Tag: ow

ITEMS!

  • There is a nest of baby scorpions living in the left side of my sinuses. So-called “medical professionals” tell me it’s the common cold, but I know better. No little virus could cause this throbbing ache, effusion of mucus, and spasmodically weak jaw muscle. I expect them to burst through my left eye socket and wave their happy claws at the sun sometime tomorrow.
  • La Brea Bakery sourdough, heated, with butter, does a lot to make life more livable.
  • After the scorpions come out tomorrow I think I’m gonna go on a little photo expedition. Where should I go?

The gods of technology laugh at my pain!

So earlier I spent four hours fighting invisible network gnomes and buying stuff I didn’t need and talking to the ISP and not fixing it, and also hurting my knee. Now I’m out $70 and I walk funny and I didn’t even [PUNCHLINE].

I came home around midnight to discover that the network came up on its own at 8 pm. WTF.

But now I have 15%-20% packet loss. So I opened another ticket with the ISP, and I’m not buying a new DSL modem until they tell me what REALLY happened.

I’m a professional and this one has me running in tight little circles. What happens to everyone else? GAAAH!

Insert open mind joke into this hole in my head. Please.

Tonight I was talking to nickjb about my problems finding non-insane commentary on neurofeedback, etc. and we got onto the topic of failed therapies. One of these is trepanation, otherwise known as making a hole in your skull. Ancient people did this, and sometimes survived it. Sometimes they probably even felt better.

Nick explained that there was a sixties thing where people started saying trepanation was hip and happening and it was touted for a while, and I didn’t really believe him. Color me wrong. Color me also slightly nauseous (green).

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the International Trepanation Advocacy Group. Don’t skip intro. The spacy Heavens Gate-quality film is worth a few minutes. One side effecdt of trepanation has already been identified: smooth jazz and trippy 3D rendered animation.

I know I’m mining a rich vein when their short film credits the Mutter Museum and the State Department of Health of Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

“Some of us are willing to present ourselves publicly so that the old stigma associated with making a hole in the skull will be worn down over time.”

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

I went to the supermarket tonight near midnight as I often do. The only reason I ever go to Ralphs is that it’s open late; otherwise I’m at the produce market, Trader Joe’s, etc.

The Ralphs on 17th Street in Costa Mesa, CA is very bright, painfully so. I feel like Lou Reed coming down off heroin when I walk in there out of the dark into the fluorescence. The produce is horrible except for one or two items, so it’s strictly a packaged goods and dairy kind of place for me most of the time. I really like the people who work there, though.

Lately I’ve been going to another Ralphs less than a mile away if I can; it’s only open until midnight, but the Westcliff Plaza one’s staff has revolted and replaced the corporate Slow Jam/Office Rock muzak with their own mix CDs, so that my 20 minutes of grocering are smoothed by a few tracks of 70s funk or 1940s jazz etc.

Tonight I made the mistake of going back to 17th Street and experienced the worst innovation yet. They’ve put a door buzzer in because of all the beer runs etc. and every time anyone enters or leaves it makes a piercing, cringe-inducing 70 db BEEEEP. No, not BEEEEP. More like BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. It’s the sort of sound I associate with fire alarms at hospitals. Can’t be ignored, makes you stop in your tracks and flinch. I could see people making involuntary attempts to cover their ears each time it went off, which was about every three or four minutes. We were all on a broken starship from a shitty science fiction movie.

I grabbed the stuff I absolutely needed and checked the fuck out. At first I thought the noise was a broken alarm, but the checker confirmed the worst; it was permanent and would go off on every use of the door. I expressed disbelief. “I feel like writing a letter!” She handed me a comment form to send to them. “I’d really appreciate it”. I told her I probably wouldn’t be back for a while but I’d send in the comment letter.

Another customer came up and we bonded over the hell-noise. What the hell were they thinking? As I left, I told the checker “The mental health costs they’ll pay out to you guys are going to be way worse than a few beer runs.” She high-fived me.