Tonight, I Humbly Accept The First Of What I Am Sure Will Be Many Blog Awards.

It comes by way of Mother Jones, RN, and considering the quality of writing there, the fact she says my little blog garden makes her think inflates my ego to the point I may not be able to get out of this room. You should go read her blog right now.

Unfortunately for me the meme comes with some obligations:

The recipient of this award must follow these rules:

Acknowledge the origin of the meme/award

If you are tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

Optional: Display the “Thinking Blogger Award” with a link to the post that you wrote using either the gold or silver versions of the award.

Looking back through the past recipients of this meme, I see over and over again bloggers saying that it will be hard for them to pick just 5 blogs to tag. That won't be the case with me. It's going to be a struggle to come up with 5 people to link to. I just don't read a lot of blogs. Nothing personal. I also noticed as I went though the history of this meme that the requirement that the tags passed along be from within the medical blogosphere seems to be a recent addition. That relieves me, because reading a medical blog is too much like being at work. If I want to be at work, I'll go there and get paid. So, I'm going to open up my tags to the entire blogosphere. Let's see what I can come up with:

I don't think I can tag Mother Jones back, as she is the one who tagged me. You should check out her page though.

1) I don't know how many of you are familiar with the band The Pixies, but you should be. Commercially I think the most success they've had is a gold record or two, but they are artists influential far beyond their sales numbers. Kurt Cobain admitted trying to rip them off when he wrote "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and I have heard many....many a Pixies-sounding riff on rock radio through the years. Romius Texis is the Pixie of the blogosphere. If you enjoy at all what I categorize as "General Weirdness" here, then you need to check out I Need Self Help. "Welcome To Palm Ghetto" and "The Minor Accomplishments of RomiusTexis" belong in the fucking blog Hall Of Fame.

2) Romius also has a blog called "Bathos for the Misanthropic" I don't really know why he splits his stuff into two blogs, but it works out for me, as I'm going to count it as a separate tag. I told you, I'm going to have trouble coming up with five.

3) This is the "Thinking Blogger" award, and there's no way a rube from Appalachia can come across "All The Way From Oy To Vey" and not start thinking. The author is funny, she's smart, and she mocks Christians. What else could you ask for really.

4) I am going to come up with a medical blog after all. Mr Hunny Bun is a fellow pharmacist from the UK. Reading his blog I see:

• Pharmacists face the same crap everywhere. Narcotic seekers, people abusing the public health system, annoying sales reps, only the name of the meds seem to change.

• Ample evidence to support my theory that the rest of the world is far more civilized than we are. Through all the crap there is a tone of politeness and professionalism just not found on this side of the pond. Listen as he describes the patient we all have, Mr. Early Refill:

I have a patient who I shall call, because it’s his name, Mark. Mark comes to our pharmacy every week and gets his prescription for Diazepam 10mg dispensed.

Approximately every six months Mark will get burgled and someone will steal his Diazepam. It’s very strange that a burglar will break into his house, find a 8cmx1cmx4cm box of Diazepam, but overlook the television, video and the rest of his possessions. Not that I am cynical or anything!

He also has the unfortunate habit of losing his tablets, or getting mugged on his way home and having them taken from him. I have noticed that people never lose their hypertension medication or their inhalers, they only seem to lose drugs with a street value [Current street value of Diazepam 10mg-£1 a tablet]

What does his doctor do? Well, his doctor gives him another prescription for Diazepam, just like that! I often think that if I had some magic beans one of the Doctors in my surgery would buy those too.

Having said that I do like Mark. He’s a pleasant, polite chap whose likeness to Gollum from LOTR is spooky to behold. He also has the endearing quality of counting the number of tablets we dispense for him, just in case we try to rip him off! All only slightly marred by having the pale and waxy skin of the long-time drug abuser. Think Trainspotting.

You will never......ever.....ever......hear an American pharmacist talk like that. You will very rarely hear an American pharmacist talk about Mr. Early refill without turning it into a crude personal attack. So yes, Mr. Hunny Bun makes me think. That I should leave the country.

5) Hmmmmmm....I cheated and nominated one person twice and I still can't come up with 5. I'm gonna think out of the box, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm throwing open the floor to nominations. If you, Dear Reader, have come across a blog that makes you think, just leave a comment with a link. Or else I'll just have four, and Mother Jones might be disappointed in me. Help out a Drugmonkey.