Thursday, May 17, 2007

mid-afternoon

R.I.P. Veronica Mars

To everyone saying, “Who?”, I blame you for this great show’s demise.  Because I’m sick, I’m also cranky, so I’m not holding back that I’m mad at you....and you...and you over there, and you who just said, “Me?”, yes, you!...you’re all responsible for the end of a great show.  I’m not sure that I can ever forgive you.  Hey, HBO or Showtime, would you please buy the show from the crappy CW?

the wee hours

Strep, Strep, Strep To My Lou

What do you get when you combine stress, lots of work, lack of sleep and mingling with teenagers?  Yes, Strep Throat.  Or, at the very least, a very sore throat & pus-y tonsils.  Oh, and all those hours of sitting at your desk get you back pain and Fred Flintstone feet.  Okay, maybe not you, but me.  They get me Fred Flintstone feet.  And you know, I didn’t start out with dainty feet in the first place, so this is not an attractive look for me.

Unfortunately, my finely-tuned athletes on my fantasy baseball team are faring no better than I am.  One comes off the DL, two go on.  Am I jinxing the players?  Are the players jinxing me?  Something’s afoot.  Chubby afoot.

Maybe if I go to bed, it’ll all be better when awaken.  At the very least, I’ll shower, so it’ll be cleaner when I awaken.

Melinda should’ve won American Idol, so now I don’t care what happens.  All I care about is that my beloved Cat Deeley will be back May 24th, for the first episode of So You Think You Can Dance? - my favorite reality show, since The Amazing Race started to go downhill.  Although, with Survivor: China looming on the horizon, I can hear the siren calls luring me back.  But, I will always be loyal to Cat.  I’m a tad bit cheered by being able to shove my Melinda Doolittle disappointment under the rug, and to forget about AI, so I can concentragt on my dahncers.

update: - haha, I can tell how sick I was when I wrote this by rereading it and seeing all the missing words and typos.  It’s a little funny.  It’s also a little funny how optimistic I was in thinking that I’d shower when I got up.  I slept until like 4p.

Friday, May 11, 2007

the wee hours

A 12lb Cat Is Too Heavy

Crap.  I’d hoped that my “Diary of a Herniated Disc” category was pretty much over and done with, but a couple of weeks ago I hurt my back.  I’m not sure if it was because I lifted the 15lb dog or if it was just sitting at my desk too much.  I didn’t feel much pain after the initial pain of lifting the dog, but since the pain started not long afterwards, it could’ve been the culprit.  I have had zero back pain since I had my surgery.  It was so great!  The occasional hip pain, but it wasn’t a constant in my life.  I was ready to celebrate being cured for good.  Yay!  Then, I’ve had the bad back pain for a couple of weeks, at least, now.  After I sit for even short periods of time, when I get up, I can’t straighten up all the way for a few minutes.  Still, it was getting better.  I’ve still used up too many pain pills (NOT Rudy Giuliani’s fault, even though I never really liked him in the first place - feel free to read my comments on the ABC site linked), and that’s frustrating.  I don’t want to need higher doses of meds.  I am by no means an addict, but higher doses cost more money and I used up all of my pharmacy benefits for the year at the end of March.  Nice, huh?  Anyway, to get to the 12lb cat.  I just went to pick him up to move him out of the way of one of the dogs eating rawhide.  In general, the dogs are great with the cats, but I thought it was just as easy for me to put him on the freezer, about four feet above the dog.  I lifted him about a foot off the ground and got a terrible pain in my back.  I don’t WANT to blow out another disc.  I HATED surgery, or rather the whole process of it all.  The surgery itself was not fun, but tolerable.  I hated hobbling around for several weeks before I felt that I could walk like a normal human being.  It also hurt more than I expected.

Just today, I picked a prescription refill at my doctor’s office.  I have to drive all the way down there to pick up a stupid piece of paper, because they can’t call in an Oxycodone prescription.  I don’t know why they can’t figure out a way that allows them to fax it in and have the pharmacy call them back to confirm it, but why oh why should they make things easier for people in pain?  It’s a big inconvenience for me, and I know there are people who need the refills who are in A LOT more pain than I am.  We all have to do everything to protect the drug addicts.  Our Sudafed is locked up, and people on the ABC site who are commenting on the Giuliani/OxyContin story are asking for OxyContin to be banned, because someone in their family got addicted.  How is it my fault that their family member got addicted?  People who abuse substances can find lots of substances to abuse - why punish the people who need the meds just because others won’t use them properly?  How can you punish someone who is in pain from cancer, because some idiot wants to crush up an extended release pill to snort?  How is that fair?  Anyway, this is a long rant mostly to say, it’s kind of scary having back pain.  I didn’t have back pain when I needed the surgery, the pain was in my legs.  But, I still occasionally have pain in my legs, so it’s scary.  On my last visit to the back surgeon in March, he thought I was doing so well that he scheduled my next appointment for September.  I think I may have to go back early if this pain doesn’t go away.  Leigh-Ann and I were wondering if he could maybe tell just by examining me and watching me walk, if there was a problem bigger than the reoccurrence of the back pain I’ve had off and on for years.  I just can’t afford any more medical bills.  Gah!

There was good news about going to the doctor.  It wasn’t far to Chinatown, so I went to Volcano Tea and picked up Boba Milk Tea and some Red Bean Shaved Ice.  I planned ahead and took an ice chest with ice-packs inside because the trip almost 15 miles back to the house, and I had a couple of other stops to make.  It was also 90+ degrees out.  Happily, the shaved ice made it home in good shape.

Okay, I have to finish ranting because we have haircuts at 12:45p, it’s 4:15am now.  Blech, too little sleep again, especially because we have to get up for the exterminator’s monthly visit.  We napped for a few hours after the Ottawa Senators/Buffalo Sabres game though, so perhaps that will help.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

the wee hours

Idiot of the Day - Roy L. Pearson Jr.

I’ve been terrible about blogging and have wanted to write about this jerk for days.  I’m sure you’ve already seen the story, but in case you haven’t, I’m here to bring you one of the world’s biggest jerks.  An even bigger jerk than most of my “Idiot(s) of the Day”, which is shocking, but true.  According to court documents, the problem began in May 2005 when Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alterations to Custom Cleaners in Washington. A pair of pants from one suit was missing when he requested it two days later.  Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.  But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay. Pearson said those were not his pants, and he decided to take the Chungs to the cleaners and sue.
Manning said the cleaners have made three settlement offers to Pearson: $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000. So, the jerk sued this poor family...for SIXTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS two years ago.  He used a variety of stupendously insane reasons (go to the IndyStar link above for the full story), but this takes the cake, “But Pearson was not satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants. Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, he asked in his lawsuit for $15,000—the cost of renting a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.  Manning said Pearson somehow thinks he has the right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment.

While it’s clear the guy is insane, he’s not your average insane, he’s a JUDGE.  Yeah, not just a jerky lawyer, but a JUDGE.  Of course, he probably won’t be a judge much longer with most of the English (and Korean) speaking world asking for him to be fired and disbarred.  His profile has already been removed from the Office of Administrative Hearings website, so it looks like his job is in jeopardy, if he still has it.  Interesting that the case was filed in 2005 (why did it take this long to get written about???), but he also was apparently a jerk to his wife in their divorce hearings that same year.

Roy L. Pearson, Jr. (husband) appeals from a final decree of divorce awarded to Rhonda S. VanLowe (wife) on the ground that the parties lived separate and apart without cohabitation for oneyear pursuant to Code § 20-91(A)(9)(a). Husband contends that the trial court erroneously: 1) granted the divorce based on a separation date of October 15, 1999, or October 21, 2001; 2) denied his request for sanctions pursuant to Code § 8.01-271.1; 3) denied his request for spousal support; 4) failed to grant him a reservation of future spousal support; and 5) awarded wife attorney’s fees. He also requests recusal of the trial judge on remand. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the trial court on all issues except husband’s request for a reservation of future support. Boy, I’ll bet she’s counting HER lucky stars.  I’ll bet she’s also thrilled that she’s no longer Mrs. World’s Biggest Jerk because that would take a whole lot o’ explaining to the neighbors. Of course, you have to wonder who in the legal system let it get this far.  Why did a judge not throw this case out?  Not the divorce, that was a good thing.  Why would anyone allow this kind of lawsuit to stay in the system?  Why isn’t there a panel of reasonable people who review cases for stupidity?

By now, the cleaners have probably gotten tons of great publicity, offers of goodwill & cash, but I donated $10 a few days ago to their paypal fund administered by some unnamed (interesting, unnamed, huh?) DC accountants.  Even if everyone who is disgusted by the story donates a dollar and they become millionaires, they deserve it a whole lot more than many millionaires, so I felt good about the donation.  If you’d like to donate to their defense fund, go here.  Consider it something more concrete than another rant about the jerky (soon to be ex?) judge.  It felt good; and who knows, maybe a lot more people read about and only think about donating, than donate.  Their attorneys deserve to be paid for having the frustration of representing them against that gigantic ass, Roy L. Pearson, Jr..  Besides, look how cute this couple is - they’re like my parents, only Korean.    They deserve all the extra money they’ll get. 

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

late at night

Chumby - It’s So Cool…I Want One!!!

I’m going to keep my Chumby channel widget at the bottom of my blog permanently (probably), but I’m going to show you what it is in this entry.  The gadget isn’t available to buy yet, but widgets with your own specified channels are available to put on your site or blog for now.  Games, news, sports, ape cams, clocks, weather, photos (from your Flickr acct, but not from a specific category and I wanted my pet category, so I didn’t put my Flickr acct in a channel), and what I’ve chosen...Stuff on My Cat and Stuff on My Mutt.  I can’t wait until the actual Chumbys (Chumbies?) are available because I think it would be perfect for my mom and Leigh-Ann’s mom, since they’re not online much, if at all.  We can program our blogs for our moms.  I can program both of our blogs for my mom, but I think I rant too much for Leigh-Ann’s mom to read daily.  The Chumby will be ready to buy this summer and they say it’ll be under $200 and it won’t require a monthly fee, it’ll just connect to your wireless network.  Too cool!