.:Gotta Drop a Blog in The Corner:.

hey everyone. thanks for your thoughts, prayers, concern, good vibes. my family and i all appreciate it. the funeral went well, i think we had around 150 seats set-up and the placed looked to be packed. it was comforting that so many people showed up whom my grandmother had connected with in her life. it was truly a celebration of her life in the US since she moved here 20 years ago.

so i realized... that planning a funeral is kinda like planning a wedding... but you only have around a week to do it instead of months. boy it's been busy, and i'm so glad that i'm on thanksgiving break now. i can take a little time to rest up. i'm lucky in that sense, as the grad school sched follows normal schedules... unlike by brother. he got in saturday morning, and left a couple hours later after the memorial service the same day to get back to nyc. he had just finished his internal medicine rotation, and needed to do some studying for exams before his next rotation. he's also going to be in the hospital through thanksgiving starting his next rotation. i'm just glad i'm not in med school.

so, i guess i'm back to finding random stories etc on "the internets". one of my fav christmas movies of all time is "a christmas story" with ralphie. one of my fav scenes is when randy has on his layers and he can't move his arms. there's also the one where he falls down and can't get up. the trip to see santa claus and the elves telling him he'll shoot his eyes out is classic, as well as randy totally freaking out when he sees santa. anyways... here's a random story about how the house used in the movie has been restored and opened for visitors. it's in cleveland, which is only a couple hours from buffalo. i feel a road trip may be in store.

there's so much information out there now that the sequencing of genes has been completed for humans... the trick is to make use of that info as there's still so much we don't understand. you can see how the publicly available genebank has grown. if you know a specific dna sequence you can use blast to search for that sequence across different species of organisms. so here's an interesting story on how researchers are moving from single nucleotide polymorphisms (snp) to looking at larger chunks of variations to see how they affect our health.

here's a good article about the inflated egos that pastor's of megachurches are suceptible to. while i do prefer a non-denominational style of worship, where these rules that have been built up over many years aren't the focus... i do see the point of concern that is brought up in that non-denominational churches do not answer to a higher group, and if they don't have a strong church board then problems can occur. it's unfortunate that so many in the really "religious" conservative right are just making up for their own faults by finding scapegoats. i've said it again and again... but people are not perfect... and when talking about people, christians are part of that group. it really annoys me when these so called church leaders have this holier than thou attitude and make statements which contradict what the Bible and Jesus actually teach... or even what they "teach" themselves. one of the main teachings in christianity is that we should not judge others... mainly because we don't have the authority to do so... but we should leave that up to God. however, that happens regularly coming from sources like jerry falwell, and pat robertson. it's just so hypocritical, and when things like this happen... it really causes me pain to say that i am a christian... because that's not what i want to be associated with. God has given all of us free will, and it is not mine or anyone else's right to impose their personal will or judgements on anyone else. instead of tearing people or groups of people down... we should be helping them, and giving support. i really like this op-ed piece, as it summarizes exactly how i feel. the author brings up a good point in that the church has changed its stance on certain issues as science has evolved... and well the church may need to again in the future.

mba's are the biggest cheaters... i could've told you that =]. whenever money is factored in... bad things happen. it's quite pitiful how many corporate scandals have happened over the last 6 years from the dot-com implosion, and how many billions of dollars have been wiped out by bankruptcies. think of how many people had these companies stocks in their retirement portfolio. most of these people aren't your ceo, cfo types... but just normal working people. it's sad how just a few bad people can have such a large effect on a big population.

here's a cute pic.

here's a recent russell peters special called outsourced if you have an hour to kill.

i hope my US readers have great thanksgivings!