Adventures in Surgeryland

So, I have sleep apnea, which means that I stop breathing in my sleep.

I went through a sleep study, and got a CPAP. So I won't die in my sleep.

But it wouldn't be a blog post if that's all that happened. ^_^

My nose is all messed up (partly because of genetics, and partly possibly because of the bike accident three years ago). Recently, one side closed up and I can't really breathe through it. At night, the other side closes up as well, meaning I couldn't use the CPAP. So... that's bad.

My ENT recommended surgery to fix my deviated septum and reduce my turbinates (this is after multiple meetings and tests; I really don't like surgery). This should allow me to breathe through both sides again, and if it doesn't fix my apnea it will at least let me use the CPAP. So I won't die in my sleep.

So my surgery was scheduled for yesterday afternoon. Something I didn't really think about beforehand was that I couldn't have any coffee that morning. I've had surgery before, but it was way early in the morning so this wasn't an issue. Oh man, I sure love coffee though.

ANOTHER thing I didn't think of was that I would have all morning to worry about the upcoming operation. So I was probably more nervous for this one than the previous one. And did I mention the lack of coffee? Coffee...

But that wouldn't be enough for a Phoenix story.

I'm at the surgery center, getting interviewed by the anesthesiologist. I'm moments away from being put under.

And the fire alarm goes off.

And it eventually becomes clear that this is not just a drill. The entire building is evacuated into the parking lot.

Luckily no one was in surgery at the time (only because I was a couple minutes behind schedule), but two people were in recovery and their unconscious forms wheeled out on gurneys. How awesome would that be to wake up from surgery in the sunny outdoors? A firetruck came and the firemen went through a quick building inspection. While we were waiting, I lamented that I didn't have a camera with me, but a nurse had her phone on her and snapped a couple photos of me and my IV. UNFORTUNATELY they didn't save properly, so I still ended up with no pictures.

So that's the surgery adventure. I'd write more, but I'm doped up on vicodin right now.

Friends with Lauren Hudson

I was on Facebook today, and noticed that I had a friend request from Lauren Hudson (from April 8th, if that gives you an idea of how often I check Facebook. Which is never, actually, I was only on because I noticed a friend request from Ken). So, who is Lauren Hudson?

I'm not sure.

BUT, I saw that I had 15 mutual friends with her. So, I looked at that list, and they were predominantly people from the CEB, or people associated with people from the CEB. Unfortunately, I couldn't see Lauren's full profile unless we were friends. So I accepted a friend request from someone I didn't know (this is the first time I've intentionally done that).

Well, only the single photo (the profile picture), sparse Info (18 year old bisexual interested in friendship, dating, and networking), and that's pretty much it. She has close to 900 friends though. And the messages on her wall...

Justin Abel eracvm,lorjktgopaejlpvjporjktgv,pckpt5ojkvopaetjkoijolgvji,lijghiovj,wrvojirtwoicvj,oij

Drew Scott

Hey hey, we use Earth languages here!

Justin Abel

Is this girl even an earthling?

Justin Abel Kommunikation ist der Schlüssel! who are you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

Tyson Cox Has Lauren responded to anyone?? I sent her a message but haven't heard back from her..

Timothy Dane Lawrence

no response at all.

Allie Friese Are you a real person?

Isaac Kuula

i second that...

Michael Fuller What up how are you who are you

Justin Abel Ms. Hudson, have we spoke?

Washington Leifi i dont know you.... but hey thanks for the add..... we should get to know eachother.....

Adam Ovenell WHO YOU!

Daniel Pierce

Yuuuuppppp!...lol

Phillip Rabideau And you are?

Bryan Dunn

I'm smelling a bot.... 600 friends and no other activity...

And (I assume) so on. Most of the wall posts are like that. So, this is the future we live in, where bots pretend to be 18 year old bisexuals in order to gain our friendship. Oh robot, you know me so well.

Does anyone else remember when Facebook was an actually great, functional site? It's a shame that great, functional, helpful sites don't make as much money as spam-filled social crapfests.

Question: Is 'Slovenly' A =Look=?

Just getting home from job training today. It was long (even though we got out early), but it was a lot of fun. It was mostly women, which was interesting, because they were all swooning over me. One of them even tried to hook me up with her 21-year-old daughter.

However, now that I'm home, I've gotten a glimpse of what I look like in the mirror. See, I overslept this morning, and had to rush to class (and even then, I was late). So I skipped the shower.

So my hair is a mess and I'm unshaven. It's =CLEAR= that I still have bed-head. I look ridiculous, actually, from my perspective.

So what's the deal? Is slovenly a desired look now? Have I been washing up just TOO well? All that wasted effort! And, no wonder that I'm still single!

Phoenix is unlucky with games

It's Saturday, so of course I'm spending my morning playing video games.

I was playing on the computer, and experienced a Blue Screen shutdown. :-(

So, taking a break from the computer, I pick up my DS and play Rittai Picross for about an hour, and the battery dies. (The power indicator light supposedly changes color when this is going to happen, but being colorbind renders this warning void).

Good times.

Microsoft Owes Me $50

I got a parking ticket today, my 2nd in recent memory (the other one was Nov. 4th). And of course, I blame Microsoft for this.

See, I had never gotten a parking ticket before November 4th. In fact, I've been parking at meters for YEARS without getting a ticket. What has changed?

My phone.

Previously, I used a Nokia 6800. This was one of the early semi-smart phones (e-mail, limited web access, and a flip-out keyboard), more phone than smart though. But still cutting-edge for its time (2003). And it had a bunch of handy features, one of which was a very simple countdown timer... that was TWO BUTTONS AWAY. That's it. 1st press quick-features, 2nd press timer. I used it when doing laundry, when cooking, and yes, when parking at a meter.

And then the phone died.

Right now, I'm using an ATT Tilt, and it is pretty much the worst phone I've ever used. It runs Windows CE, and tries to be a PDA and a phone. But it's more dumb than phone.

Everything is controlled via the stylus. There are buttons, but they are all context-sensitive. Which means that you don't necessarily know what each one will do in a given situation (and they don't all have display reminders either. It's more, press it and see what it does, and then don't press it again ever).

SO, if I want to run a timer application, I have to get out the stylus, click on the start menu, go to Applications, go to Tools, browse to the timer app, and start it. OH WAIT THERE *IS* NO TIMER APP! That's right, such complicated functionality is too much for this mini-computer. I'd have to find one on the Internet, download it to my computer, install the phone-computer interface software, and install it to the phone that way (in which case, it installs to the Applications folder UNDER APPLICATIONS. Yeah, you have to select Applications TWICE to run it). EVEN though the phone itself can browse the Internet when I'm in a hotspot, I can't install applications that way.

It's like a committee tried to come up with all the ways they could to mess with people. "How can we make our product even MORE DIFFICULT to use?"

I'm not even mad at the ticket writer, even though he clearly waited at my car for the meter to run out (based on the time on the ticket). He was just doing his job.

So I need to buy a new phone. I had been hesitating because of the expense, but at this rate I would be saving money in the long run to buy one now. Maybe the Nexus?


tl;dr
Phoenix had a bad day. :-(

Rainbows

Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole 'IZ' 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' Show/Hide


Driving home from work today, I saw a rainbow.



Actually, that's not true. I saw the place where a rainbow was. I couldn't see the rainbow itself.

I'm colorblind. Whereas a person with normal vision sees a spectrum like this:

I can basically see two colors: Blue and Not Blue

Or maybe I should say: Blue and I-Don't-Know.

(I'm guessing on that 2^nd spectrum. I ran it through a filter, but since I can't really see the colors...)

When people find out that I'm colorblind, it inevitably leads to the game: What Color Does This Look Like To You? To save time, let me just say: Unless it's BLUE, I DON'T KNOW.

Another game is What Color Is _______? Look, I know Grass is Green. I'm colorblind, not ignorant.

I don't really get upset by these things anymore. It's human nature to be curious. People who can see colors want to know what it's like to be colorblind, just as I'm curious what it's like to see colors.

In my mind, I picture it to be like music. The different colors join together like notes in a song. Two notes come together and make a new sound; likewise two colors come together and make something new. Three notes can get you a chord, three colors combine to make up what a normal person can perceive*. Each spot you see, each patch of color is its own instrument in the orchestra of life. The world is a visual symphony.

*Some women have two distinct red/green receptors in their eyes, giving them FOUR-color perception. I literally CANNOT imagine what this is like.

Now, of course I know it isn't really like that. I'm overselling it because it is unknown to me. But I have to wonder if you appreciate it. Or do you take it for granted?

You live in a world that, to me, would be like a dream, but you don't even know it.



Driving home from work today, I didn't see a rainbow.

But I really wished I did.

Unseen Academicals

Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork - not the old fashioned, grubby pushing and shoving, but the new, fast football with pointy hats for goalposts and balls that go going when you drop them. And now, the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match, without using magic, so they're in the mood for trying everything else.

The prospect of the Big Match draws in a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can, a maker of jolly good pies, a dim but beautiful young woman, who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been, and the mysterious Mr Nutt (and no one knows anything much about Mr Nutt, not even Mr Nutt, which worries him, too. As the match approaches, four lives are entangled and changed for ever. Because the thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.

Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!

Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld novel Unseen Academicalsis out now, and I've just finished reading it.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet, as until three quarters of the way through it was my favorite Pratchett book to date, but it fell apart at the weak ending.

Still, before the ending there were a number of great and moving bits, some snippets of which I will share with you below.

Here the Patrician and the Archchancellor are talking about soccer:

'In my day we were all so... so relentlessly physical. But if I was to suggest so much as an egg and spoon race these days they'd use the spoon to eat the egg.'

'Alas, I did not know your day was over, Mustrum,' said Lord Vetinari, with a smile.

Here the mysterious Mr. Nutt talks to Trev (a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can) and Glenda (a maker of jolly good pies) about Trev's father, a soccer legend killed by the game:

'Your father loved you, did he not?'

'Wot?' Trev's face reddened.

'He loved you, took you to the football, shared a pie with you, taught you to cheer for the Dimmers? Did he hold you on his shoulders so that you could see more of the game?'

'Stop talkin' about my dad like that!'

Glenda took Trev's arm. 'It's okay, Trev, it's all right, it's not a nasty question, really it isn't!'

'But you hate him, because he became a mortal man, dying on the cobbles,' said Nutt, picking up another undribbled candle.

'That is nasty,' said Glenda. Nutt ignored her.

'He let you down, Mister Trev. He wasn't the small boy's god. It turned out that he was only a man. But he was not only a man. Everyone who has ever watched a game in this city has heard of Dave Likely. If he was a fool, then any man who has ever climbed a mountain or swum a torrent is a fool. If he was a fool then so was the man who first tried to tame fire. If he was a fool then so was the man who tried the first oyster, he was a fool, too–although I'm bound to remark that, given the division of labour in early hunter-gatherer cultures, he was probably a woman as well. Perhaps only a fool gets out of bed. But, after death, some fools shine like stars, and your father is such a one. After death, people forget the foolishness, but they do remember the shine. You could not have done anything. You could not have stopped him. If you could have stopped him he would not have been Dave Likely, a name that means football to thousands of people.'

Nutt negotiates with a dwarf:

'Her? The Dark Lady? She can kill people with a thought!'

'She is my friend,' said Nutt calmly, 'and I will help you.'

Nutt has a mantra about Being Worthy, leading to this discussion with Trev:

'It is a skill. It can be learned.'

'An' that makes you worthy?'

'Yes.'

'An' who judges?'

'I do.'

(Not entirely unrelatedly, I read this passage in The Little Prince today:


"Then you shall judge yourself," the king answered. "that is the most difficult thing of all. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom."

)

Some characters have undergone little changes (not sure how I feel about those yet), such as the teetotaler Patrician drinking a beer while telling this story:

The Patrician took a sip of his beer. 'I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.'

Nutt tells Glenda an interesting thing about ships:

'The interesting thing about ships is that the captains of ships have to be very careful when two ships are close together at sea, particularly in calm conditions. They tend to collide.'

'Because of the wind blowing, and that?' said Glenda, thinking: In theory this is a romantic-novel situation and I am about to learn about ships. Iradne Comb-Buttworthy never puts a ship in her books. They probably don't have enough reticules.

'No,' said Nutt. 'In fact, to put it simply, each ship shields the other ship from lateral waves on one side, so by small increments outside forces bring them together without their realizing it.'

(this is a metaphor about relationships; it even puns 'ships)

Glenda cleared her throat again. 'This thing with the ships…Does it happen quite quickly?'

'It starts quite slowly, but it's quite quick towards the end,' said Nutt.

If I could put smart in water...

'Can't you wizards do something?'

'Yes,' said Ponder. 'We can do practically anything, but we can't change people's minds. We can't magic them sensible. Believe me, if it were possible to do that, we would have done it a long time ago. We can stop people fighting by magic and then what do we do? We have to go on using magic to stop them fighting. We have to go on using magic to stop them being stupid. And where does all that end? So we make certain that it doesn't begin. That's why the university is here. That's what we do.'

Ah, punnery:

'We shall have to change our tactics to suit, then,' said Nutt.

'Are you nu—insane?'

Another thing I found interesting was that Amazon paired it up with And Another Thing...(the 6^th Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book) penned this time by Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer. Of course, no one could ever replace DNA.

Threeway

Love that search engine.

So, someone recommended Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture to me recently. It sounded interesting, so I decided to check the Spokane County Library page to see if they had it.

I threw the title into the search engine, but forgot to set it as Title and it searched as Words or Phrase.

The first result was Threeway sex, whose only result was Triangles (Interpersonal relations), whose only result was a Vampire Diaries book.

Not... exactly what I was looking for.

Rainy Season

It hurts.

Many years ago, when I was younger and more foolish, a moment's horseplay crushed my right hand in a door. In an instant my life's path was altered. For about six months, my fingers wouldn't open up. I had a permanent fist. Couldn't type on a computer, couldn't brush my teeth or tie my shoelaces, and have you ever noticed how jeans are really biased against southpaws?

I played piano in high school. Did you know that? I imagine that many people that know me might not know that, as I don't play anymore. Sometimes I fantasize about taking the time to relearn how to play, now that I can move my fingers again, but I don't think I ever will. I doubt I could endure it.

Because it hurts. All the time. Sometimes, it's just a dull ache in the background of my mind, like a neighbor's too-loud TV: annoying and ignorable, but relentless. My hand makes popping sounds as I move it, and I can feel the strange sensation of tendons sliding over bumps that shouldn't be there. I don't take anything for this pain. What would be the point? There's nothing I could take every day for the rest of my life (healthily, anyway), and the pain itself is never going to stop. Ever.

Even when I sleep, it's still there. I often dream that my right hand has turned into a stone fist, because that sometimes helps mask the pain. Sorry pain, I can't feel you, I'm made of stone. Odd dreams.

But it's worse at this time of the year, when the rains come. I can feel the approaching storms, like a character in a novel I read in middle-school. I can also feel them leaving, which no childhood story I read ever warned me about. These days, a storm is always approaching or leaving, so the pain intensifies and never lets up, never lets go even for a moment.

I've felt terrible pain before, other than this. When I was in high school, I slipped on the ice and tore the ligaments in my ankle. Worse than breaking a bone, they said. When I was in my mid-20s, I passed a kidney stone. Not a smooth one, a jagged one that tore up my insides on its way out. Worse than giving birth, they said. So much blood was expelled that even my colorblind eyes could see it. That was bad.

Some days, though, some days this is worse. Believe it.

Often the entire tendon sheath becomes inflamed, carrying the pain from the injury all the way up to my shoulder, and the hand itself becomes a clumsy tingling ball of ache, and the right half of my body vibrates to some resonant frequency of torment. At these times, moving my arm at all is excruciating. Every breath I take seems to pull out more pain, and if I bother to hold my breath and still my body, the beat beat beat of my heart fans at the embers.

My right eye sometimes goes blind from the agony, white hot like staring at the sun. I just want to give up, curl up in my bed and dream of a different life that doesn't hurt so much.

Even just remembering this now makes it hard to type, hard to concentrate.

If ever you see me sitting unfocused on a cloudy day, please, just let me rest for a moment. Just a moment, let me regain my strength.

Right now, as I type this, a storm is approaching. I can feel it. The rainy season is here.

Bian shi tou. Please God, make me a stone.

Piano Bar

So, Spokane has a piano bar‽

I don't know how it came up, but my sister and I decided to go there for our birthday this year. I'll give you a quick rundown of the evening, Twitter-style (but since I hadn't bothered to setup my phone for Twitter, these aren't actual tweets. God, I just used 'tweet' for the first time).

Anyway.

9:30 Dueling pianos played Billy Jean (briefly).
9:45 Night is young, girls already kissing. I think. Wish I had worn glasses.
9:55 Apparently, anyone can sing with the piano. Like karaoke.
10:03 Our party has taken over the bar.
10:08 Lenny sings dirty Happy Birthday to my sister. :-/
10:18 Wisdom from my other sister: Alcohol is Tylenol PM that costs $50.
10:41 Piano-man is singing Don't Cha. It's awesome.
10:55 I would imagine that the girls being loud in the bathroom don't realize we can hear them.
11:14 Sex on the Piano - My other sister's new favorite drink.
11:26 Piano-man is closing with I Kissed a Girl.
11:30 Piano-man is still playing. He keeps saying this is the last song (he was scheduled to stop at 11:00) but people keep requesting...
11:44 My birthday sister tries to surprise me with a dance. Now we're both embarrassed.**
11:48 Piano-man (whose name is Christan*) ends his set for real, with Hey Jude.
11:55 Apparently now it's time for another bar. Should have taken that ride home when I had the chance.

** even though we TALKED in the car-ride over about how my knees don't work (especially right now; the right-kneecap is bruised through to the other side, it feels like. It hurts as bad as my broken right hand***)

*** that is a lie.

I didn't have any notes after that (although my right nipple is fairly bruised for some reason). :-/

Anyway, Gibliano Brothers was a lot of fun. I'll have to convince my other friends to check it out some time (HINT, you guys!). It was a light crowd (well, it _was_ a Wednesday) and we almost had the run of the place. The piano-man did play Billy Jean again on his own, but didn't know enough Michael to sate the hungry crowd. It was a treat to hear Nine Inch Nails and .... man I can't even remember all the songs he played. During the really good songs, I was too busy listening to take notes. :-/ He never did play Baby Got Back (which was requested many times) although he did close out (for really real) with Fat Bottomed Girls.

*Spelled 'Christien' on their website. I must have misheard him. :-/

First Impressions

So I'm just getting back from a first-meeting with a girl I met on the interwebs. Now, before I tell this tale I should probably delve a tiny bit into my backstory here and explain that almost EVERY relationship decision I've ever made has been wrong.

Did you ever see that episode of Seinfeld wherein George realizes that, since very decision he has ever made has been wrong, then the opposite would have to be right? Yeah, I thought I'd try that.

So instead of putting in effort to make a good first impression, I did the opposite. Nice button up shirt? No, just a t-shirt (and I'm not sure it's even clean). Carefully style my hair? I didn't even brush it when I got out of the shower, nor did I bother to shave today. And it wasn't limited to just my appearance. When I met her for lunch, did I compliment her on ... anything? No (which was difficult, because she was much cuter in person than her pictures implied). And then the guy asked if it was going to be together or separate checks.

My first instinct was to say together (in my mind, the asker pays, and I was the one to suggest we meet in person), but... the more I think about it now the less likely I think I'll think that in the future. What decade is this? It's not a Man's world anymore. What bothers me in retrospect was that she made no indication that she wanted to pay for her stuff at all (she had to go back to her bag for her check-card). Like, of COURSE I would pay; I have the penis.

Anyway. Everything was opposite. When I found out she was taking the bus, did I offer her a ride so she could meet her friend? No. Did I tell my interesting stories about ... well, you've heard my stories right? No, I held them in and let her tell me her interesting stories.

The point was to set the bar low: instead of setting a high expectation for the future, I basically went in my lowest form. From this point on, I'll by like this or better. Right? It made sense earlier today when I was getting ready.

Looking back, I wonder if I should have put in more effort, because she was really interesting. Other than the who-pays annoyance at the very beginning, I enjoyed myself. Doctor Who, Eddie Izzard, Christopher Walken, The Neverending Story, movies being filmed in Spokane, and adventures in the Gobi desert all came up in the conversation.

So maybe my decision to do the opposite of my usually wrong decisions was itself the wrong decision?

Time will tell.

Witz

Reading the latest Witz Pickz... is he... is he saying that he joined the Mile High club with his sister? This is what I get for skimming the article.

Or, this is what I get for being traumatized by the video of the man dying the horrific death on the same page.

Either / or.

What?

I was on Facebook today (must be a blue moon), and I was going through my friends list, and I came across someone I didn't recognize.

So I opened up their profile, and ... we have NO friends in common, we live in different parts of the country, we've never gone to the same school...

Who is this person?

This is what I get for logging on to Facebook four times a year.

Work Neato-ness

Cleaned out the ol' cubicle today. Felt like I was moving out of my apartment. I might have had too much stuff here.

Got all nostalgic, running across a bunch of keepsakes and reminders of the past two years. A lot of good times.

Right now, I'm done except for a backup of my work on this computer. Brought in my external, installed Terracopy (if you use Windows...), selected the required folders and let it run.

It says it will take about ... well, why don't I just show you?



Yes. 52 days, 22 hours 58 minutes 42 seconds remaining.

I may be here for quite some time.

UPDATE:



Neato.

UPDATE AGAIN:

Also I'm very hungry, and my painkillers are wearing off.

NEATO.

UPDATE AGAIN AGAIN:

I just realized that I still have the Linux partition to do after this.

NEAT. OH.

Shoulder Awesomeness

OK, in my defense, it was a Honey Baked Ham store. (Or, was it? I can't find it on their store locator. But anyway...)

The point is, I was rightly excited, and so my vigorous pointing and gesturing and jumping up and down was well within the norms for a ham-loving man.

And so was the left rotator cuff injury. Ah, the rotator cuff, one of the MOST EASILY INJURED parts of our intelligently designed bodies.

This was Saturday night. It was awesome.

Sunday morning, I felt fine. That is, until I went to grab a coffee cup from the cupboard. WOW was that awesome! I almost dropped the cup, that's how awesome it was.

Went to the doctor Monday, even though my shoulder was feeling better. Well, he soon took care of that. :-( So much awesome...

He said take Tylenol for awesome and an NSAID for inflammation, put Voltaren gel (a topical NSAID) on it, hot/cold pads, and don't use it for 10 days. Fine.

Picked up the pills and hot/cold pads BUT couldn't find a shoulder immobilizer anywhere. Owls, Ben Franklin, Walmart, Bi-Mart, nothing. Walgreens supposedly has them, but there's no Walgreens in Cheney. :-/

But anyway. Had a real moment of awesome yesterday. I put the cold pack on my shoulder. Seemed fine. Then it slipped. I, instinctively, grabbed it. With my left (aka injured) arm.

It was blindingly awesome. o_O

I'm writing this on Tuesday night, three days after the injury. I'm still in a lot of awesome. Taking a shower is awesome. Doing the dishes is awesome. When enjoying Gentlemen's Entertainment, I usually delight sinisterly; that's now too awesome to be possible.

My point is, I'm having an awesome time.

Tumbleweed of DEATH

Driving to my brother's house today, going up Freya, I saw a HUGE tumbleweed in the other lane. It was practically blocking traffic, it was so big.

And because I was looking at it, I failed to notice that a car in my lane was turning left, and so, had stopped in the road.

I managed to not hit anyone, and also I learned how well my brakes work (VERY), but it was a bit of excitement (and embarrassment).

tl;dr:
Today I almost died because of a tumbleweed.

Good times.

You on You

HP is running a You on You contest, where you make a video about yourself (hiding your identity), and upload it to YouTube.

I made a video, and today is the last day to enter. But, I hadn't finished hiding my face (digitally in post), so I haven't uploaded it yet. I went to a party (I had a really good time and met new interesting people, and I <3 interesting people). Just getting back from the party now, and I still have two hours to hide my face and upload my video.

Or, do I?

The upload buttons are disabled on the site.

A subsequent careful reading of the official rules puts the contest timezone as EAST COAST (although it sure doesn't say that in the part about the deadline, but it is mentioned elsewhere).

So really, the contest ended an hour ago, even though it's still August 30^th right now where I am.

Why do I always put things off until the last minute?

Write Your Own Ending: Pizza

INT. DORMITORY

Phoenix is waiting impatiently by the front door. A pizza-delivery-boy arrives.

Pizza-guy

Sorry I'm late, I couldn't find this place.

Phoenix looks at his watch. The delivery took close to two hours.

The pizzas are long since cold.

How does Phoenix respond?

Write Your Own Ending: Toe-socks

INT. WAL-MART

Phoenix is pushing a shopping cart, looking around. He stops a female employee and her co-worker.

Phoenix

Excuse me, do you guys have toe socks?

Female

No, I'm afraid not.

Phoenix

Oh? I thought you used to.

Female (sarcastically)

Well, they became cool again.

Co-worker snickers.

Female

Try coming back two years ago.

How does Phoenix respond?

How I Spent My Morning

I woke up too early this morning, and there was nothing on TV yet. So I started playing a computer game (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl).

And in the game, I fell down a hole.

Now, looking back, I think the fall was supposed to kill my character, but for some reason it didn't. But I was stuck at the bottom of the pit.

Now, this sucked, because I hadn't saved for like an hour. So I was going to have to replay that whole hour unless I figured out a way to get out of the hole. With MOST games, there is a noclip code that will allow you to walk through walls. I looked and looked online, no noclip code for this game.

Then I found a cheat that would put me 200 ft up in the air (which would get me out of the hole), but it didn't work for my version.

Bear in mind, this is the result of lots and LOTS of web searching and scouring. But no luck. I spent about TWO HOURS trying to get out of the hole. It would have been MUCH FASTER to go back and play from that last save.

Which I will still have to do because I'm STILL STUCK IN THE HOLE!

So that's how my morning went.