An unwelcome guest

Don’t you just hate it when you are scrambling around at the last minute finishing the food and trying to beautify yourself you hear that knock on the door twenty minutes early? An early guest is almost worse than a late guest.

And fire season is here… early… Not that we really enjoy it when it shows up on time, but we should get at least a little more time! But, alas, record high heat has sped up its arrival. I’m used to fires being from Idaho. But the difference in LA is that the fires actually rage in the middle of the city. Which is dang inconvenient. When the hill between you and work is ablaze it puts a crimp in your commute. And air quality is certainly not helped when you are living next to what amounts to a ginormous barbeque of smoke.

However, in true So Cal fashion, my Pasadena neighbors (who have been blessed with the first blaze) are keeping wary eyes on the fire making its way towards their homes with mochas and martinis in hand. If you gonna stay home from work to make sure your house doesn’t burn down, you might as well do it in style!

Need healthcare? No problem! Oh wait, you might actually need it? On second thought…

It’s stupefying to think that in our first world country those who need healthcare the most (i.e. people who are actually sick) often can’t get it because no insurance company will insure them! And, on top of that, we now have the ability through genetic testing to find out if we are at more at risk to BE sick in the future. From a medical standpoint this is huge since then preventative measure can be taken to, well, prevent these ailments from occurring. Who wouldn’t want to get this testing done? It could save your life! But, here’s the catch, now the insurance companies ALSO know that you have a greater risk of getting sick than the lady sitting next to you and they just may refuse to cover you. It’s freaking insane! Fortunately, the senate has passed an Act today that will ban genetic discrimination. So, your health plan can’t deny you coverage or boost your rates based on your genetic profile. Oh, and your employer can’t fire you because of it either. The House is expected to approve the legislation next week and even President Bush seems to be on board. Finally, something sane to come out of Washington! Though in the long run, a lot more than this will need to change.

Seriously here people, I’m all for capitalism but I have to agree with the commentators, bloggers, and Europeans who are starting to call America “the richest third world country in the world!” We are ranked 42nd in life expectancy, our babies are more likely to die in the first year of their life than if they lived in Cuba, and, this just came out this week, life expectancy has actually dropped for some US women for the first time since the freaking influenza in 1918 infected 25% of the world’s population! Something is horrifically, horrifically wrong here. Perhaps we need to stop treating medical care as a perk for well-off Americans but as necessary a public service as a well-run police force and fire brigade!

Itty bitty elephants!

In news of things really little and really cute, a heretofore thought extinct species of miniature elephant has been found docily munching their way through Borneo. Ok. They’ve always known these tiny pachyderms lived on Borneo, but now they’ve found out that it’s the same species as a species thought extinct that used to roam Java, sending waves of excitement through the apparently easily overjoyed scientific community. Anyway, it looks like some Asian kings in yesteryear decided to exchange gifts of tusked Mammalians and, thus, inadvertently saved the species from an untimely end. Ironically, the tiny tuskers are facing a new threat from the… biofuels industry. Yes sir, in the ironies of ironies, the new environmental bonanza is causing the destruction of the docile Dumbos’ habitat by farmers razing their forests for palm oil plantations. Humanity never ceases to amaze me…

Just a small token of the UN's affection

Australia is now 2.5 million kilometres bigger! No, they didn’t invade Antarctica. They are now the proud owners of a slightly larger piece of the ocean floor. The UN has granted the Down Under country the rights to exploit the resources in their new watery land. So, say goodbye to any oil and gas in the area. And coral… fish… blue water… Dang. We’re cannibalizing our planet from the inside out.

What’s in a name?

I am NOT one of those girls who has a scrapbook of wedding plans or is already planning playdates for my future kids with friends’ future kids. I do, however, love name meanings and so, I frequent baby name websites. Whenever a project requires me to create characters, I like them to have names that reflect the attributes I picture them having. Babynames.com has a great search system. Of course, the feature I use the most is the search by meaning one. But I can also search for a certain nationality, names that start or end in a certain letter, have a certain number of syllables, and, of course, are a certain gender. If you ARE trying to name a child might I suggest some lists on the site to check out? Try out: Reality Show Name List, Gilligans Island Name List, or, the ever popular, Lord of the Rings Name List (guys, you’ll have an easier time convincing your baby mama to name your child Eowyn then ,say, Boba Fett).

Listen up, guys!

Flowers are a great way to get on a girl’s good side. Well, you’ve probably always known that (hopefully). But now it’s scientifically proven! A study has shown that not only do flowers improve a girl’s mood more than other gifts, it improves it for a long time afterwards. Sounds like a good investment to me!

Depressed? No, just lazy eye...

A study has come out saying that prozac may treat lazy eye. It apparently corrects the neural wiring defect that causes the disorder by encouraging “the visual cortex to return to a juvenile state.” Uh oh. This information better not get out in Southern California. If the women here learn what the word “juvenile” means, they’ll be trying to inject prozac directly into their foreheads.