Brittany Briefs

Many of the things Brittany says or does do not live up to a full blog post, so here I shall combine a few of them.

The first evidence I have to back up her statement that she is "the biggest nerd I will ever meet" is that she plays ARGs (alternate reality games). Tonight I have to take a picture of her standing outside a movie theatre at midnight holding an insignia with a candle burning within it.

Her friend Tim, one of the game night participants, is a single 30 year old guy who decided to have a vasectomy so he could enjoy his single days a bit more. Brittany informed me that all men with vasectomies set off the metal detectors in airports, and then when the wand indicates a beep where it inevitably will, they have to explain the circumstances. Wow- yet another occasion where a kernel of truth loses touch with reality. Certainly some men that get a vasectomy where a clip stops flow in the vas deferens and there are some metal clips available that can set off the detectors. But most of these surgeries, from a quick web survey, utilise titanium hemoclips which do not set off metal detectors. And these are just a small number of all vasectomies given. Most include the cutting of the vas with stitches or cauterization on the ends.

While doing laundry, Brittany praised me for cleaning out the lint trap saying, "Did you know that lint can be a leading cause of house fires?" I said yes, explained that I taught fire safety for a year to elementary school students, and added that the greater danger that is often ignored is the lint trapped in the dryer's plastic vent tube. (Aluminium tubing is much less likely to catch fire). Brittany ended the discussion, seemingly unaware that I was more knowledgeable than she with, "Well I just wanted to share; I'm full of random factoids like that."

Brittany bought a new iPod USB charging cable. I have no evidence that this is the case, but I fear she tried something like the onion in Gatorade charging method that is a hoax on YouTube. Sadly 5 million people have seen this clip, and some high fraction seem to believe, based upon other blog entries I've seen. Luckily some smart people out there have made spoofs that are pretty funny, including charging with an eggnog filled pepperoncini, a kitten, and a pumpkin. But it does seem sad that the skeptics don't even believe the truth about potato or lemon etc. batteries.

A Bad Birthday for Brittany

Brittany stayed in last weekend over her birthday, waiting for a male friend of hers to take her out. This guy, let's call him Mark, has been a true jerk to Brittany since she arrived in August. They had known each other for over a year via MySpace before she moved, coincidentally, to the same town he had his medical residency in. Although they speak on the phone more than ten hours a week, in six months they have yet to meet in person. But this is not Brittany's fault. Mark cancels, regularly, at the last minute. And every time he presents a plausible tale.

Well he promised to take her out to dinner on her birthday, a Friday, since he was supposed to get off work (more in a second on that) at 7 pm. At midnight he still had not left, so he promised to make it up to her on Saturday, when he was supposed to get off at 9 pm. At 10:30 he still hadn't off, and he never called, texted, or emailed to cancel entirely.

So Mark, though he is only a week older than Brittany, said he graduated college in 1 year and medical school in three so that he is currently a first year medical resident. Brittany has said she has spoken to nurses on nights he was on call and has received emails from a work email account, but I can find no list of residents with the hospital to check, and he doesn't have a medical license yet.

Anyway, here's his MySpace account: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=68831614

Any advice on how to find out the truth about him and why he has treated Brittany so shamefully?

Maybe I wrote too soon...........

On the same flight that Brittany took home bringing my passport she tried to take a bottle of water through security to the plane. She knew about the restrictions, she had her plastic baggy of travel size toiletries, but she still thought she could take a bottle of water.

To be fair, alot of seasoned travellers run into problems with the TSA restrictions. And they are ridiculous, as pointed out in a recent NYTimes blog.