Salt and corrosion

We were kept amused at work today by a car crash. No-one was hurt, I should say; we're not completely awful people. Four young guys in an old bomb hit a street sign right under our window, then spent the next two hours shouting at each other and swearing loudly at the car while poking vaguely at the engine with a screwdriver. So it was only amusing in that we were a floor up and could look at them without them knowing. Probably less amusing for passers-by. It was oddly quiet when they finally gave up and called someone to tow them away.

One of the medical news emails I get had an article about medical students learning bad habits from watching medical dramas. That was yesterday. Today it was full of comments from doctors about the times they made a diagnosis that had baffled more senior doctors, simply because they had seen the same symptoms on ER or whatever. One of them said he'd amazed all and sundry with a diagnosis of psittacosis in just those circumstances, which isn't all that impressive. Psittacosis cropped up so regularly in Australian TV dramas when I was little that one glimpse of an old man with a cough and a racing pigeon was enough for me to diagnose it too.

Years ago my mum came home from work and said one of the other nurses had recommended this great new medical show, Chicago Hope, as being both entertaining and medically accurate. So we duly tuned in that evening only to see an ebola scare, which somehow involved evacuating the entire hospital, except for one operating theatre, which was locked down, mid-operation. Doctors, nurses and patient, all trapped, hoping the ebola didn't get in. My mother nearly fell off her chair laughing. Even today, just mentioning it makes her giggle. She also reported that the first thing her colleague said the next morning was, 'I'm so embarrassed.' Quite.

I was making my grocery list earlier, looking up recipes, and there was a link to the most recent post in their forums, which was by a woman who posted a list of baby names she liked in combination. Just putting them out there in case anyone wanted to use them. That was a kind service, wasn't it? Most of them were fine. And then there was Dusty Griffin. That's quite... poetic.

I don't know that I would call these 'hilarious' Harry Potter comics. Possibly false and misleading advertising there. But! The joke in the second-last one is what I think of every time I see a picture of Voldemort. I'm easily amused.

I'm having one of my periodic fits of the glooms. Just work gloom, or more likely, back-to-work-after-having-a-week-off gloom. I hope it lifts soon.

First, and on a completely unrelated note, the council has installed an anti-littering sign on the highway near my house that says "DON'T BE A TOSSER". Now I like a spot of word play as much as the next person, but I must say I'm a bit over the current trend for aggressive marketing.

And Deathly Hallows? ( Cut for teeny, tiny, not-really-spoilers-at-all spoilers )

In today's birth announcements was a child who is going to go through life as Tyler Ricardo Stanley Keegan. Just as I was thinking, well, there's a bit of something for everyone in that name, I saw the announcement below it: Fred Beasley, new baby brother for George Beasley. That is, Fred and George Beasley. What have those parents let themselves in for?