Day of Defeat (the Half-Life Mod)

omg spam

I’m sorry to hear that too.
I had three dogs my self. I feel with you.

Here’s hoping for better days ahead.  I’m very sorry to hear of this tragedy and the suffering you all are going through

oooookaaay……

:?

I was born at an early age.  I think my sign was “room 224”.  ba-da cha!

I was born March 4/73 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to two loving and caring parents (mother and father for some of you).  I grew up in a Christian home as well, went to church, went to church-camp, and i was on a Christian TV program for 6 years.  I was baptized when i was 16 years old.  I am technically a Christian, and i attend church and give them money from time to time (and i’m a big believer in the Mennonite Central Committee), but i guess that i’m still searching for truth (admittedly, i’m pretty lazy w.r.t. this as i’m quite busy in other respects and tired most of the time).
I graduated (w/ honors), got my B.Sc. in Chemistry (i focussed on advanced organic and biochemistries).  I then did an M.Sc. in Biochemistry and molecular biology and published 6 papers (including my thesis).  
I quickly got bored with this life, and looked for something with a little more fun in the job description.  I then became a “territory manager” for a pharmaceutical company.  I did well here (the quarter before i left i got the highest bonus out of around 300 reps) and was in a fast track to a management position.
Still i found the job to be very easy and although i enjoyed it, something was missing.  If i had a bad day, it was because one of my key clients didn’t have enough time for me - not because anything actually BAD had happened.  If i had a good day, it was because my numbers came out and showed me to be growing my business well and both me and my masters were becoming wealthier.
After one of my clients - a physician - banned me from his office for not giving him presents (it was against the rules, even tho’ several companies were doing it anyway) and changed his patients from my product to that of my competitors, i got quite angry.  I figured - fuck him - i’ll go into medicine, and be a better doctor than he is.  The fact is, i was being told from all over that i should go into medicine  I thought that here would be my chance to make a difference in people’s lives, to do something challenging and to be involved in people’s lives at a very real and personal level (i also thought that this would be a handy way to escape work in the salt-mines for when the aliens from Grargrotha IV invade us as they would want someone to keep their slaves happy . . . but i didn’t tell this to the interview board).
So i studied medicine for 4 years, then i did a 2 year family medicine residency with an interest in emergency medicine.  Currently i work in 2 ER’s, 1 urgent care center, and i have my own patients in my private practice.  
I love to travel - for 4 years i made it a practice to go somewhere and hang out for a month.  Last year it was Vancouver (i was with my then-g/f and working in the Vancouver General ER) and also Australia (i understand that it was a cold winter that year in winnipeg . . . :)).  The year before i travelled about Cuba for a month.  Before that was Belize.  I also spent around 6 weeks in Portugal with a girl i was dating - long story.  I’ve been to Mexico (several times) Brazil, Barbados, Holland (my uncle was a diplomat there) and Germany as well as all over the US (Phoenix, Boulder, Moab Utah, D.C., Seattle, Minneapolis, ND, SD, Miami, Tampa and Atlanta) as well as from sea to shining sea here in Canada.
I love women - i’ve dated over 50, but i’m down to one right now.  She’s beautiful, brings me supper when i’m working late in the ER, keeps my house clean, and her son does yard work for me (he’s 14, and a good kid).  
My political views are mixed - as most people can tell.  Particularly since my father recently secured the nomination for the Liberal party for the riding of Charleswood/St. James/Assiniboia and Headingly (around 80 000 people live here).  If he wins the next federal election, then he will be their Member of Parliament (traditionally a tight race) - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2306058560&ref=mf
I’m sure there is more, but lately my life has been work-sleep-work-sleep.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny–clinton-pirro1115nov15,0,5574251,print.story

…and Miss Pirro is guilty of insults?

@Janus:

isnt it interesting, that in america we celebrate the 4th of july as our independence day, when the actual declaration was signed on the 2nd of august?

The signing of the document was really the anticlimax. It was adopted by congress on July 4th 1776.

They started to sign it on August 2nd but the signing wasn’t compeated until much later, monthes later, if I remember right.

“Also there may be life in ways that we do not understand it . . . using non-organic metabolites and structures, with/out systems of respiration reproduction etc. different then we’d imagine. I’m not too sure about the little green men concept, but i do wonder if there were aliens, what they would be made of, look like, and would they bear any resemblance to life around here to an extent that we would even recognise it as life?”

CC is hitting on something important here. There’s a whole other universe out there and what we know as the basic building blocks of life could be radically altered somewhere else. I guess the question is that if we encounter such a thing, can be classify it as alive? Time will tell. I think what CC, was referring to about viruses being machines was no so much in a metaphorical sense (as animals being machines), but in the fact that viruses are unable to replicate without a host cell, and therefore are typically not considered living organisms.