Rossotron.com

I was talking to my wife and her family the other day about organ transplants, and we got on the subject of brain transplants. I know they are only fictitious right now, but would you want your brain to be on the list of organs you're willing to donate?

And if we could transplant brains, would your consciousness go with it, or would it be the original person who possessed the body who retains control of the body? Would they suddenly be good at math (assuming you were), or have your memories? What if only part of the brain were transplanted…could you meld a healthy hippocampus into someone who has had theirs damaged and can't form any new short-term memories? And what would this do to voluntary organ donor selection on drivers licenses, if people though there was a chance their brain would go into another person's cranium?

Yeah, that kind of stuff keeps me up at night, too :-)

Actually, it's me that's just sick. As in, feeling ill, under the weather, not up to snuff, etc. I've got some sort of cold passed on my lovely little bouncy girl, who is just now getting better from whatever dire cold she gave me. Makes for a fun workday when you're sniffling and swallowing phlegm. Okay, sorry for the imagery.

There's a woman here at work who has claimed she hasn't been sick in the last 40 years. Yes, she gets "sinus infections" and "allergies", but NO, she hasn't been SICK in the last 40 years.

Well, she went home early yesterday with a tickle in her throat. And today, she didn't come in. People were cracking jokes that her "80 year streak of not being sick" is at an end. It's all good natured, but I can understand their point – what kind of pride do you have to have to try to claim that you've not been sick in the last 40 years? Does it make you a super(wo)man to avoid displaying an immunoresponse to some virus?

I wonder if Guinness has a World Record for longest time without being sick. Although that would be hard to document, I think. Who judges what the limits are on sick vs. not sick? I would think daily physicals would be prohibitively expensive and time consuming, but that's the only way I could see to get documented evidence of your body's health, day-in and day-out.

I just heard from someone here at work (unconfirmed) that Bank of America is now issuing credit cards to people who do not have social security numbers. No, not that you don't have to give your SSN to be approved, but that you don't have to HAVE one to be approved.

Somehow I don't think the constitution lists among our inalienable rights the right to be up to your ears in debt. But hey, now even our illegal immigrants can join us in our indebted state. Let's hear it for the land of opportunity!  Woohoo!