Because I am AWESOME, that's why!

In the past few days, I've pulled my back, jammed my bad hip, banged my knee into a solid oak door, stabbed my palm, banged my knuckle, and burned my other hand. Go, me!

Things that are...

Things that are teh suck:

• Cramps. Whoever invented them needs to die in a fire.
• Assholes who play their music too loud. I've said it before: I have no fucking desire to hear your music. I don't subject you to Noa, Gaelic Storm, Great Big Sea or show tunes. Please return the favor.
• People who think they get to dictate on street parking. THERE IS A FUCKING FIRE HYDRANT in front of our house. We cannot park there. Not just because we'll get a ticket - fire hydrants are important. If your fucking house caught on fire, would you want access to water impeded by assholes? We are not assholes.
• Nancy Grace. She is a horrible excuse for a human being - I don't recall an apology after she tried to hound the Duke Lacrosse team into confessing. Nor one when her interview techniques arguably led the mother of a missing boy to kill herself. Not even one after she was so horrible to Elizabeth Smart. Ms Grace seems to have forgotten the point of a jury system: one person does not decide guilt or innocence. She is a Stormwing. a loathsome being that lives on the pain and horror of others.

Things that are awesome:

• My Kindle. I need a cover for it that says 'Don't Panic' in big, friendly letters, because this thing is pretty damn close to the Hitchhiker's Guide.
• Bottle Caps candy. 'Nuff said.
• Painkillers. See cramps, above.
• A full Bridge card. We're usually pretty good about making sure we've got enough food to last until the 9th, but we effed up big time last month. By yesterday, we were down to ramen and butterscotch pudding (not, thank the gods, at the same time. Yech).
• A new Russell/Holmes short story.

Effing concerts...

Swear to god, the main venue for Summer Celebration is a good two miles away, yet I can still hear someone yammering into a mike. This is how you know your concerts are TOO FUCKING LOUD!

I don't get migraines

I get tension headaches that mimic migraines to the extent that the sound of typing this post makes me wince. But they're not migraines! Cheezus god, deliver us from bullshit.

Saw a counselor today, it really helped. Cried a lot, but that's kind of the point. Then I got to haul Grandma Cs slow ass all over town - no, no, I couldn't drop her off at home and get her things, she had to go to the store with me. Nearly fell at least three times, nearly giving me a heart attack each time. Because if she went down, I would too, and i get the feeling that would hurt like fuck.

I hate the whole fucking world

I pulled my back (hoisting grandma C off the ground after she fell), I've had to listen to four different people try to tell me what kind of treatment dad should have - none of the doctors. The next person to suggest a macrobiotic diet will be smacked.

Aunt J decided to give a nice lecture about how dad shouldn't take chemo. Ever. "Remember what happened to MJ!" MJ was a high school friend of Mom's who got leukemia. She had a one in a billion reaction to chemo - words cannot even describe how she suffered. So, yeah, I see where she's coming from. But it NOT HER FUCKING DECISION! Dad's doing chemo and radiation for two reasons: to get his balance back (by shrinking the tumor pressing on his balance center) and to give him a few more months. If he'd decided not to do treatment, or that acupuncture and TCM were for him, we'd support him all the way.

And I saw a guy with a lovely bumpersticker:

If I wanted a bitch, I'd get a dog.

I guess warning the population you're a wankstain and waste of oxygen is actually a god thing, though.

I just died a little

This is... is there a word for 'beyond revolting'? Because this might just be it. Someone (who's going to be paying off this karmic debt for the next few turns of the Wheel) has decided to make a buck off of the tragedy of Caylee Anthony's death. Sick. Just sick.

A PSA

Cipro is EVIL. Do not take it unless you have no other choice. I went to the Oak Street MediCenter on Saturday (1.17) with an ear infection. The doc confirmedit, gave me vicodin and Cipro, and I tottered out. I took three doses. Let me run down my reactions:

1. Insomnia. Not just my normal no sleeping. I took enough vicodin, melatonin, and Tylenol PM to knock out a rhino. NO SLEEP.
2. Anxiety. My anxiety is pretty well controlled at this point. I have some panic due to stress, but that's normal. Hubby found me in bed, tearing at my arm with my nails. This is NOT NORMAL for me!
3. Muscle/ligament/tendon pain. After three doses, I knew damn well that something wasn't right. I call the doc, got a scrip for amoxycillin on Monday, 1.20. My hips were aching a little bit. By Thursday, I could barely walk. Now, I'm not the most athletic bird in the universe, but there's no fucking way that I would go from being able to walk, climb stairs, dance, etc to hobbling around like and arthritic turtle with pain in EVERY FUCKING JOINT. Saw the doc on Thursday, he told me that since I caught the bad reaction early, there's a very good chance the joint damage will heal. Lovely.

I am feeling better, but this drug has an FDA-mandated black box warning about joint damage! It can cause hallucinations, permanant hearing/taste damage, and permanent joint problems. Giving it to someone with no history of resistant ear infections is like using a nuclear bomb to kill a gnat.

A few gunmen short of a grassy knoll

I got the rare privilege of listening to one of my teachers blather on for twenty cocking minutes about how Microsoft is trying to take over the communications world with their .NET platform and some company whose name starts with 'tele.' My eyes had glazed over at this point. WTF?!? If this continues, I'm going to his Department head, because the State of Michigan isn't paying good money for me to have to listen to some Novell demagouge ranting about conspiracy theories.

PSA for anyone with a CitiBank credit card

Out of the, you know, two people who read this damned thing. via Consumerist:

Citigroup's "account sweeping program" automatically removed positive balances from customers' credit card accounts, Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. said. For instance, if a customer double-paid a bill by mistake or refunded a purchase for credit, that positive balance was then taken from the customer without notification, Brown said.

In the words of a Citibank executive, “Stealing from our customers is a business decision, not a legal decision.” The same executive later said that the sweep program could not be stopped because it would reduce the executive bonus pool.

Step back and read that second paragraph again. Some executive justified stealing because it would REDUCE HIS FUCKING BONUS!!!!!! I read this story and was so totally gobsmacked I almost fell out of my chair. Where the hell were the accountants? And the worst thing about it is, as someone pointed out the comments on Consumerist, the execs stole, lined their own pocket with bonuses, and the refunds and fines are coming out of the company coffers. People who had nothing to do with this might lose their jobs or their life savings if the stock tanks.

Sometimes I just want to give up and not give a shit anymore. Then I read about people like these, who drove across the country to rescue dogs they'd never met and knew nothing about, and I think there might be hope for humanity yet. As Jimmy Tock said in Life Expectancy, "Where there's cake, there's hope. And there's always cake."

Fleas my cats have

How the hell they got fleas is beyond me, but the damn things must be screwing like bunnies AND immune to treatments, because we ended up having to give Mika a bath last night.

Read that last sentence again. I'm just glad she's front declawed and we have a deep tub, otherwise I'd have stitches today.

I shall explain my evening in one xkcd strip...

Except instead of installing BSD, I was trying to make the HotSynch feature on my Palm work properly. Mobipocket was what was hanging it up, so I deleted it off my desktop and palm, after backing up all my books. But then HotSynch still wouldn't work to install the damn Mobipocket - so I deleted the Palm stuff, thinking I could re install from a download. Nope. Installshield wouldn't do something or other with the runtime. So, dug up the original CD, futzed around with resetting the damn thing THREE FREAKING TIMES, and it looks like it might finally work. I hope...

Going for a record...

My personal migraine record is a little more than two days. I'm looking to break that with this one - almost thirty hours right now. Ah, the joys of stress-induced headaches that make you want to throw up, eh?

I really need a laugh

Right now, we have no car. We will have no car until my parents get the money together to fix it, since they're only lending it to us. So. Not only are we stuck here, because the bus system SUCKS and i really, really can't walk all that far, but Grandma and Janie are stuck here, runnning out of food and going stir crazy. And I have a migraine.

But, Martin's working, at least for awhile. So, yay.

Yo ho, Yo Ho, an insomniacs life for me

What could be better when you can't sleep than hot tuna casserole and Stargate Atlantis? I'll tell you: Not very much.

There are three thing, however, that i could do without:

1) A mother who seems to think that helping her daughter keep her commitments despite plan changes 'isn't really' her 'problem.'
2) An hysterical aunt who calls from her cell while driving our van, screaming that it's not working and how do I get where I'm' going and WASN'T IT WORKING FINE FOR YOU?!?!!11
3) a broken down mode of transport.

But I have tuna casserole and SGA - it can't be all bad. And if I'm very, very luck, I'll have caramel fudge brownies tomorrow.

I hate people

More specifically, I hate people who think that it's fine and dandy for me to be able to hear their fookin' concert when I'm over half a mile away! There's a reason (besides being broke) that I didn't scrape together the money to go to Summer Celebration this year - I didn't want to see any of the acts. So what the hell makes people think I want to hear them?

I hate people. On the plus side, we've got a wee little bit of work tomorrow. Makes me happy.

Yech

If I were to ever spawn (not friggin likley), I would KILL any idiot who brought me shoez like these for my baby daughter. I would probably be more forgiving if they were for a boy, but still! Let's indoctrinate kids into uncomfortable, damaging shoes before they can walk!


Via Shakesville

Somehow, I feel better

Not for any real reason that I can think of. But I do feel better. The dentist told me I have three teeth the need pulled (ironically enough, not the wisdom tooth I thought was causing the problems in the first place...) The one that's currently infected goes first, that's on Monday or Tuesday, then the rest as I can afford them.

The stupid stimulus check STILL ISN'T HERE. But i think I'm somehow also okay with this. We can afford site, gas and food with Hubby's respite check. Everything else is gravy.

Stimulus checks, my ass

The only thing these goddamn checks have stimulated is my urge to go strangle some IRS bureaucrats. Hubby and I are supposed to get $600. Our check was supposed to be mailed on Friday. Not here yet (Border War, however, is coming up rather soon. As in, we're supposed to be there tomorrow to help set up Camp DragonScythe.) The IRS web site only says that the check is supposed to be mailed on the 6th. Grrrrrr...

On the "plus" side, I have a wisdom tooth coming in sideways that will probably have to be pulled.

Now you can bug people AFTER the Rapture...

This is... This is mind boggling. There's a site (that I'm not going to like to, it's in the Wired post if you're that interested) that lets you pay $40 a year to prepare email messages to be sent to friends and loved ones six days after the Rapture. The only part of the damn rapture I'm looking forward to is not being hectored by fundies everywhere I turn, and now THIS? Why, gods, WHY?!?

From The Stranger.

Three hours I will never, ever get back.

This pat Saturday, I was subjected to the most horrific waste of time I've seen in years. No, not Magic: The Gathering. Not even World of Warcraft. Not even, heaven forfend, Second Life. No, dear readers (all two of you), I was forced to view Sex and the City. Against my will.

As everyone in the Western Hemisphere knows by now, the massively overhyped movie based on a TV series based on a book came out of Friday. Synopsis: Big is an asshole. Samantha is a bitch. Miranda is even bitchier. Charlotte screams a lot. And has a baby. Carrie is self absorbed and label obsessed. Why, gods, why do I even know these characters names? The movie is vapid. A character craps her pants. Pubic hair jokes are made. Lots of people have lots of sex. I get to see way more of a guy who isn't my husband than I ever wanted to in an R rated movie. Gay men flame, and it's a HORRIBLE!!!11!!

There. I feel better now.