Words I Nominate for Re-consideration: Prosaic

Why does the word prosaic have to mean "unimaginative" or even just "matter-of-fact"? It doesn't sound like it should mean that at all. It sounds flowery, maybe because in saying it you hint at the word "rose", and it ends in "-aic" which always makes me think of something Greek, curlicued, with a lot of parts to look at.

It sounds like it could be complimentary and insulting at the same time. This property is actually outside of the meaning of the word, as in my mind it should actually mean "overwrought, gaudy, or ostentatious". Like a baby blue moped covered in orange fleur de lis, or a gold bar which has been silver plated and covered with diamonds which spell out "GOLD BAR INSIDE".

I suggest everyone start using prosaic the way it was meant to be. Do it enough, especially around people who don't know the meaning anyway, and in time my meaning will become the meaning. Ahh yeah. I'm waiting.

Splinter Cells

To begin with, I'm in the process of hanging a hammock. Never mind that "hanging a hammock" would be a sweet expression for taking a crap, it's serious business. So serious, in fact, that I got a splinter today.

I was hauling up these two 10' posts, sans work gloves because I'm that hardcore/lazy, when I got a nasty splinter in my pinky. It went in across the face of the finger, and exited about a quarter of an inch away from the entrance. Oh it hurt.

But, being the total man that I am, I pulled it straight on out, leaving behind only a sliver of wood which hurt like hell. Not only that, since it broke off inside my pinky, there was no easy way to get it out.

I kind of felt like Rambo in Rambo III where he has that bullet wound in his side and has to light it up with gunpowder to kill the infection. Except my wound was in my finger. Otherwise, basically the same.

So with an old sewing needle and a pair of nail clippers I went to work slowly clipping away tiny bits of skin where the splinter went in until I could push a tiny bit of the wood out. After about ten minutes I was able to extract it. Big whoop, happens all the time right? Wrong!

Well, I mean, yes right that people get splinters all the time, but not right what I ended up discovering later on this evening. You see, I now only have one wound in my pinky; the entrance wound. Where did the exit wound go? I'm looking, I don't see it, I don't feel it.

I was there, I saw the wood sticking out clear as day when it happened. But now it's as if nothing happened but the one little piercing. I'd like to think this was an indication that I have a power. A secret, fickle power. I don't see how magically healing exit wounds could possibly get me out of a jam, unless maybe I was pinned to a wall by a spear, but it's something.

Oh, it's something.

Time in a bottle

I have roughly four weeks left of full pay before I have to start going on the ol' unemployment, which is weird because the time seems to be going by quickly and yet slowly at the same time. I only lost my job about five weeks ago, yet when I read through earlier entries from around that time it seems like ages.

I wonder if I'll look back on the time I'm unemployed and wish I had done more. The last time I was out of work for any length of time it was for six months, and I don't recall getting a whole lot done. I mean, we were very industrious in doing things to make money; hitting thrift stores for stuff to sell on eBay, which worked out pretty well for a time.

We played a lot of The Sims and hung out and made some art and all, but the whole time in my mind is a bit of a blur. This time, I'd like to have something to show for all this time I have. I guess I do, I mean, I did a freelance website (clubwestmedspa.com), my cheapy portfolio site (portfolio.artsick.com), I'm drawing lots of comics (aintthisthelife.artsick.com), and I'm getting quite good at darts.

But I want something big. I don't know, maybe I'm selling myself short, but I know I could be doing more. Man, I tell ya, I need to get serious about this whoring myself thing.

Not actual whoring, of course, but selling myself as a business entity to other people. Though, if it comes down to it, actual whoring may enter the picture. Do it while you're young, they always say!

Darts, among other distractions

If I was really rich I'd be one of those people with the awesome stereo system that only plays FM radio. I realized this today while perusing a site about darts equipment. We got a dart board a few weeks ago and today, while practicing my triple 20s, I thought to myself, "My trouble is I don't have the best darts."

You see, my darts have a tendency to wobble in the air. In my head I'm sure it's something to do with my release or the fact that I'm not very good, but in my heart I know it's because those cheap plastic shafts, lame aluminum barrels, and shoddy lead points are nothing compared to the tungsten-powered hand missiles of glory I saw on the darts website.

Those things were awesome, and I mean that in the truest sense of the word. They didn't even look like my darts. They were all shiny and colorful, in a manly way, and I just knew if I had those darts I wouldn't have to practice anymore. I could just let them fly to their target on the power of thought.

You see that thing to the left? WTF? And you know what it's called? "SAVAGE". Come on, that's intense for a fucking dart. As soon as I get a job, oh man, you better believe it.

Anyways, that's what I was up to today.

I'm restless, but not without rest

Well January officially sucked in a lot of ways. Lost my job, power went out, furnace froze up, and I got a brick through my car window. I can only hope this is a month-to-month level of suck and not an indicator for the year as a whole.

Ah February, when the honeymoon of a job-free day begins to wear off and you start to run around like a mouse in a humane trap. Oh did I mention I caught a mouse in a humane trap? He kept coming into the conure room through a little gap by the heat vent to grab bits of food they had dropped/thrown onto the floor.

Finally got him by putting a trap right under the gap and I guess he just fell right into it. Drove him out to a field and let him run free. Though now we have another one (or the same one found his way back) in our bedroom, so he must be dealt with as well.

Well, at least it gives me something to do during the day. Not that I have nothing to do, there are tons of things to do around the house. Cleaning, laundry, dishes, tiling, all that exciting stuff. Yet at the end of the day, which is usually around 8 or 9pm, I still feel like I should be doing something. Which is why I'm doing this.

Don't feel like drawing or coding. I'd like to work on my 3D board game, but I need some plans for that, which I might work on tonight. Oh and we got a dart board, so that's been put to use as well. Man, this is pretty engaging.

If you're still reading this, I'm sorry, my fingers are kind of just typing everything that's running through my head at the moment. I need a shave. I like the jeans I'm wearing, glad I did laundry today. I taught myself to play the intro to "Down on the Corner" by CCR last night, so I'm pretty proud of that.

Also, it's really hard to play Hall & Oates songs recognizably on the guitar. I could only get "Your Kiss is on My List" to sound close. Hey, do you ever sniffle and it sounds just like the opening to "Insane in the Membrane", and then you try to replicate it and it just sounds like a sniffle again?

Wait a second...I just listened to both "Insane in the Membrane" and "Jump Around"...they both use that same sound, one's just higher than the other.

She came in through the bathroom window

Well, replace "the bathroom window" with "my windshield" and "She" with "A brick" and you have my day pretty much summed up. Yep, first the $400 furnace repair and now a $180 charge to fix my windshield because some dude(s) thought it would be totally rockin' to hurl bricks through car windows.

At first we though it was just us, which is kinda scary, since brick-throwing seems like serious business. But as it turns out around a dozen cars in the area had the same thing happen. Good times.

And I didn't even know about it until this afternoon. We got some furniture delivered today and the guy comes to the door and says, "Hey man sorry about your windshield."

"What about it?"

"It's...it's totally smashed in."

"Really?"

"Yeah, didn't you see it when you went to work?"

"I'm unemployed."

"Oh! So it's not really much of a setback then I guess. Well that's lucky."

The hole in the windshield was almost cartoonish, I mean, it was the exact shape of a brick. Perfectly rectangular. Like when some character runs through a wall at high speeds. So now I have the repairmen coming out tomorrow and I really hope they vacuum up all the glass because I totally didn't. That's just too much for one day.

And I want to be angry about it, but it's more relief that we aren't the target of some nutjob. The whole story (not my story in particular) was on the news, too, and all the people seemed to feel the same way. They didn't say it outright, but you could tell they were all happy that it wasn't that one person from their past who they had wronged.

"Well Gene, I guess I'll take it to the body shop for repairs, darn it! (and thank you for not being Dave Kowalski that guy I ran over in high school and never visited in the hospital)"

Every cloud, man, every cloud.

On schedules

Being out of work has really thrown me off my schedule. You know, like 1) Shower 2) Go to work. Both of those have kinda been thrown to the wayside recently. Well, come next week I'm getting back on track. Here goes:

1) Wake up at 8am
2) Work out (I'm gonna be ripped, yo!)
3) Have tea
4) Sleep till 11am

That's all I have so far. But hey, it's a start.

Jooooblesssss

So now I'm essentially jobless.

I work(ed) over at the ol' Circuit City, which went into liquidation today. Sad times. Not so terrible for me, I guess, I mean, I get 60 paid days off (for now), tax refund time is coming up, and, the best of all, since my dad died I get half the estate.

I won't be some kind of millionaire or nothin', but I'll have enough to get by for a couple extra months. Surely(!) that will be enough time to find a job. Even in the worst economy, people still need websites right? That's what they did back in the 30s. Except the websites were more like wooden tables covered in day-old fruit. Not so much different really.

Usually I'm such a pessimist, especially when it comes to other people; but when it's my future at stake, suddenly I'm the opposite. I figure it'll all work out in the end. Usually does for me; I hear I'm lucky, but who knows.

This last job I got the same day I lost the one before, so I guess that's pretty lucky. The one before I got just about right after I'd lost the previous one to that. Of course, I also have a trail of failed companies on my resume, but oh well, I wasn't in charge.

I sometimes wonder, when I'm feeling particulary narcissistic, if me being there caused the company to go under. Not in a direct way of course, I work hard and have a high output, but if in some cosmic way my presence is the death knell. Like I'm the Ted McGinley of the corporate world.

I smell a book title.

Fantastic Restaurant Idea #1

Why can't I order a meal to eat-in? You can get to-go and delivery orders till you're blue in the face, but I've never seen anywhere offer phone-ahead dine-in ordering. You can call ahead for reservations at some places, but why can't you just go ahead and place your order then?

I understand some places have daily menus and all but why can't I call up, for instance, Curry House and say, "I'm on my way there now and I'd like a big-ass dosa."? People are always bitching about how long it takes to get the food wherever they are, this would cut that right on out.

And it's not like it'd be that hard to do. Just do it the same way you take a to-go order. Give a name, a time, and there you are. Maybe you can do it, just nobody does; I don't know.

Hell, it would make restaurants even more money because you'd have a higher turnover rate on tables in a given time. Man, if I had a restaurant you'd have to call ahead or it's a no go.

"Party of two, of course sir. And what did you order this evening? Oh, you haven't ordered yet? Perhaps you could wait at the bar until you've decided." It's fucking gold, man!

Welcome to [insert bank name here]

So I go to the bank today to deposit a check I've been meaning to deposit for the past week or so, and man, they are just too friendly in there now.

As soon as you walk in it's "Hi, welcome friend, how are you today?" And I'm a nice guy, right, so I act like I've known them forever and say, "Oh I'm okay, how are-" but by then they've turned back to their co-worker and are talking about something I can't hear.

Then I mosey on up to the waiting line but, since I'm the only person in there, I have a triple threat of tellers before me. I never know where to walk in these situations, so I usually just slow down to a near-standstill until someone calls me over. I hate playing favorites.

I mean, I knew...well, I mean, I don't "know" any of them. I've never split a bottle of whiskey and opined on the meaning, the real meaning man, of life, with any of them. But I have experienced their existence previously. Close enough.

Anyways, the teller on the far left calls me over and is all smiles and "What I can do for you today?" and "How may I serve you, sir?" and "May I have water if it please you" and all that, and I play it cool, right. I just want to deposit this check and get on the road to my Taco Bell lunch (two seven-layers minus cheese & sour cream, with rice on the side. Rice was a waste.).

So I deposit my check and I'm leaving and the same woman from on the way in says, "Thanks for banking with us, have a great day!"

"Hey, you too, have a-", and she's back to talking, so I head out and I'm thinking, why are they so nice? Can I do any more banking with them? Do they think I have a pile of cash sitting around and I'm just some a-hole thinking, "Well, I would invest with you, but you just haven't shown me you really want my business."

No! You're my bank, I have to deposit with you or I don't get my money. Sure I could switch banks, but that's a fucking hassle and it's not like they spit on me when I come in or anything. It's like these fast food places that insist on calling me by my first name when I place an order.

"Graham, your order's ready!" "Enjoy your meal Graham!" Please stop doing that, man, it's too personal. I'm not going to act like we're on some commune and be like, "Thanks Kevin, I'll let you know if I need anything!" It's stupid and facile.

Just treat me like a customer. You don't want to get all caught up in the psychology of friendship just because you want me to start a savings account or make it a combo.

It's a new year, a new desk

Okay the desk isn't new, but it's in a new place. I now have my work desk in a place I can actually work now. That means I can get distracted by a whole new set of things to work on. I have my pads of drawing paper, all my pens & inks, my lino blocks and cutting tools, all manner of balsa and X-acto knives, the whole deal.

Plus it's January, and I can start fresh without guilt on so many projects I can't even begin to imagine. I still want to build my 3D board game, work on a comic, make some block prints, and do some for real drawings. And work on the website to make it not so devoid of content.

Oh man, I love the idea of a new year! They should do this more often.

Like moths to a flame, sometimes

So now I've got the blue floaty boxes attracted to stationary red boxes, like little moths. They don't always go to them, but you can see how their paths of movement are bent when they get close. The next step is going to be, well the next two steps are going to be:

1) Getting the blue boxes to flock together
2) Attaching a red box to a blue box to see...something, I guess, I'm not quite sure.

Oh yeah! To see how well I can combine classes of objects. I'm just happy right now that I can write all the classes and it works. I ended up writing an object manager class to keep track of everything; actually, it was the only way to get the interactions between the objects working, so yeah.

Anyways, I'm pretty happy with it so far, and if you wanna check it out, it's at existence.artsick.com.

OMG, like, two little boxes are flying around the screen!

So I figured out how to convert the random movement script into a Mootools class, so that's pretty good for a Sunday. Basically, if you don't know what a class is, it means I can create tons of them quickly and easily without overwhelming the user's machine. Good times.

Right now it's just two blue boxes floating around an empty space, but hey, you can only go up, right?

Anyways, I've got it at http://existence.artsick.com; the link at the top does nothing for now, but I'm working on it.

It, uh, works in FF3 and IE7. If you don't use one of those, maybe it'll work, maybe not. The world is your oyster.

My Javascript is like school on Sunday

So I've actually sat down and begun working on the ol' game of existence, and the first problem (or "opportunity" if you're a fan of optimistic delusion) I've run into is that of classes.

Now, my vision is of a screen filled with hundreds of objects all interacting with one another and doing all sorts of cool interactive things, so it wouldn't do to have a bunch of duplicate functions all running at the same time. Very bad for the processor. So, of course, were I a for real computer science dude I would have busted out various classes by now.

You know, I do try. I like classes, I mean, a few years ago when I wrote a basic chess program in Flash I had to learn about them and found they were pretty powerful. Sure my knights moved in more of an S fashion than the traditional L, but hey man, they moved.

So now I'm trying to write classes in Javascript, which is for me an exercise in frustration. I mean, I get how to do it, it's just not doing what it's supposed to. This is a fault I have when programming, that I feel computer errors are just that, errors made by the computer. I'm telling you this, why aren't you doing that?!

I should explain that for my first object I'm just trying to get it to fly around the screen randomly, bumping off the screen edges and such. I have a hard-coded version working just fine, so I'm just trying to convert those functions to a class-ified type. I'm very close. So close, and so frustrated, that I'm considering moving all the class stuff to Mootools and working from there.

I don't know, though, I have a habit of cycling through solutions and getting them all built up and complex and then just junking them for something simple. But, perhaps, in this case simple is not the answer.

I guess I'll find out soon enough. Ah well, back to work.

How would you even make a game like that?

So I've been spending a lot of time thinking about how to begin making a game which mimics existence. The first thing I realized is that I would have to take the lazy man approach and try to disguise it as genius.

My main idea so far, or the main design so far, is a blank page with the game title and a button labeled "These things I know to exist". Clicking that button would open up a menu of the items you have created/encountered/discovered. From this menu, I think, you would be able to introduce new instances of existing items into your universe.

I think also in the menu you would have a little sandbox where you could pre-combine items to see how they react and decide if they should be included in your universe. Once created, though, you could not remove them yourself, unless other items in existence conspired to have them removed.

So you would need to create a series of creators and destroyers to keep the balance, with other inanimate (so to speak) objects floating around doing their own thing among all the action.

My big goal is to have a working universe which can live on its own, simulate decision-making and, eventually, interact with other user-created universes. But I'm going to start small.

I've got this idea for a game

I've always wanted to build a game that starts with a blank white page that eventually turns into this multi-faceted, complex game system. I know Spore is kinda like that; single-cell organisms that you guide into a civilization, but I'd like it to be more open-ended. Less logic-driven.

How do you logically program something to have no built-in logic? I really don't know. I suppose it would start with a very basic type of "if...then" reasoning, which it could eventually build upon. Or maybe even an automatic response to stimuli which it then evolves into a type of reasoning based on input.

Like you start it all by moving your mouse in a certain direction, and that draws an object on the screen. And that object is all you have or, rather, that object is all you are. And it slowly transforms and learns and replicates and turns into all kinds of cool crap you can interact with.

Maybe you don't have a particular character, you just kind of Populous-style interact with the environment. I don't know, I don't have it all worked out (obviously) but I think there's something to it.

Somebody put their disease in me

Well I'm officially sick, and it sucks. It's this post-nasal drip with a sore-when-I-swallow throat thing and the occasional joint pain; just irritating enough that I can't ignore it. I guess it's a cold or sinus infection or both, whatever, it's making my head all cloudy.

I'm not too worried, though; I'm going to be taking off work tomorrow and clearing my head with the green goddess that is NyQuil. I know some people don't like it, but honestly it's the champagne of cold remedies. Mostly because, like champagne, it's filled with alcohol and makes you all woozy.

I don't think I've ever read a set of ingredients like those on a NyQuil bottle. It looks to have enough sedatives to allow you to undergo minor surgery. I don't know personally, but 10,000 mg seems like a lot for a drug with the root word "morpho".

I do like how the DayQuil version is the exact same as the nighttime version except the quantities are simply halved. That's got to be the laziest pharmacological math ever.

"Well we got this shit that'll knock out a horse for eight days, but we need something so you can still function at work and while driving on the highway."

"I don't know man, just put in, like, half."

I'm no doctor, but taking half a handful of heavy sedatives doesn't make you alert. It's kinda worse because it puts you in a zombie state where you think you're okay, but only because you're looking at yourself from outside your body and everything just seems cool. Not good for driving.

"Man, turns out I'm a real snappy dresser! Nice hair, too. Oh hey I like this song, turn up the ra-DUDE HIT THE BRAKES!" And then you're paralyzed. True story.

So anyways, that'll be my day tomorrow. Not the paralyzed part, hopefully, unless some shit goes way wrong, but the general snooziness of it all. And then Friday I'll be ready to get back to work and party hard come the night! Treatin' this body right!

Welcome to Moe's, you f*cking vegan!

So I go to Moe's, as is my wont, and yet again navigate the gauntlet of toppings slingers who stand between me and my 8lb burrito. The only real option for a vegan at Moe's is the Art Vandalay (hilarious!), which is just a plain ol' bean burrito.

The challenge here comes in the slice of time between the beans being added and the cheese being offered. Actually "offered" is a poor choice; maybe "loaded" is better. I swear the last time I went the guy seriously grabbed a handful of cheese and hunched over the burrito ready to strike.

"NO! NO! NO CHEESE!" It should've been in slo-mo, it was that dramatic. Now I realize for most people the cheese is a formality and maybe one person out of fifty doesn't want it, but that's no reason to make me feel like I'm disarming a nuke back here behind the glass.

The guy was, no joke, dejected that I didn't want the cheese. I can't be sure because I couldn't see his feet, but I think I heard him kicking a tiny tin can.

So what are the options, right? Lettuce, tomato, onions, jalapenos (chopped or sliced), cilantro, olives, and some other shit probably. Oh but what about the grilled vegetables? Hey man they got grilled onion, mushroom, and peppers! Sweet!

What's that? They charge $1 for each one? This is rude on the part of Moe's I think. I mean, I know they gotta charge for shit and make money, but at least combine all three into one mix-grilled vegetable topping for chrissakes. I'd feel a lot less ripped off if I wasn't paying a 1000% markup on a goddamn fungus.

[hours pass]

Wow, I really think about Moe's a lot. Huh. Well, I should go to bed. On top of my wonderment at this critical deconstruction of a semi-Mexican chain restaurant, I'm also getting sick. RocK!

Men at Work

I was driving back to the house this morning to help Rowan get the birds up and make some lunch when my path was blocked by some dudes doing road work.

This normally doesn't bother me, just gotta take a different way home, no problem. What did bother me was the sign these guys were using to alert me to their presence.

Not "Men Working" or "Utility Work Ahead" or even a simple "Detour" sign, no, I was greeted with a sign which read "YOUR SUPPORT HELPS OUR FAMILIES". What the fuck is that all about?

I mean, a) You work for the city, if I don't "support" you with tax money then I go to jail, and b) Come on, what the fuck? By support does that mean that I should be harder on the roads, or abuse utility lines so these guys have more work to do? Should I flat out refuse to call Miss Utility and order up that backhoe I've been meaning to try out?

What a wasteful sign. And they were blocking the whole road! I got halfway down the block past their little guilt-trip alert before I even knew what was going on. Fuck them and their families. Just for that I'm wrapping my tires in cotton batting and taking fewer showers to save water. How you like them apples guy with a family and work ethic?

Gone daddy gone

So my dad up and died on Friday night. He went into the hospital on Wednesday and got progressively worse until they finally put him on a morphine drip Friday evening. Good times. On the plus side he didn't really suffer, on the down side he's kinda dead.

Now, he did have cirrhosis and the complications from that are pretty much what did him in. Infection, organs shutting down, the whole deal. But still, the downhill slide happened pretty quick.

I'm not sure exactly what to think of it, you know. You tell people your father died and they usually assume you're out pricing sack cloth to rend, but so far no. I'm mostly like, "Huh", which from what I understand is a weird situation. But still, that's all I got.

The nice part about having a parent die is that people can't tell you your feelings are wrong. That's pretty cool. "My dad died and you want to say I can't make myself a pair of artichoke pants?! Fuck you and hand me some thread! It's what he would have wanted!"

So yeah, right now I guess I'm in a transitional phase. As an added bonus my mom is wigging out and trying to get me to come to her place for Thanksgiving. Bonus part two, she suggested I give up being vegan for Thanksgiving so we could have a creepy trip down memory-that-never-was lane! Fan-tastic.

No, no symptoms doctor

I had my appointment with the gastroenterologist today, so that was exciting. Even more exciting was the fact that my symptoms have been gone for the past five days, without taking medication. I mainly went so the doctor wouldn't feel bad.

I mean, what the hell? Three weeks ago I feel like I'm about to die, so I take medication and feel better. Medication runs out and I feel like crap again. Take OTC meds and feel better. Stop OTC meds...and feel better. The human body is a magical thing.

So basically today's visit was me talking to the doctor about my job and where I went to school. He seemed really interested in that. I felt like he wanted me to ask about where he went to school. I think should have too, if I'd been more on top of things.

As it was I'd been sitting in the exam room for about twenty minutes half-asleep so the exam was more of a formality. I remember now that when I read his bio online that he went to some kind of military medical school in India, then finished up his studies at Georgetown. That's pretty cool.

I bet he had some great stories about going to a military medical school. Sounds kinda intense. Man, we should totally hang out. Hold on, I'm going to call him up and see if he wants to go grab a beer.

Kingdom of Loathing: Yes I'm late to the party

So tonight I signed up for Kingdom of Loathing, which is awesome. It's a browser-based adventure game with very basic graphics and, so far, tons of stuff to do. It's about one step up from Nethack graphics-wise, if you ever played that.

I tend to get hyper-addicted to a game for about two weeks and then give it up completely, whether or not I've made any progress. I don't know why, usually I just find I've figured out what the game is all about and decide it's become more mechanical than fun. That's why I can't get into WoW or the like. I love games of diminishing returns, until the return diminishes past a certain point.

But at least KoL has some fun to it. The writing is snappy, the items are interesting, and so far that's holding my attention. Who knows, maybe I'll get bored with it soon but for now it's pretty slick. I could have felt the same about Nethack except it required you to know about a thousand key commands. That shit might fly in 1983, but no more.

Oh, and KoL is also semi turn-based, which is cool, because you're limited to a set number of actions (adventures) per day (which can be augmented), so even if you get addicted to it, you'll eventually be shut out for a time.

That I like. Spreads out the enjoyment and the discovery. I'm know I haven't scratched the surface of what's available to do, and I like how the initial structure sets you up to have to wait to find out each new bit.

So I'll keep playing for a while to see what's up, but so far so good.

Every little thing the reflux does is an answer with a question mark

So now I've got the chest pains back. Pretty sure it's acid reflux, which is pretty sweet considering a couple of weeks ago I thought I was about to stroke out. But it's also uncomfortable enough to prevent me from making an oh-so witty "stroke out" joke.

I just finished up my two week course of Protonix, and almost immediately the whole deal came back. Honestly they should just put Prontonix in the water, it would solve so many problems. Except I don't drink tap water. Well then maybe they could put it in pill form for people who don't drink tap water. Wait a second...those forward-thinking bastards cut me off at the pass!

When I say immediately, I mean 9am today. About an hour after I would have normally taken the pill. Now, granted, I drank a big hot cup of strong coffee right before it really started up, and that was probably a mistake. I think the only worse mistake I could have made would have been to chase the coffee with an ice cold habanero milkshake.

I took some Prilosec around lunchtime and let me tell you, that stuff is pretty weak. It's like the Webster to Protonix's Diff'rent Strokes. Hey, strokes! It's all coming full circle.

Fucking Boddington's. Sorry, I was opening a beer and it foamed up all out of the can. Only with Boddington's, though. Their little widget whatever thing must be Soviet engineering. It works, but you don't exactly trust it.

I made an appointment to see a Gastroenterologist next week, so that should be pretty fun. My mom works in a gastroenterologist's office so I asked her what to expect. I got two vital pieces of information:

1. They won't do anything the first visit except talk to you
2. You have a right to refuse the rectal exam

I'm no logician (well okay I am) but I can spot a slight error between propositions 1 and 2. I won't write out the whole proof here, but I will say it concludes with the line "rectal exams != won't do anything".

At least I have the right of refusal. I'd hate to think that by walking into the doctor's office I've given explicit consent to a rectal exam. Maybe that's how they used to do things back in the Old Country (by that I mean Busch Gardens), but that won't fly in my world.

No sir, up top problems get up top treatment. That's my uninformed wishful thinking, and I'm sticking to it.

I'm a medicine-taker

This past Monday, around 11am or so, I started having chest pains. That kinda freaked me out, you know, a pain in that area isn't something to mess around with. So, being a dude, I waited until around 9 Tuesday night to head out and go to the PatientFirst. If you're not familiar with what that is, it's one of those minor injury mini-hospital type places. A clinic, but not the free kind with all those poor people.

At 9 on a Tuesday you actually get pretty good service. I wasn't waiting around for more than five minutes at any one time; in and out in an hour. Also, I (very luckily) have insurance so the whole thing, which included an EKG, only cost me $25.

In the end it turns out the pain was just heartburn/reflux and not a real big deal. Unless it's an ulcer which, I found out, is treated pretty much exactly the same as reflux. So either way I'm in the clear!

But, and this is what sucks, they gave me medication. Nothing crazy, just some Protonix, but it has completely blown my set of standard medical answers. I'm in a whole new phase of life.

Before
Doctor: Any allergies?
Me: Nope.
Doctor: Any existing conditions?
Me: No siree.
Doctor: On any medications?
Me: Thank god no.

Now
Doctor: On any medications?
Me: ...
Doctor: Any, uh, medications?
Me: Yes.

You see?! Now I'm the "on medications" guy! You don't go back from that. You just go from medication to medication until one day you wake up and instead of making some tea and checking your email you're flipping open the little plastic "Tu" tab because it's Tuesday and you have to take that horse pill for your gout. Jesus.

Now I know lots of people are on medication, why not, people have medical problems, no big deal. But now it affects me. I have to take this shit every morning or else I feel like I'm on 24-hour heart attack watch. Believe me, people notice the constant left arm grabbing. You can't do that subtle-like.

But I'll deal with it, like I always do, with humor and understanding and sarcastic complaints. It's just like, man, there you are. Old.