Rick stayed home from work today, to study for his final exam in his finance class. I gotta tell ya – finance is some seriously exciting stuff. (Did everyone catch the sarcasm? Good…) So since he was home, we decided to go grab some lunch at this new place that opened up north of here in Cedar Park called Moonie’s Burgers. Or is it Moonie’s Burger Barn? Or Moonie’s House of Burgers... Burger Haven… Burger Bin… I can’t remember. The point is, it’s a new place, they serve hamburgers, and the proprietor is apparently named “Moonie.” Or maybe he IS a Moonie? Well, whatever… Rick had heard from his friend Tim that this place had great hamburgers. Actually, Tim’s description was a little more graphic. I believe he said if he “could make love to a hamburger” it would be with the kind they serve at Moonie’s.
Okay, first of all, um… eewww. I mean, the LAST thing I want to be thinking about when I’m eating is “I wonder what Tim would be doing if he was alone with this hamburger?” And second, everyone knows I have an aversion to ground-up meat anyway, so I was hoping this place had chicken or something I would consider more palatable. Fortunately, I discovered that they DO serve gardenburgers, which I love, so I ordered one of those. But I can’t say that Rick or I agreed with Tim’s assessment – the burgers were good, but they certainly weren’t THAT good. (In fact, really, I can’t imagine ANY kind of food being THAT good… maybe certain types of chocolate… maybe…) I wasn’t particularly fond of the buns they used for the burgers – they seemed to be soaked in some sort of butter or oil, and tasted slightly sweet. So it was almost like eating a burger sandwiched between two pieces of pastry. Like lunch and dessert at the same time. I almost think those buns would’ve tasted better had they simply been covered with a can of cherry pie filling. (Actually, that probably WOULD have been pretty good…) Needless to say, I was only able to finish half of my sandwich before I felt that I’d ingested enough fat and calories to sufficiently maintain my metabolic function even if I were lost on a raft at sea for a month or two. (And I’ve only got 3959 steps on the pedometer today!)
Anyway… moving on… I watched a really interesting show about the bubonic plague on the Discovery channel last night. Yes, that’s right – there ARE really interesting shows about the bubonic plague, thank you very much. (Granted, it might help if the viewer is a bit of a nerd…) Actually, it was more about infectious diseases in general, and how scientists are studying epidemics – like the bubonic plague in the 14th century – to figure out why some people seem to be able to fight off infection more easily than others. The show brought up the case of a doctor and minister in 14th century England who visited scores of bubonic plague victims, yet never fell ill himself. He was exposed many times over, but managed to escape the disease altogether. They also investigated the HIV virus in our present society – which, back in the 80’s before much was known about it, easily infected hemophiliacs because of all the different blood sources they were exposed to. But some of those hemophiliacs were able to completely avoid HIV – not because they hadn’t been exposed to it, but because they were immune to it.
I had no idea that some people were immune to the HIV virus – apparently, it’s the result of a genetic mutation that prohibits the virus from entering cells. Viruses are kinda cool, really – they’re like tiny little terrorists (uh, not that I think terrorists are cool…). They find a cell, break into it, take over, and order that cell to do what they want it to do. Which includes replicating more of itself. So the virus terrorists break in and create tiny little terrorist training camps, which pump out more little virus terrorists, and so on. But the viruses can’t survive if they can’t find a cell in which to set up camp – and that’s where that genetic mutation comes in. Some people have cells that are resistant to infections – like they have extra security on their cells to prevent break-ins. The viruses can’t get into the cells, so they have no way to survive. So scientists are studying people with this mutation to see if there are ways to introduce that sort of “security” into the general population. Isn’t that cool? Huh? Isn’t it? Does anyone else think it’s cool? Am I the only nerdy person who watches shows about infectious diseases for the fun of it?
Well, regardless, I very seriously need to drag my nerdy self over to my treadmill and work off some of that pastry-burger I ate for lunch…
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