Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Squeeeee!!!

Holy sh*t I actually won something!

I MedicMatthew have been notified that I actually frickin' won something. A new addition to the MedicMatthew armory- a Tactical Police Shotgun from FN.

fntactical12ga

Quick Details:
12ga x3 inch chamber
7+1 round capacity
18 inch barrel
Collapsible stock
Interchangeable choke system
35 inches in length
black finish

Monday, November 24, 2008

When did my demographic become so stupid?






Hear that? Off in the distance?

That is the sound of me losing faith in my fellow man.


What the hell happened to basic civics? When did people just sit back and absorb all that the media has spoon fed them? When did my demographic start considering The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. to be the news and not comedy?

*sigh*

H/T to Xavier for referring me to this.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I love the passionate way in which Keith Olbermann speaks in his "Special Comments" on his show. Be it gay marriage or the loss of habeas corpus.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Please note.

When in the course of current events human discourse dissolves into partisan pissing contests amounting to "my party/theory/candidate/view/idea/cola/religion/news channel/favorite color is better than yours!" and when challenged your rebuttal consists of "neener neener neener" then it is time for you to please shut the fuck up, already.

And if you're going to quote my previous anti-Palin post in which I called her an "ignorant, vapid twit" please take into consideration that Mrs. Palin clearly exposed her lack of knowledge of basic government civics- this is a prime example of ignorance and vapidity. And also do me a favor and take into consideration my anti-Obama comments left on other blogs written by people who were far better at summarizing my feelings toward The Chosen One. I unfortunately am not about to cite these comments as I do not feel like trolling through hundreds of blog entries right now to find them. Also please consider that you have absolutely no idea whose name I selected while I was standing in the voting booth. Did I vote McCain? Did I vote Obama? Frankly I despised both candidates equally and think we would have been screwed with either candidate and that it was simply a matter of deciding in which way we want to be screwed. You may make your assumptions as to which candidate I voted for but you will probably be wrong and you will never know who I voted for and I plan on keeping it that way.

I will, however, concede that it was indeed childish of me to use the words "twit" and "airhead" in reference to Mrs. Palin and for that I am sorry; however I still stand by my opinion that she is ignorant. In regards to the matter of the recent election and in regards to all matters I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with my opinions just as I'm sure all of you don't expect me or the rest of your readership to agree with 100% of your opinions. But please, if you're going to make a statement then you need to be able to support it.


xoxo,
Matthew

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Conversation with EpiJunky

After reading Epi's post tonight

MM: *gasp* you weren't married in the church?
Epi: Shush.
MM: blasphemer!
Epi: Surely I am going to hell.
MM: heretic!
MM: oh honey, i'll be sure to save you a seat when I get there
MM: we'll live blog it
Epi: LOL
Epi: Absolutely.

Monday, November 10, 2008

meme-ish

So Marko recently challenged his readers to a little exercise: if you could give your 14-year-old self a brief piece of advice from your present self, what would it be?

I think that if I could offer a bit of advice to myself fifteen years ago it would have to be this: 1.) Yes, you've got mad vocal skills, but you're not going to be a rock star 2.) Seriously, you dig musicals, you're a Bette Midler fan, and you're oddly fascinated with that guy on the baseball team, YOU'RE GAY, and 3.) Won't worry, Mom & Dad won't freak out when you tell them.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Absolute Grace

Untitled.

I'm not asking anyone to agree with my views. I'm not preaching my views. I'm not proselytizing. I'm merely recognizing an accomplishment. One thing that no one can deny is that the next President of the United States of America has mobilized millions of Americans into giving a damn. Here is to hoping that those inspired Americans will take an active part in their government and push for what is right and continue to teach the generations to come that indeed anything is possible.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Dear blogosphere,

I am sick of your political rantings. I don't give a damn what your political leaning is. Please STFU.
xoxo,
~Matthew

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Finally

I posted a stub a while ago and just have been slack in writing the post. Unfortunately when I wrote the stub I had this grand post in mind, but now that I write it it sounds kinda dull. My apologies.

The service I work at covers over 2800 square miles of Western Maine and today I was on shift at the centrally located base, the one that historically has been the crutch for the system. It was a beautiful drive north from the homestead, the fall foliage has more or less peaked and the leaves are starting to fade to dull colors and soon they will fall from the trees altogether. A routine check of the ambulance was completed and off we went to the hospital where I had the supreme pleasure of being an evaluator for a disaster drill. The event was overly unremarkable with the general conclusion being that we need to communicate better. Strange how this is a recurring theme but nothing is ever done to remedy the situation.

Early in the afternoon my partner and I returned to our base for what I hoped would be an uneventful afternoon. My shift was to end at 1800 hours and it would have been entirely peaceful but one of our northern crews was dispatched to pick up an injured hiker on a rough mountain trail and given our position in the middle of the county we moved north to cover their station while they were out. Now, these back country rescues can be short & sweet or they can be long & complicated requiring many people to help move the patient. Unfortunately this particular resue proved to be the latter.

The base that I was working at is about 35 miles from the homestead, while not a particularly long commute is is through some rather rural country. After moving north we were then an additional 20 miles northeast of our assigned base. I never really felt this way about the region before, perhaps now it has something to do with spending the last ten months living in the city, but there are days when the three northern bases each seem to be a remote outpost. Upon arrival at the northeastern base I felt a bit as though I were arriving at the basecamp of a remote operation.

Prior to leaving our base my partner and I stocked up on a few items we might need should we find ourselves off the road somewhere- cold weather gear, water, energy bars and the like. While moving toward this other base to cover we stopped at one of VERY few grocery stores to grab a bite to eat and then we proceeded to the base. We checked in with the rescue crew to see if anything was needed and then settled in for what we hoped would be a short time. Upon learning that in addition to the northeastern mountain rescue apparently the northwestern base also had a mountain rescue going on. This left my partner and I to cover the majority of the service area. Thankfully one other medic dispatched to the rescue was relieved of her duties by a medic with back-country/wilderness training, this allowed her and a firefighter to cover the northeastern base while I was able to move back to my base with my partner. Granted this was spreading the system a bit thin but sometimes you need to do what you need to do. Fortunately my base closes its operations at 1800 hours each day so because of this we were able to eventually free up more personnel to better cover the region, however shortly after 1800 hours a call came in and the other crew made up of my partner and the other medic responded to a call approximately 45 miles away for a patient bleeding from the face after a motor vehicle accident. Given that my base shut down at 1800 the other medic elected to respond with my partner and because of the timing I remained at the base with the firefighter.

We have some great first responder/QRS agencies in this region and we have a couple that are, well, less than stellar. The crew responding to the MVC was 30 miles in to their response when a first responder came over the air advising that the patient wishes to sign a refusal and that they, the crew of a Maine EMS licensed first responder service would be standing by waiting for the arrival of the ambulance. At this point I really wished I could be a fly on the wall of the cab of the ambulance to hear the profanity that I knew must be escaping the mouth of the medic, but she managed to gently remind them that they were more than capable of obtaining a refusal signature. Fortunately for me they were able to return to the base and I was able to go home only two hours after the scheduled end of my shift. By the days end I had racked up more than 175 miles just moving from one facility to another, not even taking in to consideration the handful of rugby related calls I responded to during the day. we cover a big area, we cover a very rural, we cover a rather economically depressed area. There are days when I love it and there are days when I don't like it so much, but still, I wouldn't have it any other way.