Make Mine Mike

Seems a lot of bloggers are mad scientists, taking time away from their nefarious experiments to post some pleasant, funny quips on the 'net. But I know what you're all up to, you devious doctors...

I used to be a mad scientist myself; I was born that way. My parents named me Michael David so that my office door would say MD, MD. So to make Mom & Dad happy, I was pre-med in college, and I kinda liked it, but I preferred writing stories & drawing cartoons to studying organic chemistry – call me crazy. We made a deal. Someday, I may get to fulfill my end of it and say:

"The people I'd like to thank first and foremost for this Oscar are Mom and Dad, for understanding when I wanted to go to film school instead of medical school."

But back before I was "droppin' science, y'all", I worked for a while outside London for the Wellcome Foundation, a medical research group, conducting experiments on Plasmodium falciparum. The tricky part wasn't handling this malaria-causing protozoa, but understanding the oh-so-droll Brits.

Now, listen up: sometimes Monty Python is hysterical, and sometimes it's just namby-pamby dreck. Ya hear me? And sometimes this PhD candidate, Nicola, told clever jokes, or as the Simpsons would say, "Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased with impeccable timing." But other times, I dunno... Are biting insults of everyone funny? Maybe they were. I'm American, and after all, we don't understand sarcasm. Yeah, right.

Nicola enjoyed this, but I didn't know she could draw, too – later, she did a cartoon of me. Stay tuned.