650 Million Years in 1:20 Min. – A funny movie is a click away

Because all I can draw are stick figures -

My Zombie Haiku from my twitter account (randomized order):

Hungry zombies stare / They sense the trapped meat is near / They will be ready
The horde creeps along / leaving torn limbs from victims / and some of their own
I face the undead / shotgun, machete in hand / Beheaded.  Twitching.
I hate this system / Vista really sucks and blows / Zombies hate it, too.
I hear a knocking – / a vicious, awful knocking / I know what it is
Their moans pierce the night / rumbling reverberations / death’s cacophony!
As death takes its hold / My thoughts slow, consumed by brains / I sure am hungry
Intellectual / means nothing to the zombies / till they get your brain
Undead haiku-ers/ who love zombie haiku, lore / deserve their own group!
Brains are rubbery / And rather squeaky, bouncy / Yet zombies dig ‘em.
The horde moans and shifts / to lumber after fresh meat / vict’ry by numbers
Zombies – empty slate/Full of zen, hunger – no hate/Who’s better?  Us?  Them?
Zombies bite and moan / Seeking brave eternity /One brain at a time
Hungry zombies moan / though their bellies are quite full / that’s just how they roll
I dream of zombies / Filling the streets with their moans / Bringing strange order.
Brains are rubbery / and a little bit chewy / but zombies love ‘em
The hippocampus / is chock full of memories / it tastes bittersweet
Skull is obstinate / can’t reach the amygdala / cortex will do fine
Sitting in my cube / I wish the zombies were here / Sweet, undead release!
They slip on blood, bones / silly, sloppy zombies should / savor each morsel!
Brains drip down their chins / Catching on their rotting clothes / Zombies are messy
Knowing the undead / Is a comfort for my brain / zombies love haiku
A hungry zombie /Sees the skull as a Candy / Coating for the brain
My boss could learn from / zombies – scourges and ministers /  simple: hunger, brains!
Emaciated / they moan from hunger and need / no humans remain
His nose fell right off / into the waiting zombies / they did not eat it
Zombies claw and bite/Purge the world of left and right/Freed by the undead!
Solidarity/ seems only for the undead/ zombies are lucky
brains brains brains brains brains / brains are quite the yummy thing / brains are quite tasty
Tequila is nice / my brain feels slow and squishy / zombies would love it
Zombies eat messy! / They don’t mind when mess tumbles  – / they  love messy brains.
The undead move slow / but are relentless – intent / on getting their brains
I hear them, moaning / on the phone, still in meetings / even beyond death!
The job rots my brain / I am not good zombie food / no winning for me!
The time will come soon / the zombie apocalypse – / headed right for us!
Zombies will nibble / fingers, toes, intestines, but – / they will gobble brains
The undead surround / shuffling bits of bone, flesh / fighting for the scraps
The streets are wet, dark / I hear the horde is near here / Can’t run, hide – or win.
At Union station / zombie victims move to death / unaware undead
Respect the zombies/ for they shall without doubt / all hail the undead
The skull, it goes crunch / These brains are tasty for lunch /  One brain feeds a bunch
Their flesh peels, scraped off / their eyes are dull or missing / zombies are awesome
Zombies prey on us / we flee and cover our heads/ skulls aren’t strong enough!
Undead move in packs / mindless, untiring hunters / people hide in fear
Hungry zombies moan / for brains delicious and sweet / relentless seeking
Zombies greet the day / by cracking bones and moaning / they care not for time!
Zombies rant and rage / Eating brains inside my head / No more butterflies!
Meetings suck my brains / at these times I  sympathize / with the zombie horde
Undead flesh sags, drips/Empty bellies cry for brains/Relentless, Restless.
No wall is so strong / that I can feel safe and sleep / too much death for dreams
Deterring zombies / from delicious brains is dumb. / They will take your brains!
My back is throbbing / it makes me shuffle and wince / I am easy prey.
Brains fill their nostrils / Zombies are ready to eat / Crunch, Slurp — Damn Good Meal!
Skulls are cracked open / revealing delicious brains /  zombies rejoicing
Reanimated / putrescent corpses shamble / and the Earth smells dead.
It will get closer / And closer, ever closer / until we’re undead!
They are here for me / I see them through the key hole / I’m sure they want brains

How cool is it that this is what the desktop looks like rotating?

TOO COOL.  THAT is how cool it is!

Now, I do.

Let me tell you the story in brief.  I’ve been fascinated with Linux for a long time, attempting to run Suse (and successfully doing so) on Zombie for a while despite several key drivers being missing.  Eventually I needed the support of my media card readers, and abandoned it, since even my feeble attempt at fixing the drivers only gave partial functionality.

Enter the two new computers we bought this weekend.  Both are nice and have room to be upgrade (they are quite nice, I must say).  My laptop came pr-installed with Windows Vista.  Darren’s was a fresh hard drive, so it required a full install of any operating system it was going to use.

So, I attempted to install Windows Vista.  This ended up being a three day saga.  Why?  Because the &%ing install takes over four hours.  Seriously.  I didn’t think it was possible, but essentially the shrinking on Vista is so effective, that it takes FOREVER to copy, and then unzip, the data files.  And GOD HELP YOU if there is some kind of last minute failure.  These last minute failures plagued the install I was attemping on Darren’s computer (named “Skynet1″).

While I was doing this, I started installing Ubuntu on my laptop while I was waiting.

Other than the partitioning bit (I’ll admit it, I had some alcohol in my system) which was a little counterintuitive, the install was completed in about 30 minutes.

Seriously.  30 minutes.  No joke.  And let me tell you, it’s slick.  Even just looking at the difference in the size between the OS makes me wonder why I haven’t been honing my linux skills all along (to my credit, I used unix pretty exclusively for years when I was in college yet did not have a computer).

After I finally got Windows Vista (piece o’ shite) installed on Darren’s computer, I put on Ubuntu.

Do I Ubuntu?  Yes, yes I do.

Clicky, clicky!

As you know, I’ve been enjoying Twittering lately, and I’ve added folks from both my professional and personal interests in one little microblogging stream.  This dichotomy to my personality has been interesting to more than one person.

@ePatientDave asked that I blog about my experiences in Scotland, why I went there, what happened, and I felt that it was more appropriate that I blog about it here, rather than EHR and EMR (since I have to write an entry about HL7 for that anyway – I’ve been far too busy for anything other than 140 characters lately).

So, here it is, in relative brief (yet longer than Twitter) detail. 

When I was first introduced to the idea of working in Scotland, I was working at a very prominent medical center on the east coast.  If I even got specific enough to name a city, most savvy people would recognize where it was and who I worked for, and I’d really rather just leave that to someone digging than to me naming names.  I do try to protect the privacy of my clients.  Anyway, I was working at a large, multi-site cancer facility.  I had essentially reverse engineered a database that was at the core of what was called a ‘record and verify’ system, which is a radiation oncology system that actually controls the linear accelerators during cancer treatment.  Additionally, it had a medical record and billing component, and a companion piece of software on which treatment planning was performed.  So, the treatment planning system would be used by folks to determine where and how much (and sometimes when) to dose someone with radiation, and it all hooked into a system on the linear accelerator (where the cancer patient is placed) that would control how the treatment was performed.

And my, oh my was I good at my job — but I am a very opionated woman, and this job was no different.  When I disagreed, I would make no secret of it, and at the point at which I met the Scottish, I had managed to piss off some big wigs.  They couldn’t bully me (that’s the power of being a person who DOES the work), but they were making my job (and therefore my life) a living hell by this point.

I even remember the day I met the Scottish — I had four interviews for an employee position, about 7 hours of meetings scheduled through the day, and a new employee that I was still training.  It was a crazy day.  Mid way through it, during my only break in my 12 hour day, I received a call from our most influential software vendor.   She had been trying to work through our technical folks (you know, my server friends), and the problem with software like this, is that it is so heavily process / clinical / workflow based (it matters HOW people use it), that the technical folks couldn’t help.  No one had suggested I be there (even though my machine was named “RadOncDbGuru”) due to an oversight – and she asked that I come and talk with them for an hour.

I was reluctant, but I agreed, and I found myself being asked very good questions by the representatives of the clinic.  It was an enjoyable, and frank conversation in a time when such conversations were becoming less and less frequent.  I joined them for dinner at a posh restaurant, and found myself engaged in lively conversation with their chief physicist, who asked me if I was interested AT ALL in coming to Scotland, and I gave him my contact information, and told him to let me know.

Immediately, I got a response — it ends up he sat on a radiotherapy group at Parliament, certainly did have hiring power, and they were more than willing to have me come in for any kind of time that I could spare.  I had six weeks of vacation coming to me, and I presented some choices to my employer — that I take a six week vacation but work for them for the five hours I gained due to time difference, that I take the vacation outright, that I be given a sabbatical — all were rejected.  During this time, the physicist emailed me an early story about this woman, and asked if I knew how to make the two systems talk (I managed to figure it out just by watching how they should talk, and reading up on our policies on ensuring that the two were in sync).  Essentially, just that piece of this implementation, would prevent the tragedy he forwarded to me from ever happening.  

By the numbers, I made about the same as my US salary, but I would give up all my benefits (including, ironically, healthcare), and my home — I couldn’t afford to save my apartment, my car — all that once.  I was told I wouldn’t have to pay Scottish tax, but I would have to account for my American tax unless I stayed.  It was all this complicated mess that meant I was taking a hit and having to give up all my possessions except two suitcases in the end of it (though it didn’t present itself that way at first.  Again, more complicated than one blog). 

So, I quit the secure job for the job I knew was doing the right thing.  I know it was a shock to a lot of people I worked with, but to those who were really close, they knew that was the decision I was going to make.  I packed my things, sold what I thought I needed to.  It all seemed to be falling into place.

Until the date of my flight neared, and I had no paperwork in sight.  Originally I gave myself two nights between when stopped working one job and flew to the other — and my paperwork for my work permit in the UK was delayed.  There was nothing anyone could do — and I booked my flights out two more weeks to wait for the paperwork to arrive.  Remember that, ok?

Take two had me arriving at the airport on april 6, 2006, to arrive on the next day in Amsterdam and then Glasgow.   I arrived at the airport early, and hunted down a bar that would let me smoke.  I found TGI Friday’s, and smoked as I drank rum and cokes to prep me for the longest stretch of flights I had ever endured.  While at the bar, a very handsome man next to me engaged me in conversation — it ended up I knew him from college — we had gone through writing classes together.  As in, all of them.  As a bonus, I loved his work and had always found him super cute, but I had been married then, and divorced since.  We traded emails, and I scurried off, only to find I was too late for my flight.  The next flight cut down my time in layover, so ultimately I ended up cutting it really, really close.

I was fascinated by Scotland from the beginning, and we had lengthened the time I would stay from six weeks to three months, and by the time I arrived there, there was already talk of me staying six months, to expand the project to include not only full implementation of the Record and Verify, integration with Treatment Planning, and Practice Management / EHR records to include a national data standard and guide for other centers to be able to nationally share data between clinics.  I was really excited over the prospect, and put in ridiculous hours over the next few weeks.

There are extraordinary differences between the ways that a clinic runs in the UK to the way they run in the US.  Each seems suited to its environment, but has its own little infuriating stumbles along the way.  In the US, you normally would have some capital for expansion each year, while in the UK normally you saw ‘lump upgrades’ and then no activity for a few years.  In both cases, I always tried to eliminate duplicate work, support automation(yet above all accuracy), account for all stkeholder’s needs,   make the system easy to use for clinicians, and make cohesive reports to management that report back on information that was key to their operations and research. 

But, the Scottish had some of their own problems.  I found myself getting into arguments about EVERYTHING.  And, my boss encouraged it — he had hired me to tell the hard truths no one wanted to hear — a job I’m rather good at, but it can sometimes lead to lonely nights filled with alcohol.

My nights were filled with data analysis, crocheting, and talking with Darren, that wonderful man I met at the airport.  Between him and the support network of my friends, I was able to get through this very trying time.  It seemed sometimes it was even more of an uphill battle.  I would have to argue “No, you can’t schedule downtime for the cancer treatment device so you can have tea,” to “Yes, you have to take the patient’s picture, how many times have you treated the wrong person because you didn’t, because right now, one is too many.”  

As I went, I started interviewing physicians, physicists, dosimetrists, and ‘consultants’ (that’s what they call doctors) to get a feel for what they wanted in their data, and I began to construct a cohesive cancer data set by using my knowledge of the cancer registry here in the states combined with the knowledge of what Scotland was finding their needs would be.  I came up with a completely different animal.

It was fascinating and hard work — I found myself doing many different tasks — from giving lectures on good system use (40 of them in two weeks, one hour each, in addition to everything else), to recording videos, meeting with power users, writing to Darren . . .

During all of this, I fell completely in love with Darren, and the more we talked, the more that we planned instead of me staying in Europe, that I would go to Los Angeles to be with him when it was all over.  Considering the isolated life I was leading (I would venture out on hikes along the West Highland Way, or to a pub or ’stitch and bitch,’ and would dine with my boss and his family, but truly little else social), he was a great comfort.  Every call home that I could afford, I made. 

We went live with the system three months later.   During this time, I had earned weeks of overtime (lieu time), and had two paid weeks coming to me.  Because of the phenomenal work effort of the vendor, all of the employees and champions, and the technical staff, we actually got it up and running with very few glitches less than three months after I had stepped into the clinic.  I am still intensely proud of all those folks for doing that.  It was an effort (and sometimes a begrudged one) on behalf of all of those employees — and we are talking hundreds.  They should be proud.  And I always will be.

About a week after all seemed well, until there was a dispute about the authorship some of the national data work.  It got a bit nastier, and by the end of it, I decided I had done everything I had contractually said I would, and even more, and that it was time for me to move on to my life in the US, with Darren.

It was a happy ending — everyone was satisfied, and I did what I set out to do in absolutely record time.  I came back to the US, came to LA, fell completely in love, and have been honored to work at some fine institutions here in the Western US.   Scotland taught me so much more than I can probably express in any overall fashion — it comes more in short spurts of enlightenment or moments of recollection as I pour over policies, procedures, and system usage elsewhere.  I learned more about myself, the world, and my profession in that short space of time than in few others — I was taught a lot in this enormous personal and professional challenge.  I learned about goal setting, limitation, and communication on more than one level, and I can never express my gratitude for being given that “crisitunity.”

To open with, this entry is not for the squeamish.  Either stop now or don’t run the videos.  You may have to click on the links several times for them to load, because yeah, man, gross.

The first Saw, to me, was an incredible movie.  It was suspenseful, and freaked me the fuck out for a good few days — part of it had to do with those “John Work a Days” (Leigh Whannel and Cary Elwes) — one of  whom happened to be working in cancer — that were integral to its plot.  In other words — I felt it coulda been me in those chains (except for the fact I’ve always been extremely sympathetic to the patients I’ve met, and truly enjoy talking to them about their experience, and doing what I can to make that better.  In Scotland, I brought up to nurses on the wards issues the patients were concerned about, and I ‘d do it again — it’s better for everyone to have understanding and blameless communication about issues facing patients, nurses, physicians — and everyone involved in the overall healthcare experience).  ANYWAY.

The first Saw was pretty amazing in my book.  The “puzzle” was innovative — two people, chained in a room, facing each other (with a dead body in the center).  Add to that plot reveals sprinkled in (based on the two character’s ability to relate to each other and their environment), and the plot moved at a charming, and sometimes relentless pace.   The flashbacks were understandable, given the time we were given with the characters (presumably, their last), and the incredible last ten minutes, where the movie reached a manic frenzy.   Here’s the trailer:

And here’s one of those vicious traps:

Besides Amanda’s reverse bear trap, here’s another particularly nasty outing:

Jigsaw was reminiscent of another notable, tense killer, John Doe in Se7en (don’t watch unless you haven’t seen the movie):

And, I might as well interject this here,  I was looking for a video to include regarding a particular sequence and the sin of ‘avarice.’  What I ended up findign (and what is hopelessly hilarious to me) is this video of William Shatner, and those last moments of Se7en:

Okay, now that I have that out of the way, I can contine on.

Jigsaw (back to the Saw franchise), in the early days, was super devious, and had an incredible insight into human behavior.  I loved this about Saw, and they continued in that spirit – I truly loved Saw II and forced many of my friends to watch it.  Saw II included traps and human puzzles galore.  One of the many traps involved a young lady we had seen earlier in the Saw franchise (Shawnee Smith), and is one of those moments that still creeps me out when I see it:

Then, to top it off, they put this lovely little twist in : they altered the timeline (at least in movie viewer’s heads).   All in all, however, it was a not too terrible study of these characters as they encounter some too-nasty twists.

Then along comes Saw III.

I had such hope.   And pretty much what followed was a jaded look at a bloody path through the first few movies.   There was something missing, however – the morality of the first two movies.  You see, Jigsaw was all about making people appreciate their lives, and this future was mightly bleak, replete with traps that were cool from an outsider’s perspective (if one liked horror), yet unsolvable:

That’s about when the series lost any kind of comprehensible message.  And, whatever, if you want to start off with a slasher killer like Jason, that’s fine — but don’t get too wrapped up in the idea of plotting. Yet, Saw advertises themselves as something different.

Darren and I went to see Saw IV in the theatre, and really other than this:

there was little else to justify our ticket price.

I didn’t got to see Saw V in the theatre, and I’m glad I didn’t — it was more horribly Ritalin-timed than Saw IV.

I was hoping that the Saw franchise would do so much more- and instead, what I have is this farce of  a series that picks up on  gimmicky devices, and rests on those instead of talent in the industry.

I watched Saw V today knowing that I would probably abhor it, and I pretty much called it.  The traps were cool, but not the same amount of coolness when the first movie came out.   Even more of a crime is the splintering of the mythology of Jigsaw – instead of one cohesive character, we get one character and his two, often differing, disciples.

‘We’re smart!’ they tell you.  Meanwhile, they took this:

And made it into absolutely useless tripe.

I get it — now, it’s all about those crazy traps, except they aren’t as interesting.

Goddammit.

Overall, look, if you are looking for yummy horror situations, this movie has it.  But if you are looking for the spirit of the original, where the plot is in, say, the possible, this isn’t really it.

But you have to love those traps. . .

Since high school, I’ve been close to bordering on lame, many times gleefully (or woefully) treading over the line between ‘weird’ and ‘lame.’  Anyway, my fascination with zombies, for a long time, simply was dismissed as a passing fad (and, you guessed it, lame).  Few people can brave the wonderfully done Dawn of the Dead, much less the terribly done (and yet remarkably hilarious) Redneck Zombies.  But I digress.

Zombies, right now, are really really hot, and it’s hard for a discerning zombie enthusiast to find the exceptional material out there.   Even Time magazine is writing about them! Yet, when you won’t be able to buy an RC Zombie any more, and Zombie walks aren’t as cool, and eventually people become as ashamed of them as Hammer Pants, I’ll still be thinking of that sweet, sweet zombie apocalypse.

I’d like to take a moment to discuss the zombie mashup novel I read:

The infamous Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies

That’s right,  Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies.  I had blogged about it before, and I ordered it off of Think Geek when it was finally available.

I’ll admit, I was skeptical that it would be as entertaining as its core notion, but I found myself reading it obsessively until it’s end — yet I’m not sure which kept the pages turning — Jane Austen, or the zombies.  I will give credit where credit is due — the zombie plot is not ‘extraneous’ (lots of people like to just . . . add zombies). Within this text it is done quite a bit thoughtfully, especially while keeping in mind some of the tropes and themes of the original book), and overall I found that I was enjoying myself.

The book has the added bonus of lovely little black and white illustrations of key scenes:

Illustration and sneak peek at the text.

Truly well done.  And, most importantly, do not skip the study questions at the end — they are vital!

I’ve taken a break from zombie gaming (sorry, Steve — we WILL get some Resident Evil in at some point!) because of this little game named Oblivion.  Dear God, am I glad that this game wasn’t around in my college days — I never would have graduated.  It truly is a stunning achievement — made by the same developers who have birthed the magnificent world found in Fallout 3:

Fallout 3's Washington, DC

Even better?  They made Pittsburgh:

Pittsburgh . . . I mean, "The Pitt"

Fallout 3 is an amazingly done game (with a few annoying bugs) that really does give you hours and hours and hours of gameplay.  I’ll also admit, it’s damn fun to watch.

Oblivion is also stunning, also intensely fun (less buggy).  But, as a long time RPG’er, I found something interesting about Oblivion.  I hate leveling.  I got my first character to about level 18 in the first two days — and all of a sudden, every fight was impossible.  Now, my character is a super bad ass level 2, with all over her minor skills higher than her major skills.  You see, unlike in, say, Fallout 3 or Fable, the world levels up with you, which makes it impossibly hard.

Anyway, back to zombies.

I wanted to close with two wonderful links:

exceptionally entertaining article forwarded to me by my dear Lou Ann.

and the stinque zombie bible (thanks, hipspinster!)

Just in case you haven’t been listening?  I’m telling you.  They’re here.

Who is that crazy man in the world?

Ok. Who recognizes who the globe is?