The King of Pointland

Doctor, is Levitra right for my Tennis Elbow?

From today's Post, Doctors Influenced By Mention Of Drug Ads: Offbeat Study Finds Familiar Brand Name Can Evoke Diagnosis

Actors pretending to be patients with symptoms of stress and fatigue were five times as likely to walk out of doctors' offices with a prescription when they mentioned seeing an ad for the heavily promoted antidepressant Paxil, according an unusual study being published today.

The study employed an elaborate ruse -- sending actors with fake symptoms into 152 doctors' offices to see whether they would get prescriptions. Most who did not report symptoms of depression were not given medications, but when they asked for Paxil, 55 percent were given prescriptions, and 50 percent received diagnoses of depression.

Here's the study. One interesting result not mentioned in the article is that while patients who reported the symptoms of major depression were more likely to get prescribed antidepressants if they made a drug request, they were actually less likely to get a prescription if they made a brand-specific request rather than a generic request.

Nokia 8390

I imagine some poor soul like me Googling on "Nokia 8390 Restore Factory Settings" or "Nokia 8390 Selected memory empty," and finding this page. Now you know you're not alone.

I've been getting a "System Busy" error all day when I try to make a call. I can't receive calls, either. So I called Cingular, and the woman on the phone told me to "Restore factory settings." Before doing so, I explicitly asked her "Will this erase my phone book?" She told me it wouldn't, and so I went through with the process. And guess what, it did erase my phone book.

I remained calm and asked to talk to her supervisor. While I was on hold I told myself not to a) yell or b) curse. Once the supervisor answered I calmly explained to her what had happened, and she told me that wasn't supposed to happen. I responded that that may be so, but it in fact did happen. She was very courteous and remained on the phone while I downloaded Nokia's manual, found the page for "Restore factory settings," and wouldn't you know it, it says, "Caution: Restoring factory settings does not erase your phone book. However, it does erase all customized settings you may have entered." At that point I was glad I had been polite and calm the entire time, because it turns out it wasn't their fault.

I've tried adding some numbers and doing a reset several times. Each time, I lose my numbers. I get an error: "Selected memory empty." Perhaps there's a firmware bug.

The customer service agent had checked for known problems in my area and found none. After putting me on hold and talking to technical support, she learned that there was a problem with the local "switch" and they were working on it. It would have been nice to know this from the get go.

"But, but, David, did you back up your numbers?" Some time ago, I did, using the IR port. I'll restore those. But if you gave me your phone number in the last, oh, two years, I've probably lost it. If you were hoping I'd forget your number, you win! Otherwise, you might want to email it to me.

Why

Why do I even bother going to Home Despot? It has become a ritual: Visit, seek, and fail. Make an offering of fruitless effort to the orange god, and only then, with his blessing, journey to the store which actually sells what you had sought. I will not bore you with the details.

Today I mowed the lawn. Soon the pollen will come, the pollen with antigens my overzealous immune system incorrectly recognizes as the Enemy, and so I must do my part now, while I am able. Before mowing the lawn I changed the oil in the mower, following like a good boy the maintenance recommendations in the instruction manual. I am so proud of myself.

Before changing the oil I ran the engine for several minutes to warm the old oil. Again, the instruction manual recommended I do so, and so I did.

Before running the engine, I pulled the starter cord handle many times. Theorizing that it was flooded, I waited twenty minutes and then returned. Three more times I pulled without the desired result. I grew despondent.

Ready to give up, I made one last effort. I reached for the handle. Holding it firmly, I crouched, motionless. I breathed deeply. And then, slowly summoning every anxiety, every worry, every fear, every bit of hatred and frustration inside my soul, I focused it all, held it in the palm of my hand — paused — and pulled that mother-fucking handle with every fiber of my being.

Yes, the engine started.

I like to think that anyone who has ever used a gas mower has had a similar experience at least once.

* * *

Saturday I attended an all-day Swing dancing workshop at a friend's request. Here is a bit of advice: If you would like to learn to Swing dance, avoid such workshops like the plague.

"OK, we're going to focus on the fundamentals. Without a firm basis in the fundamentals, you'll never look natural dancing."

This sounded promising. An image of Daniel-san waxing on and off flashed before my eyes. I am all for learning the fundamentals.

"First we're going to teach you how to crawl. Here's how you crawl. Now you try. " Five minutes later: "OK, now that you know how to crawl, we'll move on to walking." Wait! I don't know how to crawl! "So here's how you walk. Let's practice that." No! Let's not practice that, I need to practice my crawling, so that I'm not thinking about which knee to — "OK, here is how you run. Just do this, and this, it's that easy!" Stop! I didn't get that at all because, you know what? I can't walk. I can't even stand up. If only I could go back to crawling and get some help with that, that would be great, because with some more practice, I think I might just get the hang of it. "Now that you know how to run, let's work on the Charleston!"

I hate you instructor Joel. And your vampire teeth are not funny.

Speaking of teeth, an old homeless man walked in front of my car today. He was "gumming," I guess you would call it, opening and closing his jaw endlessly. Why do the people who do this do this? Is there a medical reason?

Postscript: Re-reading this entry, it occurs to me that one of you will cheerfully respond that you once attended an all-day Swing dancing workshop, and you picked-up everything, no problem. Well aren't you the bees knees! You know who you are.

i'm eatin' it

You may already know that today is the 50th anniversary of the first McDonald's. Is McDonald's pure evil? Sure. They have made an industry of grinding up dead cow, freezing it, thawing it, frying it, and selling it to people who buy it, ingest it, digest it, and poop it, or at least those portions that don't become fat, heat, kinetic energy, potential energy, or fingernails. Or hair. Or hemoglobin. Or muscle cells. Or any of those other cells.

Nonetheless, in celebration of this special day, I plan to head on over to "Micky Dee's" as soon as I finish this bjournal entry and have myself a big, tasty Quarter Pounder with Cheese, small fries, and maybe a beverage of some sort. This will be my first visit to a McDonald's franchise in four or five years, so I'm very excited, and a bit apprehensive. I hope I remember how to order. Wish me luck!

April 6, 2005

Today's high: around 80 °F.

Incidence of cargo shorts: near epidemic proportions.