If You Want A Guy To Come To Your Place, You Gotta Have Stuff To Eat

Jr. High Principal:  Would you like a smoothie?
Kenny Powers: No, I'm Straight.
             
                        -From HBO's Eastbound and Down

In a continued effort to use reader feedback for quality and direction I bring you, The Guide On How to Stock Your Fridge If You Want A Guy To Come Over To Your Place.  Guys are not dogs, they do not need treats, they need fuel, this is in the form of hearty food. 

Think about it, guys aren't going to come over to eat yogurt. 

1.  Eggs
I read a while back that animal's rights groups were pleading with people to not buy large or extra-large eggs because it is painful for the chickens to lay.  I try not to think of that when I'm frying up an egg.  This is not just breakfast food either, I could pretty much eat a fried egg whenever, and you best have some ready.

Brownie points, if you want to make me an omelette, use Egg-Beaters for Heart's sake.

2.  Beer
 This one is obvious, but it's important not to oversimplify.  An assortment of beers is useful because sometimes you could handle just a budlight if its hot outside and you just got done running or something.  You just need to rehydrate.  Other times, like when eating a salad, you want something like Bud Select or Michelob Ultra that is equally watery.

Brownie points, if you bust out a Blue Moon with an orange wedge.

3.  Cold Cut Roast Beef

Meat usually means steak.  But you'll be a mack if I open your crisper and there is a bag of sliced roast beef that I could take a quick piece out for a protein boost.

Brownie points,  if there is sliced cheese for sandwiches.

4.  Hot Sauce
Unless they are UFC fighters, men need to suffer pain at least little each day to promote adequate testosterone production.  I suggest Siracha, a.k.a  Rooster Sauce, (the red stuff with the green tip), as well as something with red pepper from Louisiana.  Doesn't have to be Tobasco.  This item can be used concurrently with items 1,2, and 3.


5.  Frozen Chicken Nuggets
Any child born after 1980 for certain, save for vegetarians, consumed a considerable amount of chicken McNuggets growing up.  I know I did.  You really don't want his mother to show you up on this one. 

Brownie points,  if you have multiple dipping sauce options. 

6.  BBQ Sauce
I discussed Sweet Baby Ray's in a previous post.  That is great, but you are going to need a regular, a sweet, and a spicy sauce and a vinegar based sauce to satisfy this requirement.  Also, you are going to need more than ketchup for the chicken nuggets.  

7.  Unexpired Milk
I know a lot of girls who don't like milk or are on non-dairy diets or don't eat breakfast.  You gotta have milk.  Not to mince words, but you cannot keep expired milk.  There are few things more disappointing on earth than to pour out a bowl of cereal and discover there is no milk, or worse, curdled milk.  I have seen too many relationships die this way. 

Brownie points, if you have chocolate milk.

8.  Canned Beans
 I thought this one would be self-explanatory but, ladies seem to despise beans.  They are packed with protein and fiber and make the perfect side for virtually any meat. Goes well with number 9.

9.  Hot Dogs
Few moments are as significant as a young man's first trip to the ballpark.  No baseball game is complete without a hotdog, or, if like me, you are from Los Angeles, a "DodgerDog."  Baseball and hotdogs go together like PB&J and since baseball is the American passtime, you better keep them stocked unless you are a terrorist.

Brownie points, all-beef, kosher, and sauerkraut.

10.  Bread  Bread is for chicks, Hummus
Not too many guys think to buy this stuff, but, it is really tasty and probably healthier than the usual dip.  

An open response to Anonymous commentary

So I was surprised to find that I had 2 comments moderate yesterday.  Both by anonymous strangers.  And apparently one of them by someone familiar with the subject of a previous post.  This represents the first time I have received a critical comment as opposed to the friendly kudos I usually get from my friends.  Funny thing, I was curious about how this happened.  Then I googled "jon marshall hydroxycut" and my blog appears at the end of the first page.  In this post-hydroxycut-recall world, its not so far fetched that someone might punch that in and find McBrandon's Blog For Profit.  I promised to address the comment, so here it is. 

"There seems to be a full blown attack on Dr. Marshall"

I'm not attacking him, I merely implied that you are a sell-out if you use your degree to appear as an authority on something you are not.  I will graduate from medical school in two weeks, and although it would be tempting to take $100,000 from Extenze to claim their product works, I would not feel that I was qualified to sign off on whatever data they present to me since it would be clearly biased.  Oh and, Hydroxycut and Extenze are food in the eyes of the government, so why should I put my reputation on the line for something that does not meet the current standards of medical care.


"What does this mean for the Physicians who wrote Rx's for Celebrex, Lipitor or verbally recommended Tylenol?"


I'm not sure it means anything new.  Adverse drug reactions occur daily, drugs that are found to be more dangerous than helpful are weeded out of the market.  As long as the prescribing physician is acting within the standard of care and monitoring side effects, it is reasonable to expect now and again some patients will be unlucky.  At least, a certain amount of efficacy and safety has to be demonstrated by drugs before they are brought to market.  Although there have been rare reports of Lipitor causing fatal idiosyncratic drug reactions including liver failure in 1/1,000,000 patients.  The number of premature deaths delayed by Lipitor outweighs the minute number of fatal reactions.   This is based on good peer-reviewed data.  The FDA specifically does not evaluate the claims of Hydroxycut to cure or treat any disease.  So if you ask, would I go on TV and endorse Lipitor? Maybe if I was a cardiologist with experience in patients who benefited from the drug.  Would I go on TV and hawk Hydroxycut after reading ten pages of "research" prepared by the manufacture and taking some free samples, no. 

"Are we punishing the prescribing physicians for the pt's inability to read warning labels or understand that if you 'Are' suffering from multiple illness ... that taking any drug non-prescribed (or prescribed) would result in a negative outcome."




No, but there is a significant amount of litigation against pharmaceutical corporations involving previously approved prescription drugs that result in bad outcomes, I'm thinking Vioxx.  If a physician prescribes a drug for a non-approved indication, or uses it in someone who has a contraindication to that drug, they are then vulnerable to the threat of malpractice litigation.  I'll make it clear though, I have never met an actual real life doctor who prescribes drugs as part of their practice, recommend Hydroxycut.

"Is the issue really that Dr. Marshall endorsed a product ... Or is it that he is an attractive physician that intelligently spoke on the data he was provided?"

You don't need to go to medical school to know that if the clown from Hydroxycut offer you studies to prove their food is safe and works that it is probably not first rate science.  I would not call reading a script saying that simply that a product "works," is intelligent analysis of data.  It takes hundreds of millions of dollars to get a new drug approved for market via the FDA, whatever Hydroxycut did I'm certain it was cheaper.  He exploited his doctor status and appeal for money, I don't know him, but, I doubt he did it because of an altruistic need to endorse something he really thought was helpful.  The real issue, is that the manufacture manipulated the public into thinking that some kid freshly minted from medical school is an authority on anything.  When I consider what drugs to prescribe, my influences are generally board certified physicians in a specialty pertaining to the disease I am treating.  I am very skeptical of advertising, the way marketing is used against people's judgement is at times insulting. 





"Seriosly ... How intelligent does ANY physician sound in a time of recall where they are guilty of prescribing the drug?"






You bring up an important point, you have to keep your patients trusting that you have both the knowledge, skill, and intention to do what it is best for them.  However, generally when drugs get recalled now, it is due to post-marketing surveillance that reveals harmful reactions that happen over a longer amount of time when prescribed to a larger group of people than done in FDA trials.  However, Jon Marshall was not endorsing a product that had been cleared by the FDA.  He was endorsing food.  If Hydroxycut was such a great idea, how come this relatively inexperienced physician was the only doctor on television endorsing it.  I didn't see Sanjay Gupta telling people to take it.  

Medicine is a profession and thus, it is important to protect the integrity of our profession.  Leave the endorsement of infomercial products to Chuck Norris, Susan Lucci, and Chef Tony. 

"Just asking .............."

Just saying......

Endorsement of The Week: Sweet Baby Ray's Barbeque Sauce

Described as "thick and sweet with a kick!" Sweet Baby Ray's barbeque sauce is my new favorite thing and McBrandon's Endorsement for the 22nd week of 2009.

I was first introduced to this mysterious playful new condiment while watching a video on how to stock refrigerators in order to impress women.  NSFW

The guy in the video, Chi City Mayne, suggests that if you have an assortment of drinks, it will open up your world to women.  There are two non-drink items that you must have in yourfridge though, the first being Sweet Baby Ray's, the second being, Ranch dressing. 

I had never heard of it before, but figured I would buy some anyways.  As always, everyone else already knew about it.  The next day I was at my friend's apartment frying up the Bass we caught last weekend.  Now this is the same friend who held out on me about the wonders of Mint.com 
So I wasn't surprised to see none other than SBR BBQ sauce in his fridge.  Jerk.

Then, yesterday, I am at a BBQ at my intern's house and this fool also has Sweet Baby Ray's, so I slathered it on my chicken breast and damn that stuff is good.  I'm gonna take some OK Joe's and Gate's sauce with me to Miami, but, I am definitely going to get some Sweet Baby Ray's when I get there. 

Even better, for you celiac disease sufferers, it's gluten-free too!

Anyways, I hope you and your mother, and everyone else already knows the glory of SBR sauce, if not, go and get some, tonight.

Top Five Books I've Read That Most of My Friends Have Not

The purpose of this post is to share what I consider to be, the five most influential books I have read over the past 10 years from the ages of 13-23.  These are books that I thought about a lot after reading.  Some of them have helped me understand money or influenced career decisions.  Other books fed a childhood interest in space travel, however, all of them were fun to read.  I read more than the average person, but I tend to binge read.  I might not read a book for six months, then read three in one week, so I'm pretty hard to please. 




One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch

I was a freshman in college the first time I read OUOWS.  I don't remember how I heard about the book but I remember borrowing it from the library at school. It was the week of spring finals and instead of studying for microbiology or chemistry, I would sit in class and read about buying  based on value rather than speculation. Perhaps I should read this book again.  If I had followed the advice of this book, I could almost be out of student debt right now.


e.g. When I was was a year one, Apple was making a huge comeback with the iPod.  Although iPod wasn't brand new, this was the year that the tipping point was reached where everyone I knew had one.  They were fun, useful, I wanted one, but, I didn't get on the bandwagon for another six months.  But any dummy could see that Apple had a great product that people wanted.  Stock quote for May 04 AAPL: $14.  Today, $125, but at one point it was above $198.  Or, for every $2000 invested, I could have paid for a year of school.  In retrospect, this was painfully obvious, but, if it were that easy, we'd all be millionaires.   

Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

This book was given to me as a gift.  Vonnegut was my favorite author throughout high school.  I enjoyed his sarcastic, cynical, and critical view on war and technology.  His own life story is fairly interesting, he was in WWII and at the firebombing of Dresden.  This book is about a time traveling dog and his owner as they play jump rope with the space-time continuum.  An alien species present in his other books also play a role in the book.  The Tralmalfadorians have the capability to see all moments in time simultaneously and choose to live only the nice ones. I read SOT when I was in 11th grade, a particularly impressionable time in my life. 


When the Air Hits the Brain by Frank Vertosick, M.D.

This book was recommended to me by a friend, Bob.  He said that I should read the book if was going to consider neurosurgery as a career, so I read it my fourth year of school.  The book is a chronicle of the author's experience in Neurosurgery residency at the University of Pittsburgh.  Each chapter focuses on the story of a patient that helped him grow as a neurosurgeon.  The book is really about the rewards of neurosurgery.  He saves a man from paralysis in one chapter, watches a baby die from a brain tumor in another, and in the next, cures a woman of dementia.  There are some very poignant and dramatic examples of tragedy and victory in surgery.  The take away from the book is that the average neurosurgeon in training experiences a very treacherous path that is an immense privilege and extremely rewarding.

Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan

I read this book during the 8th grade, making it the book I read the youngest on the list.  His last book, written while undergoing cancer treatment, Billions and Billions combines Sagan's knack for bring astronomy and physics to the common man with the insight of someone close to death.  He talks about how massive the universe is.  How the number of grains of sand on Earth does not come close to the number of stars in the universe.  It's been a long time since I read this book, but, it is truly interesting and delves a lot more in politics than other books.  Cosmos, also by him is a great book to learn about the solar system.  I remember a teacher I had in 7th grade said, "If you consider yourself intellectual, you should read Sagan."  I tried it out and found one of my top 5 heroes. 


Typing entries on this netbook is frustrating, the keyboard is too small and it deletes whole passages with one keystroke.


Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

This book is about a telepathic gorilla who teaches humans about the natural evolution of civilization.  The rub is, humans are destroying the planet's ecological balance and we live a non-sustainable life that no other animal would ever part take in.  He mentions how humans used to live in harmony with the planet, but that we got greedy.  Humans were happier when they just walked around eating berries and shit all day and died random violent deaths by falling off of cliffs or getting eaten by lions.  Ishmael is interesting, I read it my first semester of college.  Everyone I know who has read it loves the book, but it definitely makes you question why you are bothering going to school or getting a job at all.

Sneak Peak: My appearance on Inside the Actor's Studio

If you've ever watched Inside the Actor's Studio on Bravo, then you'll know how he asks the same standard questions to every guest.  Part of the interview includes questions from the Proust questionaire.  This is a throwback to Lipton's hero, some French dude named Bernard Pivot.  I'm always surprised at how much more I like actors after seeing them on the show.  My favorite all time guest is Dave Chappelle.    An invitation to the Actor's Studio is quite an accomplishment, thus, if called upon, I want to be prepared.  Here are my answers to the Proust questionaire.    

Q: What is your favorite word?
A:  Telekinesis

Q: What is your least favorite word? 
A:  Panties

Q: What turns you on?
A:  Speed

Q: What turns you off?
A:  Clutter

Q: What sound or noise do you hate?
A:  Alarm Clocks

Q:  What is your favorite curse word?
A:  F**king douchebag

Q:  What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
A:   Fighter pilot

Q:  What profession would you not like to do?
A:   Male Gigolo

Q:  If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
A:  "Wake up and come back in 30 years."

Real Men Of Genius Presents: Jon Marshall D.O., posterboy of the liver killing hydroxycut

TOOL BAG

Hydroxycut is a product of Iovate Health Sciences Inc. of Oakville in Ontario, Canada, and distributed by Iovate Health Sciences USA Inc. of Blasdell, N.Y. Surprise that a death has been linked to the use of Hydroxycut. I'm going to bet that it wasn't the first, only the first where the connection was recognized. I think that as long as this product has been on the market, it never seemed prudent to use such a product. In reality, if any over the counter drug showed any actual safe efficacy, physicians would prescribe it. That's why aspirin, which costs pennies per pill is recommended by physicians to many patients over 40. If a cheap drug could make you skinny, they would prescribe that too. Unfortunately, there are too many people out there willing to flush their money and their health away on crap in a desperately lazy attempt to acheive success before work.

Symptoms of liver injury include jaundice and brown urine, have been reported to the FDA. Other symptoms include nausea, vomiting, light-colored stools, excessive fatigue, weakness, stomach or abdominal pain, itching and loss of appetite. These are signs of liver injury that could lead to DEATH! 23 patients had severe injuries, some requiring liver transplantation. That said, most of the people who have taken the pills probably were ok. There are other drugs prescribed that are more dangerous. But if there is no benefit, no risk can be off set.

Most heinous though, is the endorsement of Midwestern University College of Osteopathic Medicine Class of 2005 graduate, Jon Marshall, D.O. They used this guy in the commercials because he looks healthy and is a "doctor." The guy was a resident, barely out of school at the time but, simply graduating medical school doesn't qualify you to provide endorsements on medication. The manufacture is guilty on this one though exploiting the general publics ingnorance. Most people who took Hydroxycut probably weren't looking for a board certified expert on weight loss.

I was just staring medical school when the commercials for Hydroxycut first took off, everyone in my school knew who Jon Marshall was. He's the guy who sold out his medical degree to make some cash endorsing a product that no sensible person would use. People might say its not fair to call him greedy, but he's in radiology residency, it's not like he's actually specializing in bariatric or sports medicine.

Now that FDA is advising people that Hydroxycut is dangerous people should consider the appeal to authority used in these commercials. Of course, if you had asked me four years ago, I would have said, don't take that, ever heard of Phen-Phen?

Endorsement of the Week: Mint.com

Sorry for the string of unfunny posts but between swine flu and the death of Pontiac, I haven't had a lot of comic inspiration.  

I've never really been much of a trend setter it's still upsetting to find out that I've been missing out on something that everyone else is already enjoying.  So when I find something new that is useful or fun I'm going to share it here with the hopes at least one of you can benefit. A while back I wrote about The Week only to find out someone I talk to everyday was a closet reader.  Today, I started sharing with people how cool I thought Mint.com was, to find out another alleged friend had been holding out.  Ironically, anyone who knows this person would label him as financially irresponsible at best, he knows who he is.  I promise not to do that to you.  This week I'm giving a rose to Mint.com for being simple, free, and attractive personal finance tool.

Given that in two months I'll start working, I've been concerned with money matters and establishing adult habits like budgeting, retirement planning, complaining about taxes, signing up for a health plan, and renting an apartment.  In about 10 minutes, I set up an account on Mint, including credit cards, savings, checking, investment, and student loans to find out that I in July I am worth more dead than alive. (Stafford loans are canceled if you die and my job pays 50k in life insurance for free)

More importantly though, I was able to see with a simple pie chart where my money is coming and going from.  What would have required me to log into six different websites to see, I can view on one page at the same time.  There are two ways that Mint can make you money though.

1.  You can set it up to warn you if suspicious activity is occurring.
2.  It makes you mindful of your spending.
3.  It will present you with offers for better interest rates and lower fees.

Yes it is like Quicken and Money.  But, I tried Quicken, after 30 minutes I gave up, with Mint, after 10, I was a believer.

This is a time of financial hypervigilance and self-consciousness.  If nothing else, it gives you something to do while Facebook loads.  And for iPhone owners, there is an app that sounds as slick as the site.  Mint.com

And We're Back

So after the fiasco with my computer last week I decided to buy a new laptop instead of buying a stolen used or pawned iBook on ebay, I guess it's not really a laptop. I got an ASUS 10.1" netbook. I also got a $15 hard drive enclosure to make my old HD into an external HD.

Here are the specs if you are wondering.


It was a tough decision and a controversial choice.

My rationale:
1. Now I have a portable Windows platform computer that I can keep even after I get a new Mac.
2. $299
3. The hard drive is 4x larger than my last laptop.
4. I still plan to buy a new Mac with my education fund once I start residency.
5. Billy said it was a good choice.

Anyways, I bought some tools from www.ifixit.com
Yesterday I disasemebled the old iBook. It was interesting to see how easily it all comes apart with a screwdriver. Pictures to follow, but now I have the old components listed on ebay.
My ebay store