HEADLINES: This week's tough SOB award goes to...

You remember that story from last year about the Florida guy who fought off a bobcat with his bare hands. Yeah, that d00d was one tough SOB.

This week, we met another tough old SOB, Steve Wilder of Omaha, Neb.

Wilder awoke a few nights ago to find that his throat had swollen shut and he was unable to breath.

What to do? Call 911 and die while waiting for an ambulance to show up too late? No thanks. How about give yourself a tracheotomy with a FREAKIN' STEAK KNIFE!!!

"Got a knife and located it and pushed in and blood went gush.” Blood was gushing out, but air was gushing in. Wilder was successful at performing a self-tracheotomy. "I think I closed my eyes, but fear or something took over. I didn't feel no pain or nothing."

Surgeons train for years to do what took Wilder only moments, though it wasn’t an entirely new experience. He had throat cancer several years ago, which is where his breathing problems originated. The same thing happened some years back, so he grabbed a steak knife and went to work.

Dayum! Makes my self-ingrown toenail-otomy look kind of wussy by comparison.

Look for a story link similar to this to show up on ER or Grey's Anatomy in the next few weeks.

tagged: headlines, news, tracheotomy, steak knife, Steve Wilder, surgery

Friday Blogthing: Sometimes you feel like a nut

Sometimes you fee like three nuts, right The D?

You Are a Cashew

You are laid back, friendly, and easy going. Compared to most people, you have a very mild temperament. You blend in well. You're often the last person to get noticed. But whenever you're gone, people seem to notice right away!

What Nut Are You?

tagged: Friday, blogthing, nut, cashew, quiz, blog, meme

And to wash it down...

Mad props to Chimpotle for hepping me to the latest fast food artery clogger, the 60-slice bacon cheeseburger.

But after ordering a cheeseburger with 60-slices of bacon, it seems silly to wash it down with a plain old soda. If only there was something more appropriate.

Hmmm... Oh yeah!

MEATWater!!!

It's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes!

tagged: bacon, meat, water, food, health

Book Report: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Title: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Synopsis:
Blink is a non-fiction essay about the ability of the human mind to make highly accurate snap judgments, the process by which we make these kinds of judgments and pitfalls and dangers that can occur when we don't realize what influences this kind of decision making.

My thoughts:
This book was highly recommended to me by many people. Several of my managers at work are Gladwell disciples and have also recommended his earlier work The Tipping Point.

There are also some pretty smart bloggers out there who recommended Blink as well as one of my favorite football coaches.

So why all of the acclaim? Well, for one thing this is a really well written piece of non-fiction. Gladwell covers several case studies where split second decision making has been successful and where it has led horrible, tragic mistakes.

Case studies run the gamut from marriage to military games (not much difference there, right?) and from fine art to speed dating.

Gladwelll introduces fancy terms like "rapid cognition" and "thin slicing" that and explains them in a clear and entertaining way.

There is also a fascinating discussion of facial expressions, or rather the various component parts of facial expressions made up by the various individual movements of facial muscles.

Microexpressions, as they are called, can involuntarily reveal a glimpse of a person's true emotional state to the trained observer.

And interestingly, just as emotional states cause these involuntary facial movements, voluntarily producing certain facial movement can influence one's emotional state. It's a two way street.

Gladwell's writing style is conversational and easy to read, a reflection no doubt of his time in the newspaper world.

It's a fast 320-page read and the insights into how our minds work (or don't work, in some cases) makes it well worth your time.

Rating: Recommended

Note: Read additional 3AM Book Reviews here.

tagged: books, literature, Malcolm Gladwell, Blink, thin slicing, rapid cognition, microexpression

The Man and the moon

You may have seen the news story trumpeting the new surveillance video cameras recently installed in some areas of Kansas City, Mo.

According to the story linked above, the police state installed the cameras in part at the request of neighborhood groups.

"So far I've been stopped by two citizens who have thanked me and said they've been praying for these,” said Sergeant Patrick Rauzi, who is overseeing the project. “One gentleman said he owned three different houses in this neighborhood and has been waiting for the cameras. He couldn't thank me enough."

I wonder if these potentially hypothetical neighborhood groups had really thought through what they were requesting.

Now I'm all for police patrols. Increase the frequency of cops on the beat if you must. Absolutely demand that when there is a call for help, help arrives within a reasonable amount of time.

But inviting the police to spy on you in your neighborhood seems a like another step toward the pre-crime world of the Minority Report. You're essentially giving the "authorities" the right to watch you without first getting a warrant.

And I know there's an argument that people who aren't doing anything wrong shouldn't worry. If your not breaking the law, you shouldn't be concerned, right?

Not so fast my friend.

According to one of my many inside sources* police abuse of this type of surveillance is already happening.

Police in Northumberland, Great Britain, are trying to track down a man who took a crack at sharing his deepest feelings about unwarranted government invasion of privacy.

A front seat car passenger was photographed baring his backside at a speed camera in Northumberland.

The "mooning" man was snapped by the mobile camera as the black BMW X5 drove past on the A1171 Dudley Lane in Cramlington last month.

His behaviour has been labelled as "dangerous and offensive" by road safety campaigners.

Police may take action against the man for public order offences and not wearing a seat belt.

Officers have the registration of the car, which was not breaking the speed limit, and intend to contact its owner.

So there you have it. The jack-booted thugs are just waiting to bust you for daring to speak you mind.

Well, I say KCMO shouldn't stand for this. I hereby call on all freedom-loving Kansas Citians to moon these surveillance cameras in the downtown entertainment district and wherever else you see them.

Show the police state where they can put their cameras!


*© Greg Beck at Death's Door

tagged: surveillance, spy, cameras, police, moon, privacy, freedom

YouTube Tuesday: Oh boy, the show on next is Barnaby Jones

Remember back in the day when the first CSI teevee series came out?

I'm not talking about CSI: New York, or CSI: Miami, or even CSI. I'm not even referring to Medical Investigation or Crossing Jordan or House.

The first time these shows were on teevee, it was called Quincy (or Quincy, M.E. for you purists) and Jack Klugman had more acting chops in his receding hairline than David Caruso has in his entire pint-sized, dramatic-sunglasses-taking-off body.

Take a trip with me now down amnesia lane to those golden days of yesteryear when television shows had cool theme songs.



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, television, TV, humor, CSI, Quincy

Random Photo XI: Grand Canal (in miniature)

I was trying out a tilt-shift Photoshop technique that I recently read about. I chose a picture from our trip to Italy a few years ago.

Click to enlargify...

Venice, Grand Canal, 2001

What do you think?

tagged: Venice, Italy, Grand Canal, photo, Photoshop, picture, tilt shift technique

Posted On, Vol. 2

It's time for another installment of Posted On, the weekly feature where I showcase my cleverness and laziness by copy-and-pasting what I've recently posted in the comments sections of the blogs of people who are much smarter than I am.

• Posted on Frighteningly Uncommon Sense:
  Faith was weighing the relative benefits (pun intended) of adding her spouse to the title of her house. I chimed in with this valuable advice:

  The way I see it, adding him can only hurt you.
  
  If you die, then as your spouse he automatically inherits all your crap (unless he dies at the same time in some kind of horrible meat-cleaving accident or a suicide-murder (that's right, he commits suicide and then kills you. It could happen.) or unless he offs you for the money (which he would never do, right?). So that pretty much covers you from the death perspective.
  
  You guys already have a strong marriage, so no need to stroke his ego by adding him. There are other things you could stroke, however, that wouldn't hurt your marriage any. Just sayin'.
  
  Feel free to add me to the title, though, as your trusted adviser.

• Posted On General Blather:
  Heather remarked on the trials and tribulations of boat ownership, saying a boat is a "pain in the ass" to maintain. I empathized:

  "It's too much of a pain in the ass to maintain."
  
  My Supermodel wife says the same thing about me.

• Posted on Hip Suburban White Guy:
  XO posted a "well-considered" and "cogent" "argument" of how stupid Christians are. I "agreed" with him:

  Hahahaaahh. That is HILARIOUS! Christians are soooo stupid! Feeding the hugry? Healing the sick? GIMME A FREAKING BREAK! Those idiots. Don't they know that's what the government takes our money for (well, that and killing brown people).
  
  You really hit the nail on the cross, er, head here, XO. Christians! Pftt! They make me LOL.
  
  Do unto others as they would do unto you?!? Yeah, right. Suckers. If they were smart like you and me, they would to others BEFORE they do it to you.

• Posted on May's Machete:
  May offered some great do-it-yourself tips on how to go green without any effort. I considered the policy change it would take at my household:

  Hmmm.... this would necessitate a change in my "If it's yellow, let it mellow" policy.
  

• Posted on Midtown Miscreant:
  MM stated the obvious, that there seems to be plenty of room for prosecution at the Yearning for Zion Ranch. I wondered why people don't get this upset over teen sexual abuse outside of these splinter groups:

  No argument from me on this. Although I wish our society would put this much effort into stopping sexual abuse and teen pregnancy in economically depressed urban areas.
  
  How many 14-year-old mothers do you think there are east of Troost? I guess it's easier to just throw out free condoms and food stamps.

Make sure to follow the links for the complete context of the comments. And while your there, leave a comment of your own. Come to think of it, leave a comment of your own here as well. Comments, people That's what makes this whole thing work.

tagged: comment, Christian, mortgage, Yearning for Zion Ranch, green, yellow

You say tornado, I say tor-NOT-o

I'm a little surprised at all of the blog reaction to the so-called tornado so-called coverage of the local so-called news media last night.

I mean, we've all pretty much been in this town long enough to know that, given a stiff breeze, the local weather mediots will pre-empt your favorite TV show to tell you the sky is falling. Nothing new there. Hey, at least they don't interrupt the commercials, right?

Beating up on the so-called news so-called media is fun, but at this point it's become the dead horse of the local internets. Besides, you shouldn't be watching so much TV anyway.

What I want to take a few swipes at is the geniuses who run the tornado sirens around town.

My family and I were on our way home after a meeting with a volunteer group we're involved with yesterday evening. We had just decided to make a quick stop at Home Depot when the first sirens went off.

We flipped on the weather coverage on one of the local AM stations (can't remember which one it was, probably 980) to hear the dreaded news that the world was ending. But it was quite to the contrary...

The announcer was telling us that "the tornado warning for Johnson County has been lifted" -- note that this is happening as the sirens are going off. The announcer noted it as well: "The sirens are going off all over Overland Park, but the National Weather Service is telling us that the tornado warnings have been allowed to expire."

It seems the announcer was just as confused as I was (and that's hard, because I'm always pretty damned confused).

You see, what I don't get is, why turn on the siren if there's no tornado in the first place. People are heading for the root cellar and saying their last goodbyes when they hear those sirens. But not only was there no tornado, there wasn't even a tornado warning or watch. WTF?

Look, I already have an unhealthy disregard for tornadoes. I've lived in Kansas for more than 35 years. I've never been outside of the state borders for more than 4-weeks at a stretch. And I've never seen a real tornado in person.

Sure, I've see the coverage and aftermath on TV. On an intellectual level, I know they exist and they can be devastating. But in my heart, I still don't think it can happen to me.

And it doesn't help when we have a bunch of chicken littles with their fingers on the panic button waiting to cry wolf (hurray for mixed metaphors!).

It's a matter of credibility, people.

tagged: Kansas City, Johnson County, weather, tornado, warning, media

3AM EXCLUSIVE: Pleasant Weather Warning issued for KC metro

OLATHE (3AM) -- The National Weather Service in Olathe, Kan., has issued a Pleasant Weather Warning for the greater Kansas City metropolitan area.

According to NWS meteorologist Ben Wong, seasonably pleasant weather is poised to hit the metro area this afternoon and could last until evening.

"It's always difficult to get 100-percent accuracy with this type of weather system, but our models predict that citizens should be on the watch for pleasant weather throughout the afternoon."

Les Wright, a meteorologist for a local television affiliate, noted that pleasant weather is characterized by temperatures in the upper-60s to mid-70s Fahrenheit, often accompanied by light breezes and sunny skies.

"Local businesses should be sure that their pleasant weather shelters are well stocked, since this kind of system usually causes a decrease in worker productivity," Wright said.

There are other safety risks as well.

"This type of pleasant weather system almost always causes a reduction in the amount of clothing in the atmosphere and an increase in the amount of exposed skin," said Wright.

"That in itself isn't necessarily dangerous. However, it can lead to higher rates of inattentive driving and rubbernecking which has in turn been linked to higher rates of traffic fatalities."

To mitigate the risks, Wright and Wong suggest taking measure such as staying home and consuming moderated amounts of cold beer and grilled meats.

Stay tuned for 3 O'Clock AM for further weather coverage.

tagged: Kansas, Kansas City, weather, swimsuit, sun bathing, warning