Wellsphere

Alright, so you all remember my post about the company that was trying to get my content on their site? If not, refresh your memories here.

I politely declined their invitation. Hee hee.

But the aforementioned company was a place called Wellsphere.

Well, as I mentioned in that post, alot of other medical bloggers had been contacted about also allowing their content to be on the site.

But the catch was, if you offered to put your posts on the site, they became the intellectual property of Wellsphere.

This catch was written in small print in the Terms and Conditions page. And everyone knows that rarely anyone reads the Terms and Conditions when signing up for things. I know I don't alot of times.

But since then, I've started to!

So Wellsphere and it's content provided by over 1,500 bloggers has recently been sold to Health Central Network.

Which means all of it's intellectual property is now HCN's intellctual property. And they got money for it.

None of the bloggers who contributed to the site saw as much as a penny.

Fair? I think not. After you've checked my blog post and the two at the bottom, feel free to spread the word. Also- make sure to check out Dr. Anonymous' BlogtalkRadio show tonight! We'll be discussing Wellsphere and it's diabolical plans!
For further reading, see these blog posts. Written by very smart women who put it much more eloquently than I ever could.
Dr. Val sums this situation up very nicely here.

Helen Jaques provides an amazing take on all of this.

Dear Mr. Used-to-be-President Bush

An open letter to the previous president of the United States. He might not have been the most popular president in the world, but he was my president. And I liked him. And I've always wanted to hang with him, so here's my letter.

Dear George W. Bush-

So, now that you aren't the president anymore, I bet you have alot of time on your hands, huh? Not so busy doing important things and talking to important people anymore I bet. So . . . what'cha doin'? Got any plans? I mean, now that you have time for other things. . . d'ya wanna be my best friend? I hear I make a pretty good best friend, and I've always really wanted to meet you. But seeing as you were always so busy with presidential things, and I've always been busy doing. . . kid stuff. I mean, you've been the president since I was 12! I grew up with you as the president! And I'm going to miss seeing you on tv! So I figure if we're best friends and hang out alot, I won't miss you so much! It's really the only solution I can see. I promise to never be mean or throw shoes, and if you want to play tic tac toe, I'm fine with that. If we play battleship, I want to be the red board, and if we play checkers, I'd prefer to be the black. But you can choose what color you want if we play chess and if we disagree on which movie to watch on movie night, I'll gladly play you in rock, paper, scissors to decide which one we watch. But I promise to never make you watch a chick flick. We'll stick to action, comedy and drama. I hope you can get this letter. Thanks!

Sincerely,

Mary

Sugar and Spice but I'm not very nice.

Oh guh-ross! Barbies?? Blegh! I do not like Barbies. The doll that looks like it belongs in the playboy mansion. The doll that comes with . . . *shudder* Unicorns and. . . blegh, adorable pink bunnies, and even worse-

A career!

I just saw a commercial for Barbie. And let me tell you. I wasn't wrong to distrust those plastic boob havin' , 1950's Doris Day lookin', unattainable goal projectin' . . . punks!

Growing up, I played with toy dinosaurs. Those things are awesome. And they were the kind that had the name on the belly so you could tell what dinosaur you were playing with. I had two Pachycephalosauri who constantly bumped heads with my one triceratops. One Anklyosaurus, who liked to bludgeon my Iguanodon, a Tyranosaurus Rex, and an orange one that was bigger than the t-rex, but didn't have a name on the bottom. But he was a carnivore for sure.

Anyway, so whilst I was playing with my dinosaurs, my best friend was playing with barbies. When she brought barbies over to my house, I would play with them, yeah. But they'd be doing something awesome. Like re-enacting some scene from Rambo, or flying.

My mom never bought me Barbies. And I thank her endlessly for that.

This commercial I saw just a few minutes ago had the usual Barbie commercial song. Stating that you can "Be who you want to be! B-a-r-b-i-e!"

And you know what career they were giving her today? Today- the inaugural day of the first Black President. Today- nine years and twenty days into the twenty-first century. Today! The time when women can not only vote, but can also have careers and lives outside of housework and homemaking!! Hallelujah the strides we've made!

And today- Barbie was cooking. Barbie was making pie, I think, to be more specific.

Now, what's wrong with cooking? Nothing- lots of people do it. What's wrong with pie? Nothing, I enjoy pie, and I myself can make a pretty mean apple pie.

What's wrong with the commercial? Everything. Barbie is a sort of example for girls out there. A sort of spokeswoman if you would. And you know what she was telling your little girl? She was telling your girl to be who she wants to be. . . as long as it's feminine.

See, I have this sort of problem with these sorts of ads. I have a definite problem with multiple toy commercials. Commercials for barbies, commercials for hot wheels, commercials for video games, etc.

Any commercial that tries to draw a line and put "toys for little boys" on one side and "toys for little girls" on the other gets on my last nerve.

And McDonalds is the worst! Every month or so, they come out with a new promotion. Giving away new toys in their happy meals for little boys and girls to enjoy. What's the big deal? I'll TELL YOU what the big deal is! When you order a happy meal for your kid, they give you a specific toy based on the gender of your child. If you have a little boy, he gets a hotwheels car. If it's a girl, she probably gets a pretty little barbie.

But what if your little girl doesn't want to be restrained by the ideals of society? What if all your little girl wants to do is race her brother down a mountain with a wicked awesome car? Well too bad, little girl. You'll lose that race. Because you know what? Barbies don't come with wheels, specialty paint jobs and amazing modifications (. . . insert joke here). Barbies come with dresses and aprons and cleaning supplies. And those don't stand a chance against brother's new corvette up on that racing mountain. Not a chance.





Little Tikes Hot Wheels Car Adventure Mountain




Weird but relevant- Whenever I get happy meals, I always have to specify that I want a "boy toy" (. . again, insert your own joke here).

My first (kinda) Video Post. . .

. . . In which I make a fool of myself.

Ummm. . . alright, so. . . . . . . . .

I was bored. . . it was late. . . my camera was, like, right there waiting to be used. . .

Sooooooooo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . yeah.

I pretty much started off by saying hi and about two seconds into it, I thought that I was starting off my video the way that Doc A usually does. So I got a little carried away pretending to be everyone's favorite medblogger/podcaster. But it was fun. You have no idea how hard it was keeping a straight face.

Also- sorry but it's kinda sideways. I would've fixed it, but I honestly didn't want to spend that much time on it. I'm lazy. (Ask my mom- she'll tell ya all about it.)

So learn to deal. And just so you don't have to look sideways to see me right side up, I'll even put up a picture!

Awesome Hat was made by my friend Lisa's Mom! Thanks Lisa's Mom!! How awesome! I love it and I'll probably be wearing it nonstop for a while. I love it!

Awesome Polka-Dot Long Johns were bought for me by momma

Awesome Pink Tank-top was bought by me from some store down in Myrtle Beach this summer.

The vid is kinda dark, so I don't know if you'll be able to see that well. It was lighter on my camera . . .

Don't forget to check out the REAL Doc A show! Show number 67 this Thursday, January 15th, at 9pm Eastern time! It's gonna be gooood!

Ninja Ropes

Ninja Ropes. It's a game of skill, intuition, luck and a bit of hand eye coordination. And it only works on. . . firefox. Well, at least for me. It's the only thing I use firefox for.

The Game:
Ninja Ropes Extreme

I have that open at the same time as I have youtube open. Because for some odd reason, Ninja Ropes only lets me get a super high score when I'm listening to the Ninja Ropes song. Here it is for you all to enjoy!

The Song:


The song came from "Commentary- The Musical!" which is a musical commentary that came with the DVD version of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog". It's a pretty awesome movie. When you have 42 spare minutes, go check it out for free on hulu.com !

The Movie:
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

I've never been the biggest fan of the director (Joss Whedon) before. I'm just not into the whole vampires, sci-fi, etc thing. I mean, it's not like they weren't good shows- I've seen an episode or two, they're just not my bag.

But this was fun. Dr. Horrible was brilliant. The songs are addicting and the acting is hilariously well done. I think I'm actually a huge fan of Neil Patrick Harris now. I had no idea he could sing that well and his acting was superb. I even went back and watched a few episodes of his early series Doogie Howser, MD (also on hulu) and am now a fan!

So play the game, listen to the song, check out the movie, and have fun!

My Ninja Ropes record:

83.39 Yards Can ya beat it?

Screenshot Proof:

Extra Credit if you can see whose blogs I have bookmarked up at the top there. Speaks volumes.