October 24, 2007

Redux > Redux > The Final Verdict

I had the honor of going to the PT people on Monday for a follow-up visit about my Cylon neck. I met with the PA and she was really on the ball. I could tell that she had really reviewed my case file. We talked about the specifics of my case; she poked and prodded me to see if she could cause me any pain [she could]; she had me move my neck around and around and around.

The good news is all the deep-tissue and bone issues appear to be resolved. This means that the pain I'm experiencing isn't because of a problem here. The PA did note that I'm still having a fair amount of problems with the muscles around my neck and left shoulder. She said that's perfectly normal at this phase of the recovery. To combat the muscle spams and tightness in my neck she sent me home with 90 Flexeril and 90 Vicodin. Narcotics: Let me show you them. I don't need to schedule another follow up, and unless I'm still in a lot of pain 2-3 months from now, I'm completely done. So, pop some pain killers with me and toast to my almost completed recovery!

Busy, Busy. We Must Be Busy

The dearth of posting is directly proportional to the amount of busy at work. I've been working a lot lately. We're in the middle of a website redesign and I've been tapped as the Constructomatic. I've even been dreaming in HTML code and CSS style sheets. Fortunately, I think there's a light at the end of the tunnel. All the major construction has been completed; we should be entering the fixing minor coding problems, editing content and making sure graphic elements are displaying where they should be very soon.

I spent most of this week entering data into the database that's going to back-end the search feature on the web site. This was a pretty tedious exercise, but it also gave me the chance to spot several problems with the new site. Looks like I'll be doing more work at home this weekend.

Lest it sound like I complain too much, I really enjoy this project. It's been challenging, and I've learned many new skills. I've also had many of my opinions listened to and favorably added into the redesign. So, while I'm tired, busy and have no social life -- I'm actually kind of happy and content.

October 17, 2007

Memory Lane

I don't remember much about 3rd grade. Most of my memories are rather vague; I remember being really happy that I had Mrs. Hellman because she was the super-cool teacher that everyone wanted to have. I vaguely remember some lesson about candy that involved us making red lollipops. And for some odd reason, I also remember that I did really well in the spelling bee, but I lost because I couldn't spell 'palomino'.

However, there are 2 very distinct memories that I have. The first happened during a story-lesson. We were all sitting on the floor kind of like a 20 kid pile up. A girl that lived a few blocks away from me was sitting in front of me. I noticed that she had just gotten her hair braided, complete with the hairbeads that were everywhere in the 80's. My 8 year-old mind was fascinated by this, so I reached out to touch her hair -- just to see what it felt like. Predictably, Christy wasn't happy about this and screamed "He touched my hair!" I was really super embarrassed. Mrs. Hellman said something along the lines of well your hair is different, and he was just curious about it. No harm, no foul. I didn't get in any trouble, but Christy was very upset. I wanted to apologize, but I really didn't understand what was going on. Since I saw Christy after school many days and played with her, things got sorted out.

My second memory is about month later during the ever popular snack time. We'd sit around the tables, and eat whatever snack our parents had packed for us. The class rich-bitch bully had decided that she and her posse were going to sit across from me. Betsy kept taunting and daring me to touch her Little Debbie StarCrunch. Mostly because she knew that we didn't really have the money to spend on snacks like that. After about listening to her for 5 minutes, I had enough of her and her stupid StarCrunch. Figuring that I'd gotten away with touching something I shouldn't have touched before, I jabbed my finger at the StarCrunch.

Betsy started crying. Mrs. Hellman treated me like the 3rd grade version of the AntiChrist. I tried to explain what happened, but I got read the riot act, was made to publicly apologize and I had to bring a whole box of StarCrunches to class the next day and give them to Betsy. Properly chastened, I came to school the next day and gave Betsy her demon treats. She responded that she didn't really want them and she just wanted to see if I'd actually touch her damn food.

Confused by the conflicting messages Mrs. Hellman sent out, I decided it was best not to touch anything that was not mine or physically attached to my body. But I couldn't help but realizing: It's apparently OK to touch the equally-as-poor-as-me black girl's hair, but it's NOT OK to touch the rich, white, blonde girl's snack. Growing up at the lower end of the middle class in a very rich suburb made me accutely aware of all the things I didn't have at a very early age. But without even realizing what she had done Mrs. Hellman had taught me something about how society in this very rich suburb worked: Rich White Girl > Poor White Boy > Poor Black Girl. Fortunately, that equation never took for me.

Christy and I remained friends until my family moved across town when I was 15. Betsy got steadily more stuck up and nastier as the years progressed. The last time I ever saw her was at the end of 6th grade. From what I heard, she was one of those popular rich tyrants in high school. Which of course means that everyone hated her.

October 11, 2007

Gettin' Jiggy With With

As Roxy and I were riding the elevator up to the Condo last night, it stopped on G1. A very nice Russian (or from one the former Soviet --stans) lady got in the elevator with us. We started talking about Roxy (*wag**wag**wag*), and what a pretty girl she is (*wag,wag,wag,wag,wag,wag*), and how social and full of energy she is (*tailexplodes*).

Now, I was a little unsure what this lady was doing in the elevator with us, because I told her that the elevator was going up and she clearly stated that she needed to go down. As we exited on our floor, a man entered the still up-bound elevator. As I was putting my key into the door I heard the following conversation between the Russistani and the Guy.

Russistani: OH! This elevator is going up?
Guy: Yeah.
Russistani: Oh, OK. I'll ride you.

Here's a little tip for you nice Russistani woman: Prepositions like "with" are not really optional in English. Because, I'm sure you really didn't mean what you said. But, it was funny and the highlight of my day.

October 9, 2007

New Links

Ashamedly, I have to admit that I'm a big fan of the LOLcat meme that's been going around for the last 2 billion years.

I can haz cheezbergur? No, not yourz, kitteh.

But now I've discovered 2 new sites that make me happy:

Stuff On My Mutt (for the dog lovers) and
Stuff On My Cat (for those that love the pouncing hairball factories.)

Enjoy.

AJ & Ebert

I hauled the Major and Princess HotMuffin to the movies on Saturday. Unfortunately for all of us, I took us to see The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising. Now, this should have been a totally awesome, crap your pants, squeal with delight movie. It's based on one of my all time favorite novels, The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper. I read this book when I was around 10 and it's stayed with me throughout the years.

I went into the movie with an open mind. The idea was to accept the movie for what it was and not compare it to the book. Normally, this would be a good strategy, but they should have really put a disclaimer on the movie: This movie is VERY loosely based on Susan Cooper's novel, and by loosely we mean almost not at all.

About the only things that remain from Susan Cooper's wonderful book are character and place names, the search for the signs, and the general Light vs. Dark theme. This movie is so different from the book, it could be qualified as an entirely different story. Kind of like fanfic written by 12 year old with a penchant for fire and explosions. With that in mind, I have to say that the movie is your typical, Hollywood-style pablum for the masses. There are plot holes big enough for the old Star Jones to fit through. There is little to no explanation of why Will Stanton needs to search for the Signs -- or indeed what each Sign is. Will's supposedly got a bevy of powers at his command, but the only thing he really does with them is set stuff on fire -- torches, cars, trees. For some reason Will travels through time, and ends up in a 17th century cockfight, a Viking invasion, and a church infested with snakes (apparently, St. Patrick hadn't been there yet.) The dialogue is craptacular, character development is non-existent and I just don't buy Francis Conroy as an rapier-wielding ass-kicker. (Just where did she pull that epee from anyway?)

But my main problem with this movie is that the book provided such excellent source material there should have been no reason for it to turn out like Britney's new hit. I honestly get updating the story and adapting scenes so they work well on the screen. But if you're going to throw almost the entire original story out, why even bother making the movie? Bottom line: if you haven't read the book you'll probably enjoy this as a rental. If you have read the book, skip it or you'll rage and start blowing up cars just like Will in this movie.

October 2, 2007

Weekend Update

I would love to say that I had a super-hyper-productive-monkey-force-go! weekend, but it was pretty lazy.

Friday I headed out to Thaiphoon (lame name, great food) with a couple of friends. This is a good thing. Thaiphoon is one of my favorite restaurants -- the cashew chicken is superb. It also doesn't hurt that it's located next to the Pentagon City Mall Super Complex Of Fun Shopping. I broke my rule about going into a GameStop, but surprise I couldn't find the game I was looking for.

Saturday was more of the same. Princess HotMuffin came up to visit me, and I'm happy to report that she's completely over her many illnesses. We had planned to go to several stores and run some errands, but we got as far as AC Moore and decided we were too tired. We went back home, ordered Chinese food and watched Dr. Who on DVR. (The muffin claims that Dr. Who is Dr. Who-ier at my place.) I did 'come alive' around 10 and did some chores around the place, but that was short lived. By 10:45 I was in bed watching Bones Season 2.

I managed to be a bit more productive on Sunday -- a few loads of laundry, got several errands run, took out the trash. I also got a new quilt. It's green. And plaid. And I love it. The best part is that it's lightweight, so the Major can't complain that it's too hot. He's happy sleeping with nothing but the sheet in -10 degree weather. I like a nice comforter in 70 degree weather. This should solve that problem. Other than the insomnia on Sunday night, I had a very restful and relaxing weekend.