I’m on the cover of the May 31, 2010 issue of TIME Magazine – and I didn’t commit a crime (yay) or win a Nobel Prize (aww) to get there! Here’s an image of the cover as a whole:

Image courtesy TIME Magazine.

And here’s one of a closeup of where I am, with my profile photo circled, courtesy of my friend Scott Joy.

Pretty nifty, huh? A lot of people have been asking how this is possible, and to be honest, I knew it could happen . . . because Facebook’s privacy settings suck. Just kidding. I think it was a couple of weeks ago that I noticed that Scott had joined a Facebook group called I Want To Be in TIME. The premise was, if you joined the group, you were giving the people at TIME permission to use your profile photo for their cover. They also privately messaged the group’s members, asking questions that I presume were for the accompanying cover story – I wouldn’t know, as I haven’t seen the magazine itself yet: While the issue has hit stands on the mainland U.S., new issues of TIME typically don’t hit stores in Hawai‘i until Monday or Tuesday.

Needless to say, I can’t wait to get my hands on an issue! This is kind of like being an extra on “LOST” – I can show you that I was there, but unless I pointed it out to you, you wouldn’t notice. Apparently, this is the story of my life!

Good news: The “Hawaii Five-O” remake has made the CBS fall lineup! It is slated to take the spot that’s currently occupied by “CSI Miami” (important to note that it’s not replacing “Miami” – apparently, that’s just being moved to another time slot).

CBS released video of the updated intro today, and the web is abuzz with opinions. Here ’tis:

For the sake of comparison, here’s the original opening:

Interesting, huh? I love how the new version includes updated versions of some of the original shots. My boss is entertained by the concept of the female agent doing martial arts in a sun dress. Ha.

What do you think? “Hawaii Five-O” is a little near and dear to kama‘aina hearts, so we’re anxious to see how endearing this updated version will be!

I hurt myself at work today while fetching the mail. The way the mail works in our building is, either the postal carrier puts whatever you have in the little box assigned to you as a tenant, or he/she puts a key in your box with a tag on it, and that key opens one of the larger drawers that sits under the mailboxes for oversized envelopes and larger volumes of mail. Today was a large-volume day, so I found a yellow-tagged key in our mailbox, and I proceeded to open Drawer #25 below, as instructed by the tag.

Of course, even this drawer was slightly overstuffed, so when I inserted the key and tugged on the handle, #25 provided some resistance. Not one to give up, I reached my right hand into the drawer from the top and pulled.

OUCH.

The blood was flowing to the surface of my right index finger as I snatched it out of the drawer. I looked in to find the culprit: a very sharp, slightly hook-shaped curve that seemed to serve no function but was, nonetheless, melded to the rest of the lock mechanism. It was slightly rusted . . . but I wasn’t too concerned, as I was fairly certain that all my shots were up to date. So I grabbed the mail, dropped the Drawer #25 key into the drawer before sliding it back shut and headed upstairs before I bled all over the department’s mail (including my own, thank you very much). While I sorted through the mail, I nonchalantly called the doctor’s office to confirm the date of my last tetanus booster.

July 2000. And they’re only good for about 10 years.

Greeeeaaaat.

I consulted the family “doctors” (a.k.a. my husband and my mother, who never cease to have opinions about these things), who naturally recommended aggressive treatment. Doubting their ability to remain objective in the face of a 1-cm wide, 3mm-deep gash on my fingertip, I consulted Wikipedia. (Let’s be honest here: I use Wikipedia for everything.) The incubation period for tetanus, per The Source of All Sources, can be eight days to several months.

Holy moly.

So I could be fine today . . . and tomorrow . . . and even next week . . . and then like, six weeks from now, when I’m at Wrigley Field cussing out Zambrano, my jaw could lock up? No thanks.

So that was that. I called the doctor’s office back and told them I would be by in a couple of hours to get a tetanus booster.

My doctor’s office is just two miles from my office. But of course, thanks to the sheer genius of the City & County of Honolulu’s transportation people, I spent over an hour on the road, round trip. All for a tiny cut on my finger. All because the postal carrier overstuffed the freaking mail drawer. All because – what the hell was a sharp metal piece DOING in that drawer anyway.

But at least I can rest assured that, unless the vaccine is defective, my jaw won’t lock up on me while I play armchair manager at the Cubs games next month.

I just realized that I only covered half of our last trip. For shame! We also had a great time visiting with my aunt and uncle in Maryland and the surrounding area, including our nation’s capital (where only one tree along the tidal basin actually had any cherry blossoms left) . . .

. . . Luray Caverns in Virginia, the highlight of which is always Dream Lake, which features an awesome reflection of its stalactites . . .

. . . having even more oysters at Faidley’s raw seafood bar in Lexington Market, courtesy of Bill Adams . . .

. . . and touring Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles.

Fun, even though I got pretty sunburned in D.C. :o)

I try to keep this blog lighthearted and entertaining, but – BUT! – I must make a comment on this because it has been all over the freakin’ news, and that just upsets me as a scientist:

Policy and individual-level recommendations, especially those that come out of groups that are led by MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS, should be based in evidence.

It is true that we do not have enough conclusive evidence regarding things like the effects of cell phone use on the development of brain tumors. This means we need more research. This does not mean that we should recommend that people text instead of making cell phone calls and keep calls short, as there is no science to back this recommendation – especially when those making the recommendation even cite a “2009 meta-analysis of 23 case-control studies involving almost 38,000 people (that) found no connection between cell phone use and cancerous or benign tumors.” In other words, we don’t know that there’s a connection, but just in case, let’s freak people out. All this recommendation does is cut the credibility of the people who made it.

I’m talking to you, President’s Cancer Panel.

Not that the entire report released last week is a sham. In fact, it raises many valuable questions that we as Americans should demand answers to, including regarding the effects of various radio frequency emissions, agricultural chemicals, naturally occurring radon and medical pollution. But we MUST use science, not fear, to drive policy and recommendations.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming . . . in which the Cubs get pummeled by the Cincinnati Reds two games in a row. Hmm. Maybe we should stick to science after all. :oP

I saw a kid – like a five-year-old – wearing a certain T-shirt the other day, and at first, I thought it was really rude that his parents would let him run around looking like a little racist. But then I realized that the back (or was it the bottom – whatever) of his shirt said “Yo Gabba Gabba,” and the dude on his shirt was not a random non-white guy in a weird pose, but was in fact DJ Lance from the show of that name.

Still. I would never let any kid under my supervision walk around the mall wearing this:

I thought I gave myself a hernia at the gym tonight, but I didn’t.

Cha-ching. One thing went right today.

So in the past week, I learned that . . .

• One of my friends (and her family) will no longer be moving (back) to Hawai‘i after all. Huge bummer.
• I have to find an ENT sooner rather than later because I had been counting on said friend’s husband to be my ENT when they moved here.
• My hearing is crappier than I thought. Before, I knew you were talking to me, I just didn’t necessarily understand what you were saying. Apparently, now I don’t always know you’re even talking at all. Whoops.
• One of my friends is getting married next week . . . in her backyard.
• One of my friends is moving to the mainland.
• One of my friends may be moving to another country.
• A new take-and-bake pizza joint opened about a mile away from my house, pretty much out of nowhere. It’s like they bought the shop pre-fab and set it up overnight.

Needless to say, it’s been an interesting week, and that’s not even counting all the drama at work, and work has been crazy. Vacation, anyone?!

The Cubs kinda suck right now. Yeah, it’s really early in the season, but it’s still bad enough to make you cry, especially since the Blackhawks aren’t doing enough to distract us in the NHL playoffs. Step it up, Patrick Kane.

Random thoughts:

- Ryan Dempster should, at this point, have three in the win column, but he’s only 1-0 because the offense isn’t coming through to back him up. We all know how I love Demp and how he’s been my favorite Cub since the departure of Mark Prior, so I won’t go on.

- Zambrano’s demotion to the bullpen this week has got the press and the fans buzzing, and not in a good way. Everybody seems to be picking on the fact that Gorzelanny is still in the starting rotation. All I’ll say is, you won’t hear me crying. It’s bad enough that I have the Elton John apologists coming here to complain in the comments; I don’t need the Z sympathizers griping here, too.

- Soriano. WTF. Pretty sure we’ll still be booing him mid-season.

Maybe I won’t blog about the Cubs anymore. It hurts too much. :oP

If you’d like to leave your thoughts, please remember that I’m not going to your blog and ragging you about your opinions. Please also consider that you won’t change my mind about anything I’ve said here by being rude. (OK, you won’t change my mind, period, but a little politeness goes a long way.)

This is going to sound weird, but I’m super curious: Does anybody know what happened to the hen that used to wander around in the yard of that house on Pi‘ikoi? If you live in Honolulu, you know which house I mean – it’s the one on the right as you make the turn onto the H-1 Koko Head-bound onramp.

That chicken used to entertain me every afternoon as I headed home from work. The people who live in that house have an odd assortment of knickknacks in their yard, including an elephant statue that came up to the chicken’s shoulders in height, and the chicken loved to hang around that elephant. The juxtaposition was so ridiculous, it cracked me up every time. They also have a sculpture of an Indian head that’s about the same height. Anyway, between the lawn ornaments and the chicken, I was sufficiently amused.

Sometimes, that chicken would seemingly “disappear” for up to weeks at a time. Once, I didn’t see herfor a good three weeks, and I thought for sure she was a goner. But then one day, she reappeared – I guess she was just hanging out on the mauka side of the property, out of street view, behind the short brick wall and the rickety fence. (Let’s face it, this was near my onramp, so I couldn’t exactly be inspecting the yard as my car picked up speed.) From then on, I reassured myself that the hen would always make her return to the front yard.

But now it’s been months. I’m not a chicken stalker or anything, so I’ve lost count, but I’m fairly certain I haven’t seen Ms. Brown Hen in a good three months. This can’t be good. I’m fairly certain she’s either (a) become dinner or (b) been buried underneath all those lawn ornaments. Still, until I know for sure, I can’t help but look for her every afternoon. It’s driving me nuts!

Does anyone know what happened to the Pi‘ikoi Street chicken?