10 a.m.

• So last week I took a business trip to Buffalo. Wow. Just wow. First off, I stayed at the Hyatt Regency downtown, and after I got everything settled I decided to take a trip outside. Big mistake. Just about every single building within a several block radius was boarded up or vacant. The only two exceptions to this were the Chinese takeout place, which looked to be on its last leg, and the welfare office. And another thing: what is up with all the black people? I get that this was “downtown,” but I wasn’t expecting to be accosted every other block by some person asking for change. I almost forgot, there was a CVS store, but they closed up shop before 6 p.m. Man, no wonder people are so miserable in the Northeast.

9 p.m.

• Wow. That's a bitch.

A man received a smoker's cancerous lungs in a transplant at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and died six months later, according to a lawsuit against the hospital and several doctors.

 

Tony Grier, who suffered from a rare lung disease, joined a transplant waiting list and received the donor lungs on Jan. 7, 2005, the suit said. Although doctors noticed a spot on his lungs a month later, the lawsuit alleges, they did not diagnose the cancer until late May.

 

The New Jersey man remained hospitalized at Penn from then until his July 16 death at age 43.

 

The suit filed by Grier's mother alleges that Penn told Grier he was getting the healthy lungs of an 18-year-old—a charge that Penn denies, spokeswoman Susan Phillips said Monday.

 

Instead, they came from a pack-a-day smoker who died at Lancaster General Hospital after a car crash, the suit said. Grier's family is seeking more than $5 million in compensatory damages, plus additional money for pain and suffering.

I guess beggers can't be choosers if you're waiting for a new set of lungs, but still.