Monday, March 09, 2009

early evening

A meme about me, me, me - such a surprise on a blog about me

1. ONE OF YOUR SCARS, HOW DID YOU GET IT? What looks like railroad tracks on my lower back - microdiscectomy, almost three years ago. 2. WHAT IS ON THE WALLS IN YOUR ROOM? Two cat calendars, one starring Yoshi (urbanbeast.ca), and one starring random kittens, and Andrew Wyeth’s “Dog in Master Bedroom” print over the bed.  The rest of the walls have tall bookcases against them. 3. DO YOU SNORE, GRIND YOUR TEETH, OR TALK IN YOUR SLEEP? Mumble sometimes (talking is giving me too much credit), snore sometimes, and I don’t think I ever grind my teeth. 4. WHAT TYPE OF MUSIC DO YOU LISTEN TO? All kinds, except religious and most kinds of rap.  I don’t mind a little rap every now and again, but I think gangsta rap is silly. 5. DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME YOU WERE BORN? 7:33am 6. WHAT DO YOU WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING RIGHT NOW? Financial stability 7. WHAT DO YOU MISS? Respect…and financial stability 8. WHAT IS YOUR MOST PRIZED POSSESSION(S)? Not counting anything living, either my signed Yogi Berra baseball card or my jumbo Starbucks cup 9. HOW TALL ARE YOU? 5’5 1/2 - 5’6” 10. DO YOU GET CLAUSTROPHOBIC? Sometimes in a big crowd. 11. DO YOU GET SCARED IN THE DARK? I’m not overly fond of the dark - let’s just put it that way. 12. THE LAST PERSON TO MAKE YOU CRY? It isn’t important. 13. WHAT’S YOUR WORST FEAR? Fires 14. WHAT KIND OF HAIR/EYE COLOR DO YOU LIKE ON THE OPPOSITE SEX? Opposite sex?  Dark hair, any color eyes.  Same sex?  It doesn’t matter anymore. 15. WHERE CAN YOU SEE YOURSELF BEING PROPOSED TO AT? Nowhere.  When you’re gay, it’s more of a practical discussion. 16. COFFEE OR ENERGY DRINK? Coffee….decaf.  Just the thought of an “energy” drink makes me feel jittery. 17. FAVORITE PIZZA TOPPING? Crispy pepperoni. 18. IF YOU COULD EAT ANYTHING RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE? More Lucky Charms, because I know that later, we’re having fresh chocolate croissants. 19. FAVORITE COLOR OF ALL TIME? Grey. 21. WHAT WAS THE FIRST MEANINGFUL GIFT YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED? Don’t recall. 22. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH? Yep, crushes are fun and meaningless. 23. ARE YOU DOUBLE JOINTED? Nope 24. FAVORITE CLOTHING BRAND? Used to be Guess?, but now I don’t really care about brands, except with underwear.  Jockey is the most comfortable, and lasts much longer than anything similar. 25. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE FEMALE/MALE CELEBRITY? Female - Carrie Fisher Male - Steve Martin 26. DO YOU HAVE A PET RIGHT NOW? Yes 27. WHAT KIND IS IT? Cats - a variety.  Birds - African Grey, White-Capped Pionus, Peach-Fronted Conure, Cherry-Headed Conure, Goffin’s Cockatoo, and a Green-Cheeked Conure (I’ll have to check on that one - I’m not positive).  Dogs - German Shepherd, Anatolian Shepherd, Shih Tzu, and a terrier mix. 28. WOULD YOU FALL IN LOVE KNOWING THAT THE PERSON IS LEAVING? Leaving?  For where?  Why?  Uh, maybe. 30. SAY A NUMBER FROM ONE TO A HUNDRED: 7 31. BLONDES OR BRUNETTES? Either 32. FAVORITE QUOTE? Don’t have one. 33. FAVORITE PLACE? San Francisco 34. HAVE YOU BEEN OUT OF THE USA Yes - Canada and Mexico, which really barely counts. 35. YOUR WEAKNESSES? Products that say “NEW!” on them. 37. FIRST JOB? Babysitting, starting at 11.  But, for a real employer - The May Co., for the holidays, when I was 16 or 17. 38. EVER DONE A PRANK CALL? Yes, but only once.  Hey, you know, this meme is starting to sound familiar. 39. DO YOU THINK EVERYONE OUT THERE HAS A SOULMATE? Nope. 40. WHAT WERE YOU DOING BEFORE YOU FILLED THIS OUT? Sleeping. 41. HAVE YOU EVER HAD SURGERY? Yes, just once - back surgery three years ago next month. 42. WHAT DO YOU GET COMPLIMENTED ABOUT MOST? My empathy. 43. HAVE YOU EVER HAD BRACES? No 44. WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY? Financial stability.  Sense a pattern? 45. HOW MANY KIDS DO YOU WANT AND THEIR NAMES? I used to want kids, but now I’m getting too old, tired, and poor.  Plus, I wanted to name a boy Dante, and we already used it for the dog. 46. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? No. 47. WHAT IS THE BIGGEST TURN OFF OF THE OPPOSITE SEX? Sweatiness. 48. WHAT IS ONE THING YOU LIKE(D) ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL? Softball 49. WHAT KIND OF SHAMPOO DO YOU USE? Pantene Red something, for when my hair has red highlights. 50. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? No, but I like my printing sometimes.  My handwriting was always kind of pedestrian.  It was legible and that was about it. 51. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Honey-baked ham. 52. ANY BAD HABITS? Too many to name, although lying is not one of them. 53. ARE YOU A JEALOUS PERSON? No.  If someone wants to cheat and/or leave, they will whether I worry about it or not. 54. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Yeah, I like me.  Plus, I require very little of your time. 55. DO YOU AGREE WITH FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS? Sure, why not, if you’re single.  56. DO LOOKS MATTER? Somewhat. 57. HOW DO YOU RELEASE ANGER? I kill people in online games. 59. WHAT’S YOUR MAIN GOAL IN LIFE? I’m not sure, now. 60. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TOY AS A CHILD? Hot Wheels 61. HOW MANY NUMBERS IN YOUR CELL PHONE? I have no idea.  Maybe three, but I don’t know how to get to them. 62. WERE YOU A FAN OF BARNEY AS A LITTLE KID? No, after my time. 63. DO YOU USE SARCASM? Yep 64. MASHED POTATOES OR MACARONI AND CHEESE? Both 65. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A GUY/GIRL? Honesty, a sense of humor, empathy, and whatever is in the “x” factor that causes certain attractions. 66. WHAT ARE YOUR NICKNAMES? Nanner, Knancy, Nance 67. IF YOU HAD A SUPER POWER WHAT WOULD IT BE? To make people feel what other people feel.  Plus, time-travel to make money. 68. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE TV SHOW? Chuck, 30 Rock, Reaper, Nip/Tuck, Hockey Night in Canada 69.WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO DEAL WITH YOUR ENEMIES? Let them live with themselves. 70. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? Coldstone Cheesecake Fantasy w/ banana instead of strawberries, w/ chocolate shavings added 71. DO YOU HAVE ALL YOUR FINGERS AND TOES? Yes - what a strange question. 72. DO YOU HAVE A COMPUTER IN YOUR ROOM? Yes 73. PLANS FOR TONIGHT? Picking up Bunny’s prescription 74. WHERE DO YOU WANT TO LIVE WHEN YOU ARE OLDER? Somewhere quiet, with water nearby 75. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS? Sure, why not. 76. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO? Not long ago, Kelly Clarkson’s new album. 77. LAST THING YOU DRANK? Water 78. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? My dad 79. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE IN THE OPPOSITE SEX? Depends on the person. 80. WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME? Play with the cats, read, put people on Mafia hitlists, nap, watch tv. 81. FAVORITE THING TO HATE? People who think I’m making up being sick and/or in pain.  Because yeah, living like this is like so totally fun.  Not. 82. FAVORITE SEASON OF THE YEAR? Spring. 83. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE TYPE OF CANDY? Just about any kind. 84. HAVE YOU EVER REALLY AND TRULY HAD A BEST FRIEND? Yeah. 85. WHAT IS YOUR HAIR COLOR? Brown. 86. EYE COLOR? Brown 87. SHOE SIZE? 9 88. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE? Orange Julius or any bubble tea place 89. FAVORITE RESTAURANT? Used to be Makino, but then their nicest one went out of business.  Still, probably Makino. 90. DO YOU LIKE SUSHI? Yep! 91. WATCH TV TODAY? Not so far. 92. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR? My birthday…or Leigh-Ann’s birthday, either one. 93. PLAY ANY MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS? I took piano lessons as a kid.  I could never play anything fun or complicated though. 95. KISSES OR HUGS? Hugs 96. RELATIONSHIPS OR ONE NIGHT STANDS? Relationships 97. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU BOUGHT? Benadryl at Target 98. WOULD YOU EVER BE A HOUSEWIFE? Does a mansion come with it? 99. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING? Just finished, “My Most Excellent Year” by Steve Kluger - not as good as “Last Days of Summer”, but still good. 100. DESCRIBE YOUR LOVE LIFE In what way? 

Sunday, March 08, 2009

late morning

Scary Fibromyalgia Study - Accelerated Brain Gray Matter Loss

Firstly, here’s a link to the full study, and then I’ll quote some of the easier to understand (for me, too) parts.

Fibromyalgia patients have abnormal brain gray matter loss These findings reveal for the first time that patients with fibromyalgia have brain gray matter atrophy. Interestingly, the normal age-related decrease in gray matter was accelerated in fibromyalgia patients and related to disease duration. The patients, who ranged from 27 to 61 years of age, demonstrated a yearly decrease in gray matter volume more than three times that of age-matched controls. The age-related decrease was even greater than that observed by Resnick et al. (2003) in a much older group of healthy adults (59–85 years), with the fibromyalgia patients in our study showing a decrease of 3.7 cm3/year and the older healthy subjects showing a decrease of 2.4 cm3/year. Although menopausal status can clearly have an effect on gray matter volume, the fact that more fibromyalgia patients than healthy controls in our sample were not cycling normally is not likely to account for our findings, because the postmenopausal fibromyalgia patients in our study had less gray matter than the postmenopausal healthy controls. The reduced gray matter was even observed in the two patients who were on HRT, which Erikson et al. (2005) showed increases gray matter volumes in postmenopausal women. Structural brain changes related to chronic pain and stress disorders Accumulating evidence now indicates that a number of chronic pain and stress-related disorders, including chronic low back pain, tension-type headache, chronic fatigue syndrome, and posttraumatic stress disorder, are characterized by gray matter reductions, although the specific regions involved differ among syndromes (Villarreal et al., 2002; Apkarian et al., 2004; Okada et al., 2004; de Lange et al., 2005; Schmidt-Wilcke et al., 2005; Chen et al., 2006). The extensive comorbidity among these disorders suggests that mechanistic similarities may underlie brain atrophy, whereas the regional differences in gray matter decline could explain differences in symptoms. Mechanisms and implications of gray matter loss A possible explanation for the decreased gray matter density in these disorders might be atrophy secondary to excitotoxicity and/or exposure to inflammation-related agents, such as cytokines (Apkarian et al., 2004). It is noteworthy that in fibromyalgia patients, gray matter loss occurred mainly in regions related to stress [parahippocampal gyrus (Herman et al., 2005)] and pain processing [cingulate, insular, and prefrontal cortices (Apkarian et al., 2005)], which might reflect their long-term experience of these symptoms. Because cingulate and prefrontal cortices are particularly implicated in pain modulation (Apkarian et al., 2005) (i.e., inhibition and facilitation of pain), structural changes in these systems could contribute to the maintenance of pain and symptom chronification in fibromyalgia. Furthermore, gray matter atrophy in areas such as parahippocampal and frontal cortices also appears consistent with cognitive deficits characteristic of fibromyalgia (Park et al., 2001). Longitudinal studies are indicated to determine whether the observed structural changes are the cause or the consequence of the disorder. If confirmed, these findings may provide a rationale for exploring neuroprotective approaches in fibromyalgia aimed at symptom treatment or indeed at their reversal.

But, but, but, I don’t want to lose my gray matter, although it’s probably already too late.

Friday, March 06, 2009

early evening

Blogrolling.com finally came back…and now I hate it!

WARNING:  Incredibly boring rant about a blogroll ahead.  Don’t read it if you don’t use Blogrolling.com, because it’ll put you to sleep.

It used to be a nice simple way to keep a blogroll.  Now, I can’t get the blogs back into alphabetical order (I changed the default setting to alpha, yet…nothing), I can’t get a question posted in their support “forum” (it just kept hanging, unposted), I can’t get my blogroll to load on their site to edit it, and now they’re using a redirect through their own url to get to my blogrolled sites.  As far as I can tell, that means that suddenly hundreds of thousands of blogs are no longer passing on PR, except back to blogrolling.com.  I’ve wanted to fix my blogroll for months because some of the blogs are no longer active and I’ve wanted to add a few, so I waited patiently for Blogrolling.com to come back.  I can’t believe I waited all this time and I’m going to have to change to the ExpressionEngine blogroll anyway.  I liked the ease of using Blogrolling, but I hate the redirect, in addition to not being able to do a damned thing with my blogroll even though they’re supposedly back.  It’s as useless as it was while they were down, but adding on the redirected urls and non-alphabetical listing of my blogs.  Dammit!

Updated:  Finally, the changing to alphabetical stuck.  I’m still not happy about the redirects though.  At all.

Even More Updated:  I just figured out what those redirects are, even though they’re not working.  They’re ads.  At the top of each blog in my blogroll that anyone goes to.  I suppose I probably have something in my browser settings (I use IE7Pro because I like some of the extras it has) that’s turned them off.  It costs $20/year to turn them off, and while I appreciate that they need to make money to run the service, I don’t like surprises.  At all.  Ever.  I also hate anything that messes with a url, so I’ll be taking down this blogroll soon and setting up the ExpressionEngine one.  Initially, it’ll suck because I have to enter all of the urls individually, but I’m not willing to have my links redirect.  Farewell, Blogrolling.com.  It was good while it lasted, but because I wasn’t told about the ads, I’m annoyed enough to do a little work on my blog.  Plus, $20 will buy us 3.5 pizzas from Little Caesar’s, so I’ll consider that my payment to set up my new Blogroll.  It’s stupid that I waited this long with my outdated blogroll just to change it now.  Oh well.  Damn, I’m tired, and I think my headache is on its way back.  I had to take caffeine to get rid of it, but it’s made me jumpy when I should be asleep.  I can tell that this is going really mess up my schedule for few days - I kind of look like a corpse from not going to bed while running on empty.  I’ll go pick up my meds and underpads for Cricket (CVS brand of extra large & super absorbent underpads is excellent for puppy pads - way better than what they sell at pet stores.  Bigger & cheaper too) and then crash.  Boom.  What a dull entry this is.  I think I’ll put a warning at the top of it.  Fueled by 8 hour old caffeine and boring as hell.  Sorry, I just wanted to rant about my blogroll.