Stuff of the Day: Eggsplosion Edition

Update of the Day: So, after going months at this job with almost no issues with being here on time, I’ve had a rougher time of it lately.  I resolved to fix that after being 40 minutes late one day (when I lost my phone, which was shut off, jammed between my bed and the wall), and I’ve been experimenting with some different alarm schedules.  Yesterday didn’t go so well.  This morning was going better, I was probably going to be at work right on target (3ish or so minutes “early”), though I could still have gotten up and moving 5 or 10 minutes quicker.  Then, as I was scrambling eggs in the microwave for breakfast – something I’ve done lots of times before with no issues – there was this loud popping sound emanating from said device.  It startled me, of course scared Baby into bolting into another room and into hiding (just as I’d given her a little bitty bit of half and half), and as I yanked open the microwave, I discovered what had happened: an eggsplosion.  The roughly 3/4 done scrambled eggs had popped somehow, and small little bits of soft eggy fragments were all over the inside of the microwave.  Not wanting to leave this as it was (and wanting to finish cooking the portion of eggs that remained in the container, so I could actually eat them), I spent probably 10 minutes cleaning up the inside of the damn microwave (which was nigh spotless before) so I wouldn’t have little stone-hard bits of crisped egg baking onto the interior.  So, I went from on-target, to walking in 4 minutes late . . . to an admonishment about slipping on that lately and instruction to fix it waiting for me.

Still no ketones in my urine this morning.  Irritating.

Went back to see Dr. Doctor this afternoon.  Waited for an hour and ten bloody minutes, and finally poked my head out of the room’s door to ask them if they’d forgotten about me, when finally she came in to see me and talk to me.  One of my hormone levels came back low on my bloodwork.  So that gets to get treated.  I was offered two options – come in every 3 weeks for a shot, which would result in big spikes and then falling levels of said hormone, or a gel that’s rubbed into the skin (and I guess permeates it and get into the bloodstream, like patches?) applied daily.  Opting for the latter, which the doctor thinks is the better option of the two (though more expensive) I’m going to get that filled tonight and get to start this treatment tomorrow morning.  Yet another thing I need to budget time in the morning for.

Oh yes, and she set me appointments for seeing both an Opthamologist and a Dermatologist.  I “possibly” have Rosacea, and I “possibly” have schleritis, but she’s worried about the way the redness on my skin is and how only the outer portion of my left eye seems inflamed, and listed an autoimmune condition in the tissue on my face as a possibility.  Probably not, but maybe.  Now, being someone who has watched every single episode of House broadcast, a little part of my mind started to freak out at the word “autoimmune.”   Lovely.  All of these office visits, and probable prescriptions to go along with, will of course cost me more chunks of money. 

Link of the Day: Worst. Ninja. Ever.

Spam of the Day: “Forearm Forklift – Your Solution to Heavy Lifting”

Funny of the Day: Bringing the “A” Game

Pic of the Day: Finger Arm Lickin’ Good?

Quote of the Day: “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

Stuff of the Day

Update of the Day: So, I’m feeling MUCH better today.  Caffeine, breakfast, lunch, all those things rather tend to help not being cranky, tired, unfocused.  Imagine that.  I ended up going to bed stupid early last night because by about 8, I had a horrid, raging headache, so the thought of trying to do anything productive, or even just zone out and XP in WoW was about as unappealing as a rancid sore on a 3-day old carcass of an armadillo fart.

Last night I grilled steak and portabellini mushrooms (officially started back on the low-carb diet after a week break yesterday, figured with the fasting and all it was as good a time as any).  I had them again for lunch today, with provolone cheese melted over.  I added some celery for green fibery goodness.  I meant to take a picture of it to post here at lunch, but I was hungry and started tearing into it before I remembered to go get my camera.  Woops.

Link of the Day: This brings a new meaning to “sleepwear”

Spam of the Day: “Travel the world doing what you love. Be a Massage Therapits” – Therapits?

Funny of the Day: Now that’s Ownage.

Pic of the Day: Google is hiring, apparently.

Quote of the Day: “What’s gayer than gay?” – James Cross

Stuff of the Day

Update of the Day: So, I certainly learned one thing . . . when I leave for the day and shut down my browser and WordPress grumps at me about leaving the page – do a manual “Save Draft” before I allow it to close, otherwise work WILL be lost.  I got some good news on one of the two fronts I was looking for it on last night.  The next couple of weeks won’t be as lean wallet-wise as I was fearing they might be.  Met with my dad, talked about work stuff, ate fried chicken, totally blew my diet.  I’m giving some serious thought (since it’ll take me 2 days or so to get back into ketosis) to either just enjoying the weekend and indulging, or switching to Weight Watchers for a couple of months to give that a try.  Not sure how I want to go there.  Would really like to talk to a specific someone about that, but that’s the other front, haven’t heard anything in two days.  🙁 

Link of the Day: The 50 Best Selling Console Games of this Decade (So Far)

Spam of the Day: “Satanist housewife cooked cats!” 

Funny of the DayWe’re going to have to confiscate that.

Pic of the DayI like the attitude.

Quote of the Day: “I guess she’s a gay dude.” – Name withheld by request.

Low-carb Lunch: Grilled Steak, Portabellini Mushroom, and Jarlsberg

Went home for lunch today, and cooked.  That’s a . and not a ! because it’s not remarkable in and of itself, I pretty much had to, I don’t have anything left here in the office fridge except some cheese and bacon and a couple of cups of sugar-free Jello.  Still, it was nice, it felt good, and it was scrumptious.

Grilled (electric George Foreman style) Petite Sirloin steak from Albertsons, a nice Portabellini mushroom, and topped it off with thin slices of Jarlsberg (swiss) cheese.  Had a good hearty lunch, and have plenty of steak left over for stuff the next day or two. My cat, of course, approved of the steak.  I think it needs better spicing, but my spice selection is still tiny, it’ll come in time.

I really need a decent Wok.

Finally Friday

This has been a frustrating week for me.  Weekend was good overall – at least Friday and Saturday, anyway.  Then I came down with “crap, I’m sick and getting sicker” Monday, rushing out that morning before work to pick up Zicam swabs, Airborne, some multi-symptom cold meds, etc.  Tuesday was bad enough I got sent home early from work.  Wednesday I was late, but then was feeling, so I thought, “better” by late afternoon and stuck it out until the end of the day (though, I have to admit, my productivity level Wednesday was way below usual, my mental focus was about as clear as a bale of unginned cotton after being shat upon by Godzilla).  Yesterday (Thursday) I was feeling so absolutely miserable yesterday morning I called in sick.  

That really stresses me.  I’ve used a sick day, in Mid-March.  Not even halfway through the year, and 1 of my 2 sick days is gone.  Despite (truthfully, probably because of) past issues, I’ve really been working on trying to fix some of my bad habits, and have been doing pretty well.  With 2 sick days, I intended to not use one unless I was flat out, down-right unable to physically get myself moving out the door and make it in, or unless I was informed by a doctor that I was a horrific raging source of contagion or something similar.  I take my multivitamin everyday, I’ve been working on eating healthier and losing weight (and oh, I tell you, the most tempted I’ve been to break down and eat carb-laden comfort has been while I was sick this week), and being sick, especially with this particular timing that’s costing me so much productive time, has been extremely irritating.  What have I gotten done on the apartment this week since I moved in?  I’ve got my two desktop computer systems – more or less (no speakers on either yet) – up and running, and the router running.  I’ve done a little bit of laundry.  I’ve taken one small load of trash out.  

That’s pretty much it.

Lots of boxes and bags with stuff strewn haphazardly over the living room and near my closet?  Yeah, still there.  Practically untouched.  Frustrating.  Depressing.  I should have been spending time this week getting that stuff sorted out.  Instead, I’ve been either sitting in a chair like a zombie, or been zonked out in bed trying to let my system hurry the hell up and get back to a state where I can DO things.  Today, Friday, is finally the first day this week that I feel almost human again. I’m still clearly sick, lots of stuff wanting to come out of my nose or run down my throat, but I sort of actually feel like someone who’s started to rally and is watching their body fight this thing as a winning battle . . . albeit entirely too slowly in the endgame.

I’m going to go buy a microwave tonight, and hopefully a couple of other little things.  I’m going to look at some furniture options again this weekend sometime.  I’ve decided I definitely want a different, better computer desk, because the mess of kitchen table and little Wal-mart desk I’ve been using just doesn’t work well for my setup.  A couch would also be rather convenient.  Oh, and I’ve got a ton of stuff I need to sort out, get put up or away, or get rid of, the sooner the better.  I’m tired of the mess ‘o boxes.

The Kind of Low-carb Encouragement That WORKS

So, I took a late lunch, to run to our local HEB store, to look for a few things, in general, and specifically stuff I couldn’t find at Albertsons yesterday. Found the Queso Blanco (frying cheese), found the Carb-smart Breyer’s Ice Cream, and when I stopped to look at the sweeteners section out of curiosity, found a down-right hottie.

 Albertsons had one kind of Stevia-based sweetener. HEB had about 6, plus some other stuff other than the huge Splenda display and some Nutrasweet and Sweet’n’Low and your standard Sugars. I was looking at a couple to compare them, and this woman walked up and started looking at a couple of the different varieties of Stevia-based sweeteners.  She was, at a guess, 5’5″ish, brunette, late 20s to early 30s, very nicely sized and shaped (not too damn thin, but certainly what I would call “slender”), with probably 34D or so breasts.  Believe it or not, I didn’t look at them too much.  Oh yes, very pale blue, sort of icy, eyes.  

After half a minute or so, I asked her if she’d tried any of these before.  She hadn’t, we talked for a while about the different kinds, she asked me if I’d tried them, mentioned a couple kinds she’d used that she got from the “Health Food Store,” talked about how in (cold/cool) tea one of the ones she used sort of stayed clumpy and didn’t dissolve very well, etc.

I took heart in seeing this hottie there, talking naturally with her, and seeing her, in the shape she was in, going for the same sort of diet plan.  That’s the kind of thing that grabs one’s attention, and encourages you (well, me at least) to stay with this, to stay strong, and think that given a couple of months, you’ll be in the shape that looks like it belongs with such a sexy woman.

I regret being distracted and not taking note of whether or not she had a ring on, and of not being smart/brave enough to say something like, “hey, why don’t you call me sometime and let me know how whichever one you decide to try is?”  Also, probably would have been a smart thing to ask which “Health Food Store” she was tired of running to, “all the time.”  Hard to try to facilitate another run-in with this hottie if I don’t have any other idea of where to try to find her, other than “randomly in the weekday afternoons at HEB.”

Semi-random Thought

The health care and the clothing industries need to get together, and introduce a stealth fat-tax.  

Why?  Because presently (with the exceptions of grossly larger food bills for whale-class folks), it’s more expensive to be healthy and slender and fit, than it is to be out of shape and overweight.  This is fundamentally fucked up.

Huge money industries are passing a stupid tax on to us as a whole because they’re going for shorter-term profits instead of more financially responsible and beneficial long-term ones.  It’d be cheaper for them, in the long run, and in turn, cheaper for us as a people, if they fiscally encouraged being healther and fitter.  I’m saying these things with absolutely no active research, no cited facts,  no specific figures to back them up. See if my chain of thought makes sense to someone other than myself:

Eating healthier costs more than eating cheaply and less healthily/unhealthily.  Yet being less healthy makes a person a higher health risk, be more expensive to care for medically.  

Bigger clothes, for the most part, cost the same as smaller clothes.  This one really makes no sense to me.  A Small shirt costs the same as an Extra Large shirt, but there’s significantly more physical material involved (which, at some point, equates to more time or labor involved as well – more stitches to sew, longer to cut, etc.  It may be a small amount per garment, but with thousands as a multiplier, it’ll add up).  Sometimes that same-cost-as thing extends up beyond Extra-Large.  Kohls, one of my more tempting places to look for clothes at, have no price differences between Small and XXL.  The only place that I can remember, offhand (I’m sure there are more), that differentiates a little here, is Walmart, where for “extended sized” it’s $2 more for some things.  This one really makes almost no sense to me.  Sure, I’m sure some folks in our quick-to-offend, self-absorbed, hypocritical, prudish society would be quick to bitch and moan about “size discrimination” or some such idiocy – but it’s a basic fact, there’s physically more (or less, depending from which side you approach it) actual, real, phsyical goods there.  Where else do you see people buying  different amounts of things for the same price?  Certainly not food – 9 chicken nuggets costs you more than 6 chicken nuggets.  Not gas – 3 gallons costs more than 2 gallons.  A queen-size mattress will certainly cost more than a full-size mattress.  

This concept is almost as if garments are being treated like intellectual property or entertainment.  You’ll pay the same ticket price for that 86 minute mediocre brainless comedy as you will for the 140 minute thought-provoking, emotion-rending drama.  280 page mass-market paperbacks may cost the same as 560 page mass-market paperbacks (not always, but it can and does happen).

So, the healthy, fit guy buying a large shirt for $20 is paying more for his clothing – per ounce, or square inch of fabric, or whatever metric you wish – than the guy who’s less healthy and bigger (we’ll presume same height for each and similar bone structure) buying the XXL shirt for $20.  

This just all seems stupid to me.  By not financially incentivizing being in better shape, healther, etc. – which tends to cost less, overall, medically –  it’s a sort of tacit encouragement for people to be lazy unhealthy drones, who have higher risk of health problems, higher cost of treatment, and thus, by aggregate, drive up the costs of health care for everyone.

But no, let’s continue overcharging the people who need less physical clothing for the same degree of decency and protection, and let’s continue profiting on cheap, processed, refined flour based and other cheapo carbohydrate laden foods.  Drive that carb addiction for short-sighted profit!

Random and Various Updates: Windy Dusty Edition

So, yeah, life and stuff.  Things have been going ‘OK’ for me.  Not great.  But, overall, not crappy.  This post may be a little disjointed, I’m pretty much more or less randomly spewing thought onto the keyboard.

Work is going well.  I like this job. It’s kept me really pretty busy the last couple of weeks solid.  I’ve not really had that much time to take for myself (also known as: goofing off), and when I have had some time for that, I’ve mostly spent it trying to amuse, inform, or educate myself online (Reddit is my friend here.  I barely even LOOK at Digg anymore).  Thus, I’ve not dedicated much time lately to trying to sit down and write anything.  Hell, I wanted to just sit down and fire off a quick post this morning to vent and feel better about almost getting killed (as well as having my time wasted) this morning on the way to work.  Then I did something silly and tried to “upgrade” WordPress, and it trashed things, and wasted half an hour of my time, and about 2o minutes of James’ time, fixing it.  Hell, I should really honestly know better, backups before upgrades are, ya know, a good idea for a reason.

I’m making an actual, conscious effort to try to use tags on this post.  That’s probably why there are so many.  I’ve been really bad, sucking, really, about using tags.  It’s a Web 2.0 thing that I’ve just so very rarely found useful; in counterpoint, though, the few places I’ve found them useful they were VERY useful.

I started on a low-carb diet yesterday.  Not quite exactly Atkins, though very heavily influenced by Atkins.  It got hard for a bit last night, but I got past it.  I expect to have a few more days where I’ll have periods of intense carb-craving.  I’m determined to stay strong and will my way through it.  There’s a lot of things I want to do, and pretty much everything in my life I think will be easier if I can get down closer to my ideal weight.  The whole feeling better about my body and self-image thing will certainly be nice (and should give me more confidence, of course), but having less weight on my body to lug around will make things like trying to do pull-ups on the Iron Gym I bought and haven’t gotten anywhere near my $30 worth out of yet.  Less weight to power around trying to walk/run/jog should make it easier for me to do those things too.  I’ve basically just bitten the bullet on the expense thing . . . it’s going to cost more, period, but my health and attitude are worth more to me than maybe another two week delay before I move into my own apartment.

Moving into a place of my own again is certainly something I very much want to do.  Just the feelings of independence, of not having my cat relegated to a small travel trailer, where she only gets attention from me one visit a day, where she can run and play and be happier (of course, needing to pay freaking $450 or so for pet fees/deposit is ludicrous), where I don’t have to drive anywhere near as far everyday, where I could, if I so desired/needed, bring a woman home . . . all good and needed things.  But I’m trying to be smarter about things, listen to my dad, save up extra money, Just In Case, before I jump into a lease and a large chunk of monthly expenses that will leave me with very little discretionary income.  Being able to game again on my own schedule, with regularity, have a constant cable modem connection, etc., all very appealing.  But, my dad and I are getting along ‘OK’ right now, though I still handle a lot of things as if walking on eggshells so as not to piss him off and upset that.  

I’ve really gotten into Twitter lately.  Been trying a couple of different clients for it, TweetDeck and blu, and neither does quite just what I want, but if I they could be combined, with another little feature or two added, they’d rock as the ultimate Windows Twitter client.  Corey suggested I write it myself.  Hah!  That’s not quite what I’m going to tackle as my first project getting back into programming.  I like TweetDeck more, but it crashes all the damn time.  blu is stable, but lacking.  I’ll be adding some kind of WordPress Twitter plugin to the site here when I find one I like well enough.

Well, that’s probably enough time wasted for now.  I need to get back to work, wrestling with Advanced Installer’s inadequate documentation and the limitations of .msi files until I can get them to submit to my will.

Restaurant Review: Murray’s Deli

So, after finally getting my car back (more on that later), today was the first day in a week I’ve been able to enjoy simple things like, “driving myself to work in my own car.”  Another benefit was being able to go somewhere for lunch without having to beg a ride from a co-worker.  

Sure, I could have gone with a quick, cheap ($2-3) microwave meal, and just picked up something from Albertson’s or Wal-mart.  But being able to go someplace after a week of not, I wanted to go eat somewhere.  Ahh, but where?  That’s the vexing question.  I mulled things over for probably an hour and a half, and still didn’t know exactly where I was going when Ifinally left for lunch about 1:30 this afternoon.  

“I’m going . . . somewhere,” I said to James and Corey as I headed for the stairs.

Where I ended up, was someplace I’d been considering about, and more or less opted for simply because I’d given it a little more consideration than anywhere else:  Murray’s Deli.  James had done a mini-review of Murray’s a couple of weeks back on his blog , and he mentioned he liked getting burgers there.  So . . . what the hell.

It was a good choice.  I had a Murray’s Best Burger, with lettuce, bacon, and swiss cheese, curly fries (oy, greasy, but pretty good) and . . . a pint of Shiner Bockon draft.  Yes, that’s right – Murray’s has Shiner on draft.  I was sold right there when I saw that.  I will be returning many times to their establishment.