Idiots eating toothpaste

I remember that in elementary school, our class would occasionally receive free samples of Colgate toothpaste.  I also remember that instead of taking the samples home, some of my idiot classmates would promptly decide to eat the stuff.

Even at that young age, I asked myself “Why?”  The toothpaste was completely non-nutritive, and it didn’t even taste particularly good.  Nor could I imagine why anybody would find this enjoyable.  As far as I could tell, their motivation seemed to be “Because I can.”

It never even occurred to these people to first find out if eating toothpaste was safe or not. Now, I’m sure that some of them said, “Well, I’m still alive, aren’t I?  Don’t be so uptight.”  This completely ignored the possibility of any long-term or non-obvious deleterious effects though — and frankly, I think that even a nine-year-old should know enough about science and the real world to understand such hazards.  Heck, even if they’re not particularly smart or well-read, they should at least have enough common sense to say “Wait a minute. This might not be safe.”

In fact, there are potential hazards associated with eating toothpaste.  Fluoride is a common ingredient in toothpaste, but too much fluoride can be bad for your health.  There has been some debate about how dangerous it can be; however, the consensus is that normal consumption of fluoridated water is not hazardous.  The fluoride concentration in toothpaste is considerably higher, though.  I don’t know how much toothpaste you’d have to consume to reach hazardous levels–in fact, I don’t know if anybody knows–but why take the risk for such a foolish and idiotic stunt?

How ELISA assays can complement ELISPOT methods

I culled the following bit of information from this article on immunology assay methods.

You can recycle the supernatant used in an ELISPOT assay for use in ELISA testing.  For example, the ELISPOT method allows one to detect specific cytokines in T cell monitoring.  After that, the supernatant can be used in an ELISA assay to detect other secretions–other cytokines, for example, or maybe antibodies.  ELISA assays thus allow researchers to squeeze additional information out of a sample with only a little extra effort, and without requiring additional blood draws.

Way cool. Later, I’ll talk about flow cytometry as well.

Out of my league

For the past few days, I keep running across women who are so far out of my league that it’s not at all funny.  It’s a bittersweet experience for a guy like me–the kind of guy that women almost never give second glance to.

Yeah, I kinda wish that I was one of those guys who had women flocking around them.  I wish I was the type of fella that women swooned over.  I wish I was the kind who regularly swept women off their feet.  I know that I’m not fortunate enough to fall into that category though, and I’ve learned to accept that.

Doesn’t mean that I can’t still wish it, though.

Stir-fry buffet time

I’m sitting in a popular stir-fry buffet place that I used to frequent.  I like this place because I get to choose the ingredients that I want, which means that I can also eat fairly lean — at least, as lean as can be, given that a little bit of frying is required.  It’s also gives me more variety in my diet than what I would ordinarily get.

I’ve learned the hard way not to organize any large groups when dining at this place.  I once got some co-workers to come her for lunch. We were supposed to leave work at noon. Well, guess what happened? When 12:00 rolled around, some of them said, “Just give me ten more minutes!”  Others invited other people from work, who said “Don’t leave yet! Wait for me!” It was nearly an hour before we left.

If it were up to me, I would have simply left and said “Anyone else who wants to come will have to catch up.”  Unfortunately, not everyone felt that way.

Had a similar experience when I took someone here for her birthday. She invited a few friends of hers — including one woman who was notorious for being late to everything.  She and her chatty friends didn’t mind; after all, they could always just chat away while waiting for this other member of their circle.  Me, I was getting hungry and a little bit upset; after all, I was the one who organized this event.

After forty minutes, we agreed to go inside.  I had gotten a bit frustrated so I said, “If you folks want to wait for her to arrive before ordering, that’s fine.  Just so you know though, I am not going to wait.  It’s very inconsiderate of her to keep everyone waiting for nearly an hour.”  I did not attempt to disguise my displeasure.

I kinda wish I had taken a stronger approach.  I wish that after 30 minutes, I had said, “Y’know what, if this friend of yours doesn’t arrive in the next five minutes, I’m leaving… and please let her know that.  I know she’s a friend of yours, but this is very rude of her.”  People need to understand that there are consequences when they are habitually and horribly late, and that this is very inconsiderate.  Unfortunately, some people never learn their lessons, partly because their friends just bat an eye at this behavior and bend over backwards to accomodate it.

Incidentally, when this person finally arrived, I learned that she had a sales background and was looking for a new job.  My company’s background was consistent with her work experience, so I invited her to apply for a job.  I already knew that I would strongly advise against employing her, though.  Besides, it took her more than two weeks to put a resume together, which told me that she wasn’t a very motivated person.  Not much of a go-getter, which was yet another reason not to endorse her application.

Self-refuting claims

Every now and then, I hear people say foolish things like “There is no absolute truth.”  To them, I ask, “Is that absoutely true?” It should be pretty obvious that this is a self-refuting claim–a claim that cannot stand up under its own premises and which must therefore be false.

Some people have a hard time grasping this concept, though.  When I tried to explain how this claim disproves itself, one guy responded with “So because there is no absolute truth, there is absolute truth?  Huh?”  I think it was J.P. Moreland who once said that modern man is no longer accustomed to thinking in a straightforward, logical manner.

Here’s another example.  Every now and then, I hear somebody declare “Science is the only way that we can ever know the truth!”  When they say that, I ask, “Is that true?  If so, what scientific method did you use to arrive at that conclusion?”

 When people are deeply wedded to these suppositions though, they often find it difficult to let go of such notions.  One fella said, “Of course science is the only way we can know anything.  That’s just common sense.”  Common sense is important, but it’s not a scientific technique.  Despite repeated explanations, he just couldn’t grasp the notion that by appealing to “common sense,” he was invoking a non-scientific approach to defending his claim.

One person said, “Any approach to knowledge is science.  Even looking under a rock and making an observation is science.”  No, it isn’t.  There’s  a reason why fields such as philosophy and history are not considered scientific.  Nor is merely making an observation “scientific.”  As any sixth-grader should be able to tell you, observation is merely the first stage of the scientific method.  It is not science per se.

So little creativity

Creativity isn’t valued nearly as much as it should be.  One can certainly see this in many workplaces, where people simply tend to do things the way other people do.  It’s especially bad when people try to duplicate what their competitors do.

I’m thankful that the guys I work with value creativity more than most other people in corporate America do. In addition, I’m thankful that my boss understands the need for a work environment that fosters creativity.  Not everyone has the opportunity to work in such a field.

Perhaps nothing illustrates a lack of creativity more than one’s advertising.  I’ve seen a lot of unimaginative, uninspired advertising campaigns, and they get really old after a while.  For example, I used to live in a country where companies routinely used life-sized compay mascots — yep, people in funny character suits.  Nothing wrong with that, but it was clearly a case of “Let’s do what everyone else is doing!”

That’s why I love it when I see some clever, creative ad campaigns.  I love some of the Geico commercials, for example–especially the ones that riff on concepts such as reality TV (“Tiny House”) or the Old Navy commercials.  Love ‘em!

When the world revolves around you

I took a two-leg flight to Boston the other day.  The first leg of my flight had been delayed by an hour though, which meant that some of us had to scramble to make our connecting flights in Philadelphia.

The head flight attendant instructed everyone, “Please head directly to your connecting flight.  Please do not stop at Starbucks.  Don’t make the passengers and crew wait for you to arrive.”

Great advice.  In principle, people shouldn’t need this reminder, and yet some of them surely do.  Some people figure that the rest of the world can wait just so that they can take their own precious time.

I’m reminded of an incident that happened back in my undergrad days.  About 15 of us students decided to make a trip to the beach. However, we were held up by these two young ladies who decided to take a leisurely breakfast at one of the restaurants near the school.  The rest of us were packed, waiting, and raring to go, but we had to cool our jets.  Why?  Because they decided that they really wanted to check this restaurant out.  Needless to say, we were not pleased.

Then there’s this other young gal that I knew.  (Let’s call her Dee.)  She didn’t have her own car, so she needed a ride to the party of a mutual friend.  I dropped by her place and waited by the street for her to arrive.  (She had borrowed her mother’s car.) When she pulled up, she said, “Oh, I really like the parking spot that you took.  Can you move your car so that I can have it?”

 I thought that was kinda silly.  Sure, it was a pretty sweet parking spot, but it wasn’t so much greater than the other ones on the street.  Still, I gave up the parking spot and then doubled around the block to pick her up again.  ‘Lo and behold, she was gone!  She decided to go indoors and get something, all without bothering to tell me.  Not even a word of “Say, I need to get something from my apartment.  Can you wait one more minute?”  She just left me waiting there, which was kinda inconsiderate.

What’s more, when it came time for me to leave the party (I had another engagement), she dragged her feet and kept saying, “Oh, let’s stay longer.”  Mind you, I had already told her that I had a previous appointment.  Still, because this meant so much to her, I put off departing for as long as I possibly could.  As the final minutes approach, I told her, “Okay, I really need to get going now.  Please wrap things up here.  I’ll go to the car and get the engine started so that we can leave right away.”

She didn’t seem to grasp the urgency of the matter.  She kept draggin her feet and making inane chit-chat.  When she was finally done, she sauntered to the car.  Me?  I revved the engine, and then I went and I threw the passenger door open to save a few precious seconds.  Then I took off as fast as I could.

Apparently, she thought that was really amusing.  “You’re so funny!” she giggled.  After she said that for perhaps the third time, I couldn’t take it any longer.  I said, “Well, I’m glad that one of us thinks its funny!” I pointed out that I had explained that I had a prior commitment.  I also reminded her that I said I needed to leave right away, and that I said I would get the engine started so that we could take off as quickly as possible.

But heck, she thought it was funny.  That’s how people react when they think that the world revolves around them.

Boy, I’m beat

I’m beat.  I woke up at 3:45 am (and rolled out of bed at around 4:15) to catch a plane flight.  I also took some generic Dramamine knockoffs so that I could sleep during the first leg of my flight.  It worked well and allowed me to ignore the sounds of this overly ebullient baby, but now I’m groggy.

Speaking of which, what is it with people who feel the need to speak loudly on a plane?  I can somewhat understand it when people do that on a greyhound bus (not that I approve), but on a plane?  Late at night?  Good grief.

Two days ago, I heard these two guys talking loudly while the flight attendant was offering pre-flight safety instructions.  Look guys, I understand that you’ve surely heard these instructions dozens of times before, but SHUT UP!  Don’t talk while the flight attendant is addressing the passengers.  That’s just rude.

Why were people rooting for Trace?

Piers Morgan won this season’s Celebrity Apprentice, triumphing over his rival, Trace Atkins. Piers was the more effective fundraiser; however, most of the other contestants favored Trace. They appreciated Trace’s character and conduct, and they felt that Piers had stepped over the line too many times.

Did they have a point?  Isn’t business the name of the game, not popularity?

I think they were right, and that Trump made the wrong call.  I say this because business isn’t just about achieving short-term goals.  Piers may have raised more charity money in the short term; however, his managerial style is bound to erode team morale, and it would doubtlessly hinder a team’s effectiveness over time.  Heck, I’d even argue that it could open a company up to a variety of lawsuits (justified or not).

Most of the time, business — whether charity fundraising or some other endeavor — is not like a sprint.  It’s more like running a marathon. Piers may be effective at sprinting, but his style would not be conducive to marathon business.

It’s also interesting to note that two of Trump’s advisors, Jim Cramer and Erin Burnett, also felt that Piers was not suited for this job.  They recommended Trace Atkins and Carol Alt over him instead.  While they didn’t spell out all of their reasoning, I suspect that it’s because they had the same concerns that I voiced — that Peirs’s style may work in a way, but that it can also be utterly disastrous.

So this friend of mine has a boyfriend

So I found out that a certain friend of mine now has a boyfriend.  I don’t know whether to be happy for the guy or to pity him.

 She’s intelligent, well-educated, physically fit, and kinda fun.  She also falls into this category that some would call “oddly attractive,” and I know that a lot of guys have expressed interest in her.  She’s also fun, and I can see why some guys would be enchanted with her.

On the other hand, she’s a bit of a psycho. She tends to be self-absorbed and inconsiderate, and she often acts like she has no clue about other people’s feelings.  I’ve seen that on more than one occasion.  I also have serious doubts about whether she’d be a faithful spouse or life partner.

I think that he’ll enjoy it for a while, but if she doesn’t grow up, I think he’ll eventually regret it.