Wedding Out the Window

White Rabbits! And I thought this was going to be an especially lucky day, what with my usual weekend chores all done before 8 AM and the grocery shopping (and gas station) before noon and the lovely emotional nostalgia kick I got from the 1986 NY Mets reunion ceremony... but that all came to a crashing halt around six hours ago when extremely loud music started emanating from the Hot Tub House outside our Yonkers-facing windows (home office and bedroom). Apparently it wasn't a run-of-the-mill party, but a complete wedding party, all in white and enjoying music that must have been too loud for them, and was certainly too loud for a suburban-city enclave surrounded by neighbors. I'm usually not that passive aggressive any more but I called the cops as the speakers blasted it out well above the 60db allowed before 10 PM (and the 50db allowed after 10 PM). No idea if the gendarmes ever arrived, but I've spent much of the last six hours in a very shaky state, wearing earplugs as well as the new noise-cancelling headphones Robin purchased for our flights to and from England. Unfortunately we couldn't get the earphones to work with the bedroom TV, but they worked well enough with my iPhone that I was able to listen to (and thoroughly enjoy despite the circumstances) the new Paul McCartney album. But the wedding noise put paid to my plans to, you know, get a nap in which I couldn't do earlier in the afternoon because screechy children, or even take a much-needed shower which will now have to wait another day. The music is finally winding down now, although loud voices still prevail, so the earphones are off (tried in vain to doze with them on) and the earplugs are in until the madness abates entirely. I reckon I'll be a wreck tomorrow, when I do hope to get in at least one nap and definitely a shower, and am very grateful it's a Sunday as I'll need the extra day to recover.

Back in Business

The new printer arrived while we were out shopping and sush'ing, and I still can't believe Robin was able to carry it up that indoor flight from the landing to our apartment. Goodness only knows when it'll be out of the place entirely, it sits near the old air conditioner in its box. It may be time to take our downstairs neighbor up on his offer to help with the schleppage. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for tomorrow's company outing to the Bronx Zoo, which is sure to exhaust me as I then have to go into the office two days running. Ah well, one day at a time!

Impending Wossnane

I left work today with a weird feeling of dread. I had to close my computer in the middle of a process that I hope hasn't screwed up too many files, but it was quitting time and the process was taking way longer than expected, so I'm crossing my fingers all will be well when I log on tomorrow. The temps have plummeted into autumn at last, but I feel like my body hasn't yet adjusted. And of course there's no joy in Bronx-ville as the Yankees utterly failed yesterday but I kind of expected that. It's the in-between season, and even though I live all year for autumn I feel like I'm not quite there yet...

Almost Inactive

The weather was cloudy all day, but didn't start raining until the afternoon. Still, considering how sleepy I was (calf cramping awoke me at 4 AM and I crashed again around 5:30 and didn't get up until after 9) it's probably a good thing I didn't get behind the wheel. I need to push myself onto the exercise bike again, particularly as my annual physical is next week, but it's always one thing or another preventing that. Friday for sure! At least all my comics reading is done for the moment. Small steps!

Too Tired to Care Much

Tour de France over, expected phenom wins again. Up in the night due to yesterday's mini-splosion so pretty somnambulant today. Will try to get important stuff done tomorrow...

All Except the Bike

Today I reorganized our snack shelf in the larder, grouping together all the nuts and the sugar-free choccies, etc., while I was refilling the tea holder, all in between doing weekly timesheets for my partners. Called both my mom and my uncle, even showered... Everything that can be organized is organized, except I still have to get back on the bike. And start to make medical appointments. I totally blame the weather. It's either too cold for my system or there's too much precipitation about, sometimes both. I don't hate February as much as January but I'm starting to.

Lived Through Another One

Bye-bye January, don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. No wait - do. All doors should hit January's posterior, if you please. But we made it through, despite the horrid forecasts for both the weather and the country, and we'll continue to chug along. I got all my partners' time-sensitive stuff done, although I'm still not sure how as I'm so exhausted from four days in Manhattan, and I just don't want to think any more. At least I accomplished a hell of a lot of stuff in the apartment that required no brainpower, like finally putting away the rest of my laundry, doing the dishes and the Woolite wash and the shopping list, emptying small trash bins, getting finances ready to pay the rent tomorrow, little things like that which nobody likes doing but which keep the apartment running. Speaking of running, I'm going to stop now.

Silly Site o' the Day

A very productive day, in which I helped out my supervisor by beta-testing a site he helped design, and that took the last hour before I had to leave early for a primary care-suggested skin test at a local dermatologist's office. My skin is just fine, I'm finally rid of the large skin tag on my neck, and then I read my email and apparently there's a fraudulent charge on my credit card. I figured it was probably from the meal at the diner a couple days ago, so I was not in the mood to celebrate Riverdale Restaurant Week tonight with that hanging over me. The charge has now been reported and a new card is on its way, but I'm prepared with the list of places where I have to update it as well as an alternate payment plan for any other restaurants we visit this week (my Capital One card that I just remembered I used during the last restaurant week, and which I need to maintain or it'll go inactive). And lo and behold, it appears the Yankees look like they might win tonight's game, which means one more game at Yankee Stadium tomorrow! Say, I haven't posted any Randy Rainbow in awhile, have I?

Enjoy!

Silly Site o' the Day

I definitely spoke too soon. The power steering belt assembly went kaput today. The car started up with weird flappy noises, so I canceled my haircut appointment and belayed the food shopping in favor of taking it back to the auto shop, and the belt came off mere yards from our destination so it was a very tricky final right turn but we made it. Unfortunately the parts won't be in until midday Monday so we had to cancel the trip to Mom; fortunately she got a local friend to help her out with her medical appointment. This is always one of my great fears, not only being without a needed vehicle but being unable to help out Mom logistically when she doesn't have a locally reliable support network and she has to rely on luck (which was on her side today if not mine). We didn't have a huge shopping list so we can get by until the car's fixed (as soon as I pick it up, presumably, Monday afternoon, we head straight for the supermarket) but it's still frustrating as heck, and I can't stop thinking that I should have left it there yesterday and had them do the needed repairs... but there's no guarantee anyway that the parts would have arrived today! And so my brain ping-pongs back and forth, and I can't get it to stop. It's a weird downward spiral, which is very different than turtles all the way down:

Via Laughing Squid. Time for The Ten Commandments now, at least...

Powerless

Just lost power, as predicted. We're fine, not going anywhere. Hope to post another Silly Site when we're back up and running.

No OscarsAnd We're On!

Not only can't we find any Academy Awards live streams, but one of the sites that promised live Oscar coverage filled my PC with malware that took Robin the better part of two hours to get rid of (and we're still not sure it's gone). Cablevision is promising free on-demand movies all day but that mechanism doesn't seem to be working. So it looks like we'll be watching stuff we've DVR'ed tonight. Yeah, you could say I'm majorly pissed. Update: It's back on, as of 8:43 NY time. Hoorah! Still no good guys here, but at least viewers are no longer caught in the middle.

Progress Report

Nothing but good news, mostly. My fever broke sometime last night and hasn't returned. I think the blotchiness on my lower left calf is most likely heat rash from having burrowed under two layers of blankets fully clothed for a few hours on end yesterday, and those things take care of themselves within a matter of days. I'm still a bit dizzy but that's probably from not hydrating enough, so I'm upping the water quotient as I can. Most importantly, I've just taken my first shower in 3+ days and, my lord, does it feel good to be clean. I just hope that, what with all the nonsense being bandied about regarding health care, people don't lose sight of what a precious gift our health is, and how important it should be to live in a country where all of us no longer need worry about what will happen to us financially when we take ill. Every time I'm felled by some Dreaded Lurgy or other I thank goodness I'm an informed (if fussy) patient, my Mom's a nurse, and I'm covered for everything from doctor visits to prescriptions to hospitalizations. My word, shouldn't everybody be?

Stinky Footwear, or You Should See Polyurethane Pam

Well, this is disturbing. I just found out why my fairly expensive New Balance sneakers, which I've had for almost a year and which I adore, have picked up an unbelievably foul and pervasive odor in the past few days -- and why I haven't been able to get rid of this smell. I knew it wasn't me, I didn't think it was anything I'd stepped in... now Robin's found a thread that explains it.

Seems that lots of sneaker manufacturers use polyurethane in their midsoles to increase stability. As one commenter notes, "It works very well for the purpose it is intended, however the downfall is that if these shoes become repeatedly saturated with water, it will begin to affect the polyurethane, causing it to have what most people describe as a 'cat pee' smell." And sure enough, the last couple weeks have seen some very wet weather here in NYC. Obviously, machine-washing the footwear only hastens the polyurethane decomposition.

Here's the problem, though -- I've never bought any sneakers that feel as good as the New Balance ones. They support my feet and back and knees beautifully. Most stores don't cater to wide widths; NB does so enthusiastically. And NB isn't the only brand to use the polyurethane, so it's not like shopping elsewhere will prevent this from happening again. Nothing to do but trudge into my local NB store tomorrow and buy a new pair (this time I'll be asking for less expensive "walking" or "outdoor" sneakers that I'm hoping are either semi-waterproof or don't use polyurethane in the midsoles; they do seem to have a number of those) and try not to wear them too much in wet weather. What I'll probably also do is buy a moderately-supportive cheap pair at Payless like I used to do and wear those in the rain instead.

Don't you love how modern chemical technology has made our lives better?

Silly Site o' the Day

The illness hasn't really improved nor disappeared. The latest fever (101.5º) broke about 2:15 AM, so I took advantage of that window of opportunity to finally shower. Robin's now got the illness as well; it's a good job he's between assignments, at least for the next couple of days. My brother Jay says that if this is the same "it's going around" that he had I should expect to be out of commission for about a week all told, so perhaps by Friday I'll be able to resume my job search. I have 22 unread job-board messages in my in-box so far, not counting all the stuff I find at Craigslist, but I just don't have the head to pursue anything yet, much less set up interviews on the phone. I'm going to try and struggle through writing my ComicMix column, after which I fear my mental energy will be all but expended. In other words, ick. Maybe I'll just sink into the recliner and watch TV. Here are some live TV widget generators for you (via Gerard).

Silly Site o' the Day

Remember way back last March when I fell in my former office's parking lot and "did something to my right big toe" in the process? Well, a sort of second nail started growing under the bruised area, and this past Friday the last of the over-nail finally came off. Unfortunately, it seems it had been serving to protect the toe all these months, so now the entire tip of my toe feels like it's permanently stubbed. Again, a good time to be out of work and not have to go anywhere that requires footwear! I'm padding and soaking it as much as I can, but it doesn't appear to be infected, just feeling very bruised (it hurts every time I curl it), so I think I'm going to start on witchhazel and/or arnica. And a happy Christmas to you, too! Oh, speaking of which, Gerard found an ornament generator, but I don't really have a suitable photo for it, so have fun playing with it.

Silly Site o' the Day

It's been a strange few days. As I've mentioned before, our U-shaped street/driveway is almost never salted or sanded, and there's no way to get from our house onto the main street other than walking on a long sheet of ice, so driving is preferable if one can get enough traction which we couldn't until today. The combination of being icebound and somewhat stir-crazy (we keep accumulating boxes and other trash because the side of the house where the bins are is completely iced over), my euphemism, the leg rash getting worse (Robin's accompanying me on the bus to the dermatologist tomorrow morning, as there's this sheet of ice yadda yadda) and Datsa demanding near-continual attention has not helped my sleep cycle at all, and left me really addled and unable to concentrate on writing or blogging or job searching.

Somehow I got through most of my comics reading and have thus finally finished my ComicMix column for tomorrow (which was dependent upon the reading). The holiday cards are mailed at last; apologies to those of you who don't get yours until after Christmas. We even did some local shopping, hoping the delivery people would carry most of it up; they could only manage to get the bags as far as the landing atop the 12 outside steps, because -- and you're going to love this -- see, their truck got stuck on the sheet of ice. And instead of unloading in front of our house like normal thinking people would and then figuring out how to exit with, you know, a lighter load, they spent ten minutes rocking their van back and forth until they were able to back out along the ice sheet after which they carried our groceries back to the house from the main street, on the -- yes! -- ice sheet. You can't make this up.

Here's something you can make up -- custom neon signs, via Gerard. Have fun!

Silly Site o' the Day

Very bad day at work. Suffice it to say it took me until after 1 PM to get my chest pains under control. I do not like these people for whom I work. I do not yet have any choice other than to quit and hope I find a job before I need more medical care. So I stick it out, knowing that however bad it gets I'm still better off than so many others, and half the time I could probably control the physical overreaction and anger if I really tried. Of course, that would probably exacerbate my current medical problems, of which stress is the worst. Okay, enough of that. Here, this will calm us all down (via Skippy)...

Silly Site o' the Day

Yesterday was so emotionally draining, between having to go on a new antibiotic regimen for an infection that the fatphobic doctor insists is obesity-related just she thinks like every single damn thing is obesity-related (no matter how many times I say, "Doctor. FOUR POUNDS. That's IT between last year and this year. That's not what's made a difference in my readings. I know what's caused the difference. Enforced inactivity due to pain is what's caused the difference. That's why I asked for the PT referral. The pain eases, I start walking and exercising again, the readings get better. It's. Not. A. Weight. Issue." it's of no avail) and spending over half a day on changing my boss' and his wife's flights (I should be grateful, it means three more days of them not being around) and taking care of other unpaid perso-- gah, I sound like a broken record. Yesterday wasn't a good day. It was a good evening, though, as always I had a great time live-blogging at Lance's place while Robin kibbitzed. I just wish there hadn't been at least four commercials and one post intro that made me cringe at their probably-unintended sexism. Maybe I'm just being oversensitive. Yeah, that's never happened before!

Anyway, it looks to be an absolutely gorgeous weekend, and to kick it off I'm going to attempt to spite the sciatica, walking stick on one side and linking with Robin's arm on the other, by strolling to the all-you-can-eat sushi place after I get home. It's about three quarters of a mile each way, only a 3-minute drive but in my condition probably 15-20 minutes of walking there and a half hour back, as the return trip is mostly uphill and I'll be, um, full of sushi. That should prepare me for walking around MoCCA this weekend. Wish I had the wherewithall to go to the Mermaid Parade as well tomorrow, but that'd be way pushing it. Hope y'all have some nice weekend plans! Maybe you can become a Paloozahead performer (via Gerard)...

The Charitable Mind

One of my readers asked me to plug this site where he's webmaster. I generally like non-profit NGOs and Buddhists, so why not? The "educating moral" part is a little weird to me -- I tend not to believe helping people should have any proselytizing strings attached, and that in any case morals shouldn't be taught by strangers from other countries -- but one cannot argue that the people of Cambodia are in sore need of an altruistic helping hand.

And upon hearing what a lousy time we had at the Ninth Avenue Food Fest, PJ sent along a NY Post article talking about how little of that fair's profit goes to the Hell's Kitchen organizations which it was originally set up to benefit.

I've been fascinated for some time by the contrast between capitalist workings abnd non-capitalist impulses. I do think our tendency as humans is to want to help others, and you see "the better angels of our nature" come to the fore in times of great tragedy, both collective and individual. But that basic human instinct is incompatible with capitalism, which by its very nature plays to the worst in humans (greed, envy, lust and probably the rest of the seven deadly sins while we're at it) and needs to be constantly reinforced to be effective. Against this centuries-long brainwashing, sensible ideas like running government services to help people rather than to make money are viewed as alien, traitorous, unAmerican. Even people who suspect somewhere in their lizard brains that there may be something wrong with the worship of money feel the need to fall over themselves excusing it; I remember listening to Tim McCarver this past weekend during the Yankees/Mets game that FOX broadcast, actually praising the Yanks' decision to re-sign Clemens with (and I paraphrase) "Sure, it's an obscene amount of money, but we live in a capitalist society, there's nothing wrong with that!"

That's the thing about hyper-capitalism, there's no room for nuance (not that there ever was in GWB's America). It's not money itself, but the "obscene amount" of it that everyone instinctually understands is wrong but can't quite articulate why. Just as we no longer have the solid vocabulary to express why it's wrong to run services -- from utilities to pharmaceuticals -- at a profit (a profit may be a happy outcome but should not be the point of helping people), why it's wrong that the 1% of the population which makes exponentially more money than the other 99% get away with not sharing their bounty, why it's wrong that corporations with unusually large profits not get taken to task for gaming the system along with their political buddies, why it's terribly wrong that there isn't actually a free-market level playing field at all and hasn't been for some time.

Without anyone high-level enough to articulate these suspicions and be credible and understood by others at high levels, we continue along on this profit-gilded path. As Peter Stone wrote in the musical 1776, "Don't forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor." And as the vast majority of this country's citizens cling to that remote possibility, they allow capitalism to be their master rather than the other way around -- money as a means to an end, not the end itself.

My fear is that it will take another, greater collective tragedy before folks remember that we're really put on this earth to help each other, not to amass wealth.

Magic Numbers

I didn't get nearly as much done at work yesterday as I'd wanted. It was billing day, for which I got dispensation from doing the Massive Data-Entry Assignment from Hell, but I also wanted to organize and deposit a bunch of checks to get that out of the way before going back to the MDEAH. However, due to at least eight interruptions (half from my boss calling in), all of which were about me doing other things -- not more than 24 hours after my boss specifically assured me that would no longer be happening -- I'm starting to rethink the whole "cut down on the personal things" promise as well. After all, if they can't keep their end of this "bargain," why should I keep mine? Not that it was ever presented to me as a a deal, it was more like a pseudo-ultimatum... Oh well, I've started keeping track of how many times a day (and why) I'm interrupted, just so I have the record for myself and posterity. And at least I got some back-pay yesterday for other work I'm doing there.

Not that the money (or even the job security) makes much difference at this point, and I never thought I'd say that. When I'm constantly too exhausted to relax and enjoy myself in my off-hours from feeling like I'm falling behind on everything, numbers don't matter nearly as much. Even numbers like 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0 and I'll tell you why: That series of numbers is essentially all about passing along a cheat code eliminating copy protection from high-definition (Blu-ray) DVDs, and while Digg contributors are making a good point about the service attempting to "censor" posts about it and this being Not A Good Thing and presumably contrary to what they're about, the cheat code itself speaks to the idea of fan entitlement, "entertainment should be freely available on demand" and all that, which sets of all sorts of red flags with me.

Not that I'd probably notice red flags at this point if they were waved inches from my face. Godamighty, I'm beat. Time to get dressed and sequester myself for another eight hours (closing my office door, alas, only prevents visitor interruptions, not phone call interruptions)...