General Thoughts

Your Pharmacist Knows Best

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tussionex.jpgI don’t remember yesterday. At all.

See, as many of you know, I’ve been sick for about a week now. I finally went to the doctor (Donna made me, I won’t lie), and he gave me some prescriptions, and took some of my blood. He also took some of my money, so it seems a little unfair.

One of the prescriptions he gave me was for Tussionex, which is a cough medicine that contains codeine. I’m allergic to codeine, and my medical record shows I’m allergic to codeine, but the doctor said I should be OK. When my wife went to the pharmacist to get my prescriptions filled, HE noticed I was prescribed codeine, and HE thought it was a bad idea, but since the doctor acknowledged my allergy and said it was OK, the pharmacist did fill it. I should have listened to the pharmacist.

The first few days, I handled the codeine just fine. I took it before going to bed, and managed to get decent sleep. The third night, however, was not so great. I took the medicine before bed, and didn’t get a moment of shut eye.

All night long, I itched from head to toe. In fact, I still have some red marks on my face from scratching all night long. I couldn’t get out of bed, because I was so dizzy I couldn’t walk straight. And to top it all off, by morning, I didn’t feel any better, and apart from the itching lessoning, I kept feeling worse. By midmorning, I was so dizzy, I could barely walk to the bathroom — but walking to the bathroom was pointless anyway, because I couldn’t urinate no matter how much I tried. (Overshare, I know)

Apparently, I felt the need to get out and move around (maybe to work the medicine out of my body), so I volunteered to dog sit for my sister in law. I vaguely remember that. After THAT, however, I guess I helped our youth group rake a lawn, and traveled across town to a pizza party. The only thing I remotely recall about the latter is sitting in a couch, with no idea how I got there, or how I got home afterwards. It made for a scary realization this morning when I woke up. I was messed up yesterday!!!

So yes, the doctor will be getting an earful tomorrow. I’m not going to sue or anything, but dog gonnit, I’m gonna call him out on the carpet. The moral of the story? Listen to your pharmacist. And your wife.

Sick and Tired

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sick.jpgI’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. And sore. And hot, then cold. And cranky. And recliner-bound. And probably stinky. And wearing glasses. And being unshaven.

I’m ready to be better now. Seriously. Any time.

Any.

Time.

NOW.

Scary stuff

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This scared me today:
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But it was healed a bit later. I didn’t realize how much I depend on Google… Even my NaNoWriMo novel is on Google, so they better pay their electric bill, because I need them to stay running!

(Novel is going very slowly, and the site redesign wasn’t just me procrastinating, it’s something I’d been working on a while. 🙂 )

Unsolicited Leopard Review

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leopard1.jpgI keep reading reviews about how great OSX 10.5 is, and how much I should praise Steve that I have such an OS. Like in my pre-release review, I’m still less that excited. Here’s a list of 7 things that frustrate me about Leopard:

1) Time machine, it all it’s awesome splendor, is pointless for me. Sure, I could repartition my drive, and make a spot to mirror to — but would it really have been that hard to allow me to just point to a folder? Come on, it doesn’t do anything magical to the second drive (or partition), so why make me reserve a crapload of space? And don’t get me started on the inability to use my Airport-friggen-Extreme hard drive for Time Machine. Guess why I bought that overpriced access point? Yep, the upcoming “amazing” program. Ugh.

2) Mail got all crazy, what with it’s ToDo, Notes, etc. I’ve read that it’s so much faster now, but I haven’t noticed ANY speed increase on my IMAP connection. The one redeeming quality is that I can actually have it permanently accept my self-signed SSL certificate — I was never able to figure that one out in Tiger. But still, I’m not impressed with the redesign, and since I despise HTML mail anyway, Mail seems to be ALL fluff.

3) While I understand the need to ask about opening a new application, that “first run” acceptance window just stinks of Vista. Again, I know it’s a feature, but it just makes me throw up a little in my mouth every time I install a new app.

4) iCal doesn’t sync with my 10.4 machines. I haven’t actually tested this with the retail version, because it borked up my calendars so bad with the pre-release. Does it have to be so tied to the OS that a simple application update couldn’t bring them up to speed?

5) iSync in general is a bit odd. Do I really need my Dock to sync? What if I have different applications? What if I use some things at work, but don’t want to even see the icon at home? It just seems like a weird feature to me, but since this is my review, that’s what matters. 🙂

6) Spaces is a feature that I’ve always liked about Linux. I don’t use it very often, but I like that the idea has finally made it to OSX. It’s not easy to figure out how to move applications to other spaces, but it is possible, so I won’t complain too much. It just doesn’t seem as easy as with Gnome or KDE.

7) Here’s the real deal: I don’t see any reason at all to upgrade. I know, that’s harsh, but really — apart from a few more translucent menus and such, Leopard has been a really expensive upgrade that amounts to a new, “theme.” WTF? Why are all the reviewers so amazed and so happy?

Poor Telemarketer

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A very nice young telemarketer from AT&T called me yesterday. Most of the time I gauge my phone nastiness factor on how idiotic the caller behaves. I vary between just hanging up, to stringing them along, to acting insane, or sometimes I just leave the phone off the hook and see how long it takes for them to hang up.

This guy was trying to sell me DSL. I have DSL, but not through AT&T. Here’s how the conversation went:

Me: Hello

Him: Hello sir, I’m sorry to interrupt your evening (and he sounded genuine!), but I wanted to call to inform you that AT&T is finally offering DSL in your area.

Me: That’s actually interesting.

Him: Thank you sir, do you currently have Cable Modem, or are you using Dialup?

Me: Actually, there’s not Cable Internet service available here, and I’m using DSL, but though a local provider.

Him: [pause as he follows a flowchart I’m sure] I see, sir, are you aware that AT&T offers DSL service for only $19.95 a month?

Me: How could I be aware of that? You told me yourself AT&T just started offering service. I realize you weren’t trying to be condescending, so tell me the details. What speeds do you offer?

Him: We offer 1.5 megabit service

Me: That’s downstream, but what upload speeds do you have?

Him: Um, we offer uploads speeds between 128 and 384 bits. (I’m sure he meant kilobits, but I didn’t bother correcting him)

Me: I currently have 1 megabit symmetric DSL, so that my VPN to work is a more manageable speed. Do you offer anything greater than 384 kilobit, or is that the best service you can offer? If so, what’s the cost?

[ridiculously long pause, really absurd]

Me: Hello?

Him: I’m sorry for the delay sir. Did you know that AT&T offers wireless modems?

[slight pause on my end]

Me: Young man, let me save you some time. I’m not the client you’re looking for. Thank you for your time, but I’ll let you go for tonight, OK?

Him: Thank you sir, you have a great night. Sorry for interrupting your evening.

Restaurant Spike Nightmares

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scaled597e_1.JPG(This is an old post, but I actually had a nightmare about one of these things last night, so thought I’d repost)

There are some things that really scare me. Bees, hoop earrings, woolen underwear, and restaurant spikes. Ok, ANY earrings give me the heebee-jeebees, but that’s another story altogether.

Every time I go to a restaurant, I have the horrible feeling I’m going to slip, and impale my hand on that darn receipt-grabbing weapon. I know it’s absurd, but my hand tingles just typing about it. It doesn’t help that our local diner didn’t spring for the fancy, pretty model you see here. There’s just a chunk of 2×4 with a huge nail pounded through it.

Why do we have to skewer our proofs of purchase? Can’t we count the register with unholy receipts? Would it kill people to put these things in a box?!?! Buy a clothespin man!

Sorry, those things just freak me out…

Yay! Stamp Math!

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coins.jpg

Did you know a US Postage Stamp costs 41 cents? Yeah, so did I. Did you know that 41 cents ends up being one of each of the commonly used US coins? ME NEITHER!

Things like that are super cool for me. I have no idea why. Unfortunately, when the postage rate goes up again, there won’t be such a cool permutation of coins. The next coolest (and cheapest) would be the 64 cent stamp. I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out why that would be cool.

(I’m open to other cool permutations, but let’s be cost sensitive people. And 82 cents is too boring, so don’t even bother.)

I, Uh…

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You ever have nothing to say? I have nothing to say. So I’ll say it:

[Blankness Here]

There you have it. Nothing interesting to say. I’m going to go watch Transformers now. (It came out today, and I didn’t see it in theaters)

Hide Me in a Field of Pink Elephants

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pink_camo.jpgMy oldest daughter loves pink camouflage. While it doesn’t look silly, it sure seems like it should. Why on earth would they make pink camo?

I wonder if it looks normal to me just because I see it so often. Maybe, there is a place that pink camo works. I’d kinda like to see it. As it turns out, my daily camouflage would have to look like school-wall bricks. Either that or a glowing blue outfit that looks like a monitor.

Hey, maybe that would be even more odd than pink camo. Glowing blue camo with white text all over. We could call it geek camo, and make millions. Or not. Feel free to send any investment capital my way.