One of the ER nurses informed me of my "amazing karma" yesterday. I left at about 8am when the morning shift arrived to take over the resus area. Had been sitting around for the past 3 hours prior to that, with ZERO cases, woohoo! Was crossing my fingers as 8am approached, and zoomed outta there once my friend came on. 5 minutes later, 5 people involved in a road traffic accident were brought in together, swamping the resus room. Apparently, some of them were in pretty bad shape. A close call for me, though. Whew :)

The Emmys 2003

Tuned in to the live telecast after my night shift, and have no regrets whatsoever. It was really funny, especially the bit with Dennis Miller reading some innocuous lines which were later followed by hilarious / racy video clips (e.g. the Britney / Madonna kiss -- the Singapore censors couldn't snip this one this time, haha!; Kobe Bryant -- "touching young fans", heh heh ). At one point, it got so goofy Miller paused to shake his head and say, "I'm just reading the prompter!"
Then there was George Lopez, a guy I saw for the very first time, but who had me laughing a lot when he said, "I'm the Lopez you're not sick of." :D :D
Damon Wayans was probably the only one who fell flat with his "joke" ( more like a major insult, really ) -- he said something about Doris Roberts ( from "Everybody Loves Raymond" ) being over a hundred years old, eliciting a very pained expression from the poor woman, and a shocked gasp from the audience. Tsk tsk tsk!

Not many suprises in the major categories -- "The West Wing" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" took top honours, while "CSI" and "Six Feet Under" got left out in the cold ( but who cares really, when "CSI" continues to win the ratings game? ). I was extremely happy when Tony Shalhoub from the excellent detective dramedy series "Monk" got the award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. He's such a fine actor, and Adrian Monk is one of my favourite TV characters of all time, so my eyes teared up during his acceptance speech. Many congratulations!!!

Was also saddened by the tribute to John Ritter, who died in his early 50s (not familiar with the exact cause). I grew up watching his shows, and recently saw him on Ally McBeal, where he played a really sweet fellow who fell in love with her but couldn't make any headway because he was already dating Ally's secretary, Elaine, whom she couldn't bring herself to betray. Ritter nailed that character, and I'll always remember this little dance he did as a farewell to Ally -- wiggling off down a busy street while Ally tried to suppress a smile. Ritter will always remain in our hearts, and yes, I always grin when he comes to mind. He will be greatly missed.

More from Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up -- had a hard time getting my breakfast down this morning. :D

On bad songs:

It would not trouble me if the radio totally ceased playing ballad-style songs by Neil Diamond. I realize that many of you are huge Neil Diamond fans, so let me stress that in matters of musical taste, everybody is entitled to an opinion, and yours is wrong. Consider the song "I Am, I Said", where Neil, with great emotion, sings:

I am, I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair.

What kind of line is that? Is Neil telling us he's surprised that the chair didn't hear him? Maybe he expected the chair to say, "Whoa, I heard THAT." MY guess is that Neil was really desperate to come up with something to rhyme with "there", and he had already rejected "So I ate a pear", "Like Smokey the Bear", and "There were nits in my hair".

Well, it turns out there are some major Neil Diamond fans out there in Readerland. They sent me a large pile of hostile mail with mouth froth spewing out of the envelope seams. In the interest of journalistic fairness, I will summarize their main arguments here:

Dear Pukenose:
Just who the hell do you think you are to blah blah a great artiste like Neil blah blah more than 20 gold records blah blah how many gold records do YOU have, you scumsucking wad of blah blah I personally have attended 1,794 of Neil's concerts blah blah What about "Love On The Rocks"? Huh? What about "Cracklin' Rosie"? blah blah if you had ONE TENTH of Neil's talent blah blah so I listened to "Heart Light" 40 times in a row and the next day the cyst was GONE and the doctor said he had never seen such a rapid blah blah. What about "Play Me"? What about "Song Sung Blah"? Cancel my subscription, if I have one.

I need a moment here. A patient lying on the trolley nearby is giving me a "You're nuts" look. :P