The Student Doctor Forum has a great thread, titled Things I Learn From My Patients. It’s a collection of those heartwarming, life affirming lessons that can only come from seeing people experience the purest moments of their lives. We’re lucky to be able to look over these young doctors’ shoulders as they learn what it means to heal.

Some of my favorites:

never leave your last refill of percocet in plain site after your docs office closes if one of these 3 friends is coming over for dinner:

1. some dude
2. my friend
3. that bitch

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Latex paint, despite being thick and creamy, does not coat your stomach and provide the same relief as pepto bismol.

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Drinking Pine Sol diluted in a 5 gallon bucket, shared with 5 friends, is not a good way to get drunk.

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If you are going to get into a fight, and have a prosthetic eye, make sure you take it out first…..and, for safe keeping, shove it up your vagina…..the, realize that you cannot get it out and go to the ED for removal

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No matter how annoyed you are at being incarcerated dont slash open your scrotum and shove razor blades up your urethra.

Hunter Thompson said, “When the going gets wierd, the wierd turn pro“. Is even that enough to explain
these photos?

Lest we forget, this is the man claims to have been beaten up by Liza Minelli.

Nowadays, the celebrity chasing a comeback has to let the crew film his
train
wreck
of a
life
while he’s still bottoming out. We can’t wait for you to clean up and go on Oprah, man, we’ve got things to do. We want you to break open your kid’s piggy bank on camera. Is that sterno? Tell him to drink it.

Is getting arrested even enough anymore? Poor Leif, looks like he’s going to have to raise the bar a bit if he wants us to love him again.

In the future, pitch meetings will be held while the crime is still in progress. “Jenna Elfman took hostages? Well, call back if she kills a few and maybe we can get something going. Rob Schneider popped two last week, so you’re going to have to do at least three if you want a series commitment.”

There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?

So I struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to me on the plane.

He was with some “institute” I’d never heard of, or maybe he founded it, and he was flying to DC to get some bureaucrat to give him money. Said he’d written a few books, and was finishing up a new one about how the government is going about the things wrong and how he has a better way to bring the 3rd world into the 21st century. Implications for the future of education, for the war on terror, for everybody. Going to an earthquake in our way of looking at the world.

Now, before you think too much of it, I’ve flown in and out of DC a couple of hundred times in the last decade, and this is less unusual than you might think. It’s a long flight across the country, and I almost always end up talking to the people in my row. I’ve sat next to people who claimed to be oil industry analysts, education lobbyists, a Christian rock band, and the guy who owns Colorforms. Usually, after a few minutes of conversation, it’s clear that that the “institute” is him and some letter head, his ideas are being ignored by the establishment because he’s delusional or stupid, and his books were “published” on his office laser printer.

Anyway, that’s just to say that when he claimed to have founded a bunch of institutes I wasn’t really all that impressed.

My usual m.o. for this is to get some details on the theory, press on why it’s not common knowledge, and ask how it applies to a few real situations. In almost every case, it’s pretty clear within ten minutes that it’s all smoke.

But it was only a few minutes before I realized that this guy was different. He held forth on broad swathes of philosophy and politics, and got right the few bits that I knew well. I presented the situation at my daughter’s school, and asked for a recommendation. He answered with surprisingly applicable tales of his experience setting up a school for girls in northern Egypt and convincing traditional cultures that the new world actually does have some good stuff for them.

Had a great chat, told him a few things he didn’t know, and even got to recommend a few books to him.

When I got around to asking his name, he said Lawrence Chickering.

Oh dear. Turns out I have heard of him. Based upon our conversation, I’m looking forward to the book.

At night, in the tavern, strangers from the countryside speak in low voices,
telling black tales of madness and confusion.

The skies have grown dark and your beasts, possessing their innate kowledge of the greater world hidden from us, bay and snarl.

Your dreams are filled with the sound of drumming.

Make ready.

The Traveller approaches.

Who knew Satan had such a friendly smile?

When deputies arrived, they found Roy Lee Henson walking with his boxer
shorts around his ankles and screaming wildly, according to the report. Henson then lunged at a sheriff’s deputy, the report said. Backup officers arrived and took Henson into custody as the man screamed he was Satan.

You can learn more about Mr. Satan from
his press
clippings.

Say hello to Patrick, ladies. His turn-ons include spay nozzles that don’t clog, Def Leppard, and chicks with big racks who don’t press charges.

The Ohio man was nabbed [...] for “abusing harmful intoxicants” as he attempted to make a purchase at Bellaire’s Dollar General Store. The 41-year-old Tribett, it seems, had been huffing spray paint and needed a refill. According to a Bellaire Police Department report, Tribett’s pupils were constricted and he replied slowly to their questions. Oh, and “officers observed the paint on face and hands”.

You can learn

more about Patrick at (where else?)
The Smoking Gun.

Yes, I know, we’ve met Patrick before. I’ve been going through the mailing list archives and I couldn’t start up a new thing without him. What would my fans think?

Besides, I don’t care what Kibera says, this is the greatest photo ever taken of
a human.