Psychic pain.

Oh, how materialistic I am.  This need to possess something I will never ever have, probably won’t even see, much less hold.

Ow.  And no I wasn’t talking about Charlize Theron or Kate Beckinsale or anything like that.  I may be immature, arrogant, and disrespectful of authority but I’m not an animal, for Pete’s sake.  Think of me more like a big dog that talks.

It is a watch that is a thing of beauty.  IWC Portuguese Tourbillon Mystère Squelette

I beseeched Cruel Wife in tones of most urgent need.  “I would like you to say yes, without even thinking about it.  Say yes, that I may have one of these for my very own.”

She replied without even thinking about it.

“No.”

Nothing quite like a swift emotional/spiritual kick to the nuts.  She has earned her stage name honestly.

****

I can’t help but say it again.

Obama is a complete and total flake.  He’s dishonest, he’s scheming, he’s not qualified for the job he is in, and he never should have gotten there because he isn’t there legally.  But that’s all sewage-infested water under the bridge.

What we should focus on is that somehow out of 350 MILLION people, we could not come up with five opponents that look like they have the ability to knock him out of office. This is so amazingly bad it is as if you took a spoiled piece of meat and made a confit with rancid grease and stuffed it in pasta made from ground-up FAIL.  It is so mind-numbingly piss-poor of a showing that I clench up all over in disappointment.  There really is not a word that encapsulates what I want to say.  Nothing comes close in order-of-magnitude.

We could have picked names randomly from the pool of individuals that met the age and naturalized American requirements (ahem) and done as good of a job.

We really stand a better than even chance of winding up with this turkey for four more years.  I would have calculated the odds of being struck by lightning at the exact moment that both you and the rabid bull that was goring you were struck by a meteor as being better than Obama showing up on the first day of a second term.

And what happened?  We walked away with a lineup of assclowns that I wouldn’t trust in a valet service to park my rusted out jeep.

Yes I’m disgusted.  More with each passing day.

****

In case you were wondering, deformable mirrors aren’t just for electrons any more.

You were wondering.  Admit it.

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Yes, Yes It Has Sucketh.

taobmaetS ooGcM rightly guessed that not all has been well recently.

I’ve been working like a horse to make a project work for months and finally two scientists I work with flew out to make it work – plus a third scientist who we are collaborating with.  I felt some relief that surely with their help we would lick this problem, but at the same time it was with a different small amount of relief that after three days three absolutely brilliant scientists found nothing flawed with my work.  But, that also means that we still didn’t make it work.

I told one of them that I thought that what we have been thinking our diagnostics have been telling us about our laser is incorrect and that meant that no matter what we did we would not get the wee beastie working.  She agreed.  I said I needed to go home because I physically couldn’t do any more.

That (Friday) evening, just two hours later, I got a phone call from one of the other scientists telling me that I could opt to say no, but “Would you go down to Texas to build the instrument that you designed at a different facility?”

What the hell are you supposed to do, say no?

Without missing a beat I said “Yup, I will go.”  When I got surprise on the other end I said “Look, I’ve been killing myself over this and I damn well want to see it work.  I’m not giving up.  If it doesn’t work it won’t be because I didn’t give it everything I’ve got.”

So this week I fly down to Texas to try another group’s laser and equipment – let’s hope it works.

Yes, that has been A problem but not THE problem.  I’ve been over-exerting myself physically and for long enough that my neck has been telling me things were seriously wrong.  Friday last, it really told me.  I was in a vicious pain cycle to the point where I nearly had a co-worker take me to the hospital but managed to get it under control with painkillers before that became necessary.

Saturday was the real problem.  I woke up in the morning pretty bad off and took pretty much everything I could, but after an hour I was even worse.  I asked Cruel Wife to call the pain doc and have him call the ER ahead of us so they knew to not let me sit in agony in the waiting room for three hours like last time (that was a few years back).  Problems with going to the ER are (1) acute embarrassment even though you just want them to make it stop, and (2) there is nothing you can say that will convince them that you truly aren’t a drug-seeker, unless you have a decent doc like I have finally found who managed to pin down three discs that other docs missed.

I was lying there, pretty much writhing on the bed, when Cruel Wife came in and said “here, take these… the doc called in another Rx”.  Time ceases to have any meaning when you feel like that so it had felt like both years and moments since I’d asked her to call the doc.   I took them and within 15-20 minutes I was wrung-out but the pain was receding rapidly, and I was drowsy enough to fall asleep.  I stayed drugged up all weekend, knowing that I had to pack up and fly to Texas for three days and hoping that the rest and meds would allow my body to heal a bit.

I still feel kind of cruddy but better than I have been.

My apologies for not posting – it will be spotty this week, too, but I will be taking all of next week off.

****

Well, damn.  Can’t say as how I blame him.  Makes you wish you could take the load off his shoulders though.  Through no fault of his own…

****

People assume weather science can predict anything?  Well, isn’t that true if climate scientists can project global warming and climate change out to 100 years from now?

“People see that and assume we can predict everything,” National Hurricane Center senior forecaster Richard Pasch said.

But when Irene struck, the storm did not stick with the forecast’s predicted major hurricane strength winds.

“It’s frustrating when people take our forecasts verbatim and say, ‘This is where it’s going to be at this time and this is how strong it’s going to be,'” Pasch said. “Because even though the track is good it’s not certain.”

In other news, global warming is causing a rise in mental illness.  Hmmm.   I thought the latter led to the former.

RATES of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress will increase as a result of climate change, a report to be released today says.

The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.

As many as one in five people reported ”emotional injury, stress and despair” in the wake of these events.

Damn, that is choice.

****

In my school days, getting good or perfect attendance was expected and if you were skipping a lot of days it mean an ass-kicking at home.  Now, apparently, you get an iPod for doing what you should have been doing anyway.

****

And here I thought Spice was a geriatric drug that gave you blue eyes and allowed you to fold space.  Well, it must do something if so many folks in the military (and elsewhere) are testing positive for it.  People don’t generally test positive for massive ingestion of talcum powder or carnuba wax because they don’t get you high.

****

Okay.  That’s all I’ve got for now.

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A Mild Curse?

I have begun to wonder if I am cursed.

Been working on a project that involves fiber optics and some interesting ways of exploiting them.  But optics can sometimes have their own agenda… You’d think “Hey, what can really go wrong?  This is physics, right?”

You can break fibers, crack them, crush optics, have laser failures, torch failures, low transmission issues, bad mechanical splices, bad polishes on connectors, adhesive failures, bad fiber optics batches… and this can go on and on… to the point that you wonder why the part that is relatively simple is being so gosh-darned hard.  All of this, in one day.  We haven’t even gotten to the hard part yet – the part that is technically and scientifically challenging (and fun).

I strongly suspect that in my lab the laws of physics have been beaten with rubber hoses and had fingers broken with pliers.  Then life came along and stole it’s candy and stomped on it’s glasses.  And life chuckled with bone-chilling soulless mirth.

Thank goodness that ThinkGeek is there to help me feel motivated to get out of bed on months like these last few.

The flying alarm clock:

The Flying Alarm Clock wakes you up with a loud shrieking alarm coupled with a little propeller-driven key that leaps off your nightstand. To turn off the horrible racket, you have to get out of bed and retrieve the key. The propeller flies the key high into the air and off into some dusty corner. You have to force your sleep addled brain into wakefulness, move your stiff legs and retrieve the key before the alarm goes off. By the time you’ve done so, you’re awake enough at least to go make a pot of coffee.

****

Good gravy, I need a Corndog Factory so bad that I feel like my innards have been sucked out through my kneecaps.  Oh, the humanity.

****

I probably also need some Bear Paw Forks, too.

 

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Don’t give up yet…

Blogging took a backseat I’m afraid.  Had a rough few weeks with last night being the crowning touch.  I’m only blogging now because I’ve actually felt guilty about not posting anything in days.  I will go back to bed shortly.

Making sammiches for the kids, I turned my head ever so slightly (thinking of the next inane thing to say to Cruel Wife), and hit the floor.

You have heard me say that there’s pain and then there’s pain. I am used to vanilla pain. I’m not used to tear-your-spine-out-with-pliers-bit-by-bit-and-replace-it-with-molten-silver pain or badgers-just-chewed-out–my-hernia-and-appendix-and-are-working-on-my-liver pain. The amount you can actually do when hit by it sounds very disturbingly like what I’m told being tasered is like. You can’t *do* anything other than drop like a rock. That’s it. Your choices are to (a) drop like a rock, or (b) drop like a rock.

Some time passed before I stopped scrabbling my feet along the floor and punishing the front of the stove. Not sure how long. Cruel Wife just stood there in horror because if she did the wrong thing it could make things worse and she wasn’t really sure what the right thing was, either. Well, that makes two of us, because I didn’t know either.

After some time I grabbed the handle of the fridge and scrabbled along the stove and counter and hauled myself up. Moved glacially slow to my chair and sat down.

It’s 22 hours later (roughly) and not much has changed. I called CW a bit ago to see if that was her that called earlier when I couldn’t make it to the phone. She said “How you doing?” She KNEW what I was going to say:

Don’t worry about me. I’ve never felt better.

Easier to say that than for the millionth time “I kinda feel like donkey shiat”.

Back to bed.

Addendum:  NO, I’m not looking for “Sorry” or “Get Well” comments.  I was simply feeling guilty for not posting and then saying “WTF am I feeling guilty about?  There’s a reason dammit!” and then thinking “Geez, grow some, you puke” as I was writing all this out but figured I’d at least say something anyway so you didn’t feel like I was (God forbid) stopping blogging or something dire like that.  “Man up!” I said to myself as I kicked my own ass silly.  And then hit “Post” anyway.  It’s complicated.

****

Curtal, you are a better man than I…

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Physics of the Physical Nature of Physicality.

Update:

Pressing discs?  Duke Nukem has gone Gold?  Until Duke Nukem Forever is actually on my hard drive and I’m shooting bad guys I’m not going to truly believe it 100%.

Mundus vult decipi.  (the world wants to be deceived)

Oh, how I want to be deceived.

****

Physicals.

Everybody loves them right?  Right guys?

Yes, you chicks out there have it worse, I know this.  But another’s suffering does not negate yours nor does it invalidate it even partially.

I went in to see my GP today – we’ll call him Dr. FishBait for reasons I will not fully explain – I respect his privacy even if it is (as you will see shortly) not a reciprocated sentiment.

He listens to the heart, lungs, checks the throat, nose, ears, etc.

Dr. Fishbait:  Ears are good except a bit of earwax.

Me: (grumpily) Good, make candles then.

Dr. Fishbait:  Nah, they don’t burn well.

Me:  Huh?

Dr. Fishbait:  We tried in medical school.  Just doesn’t burn well.

Me:  No, don’t tell me details… I don’t want to know.

Dr. Fishbait:  Ok, drop drawers.

Me:  Hey!  Your favorite part and mine!  No, seriously doc, is this absolutely necessary?

Dr. Fishbait:  (looking at me blandly) They tell me I have to do it.

Me:  They?  What do They know?  I mean, I’m only [age redacted].

Dr. Fishbait:  Well, there’s really no incontrovertible proof for prostate checks at your age just as there’s really no proof that listening to your lungs will find something we aren’t already looking for.

Me:  Good deal, we can skip the poop chute thing, then…

Dr. Fishbait:  Nope.

(I stared at him unblinking for a few seconds)

Dr. Fishbait:  If I find one person in 30 years that it catches something early it is worth it.

Me:  You can’t seriously expect me to believe that you’re going to invoke the “if it saves one child/kitten” argument…?

Dr. Fishbait:  Yep.  Over there, please.

Me: (grumbling) I still think this is total bullshi … holy shi… whoa, whoa, WHOA, DOC!  You just bruised one of my goddamned tonsils!  What, is your index finger three feet long?

Dr. Fishbait:  Prostate is good.

Me:  Sh*t, I could have told you that.

You know I can embellish stories at times.  Not here though.  That was absolutely verbatim.  We have a strange relationship, my doctor and I.

Later…

Dr. Fishbait:  You know, your heart rate was a bit elevated…

Me:  I was excited to see you.

Still laterer…

Dr. Fishbait:  (looking around for my clothes which were folded neatly in a corner)  Where are your clothes?

Me: (in hospital gown)  I didn’t bring any.  I wore this here today just to see you.

Still latererer…

Dr. Fishbait:  How’s your neck?

Me: Tell the truth and shame the devil?  Getting worse.  I’m about to see another specialist for a second opinion.

Dr. Fishbait:  What percentage of the time are bad days?

Me:  Oh, as little as 80% of the time.  I’m pretty sure nerves have regenerated.  Just a few months ago I was saying “no more treatments”.  I’m starting to reconsider.

The usual exam results – quit drinking, smoking crack, sports sex, lead pipe cruelty, eat more leafy greens and less ruminant brains.

Except I don’t drink, smoke crack, engage in sports sex, or eat ruminant brains.

****

Seriously?

Alaska… Fish and Wildlife… no tasering of wildlife for catch-and-release.  Well that doesn’t make sense.  You never know with bears.  The right to keep and arm bears is a fundamental right, I’m told.  It’s all Constitutional-like.

Fishing with a taser on the other hand seems ridiculous when you could just use dynamite instead.

****

The question to ask yourself… after you read this quote from FoxNews:

As crestfallen followers of a California preacher who foresaw the world’s end strained to find meaning in their lives, Harold Camping revised his apocalyptic prophecy Monday, saying he was off by five months because the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21.

Here is the question… how much money does Camping still have in his bank accounts?  If he really believed his own crap, he’d have spent every last dime saving as many souls as he could at the 11th hour and 59th minute.

My guess?  He’s still got millions in his saving account and long-term investments.

Camping’s hands shook slightly as he pinned his microphone to his lapel, and as he clutched a worn Bible he spoke in a quivery monotone about some listeners’ earthly concerns after giving away possessions in expectation of the Rapture.

Family Radio would never tell anyone what they should do with their belongings, and those who had fewer would cope, Camping said.

“We’re not in the business of financial advice,” he said. “We’re in the business of telling people there’s someone who you can maybe talk to, maybe pray to, and that’s God.”

But he also said that he wouldn’t give away all his possessions ahead of Oct 21.

“I still have to live in a house, I still have to drive a car,” he said. “What would be the value of that? If it is Judgment Day why would I give it away?”

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Camping, who made a special [snip], apologized for not having the dates “worked out as accurately as I could have.” Through chatting with a friend over what he acknowledged was a very difficult weekend, the light dawned on him that instead of the biblical Rapture in which the faithful would be swept up to the heavens, May 21 had instead been a “spiritual” Judgment Day, which places the entire world under Christ’s judgment, he said.

The globe will be completely destroyed in five months, he said, when the apocalypse comes. But because God’s judgment and salvation were completed on Saturday, there’s no point in continuing to warn people about it, so his network will now just play Christian music and programs until the final end on Oct. 21.

In other words, he’s taken in about all the money he’s going to be able to sucker people out of and needs people to give him about five months of space and hopefully they’ll have forgotten about all this by then.

****

Oh bravo, you schmuck.  Blowing your mom up isn’t kosher.

Gee, I’m really sorry your mom blew up, Ricky, guess she won’t be able to eat any spicy foods for awhile.– Lane Myer in Better Off Dead, right after Lane’s failed suicide-by-fire attempt, when Ricky’s mom drank a mason jar full of gas he was holding and lit a cigarette

****

There’s only two places where I personally could sanction hitting a woman – self defense is one instance and the second is if she was beating children (yes, that second isn’t legally defensible but it’s how I feel – there is no excuse to beat children beyond corporal punishment in parental discipline if it is necessary).  And this lady should not have been beaten.  But she did kind of bring herself into the line of fire by ridiculing Mr. Micro’s tool size publicly.  I mean, what did she expect?

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To Detroit Death Comes Astride His Pale Horse.

Note:  I accidentally deleted this posting.  It had some great comments which I will reconstruct tomorrow.  So sorry.

In order to work out some stuff with insurance I had to drive way out – way way out on the other side of Detroit this morning.

Got lost.  Got really lost.  Well, actually I knew where I was every time except when I was where I needed to be.  I was very nearly late.

I’m looking at my map and trying to spot something that looked even close to my destination and when I look up there’s flashing lights in my rearview mirror.  It was Death, sitting astride his pale horse.

I pointed to the next side street and pulled in.

Death left his steed idling at the curb and floated up to my window.

I said “Geez, I sure hope you can help me find this place because I’m totally lost,” stabbing my finger at my map animatedly.  Now, as you already know that wasn’t quite true because I knew where I wasn’t supposed to be which was where I was – I just couldn’t get to where I wasn’t.  So technically I wasn’t lost.  Moving right along…

In his most professional Grim Reaper expression the officer, who we’ll call Officer Thanatos, said “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

I thought furiously for a moment and then said to myself “Nope, I got nuthin’.”

“No sir, I don’t.”

Officer Thanatos then said “You blew through a red light.  That’s bad.”

Ruh-roh!  That IS bad!!!

“Geez, I’m really sorry, Sir – I am just totally lost.”

“Give me your license, proof of insurance, and registration, Sir.” said Thanatos in a chill yet sort of lifelike voice.

I fumbled for my glovebox and snatched up the documents, then threw my license into the pile, and handed it all to him.  “I call.”

No, I didn’t say that, but my brain did, inside where brain things happen inside my head.  Why would I think about poker at a time like this… hell, I don’t know.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Be right here, Sir!” I chirped.

Note:  This is exactly the sort of situation that always ended badly for me in high school – my brain would signal to my mouth to say something and because my mouth doesn’t actually have a brain it just went along with the suggestion, leading to visits with my pal, the principal, and later to some horrific form of dire punishment.

He came back a few minutes later, but meanwhile I called Cruel Wife who laughed evilly at my predicament.  I hung up, as there was no sympathy to be had there.  It was her first day on her new job and she wasn’t going to let anything take away that warm fuzzy feeling.

“Sir, I’m going to give you a warning on the moving violation but I’m going to have to…”

Ok, stop right there.  No utterance by a police officer ever went well when it contained “sorry” and “but” in the same sentence.  Never.  Not once.

“… write you up for no proof of insurance and no vehicle registration.”

“Uh, OK… What???“

Thanatos grimaced, which is hard to imagine but a death’s head can actually grimace, and said “Your insurance card is expired and your registration doesn’t match your plate.”

RUH-ROH!

Well, there just isn’t much you can say to that.  Arguing with Death never amounted to much.

Soooooo… I thanked Death profusely for not giving me a moving violation and sat there numbly as he gave me directions to the place where I wasn’t but which I also desperately needed to be since where I was wasn’t doing me any good whatsoever.

As usual, many passers-by slowed down to watch Death administer the last rites, sealing me to my fate.  Which was OK because really my mind was already where I wasn’t but knew that I had to be.  I made it to my destination with one minute to spare.

And the morning went downhill from there.  But that’s another story which I probably won’t tell anyway.

It just occurred to me that perhaps I ought to make some phone calls tomorrow to rectify the documentation problem.

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A Banner Day for Lemurdom.

Yay!

In lieu of a dog, I now have a cable internet connection and a wireless link that doesn’t stink like cat poo.

My Twisted Midget Porn website is going to be up and running before you can say “OhmygawdcanyoureallyDOthat??”

I must feed first.  I made some ridiculously hot Pad Krapow a few nights ago and it is in the fridge calling out to me.  Lots of beef, onions, peppers, chilies, basil, and yes… lots and lots of the meat that is not a meat.  No, not that kind.

I tell Girlhead that the Serengeti is populated by huge ginormous herds of boneless pale block-shaped and rather tasteless hoofed beasts called (what else?) Tofudebeests.

They must be prepared by frying till golden and then marinating in soy, rice wine vinegar, palm sugar, and sesame oil – and only then will they be fit to consume.

It’s not all quite as good as a dog, but it’s a start.

****

I’m so conflicted here… is this supposed to make me want to eat meat or not?  I mean, are we talking spoiled meat, metaphorical meat, “meat” meat, or some subtle layering of meaning that I’m not grasping?  I’m not a fan of Pam Anderson, but what if it were Salma?  What would I want then?

Screw it.  PETA is a bunch of broken people.  (credit for first sighting of the next two images with mine own eyes goes to Amusing Bunni – Thank you, Bunni, wherever you got them from…)

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You may feel some discomfort…

Update:   I finally had the last straw with Firefox.  For some reason they’ve had v3.6 out for some time and not done a thing to fix an issue with Google Gears and WordPress.  Blogging has been a huge festering boil on the figurative ass of the blogging world.

So I’m trying out Flock, which is Firefox based but seems to not have some of the most annoying features of Firefox.  It also seems a bit more tailored to be of use to a blogger.  So far I like what I see – I’ll keep you posted.

Damn Firefox.

Supplemental update:  If you blog, you will want to at least try Flock.  It has an external (read: Not WordPress’) editor, and it rocks.  You then hit a button when you are done and it posts your blog entry for you.  Oh so nice.

****

Had another radiofrequency neurotomy done today.  C2-C6 – I basically asked the doc to do most of the right side because I’m rather tired of going in for one region at a time.  It means more pain over a larger area, but it gets it done in fewer trips.

Prior to the procedure my doc comes in and says “Well, I’m now a member of the group.”   He had a herniated disk and was experiencing his own pain.  I told him that at least he was in a good place where the partners in his practice could treat him.   His response?   “Oh I don’t trust anyone here to work on me.”    Oh, sure, doc… way to instill confidence…

For whatever reason, it seems to take longer for me to recover from the procedure but the nerves also regenerate faster for me.  They should stay deader for longer each time a region is done.

Two vicodin and a muscle relaxant later, I’m still smarting. It is like having Freddy Krueger mucking about in your neck but using pieces of sharpened rebar instead of razor-sharp knives.  I am very loopy right now and am having to re-type everything.

Months ago I had the second one done for the C5-C7 region (left side) and it helped very much to reduce the number of flareups in that region.

Here’s to hoping that it heals up before we go on vacation.  The last procedure took about 3 to 3-1/2 weeks before they died (half the time of the first one in that region).  If there’s an end in sight it is much easier to tolerate pain.  If it is long and drawn out and there is no end in sight, that is the hardest thing to deal with.

I am also hoping that I can contemplate getting on my bicycle this summer. Start out slow and see if it can be done.

***
Speaking of discomfort, at last there seems to be a politician with guts. Good on ya, Gov… good luck.

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Scarcity of Lemurs Lately

Lets get this out of the way, shall we?

If this be truly a religion of peace they’ll be offended and let it at that…

… but we know that’s not going to happen, right?

****

I think it’s nearly done if anyone has last minute comments or critiques speak up now or forever hold your feces peace.

****

Scarcity has been especially for the Kingly kind of Lemurs – so sorry.  I’ve been out of touch and not posted much.

Lately I’ve had cause to be rather pissed.

See, the legal system doesn’t really recognize you as being damaged unless you are in a wheelchair, have missing body parts, or are otherwise visidbly disfigured.

I would just like to have my insurance co. cover my medical expenses, but one of the hurdles is that I continue to work (I have a work ethic).  See, if I’d laid around and missed lots of time at work rather than do my best to not miss work in spite of daily pain then legally I’d be better off.  I have missed time at work but I’ve made up nearly every hour that I missed.

The system rewards you for being a burden.  I’ve worked regardless and – I hate the word “suffered” because it makes one sound like a victim but if you boil it down, suffering fits – suffered for years as a result of that auto accident, and the result of having a code of ethics is the life lesson that ethics don’t pay.  Well, that’s a lesson I am going to ignore.

Why bring it up?  Because the remodel job started by my father-in-law still needs completion.  I had a friend come over yesterday to help with the electrical issues.  I did my best to aid him where I could and he even took on sheetrocking for me.  I did try to help him.  I tried to patch screw holes today, screwed a piece or two of sheetrock up, spackled some seams.

And so I find myself in a significant amount of pain today.  Painkiller-bad pain that resists painkillers.  If past events hold true then I stand to have a rough time of it tomorrow and Tuesday.

The question becomes:  What the hell is the difference if you “can” do something vs. can’t (paralyzed perhaps) if the payoff is that your life is fundamentally f***ed up for days?

This isn’t a poor-me post – this is a rant-against-the-system post.  In nearly every other area of this country we do the same thing – we reward those who go by the default position, which is the one that requires the least effort and provides the most burden for others.

We’re giving all sorts of second chances to people who are in danger of defaulting on homes that they can’t afford.  We aren’t taxing half the nation and some of them are getting PAYMENTS come tax time.  We are socializing our health care at a time when entitlements are at an all-time high and growing higher.

Where did we stop having a higher degree of respect for intestinal fortitude, a can-do attitude, and a desire to succeed in spite of personal cost?

****

I can’t stand the New York Times and I know the slant they are shooting for in this article on soldiers with PTSD coming back from Iraq, but there’s some truth to it.

There’s a tough-it-out mindset in the military that doesn’t lend itself well to the realities of the mental/emotional damage that happens to our soldiers.  They are human beings, not machines.  And they don’t need just pills, they need someone who is trained to help them through mental and physical pain, too. Sure, meds are important, but they aren’t the whole story.  And, being human, every single one of them needs someone to sit down and tailor their treatment – you can’t assembly-line this stuff.

Update:  The Army has issued statements to refute the NYT article.  This doesn’t change the fact that the military could do more in the area of mental trauma and psych issues – especially given the strain it can put on families as well as the soldiers.  Like I said, I KNOW the NYT has a slant on it, but there’s a bit of truth, too.

****

Over at WeaselZippers, a news tidbit – a seeing eye dog refused entry to a restaurant because the waiter thought it was gay. 

stunned silence.   more stunned silence.   crickets chirp once and go silent.

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Cruel Wife’s Paw

Update:  cbullitt posted a graphic of mine to celebrate his 16,000th spam.

I had fun with this one.  A bit jaggy if you zoom in on FemSpamBot but if you keep your distance it smooths out.

****

I bet the baby ones taste even better.

Thanks to The Dude – aka “Wilson”, for pointing this one out.

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Laconic Pup brought this to my attention with the subject line:  Navy 1, Terrorists 0.

THIS is how I want my tax dollars spent… effectively.

New photos released Friday show what the U.S. Navy says is the aftermath of suspected pirates attacking a Sierra Leone-flagged tanker this week in the Somali Basin.

The confrontation between the MV Evita and two suspected pirate skiffs was disrupted by the U.S. Navy destroyer, USS Farragut, according to the U.S Navy. The suspected bandits’ “mother skiff” was destroyed and sunk.

“The pirates have become bolder and are attacking ships further away from the Somali shores,” said Rear Adm. Bernard Miranda of the Singapore navy.

The Evita fired flares and sped up to ward off the attackers, who were armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Coalition forces were summoned by the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur and the UK Maritime Trade Operations office in Dubai, who received a call of aid from the Evita.

The Evita was also assisted by a Swedish vessel, which located the suspected pirates’ skiffs and witnessed them throwing equipment overboard.

Farragut coalition forces found 11 suspected pirates aboard the skiffs, along with fuel drums and grappling hooks.

Coalition forces released the suspected pirates after making sure they couldn’t attack again.

It’s that last sentence… the best way I can think to ensure that they couldn’t attack again would be to gouge their eyes out and crush their fingers.

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Cruel Wife’s Paw…

I don’t mean the in-laws, who are here for more days yet.

Nope, Cruel Wife had carpal tunnel surgery today.  Post-op I’m sitting in back with her as she de-groggified, and threatened messy divorce if I did an April Fool’s on the nurse.

I was going to pull off her heartbeat/O2 monitor and shout “She’s having a seizure!!”

The nurses, being the jolly lot they are would have laughed a lot but CW was having none of it.

I suggested “Nurse, is she supposed to be bleeding all over?”  and that was quickly shot down, too.

My final suggestion was to holler “GOD-DAMN, is that a ****ing RAT???”

Cruel Wife likes to say she has a sense of humor but not really.

She’s resting comfortably.  Sort of.

You wouldn’t believe the running to and fro I’m doing for this tyrant.

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Connecting with Your Daughter.

Update:  The Senate Sergeant-at-Arms  warns congressional members to stay away from Drudge because they might get viruses.  This is the same hysteria-mongering that gave us “Reefer Madness” and “Blood on the Highway”.

Another e-mail from a separate office warned that staffers who had visited the Drudge Report or White Pages had experienced viruses on their PCs.

“Please avoid using these sites until the Senate resolves this issue,” the e-mail read. “The Senate has been swamped the last couples (sic) days with this issue.”

Correlation does not equal causation.  My guess is that the more likely culprit is the sheer amount of fetishist Tranny-Love pr0n being purveyed by our elected leaders and their cadre of lackeys.

As Drudge himself says, this sounds political.

But the Drudge Report suggested that politics might be behind the warning, noting in an original story that the e-mail came as the “health care drama in the Capitol reaches a grand finale.”

The Drudge Report noted that it served more than 29 million pages Monday without an e-mail complaint about “‘pop ups,’ or the site serving ‘viruses.'”

“The site was seen 149,967 times since March 1st from users at senate.gov and 244,347 times at house.gov. [10,825 visits from the White House, eop.gov]” the Drudge Report wrote.

“The Systems Administrator may want to continue taking her antibiotic until the prescription runs out.”

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My girl is seven years old.  We do art together, we eat maraschino cherries together, eat hot-dogs and onion rings together, we talk about how tasty baby animals are together.  We watch SpongeBob, Dirty Jobs, and Phineas and Ferb together.  We make fun of critters with stinky feet and stinky butts (like dogs, for example) together.

Nothing special tonight. The dog is a vector graphic from scratch. Wah-hoo.

What father is against connecting with his little girl however he can?  Soon enough she’ll be totally alien to me so I’m enjoying every moment of it now.

I bent down to kiss her “goodnight” on the top of her head just as she jumped up with a huge spring in her legs and her head slammed into my jaw just under the chin.  Now, I’ve been hit at least that hard by fists many times before but usually it was when I was drunk.  Here, I’m on painkillers.

Let’s just say I got a two-for-one on this.  A jarring to the head (jawbone connects to the head-bone…head-bone connects to the… neck-bone) and a crack to the chin.  Damn if my jaw, face, and head/neck don’t hurt!  Well, hell, my neck already hurt but now my jaw does, too.  Swollen and all throbby-like, too.  The fact that I’m still feeling this on the meds tell me just how awesome of a hit that was.  Luckily I’m not known for having a glass jaw.

She immediately said “Sorry!  Sorry!  Sorry!” and ran out of the room.  I’m standing there holding my jaw and muttering “god-DAMN!” and she comes running back into the room going “Sorry!  Sorry!  Sorry!” and hands me something.

She had run out to get the little “Finding Nemo” kid-sized ice-pack out of the fridge.  Holds it out to me and looks up and says “Sorry it’s kind of warm…. I have a head-ache” and rubs her head where we hit.

So… if you want to connect with your daughter, take my advice:  Go get some onion rings at a Coney Island or something.

Update:  2:17am and the damn thing still smarts.  This is ridiculous.  Let it be known that even as girls, women are dangerous.

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By the pricking of my thumbs, something Wiccan this way comes… for your perusal, Elphaba.

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Will a lava lamp work on Jupiter?

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Minor Details. Don’t Worry About It.

Update:

Dr. Emanuel, a bioethicist, believes that doctors and hospitals should apply a rationing scheme he calls “complete life” for such medical services as ICU beds, heart transplants and vaccines during a flu pandemic. Under this scheme, adolescents and young adults would get priority over infants and the elderly, because “they have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants — have not yet received these investments.”

I have heard any number of advocates and apologists for health care reform, and they flatly deny that there is any wording that supports “death panels”.  They mock such concerns and dismiss them.

But here is the thing… when making a law or institution, the original  intent will not matter at a later date in the real world… you should always assume that the worst possible outcome allowed by the letter of the law (or the lack thereof) will be used and come to pass.

How else would we get a “living constitution,” or the idea that the 2nd amendment is acceptable some times but not others, or that separation of church and state means that a prayer/observance/motto/relic/book cannot be given a place in a public building?

Here’s an example, many thanks to Sarah Palin:

Palin can also put another notch on her belt when it comes to influencing health care “reform” — the Senate will drop language “encouraging” doctors to initiate conversations with patients about hospice and palliative end-of-life care from its bill, The Boston Globe reports:

Senator Chuck Grassley, the Senate Finance Committee’s top Republican and one of six committee members trying to hash out a bipartisan bill, said yesterday that the provision could be misinterpreted and that it will not be contained in the committee’s proposed legislation. ..

“Could be misinterpreted?”  No, try “Will be misinterpreted.”

Moving on…

Palin was hardly the only one to look at the House bill and realize its implications. In a commentary posted on The Daily Beast, “thinker” Lee Siegel — who believes “the absence of universal health care is America’s burning shame” — calls rationing end-of-life care “morally revolting”:

Determining which treatments are “cost effective” at the end of a person’s life and which are not is one of Obama’s priorities. It’s one of the principal ways he counts on saving money and making universal health care affordable.

This is the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right. …

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We’ve known that our social programs have been in dire straits for a while now.

Spencer Bachus – SS could be in default in 2 years.

If we add noises of concern about Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veteran’s Affairs Hospitals we see a pattern, a common thread.

Guess what?  Large government programs do not work.

Let’s add health care!  It’s proven that we can give poor-to-mediocre care to veterans, so let’s give that same caring to everyone!

Sent to me, don't know the source. Anyone cares to claim it I'll gladly shout your name to the rooftops. This is funny!

Watch for the Obamessaiah to explain away his flip-flops as being the product of a passionate and emotional… feeling… and that we should judge him (and give him a pass) on his caring and compassion.

Whinging by the dems:

“We were forced into this by Republicans,” one official said.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs blamed the media for misunderstanding the administration’s support.

“The administration’s position is unchanged,” Gibbs insisted in a testy exchange yesterday during which he handed one reporter exact quotes to read from previous speeches.

Republican responses were less than sympathetic:

Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said blaming the GOP is “laughable.”

“Apparently having a filibuster-proof majority, a 40-seat advantage in the House, and a president who was once really popular isn’t enough,” Spain said in a statement. “Maybe if people actually liked the bill, Democrats’ wouldn’t have such a tough time whipping up bipartisan votes, much less vulnerable Democrats within their own party.”

g

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We’re All Gonna Die. Again. Revisited. Again.

Ask me how I felt about the notion 24 hours ago…   Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper was running through my head with great muchness recently.   I’d have said “Bring it on, just two more steps and I’m there, baby.”

So, four days later and 10 lbs lighter, I’m feeling sorta human again.  Food in any form still looks and smells like boiled skunk – which I’m sure is a dish originating in Great Britain.  But keeping juice down is a success.  I think I’m going to live.

If the world doesn’t kill me first!!! Chemicals, the unseen menaceseses, are stalking me, you, your children, your spouse… even your hamster!

From The Independent where girls are girls and men are… girls… and where the truth can be bent and sometimes broken…

Men are the Weaker Sex.

Apparently we’re all going to look pretty damn feminine, us guys.  We’re slowly meandering towards something like this:

I’m posting a snippet of their tripe.  Note the careful wording designed to strike fear into your heart’s cockles… (emphasis mine)

The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.

The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

Did you hear the ominous organ music?  I swear, my bowels turned to water.  Uh.  Ok, strike that last sentence since it is redundant.  My knees knocked.   Gooses (as there are no ganders anymore, per this article) flocked en masse in search of graves to run over.

Truly have the seven vials been opened.  Some of them twice.  If only no one had sniffed.

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Stephen King has this wonderful way of writing characters that are so believable and colorful that they are not believable.  I recall one who was a gas station owner or attendant who whips out a hanky, blows his nose or horks into it, peeks, and pockets it again.

I mean, what the hell would you say to that if you saw it?

I figured that such characters and reality-tilting behavior existed only in the pages of a book.  Not so!

Last night I wander around the corner to the store (sick or not, the monkey on your back will beat on you) and when I walked in bitching about Global Warming and all the snow it’s bringing Michigan, the clerk looks up with this amazingly friendly vacant look and chirps:

And you shouldn’t get me started on the huge hole that isn’t going away in the OH-zOHNE!  How come no one talks about… (wah wah – wah wah wah…)

Now, I don’t believe in the ozone being an issue but she may even have valid personal arguments for the hysteria, but goofily putting emPHASis on the wrong sylLABle makes you look like a real dork.  EINSTEIN would have been laughed out of scientific circles if he’d said “I’d like to propose my new speciAHL theorY of relAHtiviY“.

Mocking and cynical today, ain’t I?  Oh well.

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UPDATE #1:

Man, this is pretty blatantly criminal – by now someone has to stand up and call bullsh*t, right?  Franken “finds” more votes.

UPDATE #2:

More proof that dogs dominate cats.  In what promises to be one of the biggest glurges of the year that is also true, we have a lost 3 year old boy saved by puppies.

I think they’ll be getting steak for a while.

A cat would have said either “Oooh, he’s shivering, if I put my ears under his hand it’ll be as good as a scritch”  -or- “well, if you don’t have my food, who does?  Outta here.”

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UPDATE #3:

Drudge put a link out for MyWay news… Will Recession Mean Toned-Down Inauguration?

Well, no, actually.  Rationalization reigns supreme amongst those with tin-ears.  I’m sure there’s a lot of people who are losing their homes while watching banks and investors get bailouts who are saying “I sure wish I could have some of that money so I’m not left w/o a roof over my head that I worked hard for…”

“We’re mindful of the fact that people in this country are hurting, that they’re going through hard times,” said Linda Douglass, spokeswoman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee. “On the other hand, we see this not just as a celebration of an election, but as a time for people to come together and celebrate their common values and shared aspirations and goals.”

For those folks, I’m sure their aspirations and goals are more in line with not losing their home and finding a job.  But those values aren’t common to everybody apparently.

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Update #4:
If you want to piss of your neighbors, build a sonic boom cannon.  PDF file:

2419-gadget_freak_case_131_build_instructions

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