Flashing Lights

This will be a quick one, since I have an anatomy exam and the rest of my research journal due on the same day. First off, yeah, I can order books from other campuses, but that takes time and at the time, there was not enough time to get the book from main campus to Cumbo. Usually I just find the book and put it in a totally different section of the library. That way, the system shows it as "on shelf" and no one can recall it. Evil, but very effective.

Anyway, I'm organising a road trip to Anna Bay with my uni friends. It's about a 3 hour drive, and that apparently has caused some problems. When I was asking around for drivers, the most common response was "my parents won't let me", usually because omg it so far, 3 hours? I'm just not sure that you'll be safe, oh and the car is like held together with duct tape cos we're too cheap to check it properly checked...blah blah blah. Seriously, my friend asked his dad if he could take the van (I call it the "party van") but his dad said no because it's old and makes noises at high speed. And the transmission or something is held together by tape. My friend was driving it before on a few short trips before, but that car sounds like a bloody death trap waiting to spring at any second. Just send your damn car out to be checked and make sure everything is working. You can be cheap on whatever you want, but don't skimp on safety. And someone else's car insurance only covers the Sydney metropolitan area. WTF? What if you need to drive outside Sydney metro? Apparently a 3 hours drive is the equivalent to going to Mars, from Pluto. But then again, I've been on long trips before. Every time I go, my dad gives my brother and I semi-lectures on the subject: rest stops, safety, night driving and so on. And when I talk to people ignorant about the subject, they start freaking out about all these myths. And common sense obliterates like 99% of them.

Meh. Well the best to stamp out ignorance is education. Sometimes I would really like to sit down with these parents, and tell them how bloody stupid their myths are. And how 3 hours will get you basically no where, when you look at the larger map of Australia.

On a lighter note, I was watching a trailer for MGS4 and the voice over was the stereotypical deep male voice who'd been smoking since day 1. I like to imagine that its one guy doing that voice for all these movie, tv and game trailers out there. And that he's flat out trying to find time to do the voiceovers. He'd probably talk like that all the time.
"What's your order, sir?"
"I would have one Big Mac..."
"...O..K..""
That would be awesome in my opinion. I can get pretty close to it, but my version lacks sufficient gravelly-ness that makes it effective, since I don't smoke.
But I can still dream...

Pruit Igoe

Urrgh, an asssignment and exam in one day. The assignment wasn't too bad, it was the exam that had me bothered.

The oral viva exam basically has us read a request form for an x-ray, decipher its meaning, deduce the likely patient condition and justify what x-ray series to perform. It meant a lot of worrying about pathology and exposure factors (how penetrating and how much x-rays). Luckily for me I got a pretty cool examiner and a relatively easy question pertaining to the right knee. For the medically inclined (rest of you can skip): 81yo female, hit by a car on R lateral side, querying possible fracture of tibial plateau and lateral femoral condyle. Basically an AP and LAT projection. The hardest one was querying fracture ribs and pneumothorax and the patient was stuck in a wheelchair.

Seriously, I'm having quite a bit of fun in this course. So even if the oral viva was scary, it didn't matter that badly to me. I did my best, and after hearing about some of the other scenarios, I started to research what I would do.

So another three weeks of uni, then a week of stuvac and then exams. Several assignments due in the final three weeks and I'm procrastinating already. The bad thing is that several books that would be very helpful, almost necessary for the assignment due soon have already been taken out by opportunistic students. And I might not be able to get my hands on them in time. That's one thing that sucks about Cumbo. There is only so many books and its first in, first served. Some friends band together and lock the books in an endless cycle of eternal recalling. I'm not sure if that problem exists at the main campus. Probably does.

Man, tired. I'll be putting that assignment off until tomorrow. Or maybe the day after tomorrow.

Grand Theft Auto 4

Explains everything.

And the 6th Doctor Who ep? Pretty awesome.

The truth is...

Man, the assignments kept coming in. I have like 3 assignments and 1 exam due on the same day in a fortnight. But it's not that bad. I'm really enjoying radiography so the burden is that bad.

Watched Iron Man last night in Burwood with some uni friends. That movie is fucking gold. Seriously. You think Robocop's armour was cool, wait til you see Tony Stark's sleek Iron Man armour. There were a few minor weakness (weak, dull characters, not following proper comic continuity) but I'll be nitpicking anyway. Watching on the big screen at cinemas makes a massive difference. Robert Downey Jr fits perfectly as the arrogant and witty Tony Stark who has a change of heart after a brief stint in the hands of terrorists. I don't want to spoil anything, but it has a killer beginning and a killer ending. Apparently there was a little scene thingo after the credits but we 'd left too early and missed it. Well, I'm definitely getting a copy of this when it comes to DVD.

Television wise, everything is ramping again. Doctor Who is starting to go full-speed ahead with the first of an awesome two parter out and the next one is a few days. House is also back in the game after such a long hiatus due to the writers strike. And Avatar: Last Airbender has a few episodes up, although how regularly it will show remains to be seen.

Also my brother downloaded all 276 episodes of Dragonball Z. Watching it brings back a massive wave of nostalgia. It was back when CheezTV was still on, with Jade and Ryan as hosts. DBZ started at 8am and ended at 8:25. At school there would be massive discussions on fights and future events, and we spent quite a bit of time browsing fan sites on the power levels of characters and gush about going Super Saiyan mode. And this was before the time of Wikipedia. Damn, it was awesome.

Such good times.

I miss them.