The cool part of ultrasounds is that you can usually see the screen.

Unless they won't let you--like those bastards at NY Methodist!

Bastards, indeed. If you can't be amused by watching blurred pictures of your insides, the whole process becomes a pit of sticky boredom.

If you can't be amused by watching blurred pictures of your insides, the whole process becomes a pit of sticky boredom.

Especially when you have some freakish alien life form growing inside you.

Yeah, when you have a freakish alien life form growing inside you, you need all the distraction you can get.

Now I'm envisioning a movie scene in which the patient is watching the ultrasound screen as the alien life form comes alive and eats the ultrasound technician.

Especially when you have some freakish alien life form growing inside you.

Well, of a sort. But that was my point, their argument was that legally I couldn't see it and that a doctor had to interpret the results for me. Um, somehow I don't think that you give that spiel to pregnant women.

Vegan Strippers

TWO things that you can find a lot of in Portland, Ore., are vegans and strip clubs. Johnny Diablo decided to open a business to combine both. At his Casa Diablo Gentlemen’s Club, soy protein replaces beef in the tacos and chimichangas; the dancers wear pleather, not leather. Many are vegans or vegetarians themselves.

But Portland is also home to a lot of young feminists, and some are not happy with Mr. Diablo’s venture. Since he opened the strip club last month, their complaints have been “all over the Internet,” he said. “One of them came in here once. I could tell she had an attitude right when she came in. She was all hostile.”

Mr. Diablo isn’t concerned with the “feminazis,” as he calls them. As a vegan himself, he says he hasn’t worn or eaten animal products in 24 years and is worried about cruelty to animals. “My sole purpose in this universe is to save every possible creature from pain and suffering,” he said.

OK, Mr. Diablo loses all his bonus points for use of the word "feminazis."

Have any of our lawyers or librarians or others done immigration work?

If I have an Alien number for an individual (A #xxxxxxxxx) and a number that starts Fin #xxxxxxxx, do you know what the Fin # is?

It was really cool when they were clot hunting in my legs with this past edema. Sure, he'd have been done in half the time if I'd stopped asking questions, but that's a lot of nifty tech and I want to know what the pictures mean.

I always want to know.

However there are other ultrasounds. If you get a trans-cranial one there's no goo. But you can't see the screen either, normally. Which is just as well--they're listening to your brain. It might set up some sort of fatal feedback loop.

My juice cleanse starts tomorrow. I'm trying to work out a shopping list with no wheat, gluten, or tyramine that's also low on the dairy for afterwards.

It's all so very weird. I'm not totally committed to no-gluten--that's in case the migraines are linked to celiac disease, but the only way to diagnose the disease is with biopsy. So why jump through that hoop on top of the already unwieldy no-wheat one?

Johnny Diablo is one hell of a name though.

Well, of a sort. But that was my point, their argument was that legally I couldn't see it and that a doctor had to interpret the results for me. Um, somehow I don't think that you give that spiel to pregnant women.

Huh. I can see the "we're not allowed to interpret it" thing, as an x-ray technician told me that when she showed me my x-ray and pointed to where the break was....