I actually liked Fast 6

Like most anybody, I enjoy driving fast on occasion and I get excited by the sound of a big aggressive motor, but the finer details of fast cars do little for me. As a straight woman, large perky breasts and jiggling asses do even less, except make me feel mildly inadequate. Let's face it, the Fast & Furious series was not designed with me in mind, but to indulge my gearhead husband; I have watched them all, and I agreed to watch the sixth installment. (Our original deal was that he would buy me a dual sport motorcycle if I watched them all, after I sold my old less-than-perfect 2001 Super Sherpa when he expressed safety concerns. I've held up my end... [Update: He held up his!]) The experience was a lot less painful than I expected -- enjoyable, even.

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Gator Hammock review: Swamp Gator hot sauce makes great wings (beats Texas Pete)

The husband and I made wings tonight using Gator Hammock Swamp Gator hot sauce and the results were outstanding. A medley of cayenne, jalapeño and haberno peppers with vinegar, garlic and spices makes for a real kick-in-the-mouth splash of hot and delicious. I love that it has no preservatives or other additives (you can verify its lack of stabilizers/gels in action because the ingredients will separate in the bottle; a quick shake before usage and all is right again). Gator Hammock is simple and fresh.

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Sans Serif is the new corporate logo obsession, for better or worse

It seems like everywhere I look, corporations are rebranding, and inevitably, their logos include sans serif fonts. Sans serif looks undeniably modern, and I guess that's why they are rushing to switch. Sans serif is trendy - it's "in". A while back Belk made the dive with good results, in my opinion; the new logo matches well with their attempt to shed their reputation as a place for Southern grandmothers to shop for clothing. However, I'm just not sure that sans serif has a place for every logo out there, depending on a business's core services and identity.

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NOS Zero Review + ingredients comparison: NOS Zero sucks. Bring back Sugar Free NOS!

I've been drinking Sugar Free NOS ever since high school when, to my dismay, Sobe Adrenaline Rush Sugar Free was discontinued. Most low-carb energy drinks are disgusting, but I actually enjoyed the citrus tang of Sugar Free NOS. It packed an awesome caffeine punch that helped me plow through long days or gave me an extra kick for events. I won't deny: I was shamelessly addicted. I was known around my town for my habit, and gas stations stocked cases just for me. I knew I was a hopeless case when one of the highlights of watching a certain film was noticing a Sugar Free NOS in the gas station the protagonist was entering. Scroll to bottom for ingredients comparison.

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Dead Space 3 a step in the wrong direction

I loved Dead Space 2; I credit it as the game that got me back into gaming. Back when I was maybe 12 and received a PS2 for Christmas, my non-gaming-savvy mother, sold my beloved N64 unbeknownst to me, thinking that with the new system, I'd have no need for it. I was crushed, and after I finished Kingdom Hearts, basically lost interest in new games.

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Bioshock Infinite made me like FPS

People have been raving about Bioshock Infinite and while I agree that it's a great game, it's perhaps overrated - at least as far as the plot goes, which seems to be hyped about the most; it's anti-climactic and needlessly convoluted. The game store sales rep assured me no background with Bioshock was needed to love the game, but I can't help but feel I might have had a better connection with the plot if I had.

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Birth by fire: a look at how military emergency care influenced civilian care

Note: This entry was originally posted on a blog I created for my History of Medicine class final project during December 2012.

US Army Manual

When the National Academy of Sciences published its White Paper in 1966, it found civilian EMS services woefully inadequate, yet praised the military, stating: "Excellence of initial first aid, efficiency of transportation, and energetic treatment of military casualties have proved to be major factors in the progressive decrease in death rates of battle casualties reaching medical facilities, from 8 percent in World War I, to 4.5 percent in World War II, to 2.5 percent in Korea, and to less than 2 percent in Vietnam."

Unsurprisingly, the NAS recommended emulating military techniques. I was curious what the military was doing that worked so well, beyond simply removing injured soldiers from the battlefield with great speed (I've already covered some of its transportation techniques in my Hemingway post). To answer my question, I happened to find a 1950 edition of US Army Manual TM8-230, Medical and Surgical Technicians (search the text here). That this manual was written in 1950 means its authors had the benefit of discovering what worked well and what didn't work well for emergency medicine in the World Wars. Its age also means that these were military standards that would have been implemented over a decade before the NAS began evaluating EMS in the states. (A 1930 edition is available; a brief preview offered by Google suggests it had similar, if not as advanced or thorough, contents, but I haven't been able to find a copy of the whole book for a proper comparison. No doubt many other year editions exist. I'd love to see what the current issue looks like.)

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Just how old is EMS? A brief overview of interesting points

Note: This entry was originally posted on a blog I created for my History of Medicine class final project during December 2012.

490 B.C.

Due to its relatively late emergence as a defined field in the United States, emergency medicine is often described as "new". This foundling status is sometimes used as a reason why professionals in that field perceive discriminatory pay and status compared to other medical fields that have apparently existed for much longer. However, truth be told, emergency medicine reaches much back farther than the 1960's paper credited with establishing EMS in the United States. This history is so lengthy, in fact, that it would be impossible to reasonably cover it in one blog post.

After all, as long as there have been wars, there has been a need for emergency medicine in one form or another; what's more, one could divide emergency medicine into the two components of transportation and treatment. Therefore, one could reasonably classify all wound treatments as EMS; then EMS might be considered the oldest of all the medical specialties, laying claim to figures like Galen. However, modern EMS is connotatively inseparable from its transportation aspect, so I'm going to mainly consider this. To that end, I'll go over a few interesting cases that should prove that even with strict application of this designation, EMS has roots far back in time. (This two-edged definition is perhaps what makes the history of EMS so difficult to trace. Should both emergency treatment and transportation be required of an event in order to link it to the background of EMS, or is it okay to focus on only one of those factors? The first approach is too narrow, yet the latter ends up being too comprehensive. Where do we draw the line?)

Greek & Roman. As early as Roman times, chariots and carts were used to remove injured soldiers from the battlefield. Nobody knows if these carts were specially equipped or if there were individuals assigned to provide rudimentary treatment. Initially, these soldiers were probably simply deposited out of harm's way; by 100 AD, they would be taken to valentudinaria, or Roman military field hospitals. Sometimes, however, before or instead of transporting a fallen soldier, care was simply administered on site, occasionally even while the battle raged on. One ancient Greek vase depicts the story of Achilles bandaging the arm of his wounded cousin (Robbins).

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Why is EMS a part of the DOT? A look at The White Paper

Note: This entry was originally posted on a blog I created for my History of Medicine class final project during December 2012.

National Academy of Sciences

If you had to guess, what federal body would you think EMS falls under: the Department of Transportation, or the US Public Health Service? If you guessed the US Public Health Service, you'd be wrong. Read on to find out why. This story is crucial to understanding the evolution of EMS in the United States and the problems the system currently faces, problems that should concern every person who could ever need to call an ambulance.

The Nouveau plan de constitution pour la médecine en France published in the 1790's laid down new standards for medical education and practice in France, becoming a charter of sorts. It's true that educational models had existed long before this point, but the Nouveau plan illustrates that in medicine, a single document can serve to bring together many circulating ideas into one coherent system, thereby facilitating its implementation. In 1966, the National Academy of Sciences released its seminal paper, Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society -- known in the EMS trade as simply "The White Paper" -- which had the same effect of rallying EMS in the United States (you can download the paper here).

The modern EMS system in America owes its roots directly to this White Paper, and had it never been published, EMS might have evolved in a very different way. Particularly, to the modern audience, it makes sense that EMS -- emergency medical services -- might fall under the purview of some federal medical regulatory body, and yet it belongs to the Department of Transportation. Understanding the White Paper can explain this apparently awkward ordering. The White Paper, after all, was written largely in response to the growing problem of car wrecks, as motorized vehicles not only increased the incident of trauma in the US but also provided dramatic examples of just how bad trauma could be. Cars made trauma very visible.

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