FACE OFF

That shit cray:

LOA CAREER MOVE OF THE DAY

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for applying! We appreciate your interest in joining the team here at Applebees.  I had a chance to go over your application and unfortunately, we don't think that you'd be a good fit for re-stocking the salad bar. Just so everyone's clear; I'm not discriminating on you for having a great white shark-face face tattoo. When you came in for the first interview with just the upside-down crucifix next to your eye -I thought "That's kinda quirky, but no problem -I can appreciate you thinking outside of the box".  Before you came in for the 2nd interview, I had a chance to go over your previous work history, everything seemed to check out. Up until that point, I hadn't noticed your  tie-dyed winged skull throat-piece on account of that turtleneck sweater you were wearing at the time, but ok... -I don't love it... but different strokes for different folks. -You're expressing yourself and I've got no problem with that... 

But I gotta tell you, the recent addition of the great white shark lunging out of your face is a bit too much.  I mean, I could live with the shark by itself, but in concert with the upside-down crucifix AND the winged skull thing... It's not really expressing to me that you are a stickler for good composition nor attention to detail. -And I gotta be honest here; I have no idea what you could be capable of... I dont know if you're gonna squat over the salad bar and take a massive shit on the iceberg lettuce, or if you're gonna slice Pam from H.R.'s tits off with a rusty boxcutter. 

Anyways, I wish you all the best in your future endeavors and thank you for your time and consideration.

Best wishes,

-Snickerdoodles McPoppycock, Regional Manager, Applebee's Corporation

FACE OFF (/FACE ON)

If you're Kid Lover reading this right now, no, this isn't the sequel to the Travolta
/ Nicolas Cage face swap movie. And no, it's not coming out on blueray disc at 
Best Buy next wednesday. It is about a dude who had the bottom 2/3 of his face 
swapped out for a new one and it looks absolutely horrible. I feel really bad 
saying that and wish homie nothing but the best, but yeah... Dude's face is a 
trainwreck. Let's hope they figure out how to do this surgery better in the future; 
-or at least match people up with a face donor who's complexion roughly the 
same as their own...

THE NATION'S FIRST FACE TRANSPLANT

CLEVELAND - When Connie Culp heard a little kid call her a monster because of the shotgun blast that left her face horribly disfigured, she pulled out her driver's license to show the child what she used to look like. Years later, as the nation's first face transplant recipient, she's stepped forward to show the rest of the world what she looks like now. Her expressions are still a bit wooden, but she can talk, smile, smell and taste her food again. Her speech is at times a little tough to understand. Her face is bloated and squarish. Her skin droops in big folds that doctors plan to pare away as her circulation improves and her nerves grow, animating her new muscles.But Culp had nothing but praise for those who made her new face possible. "I guess I'm the one you came to see today," the 46-year-old Ohio woman said at a news conference at the Cleveland Clinic, where the groundbreaking operation was performed. But "I think it's more important that you focus on the donor family that made it so I could have this person's face." Until Tuesday, Culp's identity and how she came to be disfigured were a secret. Culp's husband, Thomas, shot her in 2004, then turned the gun on himself. He went to prison for seven years. His wife was left clinging to life. The blast shattered her nose, cheeks, the roof of her mouth and an eye. Hundreds of fragments of shotgun pellet and bone splinters were embedded in her face. She needed a tube into her windpipe to breathe. Only her upper eyelids, forehead, lower lip and chin were left. A plastic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Risal Djohan, got a look at her injuries two months later. "He told me he didn't think, he wasn't sure, if he could fix me, but he'd try," Culp recalled.She endured 30 operations to try to fix her face. Doctors took parts of her ribs to make cheekbones and fashioned an upper jaw from one of her leg bones. She had countless skin grafts from her thighs. Still, she was left unable to eat solid food, breathe on her own, or smell.Then, on Dec. 10, in a 22-hour operation, Dr. Maria Siemionow led a team of doctors who replaced 80 percent of Culp's face with bone, muscles, nerves, skin and blood vessels from another woman who had just died. It was the fourth face transplant in the world, though the others were not as extensive."Here I am, five years later. He did what he said — I got me my nose," Culp said of Djohan, laughing. In January, she was able to eat pizza, chicken and hamburgers for the first time in years. She loves to have cookies with a cup of coffee, Siemionow said.On NBC's "Today" program Wednesday morning, Siemionow described the operation as a last resort. "There was really an entire mid-face missing and there was no way to reconstruct with conventional means," the lead surgeon said. No information has been released about the donor or how she died, but her family members were moved when they saw before-and-after pictures of Culp, Siemionow said. Culp said she wants to help foster acceptance of those who have suffered burns and other disfiguring injuries. "When somebody has a disfigurement and don't look as pretty as you do, don't judge them, because you never know what happened to them," she said. "Don't judge people who don't look the same as you do. Because you never know. One day it might be all taken away." It's a role she has already practiced, said clinic psychiatrist Dr. Kathy Coffman. Once while shopping, she heard a little kid say, 'You said there were no real monsters, Mommy, and there's one right there,'" Coffman said. Culp stopped and said, "I'm not a monster. I'm a person who was shot," and pulled out her driver's license to show the child what she used to look like, the psychiatrist said. Culp, who is from the small town of Unionport, near the Pennsylvania line, told her doctors she just wants to blend back into society. She has a son and a daughter who live near her, and two preschooler grandsons. Before she was shot, she and her husband ran a painting and contracting business, and she did everything from hanging drywall to a little plumbing, Coffman said. Culp left the hospital Feb. 5 and has returned for periodic follow-up care. She has suffered only one mild rejection episode that was controlled with a single dose of steroid medicines, her doctors said. She must take immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of her life, but her dosage has been greatly reduced and she needs only a few pills a day.
The clinic expects to absorb the cost of the transplant because it was experimental, doctors said. Siemionow estimated it at $250,000 to $300,000. That is less than the $1 million that other surgeons estimate it costs them to treat other severely disfigured people through dozens of separate operations, she said. Also at the Cleveland Clinic is Charla Nash of Stamford, Conn., who was attacked by a friend's chimpanzee in February. She lost her hands, nose, lips and eyelids, and will be blind, doctors said. Clinic officials said it is premature to discuss the possibility of a face transplant for her. In April, doctors at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston performed the nation's second face transplant, on a man disfigured in a freak accident. It was the world's seventh such operation. The first, in 2005, was performed in France on Isabelle Dinoire, a woman who had been mauled by her dog.

GORRILLA PIMPIN/ FACE OFF/ MURDER WAS THE CASE THAT THEY GAVE (TRAVIS)

I discussed this story with some colleagues of mine and we concluded that it is definitely a bad idea to try to domesticate a chimpanzee. Those things have superhuman ninja strength. However, what would be far worse than that, would be trying to domesticate a retarded chimpanzee that's strung out on PCP. I'm totally serious about that. That motherfucker could probably bench press like a million pounds.

In honor of Dre Day (February 18th) I thought that this lyric from "The Watcher" (Chronic 2001) was especially timely/ apropos/ prophetic:
(They) keep us trapped in the same place we're raised in.
Then they wonder why we act so outrageous,
Run around stressed out and pull out gauges.
Cause everytime you let the animal out cages,
It's dangerous to people who look like strangers.

IN YO' FACE!! (Plastic Surgery Disasters)

A Korean woman addicted to plastic surgery has been left unrecognisable after her obsession led her to inject cooking oil into her face.Hang Mioku, now 48, had her first plastic surgery procedure when she was 28; hooked from the beginning she moved to Japan where she had further operations - mostly to her face. Following operation after operation, her face was eventually left enlarged and disfigured, but she would still look at herself in the mirror and think she was beautiful. Eventually the surgeons she visited refused to carry out any more work on her and one suggested that her obsession could be a sign of a psychological disorder. When she returned home to Korea the surgery meant Hang's features had changed so much that her own parents didn't recognise her. After realising that the girl with the grossly swollen face was indeed their daughter her horrified parents took her to a doctor. Once again the possibility that Hang had a mental disorder was raised and she started treatment. However, this treatment was too expensive for her to keep up and she soon fell back into old ways.Amazingly, she found a doctor who was willing to give her silicone injects and, what's more, he then gave her a syringe and silicone of her own so she could self-inject. When her supply of silicone ran out Hang resorted to injecting cooking oil into her face. Her face became so grotesquely large that she was called "standing fan" by children in her neighbourhood - due to her large face and small body. As Hang's notoriety spread she was featured on Korean TV. Viewers seeing the report took mercy on her and sent in enough donations to enable her to have surgery to reduce the size of her face. During the first procedure surgeons removed 60g of foreign substance from Hang's face and 200g from her neck. After several other sessions her face was left greatly reduced but still scarred and disfigured. And it would seem that even Hang can now see the damage she has done; she now says that she would simply like her original face back.