The death of a giant.
RIP B-Sides. 2006-2006.
gone, but not forgotten.
i think it is time to throw in the towel. We’ve peaked at about 40 readers in a single day, which was good. But it has lost its steam. So goodnight, sweet prince.
Save the Internet
like this blog? Yeah, me neither, but do you like other blogs? Do you like the idea of people being able to speak freely on the internet?
Nah, neither do I. Don’t visit http://www.savetheinternet.com/
Let’s make sure BellSouth, AT+T and Verizon tell us what is important, just like we let Fox News and People Magazine.
The Functional Anatomy of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
If you gave me $100, I’d let you stick needles in my skin. If you gave me $200, I’d let you inject me with radioactive chemicals. $30 I’d fill out your survey on fear of sexual intimacy, divulging every detail of my personal life. For $150, I’d stay two nights in your hospital and get a liver biopsy and some mystery treatment called an “intravenous clamp procedure.”
I am a medical guinea pig.
Last week, I participated in a study which tried to map OCD in the brain. It was really noninvasive, a plus for my first medical experiment. I didn’t have to get any shots. I did, however, have to have a 2 hour screening where they determine if I should be in the OCD group, the depressive group or the healthy control. In this two hours, I had to explain why I flick the lights 3 times each direction, count picket fences and train cars, tie my shoes left-over-right and click my jaw. I had to re-hash the messy breakups and drunken nights of self-flagellation. These guys asked me EVERYTHING.
They never told me what group I was in, but I’ll assume I was in the control.
They told me all I’d have to do was play this game on a computer, which would pay extra bonuses if I did well. Then I’d have to play it in an MRI. Then in an EEG, with electrodes glued to my skull.
The game was easy enough; for a fraction of a second, 5 letters would flash on a screen, 4 of them would be the same, one would be different, like HHHSH . I’d simply have to click the left button if an H or C was the abnormality or the right button if an S or K was the grey-duck. Somehow this “easy enough” game would become the bane of not just my waking life, but also became nocturnal tormentor. I dreamt of S’s and C’s dancing for hours on my grave while the H’s and K’s copulated, spawning armies of deviously alphabetical death squads. I thought games were supposed to be fun?
If I hit the right button, I won money. If I hit the wrong button, I lost money. If i went to slow, I lost money. Sitting at a desk, I thought the game was difficult. Stretched out in the womb of an MRI, machines buzzing all around my head making the machinery in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest look like an electric coffee maker, the game was a beast.
Getting hooked up to the EEG was a trip. It was really uncomfortable- they put me in some kind of helmet with electrodes all over it, glued some more to my face and measured my brainwaves. It was pretty sweet. They showed me what was going on, when I looked left or right, lines would jump up and down, when I closed my eyes, lines dipped and scattered. When the cute little nurse was showing me my brainwaves, I tried to think about boobs and see what happened, but nothing happened. I guess it was only measuring changes in my brain patterns, not consistencies.
All in all, the bad was outweighed by $195.25 cash. Three days of torture and I walked away with more than half of my rent check in my pocket.
Up next: Trunk Function: a study of how the elderly move; and Oral Absorption of Anti-fungal Medication. (this one has a hospital stay, which should provide a nice story…)
