This was the most interesting night I have had so far, and I am looking forward to finding out the rest of the story from the crew that transported her. There is a little more info available on Newsday’s site, but it gives a little too much personal information so I won’t link it here.
The Lost finale was thursday night and it was absolutely amazing. I don’t want to go too much into it yet because there still are some people who haven’t watched (hurry up damn you), but I will say they did some fantastic things, as well as some heartbreaking things, and it has me more interested than ever. I’ll give you all my theories and opinions next week to give everyone enough time to catch up.
There was a commercial for a company called Octagon Global Recruiting that aired during the end of the show. It looks like this may be the start of another Lost ARG (Alternate Reality Game). The commercial said that Octagon Global Recruiting is looking for “volunteers for a range of unpaid positions” and will be actively recruiting in San Diego July 24th-27th, which are the same dates as the San Diego Comicon. I am seriously considering taking a trip out there to see whats going on. I would be a fun vacation.
Here is the commercial (small easter egg posted underneath):
And here is the list of jobs that they are recruiting for:
Meteorologists
Psychologists
Parapsychologists
Zoologists
Physicists
Mathematicians
Botanical Researchers
Engineers
Builders
Drivers
Health Care Workers
Communication Specialists
Neuroscientists
Janitors
Engineers
Biologists
Astrophysicists
Ex-Military
Electricians
Vets
IVF Consultants
Teachers
Architects
Ichthyologists
Transport Mechanics
Immunologists
Nurses
Illustrators
Auditors
Minibus Drivers
Recycling Coordinators
Aeronautical Engineers
Horticulturists
Dentists
I bolded the first letters in the jobs and if you read them up it spells out: DHARMA INITIATIVE The rest of the letters seem to just be random but some of the other people playing are putting them through different ciphers to see if anything interesting comes up. If anything is found I will post it.
Gahhh foiled again! I went down to the Westbury store today to pick my eeePc that their inventory says they have instock, but they don’t actually have any. My plan is to use it to set up a completely mobile office. I want to see if I can do everything that could be done at work or home while i’m on the train or a coffee house or even at the park. I really think it’s possible and I think it will be pretty easy. I’ll be picking up the eeePc shortly (might have to wait a week while it gets shipped to me) in the meanwhile I am trying to brainstorm some ideas of what exactly I want to do I’ve got a few things.
Connect to my home and work computers
Edit, build, maintain webpages,
Skype phonecalls w/video and bluetooth.
Boot Backtrack for security auditing
Manage all my online activities, twitter, facebook, my blog, email, torrents.
Switch from using Installed applications to Portable Applications whenever possible.
I am sure I’ll come up with more stuff most of this is very easy. If you would like to see any other features write me at SRKos@aol.com
