I am so sick of wimpy pharmacists.

Q. Do you have any suggestions on how to keep children from accidentally or purposefully taking prescription medication? Also, what are the dangers of taking expired medication?

A. "My personal belief is that parents have to be responsible," said Trisha Hufnagel, a pharmacist at UCI Medical Center Specialty Pharmacy.

Lock your prescriptions into a cabinet to keep children from getting to the drugs, Hufnagel suggested.

If your children have to take a daily medication, it may also be a good idea to purchase a daily container and ration out the medication, instead of handing out a bottle of 60 pills.

As for the second question, you should regularly go through your medicine cabinet and dump out any expired medication, Hufnagel said.

"There's an expiration date for a reason," she added.

For instance, heart medications may lose their potency after a certain time. Other medicine may disintegrate and can become toxic, Hufnagel said.

You are correct UCI Medical Center Pharmacist, the expiration date is there for a reason: The Food and Drug Administration thought it would be a good idea in 1979. Since I am no longer allowed to surf the web at work you will just have to trust me: this date is (and has always been) an arbitrary number. Sure medications expire at some point, but they do not magically go bad the day after the expiration date. "Heart medications may lose their potency..." Maybe nitrogylcerin will lose its potency, and it won't be able to rescue you when you are having a heart attack (that's bad); so let's make that sentence read: "A heart medication may lose it's potency..." As for drugs disintegrating and becoming toxic. If I were searching the web, I bet I would be able to find 1 case report involving expired tetracycline and renal failure (from the 1950s). Here's an interesting newspaper article on the subject of expired drugs.

I guess I need some kind of disclaimer: I do not think it is illegal for me to recommend the use of expired medications in this great State of California, but just in case it is: I am in no way recommending that you use expired medications. By reading this blog, the reader assumes any (and all) risk for any harm suffered from any actions (or inactions) taken on the reader's part.

In dining news: Restaurant Week in the OC. Nicole and I were in Vancouver at about this time last year, and the downtown dining establishments were running a similar program...only they call it "Dine Out Vancouver." I guess it's the kind of thing restaurants do when there are no tourists. Anyway, I plan on eating in many expensive restaurants for $26.95. My picks for the week are: Abe, Bayside, The Bungalow, Oysters, and The Arches.

This week's sign that the apocalypse is upon us.

Myspace and Friendster are blocked at work. Somehow, my cubicle neighbor Sharon (who is blogless) has been maintaining this page for two years. I think Frodo has more friends than I do.

Vegetarian Fajita Burrito at Chipotle (no sour cream) has 1,058 calories. That's pretty impressive.

Back to work.

We've been trying to get rid of some old bottles of wine these last few days. Nicole was making something that needed a glass of white, I can no longer remember what that was...


I started it off by opening the 1999 Martini & Prati Chardonnay. This winery used to be famous for selling freshly made jug wine, which made for a rather fun visit. My quick google search tells me that Martin Ray bought the place. The bottle of chardonnay was an afterthought; it was probably not terribly good 7 years ago, and it did not age well. Down the sink it went.

Next I opened the bottle of 2001(?) University of the Pacific (white wine). Did one of Nicole's former classmates give that to us? Is it something that the college sends to all their alumni? The cork crumbled while I was pulling it out; 5 year old UOP white with a bad cork might very well be the worst wine I have ever tasted...this one went down the sink, as well.

Finally, 2001 Penfolds Chardonnay. This bottle was a Wine Spectator 90+ point wine when I bought it, and I remember it being decent. After 5 years, it ended up on the sweet side.
Nicole cooked with a glass, we each drank a glass, and dumped the rest.

3 bottles down, one hundred something to go.

If I did it.

There have been complaints that part of my last post was not terribly clear: I suppose I should just write that I came out ahead on the weekend...because I did not run into any coworkers and/or friends in Vegas that were bad luck at the craps table, causing me to finish the trip a few dollars above even.

I would like to correct that paragraph to read: "If I did run into any coworkers and/or friends in Vegas, they would have been bad luck at the craps table, causing me to finish the trip a few dollars above even."

With those updates aside, Happy New Year everybody. Effective January 1st (or was it December 30), these new rules are to be enforced here at the old RxSolutions. Here's to assuming that these policies were written for the low level phone operators, and that those of us with 8+ years of education will still be allowed to do cross word puzzles at our desks. Just in case, I thought I'd bring in my carnivorous garden, a Christmas present from Jenny, as carnivorous plants do not appear to be specifically prohibited by the new rules. However, I do not recall ever seeing a fly here in cubicle hell. Does anybody know if venus fly traps need insects to survive, or do they hunt just for fun? I would check myself, but I am trying to limit the web surfing at work...

The other one was the only person to buy me anything off of my amazon wish list (please notice that some of the items have been up there for over 3 years). If I did learn how to convert the soundtrack of a dvd to an audio cd, I would be playing this cool Pixies DVD in my car right now. Unfortunately, I would not have fully mastered the procedure yet, and the entire DVD would be one long (102 minute) track.

Back to work.

Heathen Christmas.

Long time readers may remember that I typically spend Christmas looking for places that are not closed. Gentile readers: you have probably not noticed that everything is closed on Christmas. Many of you will probably tell me movie theaters are open on Christmas. Yes, I know movie theaters are open on Christmas. Movies on Christmas are for people who want to get away from their families after Uncle Lou has passed out on the couch. You cannot spend 16 hours in a movie theater.

So with all this in mind, Nico and I headed to Las Vegas for the weekend. Vegas is a great place to Christmas...if you are not looking very carefully, you will not even notice that it's a holiday.

Among my favorite things to do in Vegas: 1) Root beer floats at the World of Coke. 2) The 3-D movie at M&M's World. I don't even like M&M's...except for Green. I love Green.


I am so through with blackjack. I was a little late in coming to this realization, but things could always be worse. To get away from the evil blackjack tables, I played in a No Limit Texas Hold em' tournament at the Monte Carlo. I've been watching a lot of poker on TV, so I figured I'd be good at it. I lasted a little over an hour, busted one guy, and was the chip leader for a brief while. As the blinds got larger, I made the mistake of calling a $1500 all in bet with a pair of pocket nines. I am pretty sure I was at least slightly favored over my opponent's off suited ace/queen, but he picked up a set of queens on the flop, taking away most of my stack. Nico was afraid to come into the poker room, so I do not have a very good picture of me in my first ever tournament.


For you non-poker players, that last paragraph makes me look like a bit of a high roller. Please note: that was $1500 in tournament chips, not $1500 real dollars. Anyway, Nico and I learned to play craps, and I made back all my blackjack and poker losses. I suppose I should just write that I came out ahead on the weekend...because I did not run into any coworkers and/or friends in Vegas that were bad luck at the craps table, causing me to finish the trip a few dollars above even.

I seem to remember sleeping for a couple of hours in the Century Building of New York New York. East Coasters: Is that a real building? I can't seem to find it anywhere.


We had Christmas (Eve) Dinner at Red Square in Mandalay Bay. Even with our ample bar tab, Nicole's strange fondness for caviar, and the current strength of the ruble this was not the most expensive meal we had ever eaten...I tried to take a cool picture of Nico in front of the headless Lenin, but it did not come out well. (Tana you will have to trust me that she is still alive). Somewhere, Nicole has a photo of herself in front of a non-beheaded Lenin, but that picture predates digital photography, and I have no time to scan it.

My counter has been down for about a week, and I finally got around to replacing it. Starting over at number 1 is quite a drag. Anywho, by popular request: another picture of drunken ICE. What is she doing there? Drinking? I don't believe it.

You know you are going to be served a good martini when your hostess has color coded lemon and lime juicers.


I was going to title this entry: "Trying to taste the difference between a lemon and a lime..." and follow with a picture of the lemon and lime reversed. The picture (not shown) was ICE's idea, but I decided it was more cute than funny. This blog will continue to be all about funny...and hard hitting social commentary. No Cute. Never any Cute.

Well how about some miscellaneous party pictures?

Whenever we have people over, everybody seems to congregate in the kitchen. I spilled so many martinis, that I really shouldn't complain. (Hey Thingnamer, 5 points if you can tell me what the two items in the lower right corner are.)


#1 question overheard during cocktail hour: "Why is Jessica eating bread?" The answer is something like: too many people enabling her drinking problem. That's half of Julie in the picture...she turned out to be a fantastic maker of cosmopolitans.


My pictures all seem a little foggy, I wonder if I shrunk them down too much. Let's finish off with Bill, Jane, and a menorah. Happy end of Hanukkah, everybody. Bill's lovely wife Karen was even better than Julie at avoiding my camera.

Currently playing in the car: Pixies B Sides.

I bought the CD because ever since I saw Eraserhead, "In Heaven" (AKA Lady in the Radiator Song) has been going through my head. I was pretty sure I had heard the song before...I guess it must have been at a Pixies concert.

New David Lynch movie: Inland Empire. Here's an article about it...I think.

But he also adds to his air of mystery by doing things like taking a cow for a walk on a busy Los Angeles intersection or deciding to become a coffee merchant so moviegoers can drink his coffee while watching his films.

Lynch says he walked the cow on a leash because everyone likes a cow. When a young woman the other day asked the cow's handler if she could pet it, he said, "No, the cow's working."

In honor of Cocktail Hour (tomorrow):

A fellow came into a bar and ordered a martini.
Before drinking it, he removed the olive and carefully put it into a glass jar.
Then he ordered another martini and did the same thing.
After an hour, when he was full of martinis and the jar was full of olives, he staggered out.
"Well," said a customer, "I never saw anything as peculiar as that!"
"What's so peculiar about it?" the bartender said. "His wife sent him out for a jar of olives."