Halos & pitchforks

A while back I lived in a godforsaken town that shall forever remain nameless and plausibly denied. This town had a newspaper that ran a miscellaneous little column called Halos & Pitchforks. It gave kudos to peeps who deserved it, and put the smackdown on douchenozzles who had it coming. Well, so will I.

Pitchforks go out to my thyroid gland, which, for reasons still unknown, are slacking in the thyroxine-production department, despite an increased kick in the pants from the pituitary gland. Halos go out to newly-discovered medical scrub designer brand Koi for making me look (and feel somewhat) skinny again.

See how this works? Let's proceed...

Pitchforks to my neighbors downstairs who insist on blasting Tejano all day on weekends. Halos to speaker manufacturers that still make good speakers that I can lay facedown into the floor to childishly retaliate with music of my own.

Pitchforks to the lab companies who make things so unnecessarily difficult by treating lower-volume (read: not a cattle call hospital) doctors like something south of bathtub scum. Halos to the third-party middlemen that actually make ordering labs borderline-pleasurable.

Halos to Mac for making awesome iWork templates and on-board basic-but-dignified website-building software. No pitchforks at all...except maybe for that spinning colorwheel. But we all now that's Firefox's fault.

Pitchforks to the prospective patients who badger me about pricing when I have already friendly-but-firmly stated I could not discuss that until the appropriate time (implying that a free, general info session doesn't qualify as such). Halos when they sign up anyway...we'll see.

Halos to medical bookstores. Pitchforks to the chiro colleges who can't seem to emulate a med school's dignity. Welcome to trade school uncertainty and marketing at med school prices and stress.

Halos to the brave souls sticking their necks out to help drive the evolution of our profession. Pitchforks to those who seek to limit us all by trying to force their philosophical dogmatic decisions on the rest of us.

Halos to spellcheck. Pitchforks to those who can't seem to use it...or worse, ignore it.

Halos to my mother for her addictive granola, cowboy boot pen-holders, and kick-butt fashionably-sewed vests.

Pitchforks to repetitive commercials on TV. Pitchforks to me for watching too much of said TV LOL

Halos to colleagues I follow on Twitter who follow me in return. Pitchforks to those who don't return the favor.

Pitchforks to AT&T who seem to have suspiciously slowed down their network for the iPhone 3 holders (who wish not to upgrade) the millisecond the iPhone 4 came out. Halos to Apple for making the iPhone in the first place. Pitchforks AT&T...yes, again.

In fact, pitchforks to all companies who are increasingly forcing people into bundled services and long contracts. No halo to be had there. Sorry.

Halos to Google for such feature-rich tools, like satellite maps and being able to search for images by their predominant color hues. Pitchforks that it takes so damn long to load...still waiting.

Pitchforks to AT&T. Again.