TV Trivia: Chuck Lorre Productions

For awhile now, I've noticed that at the end of the certain TV shows (e.g., "Two and a Half Men"), there's a one-screen-shot flash for "Chuck Lorre Productions." The shot shows a screen full of text, but it goes by too fast to read. I've made a conscious effort to read it and got enough in my fast glimpse to be able to tell it was more than jibberish, but that's it. And it goes by so fast that I normally forget about it a few minutes later.

The routine goes like this: TV show. Flash-and-glimmer-of-curiosity. Next show or commercial or whatever--curiosity gone.

It's an interesting exercise in how short our (or at least my) attention span is.

Anyway, today, I finally remembered to Google it and, of course, they're called "Vanity Cards" and they're all online here. They're basically mini-essays on life, the universe and everything (sort of like a non-blog, blog).

And now I know who Sheldon Leonard is. (I knew the 2 characters' names on The Big Bang Theory sounded familiar but all I could come up with was Sally's ex-boyfriend in When Harry Met Sally...You know. The days of the week underpants.)

Anyway, enjoy.

Movie Recommendation: U.S. vs. John Lennon

I always knew John Lennon was my favorite Beatle and it's just been reaffirmed.

This documentary takes us through his late Beatle, post-Beatle period and his growth as an anti-war activist. And the Nixon administration's fight to get him deported for it.

Featuring interviews with Yoko Ono, Angela Davis, Bobby Seale and even J. Gordon Liddy.

Really interesting stuff.

We saw "Across the Universe" a couple of weeks ago and I think the two movies actually work well together to give you a picture of the times and the Beatles place in it.

Public Service Announcement: Ask EPA

from http://www.epa.gov/askepa/

Ask EPA is an online interactive forum where you can discuss a wide range of environmental

and human health issues with EPA's senior officials.

In our first session, join Administrator Steve Johnson to discuss EPA's efforts to promote clean and dependable energy solutions, including the Change a Light Campaign.

Date: Thursday, November 1
Time: 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm ET

Submit questions for Admininstrator Johnson

Wow. This is really powerful...

Thanks to Melly for leading me to this site!

Check out their other films "Evolution" and "Amy."

What a Sad, Crazy Day

As I've mentioned, my main "support group" is the YSC bulletin board. It's an amazing, wonderful, horrible place.

It's amazing and wonderful because the women there are so open, so giving, so knowledgeable, so strong, so honest, so funny...you get the idea. Any question you have, there's someone (usually several someones) there who can answer it. If you're having a bad day and need cheering up, someone will do that. If you're having a good day and want to share, you'll find lots of welcoming virtual ears. It's also wonderful because you see women on there with "late stage" BC (Stage IV, aka "mets") who are going strong (sometimes 7 years, 9 years or even further out), having fun, getting married (and, yes, dealing with the incurable version of this disease and the truly crude and harsh methods we have of treating it).

It's horrible because you also see the worst-case scenarios all the time. When I started chemo, the doctors told me about all the weird, rare possible side effects that "1 in 10,000" people get. Same thing with radiation. Same thing with surgery. Well, on the boards, it seems like there's always someone who gets that side effect (for example, one friend lost all sensation in her legs from the knees down after 2 doses of Taxol--a condition know as neuropathy--and had to stop treatment; she's currently wearing leg braces to walk and can't drive).

And it's really horrible when someone dies. Which happened yesterday. Melinda, 35 years old, first diagnosed in 2005, relapsed with mets in May this year. Too young and too fast. Too sad. Oh yeah. And she was an oncologist. Which, to me, makes it seem even more unfair.

Moment of silence for Melinda and her family.

It's B-a-a-c-k...(Hair Chronicles #75,363)

Well, the hair on my head is still a little too baby fine and sparse to be called an actual hairstyle yet, but it's definitely coming in and the hair everywhere else is pretty much back.

My eyebrow and eyelashes are about 1/4 inch long and my eyebrows were getting unruly enough that I actually had to get them waxed this weekend! (I had gotten so used to drawing in these delicate little eyebrows it was a little bit of a culture shock when my real ones came in. Whoa baby! We're going to need to keep these puppies under control.)

I think my eyelashes will be substantial enough to handle some mascara about a week from now.
(I remember posting awhile ago that I had read of people getting their eyelashes back "overnight." They lied. The lashes have been creeping in for a couple of weeks now and are still not very noticeable to the naked eye.)

1 Down, 32 to Go!

Had my first radiation treatment today. The rest will be administered Mon-Fri at 5pm each day. We skip Thanksgiving but not Veteran's Day so that means I should be done December 7th. So, between now and December 7th please send nice, happy vibes to my boob around 5pm. (Actually, anytime would be nice, but 5pm would be particularly nice.)

Here's what to wish/pray for:
- that the radiation finds its target (i.e., any cancer cells)
- that the radiation leaves harmless the healthy cells in the area: skin, rib, lung, heart
- that the radiation doesn't cause me any fatigue...I have too much to do!

Thanks!

The Presidential Candidates - Who Do You Agree with on the Issues?

I remembered this site from the last election and found it very informative (and a lot more time-efficient than watching all the debates).

Basically, you take the quiz and they tell you how you match with the candidates. It removes a lot of the superficial stuff and really tells you how much the candidates' views align with your own on the issues.

VoteMatch Quiz

I was surprised to find that I agree with Hilary (75%) and Kucinich (73%) much more than with Barack (55%).

Dumbeldore is Gay!

This is actually according to the author...

Read the CNN news story here.

So now the religious right can hate these books even more. Witchcraft and homosexuality--the double whammy!

Quiz of the Day

A friend from grad school sent this to me: Civics Quiz

The organization who created the quiz is arguing that colleges are failing America's students.

It was hard. I got an 81.67%. What did you get?

How Green Is Your State?

Check this out.

(Spoiler alert: NJ and NY both made the top 10!)

The Secret History of the War on Cancer

I was pointed to this today and found the interview REALLY thought-provoking.

Devra Davis, an epidemiologist at the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, was interviewed by NPR's "Fresh Air." It's really worth a listen:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14986010

B9!

The MRI-guided biopsy results are in and benign! So, I'm still goin steady with NED (no evidence of disease)!

Tackiest Pink Ribbon Products

Ok. To prevent "reader fatigue" from my potentially month-long rant on this topic, I'm going to put all the offending products in this post and just edit as needed...

Herr's "Crave the Cure" pretzels
Jingle Jugs (you have to see them to believe them)
Pink Wedding Gowns for the Cure
Panera's Pink Ribbon Bagels (featuring cherry chips and dried cranberries--yuk!. However, I will note that last year they raised $200,000 as compared to Herr's sad maximum of $20K.)

Please feel free to submit anything you come across that's particularly egregious.

Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize!

Well, I guess if you're going to have the U.S. presidential election stolen from you, this is a pretty nice consolation prize.

I'd love to be around 100 years from now and see what history has to say about Gore and Bush. I have a feeling Gore will be the better known of the two, having done more with one film and lecture tour for the betterment of our planet than the entire Bush administration.

As my friend ktbuffy would say, "Woot!"

Annoying Product Update

I actually heard back from Herr Foods:

"$0.25 per bag is being donated, with a minimum donation of $5,000 and a maximum of $20,000. The proceeds are going to the Linda Creed Breast Cancer Foundation.www.lindacreed.org"

That's a lot of pretzels. 25 cents into $5,000 equals 20,000 bags. For them to donate $20,000, they'd have to sell 80,000 bags. I wonder what their profit off that is? Why more than $20,000, you can be sure. A little underwhelming from a company that earlier this year announced a $15 million expansion.

Annoying Product of the Day

Seriously, there's got to be a better way to further breast cancer research than buying pretzels...

And notice how they say "a portion of the proceeds." What portion? 50%? 25% Somehow, I doubt it. (I did write to them and ask and will report back what they tell me.)

And where's it being donated? To "a breast cancer awareness foundation." A foundation so dedicated to raising awareness that they remain cloaked in anonymity for the purposes of this advertising campaign.

And what does that even mean anyway? Raising awareness? So far all I've learned from Breast Cancer Awareness Month is that anything can be commercialized.

Holy Crap!

I just realized that this is the first week I've been in the office for 5 days in a row since the week of MAY 7th. That's 20 consecutive weeks!

Those intervening 20 weeks have been filled with flex days (10), work-from-home days (about 7), holidays (3), vacation days (7) and sick days (7).

My average number of days per week in the office was 3.2. The median and mode were both 4.

Radiation Postponed

If you've been paying attention, you'll recall that I was supposed to start radiation on Tuesday.

However, I had a bunch of scans last Friday (see my post "MRI=Naptime?"). The mammogram and the ultrasound were clear, but the MRI showed something weird in my healthy boob. The consensus (from the lab, the surgeon's office and the oncologist's office) is that it's probably nothing and I shouldn't worry about it, but that they need to check it, so I'm having an MRI-guided biopsy next Wednesday. Once I get the "all clear" from that--the pathology will take around 5 business days to come back--I can start radiation (I've scheduled a new start date of October 23rd.)

How do I feel about this?
On the positive side:
- I'd rather go through this now while I'm still "in the middle" of everything, rather than a year from now when this will all be a rapidly dimming memory.
- I'm fortunate to have access to a facility that does MRI-guided biopsy. Since this only showed up on the MRI, there is no other way to biopsy it. If I lived somewhere where I didn't have access to this level of care, they'd probably have just said "we'll have to wait and see."

On the negative side:
- I was really looking forward to being done with radiation before Thanksgiving (talk about something to give thanks for!). Now it will be closer to Christmas.
- Having an MRI-guided biopsy is a little too science fiction-y for my comfort, although it's supposed to be a pretty simple procedure.

What can you do?
Send positive vibes, prayers, thoughts--whatever floats your boat--that:
1. It really is nothing.
2. The procedure goes smoothly.
3. They get the results back FAST. (Waiting sucks.)

Good News from Fresh Direct!

I have long been a fan of FreshDirect--as someone living in a walkup apartment with no car how could I not be?--BUT...their packaging has always driven me crazy. To the point that I've sort of "rationed" how often I order from them. I had actually sent e-mails to them a couple of times, with no response. But apparently someone was listening after all (note especially item #3):

October 1, 2007

Dear Jennifer,

At FreshDirect, we've always been proud to be a homegrown NYC business. With that thought in mind, we believe we have a responsibility to serve our customers with an eye toward a healthy, prosperous future for our neighbors and the city we all love.

Though we're still a very young company (as of this summer we're just five years old), we intend to act as responsible environmental stewards and to work toward better serving our neighborhood while we take care of both customers and employees.

FreshDirect will accomplish this in several ways:

1. CUTTING EMISSIONS FROM OUR DELIVERY TRUCKS.
We love that our trucks have become a mass transit system for food, each one replacing the many cars and cabs that would otherwise be used to bring families and food together. We're committed to making our trucks as clean-burning and low-impact as possible.

FreshDirect has partnered with Tri-State Biodiesel, a NYC-based company dedicated to providing the region with clean, renewable biodiesel sources. Tri-State uses cooking oil donated from our kitchen for use in non-toxic diesel fuel. In the next year, we plan to initiate biodiesel use in 100% of our delivery fleet. This action will both reduce emissions and cut back our use of fossil fuel products.

Additionally, we are working with the city to identify locations for electrical outlets so we can plug in our trucks and refrigerate using electric engines. We hope to have our first plug-in truck in mid-2008.

2. REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF WASTE WE PRODUCE.
We recently switched our delivery boxes in favor of boxes that use 100% recycled fiber content - no virgin fibers are needed in any FreshDirect box. We're proud to announce that within the next 3 years, we'll eliminate nearly all of our cardboard delivery boxes, replacing them with recyclable plastic totes and grocery bags. Since our facility was designed with cardboard boxes in mind, switching our systems will involve a complex re-engineering process. We believe these efforts will drastically reduce our use of cardboard and eliminate any challenges we currently face with under-packed boxes.

3. FEEDING OUR NEEDIEST NEIGHBORS.
We work hard to make sure that surplus food doesn't go to waste. Accordingly, FreshDirect is one of City Harvest's largest food suppliers, helping them to feed New York's neediest. We were recognized this year for "extraordinary dedication," and we intend to maintain that level of commitment.

4. INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF LOCAL PRODUCTS WE SELL.
Forging partnerships with good people doing good work has been a FreshDirect hallmark for years, and few companies sell more local products. Buying from farms, orchards, dairies and fisheries in the Tri-state area reduces the use of fossil fuels, supports artisanal craftsmanship and stimulates our local economy. During the next year, we will further extend our commitment to local producers and work to bring you even more options for locally-based eating.

5. PROVIDING EVEN MORE INFORMATION TO HELP CUSTOMERS MAKE INFORMED CHOICES.
Environmental choices are often complicated, highly personal decisions. That's why FreshDirect believes in offering customers the opportunity to make informed choices for themselves and their families. We will continue to deliver on that commitment by looking for new ways to deliver quality food alongside thorough information. In the coming year, we'll work to increase our selection of fish certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. And by the end of 2007, our Seafood Department will display the sustainability status on each product.

These commitments demonstrate just a few of the ways we're working to make FreshDirect a sustainable company and a good neighbor within our community. We look forward to keeping you up-to-date on our progress in the months and years to come.



Best Regards,


Steve Michaelson
FreshDirect President and CEO


Susan Schreiber
FreshDirect Environmental Initiatives Director


PS: We always welcome your comments and ideas. Just drop us a line: greenideas@freshdirect.com
© 2002 - 2007 FRESHDIRECT. All Rights Reserved.

The Pink Curse Redux

Well, it's October, which is officially Breast Cancer Awareness Month (betcha didn't know that, did you?). The tip-off is that the stores are awash in pink-ribbon-bedecked merchandise.

I am here to tell you: caveat emptor.

The blogger the Assertive Cancer Patient puts it really well: Boycott October

You can also check out "Think Before You Pink." The information on "Pinkwashing" is particularly compelling I think.

MRI = Naptime?

Friday was Test Day.

I had a mammogram, breast ultrasound and MRI. Actually, they did the MRI first. And I think I feel asleep about halfway through.

Now, those of you who've never had one probably think this is no big deal. But let me explain. First of all, MRIs are noisy. VERY noisy. So noisy they gave me earplugs to muffle (but not block out) the sound. Secondly, (at least for a breast MRI) halfway through I get injected--via an IV--with contrast dye. Thirdly, I have to lie face down on my stomach with my breasts sort of hanging down into these cutouts and my face in a face cradle. And, as with any MRI, I had to lay perfectly still for the whole thing. How I managed to doze off under these conditions, I have no idea. But I somehow pulled it off.