argh, building the VNS website is gonna kill me, or i'm gonna kill a machine or four in the process...wish i could jump into the time machine and go back to college and go into comp sci...

VNS Update - It's been a really muggy day out there. High temps and high humidity. Those two factors collide to give me some difficulties breathing (aka dyspnea). I've not had breathing problems before the VNS surgery, which is a bit surprising considering the difficulties my mom and brother have had with asthma (although mom's may also be related to her cystic fibrosis as well) but after the surgery I had complications, including atelectasis that made breathing very difficult. That cleared up, but when the heat and humidity get to be overbearing, I find myself getting out of breath very easily.

Otherwise, things seem to be going well - no seizures. Still slightly paranoid cuz i don't notice the pulsing as much, but at my appointment to see the neurologist on Friday we'll check everything out to make sure all's still good - if that's the case, it's back to work Monday!

pics of adam in australia (beware, they're high res) - http://www.squarenine.com.au/adamjay/

time to return books to the library and pick up a new batch...

returning:

The Clinton Wars - by Sidney Blumenthal - didn't get around to reading it and it's apparently on hold for someone else, so i couldn't renew it - maybe some other time...

Skin flutes & velvet gloves : a collection of facts and fancies, legends and oddities about the body's private parts - by Terri Hamilton - this was such an interesting book I bought two copies of it on amazon - one for me, one for greg. i knew greg would love this book of weird trivia about penises and vaginas (definitely more penis-centric, but interesting nonetheless.)

The wisdom of the enneagram : the complete guide to psychological and spiritual growth for the nine personality types - Don Richard Riso - gonna hafta buy this one so i can write in the margins - very cool book.

Leaving reality behind : etoy vs eToys.com & other battles to control cyberspace - by Adam Wishart - definitely a case of you can't judge a book by it's cover. very interesting, but really it's two separate books, one about etoy and one about etoys.com, then a bit at the end about the fight over the domain name. don't know where the "other battles" portion of the book is - i was expecting stuff about things like the fight over nissan.com - the computer guy with the last name of Nissan vs. Nissan motors. i'm very interested in etoy.com tho - weird guys, dunno if i like em or not.

Arch - book of photos of Andy Goldsworthy's art. after seeing Rivers and Tides, i've found myself very interested in Goldsworthy's stuff.

Google hacks : [100 industrial-strength tips & tools] - too industrial strength for me, tho i did learn a few interesting things.

101 survival secrets : how to make $1,000,000, lose 100 pounds, and just plain live happily - by Rich Hatch, winner of Survivor. i was amazed and how intelligent this guy is - a surprisingly interesting read.

Kill duck before serving : red faces at The New York Times : a collection of the newspaper's most interesting, embarrassing and off-beat corrections - by Tom Bloom - funny, but it's more of an article than a book: there's lots of filler in this one.

No logo : taking aim at the brand bullies - by Naomi Klein - found this in doing a search for culture jamming, didn't get to read the whole thing, maybe another time...

Second acts : creating the life you really want, building the career you truly desire - Stephen M. Pollan - no time to read this one, maybe another time...

Your own worst enemy : breaking the habit of adult underachievement - Kenneth Christian - no time to read this one either, maybe another time...

just saw Daddy and Them on showtime - what a weird fucking movie.

my bro's over in Australia this week, and he's in the papers and such over there...

here's a quote from him in an article at inthemix.com:
“I don't believe that I have necessarily established my own sound, nor do I want to. I do alot of aggressive techno as well as some lighter funky synth pieces. If there would have to be a running theme in my music though, I would say that it is constant motion. A track has to keep moving naturally, and this is the main reason I record in real-time. All of the compositional changes and EQ or filter tweaks that you hear in my tracks are done on the fly. I really cannot think of another way to work and I believe that this approach is a true asset to my sound.”

question of the day:

how is it that nipple piercing is a mortal sin under Commandment #5 - Thou shall not kill???

i have this amazing knack for having things pop up AFTER i have a visit to the doctor...monday afternoon i saw her to talk about the weirdness going on with my feet - the skin's peeling off of the bottoms, and the diabetic lori knows that's not a good thing. being rather attached to my feet and wanting to keep them for as long as possible, i went to the doc. it's not athlete's foot - nothing goin on in between my toes or anything like that - but she told me to keep em moisturized with some tinactin and follow up with a podiatrist (which i need to do anyhoo)...so i go to the pharmacy, get stuff and go home...put the stuff on my feet...later that evening, i find my legs are covered in bumps. itchy scratchy bumps - argh! only below the knee, and not actually on my feet though. what the hell?!?!? nothing that was noticeable at the doc's office - it's definitely noticeable now! so, just in case it was a reaction to the tinactin (doubt it, since my feet are bumpless) i quit using that. so here it is thursday and the stuff is still all over my legs, still itching like crazy...

and wouldn't ya know the doc's not in the office today - so i answered 247 questions from the nurse and she's gonna call back.

mom mentioned the P word when we were talking about potential rX's for this stuff - oh dear god, not prednisone! yeah, i know it's a good thing as far as knocking stuff out, but the side effects suck ass...

*itch* *scratch* argh!

how hysterical is this - dave barry mentions on his blog that he's going on vacation...so instead of reading his blog, we should all go to www.poetry.com:

"...Aspiring poets can go there and submit poems in the poetry contest, and maybe even -- incredibly -- have their poems selected for inclusion in heirloom-quality-bound volumes that are -- What are the odds of this? -- for sale!

So anyway, this blog was just thinking how interesting it would be if a whole bunch of people submitted poems that contained a certain key poetic phrase. To see how it might work, this blog submitted a poem under the pen name of "Freemont A. Harkins," entitled: "A Sad Day."

...

You can see this poem at www.poetry.com, using the search engine to search for "Freemont Harkins." Wouldn't it be fun if a lot of people submitted poems using a Pen Name that began with "Freemont" and incorporating the phrase, "the dog ate mother's toes"? Then we all could search for poems written under the first name of "Freemont" -- currently, this blog is the only one -- and see how creative everybody was!""



there are literally HUNDREDS of entries there now...i'm particularly fond of Freemont Q. Sundt's poem, "The Dog":

The Dog

My dog is quite a strange dog
Not too normal, I suppose
Last Thursday, for example
That old dog ate mother's toes

He bit them off ferociously
And fried them up in oil
He covered them in chocolate
Then he dusted them with soil

And I must give him some credit
Though my mother's hopping mad
I tried them with some salsa
And they're really not half bad

Freemont Q. Sundt

Cool - Tattoos for kids!!! BabyInk.com

(for those that enjoy sites such as Bonsai Kitten)

awww shit - i fell asleep this evening and woke up just in time to see that the vcr had crapped out and didn't tape barbara walters's interview with angelina jolie!

oooh eeee! she is a hottie. and i'll definitely make the offer to her to be her baby's daddy if she ever shows up at my doorstep - c'mon angie, i'm waitin for ya!

i did, however, manage to be awake for dateline nbc's story tonight about neurontin - creepy. i took it as a seizure med years ago, and found it strange when robin at work told me she was taking it as a pain blocker. maybe it doesn't really block the pain? hmmmm...

woo hoo - today's lori's annual check-up at the gyn! or is that the vet? perhaps lori's going to the vet, cuz she's getting her "kitty" examined - what's with moms these days telling their young girls that their vagina's called a "kitty"? i suppose it's cute (and i've never been one for the V word anyways - doesn't do the actual thing justice, imnsho) but i just have to laugh when they do it...

woah - Youker: The Euchre Drinking Game

After seeing the new designs recently released by Big Dogs, I've sent them a letter:

I'm a long time customer, having enjoyed your t-shirts and boxer shorts for years. However, perusing the web site, I've noticed the new stuff seems to be a lot more negative - the parodies are funny, but some stuff just leaves me feeling uncomfortable.

Take, for instance, the Exit Only boxers - item 46016920 - is Big Dogs anti-gay? That's certainly the impression I get when I see items like this. Hey, I'm not one for anal sex myself, but seeing that design really bothered me - if your company is against homosexuals, I'd like you to tell me that specifically, and you will lose me (not to mention my friends and family) as a customer. If you're NOT against homosexuals (granted, anal sex isn't just for the gay boys, but that's certainly the impression one gets looking at that design - it feels specifically anti-gay) then I'd like to hear that as well.

Add in to the mix that I seem to see more and more of the hetereosexual innuendo in the T-shirts & Boxers (ie "Wax My Woody" and "I Want a Heine") and it seems like the new releases are less mature and not as clever as they've been in the past - going with crude, base humor to make a quick buck.

And what's with all the fart humor in the new designs for boxers? Yeah, one or two different designs are cute, but when that's most of what you offer in your new releases, you're cutting out a lot of potential customers.

Please respond to this email and let me know your corporate policies regarding gays and lesbians. I will no longer make purchases for myself or friends & family nor will I recommend products from your company until I hear from you.

Thanks for your consideration.

Lori Beth

a good resource for all those that are intriqued by the death trifecta that says famous people die in threes: Famous Deaths - fark's been goin crazy the past couple of weeks, what with the deaths of Buddy Ebsen, Barry White, Katharine Hepburn, Buddy Hackett and others...

there's also the Dead People Server to check too...

Interesting article:
In A Wal-Mart Kind Of Hell
Censored magazines, banned music and pseudo-Christian fun at America's scariest retailer

Last year, after reading a variety of articles about the nasty shit wally world does as a corporation, i decided it wasn't worth my conscience to save a little money on an oil change or presents for x-mas - so i haven't set foot in a Wal-Mart since last year.

i found it interesting that someone (from a queer list - can't even remember now where the email came from) mentioned that now that Wal-Mart has included queers in their discrimination policy, we can now shop there. errr, no - i wasn't boycotting Wal-Mart for that reason - their use of sweatshops and human rights abuses are a much bigger issue as i see it, not to mention the issues of censorship and how they mold and alter american culture...

suppose i should add in a disclaimer that i'm a former wal-mart employee - i worked there as a teenager - never had problems such as are being mentioned now with mandatory overtime and being forced to work off the clock, but who knows how different things are now than they were over a decade ago...

VNS Update - Getting paranoid cuz i don't notice the pulsing as much, but i really do think it's going off when it should - if only i knew how it was that it was changed before, perhaps i wouldn't be so paranoid about it now. *shrug*...

lying on my left side (the side that they implanted the VNS) since the pulse was upped to .75 makes the earache thing happen a lot more often...annoying, but hey, i'd take that over having a seizure any day...

still taking the 300mg dilantin and 2000mg keppra each day - reducing the dilantin is making it easier to stay awake for longer periods of time - i look forward to the day i'm totally off the stuff...

well july 4th came and went - not much goin on - crappy weather around town put a damper on some events, but thankfully we planned our july 4th celebration for july 5th. let's just hope the weather's better.

perhaps one of the reasons it didn't seem like a "holiday" to me is that i've been off work for almost 3 weeks now, all the days sort of run into each other. it's also interesting to see how fewer places are closing for the holiday - Ace hardware was open...couldn't get a haircut (argh!) cuz most of those places were closed, but if i needed a screwdriver or light switch, it was all good!

Chokin Chikin - it's like the hillbilly version of The Price Is Right's PLINKO!