There exists a 1st-generation grunge rock band Alice in Chains, who have a song entitled God Smack;
And there exists a 3rd-generation grunge rock band Godsmack, who have a song entitled Shine Down;
And there exists a 5th-generation grunge rock band Shinedown, who have a song entitled X;
Therefore, X, where REMOVE_SPACES(X) is the name of a yet-theoretical 7th-generation grunge rock band, …
So, I’ve kicked pain meds for the second time in my life. This time was much, much harder than last time.
I did it by myself, with pretty much everyone I know on vacation or otherwise out of town. I was dosing with Klonopin to keep from seizing, and I made it through. This time, I went from 60 - 100 mg Oxycodone a day to zero. I thought going down to 5 mg would be the hard part. Turns out the hard part is 5 mg to zero.
Scary stuff. And no fun at all. Weird. You would think that writhing in agony on your couch in cold sweats in an air conditioned studio apartment would be enjoyable. But no, it’s not.
I have a feeling that in, oh, say, fifty years, we will look back at opiates (especially long-term) for pain control as we do leeches and bloodletting. But it’s not fifty years hence, and we don’t, and doctors still prescribe them.
I had tickets to three successive nights of Eddie Izzard at the Kodak Theatre. On the first day I had tickets, I stopped the pain meds. I couldn’t drag myself to the bus to go see him on the subsequent nights, and he’s my fave.
So I’m in an interesting position, should I be in another major accident. If I am taken by ambulance to the hospital, what then? Do I tell them, “Hold the Dilaudid, I’m a former addict”? What will they give me? Naprosyn?
Anyway. Yeah, I hurt less now that I’m off the pain meds. I guess that my body would signal pain as a trigger to take more pills. I’m not peachy-keen yet. I’m not ready to go back to work yet. But I’m better. Thinking more clearly, more energy, alert enough to notice that my apartment is really horribly messy.
Sleep is still hard. Regular readers know all the troubles I’ve had with sleep anyway, but sleep once one is off of Oxycodone is well-nigh impossible. So I’m keeping weird hours, napping when I can, trying my best — trying my best — trying my best. I have some friends in Australia. That helps.
So, kids? Don’t fuck around with Oxycodone, OK? I’m not some stoner loser here. I’m a college grad, computer wizard, 148 IQ, 99+ percentile mega man. I’ve never even smoked a joint. And these prescribed meds got me. OK? Think you’re too smart to get addicted? Think again. A brain is a brain, and a reward center is a reward center, and addiction has nothing to do with intelligence.
Seriously. Avoid.
That is all.
Be well.
Hey Readers,
As you probably know, I’m an Amazon Affiliate. I’m not really allowed to say this out loud, but (obviously) when you buy Amazon stuff through my links, I get a kickback. It doesn’t add up to much.
I’m also a heavy-duty Amazon buyer, spending maybe $500-$1000 (sometimes more) per year. I’m the problem child for their Amazon Prime problem: they lose money on me constantly.
Problem is, if I buy through my Affiliate ID, all my sales stats are snuffed out because I cannot get a kickback on my own sales.
So what I’m looking for is another Affiliate who is also a heavy Amazon buyer (let’s put that at $500+/year.) We’ll each generate a text link with our Associate ID embedded, bookmark each other’s, and promise to go to Amazon always through that link.
If more than one of you is interested, we could daisy-chain it (A→B, B→C, C→A, or whatever).
This post may not last forever, since it is subverting Amazon, but if you (Richard? Jordon? Marco? Polo?) want to trade, LMK.
I just got a Spam message with the title “dixon mole expectorate interrogatory cheerleader”. I marked it spam, then had second thoughts, and thought, “I’ve got to see this one” (yes, I occasionally think in italics) and clicked “Undo”. Here are the contents:
——————————
dukedom tombstone sisal? bygone, tombstone dixon.
lawmen upperclassmen bygone materiel cheerleader tombstone, barr
dukedom interrogatory cinematic quill built.
footpad man mole
barr academia univariate? circumstance, speck materiel.
montpelier barr built cromwellian litton espousal, barr
footpad allow retiree montpelier sisal.
crater toady man
campsite quill dukedom? sisal, bygone vertebrate.
lawmen cinematic.
——————————
That’s it. No link, no misspelled drug name, no implication that I should be worried about the size of any of my body parts, no comma-plus-an-exclamation-point to render it in the imperative. Just that aphasic string. For what? Channel testing? List pruning? Anarchy? Better ideas?
I received a very cute attempt at a cease-and-desist letter by the head of StampWants, Mark Rosenberg, whom I had called racist due to his preference for having large numbers of categories for some countries and no categories for others. I’ve rephrased and my revision is here.
So, the issue comes up: where to buy stamps online now? eBay has priced themselves out of the game (so there is no way for people to profit sell cheaper stamps there any longer) and, after dealings with Mark Rosenberg of StampWants (who, incidentally, wrote a threatening letter to me to remove my original statements from this site) I learned several things:
1. Live in or collect a country other than the United States? There is a good chance that you do not warrant a category on StampWants in Mr. Rosenberg’s assessment. Check the site’s categories for yourself. Mr. Rosenberg considers this a business decision. I see it as an important sample point in ensuring that the rest of the world remains a “special interest group” on StampWants.
2. Mr. Rosenberg is happy to claim experimental results that show that adding that country you care about as a category would ruin StampWants, but is unwilling to share the data (as would be standard practice in the scientific community.
3. I find Mr. Rosenberg tremendously cocksure when it comes to his own opinions, answering questions in a way that I consider rude and to perpetually dodge the point, with logic I find fallacious. To add insult to injury, he then accuses me of continuing to change the topic.
There are more reasons, but that should suffice for most readers, I suspect. Contact me if you want more. As I alluded to earlier, I received an absolutely adorable attempt at a cease-and-desist letter written by Mr. Rosenberg, in which he continues to behave in a manner I consider rude in the same breath that he denies ever having been rude in the first place. So instead of waiting for a frame-worthy cease-and-desist letter written by someone with, oh, say, training, I’ve rephrased the preceding (as a courtesy) to explicitly state my interpretations of Rosenberg’s behavior.
In any case, my First-Amendment-protected recommendation (which follows my First-Amendment-protected opinions) is: avoid StampWants. And the funny thing? My rephrasing, driven by Mark’s tired letter, extends the length of my negative assessment of his site and him by a couple orders of magnitude.
His non-StampWants email is markcrosenberg@gmail.com, by the way.
So, instead of StampWants, I turned to the awesome Delcampe auction site and went to Moneybookers to pay, as the dealer had requested.
Moneybookers is the European equivalent of PayPal, and it’s kind of neat to deal to deal with overseas companies as an American, and think about what it’s like for overseas citizens to do the reverse. It’s like walking around with your arm in a sling. For instance: ways to fund your account. You can pay from your bank account, if you find the carefully-hidden place to add an American account (because American banks don’t support IBAN, and Moneybookers pretty much assumes your bank does.) You can also fund your “wallet” with a credit card, for a 1.9% fee. Worldwide, they take Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Diner’s Club. Except in the States. There you can use Visa, American Express, or Diner’s Club — but not MasterCard, due to unspecified “security issues”. Does anyone have the slightest idea what is going on there? I am so used to Visa and MasterCard being uttered in the same breath. They even show up together on the same store window decal. And I really wanted to use a Mastercard (specifically, my PayPal MasterCard).
Starting this October, U.S. television network NBC will be running an action series starring Christian Slater.
Startled, I contacted NBC/Universal, and was given the following explanation:
We at NBC were initially reluctant to risk a high-budget series with Christian Slater in the lead roles. But that’s before we secured Scott Weiland to score it and Terry Gilliam and Orson Welles as co-directors. With this combination of talent, we decided there was no way we would lose our time and money.
(Nerds, hover over that Christian Slater link. He is assigned a number that implies that he was the 225th added to IMDB. The first? Serq Afgnver. Bracketing him? Nyvpvn Fvyirefgbar at 224 and Jvyy Fzvgu at 226. WEIRD.)
Check out 960946038000 and marvel at the über-efficiency of FedEx! They really are frakking unbelievable. I think it’s time to invest.
Some of you have already gotten this in an email from me, but I strongly advise you to sign up for Obopay. In short, it’s a secure way to send money from your mobile phone to another person’s mobile phone, even if he or she has not signed up yet. It’s much like Paypal, with the killer app being the restaurant phenomenon of no one having enough cash: this way, everyone can text their contribution to one person, who then puts the bill on a credit card (it needs a PIN, so if someone steals your phone, they cannot empty your bank account or credit card.)
Also useful for movie tickets, splitting parking costs, paying for auctions, and so forth. Unlike Paypal, which takes a (large!) percentage of the money from the seller, Obopay just charges the sender a small fee (for now it’s a dime, but it’s going up to a quarter next month.)
OK, here’s the pitch: sign up using that link I’ve provided, and I’ll get a referral bonus. I could really use the cash. As soon as you add a funding source, you’ll be set up as an Obopay registered user. Then, I’ll send you $1 (via Obopay) — your first Obopay receipt — as thanks. OK? Please sign up your mobile phone, and use one of the links.
U.S. only for right now, sorry.
Merci.
I’m going to the hospital tonight, after doctor’s orders. I have a wound on my injury site, and they are worried about a bacterial infection tracking down to my dura. I’ll check my email on my T-Mobile MDA (HTC Wizard). If you want and don’t have it, email for my phone number or mobile email address.
I don’t believe in prayer, cosmic vibrations, or wishable luck, but if there is some action that would help you feel like you’re doing something, please go ahead and do it. You have my blessing, and my thanks. No sacrificing of animals, please.
On an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Detective Tutuola (played by actor and rapper Ice-T) walks into a bodega and asks for “Two coffees: one black and one regular.”
Huh? Question for New Yorkers, please: what is “regular” coffee if it’s not black, drip, American-style coffee? When I was a barista mumbleteen years ago, if someone asked for “regular coffee”, I’d probably ask them if they wanted “room for milk”. That’s it. The black, drip, and American-style would have been automatic.
The ACLU will be running a Vietnam Memorial-style ad in the New York Times, protesting FISA. They will try to print thousands and thousands of names of supporters, presumably in really tiny print.
Get your name on the ad by visiting the ACLU FISA Action site.
Don’t wait on this one, their submission deadline is less than 24 hours away.
This is awesome. It is a Google Maps mashup that locates blue mailboxes as well as UPS and FedEx locations, on a Google Map, complete with the times of pickup or hours of operation.
Apparently, according to international law, items that are the product of “genius of nationals” of countries in the world are worth more (morally) in the country where they originated.
However, export of these materials — which include some books, furniture, stamps, and coins — “increases the knowledge of the civilization of Man, enriches the cultural life of all peoples and inspires mutual respect and appreciation among nations”.
UNESCO is intimately involved in walking this tightrope, evidenced especially by their 1970 convention text.
As I read it, this law has no retroactive applicability. So, Native American artifacts in Asian collections, Chinese artifacts in American collections, and relics from pretty-much-everywhere in British collections, are exempted, as long as the import occurred before 1970.
Why is this relevant? It might be, if you sell online. As far as I can tell, if you are American, dig in your backyard, and find a flint arrowhead, you are prohibited by international law to sell it on eBay to an overseas buyer. You may, however, be able to sell it to someone in Alaska. I don’t really know.
What I do know is that eBay links to that page, with very little clarification of the laws. Check out that eBay page. It basically reads as CYA.
For more information — fascinating information — see the list at the United States Postal Service that deals with import and export restrictions for each country. It’s really, really, really interesting, and you should really check it out. We can even get a game going, finding the most interesting prohibitions.
Most places ban obvious things: money, radioactive materials, infectious materials, body parts, but many ban weird stuff.
For instance, I can ship to Libya, but my shipment cannot include tea, salt, or tobacco. For Kiribati, you cannot send things colored with dyes made from coal tar. For Nigeria, it’s “hardware of all kinds” — whatever that means (nuts and bolts are banned?) For the UK, the list includes CB radios and horror comics. Turkey? Silver coins are banned, but gold coins are allowed.
This is why I have a list on every one of my eBay auctions that tells foreign shoppers to check their import restrictions. I am certain that many citizens of those nations are unaware of what is banned. And I’ve certainly sold tea, dyed items, hardware, and silver on eBay.
I am being bombarded with a new spam campaign. A typical email contains the following text:
Furthermore, safety, privacy, discretion, and time are all major factors.
It is then followed by a URL. The software generating the messages, though, is smart enough to shuffle the order of the “factor” words around, and sometimes omit one of them. So I tried creating a “Delete It” filter in Gmail that matches all email with the words “safety”, “privacy”, and “discretion”. That would eliminate 80% of spam from this campaign. However, according to a test search, I would miss quite a few messages from the ACLU….
Answer to What We Pay For Gold at GoldKit:
The first question many people ask us is: What is the price you will pay for my scrap gold? To answer this, we need to weigh and evaluate your items. […] The amount of your check will depend on this evaluation.
And Prices We Pay at Cash4Gold?
Material 10 - 50 oz 50 - 100 oz 8K $12.03(dwt) $12.68(dwt) 10K $13.43(dwt) $14.03(dwt) 12K $15.01(dwt) $16.44(dwt) 14K $16.59(dwt) $18.85(dwt) 18K $22.02(dwt) $24.87(dwt) 22K $28.72(dwt) $29.30(dwt) 24K $31.27(dwt) $33.00(dwt) PLATINUM $48.36(dwt) $51.06(dwt) Jewelry (Plat.) $43.53(dwt) $45.94(dwt) STERLING $8.40ozt $9.60ozt .999 SILVER $9.20ozt $12.60ozt
So they’re not world-shattering prices, but I think I’d recommend the known quantity, thank-you-very-much. ‘K, bye, GoldKit!
The sequel —
The entire point, of course, is to eat while poor, but not to eat poorly. The new recipe — append “whatever you can afford” to each ingredient:
1 can tuna packed in water
some cheese
some crackers
Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
Tabasco Smoked Chipotle sauce
sourdough bread
This also qualifies as a “one pot meal”, a bachelor’s friend.
Drain half the liquid from the tuna. Slice some cheese (the more piquant, the better.) Add both to a saucepan, and heat on medium high. Add a good squeeze of Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (or substitute Worchestershire) and a pour of Tabasco Smoked Chipotle to taste. Cook, stirring, until the cheese is melted. Crumble the crackers and add to the saucepan, and cook slightly longer until they are softened. Transfer to bowl. Serve warm on toasted sourdough bread.
A note on the Bragg’s and the Tabasco: if you can at all afford it, and are not homeless, develop a pantry of condiments, spices, and flavorings. They go a long way towards making otherwise boring food palatable. Yeah, it’s $3.50 - $5.00/bottle up front, but they last a long time, and you will quickly learn what to do and when (sweet paprika here, fenugreek here, Marie Sharp’s there). They are good for the long haul — except for the Tobasco Smoked Chipotle, discussed before, of which I could easily go through two bottles per week just by myself, and have to throttle my intake for my budget’s sake (one man’s fine dining is another man’s Hidden Valley Ranch, so feel free to scoff.)
The Bragg’s will take you to Whole Foods, and the Tobasco to a “regular” grocery store, but the rest is 99 Cent Only Store material.
Bob Mike, you told me lifetimes ago about the homeless man you had befriended who taught you about his breakfast feast. It involved Spam. Do you recall? Do you want to be guest chef for Eating Poor #3?
OK, it’s been weird lately. New apartment, waiting for Internet access — then my phone dying — then getting Internet access, but losing Gmail access — all rolled into one stressball with my Dad being in the hospital. This has all conspired to make me one of the most difficult-to-reach people on Earth.
Among my great accomplishments of late was missing the annual meeting for the Penguins on Stamps Study Unit — of which I’m the president. At least, if they didn’t throw me out for missing the meeting. So unfortunate.
But I’m back. My Internet connection works, and so does Gmail. My phone works, and even rings! And, best of all, my Dad’s out of the hospital.
If you sent me an email, I almost certainly received it and responded. If I didn’t, please send it again. If you left a voicemail and I didn’t respond, please call again — I’m not sure what got lost while they were doing account manipulation at T-Mobile.
So, sorry for the silence, but I’ll be back with chatter now.
Hope this helps someone. I just upgraded Firefox in Hardy Heron (Ubuntu Linux). Transition was smooth, except that I could no longer log in to Gmail. I would try to log in, but it would just send me back to the login page, rather than take me to my Inbox.
The solution: clear your cookies. Edit -> Preferences -> Privacy -> Clear Now -> (Just “Cookies”) -> Clear Private Data Now.
Sorry for the quiet. Sebastian and I are nestling in nicely to the new apartment (that finances have dictated), and Internet access is up and running at last. Niall will see the apartment for the first time on Saturday. Friends, email me for my new mailing address and for the new mcgees.org email address that will be sent directly to my cell phone.
If you ask Google what time it is in Singapore, Google will tell you. It will also give you a link to this page about the tumultuous history of Singapore’s time zoning.
I don’t need to write them. I don’t need to embed them. I downloaded some OpenOffice.org macros from the web, and for the life of me I don’t understand what to do with them. In the morning, when pain meds have faded, it may be very clear, but, be a dear anyway and answer my question: “I have a .sxc file that I want to be able to use in any arbitrary OpenOffice.org Calc document, new or old. What do I do?”
I can’t bring myself to actually post this on a support group, because this is “so obvious”, apparently.
From my chair this afternoon, I heard Sebastian incessantly licking something plastic-sounding. After quickly running through a list of plastic-sounding things that could kill him, I decided this is one of those things I was better off not knowing, and went back to work.
I just went to go make some lemonade, picked up my 1 lb. bag of generic sucralose, and found it covered in, seriously, like a two-millimeter-thick sludge of greyish bodily fluid. Three guesses.
So: Splenda transferred to new bag, hidden from cat, and mental note added: check on weird licking sounds.
Has it ever bugged you that there is only one “h” in the middle of “Threshold”? Of all the double-letters to do away with?
Anyway, my feedback rating crossed 500. Hoorah! I had hoped for that to happen in March, but I fell behind. I am now be-purple-starred. And as the Sibs decided some years ago, Purple is the Atheist color. So I’m sitting pretty.
Great Engrish:
My shoe is off, my foot is cold I have a bird I like to hold My phone is off, in bed I've rolled And now my story is all told
On April 2nd, Representative Monique Davis of the Illinois Legislature, during a session, condemned Jewish activist Rob Sherman for “destroying what this state was built upon”, shouted in open session, told him to “Get out of that seat, you have no right to be there!”, and commented, “What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous.”
Oh, wait. Did I say Jewish? I meant Atheist. Brad Sherman is atheist, an activist, and an American.
If Sherman had been Jewish, the airwaves would not have stopped shrieking the story for the last six days. Monique Davis, a black, female legislator, went all 1841-Mississippi on Sherman’s ass, and there was barely a murmur in the media.
Some of you who get your news entirely online will contend “Oh, everyone covered that, Josh!” What I want the rest of you to do is, if this is the first, or the first detailed, report you have encountered of what happened, to post, “I didn’t know about that.” You with me? The usual suspects can go ahead and tell me I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, and I’m just asking the rest of you to be honest about this. Did this get the coverage it would have if, for instance, an Atheist legislator (Ha! Must be a fucking incredible duck hunter!) had told a 71 black woman that she had no business in a legislative session?
(You can see it buried deeply in the Chicago Tribune. I know the Web has a way of flattening sites, but just note what column it appeared under, when, and where.)
Want to see almost real-time video of an eagles’ nest off the coast of California as it is alternately fed by Mom & Dad? Go here for the eaglecam.
Linux users in X have it great. Type mplayer http://media1.vcoe.org/eaglecam1 in a shell window, set the window that pops up as “always on top”, and just hang it somewhere on your screen(s).
Thanks, Amal!
I’m alive. More to follow.
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