The last part of the book is a short story that made me laugh out loud called "The Shit is on Fire Show." Henry talks about his experience during the 1992 LA riots, and mentions how he was in a cab on the way to LAX to fly out afterward and one of the things he saw:
I thought the best was a computer store. Computer stores are run by people who are pretty smart. The computer store has a single piece of plywood over the door. It says ALREADY LOOTED AND BURNED. TENANTS UPSTAIRS. The place was not looted. It was not burned. There was a roof with nothing on top of it. There were no tenants on top. I can see these computer guys in the back on a virtual-reality trip or just being the cynical geniuses they are. "Oh, there's going to be a riot. I got it, I got it! Do we still have that piece of plywood in the back? Okay just put it on there and tell them the place has already been burned and looted and just put it out there. No, no, no, no, wait a minute, tell them there are tenants upstairs. All right, let's get the fuck out of here." And they leave. Looters come up and there are ample supplies inside and they're thinking they can go in there and get themselves a two-page color monitor, a laser printer, all the goodies, all the software they can stick up their ass and haul home. Man, if you were like a computer guy, that would be the shit, looting a computer store. You would go home with all the gear you need. So, these looters come up with burning bottles of gasoline and sticks. They're ready to loot and pillage and destroy. "Darn, they already looted and burned the place, and besides fellows, there are people who live up there, it says so on this sign."
Luckily there's a McDonald's on the corner. "Yeah, let's go loot that." And they all went down there and incinerated the McDonald's. You know Ray Krock is squirming in his grave. But as much as it's fun to talk about it, I think looting is fucked.
I had another patient not show up today. Nice. I was all set to put on a new type of bracket as well and try them out. Phooey. And I get handed a patient that Silvana took records on a month ago that needs to be treatment planned for a first year resident. Which would be fine if the shit was all together. But it's not; I had to trace the ceph, the occlusion on the models was all fucked up and I had to send it for revision (and do the model diagnostics on *this* file anyway), and I don't have access to the exam findings since they're stored under her login. So this is going to be pretty annoying, I think. The case itself is interesting, so I'll at least learn something. But jumping through all these hoops is annoying, let me tell you.
At least my MP3 player *finally* fucking came. It didn't come with a power cord, but the one for my old player works fine with it, so that's pretty cool. The software is kind of clunky, as it's been uploading my MP3s forover three hours, and maybe it'll finish tonight before I go to sleep. If it doesn't declunkify in my perceptions in the next few days, it's going to be quickly replaced by RedChairSoftware. Still, I am looking forward to it.
I think reviewing records I don't really like has annoyed me. I'm starting to get snarky in my reviews, and my cynicism is showing through here. The Juggins are lifting my spirits now, though. I'm gonna shower and set some marinade going. Aw, yeah...
