Racist or Not?

I just got signed up for a new health/dental insurance and am starting to look for new doctors to become my primary physicians.  (The new medical insurance was the whole purpose behind the recent domestic partnership.)

So, I'm pretty much picking doctors based on a list of names only.

Honestly, I caught myself looking for the whitest names possible.  Or, I guess, most European names.  I was half ashamed when I realized what I was doing.  Here's what I found myself thinking as I came across each name:

Changlin Wang?  Not comfortable.
Lucy Kalanithi?  :|  Can't even place the origin of that last name.  Indian?
Nailah Thompson?  I'm liking Thompson, but what's this Nailah about?
Hai-tao Tang?  Fun to say.  Not comfortable.
Safa Magid?  :|
Nardine Riegels?  For some reason I picture a really old, Jewish lady.

Then, I decided to try googling their names, and now I can at least see their pictures and where they graduated from.  Aiming for Michigan grads!

What leads me to this method of picking doctors?  If you ever go in for your high blood pressure (Me) or high cholesterol (Me) or poison ivy penis (Me) or weird rash on your anus that you confuse with a hemorrhoid (Me) or acne all along your legs and ass when you work out (Me), you don't really want to have problems coming from misunderstandings or miscommunication.

That was exactly the problem I had with a doctor in L.A.  He's talking about heart complications, and all I get is slurs and mumbles.  Heck, I ended up getting an unnecessary Hepatitis test at one point.  I avoided him for the whole butthole rash incident.  I actually quit going to the doctor altogether.  So, I guess my subconscious was trying to control this scenario in the future, when the only factor I can influence is which name I pick.

Dentists, though, I guess I'm going more for breath?  I don't really need to understand what the dentist says.  I have amazing, natural teeth.  I found my last dentist the same way, and his name was something like Scott O'Malley.  Too bad it wasn't something solid like Joseph Smith.  (Heck, that name is white enough to base a religion off of.)  White people just don't typically have pungent lunches, I guess?  Maybe Italians...  No, I guess that one's a little bit racist.

♫ Everyone's a little bit racist ♫,
~RoB

Podcasts

I drive ~39 minutes one-way to work.  I did the same commute in the summer of 2008, and I was almost excited to catch back up on all of my podcasts.  My enthusiasm ran out as quickly as my podcasts did.  The only things that I regularly listened to before this summer were: Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast, Freakonomics, and This American Life.  I highly recommend the latter two to everyone, but the first one is more up my alley than most people's.

Anyway, I went on a rampage of trying new podcasts.  I'm really happy with them some, and I have a few that I'd like to say aren't so good..  Car Talk is amazing, and How Stuff Works is super interesting.  Planet Money hits an interest that I've only recently come across: economics, so I listen to that regularly.  Adam Corolla's podcast sucked, so I really don't understand why it is so popular..  I've unsubscribed to TED Talks (stupid without video) and Comedy Central (same problem).  ESPN's B.S. Report and Jillian Michaels' podcast didn't do if for me, either.  A new podcast from the producers of WWDTM! has been pretty good, and its called How to Do Everything.

I'm a big fan of Doug Loves Movies, but I don't think I've correctly guessed a single movie yet from the Leonard Multin game.  I tried Jordan, Jesse Go!, but I don't think that I get it.  Not really my thing.  I'm also trying to settle on Sklarboro Country.  I'm a big fan of the Sklar Bros, but hearing them (instead of being able to look at them) as they continuously switch between each other is almost too much for my brain.  I like their interviews, though, so I'll probably keep trying.  Joe Rogan's podcast is just too long, he gets too long winded on some of his crazy rants, and I get distracted every time I think about the Fleshlight.  Bring back in the long list of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! and Napa Valley Wine Radio 'casts that I allowed to build up in my iPhone, and I've got quite the fleet of entertaining sound bites to get me from here to work and back each day.

I've also learned some really important things from these podcasts over the last few months:

• How to Do Everything taught me that the only sure-fire way to get rid of hiccups is to stick your finger up in your butthole and tickle the inside a little bit.  Think about that next time you have the hiccups.
• Doug <3s Movies taught me that Johnny Knoxville lost a tooth to a high-velocity dildo while filming Jackass 3D.
• Doug Loves Movies also taught me that a taping of Mr. Belvedere was shut down early because Christopher Hewett sat on his own balls.  (He also had another instance where he fell out of a harness during a production of Peter Pan and landed on his balls... stopping production for another day.)  Pretty much, we learned that Mr. Belvedere had gigantic testicles.
• Planet Money, on a more serious note, has taught me that nobody in the world knows what the fuck they are doing when it comes to the economy.
• Oh, and How to Do Everything taught me that Annie is just as awkward on the radio as she is in real life.

BB's MMPC makes me think the word 'cunt' alot, to myself, too,
~RoB