If you want anything done in this country, you got to beat the crap out of someone to get it

I decided I couldn't wait until August 23rd to have someone do something about my arm. I really don't sleep that much anymore because of my arm; it wakes me up in the middle of the night and then just throbs. So, I went into Kaiser, tried to get Ortho to change my appointment, which they said was impossible, and then I went to Member Services and...well...threw a holy fit that even Lindsay Lohan on crack couldn't have mimicked. Well, after about half an hour of that, somehow they were able to "fit me in" this Monday because someone miraculously canceled right at that particular moment. So, I'm seeing Ortho on Monday morning.



Countdown: 363 days

Stumble It!

Fame at last! Oh lordy, I'm Fame At last!

An article that Mark, Dr. Dong and I presented in Reno last year is being referenced in The New Atlantis, a journal of technology and science. Our article, Look At Me Again & I'll Bust Your Stupid Face In, is going...oh wait, that's not the article. Our article, The Impact of Emotional Intelligence, Self-Concepts on Romantic Communication Over Myspace, apparently made a bit of an impact.

So, there's that.



Countdown: 363 days

Stumble It!

Sanctimonious bumper stickers piss me off

This was on the back of a car that cut me off on the road yesterday. If we look at it as a simple artifact, it is from a religious organization that seems to be indicating that in order to have a marriage, you have to have a man and a woman. So, is this a bumper sticker praising marriage? No, obviously it is not. It is a reaction to another bumper sticker that states Marriage = (heart) (heart), meaning marriage equals love between two people.

What drives me nuts is that this is such blatant intolerance towards other people, and someone feels it is so important what other people do in their own lives that they have to project it out to the rest of the local community.


Countdown: 363 days

Stumble It!

Sometimes, you just gotta love The Onion

Final Harry Potter Book Blasted For Containing Spoilers

NEW YORK—Harry Potter fans throughout the world were shocked, disappointed, and outraged to learn last week that J.K. Rowling's 750-page...

Countdown: 364 days

Stumble It!

Spiderpig

Okay, I'm going to come straight out and say that The Simpson's Movie was a great movie. A friend of mine took me to see it, as she felt I needed to get out of the house. If you've seen the trailer for this, you've probably heard Homer Simpson singing his song "Spiderpig", which is done to the tune of the old Spiderman cartoon. I chuckled a bit when I saw the trailer, and I thought it would be just a slightly amusing thing. Well, let's just say this is one of those movies where a lot of thought went into some very tiny details. I recommend that you watch the WHOLE thing because there are some moments to this movie where you just have to be there to experience it. I give it very high ratings.



Countdown: 364 days

Stumble It!

Nope...no waiting lists in the USA for health care

The doctor that had me have an xray called me back today and told me she was referring me to a specialist. Turns out the first appointment I can make with a Kaiser specialist for my shoulder/arm is August 23rd. In other words, buck up little trooper and live with the pain for another three weeks before we let you see someone who will then order more tests and then have you wait even longer.

Yes, health care in this country is quite up to speed to all those third world countries like Canada and Europe.



Countdown: 364 days

Stumble It!

The Countdown

I've decided to create a fun countdown, using today as a good starting point, for one year. I've realized that I've been wasting most of my life, and what I've really wanted all of my life is to be a writer, and it's never really happened for me. Instead, I'm really not taken seriously as a writer or as anything else for that matter. So, I've decided to give myself a year, 365 days to achieve my goal of being successful as a writer. Well, actually, my goals are going to be:

1. Receive an advance of $10,000 or more for one of my novels/books, which is the average advance a writer receives for a first book.

2. Get an actual job that's a real job. Not some part time job. Not some temp job. Not some job that's going to eventually one day, possibly, with lots of luck and flowery dispositions, lead to some future job that doesn't exist yet. A real job that I'll be able to work at as a career, not some placeholder until I find something better because I'm getting older, and I just don't see that happening.

3. An actual life partner. Although to be honest, this last one is not even going to be my main focus because if one of the other ones doesn't come forth this year, then I'm not sure this one is really going to be enough.

So, what does this all mean? Well, I'm giving myself 365 days, August 1st, 2008, to make it happen.

It's kind of ironic because I read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning about how they've crunched statistics on people who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. It turns out that these people tend to be EXACTLY like me, except they're a year younger than me. Exactly like me.

So, my thought is this. If by August 1st, 2008, I don't have one of those things happening in my life, I'm joining the statistics. I'll be keeping a running countdown on the blog from this point forward, mainly to remind myself more than anything else because not too many people read my blog anyway. Hell, not too many people read ANYTHING of mine anyway, and I guess that's part of the problem.

But anyway....


Countdown: 365 days

Stumble It!