Tales of Hoffman

New York MedBlogger Dinner?

I was thinking about what I can do to brighten up the dull winter months here in NY. So this is the idea... How many MedBloggers are located here (or nearby) in NYC? Why should Dave Winer have a monopoly on blogger dinners? Let's set something up for early February! Let's get together, nothing formal. We can pick a place where we can all sit together and have a good time. If you're interested, let me know in the comments here.

Medical Weblog Awards Announced

Congrats to all the winners of the 2004 Medical Weblog Awards. All of these bloggers, as well as any others who were nominated, are worth looking at every day (or better yet, fire up that RSS reader!). I'm glad I was able to support the medical blog community by getting some free subscriptions to ACP Medicine and ACS Surgery for the winners.

Google Talks Usability

Marissa Mayer, Google's Product Manager, gave a talk recently revealing some stuff about Google's history and philosophy concerning usability. It's worth a look. I heard her talk about some of this stuff at the very first GEL Conference, way back in...2003. Some good stuff here if you're into customer experience.

Feelin' the RSS Love

More people discovering Medscape and WebMD Health RSS...

Today's Top Story

I can't think of a more important story right now than this one on Medscape -- Physician Missions With Doctors Without Borders: A Newsmaker Interview With Christophe Fournier, MD

Here's an excerpt from the introduction:

Although MSF has received an overwhelming response from healthcare professionals to volunteer for emergency relief to those hit hardest by the tsunami, only those professionals with considerable experience and training on other MSF missions are eligible for this mission. Nonetheless, MSF is actively recruiting medical personnel to volunteer in the more than 70 countries it now serves.

To learn more about available volunteer opportunities for physicians and other healthcare professionals, and about what to expect on their mission, Medscape's Laurie Barclay interviews Christophe Fournier, MD, Desk Manager (Program Manager) for MSF-USA in New York, NY. Dr. Fournier is a French general practitioner and surgeon who recently returned from setting up a surgical program for MSF in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

It's an important story and well reported by the ever-reliable Laurie Barclay. Take a look.

Analogy of the Month

"Soup is like TiVo for vegetables." I love that.

Now We're Cookin'!

Alwin's got a great series of posts as he goes through the thought process of re-stocking his kitchen. I don't write much about my cooking, but I love to do it. Astute readers probably see a cookbook or two rotate through my "Current Reads" booklist to the left from time to time. In any event, the thing that got my attention over there was the very first item he thinks a good cook should buy -- a cast iron skillet.

I have to admit, I have great memories of watching my mom cook all kinds of yummy stuff in that old cast iron skillet at home, but I've never actually owned one myself. I think it's time I picked one up... or maybe I better do a little extra free weight work first.

UPDATE: I just bought this one. My first cast iron skillet. Cool!

Getting Your Medical News Every Day

Jacob writes about a new daily news email coming soon from Mass Medical Society. It will be interesting to see what format this takes. Medscape's been doing a daily news email for well over a year now (you may need to be logged into Medscape to see that sample, by the way). If any of you out there are subscribers, I'd love to hear what you like or what you think can be improved. Let me know.

Netflix Friends?

I recently re-joined Netflix (the last time I belonged was a bunch of years ago when you couldn't even rent DVDs from Blockbuster!). Anyway, I'm enjoying it and if you have kids that tend to want to watch movies "Again!" "Again!", it certainly pays off in late fee avoidance.

Anyway, I've read about the Netflix Friends beta and I think I would really like to check it out? Does anyone know how I can get invited?

Top Yahoo "Mis-searches"

From the Yahoo Search Blog:

Top (sic) Searches of 2004:
1. Presidential Poles
2. King Author
3. Serious Satellite Radio
4. Eyes of March

I like #3...when did NPR start broadcasting via Satellite? :-)