For those of you unfamiliar with the Nintendo Wii, you can’t play the games until you create a Mii. Your Mii is a 2-dimensional cartoon-headed version of yourself that plays all of the games that you want to play. You can put your Mii online to interact with other Mii’s throughout the world. And, for those of you lucky enough to purchase the Wii Fit program, it will even calculate your body composition and add a potbelly, blubber thighs, or Jello-jiggly arms as appropriate.

Sooo…the girls and I Wii’d ourselves immediately. Rebecca was a bit more particular about her Mii and continues to have about three makovers a week since her creation.

Then, things got out of control.

I Wii’d some relatives. Then, some old friends. I made them line up. I dragged them around the screen by their heads. I made them walk. I made them run. When they behaved, I allowed them to mingle online with Mii’s created by a bunch of other 10 to 12 year-old boys. It was awesome.

I named each one, picked their favorite colors, and added birthdays. And just before saving each one, I clicked on the most important bubble labeled “Creator.” So, remember this. I Wii’d you, I edited you, I stamped you with “Created by daddy,” and I can press your QUIT button anytime I want.

Click on the pictures of my brother and parents to see the more realistic versions. If you would like to be Wii’d, please send a picture. If you are afraid that you might have already been Wii’d, you are probably correct.

Since its inception, this blog has covered a few of the finer points of Navy medicine. Recently, I have tried to post an article as often as I work. And currently… once-a-month should be just about right. I have spent this month in a lecture hall learning about tropical infectious disease. Treatments are easy- you get sick, you die.

So, if I could offer any advice, stay away from mosquitoes, ticks, flies, worms, sea creatures, land creatures, air creatures, crotch creatures, dirt, river basins, wash basins, water holes, buttholes, face holes, things that squirt, things that know magic, Chuck E. Cheese and any food other than dried beans. Oh…and try not to breathe too deeply.

Maybe you had to be there. But, it used to be extremely funny when people would come bursting unannounced into my shared office and question, “Dr. Brown?” or “Dr. Chiu?” In response, one of us would turn around and point to our left breast pocket (U.S. Navy) and say, “Nope…Dr. Usnavy.” The new corpsman would always apologize and keep running down the hall. Sometimes, we wouldn’t see them for an hour. Sometimes, we would never see them again.

The officer in charge of the clinic eventually let us know that this was not as funny as we had clearly mistaken it to be. Of course, that was when she returned after about an hour.

The following is a picture of me as Dr. Usnavy on the Simpsons.

Today only, Rebecca is 31 years old. Tomorrow she will be older.

Please go to her blog to leave a Happy Birthday message.

Not everyone has the opportunity to return from a war; just like most people never win the lottery or appear on Sesame Street. Ironically, Elmo’s Dad deployed to Iraq, which gives a muppet two out of the three, if anyone’s counting. And, we learn from the whole Elmo family that the return from war and reintegration can be a tumultuous event in a family, especially a family where everyone already has a thumb up the ass (puppet joke). Realistically, the isolation, hypervigilance, witnessed trauma, and demoralizing conditions of war still cause lasting mental devastation called combat stress. Simply put, while some can merely return to life as normal, many others are plagued by an irrational desire to beat Snuffleupagus with an aluminum baseball bat.

There will be no beatings from me. I have returned to work as primarily a sports medicine doctor. The job is much better than the runny noses and vomiting that I had been seeing for the first two years in Okinawa. Our acronym at the clinic is S.M.A.R.T., wherein two of the letters stand for Sports Medicine and the other three for something that I don’t do. In the near future, I would like to see a D.U.M.B. clinic established, so that patients can make their own informed choice of where to go and possibly take away some of our patient load in the mornings. In my mind, that one could be run by those muppets that honk their noses or maybe just by a guy with a large sock puppet on his hand.

I was an ice dancer. My brother and I would have liked to play hockey, but the closest we ever got was the opposite end of an ice rink. I remember staring across the rink at the hockey kids doing snow plow stops and slapshots while my brother and I stood quietly in line awaiting our turn to complete a pirouette, figure 8, and T-stop. There aren’t even jumps in ice dancing- only step sequences and twizzles; but I could twizzle with the best of them.

Supposedly, hockey was a rough sport. My mom’s argument: “It could get dangerous. Someone could get hurt.” Well…obviously, mom. It was everything I ever wanted as a little boy. Each night, I longed for just a little blood splatter or some missing teeth during ice dancing practice. Would it be too much to ask for just one face-punching, leg twirling, chin-up, eyes-forward, chest out, butt in, wiener-tucking free-for-all? The closest we ever got was John crying when he stuck his skate so hard into the retaining wall that he hung from his left foot for about 3 minutes until his older sister could yank him free. I laughed so hard I peed a little. We never saw John again.

For me, ice dancing was short-lived. And, with his attention problems, I’m not sure that my brother ever knew exactly why he was even on the ice. He probably remembers getting yelled at, changing his shoes, getting yelled at, being cold for 45 minutes, getting yelled at, changing his shoes, getting yelled at, and going home. Fortunately, we both recovered into more masculine venues. I played soccer while my brother tried his part at football. Clearly, your sport eventually finds you no matter how much you deny it.

Now, my joints are aging. Whether from 20 years of soccer or from 3 months of T-stops and humiliation, I am not entirely sure. Either way, I am in search of my next great sport. To make sure we are on the same page, a sport involves the use of some type of ball. Basketball…sport. Running…not. Kick-the-can…sport. Cheerleading…not. Paper football…sport. ICE DANCING…NOT. Whether peer pressure or merely expectations, I had narrowed my list to golf or tennis.

However, just this weekend, my sport found me again. Four strikes, five spares, and one open frame later, I was 196 points closer to declaring my intention to turn pro. My only hesitation is that bowling alleys are full of guys with names like Don and Bill and Pete and Dick and Buzz. And, given my spotted past as an ice dancer, they would all probably refer to me as “the ninny.”

I’ve never won at “Truth or Dare.” In reality, I’m not even sure how to win at “Truth or Dare” unless it has something to do with exposing pasty, white butt cheeks in the brisk, country night air. Then, I’ve probably won a few times.

I’ve also weathered the mortifying “truth” questions aimed at exposing whether I’ve ever seen a boob or listened to the New Kids on the Block. For reasons that are still unclear, those continue to be some of my closest guarded secrets to this day. And despite all of those opportunities to set the record straight, I was always steadfast and opted for the dare.

Few things were as anxiety-provoking as the 30 second pause while someone came up with the perfect dare. The girls would shout things like sing a song…eat a pepper…KISS A GIRL, while the boys shouted kiss a girl…kiss the dog…KISS THE DOG’S BALLS. Despite all of the good suggestions, the dare usually ended by mooning a passing car or rounding the house with your buttocks exposed or showing your spongy cheeks to a turtle down by the lake.

To a point, the dare became an essential provocation to force the truth out of some unwitting 12 year-old. I still remember when Ben admitted under peer pressure to kissing Ugzilla- aptly named because she was thought to be hugely ugly…Godzilla ugly.
It all makes me wonder what benefit could come if we approached every conversation with that opening.

“Yes…I have a question for the Senator from Illinois…truth or dare?”

Sometimes the wind can be so cold that it makes you utter a cuss word every time a gust whips by. Sometimes that wind is in Disneyland. My apologies to all those people outside the waffle shop.

Upon returning from Tokyo Disney later this week, I will again be updating this blog weekly to feature cuss words, suggestive material, and asinine pictures from the only place worse than war…the government workspace.

With Iraq long forgotten and Kuwait as the last obstacle, I thought I would recall some of the fascinating things that I have learned while working in Iraq.

1. My land speed while jogging is about 9.5 knots.

2. No one forgets Christmas. Everyone forgets Easter. But, the only time we paused the war in the past 7 months was for the Superbowl.

3. AAFES is allowed to price gouge. The same bicycles that sell for $30 in Okinawa sell for $80 in Iraq. However, every March and September when the units turnover, those bicycles sell for $149.

4. Iridium satellite phones are misnamed because the original project called for 77 satellites (element 77 on the periodic table is Iridium). The project was completed with only 66 satellites needed to encircle the Earth. That would really make them Dysprosium phones.

5. “Troop surge” only refers to those ground troops that kick in doors. They could still use some help. However, there are probably well over 50,000 non-essential personnel in Iraq. We had doctors in our unit alone that worked every fourth day.

6. Conspiracy theories are ALL false. Those well-formulated plots and cover-ups would necessitate excellent leadership and intelligence. I assure you that I have witnessed neither one.

7. Five years apparently has not been enough time to figure out how to smoothly deploy and redeploy troops.

Forrest Gump: [running] I had run for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours.
[he stops and turns around]
Young Man Running: Quiet, quiet! He’s gonna say something!
Forrest Gump: [pause] I’m pretty tired… I think I’ll go home now.

Yeah…I know that feeling. Technically, I only ran for 7 months, but I just hit 800 miles today.

There’s nothing left to see. I’m going home.