It meant that he'll die before he collects much Social Security. Theoretically, Social Security moneys are kept separate from the rest of the federal budget so that the money can only be spent on that. (Congress's habit of borrowing from that is another matter.) Anyway, the only reason that SS isn't bankrupt is because a certain percentage of people who contributed during their working lives die before they are eligible to collect the money.

Mine did too Taiga. :oops:

Catching up on backlog here... I doubt that the person in charge of the helipad is sitting there in a little booth. It's not a parking lot. Wonderful visual image here: let's all commute by helicopter! Actually, I'm taking the staircase scene as evidence that they didn't land on the official helipad (where there would have been an elevator), so maybe they didn't have official clearance at all. (As amysusanne said, the roof's a big place. There should be room for a helipad area and still leftover corners for cigarette and illicit affair breaks.) <Edit: Cancel that. There was a "Helipad Safety" sign on the stairwell door. Maybe the elevator was on the other side and is off-limits except for emergency personnel, to keep it from being tied up on the wrong floor when it's needed on the roof?> Had Foreman or anyone else turned up in her office saying "Oh yeah, by the by, House left with some guy yesterday and hasn't shown up again", And isn't that sort of thing part of why she hired Foreman back? To be her "eyes" on House? (am I the only one whose parents called them ... My grandmother said that once and managed to completely freak out my mom and me. I was only in grade school at the time and I still thought my eyes were going to bug out. I can't buy the pigtails or distance-someone-he's-attracted-to theory for the crudity, but over on the Wilson thread, Boffle suggested this: IMHO why House was so graphically aggressive in his language: he was both attracted to her and unwilling to give her the power that he thought went hand in hand with her beauty and intelligence, not to mention her CIA powers. I think I can run with the idea that it was a conscious attempt to undermine the power she had over him, both personally and as the CIA rep when he's on CIA turf, out of his territory and without any of his allies around. Once the initial MIB novelty wore off, I doubt he'd appreciate being put in a situation where he's essentially powerless. He's never liked being ordered to take cases, even when he's on his own turf.

That makes sense because I've always thought it's the same reason he's always sexually harrassing Cuddy, as his way of undermining her power over him.

Okay, the CIA plot actually is better on rewatch. He didn't start with the unfunny crudeness until half-way in, after she'd had plenty of other opportunity to be impressed by him -- and just as he was about to reveal that he'd gone around them to stop the approved radiation treatment. Wonder if the timing there is significant. And I can't think why on Earth she would have thought he was serious about the job offer, since he says outright that he meant it euphemistically. I did like the callbacks to "No Reason", both his "only one assassination attempt" line and his consternation when CIA guy first shows up in the lecture hall asking for him, the look he gives Foreman when CIA guy wants to "speak privately" with him. Also noticed this time around that the stairs that House takes seemingly far too easily come right after him complaining that if the CIA guy expects him to walk anywhere, the reward better be worth it. And he looks like he's supposed to be rubbing his leg during the valet scene (though it also looks like HL forgot for a moment which leg was which), though maybe I'm reading more into that bit that was meant. But he wasn't using his cane in that scene or either of the two tea scenes. Granted he was only walking for short distances in each case, but it seems too much of a coincidence to ignore. I'm amused that House is once again joking about being a sub ("My safeword is...") 25 mg per meter squared? Clinical folk? Does that dosage unit make as little sense as I think it does? Cubed, maybe, but squared, with no timing? I love that the closing song syncs the line "Oh, mercy!" with House's "WTF have I done?" look after Terzi says she'll be in on Monday. We've definitely entered time warp territory, since it's supposed to be -- and reasonably has to be -- only a few months since HE, but people are wearing chilly-fall-night clothing.

25 mg per meter squared? Clinical folk? Does that dosage unit make as little sense as I think it does? Cubed, maybe, but squared, with no timing? Thank you for asking that! It wasn't brought up anywhere else so I thought I was the only one who couldn't figure out what the hell they were talking about. Wouldn't doses be administered on a body weight basis, for example 25 mg per kilogram?

25 mg per meter squared? Clinical folk? Does that dosage unit make as little sense as I think it does? Cubed, maybe, but squared, with no timing? It makes perfect sense. It refers to body surface area which correlates well to e.g. actual body mass – and it's the preferred unit when dosing chemotherapeutic drugs. It's calculated from height and weight.

Ah, okay, we'll take your word for it. :-) I couldn't think what on earth they'd be measuring square meters of!

Thanks Silja! I'm an idiot, but that is one thing I already knew. The idea that it was skin area occurred to me, but why would that be used instead of body mass? Because the skin is an excretory organ?

One thing that makes me nuts in this show is the way clinic hours are assigned as punishment and this episode had the absolutely worst example of this. PPTH is not a high school and Cuddy is not the principal. She can't assign clinic duty like detention. Doctors' contracts would involve specific duties and benefits. Vacation time, sick time, hopefully comp time considering how often House and his staff work around the clock or on weekends. The amount of clinic time House is contractually obligated to do was spelled out in the pilot -- 3 weeks a year which is probably around 120 hours or 10 hours a month. In addition, House is making up his backlog of hours skipped. ("Six years, times 3 weeks; you owe me better then 4 months.") If he doesn't do some aspect of his job he could possibly have privileges revoked, his pay docked or even be fired. But that's it. The equivalent in corporate America would be if the Vice President of Human Resources (Department Head) called in sick when he wasn't and the President (Dean of Medicine) found out and said "For lying to me, you're going to have to do read and evaluate unsolicited resumes for 16 hours." Riiiiight.

Oh, Poeia. It just makes for some sexy dominatrix scenes, with Cuddy punishing House and Wilson for their adorable mishaps. :lol: I still love the scene where Wilson calls House at Langley and says "They did a background check on you, they did a background check on your friends." He's so paranoid... I still wonder what dark, sinister deed lurks in his past. :twisted:

Maybe he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die... and by "die" I mean lectured him to death ;->